Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

“My Gutsy Story” by Richard Potter

December 12, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

A few years ago I volunteered to serve at a faith-based arts camp for Polish youth. Rafal, the camp director, met me at the Warsaw airport. As we drove to the camp, I asked what he had lined up for me to do for the week.

“We have six or eight campers who want to learn guitar,” he said. “So I thought you could lead an acoustic guitar workshop.”

Gitara akustyczna warsztat. WTF? I’ve played guitar for 35 years, but I’m no teacher. I can’t even remember how I learned! Did I really sign up for this? What was I thinking?

The next morning I walked through the campground to the gazebo where the workshop would shortly begin. Large rocks poked through a thin layer of soil, on which a carpet of pine needles had been laid by the branches waving overhead. The rising sun promised to chase away the slight chill in the air. Near the gazebo a sculpted lion’s head emerged from the ground, mouth wide open in a silent roar of triumph over the grave. It reminded me of Aslan, the lion-Christ-figure from CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia; I took comfort in the image and stepped timidly into the role of teacher. They don’t really need me here, I thought. But maybe I need to be here. Maybe this is what it means to “live by faith.”

The next morning Rafal encouraged all camp volunteers to tell our stories to our students. What role did faith play in the journey? My story does not make me proud. I grew up in a nice family that attended church every week. Dad taught Sunday school and volunteered with my Scout troop. Mom was the church organist and taught piano. I took piano for a few years, then played cello in the school orchestra.

At 14 I traded cello for guitar. Next I traded church and Scouts for rock and roll. I picked up smoking, then drinking, then marijuana, then cocaine. Like Pinocchio, I was living it up on Pleasure Island — and turning into a total ass.

One night an LSD trip went bad. I asked a friend to drive me home. He stroked the puppy in his lap as he drove. Suddenly my friend morphed into the Devil, and I became the puppy. Terrified, I opened the door to escape; but it was too late. Demons held me down.

In reality, I had jumped out of the car. My friend somehow delivered me to a hospital where I resisted restraint. My parents arrived as the LSD was wearing off. When they led Mom to my bedside, I couldn’t understand what she was doing in hell. My mom would never be in hell, I thought. But here she was, holding my hand. Had I been given a second chance?

The fractured leg and shattered shoulder blade would heal much sooner than my broken spirit. A Lutheran counselor said that my story reminded him of the prodigal son in the Bible. For the first time I considered the possibility that a Bible story had been written with me in mind. It was the first of many steps on the road to recovery.

The students were quiet as I finished my story. We turned our attention to guitars. At the end of the session, Natalia and Karolina asked if I would help them after lunch. Natalia was fascinated with classic rock and roll: the Doors, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd. I wondered, how can I teach songs like that to beginners?

Back at my cabin, I found the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues” on my mp3 player. The girls were waiting when I returned to the gazebo. I showed Natalia where to place her fingers; Karolina followed suit. When they began to get the hang of it, I asked if they’d like to try Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water.” Oh, YES! They spent an hour practicing the songs.

“Omigosh!” Natalia squealed suddenly, bouncing up and down on the wooden bench. “I play Doors! I play Deep Purple!”

Yes, I nodded to myself. I know the feeling very well.

The arts camp ended with an outdoor celebration. By the light of a bonfire I said good-bye to new friends, taking pictures, collecting email addresses, and making false promises to stay in touch. There was a tap on my shoulder.

“Someone would like to say something to you,” said Rafal. Natalia peaked out from behind.

“Thank you so much for teaching me songs I love, and for sharing your story,” she began. “I have a friend in Warsaw…” She paused and turned to Rafal. “This is so hard!” Tears welled as she continued. “My friend smokes marijuana. Every time I visit she asks me if I want to try. She gives me pressure. I had decided that next time I am with her, I will try it. Then you told your story. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Now I have decided not to try the marijuana. I promise you I will not do drugs.”

“Be strong,” I said. “Keep God in your heart.” We hugged, and off she went to join her friends, long brown hair bouncing in rhythm with her flowered peasant skirt.

“You see Richard,” said Rafal, “even in your fifties you can make a difference.”

“Thanks, Rafal,” I said with a grin. “I’m 46.”

Richard Potter with Rafal

As a musician I play by ear, and this often comes in handy, like when I taught Natalia and Karolina the Doors and Deep Purple. In life I catch myself playing by fear. I’m afraid to take risks, afraid that people will run away if I let them discover the real me. I pray for the fears to go away, but that prayer goes unanswered. In Poland I learned that courage is not the absence of fear; it is the presence of faith. When I live by that truth, the outcomes are absolutely amazing.

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Richard M. Potter is a freelance writer, musician, and consultant to nonprofit organizations. His writing has appeared in Leader To Leader, Children’s Voice, Advancing Philanthropy, and other publications. As a grantwriter he has secured millions of dollars to support various charitable causes, including a $5 million grant from the WK Kellogg Foundation to fund internship stipends for future nonprofit professionals. Richard blogs on purpose at www.richardmpotter.com. He and his wife of 22 years are the parents of two wonderful teenaged children. They reside in Kansas City, Missouri.

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Thank you Richard for submitting this positive and inspiring story about how in helping others, you also overcame your own fears. This is the first “My Gutsy Story” written by a man, and I hope this will be the start to many more. I hope you visit Richard Potter’s website and learn more about him and his writing. If you love memoirs, I know you’ll enjoy Shirley Sholwater, and her amazing blog 100 memoirs. Without her, I may not have discovered Richard, and he may not have submitted his “My Gutsy Story.”

(Please leave your comments below for Richard to answer. He will be over I’m sure.)

Sonia Marsh

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You have until Wednesday December 13th at 11:59p.m. to VOTE for your Favorite November “My Gutsy Story”

Winner of November Contest will be announced on December 14th. We shall let you know what prize was selected and ask for a photo. Hope you come back to see.

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HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR OWN “My Gutsy Story”
To submit your own, “My Gutsy Story” you can find all the information, and our sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story” contest page. (NEW VIDEO) Submission guidelines here.

Why I self-published by Ali Luke

December 8, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

This is a Guest post by Ali Luke from Aliventures.

Imagine my surprise when Ali Luke, a writing coach who has been featured on some of the biggest online blogs like Copyblogger and ProBlogger, and who recently spoke at Blogworld, the world’s largest social media conference, decided to send me her “My Gutsy Story.” Since Ali is a writing coach, I thought it would be helpful for writers looking to publish their work to see how Ali Luke took the plunge to indie-publish her first novel and why.

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My Gutsy Story: Publishing My First Novel

In November 2011, I released my first novel, Lycopolis.

It took a lot of time.

I spent a year drafting. And another year re-drafting. And then I edited – again and again. Along the way, I cut out tens of thousands of words.

It took a lot of money.

I wrote the bulk of the novel while studying for a part-time Masters in Creative Writing (not cheap)! I paid a wonderful professional editor to go through the whole Draft 5 manuscript. I took day courses, went to conferences, bought writing books.

Most of all, it took a lot of courage.

I put more of myself into Lycopolis than I’ve ever put into any piece of writing. I shared my work with tutors and fellow students. I wrote and rewrote and polished and gave it my very best.

Why I Self-Published

For a long time, I’d clung to an old writing dream. If you’re a writer too, it might be one that you share. I wanted to get an agent, sign a book deal, and write novels for a living – all day, every day.

The problem is, that dream started to look more and more unrealistic.

Publishing is undergoing the biggest upheaval since Gutenberg. With ebooks – and Amazon’s dominance over traditional book stores – things have been changing fast.

More and more authors are deciding to go it alone. There are plenty of good reasons why:

You’ve got full control over the finished product. I’ve seen some shocking badly formatted ebooks from big publishers who should know better – and I didn’t want to risk that happening to mine.
You get to keep considerably more of the money. Most published authors don’t make a living through writing. At 10 – 15 % per book, they’re not the ones getting rich from their hard work.
You can publish something that’s from your heart, not what’s expected to sell. If you’re writing in an unpopular genre (or across genres) then self-publishing means you can produce the book you want, not what publishers can easily pigeon-hole.

I’m no stranger to putting my writing out there. I’ve been blogging for several years – you can find my work on dozens of different websites. But publishing a novel took a lot of guts.

I thought my established readership might not like it. My blogging is pretty upbeat; Lycopolis is quite dark. (Lots of people have said they enjoyed it, and that it was still “me”!)

I worried what friends and family would think. (The ones who’ve read it so far have been enthusiastic.)

I was afraid that the reviews wouldn’t be good: that my novel would be too thoughtful for genre fans and too fast-paced for literary fiction aficionados. (I’ve had great reviews from genre readers and literary readers.)

All of my fears were ungrounded. But I could so easily have let them stop me.

If you’ve been working on a project close to your heart, don’t be afraid to let the world see. I know it takes courage. But if you don’t go forwards, you’ll never know who you might touch, who’s life you might impact.

Ali Luke is the author of Lycopolis, a supernatural-thriller/contemporary-fantasy with a good dose of geekery thrown in. You can find out all about it at www.lycopolis.co.uk (and download the first five chapters as a free sample).

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Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach, with degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her work can be found on a number of large websites, including Copyblogger, ProBlogger, Men with Pens and Write to Done. She’s spoken at BlogWorld and OxonDigital, and works with individuals and groups of writers. You can get several of her short ebooks for free (including the popular How to Find Time for Your Writing) when you join her newsletter. Her novel, Lycopolis, is available on Amazon.

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Please leave your questions and comments for Ali below. Also I noticed Ali is offering a special price on all 3 of her Blogger’s Guides until December 12th. You may want to check them out on her Aliventures website.

“My Gutsy Story” by Muriel Demarcus

December 5, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

My Gutsy Story

By background, I am an Engineer. I used to be able drive trains and my specialty was Signalling (you know, the stuff that always fails on the railways). I have walked down the tracks while new trains were being tested (scary) and opened new metro lines in Paris. I have also investigated train accidents and tried to re-calculate speed profiles using complicated modeling tools to understand what had gone wrong. I am French-born, and it is fair to say that until recently I was a pure French product: I had been to the right schools and universities, and was pretty much brought up to climb the corporate ladder. Oh, and I could barely speak English -let alone write it, because German was my first foreign language (don’t ask, it is a French thing).

But, in 2004, I had to go out of my comfort zone: to cut a long story short, my husband was offered a job in London. Basically, I had two options: change husband, or change job. I chose the latter, which meant that I had to drop my much-loved job (an important part of my identity!) and find something else, in London this time. My industry works a lot by word of mouth and I eventually managed to find something else, less interesting of course, but somehow I felt that I couldn’t be too picky, given that my English was so basic…

Soon enough, I felt that I was wasting my time and my talents. I felt trapped. As a woman with a French accent, I wasn’t being taken seriously at all. I have lost count of the “Do I know you from somewhere?” comments. My notes were constantly edited to make them “Oxbridge-compliant” (I am used to working in bullet points, but it wasn’t doing the trick over here!). So, after a while, I decided to start my own business in parallel. It was about the development and management of commercial properties, mainly to maintain and store boats –I just saw an opportunity and grabbed it when I bought some cheap land close to the coast.

Eventually, my business started to make more money than my day job. It was time to change my priorities. My boring but comfortable job was holding me back. I didn’t like it any more. Still, finding the strength to resign was more difficult than I thought: most people wait patiently for a nice redundancy package, but that was not my mindset, and I knew that the extra-time spend on my business would bring me new clients anyway. After months of procrastination, I finally resigned and left. Most of my colleagues didn’t understand why I didn’t wait to get some more money.

What I love about my business is that it gives me the time and flexibility to take care of my family and explore other side of my personality, such as writing.

I started my blog (www.FrenchYummyMummy.com) as a new year’s resolution. It became addictive. After a few weeks I had more than 4,000 hits a month. I couldn’t believe that my thoughts and worries could be of any interest. I was clearly wrong.

It felt good.

I am now writing as much as I can, with a view -who knows?- to publish a book one day. It is all about explaining how it feels to be French amongst the British. But more importantly, I feel more like myself. I am finally designing my life around what matters to me. I know it is better late than never. But, after years of always doing what was expected from me, I am slowly starting to become what I want to be. Oh, and I am learning to drive boats now!

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Muriel Demarcus is a self-proclaimed French Yummy Mummy living in London. She started working in Paris in the Railways industry and never imagined that she would have to move abroad.
At 32 years, she discovered that life outside of France was possible and even enjoyable when all the family had to move to London due to her husband’s new job. It was 7 years ago and since then she doesn’t feel French any more and isn’t British yet.

Muriel and her two lovely daughters

Her two daughters have now started to correct her bad English accent, which she hates. In 2011, she decided to start a blog and hasn’t looked back since. She can be found at www.FrenchYummyMummy.com or @FrenchYumMummy on Twitter.

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Our First Story for the December “My Gutsy Story” Contest

Thank you Muriel. What a great story about getting out of your comfort zone and adapting to a new life in the U.K. Not only that, but you started your own company, taught yourself English, and started your successful blog French Yummy Mummy. I love reading books about Americans, Australians and British women who moved to France. One I enjoyed in particular is called, “What French Women Know,” by Debra Ollivier. So now finally, Muriel Demarcus will write a book about the reverse: A French woman living in the U.K. It is all about explaining how it feels to be French amongst the British.

(Please leave your comments below for Muriel to answer. She will be over I’m sure.)

Sonia Marsh

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VOTE for your Favorite November “My Gutsy Story”

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“Bonjour 40 days in Paris”

December 1, 2011 by Sonia Marsh

The 4-0 Equation.

By Karen A. Chase

Author of Bonjour 40: A Paris travel log

(40 years. 40 days. 40 seconds)

Karen Chase published an exciting book called “Bonjour 40” about how she planned something unique and “Gutsy” to celebrate her 40th birthday. She stayed in Paris for a month. Karen offered to Guest post the “4-0 equation” today and for those of you who love Paris or want to learn more about Paris, the food, the people and the way of life, please jump over to Karen’s website, watch the book trailer and download or order her book. She has some great photos of her month in Paris.

The dreaded 4-0. Forty. It happens to every woman, right? Yes. Even to me. When I turned 39 last year, my parents happily said, “Welcome to your 40^th year on the planet. Where will you go when you actually turn 40 next year?” I was going to be 40., like it or not, so I better plan for it.

Although my parents were teasing me, their intentions were good. They wanted to find out how I was going to embrace my age. I’m not one to shy away from growing older, because I hope it also means I’m growing wiser. Their question of where would I go really made me stop and think. I could roll over and groan about my number of years, and go out to the same restaurant to celebrate, or I could revel in my milestone birthday and use it to take stock of my life. So I did.

I planned for a year, and just after my 40^th, I booked a month off from my life, took the money I would have otherwise invested in my IRA, and went to Paris for a month. I went alone for the first three and half weeks so I could get to know Paris, and be forced to speak French. I can honestly say I wasn’t afraid to do it. “Gusty!” a few friends called me.

“No,” I thought. Amelia Earhart circumnavigating the globe on a solo flight is gutsy. My little adventure was nothing compared to that! However if others see me that way, maybe it’s because Amelia and I are both examples of how “gutsy” doesn’t happen overnight.

My trip to Paris didn’t seem bold to me because my trip came after traveling alone on short weekend adventures first. It came after moving across the continent, and after experiencing a nine-day trip to Maine on my own a few years ago. Perhaps Amelia’s last solo flight didn’t feel gutsy to her after she’d taken lessons, helped invest in an airport, and flown solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Maybe gusty is a product of having gumption. Maybe having guts is simply getting up each day and trying new things. I recall one of my last days alone in Paris. I was riding on a rented bike through the city during rush hour without a helmet. I remember the thrill of knowing where I was going, knowing I had chosen to be in Paris, and that I was embracing my life. My age. I was forty and loving it. I was happy. And there it was. There was my life’s equation.

Gumption = gutsy = embracing new things = happiness.

What’s your life’s equation?

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CONTEST GIVEAWAY BY KAREN CHASE

Thanks Karen for your wonderful story and for motivating us to do something different and special, like you did.

To go along with our writing contest called, “My Gutsy Story”, Karen Chase has kindly offered a free copy of her book and a 5″x7″ print of one of her Paris photos from the book.

The first person who sends in a “My Gutsy Story” to our contest which is selected for our Monday post wins a free copy of her book and a 5″x7″ print of one of her Paris photos from the book.

Please remember to vote for your favorite “My Gutsy Story” for November. You have until December 13th, to pick your favorite story.

What do you think of Karen’s adventure? What would you like to do to celebrate a special birthday?