SeaHeart

So, since it's a month and a week until my VERY FIRST NOVEL'S LAUNCH (Oh muh GODS, SPARKLES FOR EVERYONE), my awesome and incredibly talented sister, Laura, who does everything from video creation to photography, did a photo shoot for my author photo on Saturday.

Normally, I have rockin' self esteem, but it's kind of been through the floor these past few months (have no clue why--I'm working on it. :)). I was nervous about the photo shoot--would any of the photos even look PASSABLE? I've wanted to be published since I was a little kid, and fantasized about my author photo forever, and NOW we were DOING ONE when I was feeling NOT SO GREAT about myself? Sheeshers, my poor sister. :P She took a mopey girl, put some effin' fabulous makeup on her, and--together with this AWESOME, VINTAGE TYPE DRESS that I'm wearing to our book release party--I ACTUALLY GOT A PHOTO I LOVE OMG.

And here it is, ladies and gentlefolk!


( A few others she took... )

And then, because she's awesome, kitty took some pictures of Jenn and I together~


( More here! )

This weekend, I wrote a new blog post for Muse Rising--it's been posted today~ Birthrite – How To Change Your World, One Day at a Time.

When we were little, we thought we were awesome. “I can do ANYTHING,” we’d say, drawing pictures of ourselves as astronauts or superheros or firefighters. We’d color over the lines and tell our parents “I AM GOING TO BE AN ARCHAEOLOGIST,” and they would either roll their eyes remembering the long line of things we said we were going to be yesterday, or encouraged us and got us books on dinosaurs from the library and helped us build a colossal tyrannosaurus rex out of ridiculously goopy paper mache. Maybe we had teachers that told us our art was beautiful or bullies who told us we’d amount to nothing. As we grew, we were shaped by our peers, by what we heard and saw on the television, the radio. We became the person we are today through equal measures of our own force and the force of others, and we either grew up to be whatever it was we knew we were meant to be…

Or, you know, we didn’t.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi being Gandhi, there’s so much we can take away from that phrase that’s almost become a cliche. It’s on every bumper or chest, emblazoned on stickers and t-shirts and buttons and pencils. Our eyes glaze over when we read it now, because we’ve read it so often. “Blah, blah, we gotta change the world.” ... Gandhi meant a few things when he said “you must be the change you wish to see in the world,” but the one that’s kind of glossed over on all those bumper stickers is the fact that you, yourself, must be the change you wish to see in YOUR world. Yours. The life you’re living. The only one you’ve got.

If you enjoyed the post, or were moved to comment, you can do so at the blog. Thank you so much~ <3