I love yoga and I love recovery. I see different aspects of their mutual support over and over. Just when I think I have said all I need to say on the topic, something else comes up. I actually HAVE to write; I can't not express myself. I am grateful to Smashwords for offering me a platform to publish the shorter books and manuals that accompany my other work.

It is so fulfilling to get a note from one of my readers. Sometimes I will meet a reader in person and their eyes will light up- a nod of recognition and it is like we have known each other for a while. Without readers I would be whistling in the wind.

Yoga, chakras and recovery is the next book that is tickling my mind. I have led workshops and retreats on this topic and it has been well received. Sometimes it is good to have the information all in one place. A Smashwords book is just the venue.

I read mysteries and particularly like those that have a protagonist who had found recovery (Block and Jance to name two.) I read everything by Anne Lamotte particularly as I "knew" her in her drinking novel days- way back when. I read non-fiction and meditation books: Rolf Gates and Judith Lassiter are two, and anything by Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Han and HHTDL. I am all over the map. Cereal boxes if there is nothing else.

Most of the time I pop up happy. Life! Everyday is an adventure. Even when my body aches and I feel dull, I know that there is something that will happen that I didn't expect. Also discipline. I have to get up to do what needs to be done. It is a practice of yoga: tapas. I wish each day were like that but not always. But I get up just to give life a chance.

I spend my time practicing meditation and yoga, teaching, and pondering the eternal verities (spacing out). I can do that when I am walking, riding my bike or knitting. Pretty much anytime. So thinking and writing, practicing yoga and meditation and being with my recovery peeps. Life is good.

I wrote a story in seventh grade that had to do with some sort of Rube Goldberg machine that would do my chores. It was given a negative comment by my teacher saying it sounded too much like something that would appear in the New Yorker magazine. Now I think back and say "And that is a bad thing?" I was twelve!

I throw up on the page and go back and polish. Most of the time I trust the fallow times (I don't write every day at a particular time) so I write when I write and it ususally comes out in a spew. Then I have to go back and make it ready for prime time. That can take 2 or 3 rounds of scouring. I do have a challenge: I want to write fiction. That is the time the page stays blank for days at a time. I don't know how you all do it!

I use Fiverr for my covers. I think of a pallet and from my meditation I have an idea of what sort of form I want. I prefer not to have gender identified forms or racially specific forms so I go to neutral designs. I have had a few of my covers redone as I have matured. Some I love for their quirkiness.