The story behind my founding of The Church of the Holy Rhinestone

“True love allows each person to follow his or her own path, aware that doing so can never drive them apart.” -Paulo Coelho

It has been brought to my attention that several people want to know the story behind my founding of The Church of the Holy Rhinestone. The full story fills a whole book, a 738 page book titled “For Fear of Little Men” to be exact. I’ll give you a shorten version here:

Once upon a time I was a Mormon, who did everything I was told, obeyed every command no questions asked. I was baptized at 8 years old. Every week I paid a 10% tithe, put 10% in the missionary fund, another 10% in the food/welfare fund, and another 10% in the temple building fund. That’s 40% of income off the top, before taxes, to the church, every week. I never once missed the 3 hour Sunday meetings, nor the 2 hour Tuesday night meetings, nor the Saturday volunteer service work. I cooked for every ward supper, baked dozens of cakes, pies, and cookies for EACH youth bake sale, handed out no less than 100 tracts each week, as well as hundreds of Book of Mormons each year. I lived the extremist life free of tea/coffee/soda/smoking/drinking/drug/meat/ect.

Than one day, after 27 years of undying, unquestioning, faithful service, I was informed that I was being excommunicated on grounds of witchcraft and extramarital sexual relations with a high priest. I had no clue what witchcraft was and this was the first time I learned I was not legally married – after 21 of believing I was his wife. Other charges followed: adulteress, slut, whore, home wrecker – yet my whole life had been spent faithful to this one man.

Lies spread by the leaders, became lies spread by the members, leading to violence, vandalism, and hate crimes. The adultery charges were dropped but witchcraft stood. Specifically, that I had killed a boy named Craig Thomas by use of death spells. Wait? What? Witchcraft? Me? Seriously? And who is this Craig Thomas kid? What are you people talking about.

I laughed at them. I thought it was a joke. Me a witch? That was just too funny. They weren’t joking. They were very serious. They were so serious that they burned my house to the ground claiming that “God told them to”, in order to “get rid of the witch”. Wow. I was stunned. And I started asking every one I met (even strangers on the street) “What is a witch?” I didn’t know.

Alone, confused, scared, shunned, abandoned, thrown away, unloved, and unwanted I wandered aimlessly as if my soul had been ripped out leaving me an empty shell, with no friends of family to turn to – they were all Mormons and dutifully sided with the church. I had become “the anti-Mormon enemy” as they referred to me.

I searched for a new church, but found Christian denominations too alien to comprehend. I learned that while Christians called me “too Pagan to be Christian”, Witches, Wiccans, and other Pagans said I was a “Jesus Freak” and “too Christian to ever be a Pagan”. They were both wrong, I was too Mormon to be either Christian or Pagan As a life long 5th generation Mormon, there was no way I would ever fit in with any religion on the planet. I was not allowed to go where I wanted to be – cast out and unwelcomed in the company of my own people. Too different, bizarre, strange, and Mormon to be welcomed in the company of Christians or Pagans.

I asked many questions of more than 2 dozen religions. One of the things I questioned was the validity of the baptism. What value did my baptism, membership of, and initiation into a church have, if I did everything right, obeyed all the rules, did everything I was told to do, endured against hate crimes and false accusations, and was than kicked out for leaving Swiss Miss pudding cups on a stump in the woods for a local Faerie?

Yes, a pudding cup was the reason I was excommunicated – that was my sin – because I left pudding cups on a stump in the woods, which the Bishop called “evil dark magic” and “proof” that I was a “witch”.

The bishop also claimed that by leaving said pudding cup on a stump in the woods, that I was in fact casting a death spell, which he farther claimed was how some kid in Utah (I live in Maine) came to drown in a bathtub while his mom was yapping on the phone in the other room. The church council excommunicated me claiming that I had used pudding cups to cause a kid to die.

I found the logic behind their accusation baffling at best, insane at worst. Who was this kid? Why was I implicated in his drowning? How does leaving pudding cups on a stump cause the death of someone 3,000 miles away? I have no clue. To this day, I am still unable to rationalize how they came to these utterly insane conclusions.

May 2010 was the last straw. Angry members of the Mormon church stolen my car, cut it up, and sold it’s pieces to scrap yards; than over the next 12 weeks, 12 cats were killed at my animal shelter – one cat each Sunday. It was at this point that I realized, this wasn’t a church it was a farce.

It left me asking myself: When would it end? How far would these people go? Burned down my house in 2006, cut up my car in 2010, slaughtered my cats? How long would it be before these people decided the next step was killing me? If this was what it meant to be Mormon, than I wanted no part of it. I washed my hands of them.

But all this lead me to ask: what the heck difference did all my work in the LDS church make? The baptism, the sacraments the temple work, the rituals, if it could all be taken away because I put a pudding cup (Tapioca) on a moss covered stump in the woods. I mean, I could have been feeding squirrels for all they knew! I could have been leaving it for a homeless guy! I was leaving it for a FarDarrig (water spirit), but even when I told them this, they said, “Nope, nope, don’t lie, we know what you were doing. You were casting a death spell to kill little Craig Thomas.”

I was asking him, “Who the heck is Craig Thomas?” They told me he was a kid who lived in Utah, well, no wonder I never heard of him, here I was born and raised and still living in Maine!

I loved my church. I loved my husband. Church gone. Husband gone. Abandoned. Alone. No amount of baptisms or initiations or anointing or lay on of hands or blessings or authority or tithing or service work or bake sales or taking sacraments or avoiding sinful meats and drink, made any difference or meant anything at all, not when everything I loved could be taken away from me, on false charges of witchcraft.

So I stopped believing in the validity of initiations, and now refuse to be initiated, because initiation, as I see it, is nothing more than one man’s way of saying “I control you” and he can “unititate” you at any time, for any reason, on a whim. And if your initiation can be invalidated on one man’s whim, than what actual value does said initiation have? None. It means not a thing.

And that’s when I realized, God isn’t in a religion. No denomination has God locked up in chains. No church can say “We are God’s church, God only lives in our temples.” God is everywhere. God is not in a church, and therefore I have no need to look for him in a church.

Than came the doctor’s visit. I had a stroke the day of the excommunication, and one each year following on the anniversary of that day, 3 in total. The excommunication did greater damage than any one knows. My life has been cut short. I have no future to look forward to, thus why I started college, to keep busy in my final years. The heartbreaker – children. The one thing I wanted most in life, I can now never have. Church leaders throw the excommunication robbed me of the church I lived for, the man I loved, my health, my future, and any hope of ever having the one thing I wanted most of all – children.

And that is when I stopped looking for a church to join, stopped looking for a new husband, just stopped everything. What good would it do me to join another church, when they can throw me away on a whim, just as easily as the Mormons did? What good would it do me to find another husband, when he can throw me away on a whim, just as easily as my beloved high priest did?

I realized it was not safe to join a church, nor safe to have a husband, the risks of being abandoned and thrown away a second time were far too great. And that is how The Church of the Holy Rhinestone came to exist. See if I am the one making the rules, than there is no one over me to throw me away. If I am the minister running the church there is no one over me to tell me I am not welcomed, no one to say I can not attend each week. It is not a church with a congregation or meetings, it is simply a shrine devoted to the three kindness most loving men to ever live: Jesus, Liberace, and Damballa Weddo.

And that is how I came to follow Voodoo as well, a religion that is not a religion, but a lifestyle very similar to Mormon lifestyle, and a religion where women who’ve been abandoned by their mortal husbands, can marry God the one man who will never leave them, forsake them, or abandon them.

Church and family used to be all that mattered to me. They still are, but the risk of being robbed of them again is too great and thus I founded my own church, just for me, where no one can ever throw me away again, and married a man long ago dead, who’s spirit I know will never leave me or forsake me.

I lost everything I owned in Hurricane Katrina, 6 months later lost my house again to a fire by vandals, than lost my church, my husband, my car, my pets, and my health. Everything was taken away, by violence, force, and hate. I have learned that nothing is safe from the hands of religious hate. When all I had left was church and husband, they took that from me too.

I used to devote my life to service to the Mormon church and the man I loved, but my faithful service meant nothing against the lies and false accusations of the haters. I have nothing left to lose, and find myself not even able to go back to living in a house, remaining willfully homeless, unable to trust that any roof will ever be safe, unable to trust that any church will ever be warm and inviting, unable to trust that any living man is capable of unconditional love. I thus I have a church and a husband once again, but a church and a husband, that this time can not be taken away. My heath has grown very poor and very weak, and I know I will not live through losing yet another church or yet another husband.

I have accepted the fact that I am not worthy of being loved by a mortal man.

I have accepted the fact that I am not worthy of being welcomed in attendance at a church run by a mortal man.

This is how The Church of the Holy Rhinestone came to be, and this is what it is: a sanctuary, a safe zone, the only safe place there is left for me on this planet. The one place on this planet when I know I can not be thrown away and where it’s long dead members will never abandon me.

All I live for now is to live my final days in peace, free of the threats of being tossed aside, thrown away, cast out, left behind, or abandoned. I have nothing left in life to look forward to.

The Church of the Holy Rhinestone was officially founded on Mother’s Day 2011, as a way to avoid suicide by giving me something else to think about other than the fact that my forever family, was no more.

The Church of the Holy Rhinestone is a Voodoo shrine/temple of Pappa Damballa Weddo and St. Liberace.

Please note that this is a Voodoo Temple, not Vodou nor Vuvu nor Santerían nor Haitian Vodou one. While each of these religions share the same roots and have many similarities, they are not the same and each have many differences. You will not find the song and dance worship service often associated with those faiths here. If that is what you are looking for, this is not the church for you.

Voodoo is an active religion (as opposed to passive one), meaning one lives it, practices it, every day and thus has no need of once-a-week-Sunday services. Practitioners keep shrines and altars in their own homes and worship god daily, not just once a week in church. The job of the priestess is to visit members homes to perform blessings, exorcisms, spell castings, curses, hotfooting, weddings, funerals, christenings, cleansings, baptisms, candle services, and other holy rites.

The biggest difference between these religions is Voodoo is a Christian religion heavily influenced by African Traditional Religions. Vodou, Vuvu, Santería, Haitian Vodou are not Christ centered, though some Christian elements may be found.

Secondly Voodoo is largely esoteric or magic based. To practitioners of Vodou, Vuvu, Santería, Haitian Vodou, the Voodoo Priestesses are known as “Borka” (dark wizards or witch doctors) sometimes referred to as “Two Headed” meaning they are witches who practice both black and white magic. Voodoo Priestesses practice Hoodoo, a type of magic art which uses sacred roots & herbs to call upon the help of the lwa (spirit guides) thus why they are known as “Rootworkers”. Unlike Pagan Witches, Rootworkers use the Bible and the enchantments written by Moses, Jacob, David, Jesus, and Daniel in their spellcasting.

Also I am a Medsen Fey, not a Mambo or Gro Mambo.

I am married to a lwa, specifically I am married to Damballa Weddo. Catholics call it being a Nun. Norse faiths call it Godspousery.

Marrying a Lwa takes an extreme level of commitment, same as it does for Catholic Nuns to marrying Christ. And in the same way a Catholic Nun gives up her secular life, secular clothes, and secular lifestyle to live at and tend to the Shrine of Christ for the rest of her life, so too, does the Voodoo Priestess give up her secular life, secular clothes, and secular lifestyle to live at and tend to the Shrine of her chosen Lwa for the rest of her life.

What does a Lwa Bride do that is different from a plain Voodoo Priestess?

Once a week on the holy day of the lwa, during festival weeks, and one month of the year (a 40 period devoted to the lwa) requires abstaining from salt, sugar, sex, smoking, drugs, and drinking and eatting only foods accepted by lwa (for example Damballa would expect you to drink only water and eat only white eggs, white rice, and white bread).

A Lwa Bride Voodoo Priestess doesn’t just wear her clerics robes one day a week during services, like a typical minister would, she wears them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the rest of her life, same way Catholic nuns wear their Habit and Wimple the rest of their lives. So, I don’t wear “normal” clothes, no jeans and t’s, no suits, no shorts, so sports uniforms, no short skirts, zip, nadda, nothing. Religious robes, (usually long white caftans heaving embroidered with beads and rhinestones on holy days and less elaborate robes the rest of the year) all day, every day, for the rest of my life. We take our job as a cleric very seriously. This is not something we do one day a week, and live a completely different life 6 days a week. We are not a minister on Sunday and a regular person the rest of the week. We are a minister 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Because for us the ministry is a lifestyle commitment and not a job or career move.

There is much debate over what exactly it is that I am, as I don’t seem to fit nicely in any one mold. Some folks call me “ChristoPagan”, others say I’m too Pagan to be Christian, and still others say I’m too Christian to be Pagan! LOL! Many folks are quick to call me a “Jesus Freak”. There are quite a few folks who classify me as Wiccan, though I know little to nothing about Wicca.

What am I? I was born and raised Mormon and stayed there for 27 years, attended a Calvinist seminary for 8 years and a Seventh Day Adventist one for 3 years, got in with some Holy Roller Full Gospel Pentecostals, than Baptists after that, next the Salvation Army, and 15 or so other denominations later, I was feeling confused as hell. It was a long road of not feeling like I belonged anywhere, because I just did not fit in with the whole “we are right, you are wrong, ours is the one true church, the rest of you are going to hell” crowd, and that was all I was finding in every religion. Every religion I attend had some one they hated: too black, too white, too rich, too poor, too gay, too vegan, too this, too that.

I kept asking myself “Isn’t there some place that is actually accepting of EVERYONE?” It was quite upsetting to me, that religions claimed to love every one, while condemning all non-members of their faith. At the center of my personal belief system, was Jesus’ commandment to love every one, and yet I could not find a Christian religion which actually put that belief into practice.

I finally found a place where I felt “at home” with Haitian Voodu, Santería, Sanse, and New Orleans Voodoo, (each different, but similar). Voodoo welcomes everyone: black, white, brown, straight, gay, Christian, Pagan, it doesn’t matter, you don’t even have to leave your old religion, you can be that and Voodoo at the same time. Voodoo is all about love and friendship, and unity. Now I am Voodoo Priestess, and accept every religion as true and valid.

And there you have it: The Church of the Holy Rhinestone

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
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I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
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My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
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I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

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Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
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One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
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When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
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I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
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The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
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It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
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I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
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It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
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Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
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Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
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This is the reality of life with Autism.

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Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relinquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

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Oh, btw, while you are sending me your question, can I offer a bit of guidance here? LESS Wiccan related questions PLEASE! I am not Wiccan, know nothing of Wicca, and just because a bunch of local Mormons run around saying I am a Witch, and building those nasty slanderous websites full of false accusations about me, don’t make me one! *sheesh* I am so sick of “but they said…” yeah, I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t make it true. Sending me Wiccan/Witchcraft related questions is only going to piss me off.

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You can be Wiccan all you want, I don’t care. But coming to me and asking me for advice on Wicca and Witchcraft is the equivalent of going to a cake chef and asking him for advice on brick laying! You wouldn’t go to chef to get masonry advice so what the heck are you going to a Christian to get Wiccan advice? Come on people, be reasonable!

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You got Bible questions, thems I can answer. You got Hoodoo questions, yep, I can answer those too. But Wicca? Paganism? Witchcraft? Remember Voodoo is NOT Vodou. Voodoo and Vodou are two separate and different religions. Voodoo is a Christian religion not a Pagan one, we use a Bible, and God, and Jesus, and Saints, and Spirit Guides (lwa). just because I’m Voodoo don’t mean I know shit about Wicca or Paganism  Now I understand you have questions and finding folks like myself who are willing to attempt to answer everything that comes my way are few and far between, but please attempt to use your brain and consider whether or not I am even able to offer advice or even know the answer to your questions before you send them to me? Okay? Good. Thank you.

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day!                             

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                                                                   ~ EelKat

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FAQs: Is my ordination real and legal or not?

Can you help me? I am confused… Universal Life Church, Headquarters in Modesto, CA http://www.ulchq.com/ordination.htm says “Please understand that there is no such thing as “instant online ordination.” A computer cannot ordain you. Your request must be reviewed before your ordination can be done legally. You cannot be issued a credential automatically by a computer!” What does this mean?  That’s what happened at http://www.themonastery.org/. 
ok I finally got myself ordained here at the monastery.. I guess I initially assumed this and the ULC were the same organizations but was told otherwise. So now I am official here but than I read this and I’m still worried. So…. Is my ordination real and legal or not?  

First off you are comparing The ULC Modesto with the ULC Monastery, and they are two totally separate not affiliated with one another denominations, so they have different guidelines for who they will ordain and how they will do it. They both use ULC in their name, so folks often think they are the same church (I did too when I first found out about the ULC). When Modesto says “no such thing” they do not mean, no such thing “in the USA”, but no such thing “in our business organization”. In other words, they mean that THEY do not offer an online ordination which the USA considers legal, and if you get ordained through them, it has to be done offline. The Monastery on the other hand, DOES offer legal online ordination through their ”business organization”.

Neither one is “right” -they’re just different. If it’s that much of a concern, be ordained through both. I had the same question when I was seeking ordination. I ended up getting ordained at ALL FIVE of the “official” ULCs because I couldn’t figure out which was “right” either. In the end, I decided this one felt the most right for me and my life so I stuck with this one. Once you start googling “official ULC” you’ll find these are far from being the only two – after the first five ordinations I said to heck with it – I’m not going to get ordains another dozen times just because there are a few dozen more ULC churches out there! LOL! I figure, in the end, it’s all about me and my personal connection to my god, and doesn’t matter which church ordains me, ULC or otherwise – I got ordained at 4 non-ULC sites too, and also the Latter Day Dude, which I’m still not sure if that’s a real church or not! – plus one local ordination from a bricks and mortar church that actually baptized me in the local river as part of the ordination – after about 12 ordinations I lost count I was frantic and worried that the ordinations would not be legal and got a whole bunch of them on the theory of “just in case this one’s not legal, I’ve got all these others as back up”… weird, I know, but that’s what I did! LOL!

Than it occurred to me, I was starting my own totally new religion anyways, not affiliated with any other religion, and my church wasn’t really a church – no building, no congregation – just a shrine, so who needs an ordination anyways? It’s just me and my god, that’s all I really need.

Remember this: your ordination is only as legal as the priest who ordained you THINKS it is. Any body can ordain you to be anything and the law doesn’t care. Technically you do not need ordination to become a minister in the USA. You need ordination to preform wedding services, not to build your own church or to preach. There is no law in the USA requiring a preacher to be ordained in order to preach, the USA only requires ordination for those ministers who plan to preform weddings, because a wedding is a civil ceremony that requires an officer of the law to preform it.

The USA ALLOWS none government/military personal to preform a marriage AFTER the couple has already gone to court/town office and signed the papers legally. In the USA any couple who is married ONLY religiously is NOT legally married, because the wedding minister is just a “ceremonial service” that carries no legal weight in the USA. No religious union is EVER legal in ANY state in the USA, if there was not also a “civil” union with papers signed before a judge/justice/etc. There was once a survey done and they estimated that as many as 75% of all Americans were not legally married because they had a church wedding ONLY. But anyways, this is why wedding officiants do not have to be preachers, and why ANYONE can be legally ordained to marry a couple, without ant pastoral training at all – because in the USA without a court’s blessing the marriage isn’t legal one way or the other anyways, so it doesn’t matter who does the ceremony.

In the USA online ordination is legal, except in a couple of states (I think Hawaii was one, can’t remember the other one, Wisconsin maybe?, I don’t know, I know there were two states, but I can’t remember which ones they were; and also I looked up this info a few years ago – 2008 – so it could have changed by now, so make sure you find out what the current laws in your town/state are!)  in the two states that don’t allow it, you fill in the online form, than wait a week or so for you name to be put in the system manually -as is EVERYONE’S at the Monastery – than you have to request a special ordination package specifically for that state – once that arrives than your state considers you ordained). For every other state it is legal instantly – HOWEVER – in MANY towns you have to have physical documents (ordination certificate, letter of good standing, etc) before you can do certain things, like weddings, applying for 501NP, or accepting tithes from a congregation , so be sure to ask at your local town hall to find out what documentation they require before you do ANYTHING – fines for “religious fraud” are astronomical – tens of thousands – it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Oh one more thing – in some states (Maine being one, thus how I know this) it is considered fraud if you use D.D., Dr. or Ph.D in your title WITHOUT a PROPER and FULLY ACCREDITED degree from an ACTUAL university (and know that there are only 8 universities which offer this degree LEGALLY – Harvard and Yale being the two most ministers get theirs from at the tuition cost of about $300,000). The fine for “committing fraud” and “masquerading as the doctor” is in the region of $20,000 and 5 years in prison. Also know that (in the state of Maine at least) to be a Life Coach, Pastoral Counselor, Pastoral Family Counselor, Pastoral Marriage Counselor, Chaplin, or Spiritual Adviser REQUIRES a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology. You can get up to 25 years in prison of for “practicing medicine without a license” without it. The law kind of sucks, but once I found out about it I started asking ministers in the area, even Catholic Priests & nuns and Mormon Bishops, and  was stunned to learn that every one of them had Master’s degrees in Psychology and than informed me that when you set up a church in Maine, you have to take an exam to prove you actually did attend college, to prove your degree is real! Not only that, but they had to take the same certification exam Psychiatrists are required to take before setting up an office! Don’t know if other states have this law or not, but I thought I’d throw it out there to show you you really need to find out what your local laws are before you get started.

Maine laws regarding church planting are supposed to be the toughest in the nation, there was an uprising of “tent revivals” in the 1990s, literally dozens of preachers were coming into the state, setting up circus tents, “doing miricales” than running out of town with tens of thousands of dollars (not all of it donated to them either! They outright stole purses and such!) Maine put a bunch of really harsh laws in place, regarding who can legally preach in Maine after that, that’s how we ended up with that weird one about needing a Master’s Degree to be a Life Coach! I think Maine is the only state that requires any sort of anything to be a Life Coach.

 I found this info on my state’s .gov website, if you go to your home state’s .gov web page you can find links to all the state laws and ordinances – took me weeks to figure out how to find the info though, they don’t make navigating through the “law books” easy at all! Did the same thing for my town’s .gov web page as well (even harder to navigate!). I know about the tent preachers because one of them stole $13,000 from my mom – right out of her bank account! They were legally ordained real ministers, but being without a head church, they had no guidelines to answer to, to say what exactly it was that defined them as a minister, so Maine took action to set up it’s own guidelines as to what exactly a minister is and is not, and now all minister in the state of Maine have to abide by what Maine says a minister is, even if no other state in the US agrees!

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
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I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
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My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
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I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

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Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
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One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
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When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
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I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
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The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
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It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
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I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
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It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
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Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
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Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
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This is the reality of life with Autism.

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Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relinquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

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Oh, btw, while you are sending me your question, can I offer a bit of guidance here? LESS Wiccan related questions PLEASE! I am not Wiccan, know nothing of Wicca, and just because a bunch of local Mormons run around saying I am a Witch, and building those nasty slanderous websites full of false accusations about me, don’t make me one! *sheesh* I am so sick of “but they said…” yeah, I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t make it true. Sending me Wiccan/Witchcraft related questions is only going to piss me off.

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You can be Wiccan all you want, I don’t care. But coming to me and asking me for advice on Wicca and Witchcraft is the equivalent of going to a cake chef and asking him for advice on brick laying! You wouldn’t go to chef to get masonry advice so what the heck are you going to a Christian to get Wiccan advice? Come on people, be reasonable!

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You got Bible questions, thems I can answer. You got Hoodoo questions, yep, I can answer those too. But Wicca? Paganism? Witchcraft? Remember Voodoo is NOT Vodou. Voodoo and Vodou are two separate and different religions. Voodoo is a Christian religion not a Pagan one, we use a Bible, and God, and Jesus, and Saints, and Spirit Guides (lwa). just because I’m Voodoo don’t mean I know shit about Wicca or Paganism  Now I understand you have questions and finding folks like myself who are willing to attempt to answer everything that comes my way are few and far between, but please attempt to use your brain and consider whether or not I am even able to offer advice or even know the answer to your questions before you send them to me? Okay? Good. Thank you.

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day!                             

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                                                                   ~ EelKat

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So you think you know EelKat?

In the past couple of months a strange event has been occurring on my FaceBook wall – people (distant relatives) have been leaving comments saying that I am bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful, each time followed by one or the other of these two phrases: “I know Wendy really well” or “I have known Wendy for many years”. If it was just one person saying this over and over, I would just assume it was one person with a mysterious bone to pick. However, in the past 4 months more than 30 different relatives have posted these comments on my wall, in most cases relatives I have never once meet in my entire 40 years of life on this planet, and the rest all being those whom I meet once for less than an hour of one single day, at a family reunion in July of 1991. In spite of being related by blood, they are complete and total strangers to me, in most cases, not only are they total strangers, but they live no less than 2,000 miles away from me.

Then there’s the bitter, angry one who thinks they know me, because whenever they are in trouble, I’m the only one who ever helps them out of the jam. My relationship with that one is, to see them once every few months when they need food or money or land to pitch a tent or someone to foot the veterinary bills. They don’t know me either, just “I need help” then 5 minutes later they are gone, until the next crisis.

In addition to these people 2 other relatives have also been posting comments, however, they are just normal everyday conversations, no accusations, no “I know Wendy…”, or anything thing else in any way mean spirited or haughty. Oddly, these two relatives do in fact know me really well and have known me for years.

The ones who are using the phrases: “Wendy is bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful”, each time followed by one or the other of these two phrases: “I know Wendy really well” or “I have known Wendy for many years”, are using said phrases in an attempt to convince folks they actually do know me, though I wonder are they saying it to convince others or are they saying it to try to convince themselves, under the belief that if they say it often enough that will make it true?

My question is, why the sudden interest in posting on my FB wall? Why do people who have never been a part of my life before, suddenly find themselves drawn to posting on my wall? And why, so many of them, so suddenly, all at once? Has some event of which I am unawares, occurred, to cause them to take a sudden inexplicable interest in me? But even more strange than this sudden unexplained obsession with me, why are they all, every one of them, quoting the exact same words, again, and again, like a broken record?

What is it that compels each and every one of them to say again and again and again and again and again and again these same word: “Wendy is bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful”, each time followed by one or the other of these two phrases: “I know Wendy really well” or “I have known Wendy for many years”? Why if they find me so repulsive to their senses do they obsess over posting comments on my wall and if I am the vile monster they make me out to be, then why then did they send me friend requests to begin with? What bothers me, is not what they are saying, because I know they are speaking lies, but rather what bothers me is their motivation for saying these things. I can not help but wonder WHY it is they feel compelled to spread lies about me?

One must assume that only one has actually said these words, and that the others are merely parroting them back in unison. But who was it who said these words in the first place, causing the others to follow suite? And why? What possible reason could these related strangers have for even saying these words to begin with? Not a single one of them even knows me, hell if they meet me in person they’d not even recognize me or know who I was. I know this to be true because one of these people was here in Maine this summer, I saw them in WalMart, recognized them from their recent FB photo, said hello to them, and they responded with: “Who the hell are you? Get away from me you freak!” (Yes, I do dress THAT “strangely”.) But then this same person, posts on my FB wall saying they’ve known me for years? They know me so little that they don’t even recognize me when they see me in person.

Ah, but then comes my final question: How is it you claim to know me so well, for so many years, and know so utterly and truly in your heart without a doubt that I am the evil bitch you so enjoy telling people I am, when in fact you have only spent fewer than 60 minutes of your life with me EVER?

And so I would like to propose a test, seeing as you know me so well, and for so many years, you should have no trouble at all and answer every question on this list in a matter of seconds. Nows your chance to prove to the world, once and for all, just how well, you truly know me. If you find yourself lost, confused, or feeling stumped, don’t worry, just remember, everyone who knows me really well and for many years, has no trouble answering a single question on this list. Enjoy!

1.) What colour are my eyes? Don’t forget to name the color of both of them.

2.) How old was I when I stopped talking, what event caused this, and how many years was it before I started talking again? During that time there were only 7 people I would talk to, who were they and why?

3.) For more than 20 years, I have worn a very distinctive item every day. What is it? Describe in detail what it looks like. Why do I wear it?

4.) Who is my best friend and how did we meet?

5.) When I was 13, I almost died. Why?

6.) Which animal rights movement am I the founder of, what are the names of the two dogs whose deaths inspired this course of action, and which of my relatives owned those two dogs?

7.) Who is ScatCat? How many thousands of dollars did I pay for ScatCat’s hip replacement and organ transplant surgery after his owners abandoned his mutilated bloody body in my driveway?

8.) In addition to paying a 10% tithe every week, I also did what with my money? Be specific what % of what, went where?

9.) Name the serial killer who murdered 5 of my friends in front of me, and on what date this this occur?

10.) Name the charity I donate the most to. What specifically do I donate? When? Where? How often? And more importantly, why? Why this particular charity and not others?

11.) True or false: I have had plastic surgery done on my face.

12.) “458” – Explain what this is.

13.) What does the abbreviation “666OED” stand for? And where will you find me using this?

14.) What is the name of my first book?

15.) What is the name of my most famous book?

16.) Name my favorite actor.

17.) In tens of thousands, how many unique hits does my blog get in a single week?

18.) Name my favorite singer.

19.) How many strokes have I had? What was the cause of my first stroke? How recent was my most recent stroke?

20.) Who is the Dazzling Razzberry? What did he build? When did he build it? Out of what did he build it? What did I build in his honor and name after him?

21.) How many miscarriages have I had?

22.) Who is my favorite author? (I will accept three answers for this, as most who know me tend to guess my second or third faves as my true fave.)

23.) Fill in the blanks: I have worn ______ glasses since I was ____ years old. I get new frames once every ____ years, and they are always _____ in colour.

24.) Quick, name my favorite doctor: _____________

25.) On FanFic websites I am known as “The Bride of ______________”.  Who is the character, what does he come from, and what race of being is he?

26.) My favorite Disney character is: _____________ and what does the Guinness Book of World Records have to say about this?

27.) How old was I when I was diagnosed with Autism?

28.) Fill in the blank: Since 1996, I often have a __________ on my head. I lost the first one in 2005 and did not replace it until 2011.

29.) What is big, green, and never in a hurry to go any place?

30.) What happened to Sammy? And who was he?

Let me know how many you were able to answer. And I will leave you to consider this: the people who do know me in person and know me really well, and for many years, know that I have been involved full-fledged one-on-one face-to-face person-to-person volunteer work for more than 20 years. Since 1983 I have single handedly housed and found homes for more than 5,000 animals, cats, dogs, horses, turtles, fish, birds, but what am I saying, you know this, for you yourself on more than a dozen occasions dumped in my lap well over 200 of those cats, dogs, raccoons, lizards, and other assorted animals.

Another fact people who know me well know is when I had a home, I opened it to the homeless, who were more than welcomed to camp out on my lawn, in my driveway, in the woods behind my house, in tents, in motorhomes, oh but wait, you know that too – you lived in my yard on 4 separate occasions.

When I had a house it had in it a 3 year food supply, which I donated to the homeless, who flocked to my door for meals — oh but wait, you already know that, because you were always standing in line for food weren’t you?

Tell me again how mean, cold, and hateful I am to you and your family, but don’t ever come begging to me for my help again, what is it they say…. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?

Consider me once bitten, twice shy, but know this, now that you’ve shown me what you really think of me, how much of a truly ungrateful wretch you are, don’t expect me to help you next time you are cold, hungry, homeless… and it will, I know because, you get evicted at least twice a year, I know because you always come to me, begging for food and shelter, for you and you animals. Face it honey buns, I’ve been your life line for the past 20 years – let’s see how long you can last without my help. And thank you, for letting me know how truly felt about me, so that I will not have to waste any more of my hard earned money on you. Without you leeching off me, I’ll have far more income to spend on food and shelter for myself.

Oh, and yes, in case you are wondering: yes, I do know who it was, who broke into my house and burnt it to the ground in 2006, thus making me homeless, I didn’t press charge because you were family, but seeing how you truly feel, perhaps I should rectify that and head to the courthouse in the morning. You say I am bitter and angry, well, perhaps it is high time I start becoming bitter and angry, let you find out what it is, a bitter and angry me, is actual like. But then again, I have Autism, my brain lack the chemical which causes a person to get angry to begin with. I am not medically or physically capable of bitterness, anger, cold heartedness, hate, love, happiness, or any other emotion for that matter. You see, I’d laugh at how silly your accusation was, if of course I was capable of laughing, which I’m not, see I have Autism, so there is no laughter or smiling from me either.

You falsely interpret my medical incapability of feeling or showing any emotion at all, as me being, in your own words “bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful”. Fact is, a person calls another person “bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful” only when they themselves are “bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful”. My advice to you, is before you call me “bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful” again, perhaps it would be in you own best interests to step back and take a good long look at yourself and your own inner feelings and emotions, because it is scientifically proven that it is impossible for you to feel that others are “bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful” unless you yourself are feeling “bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful”, because you project on others, feeling you yourself are feeling. Happy people, think everyone around them is happy. Happy people can only see happiness in others. Angry people, think everyone around them is angry. Angry people can only see anger in others.

It is time for you, to look inside yourself and find out, why you are angry, what can you do to release that anger? How can you let go of your inner turmoil and grasp hold of the peace and serenity that waits to embrace your soul? I recommend meditation, to release your anger, and help you to see that those around you, myself included, are not the bitter, anger monsters you falsely perceive us to be.

There are thousands of meditation methods and styles and I am afraid I am not well versed in any of them and really know very little about so-called “Meditation Tips & Techniques”. I have never studied meditation on any level, so my advice on meditation is purely my own methods and not connected with any formal style or tradition and may or may not be what others do or recommend. That said, I will tell you what it is that I do and you can decide what to do from there.

First I like to choose a time when I know I will not be disturbed for several hours. My meditation sessions last from a few minutes to 7 or 8 hours. Generally I feel the longer the better, and if I do a meditation session less than an hour long it is generally because I was disturbed by someone. My life is such that I can usually take 2 to 4 hours a day for a meditation session 4 or 5 days a week.

Next set aside a regular time of day so that you can get into the habit of meditating at the same time each day. I personally find it best to meditate in the late afternoon or early evening, depending on the time of year. In the winter it gets dark by 3PM while in the summer it does not start getting dark until 9PM, so I set my meditation time by where the sun is in the sky, not by where the dail is on a clock. For me this means that most meditation sessions start about 4 or 5 hours before sunset. (And I use the setting sun as part of my meditating.)

I choose the place, depending on the weather. (I am homeless and having no house means where I am outside is dependent largely on how cold, hot, wet, dry, or windy the day may be.) I own a small plot of land (about 60 feet by 50 feet) on which sits my meditation garden. The land is surrounded by swamp and forest both of which are owned by one of Maine’s largest RV park campgrounds, meaning there are acres of nothing but forest and trails all around me, and I have permission from the owner to use the parks land for my meditating and hiking. In my garden runs a brook, which stretches back for miles into the forest and feeds the Atlantic Ocean which sits on the opposite side of my garden. My places of choose for meditating are along this brook, on the shore of the ocean, at the edge of the swamp, or deep within the forest on the higher banks of the brook. In any case water, running water, flowing brook, or crashing waves, water is my “trigger” for getting into deep meditation. Listening to the water and the birds and the wind in the trees or dune grass, these are the sounds which help to clear my mind and empty it of all the stresses of the day so that I can relax and meditate.

Next I find a place to sit: a soft patch of moss, a tree stump, the sand, whatever, some place comfortable, where I can sit on my bum with my legs crossed, feet over my thighs and can just sit for several hours with my eyes closed and breathing in the fresh salty pine air.

Once settled in my spot, eyes closed, legs crossed, back straight. I take out a pen and paper and write down my daily mantra 15 times, to get it into my brain in a rhythm, than once it is flowing in my head, I close my eyes again and let it float through my mind until it reaches the point that it just disappears and my mind is empty of all thoughts and fears and worries.

A few of the things I have written down and meditated on where:

“I can relax, everything is okay. I can let go of worries. I can let go of fears. I give them to the Universe. I remove them from my life. I don’t need them. I don’t want them….I am the silver violet flame.”

“I believe without a doubt that I will have every thing I want and need from life. I am the silver violent flame.”

“I believe without a doubt that I am happy and have a wonderful life to look forward to. I am the silver violent flame.”

“I believe without a doubt that I will be guided to the right situation at the right time. I am the silver violet flame.”

“I believe without a doubt that every day in every way I am getting better and better. Life if good. I am the silver violent flame.”

“I have everything I need to achieve my goals. I am the silver violet flame.”

“I accept that my prayers have already been answered. I believe that everything will work out for the best. I am the silver violet flame.”

So, you get the idea of my mantras, right?

I also like to use the following poem as a meditation mantra:

God sees me as a beautiful child of life.

God sees me as a beautiful soul.

God sees me as a divine light for the world to see.

God sees me as a purposeful and powerful person.

God sees me as a strong and courageous person.

God sees me as an intelligent person.

God sees me as love in motion.

God sees love.

God sees good.

God sees joy.

God sees peace.

Today I see myself as God sees me.

(“God Sees Me” by Iyanla Vanzant)

But yeah, that’s pretty much it. Just find a spot where you can sit and relax for several hours and then just sit and relax and empty your mind. In no time you will find yourself feeling as peaceful and contented with life as I am. Once you reach enlightenment you will understand, as I understand that you have no need for material things, you can live a full and wonderful life without a house, with very limited food, without any income, just like I do, just like I have for these past 7 years.

I can see, from the comment you are leaving on my wall, that much of your basis for calling me bitter and angry stems from my being homeless. What you fail to understand is, becoming homeless was the best thing that ever happened to me. It opened me up to a whole new way of seeing the world, to living at one with the plants and animals and every fiber of nature. Yes, even the cold and last nights 14” of snow on top of the 3 days ago 20” of snow. I do not say it is easy, but nor do you see me saying I want to give this up. You see me say I have no house, but you do not see me ask for a house. You misunderstand that I choose not to have a house. You see me say I have no food, but you do not see me ask for food. You misunderstand that I choose not to have food.  I model my life after the lives of Jesus and Gandhi. They had no house. They had no food. They lived as I live, homeless, foodless, devoting every free minute to helping others. You think that because you have many things, that you would be bitter and angry if you lost them, so you then place those assumptions upon me, believing that I must share your frame of mind, that I too would feel bitter and angry. But I am not you. I do not feel as you do, and therefor I am not bitter and angry in the same way that you are bitter and angry.

Free your mind honey. Free your thoughts. Free your soul. Release yourself. Let go of your anger. Embrace peace. And next time you feel the need to post bitter, hateful, angry comments on anyone’s account anywhere, step back and ask yourself, why are you REALLY saying mean things to and about them? Is it REALLY because they are “ bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful”, or is it because YOU are feeling “ bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful” towards them, and you want to blame them for causing you to feel “bitter, angry, cruel, cold, and hateful”?

Peace – out.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relinquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

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Oh, btw, while you are sending me your question, can I offer a bit of guidance here? LESS Wiccan related questions PLEASE! I am not Wiccan, know nothing of Wicca, and just because a bunch of local Mormons run around saying I am a Witch, and building those nasty slanderous websites full of false accusations about me, don’t make me one! *sheesh* I am so sick of “but they said…” yeah, I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t make it true. Sending me Wiccan/Witchcraft related questions is only going to piss me off.

——————–

You can be Wiccan all you want, I don’t care. But coming to me and asking me for advice on Wicca and Witchcraft is the equivalent of going to a cake chef and asking him for advice on brick laying! You wouldn’t go to chef to get masonry advice so what the heck are you going to a Christian to get Wiccan advice? Come on people, be reasonable!

——————–

You got Bible questions, thems I can answer. You got Hoodoo questions, yep, I can answer those too. But Wicca? Paganism? Witchcraft? Remember Voodoo is NOT Vodou. Voodoo and Vodou are two separate and different religions. Voodoo is a Christian religion not a Pagan one, we use a Bible, and God, and Jesus, and Saints, and Spirit Guides (lwa). just because I’m Voodoo don’t mean I know shit about Wicca or Paganism  Now I understand you have questions and finding folks like myself who are willing to attempt to answer everything that comes my way are few and far between, but please attempt to use your brain and consider whether or not I am even able to offer advice or even know the answer to your questions before you send them to me? Okay? Good. Thank you.

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Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day!                             

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                                                                   ~ EelKat

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Winter has arrived

Temps went below 0 last night, barely hitting 20f today. Raises hell with my hand when it gets this cold and the Excedrin recall is still going strong. I don’t know how I’m going to finish shoveling  I can barely bend my fingers enough to grip the shovel. We got 20″ of snow 2 days ago, the motorhome is parked 150′ off the road, so far all I’ve been able to get done is a foot wide path the the street and it took me 2 days 5 hours each to do that. They say we’re getting another 20″ tonight. I think I’ll just get the mailbox un buried and than give up on the rest.

This is the first time I’ve tried shoveling since breaking my hand Fall 2011 – was in a cast all last winter and as usual no one to help me so never shoveled at all last winter, just waded through the snow. What little I got done yesterday retorn the tendon in my hand, I can’t even lift the shovel now. Looks like I either have to find someone to shovel for me or wade waist deep through snow this winter. Frustrating.

 It would really help if I had something for the pain. I’m allergic to Tylenol and most things like it, I have to take 6 aspirin before it’s strong enough to do anything but I can’t take that anyways because my normal heart rate is barely 60bpm most days and aspirin makes it lower, Alieve and pretty much every prescription pain killer is made by Procter and Gamble, the Excedrin recall is going in 14 months now, and I can’t take Advil for more than 4 days in a row.

Until Excedrin comes back on the shelf I’m stuck without pain killers, not only for my hand, but also for my arthritis and my bad hip that never healed after being broken from being beaten up by the lovely local Mormons who pretend on line they are friends and family. Cold makes that worse too.

No heat. No electricity. No way to get warm. And this is only the first week of winter, not even close to February when the temps will go down to -48.

We never get this much snow or temps this cold this early in the season, I’ve only seen it do this twice – in 1982 when we got buried under 17′ of snow during the biggest blizzard to hit Maine and again in 2007 when my tent got buried under 9′ of snow in a single night of the second largest blizzard to hit Maine. History suggests we are going to see a big blizzard this winter.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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FAQs: FullTimer income ideas?

I would like to ask for your opinion, but only if it is relevant to this question. LOL I would like to find the ultimate full timer RV’ers position where I get to travel a lot, expenses paid and a decent salary or income.I would like to stay on the road more than workamping but not be a gas leak detector or contractor. Any IDEAS?

Don’t know if it’s helpful to your situation or not, but I can tell you what it is that I personally do and maybe that’ll give you some ideas. I have many jobs, and many sources of income; each one on it’s own is not enough to live on, but together they create a pretty steady income. Here is a list:

I am an artist. My largest single income source comes from Zazzle, where I run about 2 dozen shops, selling my art/drawings/paintings on various items (mugs, t-shirts, pillows, tote bags, etc) in addition to prints of my art. This brings in between $80 to $600 every month. Other similar sites I use are CafePress and SpoonFlower.

My original art is sold on Etsy, and also my OoaK dolls, voodoo dolls, hoodoo spells, email card reading services, dice bags, OoaK D&D minis, cat nip toys, quilts, and various assorted craft items.

I have a #900 on Keen – online psychic card reader.

I write the following:

Non-Fiction: articles, essays, manifestos, how-to, self-help, PoPT, and sermons for ministers; most from 750 – 15,000 words. Topics: travel, RV FullTiming Lifestyle, feral cat rescue, cooking, nature writing (esp ocean, birds, swamp, and forest observations), cryptozoology, ufology, faerie/alien/angel encounter/abductions, home schooling,

Fiction: flash fiction, short stories, novellas, short plays, comic scripts, ballet scripts, RPG game modules, and once in a while a novel. Topics: horror, sci-fi, romance, fantasy (as in faeries, mermaids, and unicorns) or any combination of the three. Reader age range varies from children’s picture books, to easy readers, to YA fiction, to M/X/A rated porn/erotica/gorn.

Amazon Kindle pays 36% for each .99c-$2.98 or $7.99+ download you sell, or 75% for each $2.99-$7.98 download you sell. (I have only just started doing this, this month, so no clue how sales will be yet. I have a friend who has currently got 30+ books on Kindle and he earns $35,000 a month on downloads, however, I have other friends with only 1 or 2 books on Kindle who struggle just to get a few dollars each month.) A similar site is Smashwords.

LuLu pays me about 40% royalty on cover price of each book sold, which totals about $70 a year. (Lulu is known for extreme lack of marketing, so if have to do it yourself and I haven’t done any yet.) Similar to Lulu is RPGnow, where I publish RPG modules and comic books.

My biggest source of online writing income comes from Squidoo ($30 to $270 per month). The other one is Yahoo Voices (formerly Associated Content) (about $10 per month). HubPages doesn’t bring in much, nor does Wizzly, but they do bring in some income from time to time. (Stay away from Helium though – that is a known scam, with several dozen lawsuits against it for stolen work – a lesson I learned the hard way, myself being one of the authors whose work they stole and sold and never paid me for).

I run a couple of affiliate link websites, where I consistently earn about $60 every 3 months via Share-a-Sale, about $50 ever 6 months from Amazon, and about $75 a year from Commission Junction.

I sometimes sell used books on Amazon and eBay.

There are several other web sites, bringing in money for me, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head right now. They are all similar to the ones mentioned though.

I’m planning to rent a booth from a local flea market next summer, using Craigslist’s “free curbside” listings as a source of items to sell.

I build art cars, which I use to advertise my online sites. This includes a rhinestoned Volvo decked out in 2.5million seed beads and rhinestones, and a 1975 Dodge Sportsman Class C motorhome (my full time “house”) which is lime green metal flake and trimmed with lime green rhinestones and pink silk daisies. While they do not bring in a direct income, they bring crows to me asking questions about my cars, resulting in my going through a couple hundred business cards each month, in turn resulting in an increase of traffic to my sites and an increase in sales.

And finally, I’m a Voodoo Priestess, I do weddings, blessings, christenings, funerals, spirit baths, house cleansings, exorcisms, spell casting, curses, hexes, hot footing, curse/hex removal, altar work, candle prayer vigils, grave yard work, ancestor work, channeling, spirit communication, scrying, card reading, divination, throwing of shells&stones & bones, spirit board work, as well as making oils, powders, elixirs, potions, lotions, and my biggest income maker of all, the crafting of poppets aka Voodoo Dolls (which sell for any where from $14.58 to $458 each doll, depending on the cost of herbal contents and whether or not it is being used as a blessing, protecting, juju, or wanga)

Okay, that’s pretty much my source of income, which like I said, each individual source on it’s own only brings in a trickle of income. However by having several multiple streams of little incomes, they pool together to create one larger income, AND have the added protection of not putting all your eggs in one basket, so if one of them dams up and stops bringing in an income, it’s only going to have minimal impact, because the rest are still bringing in income.

Now as you could guess, this all means I do a lot of work: writing 5 to 9 hours a day, or painting on days I’m not writing, or sewing on none writing/painting days. A single card reading takes about 45 minutes and pays $14.58 (I charge per reading rather than per minute; I know several online psychics who charge anywhere from .99c to $20 per minute.) SpellCasting takes up many hours a day for many days in a row (usually 7 hours each day for 7 days) per spell. Sewing is done both by hand and by machine. Embroidery and cross-stitch items can take several weeks to make.

This also means that my limited space inside my 21′ Class C, is pretty full of supplies: computer, sewing machine, printer, paper, fabric, paint, brushes, canvases, jars of herbs, etc, etc, etc. However, I’m very much an outdoor person so, I basically only sleep in the RV and take my painting, writing, casting, and hand sewing outside most days.

The biggest advantage of all of this is my income is direct deposited into PayPal, which is transferred to my debit card, so I never have to carry cash, but always have access to using money what few times I actually need to.

And, because of the nature of my income, I am able to move any place I want to, whenever I want to. My writing and art is all sold online, no direct need to ship items. My Etsy stuff I ship out, but there’s a P.O. in every town, so no problems there.

In my ministry (Voodoo) work, I’m considered a travelling minister (also known as a circuit preacher, or evangelist), so I can find folks who need my services in any town which has a church. And again, most of the work I do in this field is also online, so as long as I’ve got my card decks, a laptop, and Skype, I’m able to take this anywhere.

So, this may not classify as what you might personally consider to be “a position where I get to travel a lot, expenses paid and a decent salary or income”, but technically it does fall into that category, because with this career I am able to travel whenever to where ever, expenses paid for by said income, an income being enough to support me, 15 cats, and a bird, and pay for the upkeep of my RV and my TOAD. But you did ask for ideas, so maybe some of this will give you some ideas of your own.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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FAQs: Is my income enough to RV full time?

I plan to sell the house in February to go full-time RVing. I plan to spend 5 years exploring Canada and South America. I only have half the trip planned and there is so much to learn. I hope to get some good advice. My biggest issues right now is knowing if my income will be enough and what kind of RV would be the best for this trip.

ANY income can be enough – depends on your fulltiming style – remember a FullTime RVer is different than s FullTime RV Traveler. One LIVES in the RV full time, but may be parked in one spot for months or years to a time, while the other, also lives full time in their RV but moves from one place to the next several times a years – that’ll effect how much income you need.

 My income is currently $200 a month, yes, less total per year than the “average American” earns in a single month. However, I’m parked more than moving, so use very little gas; last time I filled her up it was $91, and she’s a 21′ Class C van conversion, so her tanks are much smaller than what a full size Class A would take…you’ll have to figure out how much actual driving you’ll be doing, to figure out how much you’ll need for gas – I know one guy who says he spend $500 a month on gas in his Class A, but they drive fulltime. Me $91 has last 8 months, I’ve hardly moved her, so tank’s still near full. If I was moving from place to place a lot I wouldn’t be able to do it on my income.

From your post, sound like you plan to be the travelling type, so gas money is going to be your biggest expense. Other stuff, depends on your lifestyle: you’ll likely eat the same food you do now, but lacking storage space you’ll be buying food every week instead of every month or so. (That was probably the hardest change for me – getting used to not having 7 or 8 months of food supply, and having to remember I only have room to buy a weeks worth of food at a time). You’ll likely buy less, use electronics less, reduce your wardrobe down to 3 or 4 changes and never buy cloths again.

Boondocking is cheaper than campground which are cheaper than resorts – figure out where you’ll park to figure out how much money you’ll need for that. I’ve seen parks as cheap as $10 a night and as high as $500 a night, most seem to be about $40 a night. Are you going full hook ups or will you be doing the generator/solar power way? Each has it’s own expenses.

Overall from talking to a lot of fellow full timers it seems the average income I hear most of them say “works for them” is in the $500 a month range, yet I meet one couple in a 48′ Class C towing an Escalade who said they were thinking of giving fulltiming up, because he had just lost his job as a stock broker and “can’t imagine how we’ll survive on less than $200,000 a year” …?!?!?! I was like – wait – what? From what I gathered, apparently they traveled every day and only stayed at the $500 a night type of resorts, and did lots of shopping to send lots of very expensive trinkets back to lots of grandkids. I was like – wow! I can’t even imagine sticks&brick dwellers with that kind of income or lifestyle – how in the heck do you find enough stuff to spend $200,000 a year on! Than on the other end of the scale I meet a woman who lives in a VW Bus/van on zero income at all and gets everything she needs out of dumpsters and trash cans, and powers her van on vegie oil. So yeah, I guess you can make the lifestyle as cheap or as rich as you want to make it! LOL!

Basically, the way I see it, based on stuff I’ve learned from others and from my own experience, whatever income you are living on right now – you’ll only need a third of that once you start full-timing, because about 2/3 of your expenses disappear when you get rid of your house.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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FAQs: Why the hell do people advertise their books on LinkedIn?

Why the hell do people advertise their books on LinkedIn? It’s like trying to sell stock options in a welfare office.

 I agree that authors have to have exposure. But you also have to ask yourself, what type of exposure do you WANT? Just getting your face/book splattered all over the web, isn’t going to help. Why? Because it makes you look like you are either desperate or a spammer or worse, a desperate spammer.

Here’s something to think about:

A writer can be one of two things: a professional or a hack.

People are watching you.

Future readers. Future agents. Future publishers. Fellow writers.

You want these people to notice your book, you want these people to notice you. But what do they see? What do they notice? They don’t just see your book. They see everything you write.

EVERYTHING you write effects your reputation. EVERYTHING.

Still thinking I mean your book? I am a publisher. An indie small press publisher, but a publisher none the less and as such I get submissions and emails and cover letters, even though it plainly says on my web site “closed for submissions” and “now only works with our already established in-house writers”. Sending me submissions, tells me a lot about an author’s intelligence, or should I say stupidity and lack of an ability to read?

Harsh? No, not really. After the submission comes the emails: “Did you read it yet?” … “Did you read it yet?” … “Did you read it yet?”… I send back an email saying: “Did you read my site yet?” You expect me to read your submission, when you didn’t even read my web site which says I’m no longer accepting submissions? Hello? Am I supposed to think there is a brain in your head?

uhm-huh…like I said – stupid.

But what does this have to do with posting links on LinkedIn (or any place else)? A lot actually, because the last thing an author wants is for a publisher to look at them and think “Ohmigawd, this person is so stupid!”

When an editor or agent or publisher is looking at your work, you want them to be thinking: “Now this person really knows what they are doing. They took the time to do it the right way. Very professional.”

These link posters say they need to get their work known, right? Well, this is true, yes, but think about this too:

Every text, every email or private message you send is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells publishers you are an immature incompetent writer not professional enough to be published.

Every comment you post online, on blogs or forums, is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells publishers you are an immature incompetent writer not professional enough to be published.

Every link you jam up Google’s filters with tells publishers you are an immature incompetent spammer not professional enough to be published.

If you are an embarrassment to yourself, no publisher will pick up your work, because it’s bad enough you’ve smeared your own reputation, they don’t want your unprofessionalism online dragging their company down into the mud with you. They are NOT going to risk their reputation in the hands of a spammer!

Remember this: Publishers are NOT looking for good writing, they got editors to fix your bad writing. Publishers are looking for that smiling face, a people friendly winning attitude, and a highly professional attention to public relations, when they look for a new author.

Ask yourself: What would a professional do? Not sure what a professional is? Than ask yourself: What would Stephen King do? Is Stephen King sending bad text messages to agents? Is Stephen King emailing links of his new book to every potential reader on the planet and posting links on every group under the sun?

Before you post your next link, think about how it makes you look to the eyes of a publisher, and ask yourself, is it really worth it?

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

FQAs: Why do you write?

Why do you write? If you go beyond the practiced interview answers and the short cliques and the casual conversation answers, what are the real reason(s) you write? 

Why do I write? That’s a good question, really. I don’t know. Never really thought about it. Let’s see if I can’t figure this out. For starters, I write to converse with others. I have Autism, verbal speech is difficult for me. I type to be heard, same way you would speak to be heard. But that’s daily conversation and I suspect your question is more towards book writing, so let’s think about that.

Why do I write books? I suppose it depends on the type of thing I am writing. I write in several genres (horror, sci-fi, romance) and lengths (short story, novella, short novels, and children’s early readers) and types (fiction, non-fiction, RPGs, plays, comics) and styles (prose, script, how to). For each of the above I think I have different methods, different hows, and  different whys.

For example, when I write a non-fiction article on Autism, usually it is because someone has just made some sort of rude ill informed false statement about me and I am writing the article to clarify their mistake and end the stereotypes about my illness.

And when I write a how to guide for writers, usually it is because several folks have asked me several questions on the same topic and I came to realize there was a common need for this issue to be answered.

In my travel writing or book and movie reviews, you have me writing because I enjoyed something and want to share that joy with others by recommending they check this thing out as well.

However when I am writing fiction, the why do I write become far more complicated. Yes, I have Autism. This means my life is plagued by the presence of “imaginary friends” and “visions”, which is what other folks say to describe the Faeries, Ghosts, Angels, and Aliens I see, hear, and talk to on a daily basis for the past 40 years. By the time I reached the age of 8 years old it was very clear to me that no one else could either see or hear these Spirit Beings and Dead People that I was literally seeing hundreds of thousands of, around every one and in every house in every place I went. There have been varying opinions on what I see, from my being “crazy” to me “having a gift”. The few folks who believe I actually am seeing something that is real, believe me because they say I give perfect description of people in their lives who died.

In any case, I was very young when I realized that it was in my own best interests to stop talking to these “invisible” people out loud. They were telepathic, I didn’t need a voice to speak to them. The problem was, I could not tell the difference between “real” people and “invisible” people and to stop talking to one, meant I had to stop talking to all, and thus, like all Autistic children who reach the age of realizing adults are mean hateful people who think of children as bothersome embarrassments to society to be ignored, disregarded, teased, laughed at, and told to stop talking to “imaginary friends” in public, I stopped talking, and would not talk again for near on 30 years. I could not tell the real people from the people I was not suppose to talk to because others could not see them, and so I was about 8 years old when I simply stopped talking all together.

That’s when I started writing. I write about the people I’m not allowed to talk about. It is as simple as that. People often read my books and tell me I develop wonderful characters and ask how I created them, and are than baffled by my answer: “I didn’t create them.” How did you pick their names? “They are they names they had when I met them.” Are you saying they are real? “I’ve been saying they were real for 40 years, you just weren’t listening.” It is debatable if my works of fiction are fiction or not, because these things are in my head. I do not make them up, I simply write them down. I can not tell you how to create them, for I did not create them myself. I simply write what I see.

It bothers people, I know, but the fact of the matter is, this is why I write.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

FAQs: Are old AD&D adventures still any use to current players? And what do you think of the new D&D 5ed?

Are old AD&D adventures still any use to current players? I have come across a lot of old AD&D adventures from back in the day and I was wondering if it would be any good to have them published in *name of magazine removed* for everyone to enjoy.They are mostly home written adventures from either friends or people I know. Not commercial adventures. Do people still use AD&D? And what do you think of the new D&D 5ed? Have you tried it yet? I’ve been running through the Playtest materials and I must say, huzzah! A return to the powerful spells of yore and diversity in the classes. I’m particularly excited about the Class, Race, Background, Theme, stuff. It seems like a pretty brilliant way to get a lot of diversity between characters without bogging it down in a thousand difficult to choose options that may not make sense to a first time player. Could this be the perfect blend of 3.5 and 4th? Do you think we’ll be able to use AD&D adventures with the new rules?

I use all 7 editions in my campaigns (1, 2, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5) usually all a once. I have about 400 of the books (official) all the cores, most of the splats, boxes and boxes and boxes of tiles and minis. I just let my players go though the books and build characters from any of them, so 4ed races + 2ed classes + 3.5ed spells are fine by me. We figured it out once and across all the editions if you combined every race/class option, there are more than 180,000 player character combinations! When it come to the adventures, we tend to do AD&D/2ed most, esp RavenLoft and SpellJammer.

Long story, short, yeah we still play by AD&D rules.

I know a lot of folks get all in a huff if you mix editions but, I’m old school, I was into D&D way back BEFORE AD&D was even invented! Back than you could grab any character out of any book, tv show, or movie and toss them in the game. Want to play Darth Vader? Sure go ahead. You want to be Godzilla? Fine, fine. What you want to be The General Lee? You’re going to be a race car? Not sure how you’ll pull it off, but why not! And you say you’re going to be Vincent Price as a vampire? Okay, so our adventuring party has a space villain, a dinosaur, a race car, and a vampire movie star, that sounds about right, well lets get started than…That’s the way we played D&D in the 70s! Metamorphosis Alpha style! You know. the FIRST edition of D&D BEFORE they called it D&D?  Back when the game was still being called Metamorphosis Alpha.

Now today you got players with their  “You want to play a 4ed Wilden as a 2ed Thief, in a 3.5 adventure? No! You can’t do that!” *sigh* The new players don’t know how to have fun. Give me old school players not afraid to play CareBears storming Castle GreySkull! LOL!

I still play by the old school rules, I just pull all the new edition races and classes into the choice pool.

 I’m getting ready to do the playtest with my group, but we are changing stuuf around and we haven’t even started yet. (We are of course keeping track of the changes to tell WotC what we did to it.)

My games are run from a “set homebase” called Laughing Gnome Hollow. No matter what game we are running, the members of the adventuring party originated from Laughing Gnome Hollow or a neighboring village (usually the nearby forest or mountain). That said, most of the players are by race Gnomes, unless they come from the mountains, than they are Dwarves, or the forest, than they are Elves. They can be any race they want to be, any race from any edition, even non D&D races from EverQuest, Pathfinder, or one of the many indie d20 books. As long as I have to book, or the player brings the book if I don’t have it (which is unlikely considering I have more than 400 books and a total of 180,000 race/class combo options – yes – we did do the math to see how many options we had). I even let them play evil alignments so long as they don’t kill/maime/hurt members of their party (the “evil” house rule is, you can be evil, but you know who your friends are and you got their back – even evil dudes have friends). So, Drow, Vampires, Lich, Illithid, Beholders, ect can even end up in the party from time to time. But for the most part my players tend to prefer to play Gnomes, Dwarves, and Elves (including Drow) which was the first problem we ran into with the playtest…

Anyways I had planned to run the playtest straight from the rules no changes. However, I tell my players, here’s the new game we’ll be starting next week, here’s the character info they gave us, go create yourselves some level 1 characters.

They set off, happily chattering about which class they are going to be. “I haven’t been a monk before, I’ll try that.” …. “Oh I like the new cleric options, I’ll be a light bearer.” …. “Hey, can I be chaotic evil this time?”… “You want to be Chaotic Evil? but I’m being Lawful Good!” etc, etc … everything is going good until they pull of the race list. “Let’s see, Humans, nay they’re boring, Elves,, Dwarves, Halflings … wait… no Gnomes? Hey, where are the Gnomes? I want to be a Gnome.”… “Yeah, we gotta be Gnomes.” ..”There’s no Gnomes? But I’m always a Gnome!” … etc, etc, etc

So, first change of the playtest rules was for me to bring in the house rule that players could pick any race they wanted, even from the old editions. Which I didn’t have to say actualy, I could have just said, “Okay, we’ll add Gnomes to the race list” and that would have been fine, because that was the only race they wanted to play.

So, my party of Gnomes, Dwarves, and one elf are ready to go…I’m still reading over the Caves of Chaos, but we’ll get started in a day or two.

But yeah, about your games there, a lot of folks are still using old D&D rules. Just be sure you use the OSRIC gaming license if you do publish them, because that’s the one you are required to use if you publish 1ed or 2ed adventures.

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

FAQs: Do you write a novel start-to-finish, or keep going back and editing previous chapters?

Do you write a novel start-to-finish, or keep going back and editing previous chapters? I’m interested to know how most people would write a novel. I’ve only ever written one, but I basically sat down and wrote it start to finish, and didn’t go back to re-read the start until I’d got all the way to the end. But then there are people who’ll write a bit, then go back and edit a previous chapter or even add a new one in near the start, and keep going back and forth and writing the novel in ‘pieces’.Which do you do, and why does it work for you?

I probably have the most hectic scatter brained method of writing possible, because I am absolutely all over the place when I write! LOL! I rarely have a plan, I never have an outline, I almost never know the what the ending is going to be until I get there, and I don’t write straight through. I’ll write a scene that may end up in the last chapter, than write a scene that may end up in the first chapter. That’s another thing, I never write a full chapter at once, I write in scenes here and there than string them together later. My finished work rarely has chapters. I just don’t use them, for whatever reason, no idea what the reason is.

I’ve been writing the same series since 1978, so I have about 75 characters fully fleshed out and any one of them could get grabbed and thrown in as the main character. The series covers the life of a single family starting in the 1300′s right up into current times, so I can use plots that will fit any of those time periods as well. Usually the stories are set in the family mansion/castle which is haunted and prone to being filled with demonic things like ghosts, vampires, etc, usually the stories are horror (often splatter punk slasher gorn), but than I’m a fool for romance and heck a few centuries of family means folks are falling in love at some point so I sometimes toss the horror theme out the window and let romance take over. But than there’s the whole, this family ain’t human, they are aliens who crashed landed on earth centuries ago, so once in a while I just leave earth altogether and set out in space, to tell the story of the “rest of the family” back on the home planet.

Needless to say with this setting, the large cast of characters, the odd mish-mash of genres overlapping, and my hit and miss style of getting it all down on paper, it is sometimes quite amazing that I am able to string enough scenes together to create a complete story!

Of course, I’m far from a “mainstream” author and my finished work is an “acquired taste” so I’m not shooting to become a best seller in trade paperbacks here, either. I’m a niche writer, with a few devoted fans who love my stuff, but critics and mainstream readers wring their hands and roll their eyes at “the utter trash and smut” I write. Ah, the joys of being a “smut writer”, every one loves to hate your work.

But yeah, so I get all these little quips and scenes written, than I have to piece them all together like a jigsaw puzzle and figure out what it was I intended to go where, or do I even know what is supposed to go where? Usually I don’t, actually. But once I get it all sorted out, than I have to edit the mess into a free flowing piece. That’s the part I hate. I so dislike editing my work. I have huge stacks of stuff I haven’t published yet, simply because I dislike editing so much that I toss it in a pile and run off the write the next story instead!

And than there’s the only thing: I’m generally a short story writer, not a novelist. When I do write novels, they aren’t actually novels, because either they end at a novella length of only 75,000 words (trad publishers consider a novel to be 90,000 – 120,000). If I was going by NaNoWriMo standards which say a novel is 50k I’d be all set, but publishers call 50k a novella. Oh well. Either that, or I end up with 200,000 words of slightly connected 10k each short stories instead of a single story novel! As a short story writer I am great! But I suck at make my novels actual be novels. So usually I just settle for “short story collections” masquerading as novels.

But I suppose when I stop and think about it, the reason my novels always turn into short story collection, is because of the scattered up way I write the things down. I bet if I sat down and wrote a novel from start to finish that I wouldn’t have that trouble.

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

Banning guns is not the answer…

You know, up here in Maine you never see mass shootings. why? Because EVERYBODY walks around carrying a rifle, a pistol, a big old double barrel shot gun, heck my Mormon high priest boyfriend won’t go out in public without a gun strapped under his coat. Even my motorhome has a sign on it that reads: “Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again” (yes, I do know how to blow your brains out if you come traipsing in my yard uninvited – us Maine folks, we don’t just put up signs, we will shoot you, of course you got to get past the steel jaw bear traps around the outer perimeter of my yard first). But that’s WHY you never see mass shootings up here – no one has a reason to show off with the whole “hey, look I got a gun” because EVERYBODY has a gun, so no one is going to be impressed, heck they’ll think you weird if you don’t have a gun, and if you do try to go on a shooting spree, you’ll get gunned down long before you have a chance to kill your first victim. Banning guns is not the answer. Hitler banned guns and than he took those guns gave them to soldiers and killed millions of people who could not defend themselves because the government that was killing them had taken their guns away.

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

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Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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FAQs: Should a writer ever give another a low-star review?

I placing your question on my religion blog, because my answer has a religion based theme:

Should a writer ever give another a low-star review? On my GoodReads profile, it states that I will not give a fellow writer a review unless I can honestly give at least four stars for the work. (Under the Amazon review system, a four star review means “I like the work.”) My mantra is to offer encouragement and support wherever I am able, especially to the self-published author. How do you feel? Have you given a fellow writer a low-star review, or are you like me and try to establish contact with the writer to offer friendly suggestions or advice?

I have wondered this same thing. I write reviews on Amazon and LibraryThing. I’m signed up with LibraryThing’s Early Reader Program so I get to read/review books several months before they are released. I started doing this in 2004 and in all that time I always felt bad if I felt I had to leave a low review, and thus left no review at all instead. Like others have said, just because I didn’t like it, does mean others won’t, and I wouldn’t want my bad review to be the one to stop a person from writing another book.

For the most part if I can’t give 4 or 5 stars I just don’t leave a review at all. However, there have been a couple of times where I have left lower reviews. I have given a couple (maybe 4 over the years?) 3 star reviews and one 2 star review, as in these particular situations, I felt this was a case of far more than just my personal opinion.

In the case of the 3 star reviews, they were all for non-fiction books, and the author had made some serious flaws (facts that were completely false) about people based on race. The statements were clear unresearched mythical stereotypes. In each case the author was a Christian and the subject matter was witches, pagans, or Wiccans (I tend to review a lot of religious type books). I myself am a Christian, but I have had many pagan friends over the years and I know that such things as calling Wiccans “Satan worshipers” or saying the “sacrifice babies and animals” is just a load of baloney! You only make statements like that when you want to spread hate. So in these cases, I left a 3 star review, stating that the writing was good, the topic was well done, but I could not fully enjoy the book because of these phrases which I felt took away from the value of the book…. than I quote the phrases in question.

I don’t just slap 3 stars than not explain why I did it. My reviews tend to be 750 to 1,500 words long, so the author has a very clear understanding of why I either liked or dislike their book. I am always annoyed when I see reviews that are one line and say something like “Great 4 star book!” or “1 star, I hate it!” I always want to know WHY was it great? WHY did you hate it? Tell me more. So I always make sure to leave a very detailed review telling why I gave it the rating I did.

I have only ever given one 2 star review. Hold on a sec, I keep copies of reviews I write, I’ll go get it and quote the part telling why I gave it 2 stars…..

Okay, got it. The book in question was for ministers looking to start a new church, and was a “how to guide” for “church planting”, it was SUPPOSEDLY written by a minister who had started more than 30 churches (or so it said on the cover blurb). At the time I read this book, I was newly ordained and looking to start a church, however, I was not new to the ministry and there were several points in the book which clearly proved this guy was not what he claimed to be, and every paragraph was filled with huge glaring errors (things a Christian minister would know – heck things anyone who ever read the Bible would know!) and large portions of the book were nothing more than him ranting about how much he hated Catholics, very little of the book actually devoted to helping new ministers star a church (which was the purpose of the book according to it’s cover blurb) and well, this is the only book I ever gave a 2 star review to and here’s the part of the review which tells you why I did:

“”… They say (there are two authors) they practice what they preach. Can I ask EXACTLY what is it they preach, because reading this book it is clear they have not actually READ the Bible. They quote “popular scriptures” (obviously copy/pasted straight off Google) that make them sound good, sure, but come on, the opening line of the book is this: “According to the Catholic Church teachings there are seven deadly sins. Regretfully we’re not Catholic, so we have no idea what those sins are.” Wait – this guy hasn’t read the Bible and he’s telling us how to start a Christian Church?!?!? … uhm… this guy is a supposed to be a Christian minister advising other Christian ministers on how to start a church, and yet he has not read the Book of Ecclesiastes, where one would find the Seven Deadly Sins clearly listed in the Bible. Seriously. All I can say is I am stunned by this guy’s opening line for the book. How can he call himself a minister if he hasn’t even read the Bible and is so stupid as to think the Seven Deadly Sins are something made up by the Catholic Church? I’m confused. What are his credentials again?

Grated I don’t know any Catholics and know absolutely nothing about their beliefs. Yet, he claims to know nothing of Catholics But blames them for creating the Seven Deadly Sins? In fact he’s blaming Catholics for everything, on every page. Boy does this guy hate Catholics. I know nothing about Catholics so I would never have thought to label them as the creators of the Seven Deadly Sins and I’m not sure why the author has done so. I get the impression that the author does in fact know something about Catholics, quite a bit in fact, otherwise why throw the blame on them for, well, everything? I can tell you that I have read the Bible cover to cover (like a novel) 31 times, in addition to 27 years of studying it on my own, in addition to 8 years of seminary, and I can tell you that the Seven deadly Sins come from the Bible, not from a church. I get the impression that the author knows very little of the Bible, otherwise why would he not know The Seven Deadly Sins come from the Bible and not a church ideology? How is he qualified to teach other ministers?

How am I supposed to take this guy seriously, when he comes right out in the first line of the book and says that he, a Christian minister, has no idea what something is, when that something is one of the standard basic things in the Bible that every minister should just know off the top of their head? And this leads me to ask, how good of a minister is he and how good of a church can he be running if he doesn’t even know what it says in the Bible? Which in turn leads me to question the validity of this book he has written, because if he doesn’t even know the Bible, than why does he think he can give advice to Christian ministers on how to run a church? Is he REALLY a minister who started a church or is he just some guy who wrote a book CLAIMING to have started a church?…”"

The review was much, much longer than that, and went into detail of many other huge errors this so-called minister had made. But yeah, I gave the book a 2 star review because it felt to me the book was false advertising. The cover blurb was a bunch of hype about what you’d find in the book, but what I found in the book was nothing but one guy’s vendetta against another religion, littered with all sorts of assumptions on how that religion was leading people astray by coming up with “unBiblical ideologies”. Now I’m not sure what the heck this guy was calling unBiblical or rather what the heck Bible he was reading, because everything he was bashing was in fact from the Bible. But all that was beside the point, because this book was supposed to be “how to fund a new church” and “how to get new members to join your congregation” and “everything you need to know about the local laws before you start construction of your new church building”…these quotes pulled off the cover of the book. So I read the book and well, think, did he put the wrong cover on the wrong book? Did he write two books, one about hating Catholics and one about starting churches and accidently switch cover files?

The book had a lot of hype to draw you in, but turned out to be nothing but a soapbox against a religion he didn’t like, and thus I classified this book as “false advertising” and “sneaky tactics to push an agenda” and suggested he retitle it and put a new cover on it, and that was how I came to give it the only book I ever gave, a 2 star review.

But it takes a book to really go to an extreme, like this one did, before I’ll consider giving a low review.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

–

Something that people often say to me is: “You don’t look retarded, you look normal, you seem to be getting by okay, why is it that you need adult supervision?”
–
One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.
–
When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .
–
I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. 
–
The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”
–
It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.
–
I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.
–
It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. 
–
Autism is noted for being an illness so painful that the brain shuts down and stops registering the pain. This is why Autistics have their strange little jerks, twitches, and jumpy movements – these are times when pain is registered in our brain. The extreme constant pain is caused by over stimulation of things we are allergic to: lights, sounds, touch, most all foods, most all fabrics, tags in clothes, etc, etc, etc. There are so many things irritating our bodies all at once, that the brain doesn’t know which pain to go after first, so it just shuts down and tells us to sit on the floor and hum a song until the pain goes away.
–
Unfortunately another symptom of Autism is being very clumsy, having a lack of proper balance, and thus fallen down frequently, having extreme difficulty maneuvering on stairs and uneven terrain (all this being a result of the fact that our brain is so out of whack because there is so much pain going on, that it can not focus on walking steady) which means I’m more prone to fall and become injured than the average person, but being so used to pain that my brain ignore extra pain also means that even though I am getting hurt more than normal, I’m also getting treatment for said injuries less than normal because I don’t realize I’ve injured myself (not even when gushing blood, as was the case when the rooster ripped my lip off), unless another person is there to point out said injury, or in such instances as the day I tried to walk away and discovered I could not move because may hand had been shut in the door, which was locked and I had to wait for someone with a key to come along and open the door, by which time my fingers had turned black from lack of circulation – pain ignored – I only noticed my hand was shut in a locked door because I was unable to walk away from the door. This is why I need adult supervision.)
–
This is the reality of life with Autism.

–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, LinkedIn, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relinquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

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Oh, btw, while you are sending me your question, can I offer a bit of guidance here? LESS Wiccan related questions PLEASE! I am not Wiccan, know nothing of Wicca, and just because a bunch of local Mormons run around saying I am a Witch, and building those nasty slanderous websites full of false accusations about me, don’t make me one! *sheesh* I am so sick of “but they said…” yeah, I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t make it true. Sending me Wiccan/Witchcraft related questions is only going to piss me off.

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You can be Wiccan all you want, I don’t care. But coming to me and asking me for advice on Wicca and Witchcraft is the equivalent of going to a cake chef and asking him for advice on brick laying! You wouldn’t go to chef to get masonry advice so what the heck are you going to a Christian to get Wiccan advice? Come on people, be reasonable!

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You got Bible questions, thems I can answer. You got Hoodoo questions, yep, I can answer those too. But Wicca? Paganism? Witchcraft? Remember Voodoo is NOT Vodou. Voodoo and Vodou are two separate and different religions. Voodoo is a Christian religion not a Pagan one, we use a Bible, and God, and Jesus, and Saints, and Spirit Guides (lwa). just because I’m Voodoo don’t mean I know shit about Wicca or Paganism  Now I understand you have questions and finding folks like myself who are willing to attempt to answer everything that comes my way are few and far between, but please attempt to use your brain and consider whether or not I am even able to offer advice or even know the answer to your questions before you send them to me? Okay? Good. Thank you.

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Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day!                             

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                                                                   ~ EelKat

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FAQs: How valuable is a writer’s group if all the writers are unpublished other than self-publishing or unpaid outlets?

“How valuable is a writer’s group if all the writers are unpublished other than self-publishing or unpaid outlets? Writing stories that other unpublished authors enjoy is a fine thing, but is not evidence that the stories themselves are fine things. One of the biggest problems I face is the published authors (as in published by a legit, traditional publisher) are  few and far between. There are lots of successful (defined as selling enough copies to make a few thousand dollars) self-published authors out there. My goal is not to impress other unpublished authors, but to impress somebody in a position to sign a contract or write a check. If that role is not represented in the discussion, then what is the real bankable value of my participation?”

First off, can I point out that Joe Koranth, John Knox, and Amanda Hawking are all self-published authors, each of whom are bringing in MONTHLY incomes of $35,000, which means they are earning more per month than the average traditional published author makes per year. Don’t know who they are? Google them.

And before you say they are flukes, consider that there is a huge difference between a hobbyist who self publishes 1 or 2 books in their entire life time while sitting on their tuffet waiting for sales, and a self published author who does this as a full time career, published 3 or 4 novels a year 5 or 10 short stories a month, and has a full team of cover artists, editors, and marketers helping them.

When you say the average self publisher is only making a few thousand dollars per year, I laugh. That’s not a self publisher. That’s a person with no clue how to run a business, who thinks slapping a single ebook up is going to make them a writer. News flash: writers write. Strange but true. Writers write a lot. Career writers who write for a living write several novels a year and several short stories a week and several non-fiction articles a month. Writers DO NOT spend 3 years working on a single novel. Hobbyists with an outside career do that.

Yes, the average hobbyist makes only a few thousand dollars a year, if they make that much at all. However, the average traditional published writer earns $24,000 a year, and the average self publisher earns $56,000 a year. Average high end traditional publisher earn $120,000 a year, while average high end self publishers earn $400,000 a year.

Also remember there are those little self published books out there, you may have heard of them: Eragon by Christopher Paolini. Or maybe you saw the movie? Perhaps you bought your kids the toys? It was not only self published, it was self published by a 14 year old kid.

Never heard of it, well let’s think, bigger, more famous. How about Gary Gygax and his little self published set of books titled: Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook, The Dungeon Master’s Guide, and The Monster Manuel. Still self published to this day.

Or maybe Tracy Hickman’s self published book titled Ravenloft.

Don’t suppose you ever heard of Resident Evil, right?

Still need a bigger one? Here’s one to knock your socks off, how about a little self published booklet with a set of cards that was titled Magic The Gathering. And in spite of being a multi BILLION dollar business today is STILL self published by a tiny little indie press known as Wizards of the Coast.

You might want to rethink self publishing. Seriously. When you start researching self publishing, you’ll find out fast that the biggest players in the industry are NOT the traditional publishers, but the self publishers. And please, don’t confuse the full-time writers with people who write in between a full time job. They are apples and oranges. Full time self publishers don’t have time for a job other than writing.

But getting past that and on to your main question: Is there value in a group with unpublished writers? Yes, of course there is. We as humans learn best from other people’s mistakes, and who makes more mistakes in writing, than some one just starting out? New writer’s excel at helping other new writers to learn what not to do. Because new writers are so eager to learn new things, they are also very eager to warn others “don’t do this, I tried that and it doesn’t work”

But yeah, I can see your point. Self publishers who hang out on groups ted to be the hobbyists, not the career writers. As for the traditional writers, it’s usually in their contract that they can’t hang out on forums like this for fear they’ll embarrass the company. Thus yes, finding a place to rub elbows with the big boys is not an easy thing to do, and you will find yourself having to settle for every one else. But really, that’s not a bad thing, when you consider that the big boys started out small same as the rest of us.

As for impressing the guy with the check, it’s my experience (as both a writer and a publisher) that publishers do not hang out on the same forums as writers, and when they do, it’s not because they are looking for “new talent”.

I know it’s commonly said that getting your work out there is going to attract the attention of publishers, but this is simply untrue.  I have been working in publishing since 1978. I can tell you right now that there is NO SUCH THING as a publisher who is searching websites looking for talent. Publishers receive hundreds of submissions a week, thousands more per year than they can ever get around to reading, let alone publishing. No publisher has either the time or even a reason to be “seeking new talent” on the web. So hoping to find “the guy with the check” in any online group is somewhat of a silly ideal.

Okay, so why join any group at all? Well, every group is going to be different, so really it depends on the group itself now doesn’t it? Me personally, I hang out on a lot of writer groups. The two you find me spending the most time on are NaNoWriMo and eHarlequin (as in the publisher of Harlequin Romance novels). Why? Because for me, these are the two I find most useful to me personally.

NaNoWriMo is a mixed bag. The forum is huge, one of the largest forums in the world (writer themed or otherwise) You get everything from grade schoolers to high schoolers brand new to the idea of writing to folks trying to get their first novel out to self published authors to trad published authors and even a few really big name authors, all cruising the forums together. This is also the ONLY forum I have ever found which has publishers and editors to be buzzing about as well. Every one is really nice and every one has advice for every one else no matter what the topic is. Over the years I have learned more about the art and career of writing from NaNoWriMo forums than from any place else.

eHarlequin is a different place entirely. The forums are small with only a few hundred people, mostly women in the 30s or 40s, all of them with a single goal in mind: to publish a romance novel with Harlequin. The forums are heavily modded, get this: by the publishers and in-house editors of Harlequin. Authors wanting to submit their work for review, submit samples right on the forum, and the heads of staff come on and give them public critics and reviews. The authors benefit from getting to know the publishers and editors on a first name basis and know what exactly they are looking to publish. I will point out here that Harlequin created this forum for the specific purpose of making their job of sifting through submissions easier.

Another place you find me is over at Wizards of the Coast’s forum. I am there because I am a Dungeon Master, and I am a player in 3 different Dungeons and Dragons groups, and I also write RPG game modules. I get info on what other DMs are looking for, what other players are looking for, AND as WotC is a tiny little indie press publishing house, I also get the chat one on one with the owners, publishers, and editors, as well as other RPG writers.

Now, based on your question, I think a group like eHarlequin or WotC is what you are looking for. I don’t know if other big name trad publishers have forums like this or not, but I would assume that if one does, than several of the others must as well. So my advice to you would be to figure out which publisher you want to publish your book, and find out if they have a forum on their website and if they do, join it and chat there daily, so that you have a better chance of getting in good with the person who signs the checks (that’s what Harlequin romance authors do). But other than publisher owned forums, you aren’t going to find check writers hanging out in very many online groups.

If you REALLY want to get in with the really big, big, big BIG name authors and publishers, than you want to join the professional associations. Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Western Writers of America, Writers Guild of America, Horror Writers Association, Dog Writers Association, Maine Writers and Publishers Allegiance, etc, etc, etc.

I am a member of the Romance Writers and also the Horror Writer’s one. There are several, every genre has one. Most every state has one. I know there is one for Children’s Writers, forget the name, but a quick Google search should lead you in the right direction. Those groups are where you are going to find the “more professional” authors. Just be warned, these groups tend to be more snooty that others, they are not free to join (some are quite expensive – as in several hundred dollars a year), most require that you ALREADY have published 2, 3, or 4 traditionally published novels BEFORE they will consider you for membership (and will often require you mail copies of your books with the membership check). The ones that do allow unpublished writers, tend to be far from friendly towards “newbies” and often members won’t take you seriously until you have been multi published. These are good places to meet agents and in-house editors of big publishing houses, but you may find the super snobby elitist attitude of members to be a bit out of your tastes.

EDITED TO ADD:

Moments after publishing this blog post I received the following message to which I have the following reply:

Jody Lebel • @ EelKat You are one angry person. Ed was talking about the value of joining live groups in his immediate area and the value for time expended, not to mention gas, for spending his limited time with self or non pub groups vs. pubbed groups. That’s all. Nobody is knocking self pubs. We all are in the same boat and start out the same way.

@ Jody Lebel

??? Angry?

There is no anger in my comment at all. I’m confused. Where did you see anger?

I must point out to you that I have Autism and my ability to either feel or show emotion is limited at best. There is zero emotion at all in what I said here and if you see angry, I can only assume that you are reading more into what I have said, than what it is I actually said thus meaning that it is you who are feeling anger, otherwise why would you find anger in my words? Perhaps it is my lack of emotion at all which you have mis interpreted as anger? I do realize that non Autistic folks find it very difficult to comprehend the emotionless logic minds of us Autistic folks and often mistake lack of emotion as anger, however this response from non Autistic folks always baffles me, as I do not fully understand the concept of anger to begin with. Perhaps it would help if you explained to me what it is you define anger as to help me than better understand what this thing you call anger is to begin with?

I never said he was knocking self publishing. He does however suggest that self publishers are below his stature, because he states that he views it as a waste of his time to join a group where the members are mostly self publishers, thus why I pointed out the error of his assumption that self publishers are worthless no bodies not worthy of his wasting time talking to on groups. I simply stated logic, facts, and hard evidence, all devoid of any emotion at all. Are you suggesting that correcting an erroneous falsehood by stating the truth is therefor an act of anger? I find the logic of your comment to me dreadfully confusing because you seem to be typing out of anger yourself, and are trying to say that I am angry because you yourself are feeling anger towards me. could you please explain the logic you have used to conclude that I am in any way angry?

As for live groups, again you jump to conclusions, for he does not say this. If your assumption is true and he is in fact speaking of live groups, though this is not what he asked me, and I did simply answer the question as it was asked to me, I have Autism after all and reading hidden meanings into people’s words is not a talent I possess, perhaps I should than add to my comment that if he is in the local area, I head the Maine Charter of the groups I mentioned and he is more than welcomes to rub elbows with us “more professional” published authors.

Do keep in mind Jody that how you present yourself online is a reflection of your work.

Every text you send is a representation of your work, every misspelled word, every text-speech word, every verbal attack on a fellow writer tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing.

Every email you send is a representation of your work, every misspelled word, every text-speech word, every verbal attack on a fellow writer tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing.

Every private message you send is a representation of your work, every misspelled word, every text-speech word, every verbal attack on a fellow writer tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing.

Every comment you post online, on blogs or forums, is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing.

 Every forum thread you start is a representation of your work, every misspelled word, every text-speech word, every verbal attack on a fellow writer tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing.

Next time you feel like attacking a fellow writer, an editor, or a publisher (of which I am all of the above) it might be in your best interests to find out who it is you are talking to first, and how detrimental that attack could be on your personal career. As I said, publishers don’t visit forms looking for talent, but we do visit forums and will avoid publishing future manuscripts.

Remember who I am, what I write, and what I do to people who attack me online, Jody Lebel. By attacking me, you give your writing career a bad name, not only that but you give your publisher a bad name. Your publisher is not going to want to publish future books with a creep like you who trolls online and gives their company a bad name.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

FAQs: What do you write about?

What do you write about?

I’m all over the place:

Types: Fiction, non-fiction, short stories, articles, novellas, RPG modules, comic books, plays, ballets

Non-Fic Topics: self-help, Autism awareness, homelessness, RV/motorhome fulltime living, animal rights, feral cat rescue, Proctor & Gamble Boycott (of which I’m the founder), folk lore, ufology, alien abductions

Fiction Topics: horror, sci-fi, romance, splatter punk, gorn, fantasy, high fantasy, gothic romance, paranormal

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

ANSWER To The Single MOST Frequently Asked Question I Receive:

ANSWER To The Single MOST Frequently Asked Question I Receive:

Q: “Can one be a writer without college courses in creative writing?”

If you look at my profile here, you’ll notice a couple of things:

1) I have no education prior to starting college 1 year ago.

2) I wrote my first book in 1978

3) I started an indie publishing house in 1983

4) I have Autism; talking not on the menu; you want to have a conversation with me, you have to read it not listen to my voice; as a result I write on average 10,000 words a day

5) In my 40 years as a writer I have published: 30+ books, 200+ short stories, 2,000+ non-fiction articles, several RPG game modules, and a few dozen plays.

6) Though I was born and raised in the USA, I come from a culture where education and public schools are thought of as “evil” and thus when I say I have no education, I don’t mean, as most people do “I didn’t go to college”, I mean EXACTLY what I said: I have NO education, as in, no high school, no grade school, no education. Period.

Now, what was your question again? Can one be a writer without college courses in creative writing? Honey, one can be a writer without ANY education period, college, creative writing or otherwise. If you have something to say, you don’t need anyone to tell you when or how to say it, because you’ll just say what has to be said. If it’s in your head wanting to be put on paper, than get it out of your head and put it on paper! You don’t need classes to show you how to do this, just do it.

——–

EDITED TO ADD:

Shortly after posting this I was messaged with a question referencing it to ask:

“Evil because of satan, or evil because of it’s being largely a waste of time for any kid who could and would self-educate with a library card and a couple of math workbooks?”

there were different views from different family members (300+ members in the family unit), some had this theory that the government was a conspiracy of sorts and that schools were out to brainwash kids into being soldiers and ceos, others were really religious and had this whole “the schools are run by satan” theory. For most though it was a “cultural tradition” thing, where our people (Scottish Traveller/Gypsies) “never had no white folk education and are getting by fine”. Most of my people, however, can not read and write and many, like myself, can not do math (a skill I have since learned this past year in college).

I never thought about education much, it didn’t really matter to me one way or the other, until Hurricane Katrina hit and wiped out our farm, took out the barns and houses, destroyed the land so no crops would grow, left death and destruction at all sides, and suddenly, my writing income which had been fine before, was not enough to pay for repairs, medical bills (which were in excess of $3million), let alone support 300 people! We were homesteaders, living off the land in a rather isolated swampy coastal forest in Maine, but our family had lived here for generations, great-grand parents had built the buildings, and without the buildings we really had no way to survive Maine’s harsh weather, and without a large income there was no way to rebuild and support 300 people.

At this point I still wasn’t thinking about education, but I was about to, because it became very clear to me that if we were going to survive, quite a few of us were going to have to head into “the outside world” and get jobs. A few found work and but were outed by the family and went out on their own. Most of the ones who looked for work hard the same trouble I did and 6 years later are still without work. Most of the family packed up and left the state, moving on with the belief it is easier to homestead “out west” (most of them headed to Utah).

I started looking for jobs and was met again and again with the same words: “You seem like a hard worker and I’d like to hire you, I really would, but you have no education, it’s bad enough you didn’t go to college, but you didn’t even go to grade school, no one is going to hire you, you at least have to get a GED, and besides a woman your age should be thinking about retiring not looking for her first job, and I’m sorry but the way you dress, you look like you are going to a costume party, and than there’s the Autism, I mean, it would be nice if you could talk.” 6 years and 400 job applications later I started college, because I have learned one thing: it doesn’t matter what skills you have, what you can do, all that matters is if you have a piece of paper saying you have an education.

My writing is enough income to support me. I live in a motorhome, I have no electricity, no utility bills, I don’t need much of an income. I never strived for much of an income – I never needed one before the hurricane. But it is not enough income for me to support a very large family, who for the most part is absolutely refusing to try to support themselves. Most of my books are out of print so only a few of the recent ones are bringing in an income right now, I’m currently working to get the old stuff back in print. Thus why I started going to college.

Starting college had results I did not expect. I started college to be able to get a job to have a better income to support this family, who I now see as very self-righteous and arrogant, a fact I learned as soon as I started college. They immediately declared me disowned and no longer a part of the family! Declaring that I was siding with “the enemy” because I got a GED and enrolled in college. *sigh* They now shun me and act as though I am dead, funeral and all. Oh well, to each his own. As I said, though, they are gone now, left the state, and it is just me and 5 others still here in Maine now. They too are seeking an education now.

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

FAQs: New to writing, seeking for some serious guidance and help…

hi, i am new to the writng, seeking for some serious guidance and help, i am writing my first piece please guide me,abt how to proceedand what should i do to get my piece perfect and published only thing i know is Self-Publishing is expensive and a way to get publishers attention is to get a literary agent. The best thing i think to do is get you work known. Enter competitons and get your work out there, some websites i know are; 

http://www.worthyofpublishing.com – as far as i know publishers really look at the top rated pieces of work 
http://www.fanfiction.net – after all, fifty shades of grey was orginally a fanfiction 
http://www.nanowrimo.org – a national novel writing month where you write 50,000 words in the month of november, if you reach it you get a free copy of the work you wrote and you get some great advice throughout 
http://www.youwriteon.com – publishers review the top ten authors every month 
Abt how to proceed, I honestly haven’t been writing very long, maybe five or six years. I’m not sure what to do, but i began writing a story, got bored halfway through or thought of a better idea and forgot about the orginal one. It took a while for me to find idea that i loved.

I AM a publisher. I own a small press indie house. I have been working in publishing since 1978. I can tell you right now that there is NO SUCH THING as a publisher who is searching free hosted websites looking for talent. Publishers receive hundreds of submissions a week, thousand more per year than they can ever get around to reading, let alone publishing. No publisher has either the time or even a reason to be “seeking new talent” on the web. Sorry, I don’t know where you are getting your info, but please go back to your sources and inform them that they are wrong, wrong, WRONG! And ask them to stop misinforming new writers with that load of crap. Okay?

No, self publishing is NOT expensive. Please do not confuse vanity press publishing with self publishing. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING!

I have been self publishing since 1978. In the old days, it was expensive, yes, because you took your manuscript to a local print shop and they printed up 100 copies than took them to your local bookstore. You can still do it that way, but most don’t any more.

Since the late 1990s self publishers have been using POD publishing, which is 100% FREE. The 3 biggest places are Lulu.com, CreateSpace.com, and RPGnow.com.

Since about 2007 self publishers have been using eBooks, Amazon Kindle of course holding 90% of the sales and is also 100% FREE, and pays the LARGEST royalties in the entire publishing industry STARTING at a mega whopping 36% (traditional publishers pay 2% – 4% at the most)

When you start talking about paying money to get published, you are talking about vanity publishing (places like Tate and IUniverse) which is little more than a legalized scam. AVOID THESE PLACES! NEVER pay money to get your book published .. EVER!!!!

Also, be leery of fanfic.net and it’s sister sites, members there are constantly getting sued by published authors for copyright infringement.

NaNoWriMo on the other hand, yes this is one of, if not the, best places to get help with writing. There are more than 200,000 active members on the site, all of them writers, many of them published, a few are very big name famous. Everyone there is more than willing to help new writers get started. I’m one of the mods over there, and part of your advice is not correct though – that free book offer was only offered one year, and it was not offered by NaNoWriMo, but by CreateSpace.

Another good place to seek help is SeventhSanctum.com. They can help you with plots and character creation.

What should you do about getting ideas? If you have trouble with ideas you need to ask yourself why in the heck are you trying to write? A writer without ideas is as much good as a pen without ink. why are you trying to be a writer? What do you think it is that a writer is? A writer, writes because they have something to say. They know what they want to say and they say it. Writers don’t sit around hunting for ideas, they don’t have to, because they already have them. Please, I think you should rethink your options, because it sounds to me like you are a person in love with the IDEA of being a writer, you don’t sound very much like a person who actually is a writer.

Can I point out something else? You say you think you need to get your work know, right? well, this is true, yes, but think about this too:

Every text you send is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing shit.

Every email you send is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing shit.

Every private message you send is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing shit.

Every comment you post online, on blogs or forums, is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing shit.

 Every forum thread you start is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing shit.

Every blog post you PUBLISH (yes posting a blog is called publishing it) is a representation of your work, every misspelled word and text-speech word tells the world you are an immature incompetent writer not worthy of publishing shit.

Please take a moment to go back over the email you sent me and review what you said, how you said it, your spelling errors, your serious lack of grammar skills, your not taking the time to be a professional, when contacting another professional (me) for advice, than ask yourself, what about your email is there to inspire me to think you are anything close to being ready to try to publish something? Is you email really worded to the best of your ability? Did you even think to check your spelling or grammar before clicking send? Were you so giddy and piss pants over emailing me that you didn’t think it was important enough to send me your best work?

You want to be known and have your work out there, okay, but are you taking your own advice on the matter? Can you see how your email and it’s overt lack of professionalism tells me that you are NOT taking your own advice? Think about these things next time you send some one an email, and please if you want to be taken seriously NEVER send a publisher, agent, or editor an email that’s as shoddy as the one you sent me! You won’t even get a response, because they only want to deal with professionals and won’t waste their time on you.

Think about it: Your email lacks proper phraseology, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, sentences, and flow. It looks like you vomited random pieces of words on the page. Now ask yourself this: If you were a publisher receiving this email, would you even bother the finish reading it, let alone give it the time of day?

Harsh? Yes, I am being harsh here. Why? Because somebody has to wake you up and get you off your lazy ass, before you turn into the next bitter, wining, boo-hooing “why won’t any one publish my work” piece of shit writer in the long list of bitter, wining, boo-hooing “why won’t any one publish my work” piece of shit writers. They sit around being bitter, wining, boo-hooing “why won’t any one publish my work” piece of shit writers because no one ever took the time to tell them: hey, you can’t spell worth shit, you can’t write grammar worth shit, your writing is immature and unprofessional, you better clean up your act and start writing like a writer before you get tossed out in the gutter.

So, yeah, you ask for my advice, well I’m giving it to you honey. First thing you need to do is forget about writing a story and get your ass into some basic English Composition and Grammar classes, because until you learn how to edit your work before sending it out, you got better luck being a snow cone in hell than being a published writer. If the email you sent me is an example of your writing skills, than honey you are several years from ever seeing a book published IF you ever get one published at all. I mean, I’m sorry I have to be so harsh with you on this, but the quicker you realize this and get your act together the quicker you’ll see your work published.

Problems with your story? Don’t think about it as you write. Don’t pre-plan it. Just sit your ass down in the chair and start writing. Writing after all, IS what writers do you know. Just write what “feels right” for your story. Let the story flow. Don’t worry about spelling and grammar, you can fix that later. Your first job is to get your story written down. Try to write every day or so, even just 3 days a week is good.

Set aside small spaces of time, so you don’t suffer burn out. Say, write for 20 minutes first thing in the morning, than 30 minutes around noon time, than for an hour before bed. You’ll get more writing done this way than writing for 2 hours straight.

When you have it all written down, think of it, not as finished, but as a first draft. After you write your story, put it aside for a month. Don’t look at it. Don’t think about it. start writing your next story.

After a month or more goes by, however long it takes you to write the second story, pull out your first draft again, and start editing it. Edit for spelling first. Use the spell checker on your computer. After that, print it up on your printer. Don’t read it. Now edit for spelling by hand. Just scan the words looking for errors. Fix them as you find them. Go back to your computer and correct the errors you found. Put it (and the second story) aside for another month. Start writing a third story.

After you have finished writing the third story (a month or so after editing the first story.) Take out both the first and second stories. edit the spelling again on the first one and start editing the second one. Don’t read the second one, put it away after editing the spelling. Now read the first one. Notice any grammar errors and fix them.

If you are traditional publishing, this is the version of the draft you will send out to publishers and/or agents. It’ll be another 6 to 18 months before your book will be published if it is published at all. So time to start writing story number 4 and keep on working on 2 and 3, being sure to send those out when those are ready (and start writing 5, 6, and 7, etc)

If you are self publishing, send it out to an editor for editing. Than spend a month formatting it to your POD or eBook press’s format, than upload, start selling it, and start writing story number 4 and keep editing 2 and 3 and so on.

(Self pubbing gets books out faster, but trad pubbing has more sales. Either or the other could end up paying more. You have to research all the angles and decide for yourself which road is best for you and your book.)

Using this method you will have a new story ready to publish once every 4 months, meaning you will be publishing 3 stories a year.

Note, this is the method of writing that is used by Harlequin Romance writers, thus how each author publishes 4 novels a year. If you can’t write at this pace, don’t attempt to get published by Harlequin, because they’ll expect 4 novels (90,000 words each) from you each year.

Also note I’m working on the assumption that you are writing a novel of about 100,000 words in 30 days or less, which is what I do, but I’ve been doing this for 40 years so and I write 300,000 words every 30 days. I do this with a week turn over, not a month turn over. I type faster than a new writer does, so I changed the week to month for you. However long it takes you to write each story, that’s how long you set them aside for. If it takes you 6 months to write a story, you put it aside for 6 months while writing you second story. Than edit the first story. Than put them both aside for another 6 months while writing a third story. So if it takes you 6 months to write each first draft, it’ll you’ll be publishing a book once every other year.

This method works for novels and short stories, and also for non-fiction, but not as well for non-fiction as for fiction. If you write short stories and upload them as ebooks, using this method could get you having as many as 52 ebooks published each year, figuring that you can write a new short story (7,000 words or so) every week.

Anyways this is how I do my own writing, and it works for me. It may or may not work for you, I don’t know.

Since you mentioned self publishing being expensive, it means you have considered doing it and confused vanity press for self publishing, let me get back to that. Now I said earlier vanity press is almost a scam.  I don’t see it as a scam, so much as being scam-like in their methods. By that I mean, most of the vanity press companies are not honest up front with the authors. They often put on a big show of “Publish with us and become famous!”

Vanity press is fine for those who understand how it works and can see past the hype, but the unfortunate truth is that most authors come into it, thinking they are dealing with a publisher and have no idea they are actually dealing with nothing more than a small time copy shop with a big website. You could easily walk down the street to your local copy shop and order your book printed there, because it’s exactly the same thing.

Vanity press is you paying money for a print shop to print up your book. Nothing more. Nothing less. Authors have been doing it this way since the 1600′s. Shakespeare did it. Ben Franklin did it. Mark Twain did it. Hundreds of authors have used it and been successful. Many still do. But the one’s that use it successfully, also know ahead of time that THEY are responsible for advertising, marketing, buying an ISBN, making their own press kit, sending out review copies, contacting mom&pop bookstores, sending out waiting room copies, sending copies to libraries, contacting interviewers on their own, etc, etc, etc.

Why I feel it is often scam-like, is when you deal with shady companies like Tate or IUniverse, who tells you this story of “signing a contract” with them, and how if you pay extra they’ll “market your book”. New authors read the hype and think they are actually getting something special, when in fact, all they are getting is an ISBN (which they could have bought on their own for $33 directly from the gov) and a listing on Amazon (which they could have done on their own for FREE). That’s it. That’s all they get for their extra $300. New authors get the letter from Tate and than the phone calls, and the emails, and more letters, and more phone calls, and think “I must be a really good writer, look how desperate they are to publish my book!” Fact is, Tate is desperate for the book, because it’s their source of income, and an author with more experience would know that no legitimate publisher is going to hound you night and day begging you to publish with them.

Why I feel it is scam-like, comes into play when the author dishes out $1,000 to $30,000 or more thinking they’ll get a good income from the investment. Than they are stunned when truck load after truck load of books show up on their door step. Suddenly they realize what vanity press actually is. Suddenly it hits them, they have to spend another $200 a month for many, many years, for a storage unit to keep all these thousands of books in. Suddenly they realize, there is no marketer advertising their book, no sales rep taking the book out to shops, no distributor sending their books to Amazon’s warehouse, zip, nadda, nothing. Than it hits them, all the many more thousands of dollars they have to pay to do those things themselves.

How do I know this? Two ways.

#1) I did a lot of research before I started self-publishing, and I knew what I was getting into when I started out. So from 1978 – 1997 I used vanity press, because I only needed a hundred or so copies of each of my books. I wasn’t looking to mass market. I knew there wasn’t a large following for my genre. For me, at that time in my career, vanity press worked fine. Today I prefer POD and eBook publishing. My fan following has grown from a few dozen to 7,000 so it’s no longer feasible for me to be printing up hard copies via vanity press. It was a good thing for me, but now I have outgrown it and the disadvantages now outweigh the advantages for me, but for many years it was a good thing.

#2) I have an uncle who wrote 5 books, and used vanity press for each one. He printed up 2,000 copies of each book. He had no idea how much space 10,000 books take up. He took out a $200,000 loan to cover the cost of printing and storage. He lost his house and now lives in a much smaller place, made even smaller by being stacked floor to ceiling, room to room with 9,000+ unsold books. He spent so much on cost of printing and storage that he can not afford advertising or marketing. He has weird phobias of book stores and Amazon and believes the only way to sell his book is on a free hosted website that is difficult to find at best, and only has a cryptic message telling people to contact him for info on his book and how to buy it. He did all this near on 20 years ago and has sold fewer than 1000 copies in that time. He is a perfect example of what is wrong with vanity press. He believed the hype and did not do his research, he dished out too much money and get deep in debt, and he is far from being alone in this.

In conclusion, I think vanity press is good if you know what you are getting into, and do your planning and researching, but I also think it is more often than not, a very bad thing, because few who do it, know what they are actually getting into, and it’s too easy for people to get themselves in a lot of financial trouble with it.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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FQAs: Is vanity/subsidy publishing really a scam or just another publishing method?

is vanity/subsidy publishing really a scam or just another publishing method???

There is so much misconception about vanity/subsidy publishing. Many people think it is all a scam, but it isn’t really. I don’t see any harm in fee charging companies. they are a business and part of the publishing world as much as any other publishing method is. Sure there are many scam artists who pose as vanity/subsidy publishers, but in reality, there are also many scam artists who pose as editors, self publishers and main stream publishers.

Why is there so much negativity about vanity publishing? I think that perhaps people are mislead about the publishing industry. I would not choose to use a vanity press because I can see not added bonuses that i don’t get with self publishing.

I would like to know your thoughts on the subject so that I can be educated as to the truth about vanity/subsidy or fee charging publishing. I do not know a lot and am looking forward to knowing a lot more about the publishing industry, in particular the vanity side.

 I don’t see it as a scam, so much as being scam-like in their methods. By that I mean, most of the vanity press companies are not honest up front with the authors. They often put on a big show of “Publish with us and become famous!”

Vanity press is fine for those who understand how it works and can see past the hype, but the unfortunate truth is that most authors come into it, thinking they are dealing with a publisher and have no idea they are actually dealing with nothing more than a small time copy shop with a big website. You could easily walk down the street to your local copy shop and order your book printed there, because it’s exactly the same thing.

Vanity press is you paying money for a print shop to print up your book. Nothing more. Nothing less. Authors have been doing it this way since the 1600′s. Shakespeare did it. Ben Franklin did it. Mark Twain did it. Hundreds of authors have used it and been successful. Many still do. But the one’s that use it successfully, also know ahead of time that THEY are responsible for advertising, marketing, buying an ISBN, making their own press kit, sending out review copies, contacting mom&pop bookstores, sending out waiting room copies, sending copies to libraries, contacting interviewers on their own, etc, etc, etc.

Why I feel it is often scam-like, is when you deal with shady companies like Tate or IUniverse, who tells you this story of “signing a contract” with them, and how if you pay extra they’ll “market your book”. New authors read the hype and think they are actually getting something special, when in fact, all they are getting is an ISBN (which they could have bought on their own for $33 directly from the gov) and a listing on Amazon (which they could have done on their own for FREE). That’s it. That’s all they get for their extra $300. New authors get the letter from Tate and than the phone calls, and the emails, and more letters, and more phone calls, and think “I must be a really good writer, look how desperate they are to publish my book!” Fact is, Tate is desperate for the book, because it’s their source of income, and an author with more experience would know that no legitimate publisher is going to hound you night and day begging you to publish with them.

Why I feel it is scam-like, comes into play when the author dishes out $1,000 to $30,000 thinking they’ll get a good income from the investment. Than they are stunned when truck load after truck load of books show up on their door step. Suddenly they realize what vanity press actually is. Suddenly it hits them, they have to spend another $200 a month for many, many years, for a storage unit to keep all these thousands of books in. Suddenly they realize, there is no marketer advertising their book, no sales rep taking the book out to shops, no distributor sending their books to Amazon’s warehouse, zip, nadda, nothing. Than it hits them, all the many more thousands of dollars they have to pay to do those things themselves.

How do I know this? Two ways.

#1) I did a lot of research before I started self-publishing, and I knew what I was getting into when I started out. So from 1978 – 1997 I used vanity press, because I only needed a hundred or so copies of each of my books. I wasn’t looking to mass market. I knew there wasn’t a large following for my genre. For me, at that time in my career, vanity press worked fine. Today I prefer POD and eBook publishing. My fan following has grown from a few dozen to 7,000 so it’s no longer feasible for me to be printing up hard copies via vanity press. It was a good thing for me, but now I have outgrown it and the disadvantages now outweigh the advantages for me, but for many years it was a good thing.

#2) I have an uncle who wrote 5 books, and used vanity press for each one. He printed up 2,000 copies of each book. He had no idea how much space 10,000 books take up. He took out a $200,000 loan to cover the cost of printing and storage. He lost his house and now lives in a much smaller place, made even smaller by being stacked floor to ceiling, room to room with 9,000+ unsold books. He spent so much on cost of printing and storage that he can not afford advertising or marketing. He has weird phobias of book stores and Amazon and believes the only way to sell his book is on a free hosted website that is difficult to find at best, and only has a cryptic message telling people to contact him for info on his book and how to buy it. He did all this near on 20 years ago and has sold fewer than 1000 copies in that time. He is a perfect example of what is wrong with vanity press. He believed the hype and did not do his research, he dished out too much money and get deep in debt, and he is far from being alone in this.

In conclusion, I think vanity press is good if you know what you are getting into, and do your planning and researching, but I also think it is more often than not, a very bad thing, because few who do it, know what they are actually getting into, and it’s too easy for people to get themselves in a lot of financial trouble with it.

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

FAQs: Should writers get into marketing to sell their books?

“May I ask you a question? I have read a good lot of advice about marketing recently, book marketing but I am confused somehow. …I am asking you because if you go for the self-publishing option, I would want to know if you really believe in that self-published authors can do a kind of aggressive marketing to boost their sales?

I was never a good salesman while astonishingly so, in my sales trainer programs, I always produced gigantic sales women (not men) and do not really know for what reason. It’s almost hilarious, really. When I train women to sell, they sell like hell while I cannot sell. Does that make any sense to you? How can I train people to sell well if I cannot sell well? And yet that was my experience.

To come back to my question, do you believe that writers really should get into marketing to sell their books? Do you think that writers need to be smart in sales and marketing? But how to learn these skills if you are like myself a trained lawyer, otherwise a musician and artist, but never acquired marketing skills? I also consulted marketing firms in USA and was shocked about the charges they quoted me. I said to myself, wow why is marketing so expensive? Can you tell me?”

 First thing you need to know is each genre is going to have a totally different and unique audience  which will effect how you market, where you market, when you market  and to whom you will market. But keep in mind too, that while you need to know the demographics to make sure you are marketing to the right people, but that is market research NOT marketing itself. Marketing is much more than just “knowing your reader”, it’s also knowing how to get that reader’s attention. It’s knowing what ads that reader will be attracted to, it’s know where your reader is likely to be and putting your ad in the right place, at the right time, on the right day.

For example, if you write a play script, sure you can publish it and post it on Amazon, but heck of a lot of good that’ll do you, because the folks who buy plays DON’T look for them on Amazon, they look for them script hosting sites where stage directors rent the rights to produce the play.

Likewise if you writ a Dungeons and Dragons RPG module, sure you’ll get a few sales off Amazon, but your big hitter is going to be signing a (free) contract with RPGnow.com and giving them the rights to sell PDFs directly to the dungeon masters who will use your books in their games.

Same goes for adult self help books verses middle grade fiction. Self published self help books are often good sellers, but only for those indie authors who are members of such places as LightWorkers.org and selling to fellow members. While middle grade self pubbed books are going to get the best sales if you POD publish 100 copies for yourself, and than mail those 100 copies as “donations” to 100 local libraries, schools, and pediatricians waiting rooms (be sure to put “Free Waiting Room Copy” on the covers!)

You see, it’s more than just “knowing your readers” it’s also, knowing where your readers are going to be and where they are going to expect to find your book. Remember, your readers ARE NOT going to come looking for you. You have to be out there in your readers’ face, be where they are going to be, and be there over and over again, so that they get so used to seeing your book, that they feel like they HAVE to buy it, because they are so familiar with it. You goal should not be to make them buy it first time they see it, but rather, make them see it so many times that they feel they MUST buy it.

And getting to answering your question. YES! I do think marketing is important. I have an advantage of having very good marketing skills, and was able to gather up a little fan following of 7,000+ regular readers, because I knew who my readers were, what they wanted to buy, where they were going to look for it, and focused on getting my books in front of them. I don’t sit around waiting for my readers to come to me, I actively go out looking for them.

“I would want to know if you really believe in that self-published authors can do a kind of aggressive marketing to boost their sales?”

I think the answer is both yes and no. It depends on the writer in question and their personality. As I mentioned, I had some (minor) training in marketing and sales, and I was a sales representative for several years. Marketing is just second nature to me, so I’ve got no problems with it. Also I’ve written 30+ books, 200+ short stories, 2,000+ articles, several RPG modules, a couple of comic books, and a few dozen plays since I started writing in 1978, so I’ve had a lot of years to really get to know who my readers are and what they want, what they expect from me, and where they will go to look for stuff I write. I know from a lot of trial and error that most of my readers are 16-35, my romance stuff is favored by females, while my RPG stuff is favored by males, my horror stuff is pretty evened out between males and females, and my non-fiction is favored by women aged 25 – 65 usually with Autistic children or grandchildren.

I know this stuff because I’m easily accessible to my fans, 7,000 of which follow me on Twitter, a few thousand friend me on MySpace, and 5,000 friend me on FaceBook, I chat with them on my blog comments, and when they email me with questions I post their questions an my long answers on my blog, and those that contact me snail mail, know they can expect to get Christmas cards from me in the mail, and those who know where I live (and many do) know if they show up in my town, all they have to do is keep an eye out for the rhinestoned car (covered in 2.5million beads and rhinestones) and once they find the car, they’ve found it’s owner (me) and they know I’m more than willing to stop what I’m doing to talk to my fans in person, answer questions, give advice, and sign whatever they happen to have on hand for me to sign.

Being the type of person who is easily approached, friendly to strangers, willing to take out time to talk with fans, not the type of person to run and hide or worse yell at fans, goes a long way too. Being accessible to your fans is the best kind of marketing there is, because, once they meet you, they are going to run to tell their friends “Guess what I meet the author of ____ and she is so nice, we had brunch together at the Panera, ohmigod, she signed my napkin…” But this sort of thing doesn’t happen over night, and like I said I’ve been doing this near on 40 years now, and I have a personality where I just love getting to know new people.

But not every writer is like me. For example I have an uncle who has written about 5 books now and has no sales at all because he refuses to send copies of his books out to libraries and book stores and reviewers. (You got to do that!) He likewise avoids Amazon (thinks it’s some sort of government conspiracy). Also, due to a weird paranoid fear he printed up 1,000 copies of his book from a print shop (which is not on POD or ebook format) than locked them (the books) up in his garage. Next he built a free hosted web site that shows a photo of his book and the price, than says to email him for info how to buy it. He has yet to sell any copies of his books. Why? Because no one knows they exist. They are not available at libraries or bookstores or on Amazon, POD, or ebooks. No one knows him or his website so no one looks for him or his website. In short, he has done no marketing. The really weird ironic thing is, his books are all self-help guides on how to make a living writing books! LOL!

But yeah, to answer your question, yes I think some writers do have the marketing skills to self publish and be successful, but I also think that no, many writers do not have these skills and for those without these skills I think it is to their advantage to avoid self publishing until they gain proper marketing skills.

“wow why is marketing so expensive?”

You have to consider here what marketing actually is, and how much it costs them to do it. They are paying for the ads in newspapers and magazines. They put together your press kit and send it out to no less than 50 newspapers (at least one for each state), to all the local radio station and tv stations (providing you agree to do live on the air interviews). They send copies of your book out to professional book reviewers and critics, as well as to places like LibraryThing (which gives away 50 free reader copies, to average readers, who than write reviews on both LibraryThing and Amazon). They mail free waiting room copies of your book to hospitals and doctor’s offices, and at least one free copy of your book to as many libraries in your state as possible (this could means up to 1,000 free copies of your book going out). Of course the Library of Congress gets their 5 free copies. The marketer also does the demographic research to figure out who your readers likely are and makes certain that picture of your book get out in front of them as much as possible (knowing that the average reader has to see the book 10 times before they actually buy it). Also the marketer is often the person who takes your books in person to the small mom&pop book stores and asks them to put them on the shelves for a commission.

Gas costs $3.50 a gallon and they are doing a lot of driving getting this all done for you. They have an office with utility bills and overhead. Consider too that they are mailing out anywhere from 100 to 2,000 free copies of your book to various places, at a postage cost of $4.50 per book. And remember that the cost of advertising in big name magazines and newspapers is not cheap. For example, a full color, one day, one page ad in The New York Times, for a new book release costs $12,000. Yep, you read that right. It’s cheaper to buy a car than get an ad for your book in NYT. If you ask your marketer to put an ad in NYT for you, you better be sure your book is going to bring in $120,000 in sales.

Every thing they do for you, you have to pay for. YOU pay their gas, YOU pay that postage, YOU pay to have those 1,000 free copies of your book printed, YOU pay the $12,000 for the ad in NYT, AND it is YOU who pays the $20 to $100 an hour charge for them to do all of this stuff for you. That’s why they are so expensive.

Now sure, if you know what to do and who to contact, yeah, you can do the marketing yourself. But all that time you spent packing books, mailing books, assembling press kits, going to the mom&pop shops, digging through phone books trying to find the names and addresses of all the local libraries and doctor’s offices…sure you can do all that your self and save the $100 per hour you pay the marketer to do this stuff, but all that takes time – a lot of time – a lot of time that you are not spending on writing your next book. So you have to weigh your options.

When you get a price quote from a marketer  be sure to ask for a detailed list of each and every newspaper they’ll advertise in, each and every library and doctor they’ll send you book to, each radio station your press kit goes too, etc, etc. Some will charge a lot and do not much, so you want to be sure you are actually getting what you pay for.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs "adult supervision"

One of the reasons why an adult with Autism needs “adult supervision” is their brain does not tell them they are in pain. Was just commenting on the FaceBook status of a friend who got hurt, and it occurred to me that a lot of people don’t understand how it is I had 4 root channels awake and without pain meds, or how I also sat through reconstructive surgery on my face, after having my lip ripped off by a rooster, or again when I had surgery for CTS, or how I can go weeks with a broken bone and not know it is broken. Over the years, people who really, really, REALLY know me well, have come to know that if I say the words “I hurt” than, I’m in a state of needing to have been taken to the hospital, several weeks ago, as doctors put it “her propensity for pain is astounding, look at what I’m doing, she’s not even flinching and I haven’t given her anything for the pain”.

When I went to the dentist, because my teeth hurt, the girl at the desk told him “she can wait, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain” an hour later he was giving her hell for not rushing me to the hospital, because my jaw was so bad I needed surgery to remove my teeth and have a plate put in. (yes, I have false teeth on one side of my jaw) .

I am thinking of all the times I have required major medical repairs, because I didn’t know I was hurt and it took those around me several weeks to realize, I don’t respond emotionally or physically to pain.  I fell down and hurt my arm last year – did the ice thing: for 3 days, than Ben comes over and asks me “what’s wrong with your arm?”, and I tell him I fell down and it hurts, can’t move it, but I’m okay; he looks at it than next thing I know he’s in a panic driving me to the hospital. Yep, it was broken and I didn’t know it. The doctors where baffled at why the hell did I wait 3 days to go to the hospital, than they look at my medical records “oh, Autism, that’s why”, unfortunately, one of the stranger symptoms of Autism is, a numbing of the senses, the whole being allergic to everything from sunlight to wool to food, means my body is so used to hurting, that when I’m hurt really bad, it doesn’t send a message to my brain telling me I need help, instead my brain goes “ho hum, more pain, so what?” and the chemicals that are suppose to be triggered to tell me “hey, I’m hurt really bad here, I need to go to the hospital” don’t kick in, so I can go for days (or weeks as was the case when I broke my hip 2 years ago) before someone around me notices somethings wrong, and asks “hey, why are you limping”, and I’ll say “oh, got beaten up a few weeks back, hurt my leg, couldn’t walk for the first few weeks”…”why didn’t you go to the hospital”…”it doesn’t hurt that bad”…”but, it’s a broken bone!” … “really?”

It’s one of the reasons I need “adult supervision  in spite of being in my 40′s, because my brain doesn’t pick up on the fact that I’ve been injured.

I suppose more frightening than “not knowing” I’m injured is when I have a stroke and continue on my day like normal, but wander around with out a clue where I am or who any one is. I’ve had 3 strokes in the past 3 years, that’s why I keep forgetting things when playing D&D, I mean, I know every edition of this game inside out and I’ll be mid game and suddenly have no a clue what to do. I had a stroke again, a few weeks ago, that week I missed the game session, when I told my friend I wasn’t feeling good, I had spent most of the day wandering around the campus without a clue where I was or what I was doing there, missed my classes that day because I couldn’t find the buildings, I only randomly meet up with my friend and for some reason remembered I was suppose to play a game that night, otherwise I wouldn’t have known to tell her I was going home.

It’s upsetting actually, to know you are in a place where you should know where you are, but just not recognize anything. I’ve been without “adult supervision” 6 years now, and for the most part I do good, but it’s when I get hurt/injured/sick that I run into trouble, because my brain just lacks whatever it is it needs that would normally tell me to go to a hospital.  I’ve got a permanent injury now from waiting so long before realizing my leg was broken. This is the reality of life with Autism.

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

FAQs: What are your book sales goals as a self-published author?

“What are your book sales goals as a self-published author? Are they realistic?

Self-published authors hear two conflicting messages: Either we are supposed to sell a million books or we will be hopeless failures, because most indie author don’t sell more than 100 books, ever. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. But we have to learn to market our books.” 

My “reasonable” sales goal: 100 books total per month.

My “preferred” sales goal: 100 copies of EACH title per month.

My actual sales: currently around 10 per month on a “good” month and 0 on a “bad” month.

Why are sales so low? Well, most of my books were in print between 1980-1997 and are currently out of print. Those were self published and only a few dozen copies of each run. I was doing it as a hobby back than so I didn’t put any effort in marketing either, basically I was selling to friends.

I finally realized writing was what I was happy doing and every other job was just not what I wanted to do, so in about 2005 I decided to try to make a career out of writing and started doing freelance non-fiction articles, which I do enjoy doing, but I enjoy fiction even more. It wasn’t until 2010 that I actually started doing some serious research into fiction writing as a full time career, and it was only a few months ago, that I started looking into eBooks.

Long story short, over the years (since I started writing in 1978) I have written 30+ books (a few fiction, but mostly non-fiction, self help type stuff), 200+ short stories (mostly horror, sci-fi, or romance), more than 2,000 non-fiction articles, a few RPG game modules, a couple of comic books, and a few dozen plays. It’s a lot, and in theory, I should be making loads of money. In actuality, most of that stuff was printed one-time-shots, of a few dozen copies or in obscure now out of print magazines, meaning that today, I only actually have 2 books, 1 play, and 4 short stories that are currently in print, thus why 10 sales in one month is a good month! LOL!

My current goal is to keep writing new stuff, and reprint my old stuff, getting all of it up on Amazon Kindle in eBook format, and hopefully turn this into a full time income.

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism? 
–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 
–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 
–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka Empress EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day! ~ EelKat

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

FAQs: How do you deal with harassing emails?

Was reading this thread about a guy being harassed via email for his religious beliefs. This guy had trouble being harassed via email for his religious beliefs. Asked for advice on what to do. Been there, done that, so told him not only what I would do, but what I actually did do… if you ever want to send an email harasser running with his tails between his legs, take some advice from an expert.

 Here is my response to his question on what to do:

This is why I specifically DO NOT respond to emails, messages, or any other PRIVATE form of communication. Due to my celebrity status I receive on average anywhere from 200 to 2,000 emails a day, no less than 20,000 each month. There are currently 139,000 unread emails in my inbox. It takes me 6 or 7 months or more to get around to answering each one, if I bothered to even read it to begin with.

Due to the circumstances that made me famous a large majority of the emails sent to me are hate-letters from “good upstanding Christians” telling me every reason under the sun, why they would like to see my evil self dead and how they’d just love to kill me themselves (the more threatening ones get forwarded to the police). I read these things and think “Nice Christians they turned out to be!”

Some of them have responded to my none responses, with farther emails of hate claiming that my lack of a reply was proof they were right. No, my lack of a reply is proof that it took me 6 months of reading everyone elses’ emails before I reached your’s on the list., and your endless daily emails bragging that you are right and I am wrong, simply tells me that you are an immature unemployed brat with way too much time on your hands and with nothing better to do than to disobey your peace loving god Jesus by being a troll trying to hurt people you don’t like, even though he taught to love everyone.

But, fact remains when I do get around to reading the email, regardless of how many months have passed, I do in fact answer the email, but, not privately, no, I don’t stoop to their levels of back handed sneakiness. I don’t do what they do and talk sweet publicly online than trash talk in private messages.

I post none of my responses privately, I do not hit the reply button. Instead, I copy the whole email INCLUDING their user name, real name sent from, and their email address, past the whole thing into a blog post and post my reply PUBLICLY, and every post ends with my blog’s automated signature which reads as follows:

========================

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post?

FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relinquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

Oh, btw, while you are sending me your question, can I offer a bit of guidance here? LESS Wiccan related questions PLEASE! I am not Wiccan, know nothing of Wicca, and just because a bunch of local Mormons run around saying I am a Witch, and building those nasty slanderous websites full of false accusations about me, don’t make me one! *sheesh* I am so sick of “but they said…” yeah, I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t make it true. Sending me Wiccan/Witchcraft related questions is only going to piss me off.

You can be Wiccan all you want, I don’t care. But coming to me and asking me for advice on Wicca and Witchcraft is the equivalent of going to a cake chef and asking him for advice on brick laying! You wouldn’t go to chef to get masonry advice so what the heck are you going to a Christian to get Wiccan advice? Come on people, be reasonable!

You got Bible questions, thems I can answer. You got Hoodoo questions, yep, I can answer those too. But Wicca? Paganism? Witchcraft? Remember Voodoo is NOT Vodou. Voodoo and Vodou are two separate and different religions. Voodoo is a Christian religion not a Pagan one, we use a Bible, and God, and Jesus, and Saints, and Spirit Guides (lwa). just because I’m Voodoo don’t mean I know shit about Wicca or Paganism  Now I understand you have questions and finding folks like myself who are willing to attempt to answer everything that comes my way are few and far between, but please attempt to use your brain and consider whether or not I am even able to offer advice or even know the answer to your questions before you send them to me? Okay? Good. Thank you.

And for the record, I’m not demon possessed, I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life.

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years.

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life.

Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow and The Church of the Holy Rhinestone

========================

Yes, ALL of that, is the signature that is tacked on to the end of every single post on my blog, so when they come boo-hooing that I’m picking on them afterwards, I can point to my blog and say, Honey, I started this blog in 2003, it has more than 6,000 posts on it, all of them warned you that if you sent me a shitty email I’d post it online complete with your name and email for all of my 7,000+ subscribed readers to see, and reply directly to your email. I don’t need to know their replies to you. You don’t want my fans breaking down your inbox with responses to your email to me, than honey, you should have done your research, found out just exactly who I was, and what I have a long history of doing to snooty holier than though inbox arrogant snits like yourself.

Than they start reading my blog and go “I knew you were a Mormon. I knew you were an author. I knew you wrote horror. I knew you loved vampires. I knew the Mormon church excommunicated you because you wrote a controversial book. I didn’t put two and two together. I didn’t know you were THAT Mormon. I didn’t know you wrote THAT book. I didn’t know you were THAT famous. I didn’t know you had THAT many fans.”

Yeah, I write under pen names, yeah I use different names on forums than I do in real life, yeah, you really should think twice before you meet a random stranger online, decide you don’t like them and rain hellfire in their email, because hey, you never know, who the person you are ACTUALLY sending your hysteria to is.

Hey, you want to try to sass me, I can sass back, but you got to remember one thing: I have Autism, I have no feelings to hurt, and no shame about hurting your feelings in front of millions of people, and letting them know what kind of a person you are  are in secret which is where it really matters who you are. So don’t try to pretend to be my friends in public online than be a shitty backstabber in private online, because I’ll let the public know the real you.

Besides does not the Bible say, to avoid doing things in secret, because only the unrighteous do things where they can not be seen, but the righteous shall make all secret things made known to all men?

You ask how I would have handled this, well, now you know. That’s what I do, that’s how I handle emails like that, I do it all the time. Sometimes I wonder if people don’t send me emails just to see if I really will post it on my blog! LOL!

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism?  

——————–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 

——————–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 

——————–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

——————–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

——————–

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relinquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

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Oh, btw, while you are sending me your question, can I offer a bit of guidance here? LESS Wiccan related questions PLEASE! I am not Wiccan, know nothing of Wicca, and just because a bunch of local Mormons run around saying I am a Witch, and building those nasty slanderous websites full of false accusations about me, don’t make me one! *sheesh* I am so sick of “but they said…” yeah, I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t make it true. Sending me Wiccan/Witchcraft related questions is only going to piss me off.

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You can be Wiccan all you want, I don’t care. But coming to me and asking me for advice on Wicca and Witchcraft is the equivalent of going to a cake chef and asking him for advice on brick laying! You wouldn’t go to chef to get masonry advice so what the heck are you going to a Christian to get Wiccan advice? Come on people, be reasonable!

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You got Bible questions, thems I can answer. You got Hoodoo questions, yep, I can answer those too. But Wicca? Paganism? Witchcraft? Remember Voodoo is NOT Vodou. Voodoo and Vodou are two separate and different religions. Voodoo is a Christian religion not a Pagan one, we use a Bible, and God, and Jesus, and Saints, and Spirit Guides (lwa). just because I’m Voodoo don’t mean I know shit about Wicca or Paganism  Now I understand you have questions and finding folks like myself who are willing to attempt to answer everything that comes my way are few and far between, but please attempt to use your brain and consider whether or not I am even able to offer advice or even know the answer to your questions before you send them to me? Okay? Good. Thank you.

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Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day!                             

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                                                                   ~ EelKat

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FAQs: What does shamanism/Animism, Primal Religion mean to you?

Native American Based Shamanism What it Means, to you I thought it would be interesting to talk about what shamanism/Animism, Primal Religion means to you? This can also apply to your respected beliefs/Religion. For me, shamanism represents getting in touch with the healing energies of the earth and the sacred energies of the animal totems that we all are given at our births. I too enjoy meditating and going into a trance, feeling the love and peace of the world around me, being guided by my animal friends down paths of deeper learning and coming away more spiritually aware and alive, connected to Mother Earth, than before. I am reminded that every moment of every day is a gift and should be treated as such. While I get so very energized talking about and explaining my thoughts and beliefs (although this is another story, I have a difficult time calling them “beliefs” as I find these TRUTHS), actually typing them out could prove difficult. This is who I am, and the lessons I have taught my children. I honor and respect everything, as I exchange energy with everything. I communicate with the Spirits, oftentimes with the help of my own Totem/Spirit Guide. My Grandfather has taught me, during my dream states, some of what I need. This is a Grandfather who died many years before my birth, but he still knows me and comes to me when I’m just not understanding and find myself struggling. I have altered energy to heal myself, and have helped others. I am grateful for all the lessons I learn each day. I pay attention to what may cross my path, as Spirits regularly communicate with us. We just have learned to brush off a great deal of the lessons. When an eagle comes into my path one day, he is telling me something vastly different than the squirrel who is talking to me from the tree outside. While at times I get busy with life and forget to pay attention, the Spirits find a way to make me pay attention. And when I do, life is great – even at the worst of times – because I have finally “gotten” it. I guess Shamanism is who I am……and by walking the path I show myself and the Spirits that I am worthy. I have come to my “beliefs” based on years of experience, study, and practice. Your path needs to be who you are, not merely what you grew up with or what you find easiest. The Spirits can teach us so clearly, if only we take the time to pay attention. So what does  shamanism/Animism, Primal Religion mean to you?

Before I answer, I first wanted to ask why you wrote “shamanism/Animism. Primal Religion” (like all three are the same, which they are not) instead of “Shamanism, Animism, and Primal Religion” (as three separate things, like they are)? I find the logic in lumping them together baffling, and no different then had you asked: “I thought it would be interesting to talk about what Mormonism/Catholicism, SDA Religion means to you?” Can you see my confusion here? I’m not sure why three separate paths are being treated as one and the same path. Perhaps I am miss reading the question? I will point out that I have Autism and get confused about these easily, if someone says something in a slang term rather than a proper dictionary term, and it’s possible that that is the case here. I am curious though, because this is not the first time I have seen these 3 unique paths lumped together as though they were one path, so perhaps there is a recent trend in blending the three as one which I am not aware of? Could you please explain why you referred to them together as one? Thank you.

Now on to answering your question.

Shamanism to me is a Siberian/Scandinavian/Welsh magic based religion dealing with elemental chaos energies, specifically performing elaborate rituals to call upon the assistance of the nature spirits aka “The Little People”, “The Wee Folk”, “The Faeries”. This is the tradition I was raised in, a tradition passed down in my family for centuries, a tradition we can trace via written documents to the 1400’s and via (non confirmed) oral stories beyond that.

We are Gypsies, Scottish Travellers specifically, come to America from Scotland, our ancestors came to Scotland from Scandinavia, and their ancestors started out in Siberia/Mongolia. Shamans (clan priests/ess) are noted for wearing distinctive heavily embroidered silk robes similar to the Japanese kimono, over which they wear heavy furs. Much of the rituals involve solitary meditative states, chanting, divination with stones/bones, burning of incense/herbs, and communicating with “the people of the mists” (no there are no drums, that’s Native American Mysticism not Shamanism) (and no, there is no talking to plant and animal spirits, again, that’s Native American Mysticism not Shamanism). The Shamans practice is heavily embedded with witchcraft and sorcery, spell casting, curses, exorcisms, and overall a great big bunch of what most of today’s “lightworking new age shaman-wanna-bes” refer to as “evil black magic”. Shamanism is far from the fluffy bunny practice most people seem to think it is and in the old days involved some of the bloodiest rituals in history including sacrificing virgins then tossing their entrails about to divine messages from the spirits via how and where the blood spattered and where the organs and intestines landed. (Most ancient paths contain a myth about this ritual, but Shamans are one of the few who actually did practice it.)

Vikings often took Siberian/Mongolian Shamans with them on their ships. (Note that this is how the misconception that Vikings wear horns on their hats, came about. Vikings did not wear horned helmets at all, however, the Siberian Shamans they took on their sea voyages with them, did in fact wear acorn shaped helmets with deer antlers on top. Likewise the Vikings did not wear fur, but the Shamans they took with them, did. Vikings actually dressed no different than any other Medieval society of the time.) It is through the Vikings that the Siberian and Mongolian nomads reached Scotland, where they settled down and became known as the Picts. The Roman Catholic Celts invaded Scotland with is witch-phobia and drove all the “evil black magic witches” (the descendants of the Siberian Shaman, who were now being called “The Scots”) out of the country. They fled Scotland to Germany, then to Egypt, then back to Europe, where due to their having picked up Egyptian clothing styles, they were now referred to as “The Gypsies”, though we ourselves, refer to ourselves as The Travellers.

Shamanism as we practice it has evolved, gone are the animal and virgin sacrifices, but not gone are the spell castings, poppets, curses, hexes, and all those other great big scary things that make “white witches” and everyone else flee our path when one of our caravan groups comes rolling into to town. I joined this group because the title says Shamanism, though I realize it does say Native American Shamanism, which is an oxymoron, because there is no such thing as Shamanism in Native American practices. Perhaps the group owner should consider changing the title to Native American Mysticism instead? It seems this group is aimed more at Native American Mysticism then Shamanism.

I can further tell you that I fall under Native American Mysticism as well, see my grandmother was a MicMac/Kickapoo. She was a rainwoman or “weather witch” as she liked to call it. Both of my grannies came from deeply religious magic based cultures, and I grew up seeing both practices side by side, and while I admit there are many similarities, especially when it comes to connecting with nature, there are huge differences with Shamanism being a much darker, angry, controlling, vengeful, omen predicting, spell casting path, that contrasts sharply from Native American Mysticism’s far more peaceful laid back live and let live path, thus how I can say with much conviction that Native American Mysticism not Shamanism.

Animism to me is where Native American Mysticism falls under. It is a communal connection with the spirits of the animals and plants around you. Animism is a totem or spirit animal based system that put a lot of emphasis of ecology and the natural world around us. It is a path which puts high reverence on nature and communicating with spirit animals (not Faeries, Frost Giants, Gnomes, Trolls, Tricksters, Phookas, Vampiric Demons, and Chaotic Elementals as Shamanism does – far too many people read that Shamanism involves communicating with nature spirits, then assume that this means plants and animals the same way Native American Mysticism does. So few fail to do their research and find out just exactly what it is that Chinese, Mongolians, Siberians, and Norse/Scandinavians mean when they say “nature spirits”. There’s a big, big, BIG difference between Shamanism considering demons and faeries nature spirits and Native American Mysticism considering plants and animals nature spirits!)

Primal Religion to me means any religious practice (including both Native American Mysticism and Shamanism) that stays true to it’s ancestral/tribal roots. It is different from organized religion, which has set dogmas, and rules and regulation dictating every move of everyone from the leader to the members. Primal Religion unleashes a burning fiery passion from deep within your soul, allowing you to be freed of the restricting and binding chains of religious pomposity, allowing you to become truly deeply at one with everything from the sun and moon to the birds and fish to the flowers and trees to the rocks and wind, thus making you fulling, totally, and unequivocally connected to the spirit/god which created you.  This is why I became Voodoo (not Vodou/Haitian Vodou, which is a completely different religion) because of it’s deeply primal nature of connecting not only with the natural world around you, but also to the spirits of your ancestors as well.

But becoming Voodoo does not mean I am no longer Shamanic, it simply means I now walk two paths instead of one, well three paths when you consider too that I also incorporate my grandmother’s Native American Mysticism as well. And knowing how easy it is to blend them together, I thus understand how many folks came to think of Native American Mysticism and Shamanism as being one single path, as they do in fact complement each other quite well.

So, anyways, you can agree or disagree, but you asked what it was they mean to me personally, and this is what these things me to me in my own life.

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism?  

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I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 

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My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 

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I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

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Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

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~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relinquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

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Oh, btw, while you are sending me your question, can I offer a bit of guidance here? LESS Wiccan related questions PLEASE! I am not Wiccan, know nothing of Wicca, and just because a bunch of local Mormons run around saying I am a Witch, and building those nasty slanderous websites full of false accusations about me, don’t make me one! *sheesh* I am so sick of “but they said…” yeah, I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t make it true. Sending me Wiccan/Witchcraft related questions is only going to piss me off.

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You can be Wiccan all you want, I don’t care. But coming to me and asking me for advice on Wicca and Witchcraft is the equivalent of going to a cake chef and asking him for advice on brick laying! You wouldn’t go to chef to get masonry advice so what the heck are you going to a Christian to get Wiccan advice? Come on people, be reasonable!

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You got Bible questions, thems I can answer. You got Hoodoo questions, yep, I can answer those too. But Wicca? Paganism? Witchcraft? Remember Voodoo is NOT Vodou. Voodoo and Vodou are two separate and different religions. Voodoo is a Christian religion not a Pagan one, we use a Bible, and God, and Jesus, and Saints, and Spirit Guides (lwa). just because I’m Voodoo don’t mean I know shit about Wicca or Paganism  Now I understand you have questions and finding folks like myself who are willing to attempt to answer everything that comes my way are few and far between, but please attempt to use your brain and consider whether or not I am even able to offer advice or even know the answer to your questions before you send them to me? Okay? Good. Thank you.

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Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day!                             

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                                                                   ~ EelKat

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Getting ready to start a new campaign…

So, getting ready to start a new (non-Ravenloft!!!!) campaign (Dungeons and Dragons), 4ed starting in UnderMountain, than heading to NeverWinter (though I may decide to drop Castle Ravenloft in to EverDark, than have a portal zip them from NeverWinter to EverDark – you know me, I just can’t run a DnD campaing without my fave vampire Strad on the lose!). This is a full out campaign based on that one night, rules-free monster-feast, we did last week. (This one will have rules and not so many monsters, of course.)

Me and the players spent the night going through my books looking for races and classes, turns out I am able to build characters from 30+ races, 400+ classes, and than have the option to overlay them with one of about 15 monster templates. I have over 200 DnD books 30+ from Ravenloft alone, nearly that many more for Spelljammer, and pretty much the whole 4ed run including all the 4ed Player Option HandBooks, which is about 12 volumes of every race and class you could imagine. Plus I have the Villain Player’s Handbook, which basically allows you to take any monster from any of the Monster Manuals/Vaults/Folios and create a band of adventuring villains instead of heroes. Which means basically I am able to create somewhere around 180,000 class and race player character combinations! LOL! (And yes, these are all official TSR/AD&D/WoTC/DnD options, not homebrews).

Anyways, I was helping them build their characters, and one of the party’s members is Race: Wood Elf; Class: Ranger; Sub-Class: Beast Master, which means he gets to choose an animal companion. I ask him “What do you want for a companion?” and than I start to read the list… “Cat, Serpent, Eagle, Wolf, … ” etc, he interrupts me and asks “Can I have a Chupacabra?”

He caught me off guard with that one (this is the same player who caught me off guard with the Parry spell that made his character nearly undefeatable, last campaign). Well, at one point I went through all of my books and made a list of all the possible PC races, PC classes, and PC familiars, and I thought I had remembered writing Chupacabra on the list, so I pulled out my lists, and yep, sure enough, some where in one of my books, there is the option for a player to have a Chupacabra as a familiar. So, I’m off to paw through my massive mountain of DnD books in search of the one that has the rules for a pet Chupacabra. I think it was 3ed book.

I have noticed one thing about this group of players – they all want to be Elf Rangers. I think we might be heading into doing a Guild Troupe style Adventuring Party, a group of Elf Rangers traveling together. I’ve heard of single race/single class adventuring groups before, but never run one. I think I may have to have a NPC Wizard/Cleric guide traveling with them to make up for the lack of arcane and healing powers. This may be a place for Queraun the Insane (a Half-Elf/Half-Illithid character of my own creation). He’d fit well into the part of sulking behind, only being in the party when needed than drifting back into the shadows. We’ll see what they end up with for characters once we get started.

FAQ: What do you do on a regular basis as a Pagan Minister? Or a day in the life of a Pagan Minister

I was asked a question today. Specifically this question:

This is a super simple question. What do you do on a regular basis as a Pagan Minister? 

Uhm, yeah, I suppose you are expecting a super simple answer to your super simple question? If you were then clearly you don’t know me. Here is my not so simple answer to your ever so simple question, and a look into the daily life of what you term a “pagan minister”:

I fall under the category of both Christian and Pagan. I’m Voodoo (not Vodou, which is VERY different), magic wise I am a Hoodoo Rootworker, my rank is Medsen Fey, which is a type of Witch Doctor, or what Wiccans and other White Witches would refer to as “A Two Headed Conjurer Doctor” or “Practitioner of the Black Arts”. Whenever I hear that though, I find myself asking: Black magic? White magic? Magic doesn’t have a color! Good magic? Bad magic? I’m sorry, magic has only one alignment and that is ‘chaotic neutral’, it’s neither good nor bad. Sure you can use it for good or bad, but that’s the thoughts of the magic user, not magic itself that changes. I say this because,  you ask, “What do you do on a regular basis as a Pagan Minister?” and the answer is quite simply this: Magic. But then most of the Pagan paths, think “white magic” when they hear the word magic, and this has led to some misunderstandings and confusion, so I wanted to make sure you understood up front, when I say magic, the last thing on my mind is if the magic is white, black, or otherwise.But everyone seems to hear Voodoo and think evil black magic and my past involvement on group discussions has also taught me that if you say you are Voodoo, you’ll have Christians screaming hellfire and damnation and Pagans joining them as well. As a general rule, because I am Voodoo, most Christians consider me to Pagan to be Christian while most Pagans consider me too Christian to be Pagan, and both consider me too evil to be in a religious discussion to begin with. It’s frustrating really, and the reason you don’t see me commenting more often than I do, because, yes words do hurt, and not many religions Christian or Pagan are accepting of the Voodoo faith. So I just wanted to say that up front,in an attempt to avoid any misunderstandings, from those reading my reply.

Also while I am classified as a Pagan, I am also classified as a Christian, which I know confuses folks from both Pagan and Christian paths who often ask, “Well, how can you be both? The two are not compatible, it’s one or the other.” So, I guess, before I can clearly and properly answer your question, I should explain that just a bit too, in order to avoid any confusion. See, we believe magic is like prayer, it is a message to God. In fact most Voodoo Rituals come straight out of the Bible: the candles, the incense, the words said, the herbs mixed, etc, come from Moses and Daniel and Jacob who like it or not were among the most powerful wizards to walk the face of the earth. These men wore white robes and turbans and jeweled trappings which is why we in Voodoo do the same. They cast these spells as a way to petition the spirits, who came to talk to them, then went to God with the spell/request. If God approved of the request,  the desired result happened, if God did not approve, then nothing happened. This is why we in Voodoo do not put limits on magic, by calling it black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. We believe that all magic is neutral and the intent of the caster can be good or bad regardless of the spell, and that only spells cast which God approves of will come about, the others will fizzle and come to nothing. And that’s why, even though those on the outside look at Voodoo and call it “Black Magic”, we who actually practice Voodoo, do not see it as Black Magic at all, because we know that God sees into our hearts and knows the true intent, and will act accordingly. We also believe that God himself, may or may not grant our request, and even if he does, he himself is very unlikely to be the one to carry it out, rather he will tell one of his servants (spirits, angels, lwa, lesser gods, lesser goddesses, etc) to carry out the request. (And to clear up that point, Voodoo believes that there is one Creator God, and many other gods and goddesses under him, thus you’ll hear Voodonist mention God [single and capitalized] and gods/goddesses [plural and not capitalized] as well as saints and lwa and angels and gede. We also believe that every deity of every religion in the world is real and valid and available for us to call on for help. As a result Voodoo has the single largest pantheon of any religion. I know it can be confusing to those not on this path to understand it, it’s a lot of digest, that’s why I’m trying to explain these things. Sorry for this post getting so long as a result. But I felt if I did not explain them, some readers might not quite understand the rituals I do in my own ministry.)

What that basically means is that deity wise, a Voodonist can have any number of gods or goddesses or patron saints or spirit guides from any religion. In my own case it would be Christ Jesus, the lwa of my head Damaballa Weddo and Erzulie Fredda, and my patron saints Liberace and Francis. Also a few others, including Mercury/Hermes, Mary Mother of Jesus, and Loki, as well as several of the traditional Vodou Lwa. I am more or less accepting of all deities, but there are those (such as the ones I mentioned) which I feel closer to, esp Damballa who I feel a deep soul binding connection with.

While Vodu is an organized religion with very strict sets of law and bylines, Voodoo is not an “organized” religion and rather is very much like Wicca in that each practitioner is allowed to do their own thing. Most members of Vodu belong to a “house” (church/coven/temple/congregation) where they meet weekly and have religious services (usually involving a lot of music, dancing, and singing). Voodoo on the other hand is mostly made up of solitary practitioners who if they attend any sort of weekly service at all, it’s done in their own home before a family altar, with members of their own family. As I said, I am Voodoo, not Vodu, and  I likewise don’t belong to a coven/group/congregation/church/temple/etc. In other words I am a “solitary witch/cleric”. I do however run a small Shrine [mini-temple?], called The Church of the Holy Rhinestone. It does not yet have a building, but I’m working on that. (by converting a garden shed). When it done, it’ll be just big enough for 1, maybe 2 people to stand/kneel inside it (in the style of the Spiritualist Prayer Churches, all of which are in buildings 6x6x8 or smaller). It is a shrine devoted to St. Liberace`, Damballa Weddo, and Christ Jesus and will contain a prayer candle altar for that purpose.

The Sabbats are not a part of my tradition, like I said, I’m not Wiccan, I’m Voodoo, and Voodoo is considered by many Pagans to be a Christian religion as it uses Christian Holy Days and Christian saints, but Christians usually consider Voodoo to be a Pagan religion due to it’s being very heavily based in magic arts and ancestral reverence, and because it is accepts all the gods and goddesses of all the world’s religions, rather than just believing in one god. That said we Voodoo are allowed to pick and choose which Holy Days we feel most comfortable with, and I was originally raised Mormon, so I continue to practice the same Holy Days I did as a child, which are basically the standard Christian ones. I have however added a few non-Christian ones as well, such as the Feast Day of Damballa, and to set apart Thursday as being a Holy Day in addition to Sunday (these being the 2 days of the week when Damballa requires his servants, wives and children to devote to tending his altar and prayers etc. I am one of the brides of Damballa, Christians call it being a nun, Pagans call it being a godspouse.)

This of course leads up to the more controversial part of my ministry: being married to a god. Some think it is great, some think it is evil, and others think I am crazy. To each his own.

One of the problems that comes from being a godspouse/married to a Lwa is the strict requirements, including change of diet, change of dress, etc. Change in diet does not affect your public life that much, because there are all sorts of “fad diets” out there so folks just assume you are trying one out to lose weight or something. Change of dress, however, results in stares, comments, and if you get mistaken for a Muslim woman, sometimes even being beaten up!

 I’m not Muslim, but I often wear headscarves which look similar to ones Muslim women wear, and of course being a Gypsy, raised a Mormon, and now a Voodoo means I ain’t never worn pants in my life, always wear long skirts and many layers, so it’s not just for the scarf that I get mistaken for Muslim at times. I started wearing scarves back in the 1970s, mostly because my grandmother wore them. (It’s a cultural thing, most Gypsy women keep their head covered, either by a scarf or a hat – for us it’s a Christian thing because it says in the Bible that it is a sin for a woman to go out in public without her hair covered, because only her husband is allowed to see her hair. No idea why the Muslims do it). I used to wear them all the time, but around the late 1990s early 2000s it became a problem with people suddenly treating me really shitty. I didn’t understand why, until one day someone told me about that 9-11 attack thing and about Muslims (I had not heard of either the 9-11 thing or Muslims before, so I found both things to be confusing, though I have Autism and I find a lot of things confusing) But I ended up deciding to not wear the scarves anymore, because of the way folks treated me, I switched over to hats after that. It’s odd, like I said I wore them for 30+ years no problem, than all of a sudden I couldn’t wear them at all without folks being nasty. Since starting college I’ve meet several Muslim women and many have told me similar stories how they get treated poorly because of the way they dress. One girl started dressing “American” and she said there was a dramatic change in how she was treated, so she won’t let her daughters wear scarves anymore! I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and wondering if I should start wearing headscarves again? I think I might go back to doing that, because I sort of miss it. I know it may sound strange, but I just feel absolutely naked with nothing on my head. I’m more comfortable and relaxed when I have my head covered.

But anyways, yeah, I get this sort of thing a lot, because of the way I dress (usually with a long full tiered white skirt, and a blue 200 year old Kente` cloth/robe from Africa) the outfits stands out big time. Every day no less than 20 people come up to me and ask “Why are you dressed like that?” or “Why are you wearing a costume?” or “Is there a CosPlay event in town?” or “What the hell planet did you drop off of?” and as I usually have my head covered (sometimes with a veil, other times a cap, other times a sunbonnet, other times a hat) I also get the questions “So, are you Amish/Mennonite/Muslim?” and once in awhile someone will say “You’re white, why are you dressed like an African?” or sometimes their laugh and joke and ask in sarcasm “So what are you supposed to be, some sort of Voodoo priestess? ha, ha, ha, ha…” to which I’ll say, “Why yes, in fact I am.” and they’ll stand there dumbfounded. I had one guy stand there staring for a few seconds, then drop his drink on the ground and run down the sidewalk screaming “Help, it’s a Voodoo witch, she’s gonna put a curse on me!” ROTFLMAO!!!! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! Sad, but funny. Only twice in all these years, just two times, has anyone walked up to me and said, “Hey! I’m LavTete too! Who’s your head? My lwa is…” (LavTete, means you are baptised Voodoo Priest/tess)
See, the thing of it is, a Voodoo Priestess doesn’t just wear her clerics robes one day a week during services, she wears them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the rest of her life, same way Catholic nuns wear their Habit and Wimple the rest of their lives. So, I don’t wear “normal” clothes, no jeans and t’s, no suits, no shorts, so sports uniforms, no short skirts, zip, nadda, nothing. Religious robes, all day, every day, for the rest of my life.

(see photos below for the outfit in question:)

Walmart seems to be a place where I get the whole, “Oh I love that outfit, where did you get it?” I look around at the line behind me and have to think fast, how do I answer this without getting into a religious discussion? I say “I sew my own cloths, except for the Kente, it’s an antique that belonged to an African priestess back in the 1800s”, which should end it, except, folks get all agog over the Kente and the fact that it’s so ancient (and I dare wear it in public spite of it’s age) and suddenly folks want to know why I’m wearing priest’s robes, am I a priest too, and oh African priest’s robes, does that mean they belonged to a witch doctor and am I a witch doctor and what religion is it, and why if you are white are you wearing robes that belonged to a black priest from Africa, and me I just want to run to my car, because with my Autism it’s hard for me to deal with nosy in your face people bombarding me with a million and one questions, but heck, I get to my rhinestone encrusted car and find crowds with cameras flocked around it, and can’t get close enough to get the door open, because yeah I went all Erzulie Freda on my car and rhinestoned it, and now I’m stuck answering questions “Why did you do this to your car? and “What are these weird symbols on it?” I say, that’s the Veve of Damballa, and next thing I know I’m answer questions about why I’ve got snakes and Damballa veve painted and rhinestoned to my car, and that eventually ends up with me saying something about being the future bride of Danballa, and the whole, oh yeah, by the way, my soon to be husband is a snake spirit-god… yes I’m married to a guy who’s a shapeshifter and spends most of his days in the form of a giant snake…

wow the reactions!

I get everything from, “Hey, man, that’s like so cool!” to “Ohmigod! You freak, I’m calling the police, you’re frigging crazy!” and everything in between.

I think the thing folks have the hardest time understanding about it all, is when they ask about, why do I dress this way and why did I do that to my car, and my answer is “Well, Damballa told me to. He wants me to be his representative, he wants to know that I will not be ashamed to tell others of our marriage (as some god spouses are), he wants me to commit every aspect of my life to him, right down to the way I dress and the car I drive and the food I eat, I don’t expect you to understand it. This is a test of my devotion to him, and I will be expected to do this the rest of my life, if/when I do submit to marriage to him.” – They just can not grasp, such a huge level of commitment to another being (thus why the divorce rate is so high) because no one commits themselves fully to another person these days, so when they meet a person who is not only committing to an eternal marriage, but also committing to a marriage with a spirit being, and a spirit being who takes the form of a snake at that, well that just blows their minds right out of the water! People really don’t know how to deal with me when they actually take the time to get to know who I am and how I live my life.

But yeah, it’s a case of me believing that I am not just a minister one day a week, only for a few hours in a certain building. This is a case of me being the whole “we represent our gods” by every aspect of our lives, and I go to an extreme few clergy members are willing to do.. I’ve always been a highly religious person, granted I was born and raised Christian and stayed that way many years because I felt I HAD to remain Christian “or else”…I’m not sure “or else” what, but there was always the “or else” in the back of my head…it was like I could not explore other religions because I was terrified of being struck down by lightning if I did. After a while it occurred to me, that if God really was God, then God would be for everyone, not just a small group of people, and he would love and welcome everyone and not be threatening to blow us up for trying to better ourselves, and one thing lead to another, and finally I branched away from the fear based religious ideas I had growing up and followed the whispers of a kind loving god(?) who had haunted my dreams since childhood (some 30+ years ago). I wanted to know who he was and what he wanted and why me? (He couldn’t talk so it was not like he could tell me who he was or what he wanted!) Why was he in my dreams every night? I discovered that there are 15,000 religions each with a whole great big set of gods and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, when all I had to go on was the man was an albino, dressed always in white or green, couldn’t talk, and was always carrying this giant anaconda/snake.

You’d think that would make it easy to figure out who he was, but pretty much every religion has a snake god, most gods wear white, and mute gods are not quite as uncommon as they would seem. It took me years of searching to identify his identity (Damballa Weddo).

Well, me being the ubber Christian that I was at the time, I totally freaked out when I found out the guy visiting me in my dreams was a Voodoo god, because I had the whole Voodoo=Satanism theory going on in my head at the time, than it got worse when about 15 years ago, that I found out, ohmigod, he wants me to just toss my secular life aside, become his wife, and devote my life 100% to serving him. Yikes! I was engaged to marry a Mormon priest, and had some rather common (and false) misconceptions about Voodoo, well, I was very “No way am I EVER going to marry a god, and even if I did it certainly wouldn’t be a Voodoo one!”

Well,  suddenly everything went wrong, really wrong, really fast: my grandmother died, my engagement was ended because my future husband decided to become a celibate type priest, my dad went into a coma, a flood took my house, I started rebuilding only to have that house burnt to the ground by vandals, I spent 6 years homeless living under a tarp, my church excommunicated me after 27 years of faithful service, and one day I was sitting at the library trying to figure out what the heck was happening, when I saw this book about Voodoo sitting on a desk opened to a chapter about Damballa. So I started studying Voodoo and found out it was nothing like I thought it was.

But then, what actually changed my mind? Evidence. Historical and archeological evidence. Items, scrolls, etc dug up in Egypt and Dahomey and Benin and other places in Africa. Evidence that turned up, shortly after I was excommunicated from my Christian [Mormon] religion, which had resulted in me asking “Why” and “If God was God, why would he throw me away like this?” Which lead to me thinking, well, maybe the Mormon God isn’t God, and if that was so, then how do I know which God is God? I started researching creator Gods.  If you really wanted to do your research, there are approximately 10,000 different creator gods. Every tribe, in every culture, in every country has a creator god story, and some have “ancient”, “old”, and “modern” creator god stories within the tradition, meaning each culture has several variations on the creator god story. Why believe one over the other? Depends on how you were raised, where you grew up, what your parents believed, etc.  Most of the population is too lazy to use free will and simply continues believing EXACTLY whatever it was their parents taught them, teaching it to their own children, questioning nothing and never once thinking there may be another way to believe. This is not necessarily bad, nor is it good, for it simply is what it is: people blindly repeating what they are told. That said, the average person, is never going to stop and ask: “Is this right? Is there another way?” This again is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, it is simply the way life is.

So here I am saying  ”Hey, I’m not sure what I was taught is actually right, how do I prove it is true? What if it proves to be wrong? What should I believe? How do I know which if any is the correct one?” That in mind, you started researching, and became even more confused, because now you have a list of a few hundred creator gods and you have no idea how to make heads or tails of that list. The more creator gods you discover, the more confused you become.

Why should you believe one over the other? Only you can answer that. Everyone who stops following the god of their parents and starts following a different god, is going to have a different reason why they choose to believe in the god they picked. Some may find a warrior god more attractive, others may find a feather winged god more attractive, others may want a female god, others may want a kind gentle god of peace, the reasons are endless. What was I supposed to do? Well, I concluded that if god was god, then god would have been the creator of everything, even the other creator gods. This means finding the OLDEST god, the FIRST god, and using historical evidence and archeological findings to trace all of the various tens of thousands of creation stories until you come to the very first one, or at least the very first one known to have been recorded. You know it isn’t going to be recent creations like Flying Spaghetti Monster (created in the last 15 years), Cthulhu (less than 120 years old), Jesus (2012 years old), or even the ever popular God of Abraham, God of the Bible, Jehovah, Yahweh. I Am, Elohim, or Allah (each less than 7,000 years old).

You must realized that be this point I was more open to considering Damballa, but I was still tossing him aside, saying to myself, “Yeah, that’s Voodoo, that’s not even a real religion.” But try as I may to ignore him, Damballa kept popping back up in my research at every turn. I was still hung up on childhood teachings and God of the Bible, so I focused my research in that direction. I was still a firm believer in the whole 7 day creation story in the Bible.

The God of the Bible (also called: God of Abraham, Jehovah, Yahweh. I Am, Elohim, or Allah) is by far the most popular creation story and is in fact referred to by Christian scientists as the The Creation Theory. It is called a theory to make it sound scientific, but in fact it of not a theory it is only a hypothesis. Creationists, believe that the world was created in seven days, and they claim that they have observed the fact in nature, but these are false statements, because the only way they could have observed the 7-day creation was if they had been present during one of those seven days. They can observe nature, but they can not observe it’s creation (well they could observe births and plant seeds and all, but we are talking “poof” it appears out of thin air type creation here, and not only that but “poof” it appears only during one of these 6 out of 7 days at exactly 6,200 years ago). There are day by day diaries of kingdoms in China, which follow day by day activities of the royal families spanning a little over 20,000 years, proving without a doubt that the Earth is no less than 20,000 years old and proving without a doubt that at least parts of The Creation Theory has holes in it, because it states that the Earth will end on it’s 7,000 year of existence and that The 7-Day Creation happened about 6,200 – 6,500 years ago. There are Christians who accused the archaeologists who dug up those codex of having created them just to try to destroy the “validity” of The Creation Theory! They can correctly call it The Creation Hypothesis, because it is what the think happened, but they can not correctly call it The Creation Theory because they have no repeatedly observable evidence that it is what happened.

Well, with hard evidence that the Earth, or rather human life on the Earth, is no less than 20,000 years old, (and science dating it back to the billions) I now had to search for a creation god, who exists prior to 20,000 years ago, and that knocks pretty much every single creation god off of the list because most of them are younger than the God of the Bible and the ones which are older are never much older. It is very difficult to find a god story dating back to 20,000 years because there is little evidence to indicate that the human race had a concept of gods and religion prior to 10,000 years ago. The ancient Egyptian gods are among the oldest, but even those only go back 12,000 years, still a far cry from the 20,000 year requirement I was now in search of. The Sumerians come close with Enki, one of the oldest known gods, but still does not go back far enough to reach our 20,000 year old requirement.

And with Enki crossed off the list I now find a very narrow list indeed, in fact, there is only one name left on the list: Damballa. I was now forced to have to look into the history of Damballa, like it or not, because he was the only one out of over 15,000 creator god, whose history dates prior to Enki  and Damballa is so ancient creator god, that his age is unknown, but verified to be no less than 30,000 years old, and suspected at dating back to the times of the cave dwellers, some 300,000 years ago, making him not only old enough to meet the 20,000 year requirement, but also being far far older than any other known recorded human record! This got my attention, because there is no record of a god existing prior to Damballa. He is the oldest known god, and THAT is what I was looking for.

So finally, I stopped ignoring Damballa and started researching to find out, just who exactly was it, this albino snake man who haunted my dreams each night.

Damballa’s story is unique among creation stories. Most stories tell of the creation of one group of people. The god is black, his people are black, white people are evil, or the god is white, his people are white, black people are evil. Even the God of the Bible only created white folks, and his story says that he cursed Cain with dark skin to punish him for murdering Able, thus all black folks are evil by birthright (according to the Bible). You do not find this with Damballa’s story. Damballa has no true solid form, and no skin color. He is a shapeshifter. He can appear as a man of any skin color, and has multiple wives, one each of every skin color. The story states that, we all are children of the One God. The One God (Damballah Weddo) had 3 wives (each of different skin color – white, black, and red/brown). Each wife had many children. Each of these children needed a place to live, so the Earth was created out of a serpent egg, and each child was given a country to rule over. Each child created a unique language of their own. Many cultures came from this, as the children’s children’s children grew up and multiplied and spread across the Earth. The One God, though a great magician, a powerful shapeshifter, and the creator of life and our planet, was not perfect, his ability to speak was badly impaired, his language slurred by a hissing stutter, he sadly found it difficult to communicate with his beloved children and grandchildren. When the One God did appear on the Earth, no one could look at him in his true form and live, his true form being so bright that to look upon him caused you to burst into flames, so he would appear in the form of a serpent. It made him very sad that he could not live on the planet with his beloved children. Because it was so difficult for him to be seen or heard by those living in physical bodies, he appointed the dead spirits of his wives and their dead children (called the loa or lwa) to act as mediators to speak to the living children on his behalf. Each wife looked over the children of her lineage, and over the centuries as each living person dies, they become loa and watch over their children’s children. Every few generations, the loa return to the physical body, being reborn into the same family from which they descended. The cycle of birth, death, guardianship, and rebirth continues in an ever flowing circle of life, thus the name Vodu or Voodoo came to be the name of the religion (the name dating to 13,000 years ago making it the first organized religion to ever be created) (vuvu means “to draw water” or “to give birth”, thus vodu means “to give new life to the spirits”). Vodunists keep long and careful records of their ancestors, knowing by name sometimes dozens of generations back. The bones of the dead and kept carefully preserved in family shrines, with offerings left to the loa to let them know you have not forgotten them and are thankful that they are watching over your family. Death is not feared, but rather celebrated as it means going home live with your ancestors at a great big happy family reunion. This is the OLDEST known creation story, and thus being the FIRST creation story, means that no other creation story written after this one can possibly be anything other than a watered down copy of this one which is the ORIGINAL, so far as evidance is able to prove. (Or at least that is how I saw it.)

From there, one thing lead to another and once I stopped be scared of Voodoo and started paying more attention to Damballa who was still visiting my dreams each night, and all of a sudden my life turned back around, and the more I devoted my life to him, the better my life became. I mean 15 years ago the thought of marrying a Voodoo lwa and devoting the rest of my life to him was a terrifying thought that I wanted nothing to do with, and now today, it’s a comforting thought that I embrace wholeheartedly with every fiber of my being.

But then, how the heck to I explain this to the cashier at Walmart and do it in 15 seconds so I don’t hold up the line or come off sounding like a deranged lunatic?

I found a solution: business cards!

Yes, business cards! It is so simple, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. The card reads:

Rev. EelKat Wendy C. Allen
Autistic Author, Artist, Illustrator, Rootwork, Doll Maker, & Art Car Designer.

There is a picture of me in my “outfit” and my car.

Than it lists the urls of my Zazzle store, my etsy store, and my blog.

Now when folks ask about my clothes or my car or my religion, I just pull out a card and say “It’s Voodoo. I’ve explained everything on my blog. Here’s my card. If you want to know more about me and what I do, just read my blog.”

Then I put my bags in the shopping cart and leave, no worrying about holding up the line! I’ve answered them in under 5 seconds, and if they really want to know the answer, then it’s up to them to head to my blog, if they were just making conversation, than I’ve not wasted everyone’s time explaining the details to the uninterested, and I have not caused undue irritation to the line standing behind me.

And so all that said, now to get down to finally answering your question:  What do you do on a regular basis as a Pagan Minister?

What do I actually do? A lot really. If I was to go into great detail, I could probably write a book or two! LOL! So, I’ll try to sum it up into a short list. Well, as I already stated, the way I dress, the fact that I have 2.5 million beads and rhinestones glued to my car, and the change in my diet, that alone tells you quite a bit about what I do on a daily basis.

What do I do?

As a Bride of Damballa I tend to his shrine/altar.

As a Voodoo Witch doctor I tend to the needs of the people, via services including but not limited to: weddings, funerals, exorcisms, blessings, washings, spirit baths, house cleansings, intercessory prayers, altar work, saint petitions, spell casting, hex removal, divinations, card readings (NOT Tarot!) We are Gypsies, Scottish Travellers specifically, and I am the clan’s Holy Woman, descended from a direct line of Holy Women dating back to the 1400′s (a record we have recorded in an ancient Medieval family Bible, so old it has books not found in other Bibles in it.) Divination is the art my people specialize in. Though it is a Hollywood myth that we Gypsies use Tarot cards, we do not, and I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to use them if you handed me a deck. Tarot cards are not a Gypsy tradition and I don’t know a single true-blood-born Gypsy that has ever used one. Beware of “gypsies” with Tarot cards – they are scam artists – they wouldn’t pretend to be African American would they? So why do they think it’s okay to pretend to be a “gypsy”? Same goes for Crystal Balls, again, that’s comes out of 1930s Hollywood and not out of real hard fact. No, REAL authentic Gypsy divination involves poppets, clouties, stones, bones, shells, and is used to call on the help of the “Little People” or “Wee Folk” aka the Faeries, and in practice is very similar to Siberian Shamanism, which is where we Gypsies get our roots (not Egypt, Gypsies are of Scandinavian roots not Middle Eastern roots, which is another myth).

One of the larger parts of my ministry is funerals for pets, a service in huge demand and which to date I have overseen more than 500 funerals for cats, dogs, fish, reptiles, birds, rabbits, even a horse and a goat! This keeps me very busy, as it seems I am one of only two ministers in the entire state who offer this service.

Myself having been homeless for 6 years after a hurricane, I discovered that there is a huge need for helping the homeless (it’s a myth that the government, shelters, and soup kitchens are helping these people – I learned this the hard way when I was myself homeless.)

I hold prayer services.

I also write sermons for other ministers, as well as post sermons on my many blogs and websites. I do not preach sermons, however as I have Autism and am “near mute” I can talk, it’s just difficult for me to connect words from my brain to my mouth so I don’t talk very often.

The thing people know me for most of all, is for my no kill animal shelter which specializes in feral cat rescue and has anywhere from a few dozen to over 100 cats at any given time.

I am known by the locals as “The Sea Witch of Old Orchard Beach.” Some know me as “Empress EelKat Queen of the Gypsies” (In Gypsy tradition “King” and “Queen” are religious titles not political titles). Others call me “The Voodoo Queen of Old Orchard.” Some call me “Maine’s Crazy Cat Women.” Most people know me however as “Hey, it’s that reverend woman with the rhinestoned car!”

For the most part I just do my own thing. It’s sort of a “Good Samaritan” thing where I go where I am needed and help whoever is in my path. I’m kind of like a fantasy Dungeons and Dragons cleric who shows up for no reason decked out in outlandish robes, worshiping an obscure and ancient reptilian god, offers my services, my services involving casting spells and driving out demons, then is gone from your life and you wonder if I was ever there. (Which is why I never play a cleric when I play Dungeons and Dragons, actually, I mean, why play something when that’s my real life job that I do every day, right?)

A day in the life of Rev. EelKat is always eventful and never dull.

Because most folks haven’t got a clue what it means to be married to a lwa, in closing I’ll copy and paste a blog post I wrote awhile back. Someone sent me the questions and I answered them, thusly. This should give you a clearer answer to my daily life as a ChristoPagan [Voodoo] minister:

[quote]
[b]<b>
I heard there was this thing called Mariaj Lwa where voodoo practitioners marry a lwa. What is this exactly?
[/b]</b>
It is exactly what it says it is, marriage to a lwa, or more correctly “a zombie wedding”. There is a full blown wedding, with a priest, bride, groom, bridesmaids, showers, wedding gown, tuxedo, exchange of rings, exchange of vows, reception, wedding feast, singing, dancing, not a little quiet backyard wedding, but a huge full blown over the top elaborate extravagant event just like when Diana married Prince Charles. Some people when they marry a lwa while spend tens of thousands of dollars on the wedding and spend several years planning the event. Personally, I am not in favor of this sort of thing, as I see it as a huge waste of money. Okay, if you are going to buy a wedding dress and tux, than you’ll have to spend a few hundred dollars and another couple hundred on the rings maybe another hundred to pay the priest for services and a couple hundred more for food. At the absolute most you shouldn’t ever need to spend more than $3,000 tops, and even that is a bit higher than I’d recommend. You could easily pull the whole thing off for under a $1,000. So folks who go crazy and spend 10, 20, 30, or even 100 thousand dollars on their marriage to a lwa, are just nuts trying to show off. The wedding should be about the lwa, not about showing off how much money you have to throw around!

But all that is the actual wedding itself, and it’s about a lot more than just the wedding, and I think a lot of folks forget that. They get so caught up in planning for the wedding and throwing the biggest party they can afford, that they forget WHY they are doing it. It is a lifelong commitment and a lot of hard work, and there is no divorce or way out once you’ve stepped in you can’t back down. I think some people just want a big wedding and use this as an excuse to get it, and that’s just wrong.

[b]<b>
Is this like what nuns do when they marry Christ?
[/b]</b>

I believe it is. I’m not sure though, because I am unfamiliar with Catholicism. I have never studied Catholicism and have never had any involvement in Catholicism or known anyone who did. So I really have no idea what nuns do when they marry Christ, or what marrying Christ even means to them, why they do it, or anything else. Sorry, but I really can’t give you an answer for this one, because I have no idea. I would guess it is more or less the same thing though, because nuns give up their secular life to devote every day of the rest of their life to serving Christ, and that is basically the same thing a Vodounist does when they marry a lwa.

[b]<b>
Why would someone want to marry a lwa? How does one get chosen for this?
[/b]</b>

The lwa comes to you in a dream or a vision or a possession. The lwa may come only once and tell you outright that s/he has chosen you as his/her bride/groom or the lwa may come to you many times, acting kindly and affectionate towards you, conditioning you to his/her company and eventually (after just a few days or after as many as several years) ask if you would consider their offer of marriage. Some lwa may ask or request nicely, while others may demand or threaten in a fearsome manner, depending on the nature of the lwa in question. It is not uncommon for 3 lwa to come to you at once and all 3 ask you to marry them. Male lwas usually ask to marry female Vodounists and female lwa usually ask to marry male Vodounists, but male lwas may also ask males to marriage and female lwas sometimes ask females to marriage, and sometimes a lwa couple (a male lwa and his female lwa companion) may ask for your marriage to them both.

Folks outside the Vodou faith, usually see marriage to a lwa as being a sexual union, often interpreting it as sex with a spirit, demons trying to spawn with humans, incubus lusting after women sort of thing. While marriage to a lwa, may on rare occasions have sexual overtones, usually this is not the case. Usually a lwa who wants to have sex with you will simply take possession within the body of your sex partner without asking for permission from you or your partner. The Vodou religion is very relaxed and liberal about sex, and couples are often sexually active for many years before they get around to the commitment of marriage. Most folks look at this from a Christian standpoint, which states that the ONLY reason to get married is so that you can legally have sex. One must keep in mind here that the concept of sex as a reason to get married is less than 300 years old and was created by Christians. In the Vodou faith, sex is about creating children and creating children often, thus sex with multiple partners is not uncommon, nor is sex outside of marriage. Couples who are married, may not actually ever have sex with each other, but they may have sex with people they are not married to as a way to ensure more children are born.

In Vodoun marriage is not about the the right to have sex or create children, but rather the commitment to take care of and protect another person and serve them with the utmost devotion for the rest of your life. This explains why most lwas have multiple spouses.

For example Damballa has 3 wives, and one of those wives has 5 husbands and one of her husbands has another 2 wives besides her. Damballa takes care of and protects each of his wives. Likewise the wives take care of and protect him. The wife with 5 husbands, takes care of and protects each of her husbands, and each of them takes care of and protects her.

The goal here is family unity. Everybody has somebody who loves them enough to take care of them, look out for them, and protect them from harm. Because marriage is not about the act of sex, you see men marry men and women marry women, which leads to the misconception that there are an overly high rate of gays and lesbians in Vodou. While gays, lesbians, bi-sexualy, and transgenders folks are openly accepted in most Vodou communities, marriage between same sex couples does not always mean the couple is in fact gay. Christians (who for some reason think of everything in terms of sex) usually find it very difficult to understand the Vodou concept of marriage without sexual requirements.

The concept of marriage as a commitment to take care of someone forever, without any sexual obligations, is just too hard for the overly sexed Christian mind to graspe. In theory if everybody has somebody to protect them, than no one will ever be hurt. The whole thing is farther complicated by the fact that in addition to husbands marrying wives and parents having children, many also have dozens of “adopted” godchildren who are not related by blood or marriage but are still considered family. The end result is Vodou families are HUGE. The whole thing is very complicated and generally too difficult for most folks raised of a Christian mindset to wrap their brains around.

I tell you all this, to show you that marriage to a lwa, is not about having sexual relations with a spirit, but rather it is about devoting your life to serving that spirit in exchange for his/her protecting you. And this is why is does not matter if the lwa you marry is male or female.

How did I personally get chosen for this?

Well, when I first got asked by Damballa to be his wife, I had not a clue who he was, what Voodoo was, or that it was even possible to marry a deity. I thought I was just having crazy dreams. In recent years I started Googling and reading blogs trying to find out if others had had this happen and some of the blog posts I’ve found just seem as though they were written by a 14 year old screaming fan girl, who just got done watching fantasy (Loki) movies and is looking to marry the actor who played the god, not actually the god himself. Kind of off putting really. And did not help me to feel any less crazy.

Here’s the thing, I was a woman in my 40′s looking for SERIOUS info on godspouses devoted for life, not these hormone crazed teenagers who will dump their god spouse soon as the next big hit movie comes out. Why, well, 15 or so years ago, I was asked by a strange god I had never heard of before, to be his wife. I was a Christian at the time and when I researched to find out who this guy was, I freaked out when I discovered he was a Voodoo deity (lwa). I did the whole, no way is that ever going to happen! (Because I held the belief that Voodoo was evil, Satanic, yadda, yadda, yadda). But this lwa continues to visit me in my dreams every night, tells me he’ll wait for me to come to my senses and stop being scared of him, some day I’ll trust him and know that this is the path I’m meant to walk.

So, I continue on being a good little Christian and avoiding all those “wicked pagan things” including Voodoo, while he keeps showing up in my dreams each night and telling me that my life is about to change, and he’ll be right there beside me through it all, and then I’ll understand. Me, I think, I’m going crazy and try telling myself none of this is real, it’s just a dream. He just says “You’ll see”.

Well, see I did! Suddenly everything went wrong, really wrong, really fast: my grandmother died, my engagement was ended because my future husband decided to become a celibate type priest, my dad went into a coma, a flood took my house, I started rebuilding only to have that house burnt to the ground by vandals, I spent 6 years homeless living under a tarp, my church excommunicated me after 27 years of faithful service, and one day I was sitting at the library trying to figure out what the heck was happening, when I saw this book about Voodoo sitting on a desk opened to a chapter about this particular lwa (Damballa, btw). So I started studying Voodoo and found out it was nothing like I thought it was.

From there, one thing lead to another and once I stopped be scared of Voodoo and started paying more attention to Damballa (who I found to be patient, kind, gentle, loving and someone I could trust) all of a sudden my life turned back around, and the more I devoted my life to him, the better my life became. I mean 15 years ago the thought of marrying a Voodoo lwa and devoting the rest of my life to him was a terrifying thought that I wanted nothing to do with, and now today, it’s a comforting thought that I look forward to. But I still was putting it off, because it just seemed too crazy to be real. I was starting to lean towards, yeah, I think I could marry this guy and devote every fiber of my life to him, but wait a minute, how do I explain something like this to people without sounding crazy? I mean, it’s like,  ”Oh hello, no, I’m sorry I can’t go on a date with you,  see I got a wedding ring, yeah, I’m married. I’m sorry, no you can’t meet my husband because he’s a  snake god and you can’t see him, because he’s like invisible and I only see him at night in dreams…” I mean, that just screams loon bin to most folks, so how the heck am I suppose to handle all this?

On one hand I’m like I’m ready to do this and on the other hand I’m like this is just crazy, who marries a spirit being/deity/god?  He points out the thousands of Catholic women married to Christ, and I go, “Hey, you’re right, I never thought of that! But that’s Jesus, who marries other gods?” He says lots of people have done it. Really? Okay, well if lots of people have done it, than Google should direct me to a few of those folks right? Silly me, Google came back with 48 pages of results. Okay, so he’s right and I’m wrong.

But then there was the whole Voodoo religion thing, I mean, I wasn’t Voodoo, sure I agreed with some of the stuff, sure I could see maybe attending services at a Voodoo temple if not for the fact the nearest one to me is some 700 miles away. But I don’t believe a lot of the stuff, I outright disagree with several dogmas, and I just can’t see myself ever becoming an initiate. I’m not a Vodunist, how the heck can I marry a Voodoo deity?

He says, Voodoo isn’t about the religion, initiation, or dogmas, Vodou is the place for that stuff, not Voodoo, and folks who get hung up on the dogmas of Voodoo are stuck on an ego trip, and are in it more to show off to other humans, than to actually serve the gods.  He tells me, don’t listen to the self righteous leaders who say you have to do this or you have to do that, because they are just making up their own rules or following after rules made up by other men, and the lwa can come to any one, any time, any place, and they don’t have to belong to the Voodoo religion to be in contact with a lwa. People don’t choose the lwa, the lwa chooses them.

So, than in May 2012, I finally say, “Okay, I’ve made up my mind, I’m ready to marry you, let’s do this.” Then I’m like “Wait a sec, how in the heck do I actually DO this?” I can’t just walk into a local church or court house or town hall and say: “I’m marrying this snake god that you can’t see, can you officiate the service?”

So that’s where I am at now, and why I’ve spent the last few days Googling other godspouses trying to find out what it is they actually did to officiate and legalize their marriage to their god. What did you actually do? Was there a wedding? Voodoo has weddings for such things, I know, but that involves the whole becoming an initiate and going to Haiti, neither of which are an option at the present moment. But than he’s telling me, to stop worrying about that because I don’t need to be a part of any religion or initiation to serve him, and all the ritual stuff about Voodoo lwa weddings that’s just a load of hooey made up by men, that, we just need a small local private wedding ritual, just me and him and a witness to officiate the service. He say’s “Think of it as an elopement.”  Great, so how exactly do I do THAT? He has very specific instructions on some stuff (like I should wear a white dress, and he wants me to have this ring made up with a huge flat green stone and a gold snake wrapped over the stone, and he wants me to built this white cabinet like altar) but than other stuff he’s just like “You’ll figure out what to do when the time is right. Don’t worry about the details. Just prepare things as I told you and everything else will fall into place.”

And here I am still asking: “Well, okay, but HOW THE HECK DO WE OFFICIATE THE SERVICE!?!?!” He just says again “You worry too much. Don’t worry about.” *sigh*

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What do you have to do?
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It is different for different lwas, and different Houses/Temples teach varying traditions so there is no set in stone hard and fast rule regarding it. One would do what you are taught is correct in your own House. There are some basic general guidelines that are more or less consistent from one house to the next, which are as follows:

Get asked to marry the lwa.

Accept proposal.

Be courted by said lwa, while planning and preparing the wedding feast.

Build altar/shrine to the lwa. Even if you already have one, you must build one, because this is a special altar, separate from your daily devotional or magic working altar. You must never have items intended for other lwa on this altar.

Throw wedding feast, exchange vows/rings. (You will wear your wedding ring for the rest of your life. The robes and ring of the lwa will be kept on the altar, usually a draw to hold the robes, with the ring placed on the top of the altar.)

Devote first 40 days of marriage to the lwa. Wear white for 40 days. Some brides choose to wear their wedding dress for this. Abstain from salt, sugar, sex, smoking, drugs, and drinking for 40 days. Eat only foods accepted by lwa (for example Damballa would expect you to drink only water and eat only white eggs, white rice, and white bread, for 40 days). If you are married to a human spouse, you must sleep in separate rooms for these 40 days as well. Tend the altar daily for 40 days.

After the first 40 days are over, you can go back to your normal routines, with the following changes:

For the rest of your life you are expected to take off one day a week, to devote to the lwa, in the same way you devoted the 40 days to him/her. Each lwa has a particular day of the week, which is considered “their day”, same way as the Christians declare Sunday to be God’s day so they take the day off from work to attend church on Sunday and the Jews and Seventh Day Adventists declare Saturday to be God’s day. Each lwa has a day of the week, for example Damballa’s day of the week is Thursday. So if you was to marry Damballa, you would be expected to wear white on Thursday (some brides choose to wear their wedding dress for this) and to abstain from salt, sugar, sex, smoking, drugs, and drinking on Thursday; Thursday would be the day on which you would set out fresh offerings on Damballa’s altar; if you have a human spouse, on Thursday you would sleep in separate rooms. You would do this every week, for the rest of your life. If you forget a week, the lwa may become angry and choose to not protect you until you did something to show you still care. Some lwa are more temperamental than others. For example, Erzulie, known for her extreme jealousy, will often demand you redo the 40 day ritual you did in the beginning, followed by a feast in her honor on the 41st day, before she will forgive your forgetting her for a single day, while a more calm lwa like Damballa may only ask for you to wear white and eat nothing but water, eggs, and rice for 7 days.

In addition to the weekly devotionals, you will be expected by some lwa, to do more elaborate monthly rituals, and if the lwa has a specific day assigned to them (in the same way Jesus has Christmas December 25th assigned to him) you will be expected to give a large feast in the lwa’s honor on their day.

Some houses have far more detailed steps you must follow, including singing certain songs on certain days, or dancing certain dances, or playing drums, or reciting the lineages of the lwa’s family or presiding over congregational events your House holds in honor of the lwa. Some Houses ask you to devote 2 days a week to the lwa, one at home and one in the temple. Some Houses say you must not do work for clients (readings, rootwork, etc) on the day of your lwa, while other Houses will say you can ONLY do work for your clients on the day of your lwa, and others say you can do work for your clients with other lwas on the other 6 days but with your lwa spouse only on his/her day. There may be other things which your House requires, say some might say you must keep a pet snake if you marry Damballa. Some will tell you, not to wear white, but rather the colors of your lwa, for example Erzulie Freda would have you wear pale pink and light blue while Erzulie Dantor would require blood red and navy blue. Every House will be different when it come to these sorts of details. When in doubt ask your House leader (Houngan or Mambo) what it is they recommend.

Serving the lwa is important though. I was reading a blog post, awhile back about the pros and cons of what sort of offering to leave out for which gods, and one commenter mentioned they felt like a heretic for serving a Norse god which demanded alcoholic drinks as offerings, because they themselves have a dry house and have never left such requested offerings to said god. My responded to ask her why was she serving a god she did not feel she could serve wholeheartedly? There are plenty of gods who don’t demand alcoholic offerings. Not all gods want alcohol. Some actually strictly forbid it and would be deeply offended by it! Me? I have a dry house as well and never an offering of alcohol, but that’s just fine with the spirits I work with, because they don’t want it. Perhaps, she should research and find out which gods she is most in tune with lifestyle-wise and focus more on them? Perhaps, if you are serving a deity who demands alcohol, but you have a dry house, perhaps that means you are not serving the deity who is most suited to you personally? I don’t know, but that’s how I would look at it if it was me. I would be asking myself “WHY am I serving a god who demands things which are contrary to how I live my life? Maybe I jumped into this too fast, maybe this isn’t the god I’m suppose to be serving.” Well, that’s what I’d be thinking anyways, because personally I don’t think I could wholeheartedly serve a god that demanded alcoholic offerings if I did not myself drink alcohol. Does that make sense? Do other folks feel this way or is it just me?  I mean, Voodoo is well known for lws who smoke cigars and get drunk and demand such offerings on their altar, and here I am a non-drinker, non-smoker, but then again, not all lwa make these requests either.

For example, I don’t drink alcohol, I do drink almost exclusively water, tea, and milk, I’m a vegetarian, and the main staple of my diet is rice – and I’ve eaten like this for nigh on 40 years. Most of that time I was a Christian, but since childhood I was plagued by dreams of a white robed mute albino with a giant pet anaconda/snake. In my youth I was terrified of him and thought him a ghost, but in my teen years a friend was killed and this guy visiting my dreams each night because a source of comfort as I realized he was some sort of guardian spirit. He didn’t talk so it wasn’t like I could just ask who he was or what he wanted (though that didn’t stop me from asking anyways).

Well, as I got to researching into this whole thing more, I found out why he was attracted to me. He’s one of those deities, who has a set guideline for the types of folks he’ll come to, and his servants and wives. He’s got several/spirit/lwa wives and hundreds of human wives – apparently he sort of “collects” women servant-spouses the same way Jesus collects bride-nuns, and the same way Jesus demands a strict lifestyle for his brides, Damballa demands a strict lifestyle for his huge bevy of servant women, and do you want to guess what one of the requirements he requires is?

This:

He demands total purity and will only marry a woman who drinks almost exclusively water, supplemented by tea, pure juice, and milk, he recoils at women who eat meat and demands his wives be vegetarian (though he will allow white meat such as chicken or fish), and the main staple of her diet must be rice and white eggs. He forbids alcohol, smoking, and drugs, and puts limits on her sex life, he preferring virgins or married women who “waited for marriage” thus have only been with one man. (I had only ever been with one man, who I was with for 25 years. No other men before or since him.) Upon marriage Damballa demands she “purify” herself by wearing white for 40 days, and eating nothing but white rice, white eggs, milk, and water for 40 days. Than for the rest of her life she is expected to devote every Thursday to him, again wearing white and eating only eggs, rice, and milk. He’s more prone to request marriage of a woman who lives this lifestyle before knowing of him.

I found this out and was like WOW! I already have that diet and lifestyle, no wonder he was “haunting” my dreams for the last 30+ years! He was attracted to me BECAUSE of the lifestyle I lived, because it mirrored very closely to the lifestyle he demands of his servant-wives, thus making me a candidate for being yet another servant-wife to add to his collection.

The more I research this guy, the more I am starting to understand why he picked me, and the more I find myself moving towards accepting his proposal.

But anyways, I say all this because, I find that many have a hard time understanding my extreme strict lifestyle and the devotion I have for the lwa Damballa.  I believe we virberate towards the deity who’s demands most closely mirror our ability to meet those demands.

Does it matter what we offer the gods? On some levels, yes, I think it does. Isn’t the point of leaving offerings, to give the spirit something which they enjoy? It’s a known fact that leaving alcohol and cigars on an altar to Damballa is a sure fire way to keep him away, and may result in his never coming back, EVER, thus why Vodunists always have a separate altar just for Damballa, while other lwa can have all their offerings together on one altar. Likewise when Freda asks for a pink altar cloth and you put out a red one instead, she’s well known to throw a tantrum and ignore you for weeks. Same holds true if a Norse god specifically requests fresh smoked wild game and you come back and give him store bought honeyed ham – he’s going to think you are too lazy to obey orders so why should he bother with you?

So, you see there are some gods/spirits that demand certain things at certain times and will get upset if you don’t get everything just right, but I’m only aware a very few that’ll go off in a huff over it. Most are willing to accept the fact that you made an effort and accept a substitute realizing that you really did not have any choice. I think in most cases it’s not about the offering itself, so much as it is about the amount of sacrifice and effort you put into the offering.

Now I can see where substitutions are okay and have their time and place. For example FarDarrig (Welsh) only asks for 2 things: red objects and dairy. Well this leaves the gates wide open and you can leave him anything from simple .99c red ribbons and a bowl of cream to an elaborately embroidered red silk jacket and flan, or a slice of cheesecake topped with red cherries, or as I have discovered he loved Swiss Miss tapioca pudding cups with red sugar sprinkles. He doesn’t specifically say what he wants, he just says “red” and “dairy” and let’s you figure out from there what to leave for him.

I remember reading a blog post by a Loki godspouse who was made fun of my other Loki godspouses because she made strawberry shortcakes to leave on his altar. I don’t know Loki well, but it was my understanding that he expects sweets and baked goods, well what does that include? Pretty much everything from Halloween candy to sponge cake to ice cream sundaes and cakes, pies, cookies, breads, heck even tuna casseroles and mac&cheese fall under “baked goods”. The complaint that started their discussion was that someone gave Loki a strawberry shortcake for an offering. How is giving him a strawberry shortcake NOT on his list of accepted offerings, when all he asks for is “sweets” and “baked goods” and a strawberry shortcake is itself a sweet baked good?

And then once you find out what they ENJOY, isn’t is best to leave THAT even if it’s not on the “canonized” list of traditional offerings? So what if Loki asks her for strawberry shortcake but tells another not to give him strawberry shortcake? You know what that tells me? It says that Loki is trying to politely tell you “Honey, I like strawberry shortcake, but you suck at making it, so don’t bother giving me any, I’ll go get it from this girl here because she knows how to make it the way I like it.” All that means he expects a different offering from each of his subjects.

I mean, think about it: wouldn’t YOU get sick of going from one house to the next and being served the EXACT SAME THING EVERY TIME? Let’s imagine you are new to the neighborhood and your first day after moving in 20 neighbors stop by to give you welcome basket and 19 of them made you a tuna casserole and 1 of them made you a strawberry shortcake. You’d be grateful for all the hard work they put into making the tuna casseroles, and you’d accept each with a smile so as to not hurt anyone’s feelings, put will you honestly eat all 19 of them? No. You’ll pick the one that looks and smells the best, and you’ll eat that one with the strawberry shortcake for dessert, then secretly donate the other 18 casseroles to the local homeless shelter, because there is no way you can or even would want to eat 18 tuna casseroles before the end of the week.

I can just see Loki rolling his eyes and saying “Here we go again, yet ANOTHER… oh wait, look at that strawberry shortcake, that’s new! I got to remember this girl, she knows I need some variety in my diet.”

Now I can see if you are doing a very specific ritual, for a very specific request, then yeah you are going to want to leave very specific items, so he knows what you are asking for, but if you are just leaving a thank you offering or an offering to let him know he’s in your thoughts, then why not give him something extra special, something you think/know he likes? You’d do the same for a friend, how much more should you be doing it for a god?

But yeah, it’s the same way for any bride of any deity. You have to know him to serve him.

I say these sorts of things and folks tell me that I take the gods way too seriously. But, if they are gods, then isn’t it our place to take them seriously? I am always stunned, esp, when fellow ministers say these things, because then I have to ask them: what kind of a minister are you if you don’t take the gods seriously? Are you sure you really are a real cleric or are you just masquerading as one because you wanted to stick a nice title in front of your name?

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What do you think are the pros and cons of marriage with a lwa?
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The biggest pro is protection. The lwa promise to protect you, that is the whole reason you accept their proposal to marriage.

The biggest con is sacrifice. You sacrifice a lot of time and a lot of what some would term “pleasures” to devote your life fully to maintaining a shrine to your lwa.

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Is this practiced in the path you follow?
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Most religious groups have some form of a marriage to a spirit. As you mentioned already, Catholic nuns marrying Christ. There are some 3 million single Mormon women who have gone and gotten themselves married to Joseph Smith Jr even though he’s been dead 200 years and the in spite of the fact that the Mormon Church strictly forbid them from doing this.

Marriage to lwa is a strictly Vodou tradition. It is not a part of Vudu, Hoodoo, or Voodoo. However, while it is NEVER used in Vudu or Hoodoo, it is sometimes done in Voodoo. As I mentioned earlier Voodoo is taking Hoodoo and throwing bits and pieces of Vodou into it. Which parts of Vodou is used varies from one House to the next, with each priest and priestess picking and choosing parts of Vodou they like best and tossing the rest by the wayside. As such SOME Voodoo Houses do practice Mariaj Lwa, though most do not.

Now you ask specifically about the path I personally follow. My path is a mix of Mormon and Hoodoo, neither of which have a tradition of marrying spirits, though it has been done in both traditions Mormons often marry dead prophets, and Scottish Gypsies often marry Faeries and Nature Spirits (and always with the whole “I’m marrying this spirit so I can have sex with it” attitude). Neither tradition has the “commitment for eternity without sexual obligation” attitude that Vodou has.

Now, I am not Vodou. There are many dogmas and rituals in Vodou which I do not agree with, biggest of them being animal sacrifice. Like the Jews, Vodou does practice animal sacrifice and has a whole big ritual event of taking sheep, goats, or chickens to a temple to be killed by a priest. This is what prevents me from joining Vodou, because otherwise I do in fact believe pretty much the whole rest of the religion. Mariaj Lwa is a Vodou ritual.

That said, I am Voodoo, Voodoo being a branch of Vodou, in which each House borrows some, but not all of the Vodou rituals. I am an uninitiated member of the House of the Lansquin. It is a very small House with only a few members and they do not advertise or actively go about seeking out new members. It is more or less what many would consider to be not unlike a “Witch’s Coven”. Vodou Houses and Voodoo Temples tend to be more like a church, with a big open building, rows of seats, and lots of members coming together once a week. The House of the Lansquin does not have this, because it is lead by a Houngan who suffers a terrible speech impediment (born with a cleft palate) and is also highly sensitive to noise, thus it is a quiet House lacking the pomp and circumstance of wild dancing and music, which one normally expects to find in a Voodoo House. Also it is not a strictly Voodoo House, either as he also works with Chaos Magic, Enochian Angel Alchemy, Reki, and Ancient Egyptian Magic. The Houngan keeps to himself, lives a relatively solitary life and makes no move towards any type of expansion for his House. Few know it exists, few are able to find it, and few are admitted entrance into it. It is more in keeping with being one man’s personal shrine to the Lwa than it is a temple for members to join. In any case, it is through the House of the Lansquin, that I came to learn about and practice Voodoo, which means that the path as I follow it, is quite a bit different from the more traditional Voodoo path and as I said is not strictly Voodoo but has a mix of several traditions. I follow the traditions of my House, and yes, to answer your question, in this House, Mariaj Lwa, is an accepted tradition.

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What sort of initiation or dedication is required to do this? I was married to an Egyptian God a few years ago, I self initiated myself to him and expected to feel great things at my self dedication, but I felt nothing at all and now I can’t even remember his name! I’ve married a few other gods since, none was right for me. I thought this Mariaj Lwa thing sounded like it might be fun, or at least more real than my other god marriages.
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I’ll start out by saying that “self initiation” and “self dedication” are not interchangeable phrases, any more than “dedication” and “initiation” are. I know that doesn’t stop people from using them as interchangeable, but I think that it is this misuse of words that is causing some folks to question the results/changes they got/felt.

I’m questioning the irony between the word “dedication” and not remembering the name of the god you are “dedicated” to. I think maybe that was the problem (you just picked a god at random and not one you were actually dedicated to serving.) The dictionary definition of dedication, is after all “loyal devotion and servitude”.

For example a man and a woman get married and they vow to be dedicated to one another, but one of them starts cheating (and is thus not dedicated to the other) and the relationship falls apart (usually, unless the other is so dedicated that they overlook the cheating as a flaw they must live with).

So, that’s the way I look at dedication in a religious sense as well. You dedicate yourself, not because it’s fun or cool or because everyone else did it first, but rather you dedicate yourself because you are truly, deeply, passionately committed to devoting every fiber of your being to your chosen path and/or god.

That said, when I hear folks, like yourself, who say the “self dedication” was nothing spectacular and you feel away, or as you said even forgot the name of your god, I think this is a case of “too much too soon”. I think what it means is that you were not ready for it yet. It doesn’t mean you did anything wrong, it just means you were not ready for that level of dedication, that’s all.

What would you do to ensure that you are ready next time (if there is a next time)? Well, I can only tell you what it is I would do, which is this: I would find a god whom resonates with me, a god whom I could talk to on a one on one personal level, a god I could trust, a god who’s values match my own, a god who I feel a kinship for. (for me that was Damballa) Than once I found a god who felt “right” for me, I would study everything I could about him/her, find out the culture and history around him/her, and get to know him/her on a personal level, including to build him/her an altar, and start holding weekly services to him/her. All the while I would pray and listen for guidance. After a few years (in my case 15 years) of such study and service, than and only then would I feel that I was ready to dedicate myself to this path/god. Why? Because, if I have already devoted 15 years of faithful service to him, than I know without a doubt that he is the one I am dedicated to serving the rest of my life.

This is how I see it anyways. So, yeah, I would agree with you, when you say you feel it “wasn’t to be”. It is a learning experience for you though, because now you know what doesn’t work for you in your life and you can move on to finding something that does work in your life instead. There are many paths to choose from, you just have to keep looking until you find the one that’s right for you.

I’ve mentioned initiations elsewhere (a forum, forget which one) and got “attacked” by several “holier than thous” who went all hooting nanny because I included my childhood Christian baptism on the list. They did the whole “baptisms are not initiations” and “Christianity doesn’t count” thing.

That said, I am glad to see that such a response is not so here, and several other responders include childhood baptisms in their list. {{{huggies}}}}

Why? well, because even though I’m not a part of it now, it was a big part of my life for 27 years and it shaped who I ultimately became, resulting in who I am today. Sure I “chose” to be baptized at 8 years old and everyone (parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, Sunday School teachers, elders, bishops, missionaries, etc)  went off on the whole “it was her choice, we didn’t force her” bit. I mean, I was 8 years old and I did not know one single solitary person who HAD NOT been baptized at the age of 8, so OF COURSE I chose to get baptized, because I thought it was what I was supposed to do, not because I had any idea what it was or why I was doing it. But like I said, I spent the next 27 years utterly devoting my life to it (Mormonism, btw) even though I never really fit in. I knew I didn’t fit in, because over 750 people/members of the congregation/family/relatives were very vocal in saying to my face “Wendy you don’t fit in, you are not like the rest of us, you need to get on your knees and prayer for forgiveness and repeat.”. Though I was never quite sure what it was I needed to repent from as while everyone was telling me I needed to repent, no one really gave any details about what it was I had down that required repentance.

Well, then after 27 years of faithful service, never missing a meeting (many each week), doing all the required volunteer work and rituals, bakes sales, yadda, yadda, yadda, the bishop comes out and says I’m being excommunicated on grounds of witchcraft.

Wait? What? Witchcraft? Me? Seriously? I laughed at them. I thought it was a joke. Me a witch? That was just too funny. They weren’t joking. They were very serious. They were so serious that  they burned my house to the ground claimed that “God told them to”. in order to “get rid of the witch”. Wow. I was stunned. And I started asking everyone I met (even strangers on the street) “What is a witch?” I didn’t know. I had no idea how to tell if I was one. (I had no prior contact with non-Mormons, media, TV, movies, stuff that would have told me, never been to school, never even been off the compound till I was 31 years old!) I had been so dedicated to Mormonism that I had no idea what anything outside of it was (I have Autism and OCD which explains how I was able to get so narrow focused on one thing). So when they suddenly kicked me out for being a witch, I was just totally confused.

One thing lead to another, and eventually I set out to studying witchcraft, and low and behold, they were right, I WAS a witch, and never knew it. Huh. Well that was just weird. Turns out, I was actually pretty deep into witchcraft too. I had to think about this one. It caught me off guard. My whole life I was surrounded by Mormons who were careful to not let me (or any of the other children) have contact with any non-Mormons, with one exception: my two grandmothers, were not Mormons.

My dad’s mom was from Scotland, had more superstitious than you could imagine and had a cure for everything – though I did not realize it at the time – she was a Hoodoo Rootworker and much of what she did was steeped in Voodoo. My mom’s mom was a Native American, a devoted Seventh Day Adventist, a practitioner of Huna, and weather woman/rainman/shaman. It is no secret that in my childhood I was terrified of the dogmatic (often physically violent) men in my family and thus spent nearly every waking minute in the company of my 2 nature loving grannies, who taught me the names and uses of every plant, herb, and root in the area, taught me how to talk to the spirits of animals and trees and how to communicate with the “Little People” (faeries), what offerings to leave where, how to read gemstones-shells-cards, etc, etc, etc.

The deaths of my grandmothers (both from cancer, a few years apart) was highly traumatic to me, not just because of their deaths, but because of the huge, joyful celebrations their deaths ignited among the rest of the family (a celebration that included family members gathering together to sign “Ding, Dong, The Wicked Old Witch At Last Is Dead!”). While other members of the family had been given huge funerals with fancy gold plated coffins and lots of solemn mourning, Grammy Eva was buried in a cardboard box, and there was no funeral because “the old hag didn’t deserve one”. The days following her death were spent with relatives partying, rejoicing at “now we can baptize her a Mormon”, and telling stories of all the nasty names they had made up for her over the years (including one 4 year old who got up to perform a “poem” which started out “Nanny Banana, the big fat bofanna…”). The festivities really got going after one of her sons got up and gave a toast which regaled on how great he was, because it was his prayers that she would die that got her sorry existence out of their lives.

I was shocked and appalled by the blatant display of absolute hatred, and I said as much, and was promptly accused of being a witch, because “only an evil witch would defend that old hag, you witch scum stick together”. In the years to follow I was subjected to exorcisms because as they put it: “She’s been possessed by Grammy’s evil spirit”.

The deaths of my grannies was an eye opener, and made me question: everything, including to ask: “What ever compelled me to get baptized into this?” Which lead to “Is there any point in getting baptized ever?” Which eventually lead me to write an article AGAINST initiations in which I said:

[i]“And you say to me: Who initiated you? By what authority do you do these things; what laying on of hands gave you this power?

By what authority do you ask this question? Irrelevant? No. Logic. Authority is one person’s way of deluding himself. Authority is just another word for power. Power is another word for ego. Ah. Initiation is one man’s ego trying to control another man. So let’s re-ask the question:
By what egomaniacal megalomania power do you do these things?

By the authority given to me by the God of Creation. God created me. God made me what I am. Only God has the power to do anything. No human has the power to lay hands on me. No human has the right to assert control over other humans. No human has the power to give another human power. Humans are just humans. Only this and nothing more.

Any Human who comes to you and says that you can not do a thing, without them first using their authority of laying on of hands to bless you, initiate you, baptize you, and endow you with power, is nothing more than a power hungry, pompous, self-righteous, deluded ego driven jackass, hiding behind God, and pretending that it is God demanding authority when God doesn’t give a rats ass about authority, because God isn’t a respecter of persons. God’s authority is the only authority, and any religious anyone who says otherwise is nothing more than a bully pushing his weight around as a way to gain control of another. I’m sorry, but I’m not a religion crazed creep like you.

By what authority, does any man claiming to have a authority, get his authority?

The man who claims to have the authority to give you authority, got his authority from another man claiming to have the authority to give him authority and in turn got his authority from another man claiming to have the authority to give him authority who likewise got his authority from another man claiming to have the authority to give him authority, who also got his authority from another man claiming to have the authority to give him authority, all of which leads us to ask, who gave the first guy the authority to give anyone else the authority? Answer: nobody. He crowned himself king of giving others authority and declared no one else had the authority, because he wanted to boost his own ego, and others, stupid sheep that they were, went along with it and let themselves be lead around by a ring in the nose, because they were too weak mentally to question how authority got it’s authority.

In truth, no one has the authority to give anyone else the authority in anything. All any of us can do is research and study and learn all we can to find out more about a subject. We then become an “authority in our field” by virtue of knowledge, not by virtue of “laying on of hands”. Being an “authority in your field” only means that you studied more and learned more than the next guy, it doesn’t mean that you have the power to pass authority on to the next person. No one can do that.

By what authority do I heal the sick? By what authority do I feed the hungry? By what authority do I provide hope to the downtrodden? By what authority to I preach scripture? By what authority do I read cards? By what authority do I cast spells? By the authority of having devoted my life to serving God and helping others, by the authority of 12 years of Bible seminary, by the authority of 27 years of scripture study including reading the Bible cover to cover 31 times, by the authority of the God given gift of the desire to help those in need. No man can give me this. Why should I take orders from a man instead of from God? I have free will. I don’t answer to no man. No one bosses me around. No church tells me what to do. I am not the slave of some coven priest. Why would I require initiation? I am not the slave of some church priesthood. I am free, just the way God made me, why would I want to tell God he made me wrong when he made me free? By giving up my freedom to some church, coven, or religion, I turn my back on God. By becoming part of some church, coven, or religion, I tell God he didn’t know what he was doing. By following the leaders of some church, coven, or religion, I tell God he ain’t good enough for me to be my personal Lord Almighty. By joining some church, coven, or religion, I tell God that I believe men have more power and authority than he does. To be initiated into anything is to insult God and bitch slap him right across the face. If you want to bitch slap God and tell Him you’d rather obey the ego of a man than Him, fine, you do that, but don’t expect me to follow you down that risky patch of road.”
[/i]

My thoughts on initiation has not changed much since I wrote that article. (about 10 years ago). (The excommunication came a few years after I wrote this article) One thing that has changed since writing it, is my perception of God. At the time I wrote the article I had this “one God” mindset which I no longer have today, because I started asking questions like “well if God created us, then who created God, and then who was it that created God’s creator? and does that mean that God is just the name of some guy who made life on this planet and if so who made life on other planets and is his name God too?” My questions just kept leading to more questions.

The deaths of my grannies started a lot of questions, but it was being excommunicated that really got the ball rolling and started me asking a lot more questions to a lot more people and a lot louder than before. One of the things I questioned was the validity of the baptism. what value did my initiation into a church have, if I did everything right, obeyed all the rules, did everything I was told to do, and was kicked out for leaving Swiss Miss pudding cups on a stump in the words for a local Faerie (which was the reason I was excommunicated – because I left pudding cups on a stump in the woods, which the Bishop called “evil dark magic and proof that I was a witch” – the bishop also claimed that by leaving said pudding cup on a stump in the woods, that I was in fact casting a death spell, which he further claimed was how some local kid came to drown in a bathtub while his mom was yapping on the phone in the other room). The church council excommunicated me claiming that I had used pudding cups to cause a kid to die, and then tried to take me to court with that evidence, but thankfully the judge had a brain in her head and threw the case out of court, while ordering the bishop to get psychiatric help.

But this lead me to ask: what the heck difference did all my work in the church make? The baptism, the sacraments, the temple work, the rituals, if it could all be taken away because I put a pudding cup (Tapioca) on a moss covered stump in the woods. I mean, I could have been feeding squirrels for all they knew! I could have been leaving it for a homeless guy! I was leaving it for a FarDarrig (water spirit), but even when I told them this, they said, “Nope, nope, don’t lie, we know what you were doing. You were casting a death spell to kill little Craig Thomas.” I was asking him, “Who the heck is Craig Thomas?” They told me he was a kid who lived in Utah, well, no wonder I never heard of him, here I was born and raised and still living in Maine!

I came to the conclusion the judge was right, the bishop was crazy, but then I still had the question: What was the point of my initiation into this religion, if it could be taken away for something so stupid?

So I stopped believing in the validity of initiations, and now refuse to be initiated, because initiation, as I see it, is nothing more than one man’s way of saying “I control you” and he can “un-initiate” you at any time, for any reason, on a whim. And if your initiation can be invalidated on one man’s whim, than what actual value does said initiation have? None. It means not a thing. I explored several Christian religions after the excommunication, before I got to the point of saying “I wonder if they are right? Could I be a witch?” That’s when I really shocked myself, and found out that all that stuff my grannies had taught me was in fact witchcraft (and here I thought it was being respectful of nature and nature spirits!) and all that card reading, shell tossing, spirit channeling stuff I was doing was also witchcraft (magic) and here I thought magic was stuff like found in Harry Potter – wave a wand and poof you can fly. The whole experience was a really big wakeup call, into what witchcraft was versus what I had thought it was. The biggest shock was probably realizing that there was no need for me to be initiated/baptised/whatever in order to become a part of it, heck, I had already been reverancing nature and talking to spirit since I was 4 years old!

Well, after that I started looking into various Pagan faiths and kept being attracted to Voodoo, probably because of the fond memories of my grannies, both of whom, I now realize were practicing Hoodoo as well as Voodoo in much of their lives. I since joined into Voodoo, becoming a servant to Damballa, and currently moving towards marrying said lwa, but likewise have refused to be initiated, because I hold the belief that no one has the “authority” to “initiate” anyone, and that the only thing any of us can really do is make “vows of dedication” to a path or god. So, I no longer believe in initiations, and yeah, that’s how I came to feel that way.

My answer to you and you question is this: How the heck did you dedicate yourself to a god then dump him and not even remember his name? Seriously, you call that being dedicated? I hate to say this honey, but I think you are just bed hopping, being a whore to the gods rather than a faithful servant. You need a serious lesson in nailing your ass down and being a LOYAL, DEVOTED, FAITHFUL servant, long before you should even consider marrying a deity or spirit being. I answer your questions as one who has devoted every fiber of her past, her present, her future, and her afterlife to the service of ONE man, ONE deity, and you come to me with your flipitent mockery of such a holy union and expect me to take you seriously? Tell me this, have you ever been faithful to a flesh and blood man? How many husbands and boyfriends do you go through? You do realize you are asking advice from a women who in 40 years has only ever been with ONE man, right? You use the word initiation interchangeably with dedication, then speak of dumping gods and marrying a new one because you didn’t feel anything at the wedding? Honey, how many years of service did you devote to your god before you married him? You can’t even remember his name? Do you even have a clue what it means to be dedicated to ANYTHING?

No the Mariaj Lwa is not something you do for fun. It takes up so much work and dedication that you won’t even have time for a job, not even a part time weekend job. This is a very serious thing and I do not think highly of your mockery of such a deeply sacred union.

[/quote]

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Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism?  

——————–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 

——————–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 

——————–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

——————–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

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Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

——————–

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

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FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relinquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

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Oh, btw, while you are sending me your question, can I offer a bit of guidance here? LESS Wiccan related questions PLEASE! I am not Wiccan, know nothing of Wicca, and just because a bunch of local Mormons run around saying I am a Witch, and building those nasty slanderous websites full of false accusations about me, don’t make me one! *sheesh* I am so sick of “but they said…” yeah, I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t make it true. Sending me Wiccan/Witchcraft related questions is only going to piss me off.

——————–

You can be Wiccan all you want, I don’t care. But coming to me and asking me for advice on Wicca and Witchcraft is the equivalent of going to a cake chef and asking him for advice on brick laying! You wouldn’t go to chef to get masonry advice so what the heck are you going to a Christian to get Wiccan advice? Come on people, be reasonable!

——————–

You got Bible questions, thems I can answer. You got Hoodoo questions, yep, I can answer those too. But Wicca? Paganism? Witchcraft? Remember Voodoo is NOT Vodou. Voodoo and Vodou are two separate and different religions. Voodoo is a Christian religion not a Pagan one, we use a Bible, and God, and Jesus, and Saints, and Spirit Guides (lwa). just because I’m Voodoo don’t mean I know shit about Wicca or Paganism  Now I understand you have questions and finding folks like myself who are willing to attempt to answer everything that comes my way are few and far between, but please attempt to use your brain and consider whether or not I am even able to offer advice or even know the answer to your questions before you send them to me? Okay? Good. Thank you.

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Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day!                             

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                                                                   ~ EelKat

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FAQs: Hi i’m having trouble i have a best friend that is wiccan i don’t know if i can send her a christmas card and what do i get her and her husband for christmas any help would be appreciated thank you

Hi i’m having trouble i have a best friend that is wiccan i don’t know if i can send her a christmas card and what do i get her and her husband for christmas any help would be appreciated thank you 

As a general rule, most Wiccans do not have an issue with being sent Christmas Cards from their Christian friends, so usually it is just fine to go ahead and send out the same card you sent out to the rest of your friends (considering most folks buy a pack of 25 identical cards, or have “family photo” cards made up). Some Wiccans, however do get highly offened at petty insignificant things, such as a Christian sending them a Christmas card as a way of saying you care about them. You say she’s your best friend so you should have some idea of how touchy she is or is not on the subject of holidays.

If you think she might be offened, than you do have alternative courses you can take. First of being, to head out to a card store and find a card that has no mention of Christmas on it.  Be certain that it has no religous images on it, including Baby Jesus, Wise Men, Decorated Trees, Gifts, or Santa Claus. Look for images that show nature in winter time, for example a red cardinal on a snow covered branch or a pair of deer walking through a snow covered field or children building a snowman. Next make sure the greeting sayd either “Winter Blessings”, “Happy Holidays”, or “Seasons Greetings” and does not mention Christmas.  Or if she is the type of Wiccan who celebrates Yule than look for a card which has a “Happy Yule Tide” greeting on it. (Yule or Yuletide, is a Wiccan holiday, after all, and it is on December 21, just 4 days before Christmas).

As for gifts, how is her being Wiccan have anything to do with what type of gift you are to give? What does she like? Does she sew, than give her a a basket of fabric quarters. Does she read, than give her an Amazon gift card. Does she draw, than give her a set of Prismicolor pencils. I’m afraid I can not help you in the gift giving department, for that is the same regardless of religion. Some religions do put a ban on gift giving (Jehovah’s Witness and Mennonites, for example) but Wicca is not one of them.

————————————————————————————————————

Ever wonder what it was like to live with Autism?  

——————–

I have Autism. For more of my life I rarely spoke and was considered “too crazy” to ever live a normal life. I communicated via writing instead of vocally. I did not attend school. Psychologists said I would never drive a car, never get a job, never go to college, never function as a meaningful member of society, never be able to take care of myself or live on my own. They said there was no hope for me, I would need full-time care my whole life. 

——————–

My progression was long and slow and very hard. Things other people found easy to do (getting dressed, brushing teeth/hair, walking across the street, etc,) I found extremely confusing and hard to learn. I was prone to wandering off and getting lost (I still am). Driver’s ed takes most people a few weeks to learn – it took me 5 years. 

——————–

I determined to prove the doctors wrong, but it was far harder to do, than most people would imagine. I got my first job working at Macy’s at age 30 (a very difficult job as I had to deal one on one with customers and I still at that point was not talking in a manner that could be understood by others). I got my GED at age 34. I got my driver’s license at age 35. I started college at age 36. By age 37 I had become a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Student and I was finally able to speak to others in full spoken verbal conversation for the first time in my life. 

——————–

Now you can find out what it’s like Being an Adult with Autism. 

————————————————————————————————————

Good morning Starshine! Liked this post? Looking to connect with me online? I love social networks and am on most of them. You can find me on: Blogger, Etsy, FaceBook, Google+, Keen, MySpace, NaNoWriMo, ProBoards, Script Frenzy, Spoonflower, Squidoo, Twitter, ULC Ministers Network, WordPress, and Zazzle Feel free to give me a shout any  time. Many blessings to you, may all your silver clouds be lined with rhinestones and sparkle of golden sunshine. Have yourself a great and wonderful glorious day!

——————–

~Rev. Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat of Laughing Gnome Hollow

————————————————————————————————————

FYI: I welcome all email! That includes arrogant, bigoted, rude, ignorant, snide hate mail many uber religious folks enjoy sending my way.  However, be forewarned that by choosing to send me a letter, email, blog comment, FaceBook comments, or any other message from any other means, which falls into any category, you thereby relenquish all ownership rights and responsibilities concerning your letter(s) and comments(s). I will post any and all letters, both positive and negative, that I feel require or deserve a response. If you don’t want the world knowing your troubles, knowing you are a hater, or knowing you are a bigoted jackass, please refrain from sending me mail, because if you get really bitchy, I’ll go right ahead and use your real name too. Thank you and have a nice day.

————————————————————————————————————

Did you know you can now get a FREE Kindle for your PC? Be sure to download your FREE Kindle directly from Amazon today. Don’t have Windows PC? No worries! Amazon is also offering 100% FREE Kindles for: Android, Windows Phone 7, Mac, iPhone, and BlackBerry. And don’t miss out on over 1.8 million Free eBooks from Amazon’s Kindle Store.

————————————————————————————————————

This post was written by Wendy C Allen aka EelKat, is copyrighted by The Twighlight Manor Press and was posted on Houseless Living @ http://houselessliving.blogspot.com and reposted at EK’s Star Log @ http://eelkat.wordpress.com and parts of it may also be seen on http://www.squidoo.com/EelKat and http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com  If you are reading this from a different location than those listed above, please contact me Wendy C. Allen aka EelKat @ http://laughinggnomehollow.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=viewprofile and let me know where it is you found this post. Plagiarism is illegal and I DO actively pursue offenders. Unless copying a Blog Meme, you do not have permission to copy anything appearing on this blog, including words, art, or photos. This will be your only warning. Thank you and have a glorious day!                             

——————–

                                                                   ~ EelKat

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