Happy Birthday to Me!

As I write in Acts of Surrender: A Writer’s Memoir, birthdays for me have always been more about the transformationally personal than about big crowds and noisy parties.

Shortly before my 21st birthday, I came out as a gay man; shortly after, I moved into my first apartment. Just before my 30th, I lost my mother’s wedding band at Stonehenge – a symbolic break from her influence (I had been wearing it as a memento since her death six months earlier). On my 40th, having sold or given away most everything I owned, I moved to Nova Scotia.  A few weeks before my 42nd birthday, I launched a new life in Sedona; four weeks after my 50th, that life abruptly ended.

Now, today, on my 61st, I once again leave the crowds behind in favor of a quiet birthday celebration…a shared birthday celebration. Shared with whom? With Sara’s Year, my 12th book and fourth novel, which launches officially today.

As I noted in last month’s issue, Sara’s Year emerged from a series of health scares that prompted me to ask what I wanted to be sure to accomplish if I were to die sooner rather than later. It’s not surprising, then, that a “death and rebirth” theme figures prominently in the story, even if it wasn't consciously planned. Given that, what better day to birth the book than my birthday?

Here’s another birthday parallel, one that makes today’s book launch even more apt: Just as we emerge into the world naked and vulnerable, we authors are similarly naked and vulnerable when we release the murmurings of our heart to the world. If each new book I write takes me deeper as a writer, then each new book also reveals more of that depth to you. That makes Sara’s Year my most “naked” book yet!

“Walk the earth naked, clothed only in your truth,” I write in Dialogues with the Divine: Encounters with My Wisest Self. How perfect, if somewhat scary, to be spending my birthday in my creative birthday suit!

Help Me Celebrate with a Gift That’s as Much for You as for Me: Order Sara’s Year TODAY!

Why today (apart from the obvious)? Amazon and other book-site rankings are affected not only by the number of books ordered but by how close together those orders are. That means that a bunch of book orders over a single day or two has a more dramatic impact on rankings than the same number of orders spread over several weeks.

Here's where to find Sara online...

• Amazon: Kindle/Paperback
• iBook store
• Sara’s Year is also available as an ebook in the Google Play, Kobo and Nook stores and as a signed paperback from my website

"It's Never Too Late to Follow Your Dreams"

One of the first questions I asked myself, as I dealt with a series of health scares last year was, “If I’m to die sooner rather than later, what do I want to be sure I do before I go?” To my surprise the first response that bubbled up from somewhere deep within was, “Write another novel.” So, parking myself at a Santa Monica Starbucks (where else!?) a few weeks later, I switched on my laptop and began to write...even though I knew nothing of the story I was being called to.

Eight months and a different book later, I found myself back in Los Angeles, this time to sign books at the Conscious Life Expo. It was there on the second day of the event that a stranger marched up to my table, scrutinized me and my book display, and with a gaze of alarming intensity, asked me for my rising sign.

“Virgo,” I told him.

“When do you normally write?” he asked next.

There’s little you can call “normal” about my work habits. One draft or book might write itself more easily in the morning, another in the afternoon, another late at night. That’s what I told him.

“You need to be writing two hours before dawn,” he declared, backing it up with a complex astrological explanation that I pretended to understand.

“Not going to happen,” I muttered. I am barely functional two hours after dawn, let alone before. Yet when the next morning I awoke spontaneously at 4:30, I put my visitor’s theory to the test: I found the few pages of my barely started novel and continued where I had left off.

Through the months that followed that peculiar encounter (though rarely before dawn), Sara’s Year revealed itself to me with a speed and clarity that I had rarely before experienced in my writing, often through the meaningful coincidences that Carl Jung termed “synchronicities.” There were many – far too many to chronicle here – and each left me more in awe than the last. 

Of course, I had many moments of resistance, as I often do when launching a new project. But as with every other of my books, I found ways to surrender to the greater wisdom of the story and, in so doing, write my way through and past my apprehension.

The result is a story I am profoundly grateful to have been chosen to write and one that has left all my advance readers clamoring for a sequel. It's also one that continues to remind me – as I hope it will also remind you – that it's never too late to follow your dreams!

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www.sarasyear.com

"Unlived dreams. Family secrets. Betrayal. And characters who haunt you long after you’re finished their story. You won't be able to put this book down!"

– Karen Walker, author of The Wishing Steps

"A masterful journey with a brilliant cast of characters. What an adventure!"

– Carolyn Flower, author of Gravitate 2 Gratitude