Let’s say you’ve got style. You’ve got an eye. Maybe you’re even good at DIY…and you’ve got a house to furnish, fabulously.
Would you hire an interior designer?
I would. Because when you hire a designer or decorator, you’re not only hiring her for her advanced aesthetic; you’re hiring her for her roster of research and resources. She’s had kitchen counters installed umpteen times – she knows what materials work and who shows up on time to install them, perfectly. She can get a plumber to do a small job – because she’s got more work to offer, regularly. She knows the lines of fabric that will work with your vision. You’re hiring her for her connections and experience and ability to execute the project in the time it would take you to research it.
And that’s what I think business peeps and professionals have to offer. It’s what I have to offer, too. I’m a writer and a digital strategist; but what I know and what I share is more than why-to and how-to; a huge part of my skill comes from knowing who-to.
Tanya Geisler. Joy and Clarity incarnate. Joy is both the fuel in her tank and the destination. Clarity is the map – and so you’ve got to check out her Joy Pages and hire her for a Clarity Session. Working with Tanya Geisler - hell, just talking to her – is accountability infused with champagne bubbles. It’s productive intoxication, and YES that’s how I want to live my life and run my business: drunk-in-love with it, rocking it, realizing it.
Not a Coach but Close…
Matthew Stillman. Creative Approacher, One-Problem-Solver, Oracle, Ancient Wisdom in the form of a modern man. Got one intractable issue? You probably don’t need therapy or ongoing coaching for that – you need an objective, creative, agenda-free person to tell you what he sees and suggest practically wacky (and intensely wise) ways to reframe and resolve the problem. This is healing through High Weirdness and it’s wildly necessary. MUST DO.
Writing and Publishing
Justine Musk. Darlings, you’ve got to know her. There are only three people in my life about whom I say, SHE’S GOING TO BE FAMOUS, and she is on that very short, very fabulous list. Justine’s a hot-shit supernatural writer and author and the way she writes about writing (“writer’s porn“) is rich, raw, reflective and trulymadlydeeply educational. And can I just mention in the space of five years she wrote and published three novels AND gave birth three times to six babies? RESPECT.
Larry Brooks. Damn, I like him and his stuff. Storyfix is both a fix in the yum-yum, gimme-some way AND a literal fix because his advice and e-books will fix your writing. If you’re a writer (or want to be), Larry Brooks is a must-read; his books (Story Engineering: 6 Core Competencies; Get Your Bad Self Published; and 101 Slightly Unpredictable Tips for Novelists and Screenwriters) are a must-buy; and he offers manuscript and story-coaching. The man is the storyfixer.
Online Platform Raising, Rising, Shining
Danielle LaPorte. “Cash is King, Intuition is Queen” declares Danielle LaPorte but darlings, I think that’s not quite right. I think Danielle LaPorte is The Queen of Rising and Shining, Online (and everywhere). I credit Danielle LaPorte with inspiring me to leap into the online world and declare myself a writer. That’s life-changing, path-altering, soul-gratifying stuff made all the more meaningful by her gravelly practicality. It’s one thing to tell you to follow your dreams – every success guru and wannabe leader says that – but another thing to insist that you clarify your dreams, be faithful to who you are…and then build a platform to make it all happen. That’s practical magic. That’s now my life. Danielle LaPorte lit me up. If you don’t already, you MUST own her Firestarter Sessions. I insist. With fiery conviction.
Website Development/Wordpress Gurus
Dave Doolin. I read Dave Doolin’s Website In a Weekend every day. It’s part of my job as a blogger who always wants to do and be better. I’ve got certain posts bookmarked (check out this cool trick for linking to a paragraph rather than a whole piece in Practical WordPress Tip #18 - I do, several times a week); I refer to his Blog Post Engineering (especially the checklist) on a daily basis; AND I insist that my Red Shoe clients get their mitts on this excellent and exhaustive book/tome/encycopedia of blog-post publishing. If you want to know how to truly publish – not just write - a blog post so that Google and your people will love it up, then Blog Post Engineering is your not-so-secret weapon. Don’t blog without it.
Amanda Farough. She of the violet mind, zombies, stunning hair styles and stellar website design. She designed my site. She’s got my back with her most excellent maintenance package. Her design is clean, gorgeous, and heavy on hot typography. She rocks my world, so much so that I had to start a business with her. Which brings me to…
Sneaky Announcement #1:
Amanda and I are unlaunching (meaning this announcement is pretty much the extent of the launch) a new biznez called red+purple.
Red is for Red Shoe Blogger (moi), Purple is for violetminded Design (Amanda) and together our mission and madcap methodology can be condensed into these winning formulas:
red + purple = brand. Business. Love. You. From header to footer, adjective to pixel.
This means we create a brand narrative, write all your fixed pages (About, Bio, Sales Pages, etc), and design and develop your graphic identity and website. We’ve also got an SEO Queen and Conversion Expert on staff, so not only will your brand be artful, authentic and outrageous, it will work – for humans, search engines and sales.
Health
Adam T. Glass. I’m pretty sure the T stands for T-Rex, which he wishes he could hunt. With a chainsaw. Doesn’t sound like my thing, right? Wrong. I’m madly in love with him, and here’s why: he’s like the testosterone-infused inverse of Lianne Raymond. He’s pure masculinity and a man of experience – and I’m convinced he’s a mostly-undiscovered genius. In his circle, he’s The Man, but more people in the wider world need to know about him. Adam’s a ferociously fit trainer who isn’t wed to any particular fitness orthodoxy (and in fact vociferously rejects orthodoxies of any kind) and although he knows that he knows his stuff, he insists that you are the expert of your body. What he wants to teach you is how to teach yourself to get better, every day. Adam helped Josh Hanagarne (World’s Strongest Librarian) manage Tourette’s; rehabilitated a man who broke his back when his parachute didn’t open; and helped heal - through specific movement training – more than 300 people with more ordinary problems like “my back hurts”. When my loverloverman had movement-related muscle pain that threatened his ability to do his job, Adam was who we reached out to for super-specific, gotta-fix-this training. Right away. LOVELOVELOVE Adam T. Glass.
Transcription
Erica Cosminsky. I recommend Erica Cosminsky’s The Small Business Transcriptionist at least five times a week. I sing her praises daily, to every one of my clients and everyone in the online game. Her transciptions are consistently excellent, her rates are fair (more than fair, really), and her process is seamless. I upload an MP3 and 24 hours later (sometimes sooner!) I receive an e-mail notice that the transcription is ready. I download the transcription. I dance the happy dance. You will, too.
I research/review/stalk your site and your writing until I’ve got so much practical advice for you that I can’t fit it all in an hour (most sessions go over). If you get your session transcribed (I provide you with the MP3 recording), you’ll end up with 30+ page action plan – and that action plan isn’t generic, how-to-blog-better advice, it’s specific to you, your niche, and all your secret aspirations.
The new price will include a week of unlimited e-mail access to me so you can pepper me with questions as you process the session and start implementing my advice. Darling, you’ve got my unwavering love and support. And action. Promise.
What you get from a Red Shoe Blogger session is not just a yellow-brick-road map…it’s a treasure map.
And – this isn’t a ‘manufacturing scarcity/urgency’ tactic to get you to BUY NOW, DAMMIT. It’s just a gentle, as-inclusive-as-possible, advance heads-up. Delivered with a full heart and the hope that we’ll work together to make your thing The Thang. xoxo.
Not Quite Another Sneaky Announcement: I’m going to keep adding to my Love List, possibly weekly, because I’ve got a posse of peeps and services and resources that is deep and excellent and I want to share them with you. These professionals have made a difference in my world and my business and I know they can work their magic for you, too.
I’m not ready to apologize. I’m not ready for a relationship. I’m not ready for marriage. We’re not ready to have kids. I’m not ready to apply to that program/school/job/life. I’m not ready to face the truth. I’m not ready for cancer. I’m not ready to leave.
I’m not ready for this.
It might be true, but it’s an excuse and the source of your pain.
Look at that litany of excuses: they’re all talking to Reality and saying “I can’t handle you”.
But reality is a pugilist. Challenging it will only result in your own pummeling.
When I argue with reality, I beat myself. I beat myself down.
And it hurts.
There’s a difference between trying everything to change a situation and refusing to accept reality. When you’re in the battle to change or prevent something, you’re dealing with reality. You know what is and what might be and you hope – fervently, practically, actively, exhaustively - you can change it. And so you try. And maybe you succeed.
And that – trying, maybe succeeding – it precisely what “I’m not ready” prevents.
We protest our trials. We go through trials and in the arduous beginning we bemoan and protest them. But the truth is, we grow through trials and trying.
So of course you’re not ready. Nobody is. Even when you think you’re ready, you’re probably wrong. When I decided to have children and get pregnant with my first child, I thought I was ready. And then, when she arrived as a cosmic privilege and burden, an eternal marvel and responsibility, a whole person with a buffet of needs and demands, and an instant and continuous attenuation of my own selfishness, I knew – and I know every day – that I was not ready. I was and am wrenchingly unprepared. I am – as are most parents - not an instinctual saint equipped with The Answers but a desperately loving and flawed person striving for greatness. Striving to be a mother. Striving to be the mama she needs.
Ready is the wrong litmus test.
You only need to be willing.
And “I don’t want to” and “I’m not willing” are legitimate. “I’m not ready” is bullshit and a waiting game.
(And, it seems, Adele is everyone’s girl. She’s sold out everywhere I look – and I looked in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. And never before have I checked multiple cities for concert dates or been willing to fly somewhere to experience an artist.)
What if Adele believed that there was only one way to be an artist, singer and star? What if she had waited until she was a size 2 to rock our world? What if she looked at her dreams, listened to her incredible voice, and told them both: “I’m not ready”?
Or Oprah. What if she thought, “I’ll lose the weight before I go on stage”? What if she said, “I’m not ready”? She would have delayed her nation-altering, world-changing career for twenty years. For twenty years, while she could have been honing her craft and delighting her people, she would have been trying to lose the weight to get ready. She would be battling herself instead of challenging herself.
And we would be poorer for it.
You don’t have to be ready. You just have to be willing…
Ricardo Scipio is my friend and fellow Pisces (we share the same birthday!) but those aren’t his only recommendations. Ricardo Scipio is a revolutionary. I would call him a renaissance man but he identifies as “primitive”. “I’m not ‘new-age’”, he tells me. “I’m as old as they come. I live in the bush, celebrate the Goddess and practice the wisdom of my ancestors”.
So Ricardo does it all, throughout all the ages: he’s a film director (Finder of Lost Children, Watershed, When), herbalist, author (Making Peace With Herpes: A Holistic Guide to Overcoming the Stigma and Freeing Yourself from Outbreaks), tennis-junkie (five hours a day!) and a natural-living, crunchy-granola type who eats organic, lives in a cabin in the woods, makes medicine from plants and art on his Apple.
Ricardo’s also a former NYC fashion photographer who got cosmically bored of the industry and of photographing the inexperienced girls the media shapes as models of what woman should look like. What women should be like: pliable, interchangeable, vacant, very thin and almost always Caucasian.
And so he left to start a revolution in pictures. In 2005, Ricardo collaborated with celebrated Canadian poet George Eliott Clarke to create Illuminated Verses, an homage to the strength, dignity and beauty of black women – and their book is a vivid, sensory and celebratory antidote to mainstream depictions of the black woman as bitch and ho and harridan.
Most recently, Ricardo created a stunning and provocative photography series called The Goddess Project. And some of the images in it have seized me and won’t let me go.
A large, round woman is on her back making a snow-angel. She’s laughing. In her nakedness, she probably looks like me. I’m entranced by this photo. I’m fascinated by this photo. I’m uncomfortable with this photo, because when I see her, I see me. I see an awkwardness, the weight of self-consciousness and the self-consciousness of weight; but I also see empowerment, joy and a refusal to be inhibited or invisible. I see a woman revelling in her skin and the folds of her flesh and the world with a certainty and an ownership I do not always possess. I don’t see polish or artifice or porn. I see a naked woman.
“Not naked,” insists Ricardo. “Nude.”
Because “naked” is about titillation and being stripped and lacking in something: clothes, power, defenses, dignity. Naked implies a removal, as though the natural state of humans is dressed and therefore to be naked is to be deficient and humiliated. Porn stars and Playboy models, for example, are paid to get naked. But the women in Ricardo’s project aren’t naked sex objects; they’re Goddesses in their natural state of splendour. They’re nude. They’re not trying to be sexy or titillate.
Still, in the collection of 160 photographs of 77 women photographed over eight years, I can pick out the “professionals”, the models and actors giving good pose. In those pictures, there’s a consciousness and a design to the way the women hold their bodies and address the camera – and I “recognize” those photographs. I find that I’m more comfortable with these ones – with the calculation, the lines, and story-lines – than I am with some of the less studied pictures with amateur models.
But because I’m more comfortable with the images of very attractive women working the camera, I don’t pay much attention to them. It’s the other ones – the photographs of unconventional, uncomfortable beauties – that stoke my imagination.
And yet, perhaps even more strangely and unexpectedly, this collection of images of nude women doesn’t feel overtly or consciously sexual. There are flashes of eroticism within the collection but that’s most definitely not the intention of the book.
“Some of the photos are erotic, because that’s who those women are,” explains Ricardo. “That’s their essence. They’re sex goddesses. There’s many different kinds of goddesses in the world and in my book. There’s the warrior goddess, earth goddess, mother goddess…and sex goddess. Some of the woman I photographed are sex goddesses and so their pictures are inherently erotic because that’s who they are, not because that’s what I intended or engineered. I imagine that’s how it would be if I photographed you. The photos would inevitably be erotic…because you are a sex goddess.”
I like Ricardo Scipio very much. He gets that I am a sex goddess. He gets, intimately, that being a sex goddess is a spirit and an identity, not a look.
I also like his pictures, especially the ones where women are interacting with the landscape. Except they’re not interacting, exactly. They’re of it. They’re part of the landscape and just as naturally magnificent as a massive, hundreds-of-years-old tree root, forest, meadow, mountain, ocean. I can almost feel Ricardo insisting through the lens and through this series that this is who we are: we are natural and supernatural creatures of the earth, connected to the earth and the the eternal rhythms of life. Birth, death, destruction, creation, the universe. Woman, divine.
All of this means that the women in Ricardo’s photographs are more than part of a landscape. They’re not dominating it, exactly – they’re commanding it. They’re against it or in the midst of it, in lush greenery and flowers and sunsets and even in these extravagantly gorgeous settings nothing is more compelling than them.
And so The Goddess Project is Ricardo’s offering to The Goddess and to goddesses. To women. To the world, especially a world where images of naked (not nude), sexualized women are visible everywhere, but nude, non-eroticized women are invisible.
Because in a world still suffering from an acute dose of patriarchy, our sexuality and appearance is constructed as and conflated with our worth as women.
And that’s why I think Ricardo’s book is so provocative. It’s not provocative in the sense of being titillating or carnally gratifying, it’s provocative in the sense of challenging us to see – really see – women – nude, imperfect, natural women – as glorious.
And that’s sexy.
It’s a paradox: Ricardo is explicitly not trying to shoot erotic photographs, and he is trying to work outside the conventional, sexualized, pornified paradigm. He’s specifically not trying to produce a book of nekkid-lady pictures.
But.
When I see women inhabiting their nudity with equanamity, dignity, power and joy, I get turned on. I marvel at how deeply sexy women are even (especially!) when they’re not beholden to the mainstream media gods who dictate that This Is What Women Should Look Like.
And of course these women don’t obey. They’re goddesses. They don’t respond to dictates and decrees. They respond to oranges and offerings.
The Goddess Project is Ricardo’s offering. You can pay tribute here.
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