I was hanging out with a crazy Brit named George when I first had the idea of the bookii. I had been working on writing a book and was finding it incredibly 2 dimensional. I wanted multiple topics and more visual than I could accomplish in print. I wanted my reader to be able to explore my book rather than reading it one page after the other. In a conversation with George we were talking about an online technology called Prezi that allows you to explore deeper and is a more flexible presentation platform than Power Point. Somehow talking about that helped me start to visualize a dynamic memoir that had pictures and color and video and wasn’t bound by the boundaries of a printed book. Prezi didn’t end up being the medium, but the concept stuck with me. What makes it a bookii? Well, it is a book that you read electronically It is written by one author and instead of purchasing a book, you purchase an annual subscription to a bookii. My bookii is creative non-fiction–a lifestyle, but I hope there will be lots of bookiis that are both fiction and non-fiction combined. I imagine being able to read my favorite authors and about their characters while simultaneously being able to look up what they were thinking about when they were writing about it or what their inspirations were by exploring their bookii. The Crucible Bookii is my bookii. It is the world’s very first bookii. It is rich with interesting articles about the stories that make up my life. I hope you will become a member and share this journey with me as I create this interactive real-time memoir. Melanie shares how the bookii idea...
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I have been feeling really tired lately. Too tired to be effective. I can explain it–I have been busy. I had a coaching call about a month ago and I kept saying “If I can just get to vacation, then I will slow down…” Then I got to March break and worked really hard at my parent’s house (cleaned out their pantry, helped with taxes, helped clean out part of the garage) and I got even more tired. I came home and I added more exercise to my program and I got more tired. I felt like the more tired I got, the more my home life was spiraling. Things were messy and dirty and I was too tired to deal with it all and I just couldn’t keep up. But yesterday my daughter gave me a gift. It was one of those moments when we started cleaning one thing and then did another and then 4 hours later we had reorganized the whole kitchen. We went through almost every cupboard and moved things to new spots that work better. We got rid of things and made it work. She had strong opinions, I had strong opinions, we talked to each other and we listened and no one got angry or upset. There was kindness, there was gentleness and there was much needed progress forward in our home. I went to bed feeling both tired and very satisfied. I also realized just how much I helped my mother. Having another pair of hands and eyes in the decluttering was amazing and incredibly helpful. Thank you to Sela for the lovely gift of helping me in the...
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My family has a cabin that my great-grandparents built in the pine forest in New Mexico. It has a beautiful rock fireplace with a large, deep place to build a fire. We keep a fire going in the evenings for both the beauty and the heat—and occasionally to roast hot dogs and marshmallows. I was at the cabin recently and I noticed that building and maintaining a fire is a lot like creating and sustaining a project. There is some skill needed to figure out the best way to start the fire and keep it going, and different people have different approaches with varying degrees of success. The same could be said of visualizing and sustaining a new endeavor. My husband, Mel, used to be a firefighter and, ironically, he can reliably start a fire with one match. He knows exactly what to do, has the patience to make it happen and makes it look easy. Mel enjoys the tasks of the fire. He is perfectly happy sitting for hours reading by the fireside, watching it flicker and change and periodically tending its needs. My 16-year-old daughter has much less experience and skill as a fire starter. She spends close to half an hour scavenging different kinds of debris to use as kindling and trying to coax the fire to life. Sometimes it seems like it is going to catch, only to falter and flicker out. She has an air of panic and frustration so palpable I almost have to leave the cabin. But, like any responsible mother, I stick around to help her cope with the ensuing pain (both emotional and physical). My fire starting skills fall somewhere between these two extremes. My family wouldn’t freeze if I had unlimited time, matches and tinder, but I admit I’m a bit impatient and want the fire to be immediately blazing and beautiful. I find it boring to nurture it to greatness so I often give up before I achieve the results I crave. It’s...
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