Free Your Stories, Free Your Life

I never intended for The MoonQuest to be such a powerful metaphor both for my creative journey and for creative blocks and the creative process. But that's what it turned out to be...through my act of surrender to the story that wanted to be told through me.

In the book excerpt I share on this video, the main character is visited by a Muse-like being who insists he tell his story.

Na’an says it is my story. Perhaps she is right. Is that why the words come so reluctantly? So many seasons of storytelling and still I hesitate. Of all the stories to stick in my throat, how ironic that it should be The MoonQuest, a tale of the freeing of story itself...

For more videos on life and the creative process, visit me on YouTube.



Writing/Creativity Coaching Groups with Mark David / in person and by phone via Teleconference

• Albuquerque, NM / Feb 9-Mar 30 / 7 pm MT (Discount fee through Jan 28)

• Via Teleconference / Feb 18-April 8 / 9pm ET (Discount fee through Feb 8)

An 8-week guided experience of creative commitment and acceleration. It doesn’t matter whether you have a project that’s ongoing, stuck or ready to kick off, or whether you just want help establishing and maintaining a regular writing rhythm; a Voice of the Muse Coaching Group will be your weekly compass alignment to keep you empowered, motivated, inspired and on track.


Mark David's January Events / Denver Area

• Free Talk, Author Q&A and book-signing
Topic: Birthing Your Book...Even If You Don't Know What It's About
Thursday, Jan 28~ 7pm~ Bemis Public Library, Littleton, CO

• Writing workshop -- From Memory to Memoir: Writing the Stories of Your Life
Friday, Jan 29 ~ 6-9pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• Writing workshop -- Write in the Flow: Answering Your Call to Write
Saturday, Jan 30 ~ 10am-4:30pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• The Call to Write: Answering the Voice of Your Muse
Sunday, Jan 31 ~ 1-5pm ~ Phoenix Healing Center, Longmont, CO

Mark David's February Events / Los Angeles

Conscious Life Expo, LAX Hilton

• Friday, Feb 12 ~ 7pm
Free Talk
• Fri, Feb 12 - Sun, Feb 14
At booth #505, offering discounted coaching sessions, signing books, answering writing questions


Private Writing/Creativity Coaching Sessions with Mark David

• Let Mark David help you unleash the power of your creative potential!


Coming to Las Vegas in April and to Portland/Seattle in June. Follow Mark David's events here.

The Muse & You with Mark David Gerson (#7): Radio About Writing, Creativity & Life

Episode Seven:
Thursday, Jan 21, 1pm ET
(click here to listen live or to the archived version any time after the show airs)

• Ask the Writing Coach (your questions for me about writing and creativity) and a feature interview with poet Cristina M.R. Norcross author of Unsung Love Songs and The Red Drum


If there's one thing you can say about Cristina M.R. Norcross, it's that she's dedicated and committed to her writing. Over the years she's clerked in a shoe store and gourmet candy shop, she's worked as a florist and lifeguard, she's taken phone orders for law books and customer complaints for a gas company, and she's taught basic skills and high school English.

As she tells it, there wasn't a free moment during those years when she wasn't writing: "At night...on days off...on note pads next to the cash register -- any ounce of time I could spare."

All that writing time paid off. Cristina has been published in literary magazines in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Algeria, has published two poetry collections -- Land & Sea: Poetry Inspired by Art and The Red Drum -- and has a third poetry collection, Unsung Love Songs, due to be released in time for Valentine's Day.

During this month's feature interview on The Muse and You, we celebrate Valentine's Day three weeks early as Cristina offers us a sneak preview of Unsung Love Songs, shares her creative process, talks about how art inspires her poetry, and reads from a collection that celebrates the quiet, everyday moments of love that can be the heart's biggest flourish of all.

Sometimes there are no word -- just moments.
This is where happiness lives.
~ "No Words", by Cristina M.R. Norcross

It promises to be an enlightening and inspiring conversation, and I hope you'll tune in (and join in, with your questions and comments).

During the first segment of the show, I'll offer some writing tips and inspiration and take your questions about writing and the creative process and about me and my books, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write and The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy.

Please tune in, and bring your questions and quirks -- for me and my guest!

There are three ways to ask questions of my and my guests or to post comments:
• Post your questions in the show's chat room (free Blog Talk Radio account required)
• Post your questions directly to me on Twitter (@markdavidgerson)
• Post your questions directly to me on on my Facebook wall

The Muse & You with Mark David Gerson, is all about writing and creativity, and it's for writers and readers alike -- an opportunity to listen to writers and creators of all sorts talk about how and why they create and, of course, about what they create. It's also an opportunity for you to ask your questions -- of me during the first segment of the show, when I offer writing tips and inspiration, and of my guests during the interview portion.

Listen to The Muse & You with Mark David Gerson on the third Thursday of every month at 1pm ET (10am PT). Coming up in February: a feature interview with marketer extraordinaire Penny Sansevieri, author of the red-hot must-read for authors, Red Hot Intenet Publicity: An Insider's Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet


The Muse & You Show Archive
If you miss any live broadcast, you can listen to the archived episode, which is available shortly after each show on the show's web page. You can also download any show directly into your computer for later listening.

• #6 ~ Dec 17 -- Karen Walker author of Following the Whispers

• #5 ~ Nov 19 -- Dan Stone author of The Rest of Our Lives

• #4 ~ Oct 15 -- Kristin Bair O'Keeffe author of Thirsty

• #3 ~ Sept 17 - Joanne Chilton and Jeanne Ripley co-authors of Wings to Fly

• #2 ~ Aug 20 -- Jared Lopatin, author of Rising Sign

• #1 ~ July 29 — Julie Isaac, founder of Twitter's #writechat, and Malcom Campbell, author of The Sun Singer and Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire




Writing/Creativity Coaching Sessions with Mark David

• Let Mark David help you unleash the power of your creative potential!


Writing/Creativity Coaching Group with Mark David / Feb-March / Albuquerque

• An 8-week guided experience of creative commitment and acceleration. It doesn’t matter whether you have a project that’s ongoing, stuck or ready to kick off, or whether you just want help establishing and maintaining a regular writing rhythm. Regardless, The Voice of the Muse Coaching Group will be your weekly compass alignment to keep you empowered, motivated, inspired and on track. (Discount fee through Jan 25)


Mark David's January Workshops / Denver Area

• Free Talk, Author Q&A and book-signing
Topic: Birthing Your Book...Even If You Don't Know What It's About
Thursday, Jan 28~ 7pm~ Bemis Public Library, Littleton, CO

• Writing workshop -- From Memory to Memoir: Writing the Stories of Your Life
Friday, Jan 29 ~ 6-9pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• Writing workshop -- Write in the Flow: Answering Your Call to Write
Saturday, Jan 30 ~ 10am-4:30pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• The Call to Write: Answering the Voice of Your Muse
Sunday, Jan 31 ~ 1-5pm ~ Phoenix Healing Center, Longmont, CO (Discount fee through Jan 25)

Mark David's February Events / Los Angeles

Conscious Life Expo, LAX Hilton

• Friday, Feb 12 ~ 7pm
Free Talk
• Fri, Feb 12 - Sun, Feb 14
At booth #505, offering discounted coaching sessions, signing books, answering writing questions

Feeling Rejected? Don't Be Dejected!

I didn't discover Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time until I was an adult in the early years of my spiritual awakening. It's a gem of a book, filled -- as is all her writing -- with spiritual truths for young adults and adults alike. Today, nearly two decades after that first reading, the profound wisdom of this prolific author and devout Episcopalian continues to inspire me.

One of my favorite L'Engle stories, apart from the one that follows, comes from one of her nonfiction books -- I don't now remember which. In it she describes legions of white-bearded Old Testament prophets, their faces raised to the sky, shouting up at God, incredulously: "You want me to do what!?" There are days I know just how they felt!

I first posted a version of this piece about rejection in June 2008. But I've reposted the link so often, I decided to make it new again.

Feeling rejected? When you read L'Engle's story, I guarantee you won't be dejected!


Author Madeleine L'Engle received two years' worth of rejections from 26 publishers for her novel A Wrinkle in Time, which, once it was finally published in 1962, went on to win major awards and be translated into more than a dozen languages.

Toward the end of that two-year period, L'Engle covered up her typewriter and decided to give up -- on A Wrinkle in Time and on writing. Then on her way downstairs, a revelation: an idea for a novel about failure. In a flash, she was back at the typewriter.

"That night," as she explained in April 1993 on the PBS documentary Madeleine L'Engle: Stargazer, "I wrote in my journal, 'I'm a writer. That's who I am. That's what I am. That's what I have to do -- even if I'm never, ever published again.' And I had to take seriously the fact that I might never, ever be published again. ... It's easy to say I'm a writer now, but I said it when it was hard to say. And I meant it."

Today, the bibliography on L'Engle's web site lists 62 works spanning the period from 1944 through 2005, plus a 63rd, published posthumously in 2008. Sadly, Madeleine L'Engle died in September 2007.

"I cannot possibly tell you how I came to write A Wrinkle in Time," her New York Times obituary quotes her as having said. "It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice."


Whether you're published or not, if you're writing, you are a writer.

Need some help believing that? Listen to the guided meditation, "You Are A Writer," from The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers.




Writing/Creativity Coaching Sessions with Mark David

• Let Mark David help you unleash the power of your creative potential!


Mark David's January Workshops / Denver Area

• Free Talk, Author Q&A and book-signing
Topic: Birthing Your Book...Even If You Don't Know What It's About
Thursday, Jan 28~ 7pm~ Bemis Public Library, Littleton, CO

• Writing workshop -- From Memory to Memoir: Writing the Stories of Your Life
Friday, Jan 29 ~ 6-9pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• Writing workshop -- Write in the Flow: Answering Your Call to Write
Saturday, Jan 30 ~ 10am-4:30pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• The Call to Write: Answering the Voice of Your Muse
Sunday, Jan 31 ~ 1-5pm ~ Phoenix Healing Center, Longmont, CO

Mark David's February Events / Los Angeles

Conscious Life Expo, LAX Hilton

• Friday, Feb 12 ~ 7pm
Free Talk
• Fri, Feb 12 - Sun, Feb 14
At booth #505, offering discounted coaching sessions, signing books, answering writing questions

Larger Than Life

A version of this article appeared in my New Earth Chronicles blog in June 2008.

Back in October 2006 when I was visiting Toronto, a friend treated me to a ticket to Barbra Streisand's first-ever concert performance in that city. Although we were sitting high in the rafters in a hockey arena that was anything but intimate, I was startled by how fully and personally her energy filled every corner of that venue.

"She's larger than life," I remember gushing to my friend at intermission.

I recalled that experience the first time I listened to the CD recording of the concert tour, some months after my return from Toronto. "That's what I want," I heard myself say at the time and was so startled by what seemed such a profoundly ego-driven thought that I was almost embarrassed.

But it wasn't until some months later that I fully understood both the Streisand experience and my inner voice. What I realized was that "larger than life" isn't about being famous. It simply means living larger than the restrictions and limitations we all carry so willingly through life. I also realized that access to that energy is not limited to the Barbra Streisands of the world, unless we choose for that to be so.

Even as our souls yearn for us to "play big," to discover our passion and live it to the fullest, our fearful self continues to seek out ways to hide and play small.

"Our deepest fear," writes Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love, "is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." Perhaps even deeper than the fear she describes is the fear of experiencing and expressing our power out in the world, of being larger than life, of living beyond the self-imposed walls and barriers we create in the mistaken belief they will keep us safe.

They can't and they won't.

Our only safety resides in living our largest life to its fullest potential, in living our truth...in living our passion. In walking through life as though we are safe...as though nothing can stop, limit or restrict us.

As I write this, an old Cole Porter lyric keeps running through my head:

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, 
Don't fence me in

At a literal level, the song is sung by a cowboy who longs for the endless space of the open range.

Yet it's also the song of every soul deprived of its fullest expression by the fences of a fearful mind, a soul that seeks only the limitlessness of its natural state.

Whatever you think of Barbra Streisand's talent or personality, when you are in her energy field, you touch that limitlessness and your soul cries out, "Me too! That's who I am, too!!"

Here in the Western world, where we have been taught to play small, we transfer all of our natural desire for the fenceless world of a life lived large to our movie stars and sports heroes.

If we can't play out our own passion and power, we play it out through a celebrity cult that's no healthier than any other cult, one we also find in countries with charismatic leaders/dictators, in religions with unapproachable gods and in all situations where we abdicate the expression of our infinite nature to someone or something outside of ourselves.

In my novel, The MoonQuest, very much a metaphor for all our journeys, the main character is destined for a greatness he continues to resist. Yet destiny, as he is constantly reminded, is not cast in stone. There is always a choice.

"Every choice you have ever made, has led to this moment. Your moment. Still, the power to make a different choice remains yours."

The power to choose is always ours. In every moment and through every situation, we're offered the opportunity to choose our greatness, our passion, our light.

It's what we do with each moment and situation that governs our destiny, that decides whether we live in our greatness or in the shadow of someone else's, that determines whether we build fences or tear them down.

In this moment, what do you choose?

Writing/Creativity Coaching Sessions with Mark David

• Let Mark David help you unleash the power of your creative potential!

Book your coaching series now!

Mark David's January Events / Albuquerque Area

• Free Talk

Topic: Acts of Surrender: Stepping into the New Year on Faith

Sun, Jan 10 ~ 10:30am ~ East Mountain Unity Center, Edgewood, NM

Mark David's January Workshops / Denver Area

• Free Talk, Author Q&A and book-signing

Topic: Birthing Your Book...Even If You Don't Know What It's About

Thursday, Jan 28~ 7pm ~ Bemis Public Library, Littleton, CO

• Writing workshop -- From Memory to Memoir: Writing the Stories of Your Life

Friday, Jan 29 ~ 6-9pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

• Writing workshop -- Write in the Flow: Answering Your Call to Write

Saturday, Jan 30 ~ 10am-4:30pm ~ Colorado Free University, Denver, CO

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

Sunday, Jan 31 ~ 1-5pm ~ Phoenix Healing Center, Longmont, CO

Mark David's January Radio Events

• Mark David's monthly guest appearance on Unity.fm's Spiritual Coaching program

Tuesday, January 12 ~ 4pm ET

• Mark David on MetaMystic Radio
Wednesday, January 13 ~ 9pm ET

• The Muse & You with Mark David Gerson
Special Guest: Cristina M.R. Norcross, author of the upcoming poetry collection Unsung Love Songs

Thursday, Jan 21 ~ 1pm ET

Mark David's February Events / Los Angeles

Conscious Life Expo, LAX Hilton

• Friday, Feb 12 ~ 7pm
Free Talk
• Fri, Feb 12 - Sun, Feb 14
At booth #505, offering discounted coaching sessions, signing books, answering writing questions