"Just be who you are, calm and clear and bright."
- Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Experiments in incandescent living
When Halley’s Comet swept across the sky in April 1910, New York Times society reporters implied that to live life to the fullest you simply had to attend a rooftop viewing party. I’ve never cared about staying on top of the trends, but I do enjoy stargazing with a glass of bubbly; so I have reappropriated the “comet party” as a metaphor for living the brightest, most festive version of your life. You want to light up a room, but not in the way people usually employ that phrase: I’m talking about bringing joy and clarity to everyone you meet, and reveling in that effervescent feeling you get when you’ve made yourself useful.
I write novels for readers of all ages and occasionally blog about books, travel, art, and needlecrafts, but this site is mostly for exploring the connection I’ve discovered between ethical veganism and creativity. To that end, I’ve recently published a follow-up book to Life Without Envy called A Bright Clean Mind: Veganism for Creative Transformation. If you like the sound of this party, you can subscribe for updates!
My first online course, Provisional Confidence for Writers, is now live on Teachable! I explain the genesis in this three-minute YouTube video:
A few notes on this and future offerings:
There will be more where this came from—the Bright Idea Kit, which is a more in-depth course on generating “original” ideas—and you can check out the workbook preview (inside my new resource library) by signing up for my newsletter.
“Too much useful content” is a splendid problem to have, but I don’t want to contribute to anyone’s feeling of overwhelm. Every course or webinar I put together will be something that feels necessary—something my readers have asked for. (Comment on this post if you have a request!)
I’m working on making my course materials as accessible as possible: accurate closed-captioning, transcripts in a sans serif font, etc. (I did use a serif font in my worksheets, but I’ll be using sans serif from now on—once I’ve finished The Bright Idea Kit I’ll circle back and re-design the Provisional Confidence worksheets.)
I will not show up in your inbox every day for a week because consumer psychology dictates that you will be more likely to purchase the course (it annoys the snot out of me when people do this!) I sent out an email announcement, I will do at least one Instagram promotion, and then (as usual) I’ll be on to the next thing.
Here are the three goals I set for 2020:
Put out my first online course (because I have been talking about this for at least three years. IT’S TIME!)
Write 200 messy pages of the new [time-travel!] novel.
Publish a manifesta envisioning the retreat center I intend to create (hence the name “Comet Party Summer School”).
At first I figured I’d publish Provisional Confidence and get back to novel-writing, saving the Bright Idea Kit for 2021, but I think I can put out a second course and get that messy first section of the manuscript drafted. Let’s see if I can deliver on the Bright Idea Kit in time for Preptober and bang out my pages during NaNoWriMo (that’s “National Novel-Writing Month” for the uninitiated, “Preptober” being the outlining and such that happens during the month of October).
Oh, and did I mention the online seminar I’m developing for all the vegans who’ve told me that A Bright Clean Mind isn’t for them because they’re “not creative”?! Somehow this will all get done in between working the best day job I have ever had!
Big love to my friends Neil Kramer, Nova Ren Suma, Dr. Giavanni Washington, Elizabeth Duvivier, Heather Demetrios, Rebecca Mahoney, Chantal Schreiber, McCormick Templeman, Joelle Renstrom, Jason Atkins, Erin Callahan, and Steve Saranga for inspiring me to get this thing DONE and out into the world! 💕💕
Hi! I'm Camille. I only write stories that could never ever happen in real life, though I do believe in real-life magic. If we were in the same room I'd fix you a cup of tea, but for now we'll have to settle for a virtual connection. I'm really glad you're here.
