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WORDS For Sale

As any writer or artist knows, talent alone doesn’t always lead to success. The ability to sell oneself is the difference between those of us who starve for our craft and those of us who have found a way to stand solidly in a fickle market.

I may know how to write, but I suck at selling.

Were it not for my generous, patient, and encouraging husband, I would have been a very hungry writer. Either that or I would have had to get a “real” job. Without his backing, years ago I would have had to abandon marriage books with meagre profits, agented non-fiction proposals that still sit on publishers’ desks, novel drafts, blogposts, Instablogs, and Facebook posts. With him I’ve been able to piddle and hone my craft because I have never had to rely on selling anything while I did it.

It is time for me to step up my game.

The seasonal businesses that have fed our family and financed every part of our lives are all dependent upon crowds of people. The entertainment company where my husband has been employed for over twenty-five years, (also employing other members of our family for nearly eight years) hosts sixteen days of partying for tens of thousands of people and hundreds of employees. Not exactly the essential type of gathering encouraged or dependable in time of pandemic. We also both coach sports teams. Also life-as-we-used-to-live-it-but-now-we-don’t-know-when-we’ll-do-that-again activities. Compounding all of this is the fact that we are in mid-build for our next adventure…yet another business built on events, gatherings, and celebrations for crowds of folks.

We always thought we weren’t putting our eggs in one basket, but we also never imagined that groups of people who would normally and happily congregate in any one of the nests we’ve built would be rightly concerned about that dangerous decision. For a time, it makes sense that the baskets we’ve always relied upon will stay empty and it’s time to build a new one.

It is an #endoftheroad unlike any we’ve ever navigated. I have to do something while we wait it out.

Choosing to Grow has pulled me out of desperately stagnant places before, and I am hopeful it will happen again. I have no grand illusions that this venture, all on its own, will supplant all that has been paused, but it is an offering I can make right now with the one thing I’m prepared to do.

I am fairly certain my marketing techniques will not include shameless plugs, because like I mentioned before, I suck at selling, but I do think I’ll post announcements about projects I’m doing and I’ll offer invitations to let me partner for meaningful gifts for loved ones where words I can offer might help.

A few ideas percolating right now can be found on the newly created Custom Gifts tab on my website. Other possible projects for sale will include:

Personalized Poems
Picture/ poem/ prayer prints
Video montages
Postcards
Greeting Cards
Photo magnets

If you know of anyone looking for a unique gift, please send them my way.

In addition to these creative offerings I will also engage in more freelance writing opportunities, rewrite Choosing to Grow: Through Marriage (The Pandemic Edition), seek online or in person speaking opportunities and keep plugging on my novel revision.

I made a decision to Choose to Grow through my life and now, more than ever, is the time to do just that.

Meagan Frank

male wood duck 3

Did you know there are ducks that live in trees? Yeah, me neither. (and if you said yes, you can keep that cockiness to yourself)

I saw this guy perched outside my kitchen window the other day and I ran for my camera because I was sure I was about to capture something extraordinary. I mean, look!

It’s a duck!

In a tree!

It turns out I’m like the only person interested in birding (and who lives in Wisconsin) who didn’t know that wood ducks are a thing. And apparently you can find them like everywhere water and woods collide. Ok, so I can expect to see this again in my lifetime, but just because I’m not very far up the birding learning curve, it doesn’t mean I can’t be excited about catching this guy posed on a branch. I was meant to see him and with his colorful-come-to-me-ladies-I-have-my-good-feathers-on-today look, I couldn’t help but to think about him.

So, after much contemplation, I have come to a conclusion.

I think I might be a wood duck. It’s a strange spirit animal, I know, but hear me out.

The old me, before I saw a duck in a tree, believed that ducks could be found floating in ponds or waddling in nearby grassy knolls. Most ducks behave that way, but not the wood duck. Wood ducks can do the normal duck things, sure, like swimming and laying eggs, but they do things just a little differently. They are non-conformists. I get it.

Like all ducks, wood ducks pair off with mates, but instead of hiding in grasses, they live in strategically placed wood boxes along the water, or in hollowed trees where they lay their eggs.

Hubby and I live in a bus in the summer…just sayin’.

Wood ducks are the only species of duck that has strong claws for grabbing branches and webbed feet for swimming. Nothing really anatomical I can use to relate, but I do find myself often oscillating between writing and coaching, unsure which role is truly me. Like the wood duck, I can navigate both worlds, I just need to focus where I am.

Maybe the way I am most like wood ducks is in the way the mother duck moves the newly hatched ducklings from the tree to the water. The mother duck goes first, getting herself to the ground, and then she calls to the ducklings who are to follow her out of the nest. She calls with encouragement and the ducklings are expected to follow with faith and a leap. They are not able to fly when this happens. The mother hopes she has chosen a good spot, with a soft-leaf landing, and she then has to trust in the evolution of their species that like all those before her, the ducklings can handle the fall.

I saw this video a few years ago, but I did not know they were wood ducks.

I am more like that wood duck mother than is comfortable for a lot of people.

I have faith in the surroundings we’ve created, I have faith in the resilience of our children, and I have faith in the natural wonder of personal growth that best happens when no one pushes us, but we are encouraged to go for it, so we do.

I was on a walk with Nate today, a gift of his time he gave me without asking, and I lamented the fact I need to change my writing, vlogging, YouTubing, content-creation mode of operation to fit a “standard” expected by the publishing world. He reminded me that with any new venture there are things I’ll need to do, but I need to remember I am more equipped to do them than I think.

I am a wood duck. Fiercely equipped, adaptable to many situations and filled with a faith that is sometimes hard to comprehend. I cannot think of an animal better suited to accompany me on this next phase of my production career because, and I forgot to mention, they are also the only duck that produces two broods a year. Production is what wood ducks do!