The Making of Love Notes
I’ve been hard at work since getting back from holiday vacations and starting off 2016.
In ways I haven’t been able to for and entire year.
Loss stole me from myself in ways I couldn’t see for an entire year. In ways I may not be able to see for weeks or months or years to come. It took my memory. It took my ability to function in the day to day. It took my creativity. It took many of the ways I expressed myself for years. And while it also gave to me in ways I could never have received otherwise (an incredibly heightened intuition, clarity, depth of connection, soul alignment), it was a really hard year.
I remember, about three months into the year, when I sat down and made myself write a week’s worth of new Awesome Life Tips™. I hadn’t been able to write, and I wasn’t going to let loss take my words from me. I managed to squeak out seven of them I believe, and that was it for 2015. No other new tips were born, and we began recycling old tips on social media because I simply couldn’t write them.
While I’ve slowly come back to myself over the last 12 months of my life, it wasn’t until early December when I really started to feel like I was really, truly BACK. In my life, relationships, and business. And so when the holidays finally passed, I jumped back into everything with all I had to give. And I blew even myself away with what came out of me in that first week.
“I’m in awe of what you did in one day,” my love said to me after I showed him what I’d created. “I know,” I replied in agreement. “You’ve never seen me in full hustle mode.” He shook his head, “no, I haven’t.”
In the span of a week I started writing a second Awesome Life Tips book (with 50 tips written), created a new Awesome Life Guide: Quickies™ ebook, laid out my Love Notes mini-zine for my Mastery relaunch, recorded a guided meditation, moved over all the bonuses and video trainings to the new Mastery site, made a video intro and outro for my love’s new series, laid out a bunch of worksheets, wrote a LOT of words, outlined a video for month one of Mastery, and more. Not to mention all the client work: website designs, developing custom WordPress themes, writing copy, and coaching. Even I was like, holy whoa.
Today I want to share one of my new projects with you.
Love Notes – Musings and inspiration from my desk to yours.
Loves Notes are the culmination of several ideas and visions over the years. I’ve always loved Zines, which are small circulation self-published works of original or appropriated content, usually reproduced on a photocopier. I’ve always wanted to start my own magazine. I’ve always loved mixed media, scrapbook style art (as you can probably tell from my website). And I love, love, love words and writing.
The contents of this first issue are a mix of inspiring quotes and mantras, blog posts and excerpts of things I’ve written, musings on life and love and loss, and a behind the scenes look at the writing of Book Two. My vision is to grow this slowly over time, and very organically. Hopefully inviting in guest contributors, photographers, artists, and more… growing into a “real” magazine of sorts.
Of course, only time will tell where things go, that I know for sure.
Really, Love Notes are an excuse for me to have a little bit of passion play every month. Because writing, designing multi-page publications, and mixed media style art are three of my favorite things. And I get to do whatever I want, because it’s my mini-zine. For my members. Based on the musings and inspiration from each month of my life. Having space for passion play like this is so essential.
And I have to say, it encourages even more creativity. I used to call myself a “content creation machine” before last year. Thanks to my leaning into what I feel pulled to do, like writing stories when I thought I couldn’t write anymore (which lead to better blogging and Book Two), I’m really back in what I do best. Creating. And I can’t wait to share all that I’ve been creating with you.
If you’re interested in hearing about Love Notes, hop on my mailing list to stay below up to date with the Mastery relaunch later this month. 🙂
