Category: Inspiration
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Looking Ahead, Looking Behind
I’m not a spiritual person and I don’t know anything about mystical synchronicities. Regardless, knowing my family connections to August 13, and knowing that it’s the date of the birth of three unconventional women, I feel even better about launching my book, a story about a complicated and unconventional woman,…
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An Introvert Ponders Self-Promotion
One of the first books I read about unconventional sexuality as a young adult was called Exhibitionism for the Shy, by Carol Queen. It was exactly what the title would lead you to expect: an instructional guide to an exciting kind of sexual expression for exactly the kinds of readers…
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Praise and Gratitude
Thomas Mann is credited with saying “a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people,” and I think there’s truth in that. I think that writers are also people who feel compelled to write, whether it’s difficult or not. We are also people…
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Cover Stories
I began to be afraid that, given the title change and now my uncertainty about the cover, that the book was soon going to feel alien to me, like something that was once part of me and now had been severed. It was a terrible feeling. Brooke pointed out that…
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Eight Minutes and the Best Thing I’ve Done All Day
What’s the best thing you’ve done today? Don’t think too hard about it. What’s the first thing that came to your mind? For me, the answer came as I was doing it and even though it was only about half past noon, I’m pretty sure that at the end of…
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Name Yourself
Have you ever received a gift that took you totally by surprise because it was exactly what you needed even though, until you opened it, you didn’t know such a thing existed? On Thursday when I got home from work there was an unexpected box in front of my door.…
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Morphine, Mothers, and a Modicum of Compassion
“If you think she seems uncomfortable I can increase her morphine.” Those were the words of the caring and thoughtful nurse who was standing in the room as I sat on my mother’s bed. My mother’s breath came in ragged sounding heaves. The nurse and I knew she was going…
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Three Things That Helped Me This Morning
My initial reactions to Tuesday night were, in order, disbelief, anger, and hopelessness. Over the last couple of days I’ve listened, watched, and participated in a number of conversations about moving forward. Earlier today, I posted the following on Facebook: We’ve come to the point where it’s about “survival” for…
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Rocking The Boat
My partner Will has a thing for boats. In fact, we lived on a boat for the first three years of our relationship. It was beautiful, and challenging. One of the beauties of boat life was that we were tied to a dock but we floated up and down with…
Elizabeth Anne Wood, Ph.D. 