Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

So I'm movin' out...handed in my notice...still haven't found a place to go yet, not for there being a shortage of places to live, but because I don't want to compromise. I'm sure there's a lesson here, and I thought I was listening and learning, but now I'm not so sure.

Let me back up.

My decision to move was instantaneous. A lightning bolt of clarity. It is the right choice.

I want to own my own home. I have never really wanted to own my home in the past. It's a whole new idea for me. Suddenly, I want it, intensely, deeply and genuinely. So I am going to go for it. I thought home ownership was something other people did. Never really understood the appeal. I always enjoyed the freedom and the lack of responsibility renting afforded me. I fancied myself this free-spirit, able to pick up at a moment's notice and chauncy off to some exotic destination. Which is all fine and well until the thought started occurring to me that I can still chauncy off at a moment's notice and be a free spirit AND own a home. My big lesson of 2010 so far has been that it doesn't have to be either/or, it can be both/and.

Both. And.

For a former chronic All-or-nothing/Black-or-white girl; a girl who spent a great number of years living and dying in painful absolutes, Both/And is a glorious, freeing revelation. Both.And.

My plan - move to a place that is half of 1/3 of what I'm paying right now, put that money towards debt repayment and save for a downpayment.

Great idea.

Reality - I live in one of the hottest housing markets in the country.

So I kept increasing my budget, slowly, incrementally...until today I found myself applying for a place that is nice, but more than I want to pay. It's a great deal, there are a lot of good things about it, but my heart's just simply not in it. Because the truth is I already have nice. I have lovely, beautiful, condo of my dreams. If I'm going to trade nice for less nice, if I'm going to leave it all, it's going to be for some greater end. I am going to stand up and say 'I deserve this for myself.' And suffering is optional.

My heart's not in it because it's not what I really want. What I want is to pay less, yes. But I also want a little less responsibility. I want some company, good laughs, easy living. And I want to save like a madwoman. I want to be a debt-free, home-ownin' woman.

So I'm going to move towards that; I'm going to play to win instead of play not to lose.

And one thing I've learned for sure - whatever I dream for myself, whatever I ask the Universe for is always delivered, bigger, better, more delicious than I ever could have imagined for myself. So I choose to have it all. I choose.

I choose to remain undaunted. Because I have a new found belief that has been serving me quite well lately that I can have it all. It is possible to find a great place to live for $400 a month, yes it is. And enjoy my living situation to boot.

Both. And.

My First Successful Event

I held my FIRST EVER Writer's Retreat this past weekend in Canmore. Check out this awesome video. It's only 2 minutes and I laughed out loud at least three times. And yes, that is a bag of sex toys I was opening.

Q is Dead. Long Live The New West

Reader's Digest Version: Canwest/The Calgary Herald has pulled the plug on our beloved Q blog. I don't quite understand the reasoning surrounding this, since none of us get paid for blogging; however, we have pulled up sticks and are moving on over to the New West.

You may recall that I was a regular columnist to this online webmag last year before we all got distracted by other projects. (Read: we sold out.)

At our peak TNW had about 2,000 regular readers. A year after the last site update, we still get 200 unique visitors per day.

So it is with much joy and affection that we make our triumphant return.

So go check us out: And you can sign up for a membership, which is free!

Crushing Indecision

I am having a hard time standing behind my business name. The more I use it, the less I like it. Does this say more about my confidence related to the business in general, or is it about my ego...or is it just a bad name? Am I throwing up unnecessary road blocks? Over-complicating matters? Or just being true to my instincts?

Just when I think I have come up with a viable alternate solution and pitch it to my Web Designer, he'll throw something at me like, "What is this? Death by cliché?" which will then send me into a tailspin of epic proportion. Because actually what I hear is "That's a dumb idea."

Attempting to set my perfectionist tendencies aside and just choose my choice, I am then backhurdled into realizing that my "briliant idea" is so trite and old that I might as well call my company Trite and Old Media. Welcome to DumbAss Communications: we're uninspired.

It's of course a good thing to have a Creative Powerhouse Genius in my corner, and him pushing my creative limits and my comfort zone can only benefit me in the end. It just means that he is doing a fabulous job.

But right now, I want to kick him in the teeth.

Standard

Starting up my own business is a huge contextual leap for me. You may as well be asking me to perform open-heart surgery or change a windshield wiper. I need heaps of support and hand-holding from people I barely know. I am fundamentally ignorant about financial stuff and 'infrastructure' is this nebulous concept that I *kinda* understand...and yet suddenly, I find myself daily embroiled in intense conversations about cost and yield and passive income and, and, and...leverage.

In the last three days, I have also had three conversations with three different men and they have all essentially told me the same thing: I am grossly undervaluing myself. I wrote a book, and it was one of the easiest things I have ever done in my life. Not everyone thinks that writing books is easy. I can show them how, and then charge them for it. Essentially, the general message has been: I have a huge talent and if I want to get anywhere, I need to market that talent.

One of these men in what I am now going to start referring to as My Holy Trinity asked me:
“How much do you think it is worth to people to become published authors?”
I picked the most outrageous number I could think of:
‘I dunno—5,000 dollars?’
(Look who's being all grandiose and big-for-her-britches.)
He looked at me and said, “I paid close to $50,000 to write my book, have it edited and published.”

Silence.

"When all was said and done, I paid my editor close to $20,000."

I looked at him blinkingly.

Another of my HT did the math and showed me how much money my publishing company is earning from all of my hard work. I am not upset by this. My first book was an opportunity, a stepping stone and I would have done it for free. It is also one of the greatest pieces of leverage I have. (There's that word again.)

Then he said that if I didn't negotiate a better deal for myself for my next book, that he and I could no longer be friends. I kind of thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. His reasoning is as follows: The more we as creators or artists or musicians undervalue ourselves, the more we are giving permission for that to be alright. We are setting the Standard. So we have got a responsibility to come to the table believing and understanding at the very core of our being that what we do and who we are has value.

I have also been thinking too small. I mean, I thought I was being audacious by charging people $100 for a one-hour initial consultation fee. I am now realizing that if I repeated the exact same thing that I did on my own for my own book for other people that I could charge them twenty times that price. I could actually charge someone $20,000 to edit a manuscript. Twenty thousand. I am still trying to wrap my head around that figure.

There is this great quote about business from the book "The Trick to Money is Having Some" by Stuart Weil, which I think may become by Gold Standard: “Do what you love and this will raise your Vibration. Through your raised vibration, you will attract people. When they show up, bill them.”

Look Out World

Karen Rowe the Small, as you know her, is gone.

Look out for my Big Self. And no, I don't mean that to be self-depricating. I mean that I am done getting in my own way. I mean that any part of me that was mousy or scared or living in fear has been banished. I mean that I know what I want and I am going to damn well stand up and ask for it. And get it. And expect nothing less.

I am starting up my own business and hatching a plan for World Domination via the Written World. I am going to write and more importantly, I am going to help you write. I am aligning myself with people who are interested in creating unique, fun, entertaining social experiments, who are ass-kickingly inspiring and all about creative outlets for storytelling and general industry trailblazing.

Get writing and get other people writing: that's what I want to do when I grow up, Ma.

Stay Tuned.