NEWS FLASH: Audacious Creativity Teleseminar Series Begins with The Be It! Do It! Have It! System Creators

Event: Audacious Creativity Teleseminar: FIND YOUR TRUE CALLING

Date: Thursday, march 19, 2009

Time: 7 PM Eastern/6 PM Central/5PM Mountain/4PM Pacific

FREE * FREE * FREE* BUT... YOU HAVE TO REGISTER

Click here to sign up for the call-in details

Actually... You also can listen in online--NO PHONE CHARGES--if you register!

There's a moment in brainstorming when clarity suddenly emerges from the information you've been inundating yourself with, like a beam of sunlight coming through a cloud.

It also feel like you've been turning a key and the engine of the car suddenly catches, and now there's a real sense of power and propulsion.

How do we get to that? What does it take to gain such clarity and activation?

If such questions excited you, you may be very interested in the new monthly Audacious Creativity Teleseminar Series that I shall be hosting to interview some of our country's top motivational and self-actualization experts: people like Marci Shimoff (April) and Allison Maslan (May) this month's experts, Paige Stapleton and Brian Stark.

These calls are all free of charge. Register for Thursday

Are you struggling to discover yours or trying to succeed in realizing your passion and purpose?
Paige and Brian are going to explain ways to do so.

=>Are you ready to stop "working" and live everyday with less stress, less struggle and more joy?

=>Do you feel you have something inside of you that you are not expressing to your fullest?

=>Do you wish you had a manual on how to live a successful life doing meaningful work?

=>Do you ask yourself, "How am I ever going to make a living doing my passion full-time? Or perhaps you ask, "How am I ever going to figure out what my passion even is?"

=>Are you stuck between learning spiritual principles and actually using them to create tangible results?

=>Are you worried about having to give up "the dream" or do you wish you even had a dream to give up?

If you answered yes to these questions, then you're really going to LOVE what Paige and Brian have to share with us. They are a dynamic couple, lively and fun, who do a kind of team--2-on-1--coaching that is extremely effective for their clients. I'd rather hang out with them adn shoot the breeze than do almost anything else because I always come away feeling inspired and energized. Join us and let me introduce you to their passion and purpose--helping folks like YOU AND ME get unstuck and begin LOVING OUR LIVES.

Conclusion to "Solomon's Song" as Read by "Audacious Creativity" Contributor David Ellzey

Click here to hear the inspiring conclusion to David's story, which he began podcasting on March 7, 2009 (see entry below).

Audacious Creativity Reviewed on the Kingston Observer

Audacious Creativity, Edited by Stephanie Gunning,
Creative Blast Press, self-help, 269 p., $15.99
posted March 11, 2009 on Kingston Observer Blog

Creativity isn’t just for writers, artists, and performers. It’s the component that fuels innovation. In this uplifting anthology there are 30 pieces by writers, a lawyer, spiritual leaders, a psychologist, a medical doctor, a chiropractor, composers, a photographer, and others in special fields of endeavor. The goal here is to find the message that speaks to the reader about reawakening the kind of courageous creativity most people had in childhood, but lost while succumbing to the constraints of practicality and learned self-doubt. The book is about taking chances and risking failure without sacrificing feelings of self-worth. Most of the writers link creativity to spirituality, faith that manifests in various forms here.

[Read more…]

"Solomon's Song" A Podcast by David Ellzey, aka Dr. SPaghetti of The Big Apple Circus Clown Care Program

David Ellzey, the remakably talented Sedona Method workshop leaders based in New York City, for years has had another career, as a clown doctor visiting cancer-ridden children in hospitals. He wrote of one such boy in his story "Solomon's Lesson," for the anthology Audacious Creativity.

On March 3rd, David posted an audio podcast of the first half of the story on his blog, which he reads as a kind of bedtime story for adults. I think you'll enjoy it.

Here's a link:

http://www.davidellzey.com/sedona/2009/03/03/the-gift-of-life-and-death-a-special-teen/

Authonomy, Twitter, and Going Through the Back Door of Publishing

A couple of weeks ago, a publishing friend sent me a note about an online manuscript competition called "Authonomy." Created by HarperCollins, www.authonomy.com is purportedly an opportunity to have a manuscript legitimately published. Writers can upload 10,000 words of a manuscript per month. Registered readers review the pages, give feedback, and vote on their favorites, which compete head to head as each new month's chapters are delivered online. Eventually, you might be picked up by HC.

Checking out the site, I discovered that S. Chris Shirley, a former student of mine, was winning by a nose with Jake's Dilemma, a young adult novel written in the first-person voice of the 17-year-old gay son of an evangelical Christian preacher. I gave him a call to congratulate him on his success and find out the inside scoop on Authonomy.

Here's some back-story on Chris. When I first met him, he was preparing a non-fiction book proposal on kitchen design and planning to leave a corporate job to go to film school. In 2008, as a project to demonstrate his screenwriting abilities, he shot a music video for Roger Kuhn's song "What's Your Name?" which they posted on the website for MTV's gay and lesbian channel, Logo, where it ended as a top ten video. It went through several rounds of voting. So the fan-voting phenomenon is not new to Chris. Neither is storytelling.

Jake's Dilemma began as a screenplay. People kept telling Chris it would make a great novel. He wrote it in the third-person voice and sent it out to a bunch of agents. They all declined to represent him, but he got excellent feedback on shifting the voice. According to Chris, "The silver bullet was that I added humor. Jake was whiney at the beginning." What's it about? "There's no big message," says Chris. "The theme is that you can only get approval from within yourself. As Jake struggles to reconcile his faith and sexuality, he goes from trying to get approval from God, his parents, and his church, to finding it within. That's what has given the novel broader appeal. Most readers seem to recognize the teenage angst associated with wanting to fit in."

After 14 months, HarperCollins is only just now publishing works by writers who have participated in Authonomy. But it isn't the winners! An editor mined the submissions lower down on the list and offered three writers contracts. So if winners are unlikely to get published, is there any other reason to submit? Yes. It is a great opportunity to get solid feedback from committed readers. A high ranking helps writers cultivate their following and raise awareness of their work. In the case of Chris, pride groups around the country befriended him. And agents-some who passed on his earlier submission-have been approaching him based on what they saw online. So Authonomy creates a buzz.

Is there a downside? Well, writer whose work is unpolished could earn a bad reputation among the fans. Being "dissed" in public online, where reality lasts FOREVER, might not be the best development. Most writers on Authonomy fall into the Fantasy/Sci Fi genre. Only 1 in 50 writes nonfiction. So there may be some opportunities on the site if you're willing to work for them.

What else is Chris doing that's been working for him lately? Twittering to connect with his loyal readership (www.twitter.com/JakesDilemma).

All hail Twitter! So many of my clients are using it to their advantage now that I've just signed up myself. Please connect with me: www.twitter.com/audaciouseditor.