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Sunday, June 2, 2013

The MoonQuest Goes Ebook-Only on July 1 ~ Last Chance to Get It in Paperback!

The past is passed.

We let it go.

~ The MoonQuest

Say goodbye to this book cover and, by the end of June, to the paperback edition of The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy. --->

On July 1, The MoonQuest goes ebook-only, and the current paperback edition will go out-of-print.

Why am taking this seemingly radical step? I have both energetic and practical reasons.

Practically speaking, there aren't that many copies of the current paperback edition left. So this edition's days would be numbered, regardless of my current action.

But the energetic/symbolic reason is more important. When this edition was printed in 2007, there was no Q'ntana Trilogy and The MoonQuest's StarQuest and SunQuest sequels, though percolating on the far back burner of my mind, were nowhere in sight.

Since then, my MoonQuest/StarQuest/SunQuest trilogy has gained a name, the remaining books (and all three screenplay adaptations) have been finished, and artist Richard Crookes has designed a unified look for The Q'ntana Trilogy books and films, including new covers for The MoonQuest, as well as for the soon-to-be released StarQuest and SunQuest.

The old MoonQuest look is, well, old. And while Angela Farley's original artwork and Bob Spear's inside design served the book well in its first incarnation, it's time to move on -- to embrace an energy that represents both the full trilogy and the next expression of its potential. To quote from The MoonQuest itself, "The past is passed. We let it go."

The ebook edition of The MoonQuest already sports the new cover, and its insides have also been redesigned and updated (and typos corrected!) to match.

But why now? Well, The StarQuest, Book II in the trilogy, is set to release (finally!) on July 9. And it's important to me that this "old energy" be retired before that happens.

Now the really good news, especially if you haven't yet read The MoonQuest and need to get up to speed before its sequel launches next month:
• Paperback copies of The MoonQuest are now selling for US$6.29 on Amazon.com (down from US$16) through the end of the month)
• Would you prefer a copy signed by me to you or to a friend? You can get one right now on my website through this special link -- for only US$5.99. But only through the end of June. (Signed copies of The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write are also available through that link.)

If you'd prefer the new ebook version, you'll find it right now in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo and iBook stores. (Google Play is very slow at this sort of thing, but it will eventually be updated there as well.)

And don't forget to watch for The StarQuest (coming July 9), The SunQuest, final installment in The Q'ntana Trilogy (coming this fall), and The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies, coming in late 2014/early 2015 to a big screen near you!

~~~~~

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Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Everything Old Is New Again...Again

It's déjà vu all over again.
~ Yogi Berra

It's early 2009. I'm just coming out of a period of reclusiveness and I find myself suddenly thrust back into the public eye. If I did few public appearances other than book-signings when The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write was released eight months ago, I'm suddenly in nearly unquenchable demand for my insights about writing and the creative process. One coaching client grows to two, three, and then a dozen. I'm giving frequent talks and seminars. I'm teaching regular classes and workshops. I'm speaking at conferences and expos. I'm traveling. I have a media presence -- with my own radio show and as a frequent guest on others'.

And then, 18 months later, it all stops, almost as suddenly as it began and, for the next three years, I find myself turning inward again, focused almost exclusively on writing projects that force themselves on me with insistent urgency. Through that time, I finally complete The StarQuest novel, first sequel to The MoonQuest and a project that has been more than a decade in the making. I also complete my Acts of Surrender memoir, another project that has lingered far too long. In addition I start and take to their final drafts The StarQuest screenplay and The SunQuest novel and screenplay, as well as a new book on writing, Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow. It's a period of unprecedented creativity...and one that has just now shuddered to a halt.

Now, in an echo of 2009, I find myself thrust out of my creative seclusion in many of the same ways I was four years ago.

I once again have a new book about writing; this time, it's an Amazon top-seller within days of its release.
I'm teaching again, with tele-classes currently scheduled from this month through to July and with more under discussion.
Just as I was four years ago, I have been asked to create a radio show on a new network. This time, it's to be weekly instead of monthly and feature higher-profile guests. (It's set to launch next month.)
Once again, I find myself working with Susan Larison Danz's Lighted Bridge Communications on my events and media appearances. Susan and her company were instrumental in arranging many of my engagements and appearances in 2009/2010. Now, four years later, we're at it again...only now we're focused on larger, more visible events and venues.
If four years ago much of my focus was on one-on-one work through a thriving coaching practice, today's focus seems to be be more on groups. But the objective remains the same: Inspiring people to rekindle their passion and reignite the fire in their lives.

At first glance, you might be tempted to say, as I briefly was a few days ago, "Can't this guy move on? He's doing all the same stuff he used to do. How is that progress?"

No, this is not Groundhog Day and I'm not Bill Murray's arrogant weatherman. My experiences may appear to be identical to those of three and four years ago, but they're not.

As I have written here before, I dislike the expression "coming full circle" because it suggests that we're returning to a place we've already been, having learned nothing and grown not at all. My preferred image is that of a spiral, where we return to a place along the same axis, but at a higher level of consciousness and understanding, and where we are given the opportunity to operate, as I put it in a The Voice of the Muse, at "a higher level of awareness, mastery, openness and trust."

And so... a new book, new classes, a new radio show and new events and appearances -- all pushing me to my next level of professionalism and, as always in my life, to my next level of surrender.

Where do I go from here? If this renewed beginning is still somewhat veiled, it is replete with the promise that all new beginnings offer. Once again, from The Voice of the Muse: "From silence to silence, word to word, trust to trust -- the spiral is an infinite one, carrying you from one beginning to the next and one ending to the next on a journey with no beginning or ending."

The spiral is an infinite one. Mysterious, too. I can't even begin to imagine where it will carry me next.

For now, though, please check out these renewed, turn-of-the-spiral activities...

To celebrate the launch of Writer's Block Unblocked for Nook and Kobo, all my Nook, Kindle and Kobo ebooks are on sale for US$2.99 each through May 5...

New Tele-Classes...

Writer's Block Unblocked (5 Mondays in May/June) ~ You can write -- naturally, eloquently and flowingly. Become one of my many writer's-block success stories: Free up your creative flow today! ~ $199 through May 7, then $249
Beyond Writer's Block (5 Mondays in June/July) ~ You don't have to have been blocked to benefit from this class. Whatever your form, genre or experience level, Beyond Writer's Block will deepen your creative experience and awaken you to new skills, new stories and a renewed confidence in your innate gifts. ~ $199 through June 3, then $249
Two Tele-Class Discount Package ~ Writer's Block Unblocked + Beyond Writer's Block for a rock-bottom price: $399 through May 7

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Monday, April 22, 2013

Writer's Block Unblocked: An Act of Surrender

It's October 2012, just a few days after my birthday, and I'm on the phone with Aalia, my former wife and still a good friend.

"You have so much terrific material on writing and creativity," Aalia says, "you should write a series of books on the subject, as companions to The Voice of the Muse. Ebooks," she adds, "because you could probably write one and get it up in a few weeks."

I'm not opposed to Aalia's suggestion. But nor do I pay much attention to it. I'm immersed in another round of revisions to my Q'ntana Trilogy books and screenplays. Who has time to take on another project?

The months pass, and I think nothing more about it.

It's now late March 2013. I have completed all my Q'ntana final drafts and brought to completion the nineteen-year odyssey that began when The MoonQuest's first words spilled unexpectedly out of me during a writing workshop I was facilitating. The last thing I'm thinking about is another writing project.

Then I remember Aalia's words. I dismiss them at first, even as I recognize not only their rightness but the track record of their messenger, clearly one of my Muse's most reliable envoys.

We were living in Hawaii and still married when Aalia first suggested I write a book about writing. It was also her idea to combine the book with a recording of my guided meditations for writers. And when I had written an early version, it was she who came up with the title, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

Aalia's direct line to my Muse is also, in part, responsible for The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies, for it was during another phone call, before The MoonQuest was published, that she urged me to try my hand at a screenplay adaptation of my fantasy novel. It took several months and a few reminders before I surrendered to that notion.

Within days of remembering all this, I surrender again -- this time to the book that almost immediately titles itself Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow and that gushes out of me with dizzying speed.

I begin on April 5 by designing a book cover and start writing the following day. Although the writing flows easily (no writer's block there!), I am skeptical about the April 22 publication date that I'm intuiting and push it back by a few days: Somehow, I promise my Muse, I will release Writer's Block Unblocked on April 24, even as that deadline also seems ridiculously unrealistic.

Oh, me of little faith: I completed my final read-through and revisions to Writer's Block Unblocked on Friday evening (April 19), and the ebook goes on sale in a few hours, on April 22, the very deadline I doubted I could meet.

When I wrote my first draft of The SunQuest novel in three weeks, I was astounded. I had never written anything that quickly before. But now, this: Sixteen days from surrender, through multiple drafts and all the way to completion. I'm stunned...and, of course, grateful.

I'm grateful to Aalia for continuing to channel the Ideas Division of MDG's Muse, Inc. I'm more grateful still for the precepts and philosophies in this and all my books -- ways of writing and living that have brought me, once more, to the place of surrender where a book like this could write itself through me so quickly and painlessly.

Writer's Block Unblocked may have taken me only sixteen days to write, but it took me more than sixteen years to reach that place of surrender where those sixteen days could be possible.

In the end, surrender is what this book is all about. It's what all my books and talks and workshops are all about. It's what my life is all about. It's about trusting in the superior wisdom of the story we are living as much as the story we are writing and doing our imperfect best to get out of the way so that that those stories can flow through us.

May Writer's Block Unblocked help you rediscover that same place of surrender within you and may your stories always flow through you naturally, effortlessly and with ease.

• Adapted from "Opening Words," my introduction to Writer's Blocked Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow

To celebrate the launch of Writer's Block Unblocked,

all my Kindle, Nook, Kobo & iBooks ebooks are on sale for $2.99 each through May 5
(the following links are for Amazon/Kindle)

• The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

• The MoonQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy)

• Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir

• The Book of Messages: Writings Inspired by Melchizedek

• Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow

Please note that sale prices will show up on Amazon over the next several hours

• Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow is available exclusively for Kindle, Nook and Kobo apps and readers.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The MoonQuest book

• The Voice of the Muse book + Writing Inspiration

Please follow Mark David on Pinterest and Google+

Writer's Block Ends Today: Two Days Early!

You don't have to experience writer's block.
Ever!

You don’t have to sweat over a blank page.
You don’t have to wonder where your next word is coming from.

All you need to write naturally, effortlessly and flowingly is
Writer's Block Unblocked:
7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow

Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow Today!

To celebrate the launch of Writer's Block Unblocked,

all my Kindle ebooks are on sale for $2.99 each through April 24

• The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

• The MoonQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy)

• Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir

• The Book of Messages: Writings Inspired by Melchizedek

• Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow

Please note that sale prices will show up on Amazon over the next several hours

• Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow is currently available exclusively for Kindle apps and readers. Versions for Nook, Kobo and iBooks are coming soon.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The MoonQuest book

• The Voice of the Muse book + Writing Inspiration