I’m thinking about building a business, and it is terrifying.  I don’t know anything about running a business. Both of my parents and one of my brothers were all self employed for at least part of their lives, but I have been in the same large organization for twenty years. I am comfortable here. I know how to do my job, and I do it well.

As most of you know, just released my first book, Quest for the King. After looking at my investment (of time and money) in my writing, I decided to open a virtual publishing house and shoppe called The Quill’s Lair. The name was developed through a long conversation with a dear friend about this newsletter and inspired by a passage from The Blade of Ages:

Fae had never been in the presence of a spirit like this, which offered such quiet but rich inspiration. It was as if the tree itself were a muse, an expression of the Source, pulling beauty from the brook as it babbled by, and strength from the fire of the sun’s rays. The trunk split three ways, two of them outstretched as if to welcome someone into a warm embrace. Its roots stretched out beneath it in almost Celtic knot-like patterns reaching deep into the earth. As the willow’s soft golden branches swayed with the wind, its leaves danced too, and the young magicae saw it: a single red feather leaning out of the knot hole of the tree, and she summoned to her hand the quill from its lair.

This shoppe is both based off of a group of stores (to include Mr. M’s Menagerie of Magical Manuscripts) in my current work in progress (a novel called The Blade of Ages) and the basis for a vision board for a physical store I am considering for after I retire from my current work.

Writing and publishing a book (and now moving on to the second) is frightening. The learning curve is STEEP! But what I don’t know about the business world dwarfs what I don’t know about writing and publishing. Building a company is terrifying!

So, you might ask, why am I walking down this path? What gives me courage in the midst of my fears?

I have an vision of a place I want to get to physically. I want The Quill’s Lair to be, in a physical sense, this awesome place to which to escape. It will be a place where the veil is thin, the mystical feels real, and people can connect. The story of my novel both reflects and shapes the shoppe I want to exist.  It is a place that I long to be. So, I am using my virtual store front to become it’s vision board.

I also have a vision of a place I want to get to, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. It is a place where faith, fantasy and fitness connect, where Christian mysticism meets the lore of magic, and mindfulness. It is about feeling connected with others and whole inside. We get so focused on being knowledgeable and comfortable in one thing, we forget how we fit in with the big picture. We forget the forest for the trees.

Yet, even with having a vision, the path is unknown and that is terrifying. We cling that which we know. But if we never venture past the paths we know, we never discover anyplace new. I have courage, because, I want to discover the mystical, unknown path laid before me by the Creator. I want to see the forest, one foggy path at a time.