The Power of "Yes" or, "Answer the Damn Phone!"

I heard a small-time country singer on the radio the other day talking about the difficulty of hitting it big in the music business. He shared how one day, feeling tired and discouraged, he’d heard his phone ring and decided not to answer it. Later, when he listened to his messages, he discovered that it was his agent who had called. “Too bad you’re not there,” the agent’s voice said. “I have Garth Brooks on the other line and he wanted to talk to you.”

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Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram

Bargain Bin Blues

Every new author has two fantasies when they publish their first book. The first fantasy is that it will be a runaway best-seller. I imagined being interviewed by Oprah, or Scott Simon on NPR. “So tell me, Ms. Ingram, how does it feel to have such surprising success with your first book?” You really believe this might happen … for a while.

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Betwixt and Between: How to Navigate Life's Transitions

My eggs have all hatched. This is what I thought last week as I sat on the porch in the morning, my children back in school. I thought about them being gone, and about my book being finished, and my mother entering the last chapter of her life. I sat and I thought about a lot of things that have to do with the period of seemingly empty time between the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

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Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram

How to Publish Your Own Book

Four years ago, I began writing a book.* I had something close to a first draft when I took it to a writer’s group. That first day, one of the members arrived late; she looked as if she had just been spit out of a terrible tornado and plopped, disheveled and wide-eyed, into a corn field. The cause of her distress? She had just published her first book.

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Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram

On Sex and Success: An Ode to Mothers

I learned, early this morning, that I am a success. A piece on NPR was relating how some wingless mosquitos in Antarctica survive under the most miserable of conditions, only to “awaken” out of semi-dormancy to live for ten days or so, mate, and die. In the animal world, the reporter noted, this is considered a successful life. You have reproduced. You have won.

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Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram

Owning Your Shadow: The Downton Abbey Dilemma

I am late to the party at Downton Abbey; I only just began watching it two weeks ago on DVD and I just … can’t … stop. It’s distressingly absorbing. Yes, the acting is superb, the writing spot-on, the sets too much to be believed. The peek into turn-of-the-century Edwardian life—a life so radically different from our current age—is mesmerizing. I could stop there and say that I am ensorcelled by all of the above, but it’s more than that, I fear.

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The Power of Thought: Manifesting Your Dreams

I was out with a friend last night, enjoying a real manhattan in a real bar (at night no less, and mid-week! The stars must be in some rare alignment) and in the course of conversation my friend said in a rather Eeyorish way—combining wit, humor and severe cynicism—that he could see his future, and what he saw looked a lot like a trailer park.

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Soul Matters: Finding Your Essence

The life of a writer is not as glamourous as you might think; it’s not all sweatpants and eating dry cereal out of the box and royalty payments stuffing the mailbox. This morning, for instance, I awoke from a spicy little dream and stared into the dark thinking about the dream and what it meant and trying to drag out the good feeling for as long as I could.

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Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram Katherine Ingram Blog, Uncategorized Kate Ingram

Where are we going, and why are we all in this handbasket?

I have been sick with the flu for eighteen years now, the last six days of which were mostly spent in bed, which may account for what you’re about to read, but then again, it may not. I’m beginning to think that my fever may have actually cleared my head more than it shrouded it. This may not be such a wonderful thing.

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