Welcome to my first blog at Author Yogi, where I help authors nurture their creative nervous systems so they write with more creativity and less stress. My focus is on neurodivergent authors and others who are not well served by our current publishing paradigm. If you feel like what’s being sold as the current publishing and writing advice doesn’t fit your life or the way your brain works — you’re in the right place!
Ancient yoga philosophy talked about the division between matter and consciousness, with matter being our brains, bodies, and the physical world around us, as well as the processes, like emotions, driven by them. Consciousness on the other hand is the spark that animates us, the “special sauce” inside us that some call their muse or creativity, and others might choose the word soul to explain. Whatever you call it, as authors we’re constantly weaving the words of matter (our fingers on the keyboard, for example), with our consciousness, to create stories that we enjoy. And, let’s be honest, we hope our readers will love them, too.
For authors this interplay of matter and consciousness can be thought of as the story and inspiration (or muse). The spark of inspiration, whether that’s a setting, a plot twist, or a character’s situation, is what drives us to write, and how we transmute that into words, a story, and eventually a book or other finished product.
Being an author yogi means driving this transmutation with our whole authentic selves to transcend everything which weighs us down creativity. You know, the stuff that causes “stress”.
As a neurodivergent author (only recently realized and diagnosed), I know all about this “stuff”. There were things even back in the mid 2000s when my writing career was really getting going that didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t know why at the time, and there were other authors that really questioned my choices. And yet, while I could go down the road of have beens and should haves, I also know that the choices I made contributed to my writing career lasting over twenty years, and I’m hoping for at least twenty more!
As we get to know one another, we’ll be exploring those things which get in the way of our transmuting inspiration to story and learn how to bring our authentic, whole selves to our writing, and more importantly share that whole self with the world, or at least the people who enjoy our stories and our communities.
So welcome to Author Yogi, where my goal is to help you become one with the story.