Featured on | The Wakefield Doctrine

Clairepeek is a Clark

I am a proud member of the Wakefield Doctrine, which is the theory of Clark, Roger and Scott. Today, I have been honored as a proud wearer of THE hat, check this out: ———————————————->

Anyhow, what I meant to say was for you to have a look it at the post “Hallå! Bonjour! Hidy! 3 greetings, 3 personality types…still just one Wakefield Doctrine” directly… or read the quote first to have a clue to where I am sending you… yes, yes, uncharted territories for sure but big waves of interesting and fun matter: I promise ^_^

“As our regular Readers know, the Wakefield Doctrine is not just about learning  to understand the inner drives and personalities of the people of our lives, it is also not limited to having access to techniques and tools that make the intractable problems and the most obdurate of bad habits in our personal lives seem like passing fancies, (the Doctrine) is not even just about knowing  more about how the ‘other person’ is perceiving a situation than they, themselves know…no! the Wakefield Doctrine is about community, frate-sorority, and…hats!

So! May we present newest FOTD and DownSpring-in-Waiting… Claire Peek!  (We ‘met’ Claire through):”

–> Click here to read more

Clark, I thank you for this post… you made me as proud as when I wear the hat on my (damned) head. Seriously!

Related articles

• A Tour of the Three Personality Types of the Wakefield Doctrine (wakefielddoctrine.wordpress.com)

Indie author – a good alternative

I’ve been away

I have been away for a while now but it was not because I did not like it here anymore… on the contrary, since I created this place to get the writing freedom I needed. There are two reasons why I do not post as often as I would like, not actually there are three. First, there are only 24 hours in a day and I like my “beauty-sleep” or should I say, I kinda need to sleep in order to write well; second, I had the happy visit of my parents (from France) so we’ve been strolling around a lot for a week; third, I have been busy self-publishing my work and I am not done yet.

Self-publishing: a forgotten promise

In 2005, I have self-published my first collection of poems “A New Season” written – & published – in French and in English. In other words, I paid a great deal to have my book in print. I became very dissatisfied with the publisher and put an end to the contract. I then discovered a Canadian publishing company that did not charge a penny to publish… they were, then, using the services of Lulu.com. I was new to all this business and enrolled myself with that company. I made friends with poets (mostly from France and Canada because the main language was French). After a few months, I grew tired of it all and left in order to publish directly with Lulu.com… I have learnt a great deal, but ultimately, poetry does not sell so the thrill of publishing my work went “bye-bye”. I had promised myself that next time I’d publish, it would be through traditional channels… Ironic…

Catching up to new technologies

A good friend of mine, Vincent Moore, published his work on Amazon.com in the Kindle format. It is then that I realized how far behind I was; not regarding my publishing but regarding technologies. I am good with computers and many software/programs; I learn fast because I am interested – if you want something to be done the proper way, better do it yourself (my personal motto). I built websites (mostly my own – offline now though); I created my own book cover (for my newly published book) and so on. I had not realized that computers were that outdated… okay, this is pushing it but not so far from the truth I believe. Teens nowadays do not buy CDs anymore, they listen to music on their phones… they listen to streaming music like Swedish DRM Spotify and read books on tablets and e-readers. I had no idea it became that big, though here it is… I am dumbfounded by the extension of these devices, yet I have to adapt and fast.

Proud to be an Indie Author

Publishing an eBook is not the same as publishing a book for print. The formatting is not the same… I do all myself and let me tell you: MS Word is freaking annoyingly annoying! (and I am restraining myself in order to remain polite). I have downloaded free programs such as Calibre, MobiPocket, Kindle Viewer, eCub so that I could work with the right tools. Well, if it were that easy every baboon in the world could do it… More than all this, I finally realized why I had such troubles to format my eBook to the prerequisites guidelines – other than, I skipped reading them thinking that I already knew (yeah! big head this head of mine…): I was reticent to change my ways. From that point on, things went smoother. I published “Paintings of Life” on Amazon.com and it is available for your Kindle now for only $2.99 (+taxes). I then read the short guidelines on Lulu.com in order to format my book and publish it as an EPUB… I actually gave up and turned to Smashwords.com. I printed their guidelines and my work is available in more than just EPUB. I fixed the price to the same as amazon, it is only fair “Paintings of Life” on Smashwords will be distributed more widely as well. I still have a lot to learn but I am proud to be an Indie Author because I know that I put the time and efforts required in my work for it to be a part of the good self-published “stuff”.

Ebook versus Print

I am not saying that I am not going to publish my work on paper… I love books too much to do such a thing. However, times change and with it the book market. Before, I could make my book available to download as a PDF and it was a great option for those who could not afford to buy the “real” thing… so I thought. Now, an eBook is just as real and prestigious to have published as a printed book. It is all free to self-publish and it gives great and equal opportunities to everybody… as time goes, authors put more and more efforts into their work to offer quality books to their readers.

Making money

Finally, I need to specify this. Being a writer is difficult enough and very few make a living out of it. Being a published author is even more difficult to become if you want to be a “Philip Pullman”, a “Norman Miller” or a “J. K. Rowling”… Being an Indie Author is… well… tough love; therefore being an Indie poet… it is suicidal to expect making any money out of it. No! The reason I self-publish is to get more people to read my work (and I do not expect more than just a few, but am always ready to be surprised…)

Related articles

• My sales and marketing tips – August 2011 (alchemyofscrawl.wordpress.com)
• eBooks as the new mass market paperback and don’t be Buridan’s Ass. (writeitforward.wordpress.com)
• Giving Indie Authors Their Due (eyeonbooks.com)
• Share your Smashwords Smarts, Earn a Shiny Mug (smashwords.com)
• Indie Authors, Good Editing Will Sell More Ebooks (via How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks – All for Free) (asanto.wordpress.com)

Why I moved to Sweden

Image via Wikipedia

When my husband is introducing me to acquaintances of his, he often explains that I am from France and that ‘she switched Paris for Grängesberg ‘. This does not say much to you, right, so let’s compare, shall we! Paris has – from January, 1st 2011 – 2,233,818 inhabitants; Sweden’s demographics is estimated to reach 9,088,728 in July 2011 and Grängesberg counted barely 3,532 inhabitants in 2005 (I cannot find more up to date figures). If we compare further, Grängesberg’s population represents approximately 0,16% of Paris’ and only 0,04% of Sweden’s. Why did I go ‘bury’ myself in such a place, do you ask? That is not the issue here… Love is what made me, but not only.

When I was eleven years of age, like most of young girls from that age, I was the ‘groupie’ of a rock band. I read everything I could about them, including the country they came from. I read about it and fell in love with it. What does the saying say? ‘The grass looks greener on the other side. ‘ I did not know how, but I felt that this was the case. My youth did not really help me understand the principles of my own country, nor did it make me want to know anything about it. I was already looking for an escape… or maybe, I was just a regular eleven year old girl in want of everything. ‘Whichever helps you sleep at night… ‘

Nevertheless, that idea of another country never left me. It became a latent dream and everything I did afterwards was gravitating around it – in a more or less direct way, might I add. People I met, I chose them because they reminded me of ‘another country’. I hanged around those who gave me the illusion that I was coming closer to my dream; now that I look at it from afar, they were just as lost as I was. I have no regrets though. I went through quite a bit of hardships and learnt through heartaches.

I have always been a shy girl and quite a naive one too; I used to give my trust to anybody and of course I got burnt countless of times. I used to be gullible and I still am at times – which gives my husband the joy of teasing me about it. Anyway, the people I did not trust then – not so many in the end – were the ones looking out for me, go figure. Did I ever learn? I obviously did, though to the extreme and not the way one would think. Indeed, I chose to hide and close my heart completely instead of paying better attention to other, learning their ways. I became scared even of my own shadow. People, most of all, frightened me to a point that I would get panic attacks when they were too numerous, or just stared at me. I still have trust issues nowadays, but I am rid of the fright and the panic; my discomfort around people is slowly disappearing.

Being shy – or mostly quiet – gives me some kind of shield and protects me from my own haste to ‘make friends’. Sometimes, I even think that it makes me pathetic to be so distrustful. And yet… I moved to Sweden almost in the blink of an eye to live with a man, whom everybody thought I did not know. How wrong they were! How little they thought of me! How little they knew me! Believe me when I say that nothing I decided then was rushed, or lightly taken. I knew him well alright, before we even met for real (see ‘How my life chose me’). I trusted him with all my heart and soul; and I never believed once that I would get hurt…

IMPORTANT NOTICE: don’t do that at home though youngsters! He and I were extremely lucky. It does not always turn out so good, so be careful out there. Be safe because my own truth is NOT universal.

I once asked the question: ‘Did you take the right path in life?’ because for a split second I thought that my life would have been different if I had not liked that rock band’s music; or if I had not encountered the challenges I met and then dealt with them the way I did… and so on. It happens to have these questions and it is somehow fun ones. We all ask ourselves once in a while ‘what if?’, which leads us nowhere of course.

Yes. The path I chose was/is a tricky one because it is not the easy one. What makes a life-path easy – and according to whom? Well, I let you be the judges of that. In my case, I left everything and began again from scratch. I followed love and my dream. I still have both and I have new dreams with an ever growing love… is my life easier? In my heart it is; which inevitably is the only thing I truly care about. The rest is just bonus.

Related articles

• Why Don’t More People Move To Sweden? / Scandinavian Cohousing Mention (cohousingblog.com)
• I love Sweden (mikotamper.wordpress.com)
• Live longer (move to Sweden) (stockholmchurch.wordpress.com)
• Malmo shalmo – Malmö, Sweden (travelpod.com)
• Daytrip to Sweden – Part II – Lund, Sweden (travelpod.com)
• Photo of the day: Beach in Sweden (gadling.com)

Writing is like breathing

When I was about fourteen of age, I discovered an important world: the one of writing. I was not very good at it, but I enjoyed it very much. I must have felt quite lonely back then because I used to create worlds where I was getting saved by a ‘hero’ type man; of course, I was never saying that I was the one needing saving, but it was fairly obvious. They were pretty dark tales and I was proud of them. I wanted to go on, however, I knew I could improve ten folds or more, so I sought advice with a teacher. She read my stories, looked at me in a loathing stare and told me to give it up, that I had no talent and that nobody would read anything I’d write. My mother read them too, and I guess she got spooked because she kindly suggested that I should find something else to do. Fourteen… I did not stand a chance!

I started writing again two years later: mainly poetry because I had encountered my ‘first love’. He was writing too and we exchanged poems for a year. I stopped writing again when I put an end to that relationship. I buried my quill that day and dug it up eleven years later.

My style had changed and improved; but because I had such a relationship with French words, I started writing in English instead. I had lived in Ireland for a year, so my English was pretty good, although still poor and grammatically hopeless. Nonetheless, nobody told me to give it up; my words were touching people. They were coming alive and were travelling around the world. I had no idea then of the importance of my writing; but I knew I had found something potentially ‘life-changing’. I wrote free verse poetry and some kind of poetic prose. I was proud and in a hurry. My grandfather was about to leave us: I had felt it for some time; so in 2005, I decided to self-publish what I had written and give him some peace of mind. It worked… I think.

I went on writing poetry for a couple of years, both in English and in French – my mother tongue being, most of the time, just a translation of my English work. I took part in a Canadian community of Poets and re-published my improved work and new work in two volumes. Ultimately though, I wrote less and less until I completely stopped in mid-2008. I was happy, but I was not feeling good inside and I needed to focus on that somehow. My writing was a hindrance to it.

While I was not writing, I started reading English literature: Jane Austen, Susanna Clarke (whom I highly recommend), J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, and many others. If I could not afford to buy books, I would read again those I had already read. I became quite obsessed with the English language – and still am -… always hungry for it.

When 2011 started, I began feeling something strange. I would dream shapeless words; I would dream myself writing at a desk I did not have. So when I dug out my quill and began writing, it felt like the weight sitting on my chest all these years had lifted. I was writing again and it was good… no matter what came out, it had become better quality, and as one of my blog readers said, I have found my voice.

In the end, writing is like breathing.

 

How my life chose me…

This is how it all started

I do not think I need going further back in time… Yes, December 2002 should do it. I had been back in my home country for two years, from my one year ‘exile’ in Ireland, living and working in Paris. For someone who had so little professional experience, I had gotten myself a good job as an administrative assistant. I was fine, thought I; nor did I challenge such an idea, for fear of discovering that I actually was miserable. Indeed, I had no idea who I was, but I was making a living. I had become what they expected of me: the nice, caring and normal woman who would fit anywhere in society. The one who would one day marry – if only she could keep a boyfriend – who would have children and would eventually live in a house near mom and dad.

Addicted to Internet as soon as I could afford to buy my own computer, I surfed… long… for hours at a time without any aim, thought I. Then I found them: the artists I so admired. One after the other, I visited their websites and left messages: cried for attention – unaware still that I was doing so. I cried so loud that someone finally heard me. Yes, he heard me and he responded.

We e-mailed each other and we learnt one another; we tried chatting, but he was such a slow ‘typer’ that it fast became hopeless; then he called me – from Sweden; that phone call lasted 10 minutes at the most, and we were very inarticulate; it is actually very laughable today, but it was really daunting back then. Anyway, we made it through. Weeks later, we began our everyday call-marathon. Our phone bills were extravagant but we did not care; we had never met, and yet, we were a couple. I know it sounds weird, but it is really how it was. The calls occurred around February 2003; we met for the first time – in real life, if you will – April, 16th 2003. I flew to Sweden. Before we knew it, I had left everything and moved to Sweden in July 2003.

I worked a lot to heal and he helped me make it happen by supporting and encouraging me every step of the way. I feel brilliant today… but it took years for me to finally be able to breathe and walk the way I was supposed to; that is with my head high and without hiding. In 2005, I self-published a collection of poems that I had begun writing when our relationship was starting… my writing again was, once more, his doing… He really saved my life!

We are now married and are ‘living happily ever after’… and yet, we often struggle. He works shifts in a factory to make sure that we have a good home, food on the table every day, and can afford something extra now and then. He said to me once that maybe he had missed the opportunity for his own dreams; and there was no way he would let that happen to me. He is amazing, I am telling you. I know he chose to put his dreams on hold for me…

For years, I did nothing but work on getting better – inside. Now that I am, I am doing my best to catch up… I am studying and looking for a job. I am sending CVs and letters, but so far, nothing. I learnt a brand new language, even though Swedes can speak really good English. I am learning more about a lot of things – mainly accounting and finances, to be able to create my own little company – all that in a language that is not my own. I am about to learn more Swedish, next term, to become even better and exploit my language abilities.

I am also writing… again… because I had stopped since 2007. Today, as I think about it, it feels like I was giving it up; but I know now that I was not because it would have been like I stopped breathing. I just needed a break from who I was and how I used to write – the ‘fake’ me had to go – and it enabled me to find my real voice. One of my biggest dreams is to make it as a writer; make a living out of it. I have no idea if others will think that I have what it takes, but this is who I am: a writer. What I do is another matter, another concept. My other dream is that my husband finally figures out what his dreams really are, so that when it is time, he can go for them without restraint.

Life can be a ‘bitch’ if you let it… but one can learn so much from it. Nobody said it was supposed to be easy – Life, I mean. I do believe that one gets what one needs from Life in order to become the best of who one can be. These are just my words, and I know, it is easier said than done… fair enough, just do not give up.