SeaHeart

Today is my twenty-eighth birthday, and I have reached my life-long dream this past year: I am a completely self-employed author. Ever since I was a little girl, I knew this is what I was supposed to do with my life, what I wanted with all of my heart, and I have worked every day, countless hour of every day, to get to this place and time. It was a well-earned dream, but I know that many other authors out there are working just as hard as I am, and the going is hard, so this is the truth of it, as simply as I can put it:

I am where I am today because people believed in my stories--because you believed in my stories.

I write lesbian YA and fairy tale books in a world that told me, repeatedly before I put them out there, that "no one" wanted to read such things. I make my living on the exact opposite of that statement. People have responded to my stories, to my leading ladies, and they have responded resoundingly and brilliantly, and every day I get fan emails and tweets, and there is such a vibrant community behind me, it takes my breath away. I write my stories with my whole heart, because I believe the world needs them, and people respond.

It is very difficult for me to articulate how much that means to me, how humbled I am by that, how seriously I take that. I am so grateful for you. Yes, you. The person reading this. The person who might not have heard of me, but is going to try out one of my stories, the person who has been a fan from the inception, reading everything I've put out, the book blogger who has supported me by posting a review, the fellow author who has shared my stuff because s/he believes in it, too. There are so many people who are happy my stories exist, who support my work, and I am honoring you by writing more every single day, by having a publishing schedule that's tight and story-filled, by putting out more and more stories of strong girls who love girls and women who love women.

From the bottom of my heart: thank you. Thank you for thinking lesbian stories are worth reading, that they're equal to other stories. Thank you for treating me like all the other authors who write stories, for not putting me into a "I can't read that, it's lesbian and I'm not" slot. Thank you for giving my stories a chance, for loving them, for supporting them, for spreading the word on them. This, my life-long dream, has come true because you believed in it, in me, enough.

Here, on my birthday, I raise the gratitude again. It's the perfect day to think about gratitude, but I think about it every day. That I am where I am because people believed.

Thank you from my heart.

If you're thinking: "Sarah, it's your birthday, I'd like to celebrate it with you!" first off, thank you. <3 Secondly, the greatest gift in the world that you could give me is simply more of your support. The single happiest thing you could do is talk about my books (and my books as Elora) on your social networks, your blogs--anywhere you felt compelled to share. Maybe buy another copy for a friend, or--if you haven't read anything of mine, yet--give one of my stories a shot. If you've loved something in our Etsy shop, consider treating yourself.

And thank you for being. <3 <3 <3

Every year on my birthday, since I was a very little girl, I have written myself a letter. It was a very real, very honest and vulnerable message to myself–the myself of the following year and the previous year, and still is. When I turned fifteen and began to blog in earnest, I wrote the letter and put it online. This is, I believe, my twentieth birthday letter, on my twenty-eighth birthday. <3

~*~

Dear Sarah,

Today, you are twenty-eight. Last year, you wrote about finally putting your books out there and becoming a published author. Today, I re-read last year's letter and sat here and marveled, because it's full of marvel. Last year, I could have never predicted that I would end up here, now...where I am, because of a novel, because people believed in it.

You are a completely self-employed author. Read that again, future Sarah, because this is your twenty-eighth birthday on this beautiful, blue planet, and you've attained that elusive "it." You are a self-employed author. You know all of those countless days of work and effort and dreaming and work and dreaming and effort...? They came to this time, this moment. You've been a completely self employed author for four months now, and you're making your living on lesbian stories that people said folks would never want, or want to read, because who the hell wants to read about lesbians?

My gods. You're not a petty lady, and you forget and forgive easily, but sit very still for a moment, breathe out and whisper, with just a bit of a smile: they were wrong.

You work very hard. You work harder than you ever have in your life, and you put in some of the longest hours of anyone you know, but every single hour, even the hard ones, you feel easy. Content. Like you're making a difference on this planet. Because you are. You're putting out stories that people are reading and loving, and you're doing that as your full time work. You've reached what you quested for, every year of your life, and in this moment, I am proud of myself. I, Sarah, am proud of myself. I don't think I've ever said that before, and I don't know if I'll say it again, but in this moment, I'm saying it. And it feels good.


(photo by Laura Diemer)

But the most amazing thing of this past year wasn't even attaining that life-long, elusive dream. It was getting married to the most amazing woman on the planet, it was this beautiful New York state recognizing that we were human, too, and that we deserved the same rights as everyone else. It was gathering with those ones I love dearest, in the church I love dearest, and declaring my everlasting love for that woman I love dearest. The most perfect day of my life, the most magical, the most sacred. I am legally married to the love of my life, and every day, I live to love her more.


(photo by Laura Vasilion)

Being an entrepreneur isn't always easy, and I hope that next year's letter will be the last in this "great three," as I'm considering them. Twenty-seven: I published my first novel, and I'm happy. Twenty-eight: I am making my living as a completely self-employed author, and I'm content and happy. Twenty-nine: I haven't worried about money in a few months, the debt is gone, and every day, I wake up next to the love of my life, and worry is a distant, bad, ill-remembered dream.

If anything from these past two years has taught me, it's this: dreams can happen if you believe in them hard enough, and if you put the work and effort and hope and yearning into it. You can change your life if you have enough courage, and you don't always need the courage: sometimes it's okay to be scared. But if you believe in something hard and long enough and work your heart out, you can reach where you dreamed of going.

I've always been a content person, and a very happy person. And Goddess knows I'm not asking for this sort of thing... But I've never officially reached this place before, and it's worth remarking on. Always, before, I told the Goddess (hah! I TOLD Her! ;D): "I can't possibly die, I haven't done 'it' yet. I wouldn't be content if I died. I have to work harder." There will never be a "good" time to die, as far as stories are concerned--Death will have to snatch the pen from my hand, and then literally take the notebook from my clutches. But if the Universe decided that tomorrow was the day, I would stand still and calm, and I would say: thank You for the run. I am content, and I am happy, and I'm proud of myself, and every day, I go to sleep feeling accomplished and good and all is right with the world. If I had to die tomorrow, I would be perfectly at peace.

I've never been here before. And it feels good. Right. Wonderful.

I am so filled with gratitude every single day, that it's very hard to articulate. I may have tenacity and courage and this really dogged relentlessness, but it came from somewhere. And all I have done, and all that I will yet do is because people believe in me. They believe in my stories. My wife believes in me. My friends believe in me. I am loved. I am held by the Universe. On the bad days, on the hard days, on the worry-filled days, those are the things that matter. And I work harder, and I sing louder, and I dance faster, and I smile and hug random strangers, and the world is a beautiful, shining, difficult, immaculate place, and I am so fucking grateful to be here.

Here's to twenty-eight. Here's to stories and possibility and magic and love: the four most important things in my life, the four most precious.

I am content, and I am filled with wonder, and I am so grateful to be here, now.

Go do great things, Sarah. I believe in you, too.

With all my love,
Myself

I have written my yearly birthday letter and put it up on Muse Rising, along with a birthday explosion of joy, sparkles and happiness~



Every year on my birthday, since I was a very little girl, I have written myself a letter. When I turned fifteen and began to blog in earnest, I wrote the letter and put it online. It was a very real, very honest and vulnerable message to myself--the myself of the following year.

I've known I was supposed to be a writer since I was a kid--it is such a deeply ingrained part of me and my spirit and path that I've really known nothing else that strongly from such a young age. Every year, my birthday letter was hopeful, but a little hard on myself, too. "You didn't get published this past year--try harder, work harder. This coming year, you can do it!" What was sad, and a little silly, is that I never tried to get published. I kept writing and putting my books in drawers and my stories under the sofa, but I never put them out there.

You know...until this past year.

... continue reading

Today is my birthday--I turn twenty-six.

Here are a few truths about me:

- I know the most amazing, incredible, kind, compassionate, passionate, exceedingly beautiful and magical people that this world possesses. When the Goddess made me, She whispered into my ear: "oh, baby, what a family you'll have..."

- I know great magic. Inside and out, I can see the web of the world, how it's put together, and the splendor in all things. Even in my darkest hours, there are stars. When the Goddess made me, She whispered: "you have everything you need, and someday you'll believe that."

- I'm a good writer, and I believe in myself, and in that. Every year on my birthday I've made a post about hope and writing, and how they're intertwined for me. I decided not to do that this year. I know what I am, and who I am, and it's Storyteller. When the Goddess made me, She said: "Tell the stories you know, and the ones you don't. This gift I have given you, use it wisely."

- I can speak the language of animals, of nature, of the clouds and sea. I am as much a part of the earth as any stone, and that connection is a constant. When the Goddess made me, She said: "you are part of everything, and you will know this, always."

- I have found my soul mate, my twin flame, my anam cara, my everything, and I have the complete blessing to share my life with her. When the Goddess made me, She said: "oh, my darling, you will find her, you will love her, and it will be so beautiful..."

And twenty-six years ago, I opened my eyes to this splendid, wonder-filled and full planet, and I smiled for the very first time, and I thought: thank You, thank You, thank You.

Goddess, I love You, I sing Your song, I sing through You and of You. Thank You for this blessed existence, this life, this everlasting love. Thank You, thank You, thank You.


photo by santacrewsgirl

My life is a storybook. All of these pages and words, all of these moments like pretty paintings, on the paper that has gone before, light and shadows and sparkling things, treasure in my life.

I go back through, sometimes, in the deepest parts of my heart where I store this treasure, this storybook, these fairytales. I'll pick up this memory, the first time I met Jenn. It was so cold that day, snowing, and the suitcase was so heavy. I ran to her and hugged her and she smelled of soap and strawberries and the warm heartbeat of someone I'd been waiting to meet my entire life. The way she cried, the way I did, the scent of pina colada candies she'd gotten me, and the cold of the white gold as I slipped it over her finger, I remember everything.



This one. This one shines--it's the time I proposed to her. I was kneeling in the grass at the Fairie Festival, I got a stain on the white dress I'd sewn. All weekend, everyone asked me if I was getting married, and I'd woven my fingers through Jenn's, and watched her shyly. We'd talked about it so often, but I wanted to make it official. On the way out of the Fairie Festival that day, hand in hand, someone had shouted at us: "You're beautiful! The fairies love it when you love each other!" The magic, the certainty, the warmth of her beside me, the lipgloss and glitter and the way we danced beneath the maypole, spinning and laughing like we'd never stop. Here, in this memory, we never have.



Here's such a pretty one. The first time she tried on her wedding dress her mother had sewn. She'd sewn both of ours, working around the clock to get them finished in time. She came out of the bathroom and was standing in front of the stove. The late September sunlight filtered through the windows, around her head. I'd swear it was a halo. She smiled at me, the one that makes me feel like I'm the only person on the planet. I'd kissed her cheek, touched the small of her back, speechless. The light blue of the dress, the ring on her finger, the brightness of her eyes, the exaltation of what would soon be, it's right here.



Today, Jenn is thirty-three years old. Thirty-three years she has been upon this beautiful blue-green planet, and six of those she has been in my arms...though we were always part of one another in some way. All my life, I was searching for her, waiting for her. She is the most warm-hearted, compassionate, beautiful, articulate, intelligent, funny, essentially good person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and she's my wife. I don't really understand how it happened, and I suppose I never will. I'm the luckiest person, and I know it, and I'll never stop being grateful. Every time she smiles at me, every time she holds my hand or kisses me or gives me that look or laughs or razzes one of our animals, it happens all over again, that falling in love.



Growing up, I loved this one song a lot. It's called "Deeper," and it's by a Christian band, "Delirious?". I'm not Christian and have never been, but I appreciated the song on every level. It's so beautiful. My favorite line in it is this:

"And I'm living just to fall, more in love with you."

I loved it, and it made my heart ache, but I never really understood it. It's about God, and I had a lot of issues with what I was taught about him, growing up. When I became Pagan, when I understood what the Goddess was, and I began to forgive everyone that had screwed up my idea of divinity...that's when I began to understand it. And when I met Jenn, I knew it, inside and out. I believe the Goddess is out there, but in here, too. And in Jenn, She was constant, like a star.



There are so many pretty stories about soul mates and twin flames and legends and myths and words that are built into our DNA to help us understand and identify things we can not measure. But this is mine. I never expected that I could be this happy or be this blessed or be this complete. But I am. Because thirty-three years ago today, the first half of one soul came into being, and she did it in a snow storm, with flakes (every one different) blowing in circles about the building where--unbeknownst to the stars--one fell from the heavens to land in a tiny, perfect body...made physical and real.

The heavens lost their most brilliant pin-prick of light that day.



Nobody ever wonders why I'm so happy and cheerful and optimistic. Nobody ever wonders where it comes from, why good things always happen, why I'm so lucky. I'll tell you a secret--it's because I have everything my heart could ever possibly want or need, and her name is Jenn. I love her in ways that I could never possibly articulate, and I love her more than I can even understand. But I suppose the most important thing in the world is that I love her, and she loves me, and because of her, I have everything.

Happy birthday, my beautiful Pisces. I celebrate you, I love you, baby.