Author: apopheniagold

  • “real work”

    “real work”

    I hear a near-constant inner voice that says “You aren’t doing your real work,” whenever I am doing something other than writing or making art.

    Maybe you experience this too.


    Here’s why it is interesting: I don’t work publicly as an artist or as a writer. I don’t make money from writing or art. I have earned money in a wide variety of ways, ranging from running a clothing business to technology sales to real estate.

    Yet, the nagging, pestering voice is there whenever I am doing anything other than writing, painting, art-making, or talking about spirituality. It’s there even when doing things that are important: community involvement, spending time with family, doing work that earns money, cleaning the house, or time with my beloved husband and beloved dog.

    And the phrase I hear, over and over and over, and have heard for easily twenty-five years, is “this isn’t your real work.” I wish I could construe the origin of this phrase in some pop-psychological sense. If only it could be ascribed to the guilt of a religious upbringing. If I could know what gives this voice—be it angel or demon—the right to call some aspect of what I do “real work” and some other aspect “not real work.” And, despite the latter having all the external markers of being real work, such as contributing to the world, and earning money.


    But instead, I’m left with this persistent mystery. What is “real work” for me? Why insists this adamant voice, in volume between a whisper and a roar, that one thing is not-real-work and the other is?


    And why is it so hard to make that switch?


    So now, the voice insists that writing this book series (Apophenia Gold) is my real work, and that it must be done by the time I am forty-nine, thus encompassing the seven year cycle which started when I was forty-two.


    For what it’s worth, this discussion of “voice in my head” is a literary tool. But, I do think we are constantly prompted by other invisible beings, and our own higher selves to follow the numerous paths that unfold before us, and our own discernment skills allow us to determine which is the higher self path and which that of temptation.


    Here’s a picture of my travel writing kit: a military grade waterproof case to assuage my husband’s concerns about ink stains, seven notebooks, three pens, two types of ink, a tiny New Testament, and reading (not pictured). Just in case I get bored.

  • Creativity and Your Spiritual Stream

    Creativity and Your Spiritual Stream

    In my search for the perfect toolsets: a review of favorite books about creative practice.

    This all stems from realizing that art and audience are part of one whole – they are the two halves that attract each other. Your art represents your creative spiritual stream. As does your audience.

    These cards summarize the incredible toolsets described and offered in the books above. Most are adaptable to any creative practice.

    And I’m looking for a few more toolsets- they are the life-changing tools that allow an artist to connect with their audience. I don’t know what these tools are called! So, in my conceptual realm, I’m calling this missing book “The Hermit’s Guide to Marketing for Artists.”

    (Because I’m one of those with the hermit archetype sitting in charge of “relationship to the world” and so it makes activities like outreach and marketing challenging. 🐚)

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    Soon I will be releasing my first book:

    Apophenia Gold is a roadtrip mystery, speculative fiction, set in the modern material world and seen through a spiritual lens. There are angels and fear-demons, auras and in-between beings, chthonic monsters and the lie beasties we create ourselves.

    Are you interested in an Advanced Reader Copy? Message me or comment. 💛

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    #writersPOV #writersofinstagram #Writergram #publishing #self-publishing #indiepublishing #indie #patternrecognition #apophenia

    #bookstagram #bookreport #creativity #morningpages

  • Half of art?

    Half of art?

    Welcome to the mid-May newsletter, where the question is: “Are art and audience two halves of the same act?”

    Here’s what I’m looking for: a book describing the perfecting marketing skillset for artists and hermits.

    Let me explain:

    I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron when I was a teenager, and have been (mostly) writing three pages of stream of consciousness every day since. The Morning Pages are good training in separating the act of writing from the act of editing.

    The most important thing I learned from The Artist’s Way was: create first; edit, critique, and censor later on. The book is brilliant and I’ve probably read it seven times.

    Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss showed up in my life just after my second moon node. It was profoundly impactful in that mid-life moment of re-evaluating everything you know about yourself. For those standing in that portal where the inscription above reads: “Know Thyself.”

    The book maps a complicated archeological project to identify and relate to the archetypes that have sway over one’s personality. I refer to this work and draw on it frequently.

    Just this month I read the exuberant We Need Your Art by Amie McNee. Using the techniques of bare minimums, bare maximums, and permission slips, I moved successfully into writing everyday (i.e. beyond morning pages; writing actual novel scenes).

    And, I realized why I wasn’t before – because I was missing the container into which the writing would be put. While my basic grounding in creating without editing was firm, I had a mis-perception: that I should wait to create until the container was already set up.

    Finally, Story Genius by Lisa Cron. Paired with the miraculous Scrivener, this pair talked me through the toolset of writing scenes that have pull. Without them, I don’t think I would have been able to complete editing Apophenia Gold.

    Finally, here is what is missing: the marketing book for artists and hermits. I’m talking about a full-fledged, life-changing program and protocol that will contain secret magical tools (akin to the morning pages, artist’s dates, or permission slips) to create the container for art and connect it to an audience.

    Because, like heat and cold, light and dark, poles of a magnet – the art and its audience are two halves of the same thing. And marketing is the skillset that allows one to connect them.

    But I’m not going to write this book, because I don’t have the skillsets to describe the magic tools. But maybe you know where to find it? I’d like for it to have lots of maps as well.

  • April Reading

    April Reading

    Is it possible to have two projects going at the same time?

    Yes, of course it is, but perhaps a common challenge for writers is that it feels, somehow, risky, to have two projects going at the same time. Like learning two languages in tandem … it’s easy to get mixed up.

    So this past month of reading:

    📔 “We Need Your Art” by Amie McNee @inspiredtowrite encouraged me to get over that superstition of “one project only!” – indirectly, with the two week reset of small, bare minimum and bare maximum projects. It’s been great to get back into writing.

    📘”Alchemy of the Holy Week” by Dennis Klocek is a beautiful, short book, written in his inimitable colloquial style (taken from lectures) and using the processes of internal picturing before going to sleep and upon waking.

    📙 “Influence” by Robert Cialdini, one of the most famous marketing tomes of all time, and for good reason. But unfortunately, by shedding light on so many of half-conscious social maneuvers we engage in over and over, it always leaves a person wondering: does this stranger actually like me or have shared interests, or did they develop that as a strategy to manipulate me? A bit of a dark read.

    📗 “According to Matthew” by Rudolf Steiner. Not possible to summarize, so simply: the meaning of 42 generations described in the Matthew gospel, and many other things.

    📕 “Sinister Forces” by Peter Levenda. One of the better conspiracy theory books I’ve ever read. Did you know the phrase Psychological Warfare comes from the German Weltanschauungskrieg (Worldview warfare)?

    bookstagram #bookreport #apophenia #eclectic #esotericstudies

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    Very soon I will be launching my first book: Apophenia Gold. It’s a story about the hidden beings behind contemporary issues, set as a roadtrip mystery with angels and auras, monks, wanderers, avatars, and invisible beings. And, it includes a bunch of stuff about electricity and frequencies. Like my booksta, it’s eclectic.

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  • Author’s Note

    Author’s Note

    Writing a book is a rather different process than I anticipated! I’ve started many books over the years (at least six prior unfinished books existed at one point) – but this is the first one I finished writing.

    The first draft arrived like magic, almost whole in Lent of 2022, and the final draft took the next three years.

    For a long time- years – I thought I could get away with avoiding marketing. That somehow the book would share itself, find its people, get itself published.

    That’s not how it works.

    As my husband says, himself a lifelong creator and maker of projects: You need to build the lanes, set up all the pins, and roll the ball. (I don’t bowl, not sure if I got that terminology right. You get the picture.)

    There were edits and re-edits and further edits and then giant pauses, followed by major re-edits. Friends and colleagues helped and guided and supported.

    And then there was the technical side:
    📖 Making the print ready PDF (a full day of fiddling with Scrivener.)
    🧌 Formatting the export for kindle. (Yet another day trying to see through Scrivener.)
    🎤 Recording the entire book, read by me, so that I could be sure I liked how it sounded. (That took a week.)
    © Registering for copyright, getting ISBNs. (An afternoon.)
    📕 Uploading to KDP, getting proofs, revising (A couple of days.)

    What’s next?

    Right, here’s a two sentence book summary!

    Apophenia Gold is a roadtrip mystery, speculative fiction, set in the modern material world and seen through a spiritual lens. There are angels and fear-demons, auras and in-between beings, chthonic monsters and the lie beasties we create ourselves.

    authorsnote #apophenia #Writergram #bookstagram #publishing #angelsandauras #hiddenbeings

  • Perceptions: resonance

    Perceptions: resonance

    What would it mean to resonate with the earth?

    This document – CIA declassified in 2003, called the “Analysis and Assessment of the Gateway Process” – is an absolutely fascinating description of the techniques used to make a person able to remote view.

    Remote viewing is Army terminology for astral projection. It’s sending the consciousness out of the body into another time or physical space, gathering information, and returning, hopefully with something useful for national defense.

    Sending consciousness out of one’s body has risks- which are properly noted in the document.

    The thing I found so interesting about this protocol is that it suggests we can use SOUND frequency to “entrain” (to resonate with) an ELECTROMAGNETIC frequency.

    The sound/acoustic spectrum and the electromagnetic spectrum are different. But I like to look at the coincidences between them, and then ask the AI, since I don’t have any physicist friends who could jam on this.

    So was remote viewing useful? Yes, and no, according to the document. One of the issues is that viewers saw thought forms just as vividly as they saw physical reality. How cool is that? Thought forms are just as real as the material world when seen from a spiritual perspective!

  • Perceptions: electricity

    Perceptions: electricity

    From instagram.

    Slide 5 has a real question. ⚡️

    Been obsessed with electricity and its trajectory for humanity for several years. Life without wires in the walls is incredibly different. I wish houses were built this way standard.

    Remember: turn your wifi off at night for better sleep!

  • Re-balancing

    Re-balancing

    Spring takes its time getting to this part of the world. We often have the last snow in early May.

    In the depths of winter, I spent too much time in front of the computer, obsessed by a cliff of thoughts, and thus faced the necessary springly re-balancing.

    Let this week be that. 

    Inching closer to the book launch, and measuring in weeks instead of unknowns. 

    Till a few weeks with love-

    Rose & Apophenia

    Listen:

    Prelude and Chapter 1 are a 45 minute audio file. It’s on the front page and here. Enjoy.

  • The propaganda continuum

    The propaganda continuum

    I’ve started a series on instagram called “From The Conspiracy Theorist’s Bookshelf.” That’s Apophenia in a nutshell – you’ve got a lot of books on conspiracy theories, and aim to synthesize the patterns into digestible bites.

    Propaganda: “information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people’s opinions.” – Cambridge Dictionary

    Propaganda is the tool that makes hiding true conspiracies possible. It’s often noted that the phrase “conspiracy theory” was popularized as a pejorative to imply someone wasn’t skeptical enough, was easily bamboozled, or otherwise generally gullible. But conspiracy has meaning in law, and it’s ridiculous to think that conspiracies don’t happen. A lot.

    The phrase conspiracy theory often means: when the government makes it legal, through loopholes or other means, to act in a morally wrong way and against the will of its general populous.

    The continuum: One of my projects this year is a deep dive into marketing and messaging. Useful to know, and because effective messaging is a core component of propaganda.

    Advertising: “the business of trying to persuade people to buy products or services.” – Cambridge Dictionary

    Marketing: “the work of advertising and offering goods or services for sale.” – Cambridge Dictionary

    A theme of Apophenia Gold is the inability of many to recognize propaganda. Apophenia smells it as lies, and sees it as dirty colors, and works to explain the mechanism through The Journal for Apophenic Research.

    Recognizing propaganda techniques makes one less susceptible to their charms.

    Additional New Things

    Successfully re-recorded the Prelude and Chapter 1 as a 45 minute audio file. It’s on the front page and here. Enjoy.

    Determined it was possible to export a good looking kindle book from Scrivener. (Writers, Scrivener is literally the best writing program I could hope for. No more need to go into Indesign or heavier programs for publish-ready output. It’s a dream!)

    Prelude and Chapter 1 as a PDF are here. (Soon, I’ll be adding the entire book to Amazon, but in the interim…)

  • Chapter 1 Sample: Apophenia Gold

    Chapter 1 Sample: Apophenia Gold

    Read the PDF for chapter 1.

    Download PDF Sample

    Here’s the audio file, author recorded, ridiculous voices and all, of Prelude and Chapter 1:

    I spent a whole day figuring out how to export a well-formatted file to epub for kindle, only to learn that wordpress won’t allow them as media files!

    So here is a PDF sample.