by jlouden | Jan 9, 2019 | Blog
You may or may not know this, but last April I realized I’d spent four years writing a memoir that wasn’t going to work. Ever. As hard as I had worked to shape the material and find the central insight I wanted to share with you, it just wasn’t there. What was there...
by jlouden | Jan 2, 2019 | Blog
Once upon a time, there was a woman who stood on the cusp of the new year and grinned. She grinned at all her past selves stretching behind her. Where once she would have judged those selves for their choices, now she bowed to them. They had brought her to this...
by jlouden | Dec 18, 2018 | Blog
I received a great question from Ann who is attending one of my retreats next year: “How do you make sure that a ‘nice break’ from writing (for example, over the upcoming holidays) doesn’t become a block to writing? As in, how do you prepare...
by jlouden | Dec 11, 2018 | Blog
My fourteen-year-old dog Luna died last week. She had been in failing health for two years and it was clear over the weekend she was suffering and it was time to let her go. Bob and I cuddled her that last morning and fed her bits of cheese and told her how much we...
by jlouden | Nov 20, 2018 | Blog
The holidays are upon us with all their wonder and hustle, with sparkle and poignancy, and with the possibility for wonderful connections and for the sting of loneliness and missing those we have loved. It seemed a good time to offer you an oasis of inspiration and...
by jlouden | Nov 13, 2018 | Blog
A reader recently asked me to write about “how to be yourself.” Oh, I thought, yes. I love that phrase, packed with so much promise, unfolding, and mystery. And packed with so much pain as we mostly live in a world that shoves and bullies us to be different than we...
