Something you may not know about me...

It's time to reveal secrets

Project 🔥 Intuition

I’m writing a new book about authenticity. About being an authentic person, true to oneself. About living an authentic life, true to one’s own values.

Many people harbor secrets, hiding their true self while pretending to be someone they’re not in an effort to fit some mold that doesn’t fit at all.

That is probably what inspired Henry David Thoreau to write:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

So, it makes sense for me to start today with a tidbit about a secret life I once led.

I used to write erotic fiction.

It’s true. But if you’re hoping to read some spicy, hot material here, I’m sorry to disappoint you.

My new book, if it were a movie, would be rated PG-13. And it would likely be categorized as a documentary.

If you’re curious, keep reading… The Big Finish is at the end. (What a plot twist!)

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I never had a driving desire to write erotic novels. My dream after reading The Women’s Room in the late 1970s was to write women’s fiction.

It took a few years (about 30), but I did complete that mission. I wrote The Prince Charming Hoax, a novel that fit the women’s fiction category. Or at least the first draft, completed around 2007, fell into that genre.

Life happened. The manuscript got put in a box and didn’t see the light of day until somewhere around 2011. By the time I felt it was ready for publication, the category of women’s fiction was a faint memory for most.

Romance was in, the hotter the better. Erotica was steaming up the screens of the new Kindles and ereaders. Amazon Publishing had a fairly robust compensation model for digital book authors in those days, which was well suited for quick reads like romance and erotica.

Knowing this, I added explicit sex scenes to the book and published it to a very confused audience. The readers who wanted women’s fiction hated the sex scenes and those looking for the titillation spurned the literary value.

By the time I realized my error, I was sick of revising the 100K word book and moved on to new projects. Since romance and erotica were hot, I wrote steamy novellas under a pen name. I can’t say it was fulfilling work, but it was fun. And almost easy money.

At that time, I was earning the larger balance of my income as a publishing consultant. Not wanting to offend anyone, I kept my more risqué writing private. Until one day, I didn’t and announced my sideline work in an email to my list.

[Yawn.] No one seemed to care or even be surprised.

Then Amazon changed the rules for compensation. In one single month, everything turned upside down and my comfortable income disappeared. Instead of a system that rewarded short, quick reads, now it favored longer books and series. Also the new popular genres were fantasy and sci fi.

I tried my hand at writing a time travel series. I may love to read them, but writing them … not so much. I probably could have made it work if I’d stuck with it, but I was pretty burnt out at this point, and just said, “Chuck it.” (Actually I used the word that rhymes with “chuck,” but I did specify this was PG-13.)

Life intervened again. Or—now from the retro view—perhaps it was Providence or the Universe. Let’s just say I was led down a different path.

At the outset, that path was fun. My husband and I sold everything and spent three years traveling around the country. We happened to be in Asheville, NC, our home base, when the pandemic lockdown hit in March 2020. We cozied into a friend’s Airbnb, thinking all would pass in several months.

When it became apparent that living a life on the road was no longer a good option for us, we took an apartment of our own in town and moved in on August 3, 2020. On August 10, after tests performed during a routine doctor’s appointment, Joe received a diagnosis of late-stage, aggressive liver cancer and died three months later.

In addition to having my life turned upside down once again, I was navigating my intense grief during a time period of significant collective grief, very similar to the one today.

Isolated from friends and family, I turned back to what has been my lifelong source of comfort—writing. I no longer wrote fiction, though. Real life was the dystopian novel I needed to escape.

Instead, I wrote to connect to my authentic self, my authentic life, in an authentic way.

And so the first iteration of this publication was born as Shelley Writes, on a platform similar to this one in May 2021. I moved my new blog here one year later.

With Biden in and his predecessor out, the nation’s anger, frustration, and sorrow turned to the prevailing pandemic. The new marker of division in the populace became vaccinations.

I found myself in the position of having a marginalized view and squirmed quietly for several months before being compelled to speak my truth. If I lost readers, I lost readers. If readers couldn’t extend me the courtesy of honoring my right to my opinion, then this wasn’t the publication for them.

This time I wasn’t greeted with a yawn. I did get some heated feedback and lost a few subscribers. Again, though, not a huge response.

A few months later I made another announcement. I’d been slyly sliding in references to my continued connection to my late husband in the afterlife. Almost to the point that it could have been interpreted as my year of magical thinking, à la Joan Didion.

But then I came clean, again.

I shared that I was reading Tarot cards and using divination tools to augment my intuitive senses, which had blown open during Joe’s transition.

This time, people were interested. Especially when I offered free sessions to meet the requirements of my Tarot reading certification. Some even sent me unsolicited payments!

In truth, reading cards and using divination tools were simply extensions of what I did as a reader and writer. I read (intuited) between the lines of the story that the cards revealed, just as I did with books.

Encouraged that I was now attracting readers who held similar interests, I shared my journey through a two-year certification course in intuitive energy healing in my posts. I also wrote about my training and new position as an aura reader, employing aroma therapy and use of crystals in addition to my energy work.

Things were rolling along quite nicely. My life was immersed in pursuing my writing and using my gifts to help people and the planet heal in a time of epic transitions.

About eight months ago I witnessed a glimmer of hope in the collective that a new regime would rise to counter the patriarchal paradigm with a more favorable, inclusive system. But those hopes were extinguished early in November 2024.

The first six weeks of the new U.S. administration have created unprecedented chaos and uncertainty that even most expert analysts didn’t expect so quickly. Not that it wasn’t predicted… but how many truly believed it could happen here and now to such a stunning extent?

Politics is hardly my area of expertise, but energy is. And the energy level that is now encompassing this nation and spreading around the globe has plummeted much of the world population to levels of deep despair, fear, and health-threatening anxiety.

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My purpose, here, dear readers, is not to dwell on the horrors of what is, but to offer ways to lift the energy of the population, individually and collectively. My intention is support the proliferation of healthy, self-sustaining practices and lifestyles that every single person on this planet has the power to employ.

Everyone experiences grief in the course of a lifetime. From my personal experience, I can say that nothing brings you to your knees as powerfully and swiftly as loss. Whether it’s loss of a loved one, job, relationship, or your sense of safety, the aftermath of loss—grief—will gut you.

But the experience also provides an opportunity for healing, and in turn, growth.

If there is a Higher Plan for us, devised by our spirit selves or a divine source, then I am certain what I’ve experienced in the previous four years has been preparation for the coming four (and I pray no more) years.

Sharing how to deprogram yourself from a lifetime of social conditioning in belief systems that serve an authority outside yourself and learn to retrieve the inherent power that exists within every human being is the subject of my upcoming book and objective of future posts on Project 🔥 Intuition.

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Portions of what you have just read in the paragraphs above are excerpts from a current Work in Progress, the title to be revealed when closer to completion.

The upcoming 4 to 6 weeks here will be an introduction to how to form a new belief system and take control of your life and energy.

You don’t need any fancy equipment or supplies. You already have everything you need.

Some of the foundational premises I’ll cover originate in two books by Don Miguel Ruiz: The Four Agreements and The Fifth Agreement.

You will not need to have read these books to follow what I’ll be sharing. However, I highly recommend that you do because the ancient teachings contained in the books are invaluable to living a peaceful life today.

My intention is to help you uncover and release the authentic you, unburdened by familial or societal “norms” that were foisted upon you.

The new series begins next week and initially will be free for all subscribers. When complete, the series will be placed behind a paywall.

If you’re interested in participating in an interactive, co-creative experiment, make sure to open and read your emails each Friday as they arrive!

I’m very excited to share information and time-tested lessons learned in my 30-year search for answers to the same questions you may be asking yourself now.

I’m thrilled that you’re here to co-create a new way with me. And I’d love if you’d invite others to join us too.

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I hope this helps support you on your journey. Until next time… My best, Shelley

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