It Came From Outer Space…

I have a hard time writing resumes, I do. I despise my resume. I dislike cover letters even more. I know there are quite a few of my friends who come to me for help with theirs and I do fine with that, but when it comes to writing about me and selling myself I suck. There are no two ways about it.

I think it comes from a lack of self-confidence.

The prospect of writing about myself for trying to sell a book fills me with dread also, selling myself, selling my stories, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that, but I need to practice and to learn because a story can’t publish itself, you have to be able to sell it to a publisher.

I remember another of my step-father’s brilliant career ideas for me was writing greeting cards. He came up with this after I did our personalized photo graduation invitations on my step-sister’s computer so that he didn’t have to order them through the school and pay extra money.

He also thought I should be writing books for children instead of the stories that I normally write. That I would be a great children’s book author. I don’t know why he thought that considering most of the stories that he ever heard me read sections of involved war-torn alien landscapes, people being taken prisoner and their families dying (though that would be appropriate for Disney); but that’s not appropriate for children. He kept saying I could take the things I write and tone them down, make them educational and all these other things which would have meant diminishing my creativity.

As I get older I’m not saying that I couldn’t write children’s books, it’s just not something I’m interested in. My husband has often joked that I should make a book series called “Helpful Declan” about our son and all his attempts to assist me with household tasks that end in comedy, and maybe that would be something, but I have a lot of other crazy stories that have to get out of me first.

On the 23rd I conducted my first Handfasting. It was a great honor that two good friends of mine asked me to be the one to honor their choice to be united for the rest of this life.
I found when looking for information that there isn’t much in the way of opening blessings for Handfastings online so I wound up writing my own, but that worked out. So, this is what I wrote:

Today you celebrate one of life’s greatest moments as you are both willing to commit yourselves to each other with heart and mind, body and soul, we ask for the blessings of the east, south, west and north, God and Goddess to strengthen and protect your union with gifts of communication, warmth of hearth and home, passion, the ability to bend but not to break and to build upon the firm foundation you have established to find a stable home to which you can always return. As we will it so shall it be.

I wanted something simple but yet sentimental, and when my friends approved I was very glad. It’s a hard task to write a service to commemorate two peoples commitment to spending the rest of their lives in each others hearts. I’m glad that I was able to honor them properly and honored myself that they asked me to do this for them.

I debate trying to set things up to do more handfastings for people in our area. I’m not sure how popular that would be.