Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:14:06 +0000 magician, from the tarot series, acrylic on canvas board, www.carolineallen.com When I give a lot of tarot readings at any given time, I have nighttime visions or dreams or hyperactive comas, whatever you want to call them, altered states of consciousness. These unasked for visions are why I have to give up tarot sometimes to be able to live in this real world in any…

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:12:03 +0000 Sunflower, www.carolineallen.com I was asked by a friend to listen to The Secret on CD. I was not a fan of the craze. Even before I listened to the CDs, I'd followed the hoopla and felt deeply the concepts were too simplistic and actually even dangerous. First, the idea of our thoughts generating reality has been written about by spiritual masters for centuries, philosophers who…

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:59:40 +0000 To all the witches out there, happy halloween www.carolineallen.com A common thread I see working with writing clients is this: most of us stop ourselves from fully exploring a subject. We think: people will think it's boring so we cut ourselves off. I tell clients, allow yourself to write too much on a subject that interests you. Write it all out. Get it out of…

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:17:39 +0000 Costa Rica, 2007, www.carolineallen.com A great many people I coach, myself included, have had to go backwards to go forwards in their careers as writers/artists. I find this true when it comes to many of the arts, failure in one way is the success one needs to become the artist they were always meant to be. In my own life, I had a successful journalism…

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:10:24 +0000 View from the studio, www.carolineallen.com As writers of memoir make progress toward completing a book, many begin to worry about putting their truth out there. First, this is a valid concern, and one I tell clients they have to take seriously. I cannot tell them that it's OK to reveal family secrets to the world; I'm not the one who has to live with it.…

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:51:15 +0000 Maine, www.carolineallen.com When you write a novel, you become fully and deeply immersed in a fictious world. When you write memoir, you dive into a past that is so visceral it feels like you're living it over again. The single most difficult aspect of writing for me and for some of the other writers I coach is how to enter that other world fully AND…

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:42:31 +0000 Friends, Budapest, Hungary, www.carolineallen.com I had dinner with a friend last night and she asked if we could set up some time to get together and break some plates. "I really need to smash something," she said, over roast chicken and garlic potatoes. We were both in a rage place with men who dominate conversations, what I call "dominating the storyline". If you don't hear…

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:50:52 +0000 Weeds near a sidewalk, Seattle, www.carolineallen.com Imagine yourself as a field. Well, a clearing really. One one side a muddy expanse, leading to an area of long grass, abutting scrubby low-lying bushes whose branches intertwine like a spider's web. The grass is too tall to mow, and someone has run a tractor over it and it lays on its side like thick lime green hair.…

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:46:49 +0000 life drawing, www.carolineallen.com I have spent the past few days or weeks in a torpor. Is anything worth it? Finding it harder to write, harder to do my visual art. Finding it just plain hard. Beneath me, I feel a sucking undertow, a dark energy yanking at me like a persistent dog. I know this isn't just me. I know my psychic self well enough…

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:57:49 +0000 Republic Square at night, Yerevan, Armenia, 2008, www.carolineallen.com I was sent recently to Yerevan in Armenia on a media development project for a nonprofit. My role on the project was to help several media outlets redesign their websites -- TV, radio, online magazines. There is so much to blog about from the experience of visiting and working in the former Soviet country that I don't…