Creative Adventures – Creative Life Midwife

Paradise Found and Tossed About and Found Again.

June 26, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

I tend to feel a slight twinge of guilt when I don’t agree with my favorite writers. Today, I feel sheepish because I disagree with this quote from one of the most revered women’s voices in current literature. Today, I agree to disagree about the other side of paradise with a favorite writer and poet I’ve been reading and quoting for years.

“Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there’s no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”
― Margaret Atwood

On a warm June afternoon I considered this quote and I don’t want to agree with it.

In fact, I am feeling the excitement of victory above and over the damn thing.

Loss, regret, misery and yearning alone move stories forward?

It can’t be so, this can’t be the reason or the magnet or the finish line or the goal posts rising toward the sunset and champagne and accolades and hugs and happy high fives. No no no no and no.

I respect Margaret Atwood AND no, I don’t believe her assertions here about happiness and paradise. Do you believe what she says?

I’m going to think of today as a microcosm of story.

I had a blast of a morning: so much fun in my virtual co-working experience where we all got more than the norm done. We all moved forward perhaps along a slightly twisted road and I heard nothing about misery.

We had some technical glitches and stuff took a little longer than we had hoped, but loss and regret?

I’ll look at something else from today. Lunch with Emma. Found out a server at a restaurant we go to died in a car accident. Definitely loss. Discovered a gofundme I can share, something I can take action on, which made me feel slightly better.

Next Emma and I went to Kaiser. I felt annoyance due to poor communication but at least we took action. One might argue we were focused on avoidance of misery if a broken toe is misery. Perhaps it could be misery?

I put her car key on a cute key chain I found. I have no idea where the key chain came from, I just know I felt ridiculously happy because I have a horrible habit of misplacing keys and this one simple tool would make it much easier… to avoid loss and or regret?

Perspective, I think as five minutes of writing passes and I start yawning, wanting to avoid more discovery of loss or regret or misery or needless misery.

Happiness is unexpectedly seeing an old friend who values you more than you believe you deserve.

Happiness is forgiving yourself for being afraid and then finally taking action. Happiness is having the action netting authentically pleasing results.

Happiness is framing photos and art after waiting a while, and then hanging that art which makes people smile and then create their own art.

Happiness is going to a meeting where people appreciate you and a meetup with a friend who finds you funny and interesting and surprises you with the memories of you she shares.

I totally forgot the loss and yearning and misery as I recounted happiness which is probably why I feel so strongly about using gratitude as an ending point for free flow writing exercises.

I have experienced a lot of grief in my life. I have lost friends I cherished, I have fallen upon hard times with my face squarely in the mud for a lot longer than was healthy.

What helped me pick myself up and begin again was not the misery or the grief itself, it was the awareness of the sun rising, again, even after a lengthy darkness.

It isn’t an either misery or ecstacy, it is the awareness that even with misery or is currently great loss, there is also room for joyful ecstacy. It isn’t one or the other, there is one and there is the other.

Paradise has stories. For some reason, I am smelling vanilla – rich vanilla, not cheap, mild flavored vanilla – when I think of paradise stories. I see maps and diaries detailing journeys into and out of and over paradise and journeys into and out of and over and into hell: which is the only antonym for paradise (heaven, bliss, cloud nine, utopia, wonderland) and many other synonyms to happily, contentedly and transformatively describe a space many of us aim to inhabit.

Misery might love company, paradise loves permanent residents: especially those who are compassionate and kind to those who live outside. Those who haven’t learned about the joy of experiencing the richness and fullness and sweet losses of life with grace and hope and a future.

I can’t think of the perfect red bow to tie this up and I want to be finished.
Maybe you have a more proper ending? If you do, add it here.

As for me, I am off to today’s next paradise, next regret, next happiness, next loss, next story and next dissatisfaction and next moment of deep belly laughter, and the next story I tell about it all.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife: Her work as a life coach, muse and group facilitator has inspired best selling novels, new careers and knocking knees during speeches, performances and video releases. Right now she is enjoying hosting Ta-Da Tuesdays and preparing for her next Summer and Fall programs.

Now Begin: Your Journey Back to Where You Were Always Meant to Be

February 1, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

We’re being called to refresh our lives: to begin again, to realize and become who we were meant to become since even before we were born.

Our life coaching and personal growth series, “Now Begin, Again” will help you as you discover how to open, wake up, stop the negative self-talk and destructive habits and replace them with all that is good, right, sacred and true. .

For the next few weeks I’ll be livestreaming the poem, “Now Begin” – sharing it’s transformative power with you. Along the way we will scoop up writing prompts, some stories and a lot of fresh new insights so that you may lead a better life.

Wake Up: Now Begin Your (Re)Newed Life: #LifeCoach #Love #amwriting https://t.co/LihBreU0SP
— Julie Jordan Scott – Let's free your words…. (@JulieJordanScot) January 28, 2019

I’ll be scattering the goodness on Facebook Live, Periscope and IGLive before I meander over to YouTube with it.

And Now, the Poem and the Introduction as shared on Instagram TV and Twitter:

The Poem that Started the Series: Written in 1999.

Take away the degrees, titles and accomplishments –

What is discovered at your core?\

What is your unique, special spark?

Buried deep, neglected, that you’ve chosen to ignore?

Seeking to please whomever.

Drowning out the pure longings of your heart

Struggling, freezing, suffocating –

Until finally, you choose to start.

Whispers from the spirit.

Soul’s song from deep within.

After dancing, stranger among strangers –

Claim it. Your life. Now Begin –

Take the poem more deeply with these prompts focused on the first line. Throughout the series more prompts will be offered for you to explore more deeply and begin again, better and better and better.

Writing prompts for a efreshed beginning from Julie JordanScott. Gain personal discovery while enjoying poetry from the Creative Life Midwife.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, and a Mother of three. One of her
greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here.

Illuminate and Eliminate All That Doesn’t Serve You: The Toleration Liberation Dance

December 13, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

“Turmoil stimulates” Thomas Leonard

It is 5:40 am on a Thursday morning and I am giving myself the gift of “talking” about tolerations. Just here and now, you and me, let’s talk about what we’ve been putting up with in our lives that hasn’t served any purpose except being a niggling annoyance, like when my kitchen cabinets were almost finished for… more than a year.

I got so used to it I didn’t notice until I heard one of the other mothers criticizing me for it.

“Unfinished cupboards? Oh my gawsh, I couldn’t stand living like that. I don’t know how she does” the mom said to someone else about me. Note to self: unfinished cupboards reinforce I am not worthy of friends who finish projects, I am propelled only to sit in the seats beside other friendless people no one else wants to spend time with… and don’t forget it you non-finisher.

This, the role relegated to the one who was known for perpetually getting her enormous college research papers turned in before the deadline?

What happened to me? Where did that early finisher go?

Life, honey, life happened to me.

I can stack volumes of circumstances up next to the best of them but the thing is, life and the need to declutter and finish and keep putting one foot in front of the other continues.

My tolerations list is a direct result of the self-punishment and neglect I have unconsciously levied upon myself.

The positive part is: I am the one in control of this part of my life.

I can turn the soft rumbles of dissatisfaction into a productive sort of turmoil, as Thomas Leonard – the same man who coined the term “tolerations” – meant when he said “Turmoil stimulates.”

A clutter-free home, for example, is not a result of pain as I curiously wondered yesterday –it is a result of constructive voice. Imagine, I will be able to find things without struggle.

It is like granting myself a ticket across the finish line over and over again.

This morning before I started writing I plopped my new lazy susan on my art table and started sorting. Unlike in the past, today I will continue sorting and clearing and gathering my tools in a way that will continue to serve me and my process.

Paula made up a tolerations celebration space in the Bridge to the New Year group. Clearing counters and tables is at the top of the list and I am going to celebrate each counter & each table top I clear AND each time I keep them consistently clear, I will celebrate again.

One last thing: today I was awake early because I wanted to honor my devotion to writing by participating in the (I believe it started in twitter) #5amwritersclub twice a week. Today I may say I completed the #5amwritersclub for the first week ever. Here’s to doing so for the next consecutive 51 weeks.

What are you tolerating? You don’t have to share your list or process with anyone, but if you would benefit from having a supportive group around you to get the work done, consider closing out your year with the peoplein “Bridge to the New Year” – this link will take you to the variety of spaces you may participate.

Bridge to the New Year Day 1 – Introduction: A Potpourri of Me

December 1, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Today’s prompt:

Use this prompt across social media – link up at JuicyJournaling.comhttp://juicyjournaling.com

My first thought was:

How am I going to get 10 – 30 things about me that are in anyway interesting that won’t bore everyone because we all know, well, some of us have been educated – there is nothing more horrid as an artist than being boring.

So. I took some time to brainstorm some things about me you may not know. I haven’t done much proofing so I apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors in advance. Take it as freedom to be imperfect.

1. I have never seen any Harry Potter films nor have I read any Harry Potter books. I know you may be saying “How shocking! That’s appalling! I would LOVE Hermione! How could I not read these fantastic books?! Two parts to that response. 1. I take offense when woman authors don’t proudly stand up and say “I am a woman!” granted, I didn’t know JK Rowlings’ story at the time or I might not have been so strident and 2. When I say something, I usually stick with it.

2. I am a melanoma survivor. I have a large heart scar on my face as a remnant and a reminder. I often cover it with hair styles.

3. I gave up acting for thirty years between the ages of eleven-years-old and forty-one-years-old. Although I am not as active in performance as I once was, I have done more than thirty stage productions, seven films, a documentary and a handful of commercials. Weirdly, I have an IMDB page. How did this happen?

4. Writing and poetry has been in my blood stream since before I was literate. I still love being read aloud to – it is one of my most favorite activities on the planet.

5. One of my highest values is showing up, so if I say I will be somewhere I try really hard to get there and if I am not there, I am either near dead, helping out in a child-emergency, or beating myself up for not planning better or whatever it is that got in my way.

6. I have a brown spot in my left eye. This is one of those boring trivia items just because I tell it all the time and it is no longer interesting.

7. When I was in high school, I entertained my friends during lunch by doing accents. Now I entertain my friends on live stream… doing accents.

8. My uncle Jim used to call me “A dandy baby” primarily because I smiled all the time and was very charming. I used this throughout my childhood and into young adulthood. I remember when we were traveling I would focus on business men with my coquette-ish flirting. I remember receiving at least one gift. In my first job after college at a rental car company, my co-workers were in awe of how many customers brought me gifts.

9. I am an ordained minister, like Joey in Friends. I am also an actual ordained deacon in the Presbyterian Church, USA. I can officiate weddings and funerals and any other sacred ceremonies people might want performed. I have the honor of doing weddings from time-to-time though I really loved facilitating/leading/officiating my brother’s celebration of life after he died and would enjoy doing more of those.

10. I have been blogging since 2003. I had a rather successful website from which I made a sustainable living from 1999 to 2007. I originally blogged to have an “unplugged” place online where I didn’t have to be my “professional persona” all the time. Everything has evolved but I have a block around websites. I have a new one half-assedly in the works and the designer of CreativeLifeMidwife and I never really hit it off in a way that made completion a thing. So. There’s that.

11. I am an art journaler and mixed media artist. (I said that aloud here for some of my artist friends who have been waiting to hear me confess that.) As far as visual arts go, I have mostly sold photos but I have also sold several mixed media pieces. Not a lot, but… perhaps someday.

12. I love to travel and aim to be a digital nomad once my children are up and out of the house. After today, with Emma’s health issues I wonder if that will be any time soon at all, which is a fair thought neither to her nor my vision for the world and the future. These thoughts are exactly why Bridge to 2019 is so important! To work through what happened and gain clarity so that intentions may be set and re-visioning may take place.

13. I have been writing since before I could write. I would dictate to my mother and she would write out what I said and I would copy it in crayon. This is part of my ‘writer’s story” which I feel I overtell.

14. Before I was 45 I lost 5 close friends to various sorts of cancers. I have never explored the impact of this, but I don’t know anyone else who has lost so many close friends. I just connected how close their deaths came to John’s death and the many losses of 2006/7.

15. Speaking of 2007, when John died, I had an out of body experience. How I describe it is this: my soul leaped from the shell that hosts it and chased after John. God (insert whatever word you use here) literally shoved me back into my body and wordlessly told me “No you don’t! Your work isn’t done here.” I might not have believed this really happened except my children who were in the car with me when it happened (yes, the car was parked) saw my body rise up, flop down and miraculously not crash my head against the steering wheel on the descent.

16. I am a PTA Mom. This didn’t happen until Samuel was in High School. I believe in parental involvement, but usually kept my business on the district level. I am grateful my time as a PTA Mom is almost over. My specialty within the group beyond being the secretary is doing all the public speaking and selling stuff.

17. I have been known to say my children are my greatest creative project of all. I believe this to be true. My biggest fear in life is failing my children. I don’t think this fear will ever go away.

Emma, Samuel and I at my childhood home in Glen Ridge, NJ in 2017

18. I believe the world is filled with loving people, primarily wanting to have a positive place in the world. I recently saw this unfold when a totally diverse group of strangers and friends rallied around a young refugee woman from Cameroon I befriended while she was in detention at an ICE facility here in Bakersfield. These people didn’t ask about political parties, religion, socioeconomics, anything. They heard there was a need they could fill and they did, immediately and in the moment. This was one of the most humbling, incredible experiences of my life. I’m sure it will come up during the Bridge.

19. I have four brothers and one sister. I have had one brother die. I basically don’t speak to two of my siblings and sometimes I wonder how they will feel when I die. I think I have grieved the loss of our connection for a long time, so I have no idea how I will grieve. My brother I am in closest touch with texted me tonight and confirmed we will all have Christmas together, something Mom had mentioned but I was afraid to follow up on. This means – during the Bridge, I will have a closer answer.

20. I realize I have many more than 30 I could share actually, but I will stop here. I separated out the birth stories. I have always been fascinated with birth stories (there is a reason I am the creative life midwife!) and Katherine is named after a midwife – who happened to be one of my close friends who died very young – but I figured not everyone is as enamored. Oh, wait. Make it 21.

One of my favorite photos of my daughters and me, circa 2012 ish.

21. I am a relatively open book and will answer most questions I am asked directly without hesitation. Feel free to ask.

Birth Stories:
22. I have been pregnant 5 times. I have three living children and 2 other daughters-of-the-heart who refer to me as Mom or My Mom.
23. When I gave birth to Samuel, I was speechless when I saw I had managed the impossible – giving birth to a boy. (If you are willing to have some TMI, I also had an orgasm when I had Samuel. How strange is that! I will never tell him that though… just too weird.)
24. When I gave birth to Emma, my first loving words to her were, “She has a cone head.”
25. When I gave birth to Katherine, it took me a while to look at her. I was scared. After all, the first thing I said after Marlena was born was, “Our baby is dead.” I think I’ll edit that out. In the end, I chose not to. Edit it out.

Julie JordanScott is The Creative Life Midwife and one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Join us in reflecting, connecting, intending and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable 2019.

See posts at JuicyJournaling.com, on Instagram

Join the conversation in our closed Bridge to the New Year Facebook Group

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5 Questions to Determine “Your People” (Some People Call this “Your Target Market”)

October 26, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

“Surround yourself with similarly-visioned people and others that seem to afford opportunities. It takes discipline to network regularly and routinely to develop these relationships while being sincere about how the relationship will be mutually beneficial. But, don’t be scared to explain how you can be valuable and a resource to the person. I always ask how I can be a resource to the person. Inevitably, I come across friendships, investment opportunities, and offered positions.”

–Steve Iskander, chief growth officer at DriverReach, a digital, mobile-first applicant tracking system that helps recruiters manage the CDL driver application process, where he grew revenue at the company by 40 percent each month in 2018

In our one page marketing plan, one of our first tasks is to determine or choose or create a profile to define and imagine our ideal client, customer or reader. As creatives, we will purposefully use processes that are engaging to our imagination and a combination of linear, language, images and playful experimentation.

To do so, we may begin with 5 simple questions and create, craft and move from there.

Who are my people?

Let’s consider this: where do my people “hang out” both in their local communities and online. Ask both what keeps them awake at night and what delights them in a way that stirs their hearts into action? What do my people actively request and seek “more of that please” their lives?

Maybe you’re like me and the whole notion of creating an ideal-client avatar feels heavy, start with the best version of yourself.

Where do I love to hang out?

What keeps me awake at night?

What delights me in a way that stirs my heart into action?

What do I actively seek and say “more of that, please” in my life?

We’ll start with 5 minutes of free flow brain dump writing in response to these questions.

Simply pick one and write from it.

Another way to jump-start your writing is to re-read the quote this blog post started with and then begin to write – for just five minutes.

Once you’ve completed that, we will go on to the “what’s next.”

Your next question to open yourself to considering is how does your product or service meet the needs of your people?

How does your vision for your business intersect with what your ideal client, customer or reader come together or intersect in a mutually beneficial way? This may take several creative sessions.

The point is to open your heart and your mind and allow your creative thoughts to flow.

Stand by to see how this is morphed into a marketing message and marketing story, to be used and told repeatedly.

Julie Jordan Scott (the one who wrote this blog post) says: This is what I crave for you: soulful creativity, aliveness in your passionate productivity, and a deeper sense of knowing how you belong in the world so that together we will be able to create a context for the rest of your life via your next book or your next workshop or simply your next day, week, month or year.

The people who named me “Creative Life Midwife” found words and paint and laughter and flexed their courage muscles on the way to a deeper satisfaction in their daily lives via new blogs, books, webinars and friendships – just to name a few. Contact me now for your complimentary Transformational coaching conversation. Click here to complete the request form now.

You Are Your Own Magic Wand

October 23, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

One of my never used but often thought of ideas for either an article or essay or video or book is “You are your magic wand.” The idea has been floating through my mind for close to twenty years now. Waiting.

I have even used a magic wand in my videos. One of my favorite selfies is me with my magic wand (actually a magic wand pen) in my mouth with a frustrated expression of my face, even though I am wearing a tiara and have beautifully curled hair.

“I am my own magic wand.”

How can I feel frustrated when I am wearing a tiara and I have a magic wand pen ready to scribe for me?

Must be I gave more power to the frown than my blond curls or my sparkly tiara.

John Muir whispers in my ear, reminding me, (when you choose to not create, your gifts and talents are ) “Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”

I remember Emily Dickinson writing about the “slant of light” some call repressive and yet when I see images like this one and remember sitting with the sun as she says her daily hello and goodbye, I feel this ordinary, everyday magic holding me close and I know no matter how much I try to insist I am frustrated….when I stop and look and feel and allow the love in….

The slant of light combined with my words makes the distance between me and the glorious wildness each and every day.

My writing is bigger and grander and more silent and hugely gloriously sacred songs ringing from deep inside me in thunderous claps that somehow others aren’t able to see in the same way I see them.

To some people, this sort of writing won’t make any sense or may even sound like nonsense.

In the past, I might have worried I was doing something wrong because people didn’t understand me or some people even voiced their opinions that I was weird (in a bad way) and I didn’t belong in the more prestigious circles or groups or even neighborhoods or clubs.

Then I realized something significant.

The people who think that way are not my people.\

I let them go back into their cubby holes and their scowling angry temples lined with gold and carefully coiffed front lawns masking the land mines of thought filled with oppressive ugliness they choose to label reality.

I settle back into the nurturing space of awareness and open to the page where John Muir spoke so eloquently to me when he said:

Writing Prompt for today: What gifts and talents am I hiding?

When I express my gifts and talents I feel….

What keeps me from expressing my gifts and talents may be….

Set your timer for five minutes at at time and write at least once to each of these prompts. They will help you gain momentum with your magic wand.

Remember, You are Your Own Magic Wand.

How to Use “The Monster” Storytelling Archetype to Market Your Product or Service

October 20, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

“The Monster” archetype is summarized as those times when “bad” or uncontrollable energy or happenstance appears which you (or in marketing, your client or customer or character in your ad campaign) eventually rise above, victoriously.

This is an archetype easily used by healing artists, storytellers – anyone who provides a product or service that makes someone feel better about some experience or circumstance.

In these cases I consider my cancer journey, my client’s experience of grief, perhaps the movie “Jaws” or I think about Julie Andrews losing her ability to sing.

I wrote for two consecutive 5 minute brain dumps today writing to the prompt of “monsters” which became “These are the topics I have never wanted to talk about.”

What you see next is simply stream of consciousness. No editing or foresight. In using this approach, I was able to tune into my own process AND glean insights my clients/customers/students may relate to as well.

Follow along with me now as I wrote to this prompt:

It hurts too much to open the door, which is why we keep the door shut and refuse to open it.

It is why the word “cancer” is whispered and we turn our heads from the mirror when we see our scars or an obstruction that blocks us from seeing what we would rather see. Even with that, we can’t stop watching the tragedy – the airplanes flying into the twin towers – is on replay in our mind’s eye, the most horrific images from wartime (I am seeing a few in my mind as I write) the heart stopping stories I look forward to watching each week on Law and Order, SVU.

Yesterday I spoke on the phone to a personification of “The Monsters” in my life. A person whose presence in my life initiated an episode of abandonment in my life I rarely address.

It was interesting because for the first time since that episode, I wasn’t overly troubled by the conversation. I still haven’t come to a conclusion about where I will take the conversation or what I will do with it, but it seems that particular chapter has lost some of its power as distance and time often does.

(It actually stirs me to think of lines of poetry in my head, oddly or not.)
The monster archetype and rising above it is a story of healing, a story of proclaiming victory – a definitive overcoming of the monster, not the surprise “this isn’t really over” almost to the ending scenario but the true ending.

I might have proclaimed victory from melanoma, but the scar on my face troubled me a lot in the year afterwards so much so, I had a second surgery to make it not so pronounced.

My face still hurts in very cool temperatures and I notice that as I age, it takes on different nuances.

I suppose overcoming that monster is more like making peace with its presence on my face. I actually think my scar is cool much of the time.
People look at it in a sort of awe when they notice it is shaped like a heart. Other times they make up stories that I was attacked by a knife wielding… lover of love to leave a heart shape? I don’t know what they think when they think that but when I say it came thanks to melanoma people look relieved that I wasn’t attacked by a fellow human, instead I was attacked by a disease.

I stop typing momentarily. I think about the real monsters in my life, the ones that stay in the closet and remain untalkaboutable: the fear of being abandoned and alone. (My stress cough showed up as I typed that.)
The fear of my children having unsurmountable problems.
The fear of being disliked by people I treasure the most.

Some of these fears have already been realized and I have survived.

I am literally laughing and coughing, coughing and laughing because as I continue writing and continue to “speak my truth” through writing it on the page in spite of the coughing that attempts to choke me into silence, I am beating the monster one slug at a time.

#End Writing –

And to layer this over my Core Message: Express Yourself Freely, On Purpose to Leave the World Better than How You Found It….

The fact I wrote and laughed as I coughed and my stress cough has been a huge barrier for expression… I believe I am onto a victory of one of my biggest battles.

THAT FEELS PRICELESS!

Stand by to see how this is morphed into a marketing message and marketing story, to be used and told repeatedly.

Story Archetypes + One Page Marketing Plan = Fun & Successful Creative Business

October 16, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Now comes a really fun part – combining storytelling archetypes with our marketing plan. The very first step is to determine how to approach Story Telling Archetypes from a marketing perspective:

Think about the problem your business solves for your people (tribe, community, neighborhood, end user, students, ideal clients, perfect reader, etc.)
Consider which of these stories sounds closest to your people who are attracted to use your product or service and show up without you expending any effort beyond doing what you do naturally because you love it.

We will use story archetypes in combination with our One Page Marketing Plan for Creative Businesses to Bring Your Business Success to life.

The 9 Story Archetypes we will focus upon are:

Overcoming the Monster – “Bad” uncontrollable energy or happenstance which you rise above. This is an archetype easily used by healing artists, “Jaws”. I think about my cancer journey.
Rags to Riches –” Woo hoo I made it big and made a lot of money!” Prosperity Coaches, Job Coaches, Artists who had a big show and got lots of bookings…
The Quest – Long, arduous twisty turning road to success. I can related to this one in my personal life. Lifetime movies with multiple “issues” to overcome.
Voyage and Return – Alice in Wonderland is a classical fiction journey. For you and your ideal client it may be a metaphorical or daily journey.
Comedy – Look to Shakespeare (tough to do it well, though not impossible) Come to think of it, my ridiculous Korn Music Video story could be a comedy on a “Just do it” theme.
Tragedy – Easily emotional tug and be careful not to overdue (Ask yourself, Does this fit a quest instead?)
Rebirth – Coming back from a space of death, coma, etc. Rising above challenge or not great experience
Mystery – the Unknown/discovering. Many spiritual stories fit in this category.
Rebellion Against “The One” ß big business, the boss, the government, authority: great for entrepreneurs who leave corporate America.

Julie Jordan Scott says: This is what I crave for you: soulful creativity, aliveness in your passionate productivity, and a deeper sense of knowing how you belong in the world so that together we will be able to create a context for the rest of your life via your next book or your next workshop or simply your next day, week, month or year.

Stream of Consciousness Sunday – Throwing Random Thoughts on the Page

October 15, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

We will store this in the file drawer marked “What people don’t talk about much” – perhaps this is a series that is calling to be written.

Sometimes self-care, for me, is dogged productivity. Diving my nose into a project intensely and slogging through it feels better than almost anything I can imagine. It creates a deeper, more resonant satisfaction than almost any of the traditional “self-care” suggestions offered by many of my beloved friends.
I am ashamed of admitting this, I almost don’t want to say it for fear of being cast out of any remotely inner circle I might be a part of because if 2018 had a theme other than the one I set it is “We don’t want you” and “You don’t belong here.”
In actuality, my theme for 2018 was/is freedom and allowing myself to be cast out is actually freeing. I just need to move further along the grief path so I don’t ache with each interaction with people I used to call my friends.
There are people waiting to love you, and me, and those people who have hurt you and me. There are people waiting to be loved, fully, and who would be so thrilled to be invited for a cup of coffee or a walk or a conversation deeper than what is currently the latest celebrity sensation or the unfortunate state of (insert a myriad of subjects here,)
We are all bigger – our hearts and our visions for this world – than whatever bump in the road you are currently knocking up against.

This has been a stream-of-consciousness moment on a Sunday evening. I will get back to my trademark Sunday Loving Activities and offer to you this chance to think about whatever it is you aren’t talking about openly that might help you to feel better by giving it some attention.

Let’s Start: One Page Marketing Plan for Creatives

October 10, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

Yes: we will be creating a one page marketing plan made up of 9 blocks. Each block will contain information about a specific aspect of marketing.

The image that resonates for me is “Quilt Squares” because I love storytelling quilts and yes, both quilting and storytelling are feminine art forms. Marketing for Creatives seems like a perfect fit with this as the framework.

This distinctive one page marketing plan will be called something like “Marketing Story Quilt “ because that feels so much better than “One Page Marketing Plan” which may be the eventual subtitle.

This is how the creative process works for me and perhaps for you, too.

We creatives don’t often go down a straight linear path with our business building and marketing. This is why it is so much easier for us to sit down with a piece of watercolor paper folded into nine rectangles then it is to copy a print out with 9 blocks of straight lines all in a row.

We would rather paint or write on water color paper or doodle on and perhaps eventually collage on and who knows what else we do before we come to some semblance of “oh, yeah – these ideas and this combination feels right”.

We don’t just make a list and call it done, we feel better when we make our marketing plan as unique as we are, like a big party or ritual or celebration.

Now that we recognize a marketing plan/storytelling quilt is a dynamic work-in-progress, stay with me as I tell you the 9 themes are will be sharing during the next two weeks, intermittently with the other content of this 31 Days of Marketing Success for Creatives:

Who are your people? (Target Market, Ideal Client, Reader, Tribe, Community

2. Core Marketing Message & Ongoing Marketing Conversations

3. What Methods Will I Use to Convey My Messages & Have Conversations?

4. How will I document my messages, conversations and key connections?

5. What will I do to further our relationship?

6. Methods for the exchange be made from “friendly” to “trusted customer/client”

7. What are my people’s most desired experience & how shall I deliver this?

8. Collaborative Partnership and Ongoing Relationship Development

9. Perfecting the “Who Do You Know Who?” Throughout the Process

If you missed our other blog posts, here is a listing for you. Before you leave, please take a moment to follow me on social media (links are above) and take advantage of the free resources I’m offering as we go along on this particular adventure.

Day 1: Have Fun While Marketing?

Day 2: The Seeds of Your Marketing Success

Day 3: One Step at a Time

Day 4: The Most Important Question

Day 5: Beginner’s Mind

Day 8: Storytelling and Marketing