Tag Archives: handparting

The next phase of Divorcing a Real Witch

July 2, 2010 – 6:33 pm

I’ve got a first draft on the proposal now, and holy crap… it’s weak. I still believe the book itself is pretty damned strong if still in a first draft, but right now the overview would fail my “short attention span” rule. For now I’m leaving it sit. I already had to trash more than half of the second chapter, intended for the book proposal – it was too personal and way too far from the topic of what happens to those who, by proximity must observe and are therefore affected by your divorce.

In the next month, I’m hoping to get the proposal into a condition where I’d let another human being look at it. I’m also just about ready to release the great big survey on Wicca and Divorce, and I am going to need that puppy Tweeted, Facebooked, Tumbled, and email-forwarded like mad. So for those of you who want to help, this is me letting you know… this is HOW you can help. By letting anyone and everyone everywhere in your neopagan sphere know that there’s a survey I’d like them to take. I’m getting the legalese worked out, along with the privacy notice. I do indicate on the front page that many questions may be triggering, so we’ve built in a way for participants to skip questions, or go to the bottom of a page and hit “send” and then walk away. There’s really no way to ask these questions without sending someone back to a therapist. Just writing this book, especially in the wake of recent life events, has depressed the hell out of me. And since writing a book is never just writing a book, I’ve still got a long journey ahead with a god-awful depressing subject. It’s like being locked in a room with one of those twits who likes to say “But my life sucks more!” until you are forced to shush and listen to a litany of indeed, suckage. That’s not the book’s fault; that’s just the nature of the subject.

Right now I’m stuck in an in-between. Divorce is a very serious subject, and I am a very funny woman. Alas, this is to the detriment of the book. So I’m struggling to negotiate the right headspace between the “fly free and wacky” approach that generates my best writing, and the “I must take this seriously to be taken seriously” approach that allows me to broach heavy topics but that is not really a palatable read. Curse you academia!¹ YOU did this to me!

So there I am. Just a little bit stuck.

Divorcing a Real Witch intensive survey: beta testers needed!

June 26, 2010 – 10:08 am

I’d still like to get a few more beta testers for the Divorce and Wicca survey I have up. It’s long, but allows you to skip non-relevant to-you questions and you can save and come back. Betas need not complete the total survey. Betas also need not fit the survey qualifications. Right now I just need to know that the survey works and will continue to work as it gathers more data.

Also, aside from Witchvox and the Wild Hunt, any recommendations of places I can promote it are very, very welcome. Also, when the time comes, tweeting it, reposting it to your Facebook, or posting it to your own groups will be much appreciated.

I do plan on posting on the Pagan News Service group on Google, and I am plotting in my head for an article series – one for Witch’s Voice (highest readership) and on the advice of Gordon at RuneSoup I’m also thinking of pitching some articles for an “Advice from a Witch on Divorce” article to various women’s magazines. I may be a little too late, hard to say – I would guess that most monthlies are doing their fall issues now.

I got some valuable advice yesterday about what else I will need to do to get this book off the ground, so I’m hanging in there.

So if you want to beta test leave me a comment and I’ll follow up with you by email.

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Writing

Divorcing a Real Witch Update: the full scope of the project

May 25, 2010 – 9:30 am

These plans may well change based on what happens as I go through the query/book proposal process. If I land an agent – and then a publisher – I probably give up a fair chunk of control of the project (and the title will probably change.) If I am unsuccessful at landing an agent and/or publisher, we’re looking at Lulu.com, a touch of public embarrassment (hardly the first time) and, for whatever it’s worth, enough creative control that about 25 people will look at this project and 3 might buy a copy. I acknowledge I may fail. I’ve failed before, and to date, my survival rate is phenomenal.

Also to date, so those of you especially who see me Tweet-tweeting about this know, my intentions are as follows:

1)Book – in rough draft. Just got the first chapter in 2nd draft on Sunday. This means that it’s now coherent, but the prose can still improve and the manuscript is quite likely riddled with the sorts of typos and grammatical errors that bypass Word. I realize I’m in rookie zone since I have the entire book give or take a few sections already written. Even if it doesn’t get picked up as is, the additional chapters are still usable.

2)Survey – I have doubts that any survey is fully scientific or reliable, and Gods only know if I’ll get enough data to define anything relevant. Even so, through this survey I am inviting the neopagan/Wiccan community (and Reconstructionists if they can tolerate the neopagan header as a kindness to me) to add their own voices and perspectives to this project. While mine will be loudest – I am the self appointed narrator – I want to offer a)numbers I don’t know that we’ve gathered recently or ever on divorce among these particular Western-world faiths and b) to offer anecdotes and experiences that drastically differ from mine. Advice that lingers with me from an old screenwriting professor applies here: “Don’t even try to relate.” By speaking from personal experience without care for whether or not others “get it” I’ve found that people who might not connect at all can connect and add to our collective lessons from these experiences.

3)Documentary – This is where I venture out of my comfort zone. I thought of this initially as a website promotion, but then I realized that I might do something more, if not necessarily better. I intend to interview on camera any willing participants in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. If I’m lucky, someone may let me video their handparting ritual. While I don’t expect much from the production quality – I’m working with two Flip cameras – it’s something I can release free online that people can share freely.

That’s my current total intention for the Divorcing a Real Witch project. The survey itself is in beta right now, and anyone else who wants to beta test, please let me know. Mostly I’m looking for when/where the survey breaks so I can do what I can to make sure it stays operational.

Also, when I do post the survey, if you’re a blogger looking for something to post about, please run an announcement about the survey once or twice. I’ll be more than happy to return the favor on any of your projects.

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Writing

Divorcing a Real Witch: the survey in phase 2 development

May 12, 2010 – 10:30 am

At the advice of my friend Lisa, I’m doing a slight rework of the survey I intend to release about Wiccans/neopagans and divorce practices. Rather than completely overwhelm people with a deluge of questions, I’m breaking it up into the following sections. I think it covers everything. See on the list below, and let me know if any larger topics I might be missing.

I’m also working on the knotty problem of incentive. I can’t reasonably expect people to do this for absolutely nothing. Just asking the questions was emotionally wrenching, and I’m not answering them myself because I write about my own experience – in detail – in the book. Somehow offering a free copy of the Spellcasting Picture Book, or of the upcoming illustrated Zombie Repellent Chronicles¹ just doesn’t seem to answer to what some people will go through while fishing their memories over this stuff.

Name/Contact/Location (for people willing to interview on camera for the coinciding online documentary I plan to piece together.)
Data points: number of marriages
Length of marriages
Children from each marriage (#)
Pets from each marriage (# and type)
1^st marriage
2^nd marriages and greater
Definitions of divorce
Legal experiences including division of property
Child custody
Pet custody
Religious issues and Ritual Practices
Family/friends/peers
Alternative lifestyles
Dating

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For real. I now have an illustrator. [↩]

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Pagan Culture

More updates on the Wicca and Divorce Book

May 4, 2010 – 10:30 am

It may not look like it right now, but progress is being made. I just sent off the intensive survey questions to a friend who will overview them for really obvious bias and inclusiveness. I’m trying to work in questions for those without gender identity, as I believe that is a factor I overlooked when writing the first draft of the book.

Towards the end of demonstrating I’m marketable, I’ve also opened up my own fan page on Facebook. If you’re on Facebook, please join and please recommend to anyone who would find my work relevant. Believe it or not, Facebook actually has a decent amount of marketing clout, so just by joining you are helping me bring this book into being.

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Pagan Culture

More progress on Divorcing a Real Witch

April 27, 2010 – 11:18 am

I’m only now taking baby steps into writing the proposal, and I started with a rewrite of my chapter outline. This will definitely not be the final draft, but I thought I’d give you all a peek at the chapter titles so you can get the jist of the book:

Foreword: Why I wrote this book

Chapter 1: Why divorce when marriage is optional?

Chapter 2: The impact of divorce on family and friends

Chapter 3: Untangling the entanglement: the magical benefits of handparting

Chapter 4: Spells and magic to assist handparting rituals

Chapter 5: A year and a day, the end

Chapter 6: Oathbreakers and Warlocks

Chapter 7: Divorced witches under 30

Chapter 8: What to expect when you’re divorcing (and a witch)

Chapter 9: Rebounds, retrogrades and Saturn returns

Chapter 10: Life after handparting

Chapter 11: Between divorce and dating

Chapter 12: I’m single and Wiccan. Now what do I do with me?

Appendix – this will list resources helpful to divorcing pagans. Right now it’s just a book list including the works of Julia Cameron and Z. Budapest’s Summoning the Fates.

Looking at it here, it needs some re-ordering in the middle, but I can work with it.

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Pagan Culture

The first draft is done!

April 24, 2010 – 10:21 am

As of Thursday: The first draft on handparting and Wicca is done! Joy!

Now there’s a whole lot more work to do, of course, but this is the first time I have written a work that long, ever. I realize that it’s a long road ahead, but hopefully with careful care and a little help from my friends I can bring this puppy into print (or digital issue) once I get all the phases done.

As the next part of my work, I’m also going to be posting a very long survey online, and asking people who are Pagan and divorced in the Twin Cities area if they’re willing to sit down and do an interview with me. I would like to get as many of these interviews on camera as possible, because I plan to open a web page with a few of these videos. I may be able to string together an online documentary if the interviews are of sufficient quality.

Along with the survey I will post the outline and sample chapters (after much rewriting, I’m sure.) I am seeking an agent to represent me. I’m also wondering if I should start a Facebook fan page under my own name. While Facebook is the devil, it does have marketing clout.

I’m already feeling quite celebratory, and I had friends over last night as a sort of indirect celebration.

And now, more work ahead.

One small thing. It works.

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the Big Picture

Handparting book project gets mention on Runesoup

April 12, 2010 – 12:52 pm

The book on handparting I’m working on passed 50K this weekend. It’s still a rough draft, but this means that the word-clay I need to work is really coming along. Next will come the web page, with the survey, and I will begin collecting interviews on the subject. This will happen around rewrites, and I may shop this around to different writer’s groups to get a variety of feedback.

I’ve gone into this knowing that publishing is a completely different game than a)the pagan market perceives it to be in the first place and b)what it actually was in the first place. I am an internationally published author. When I introduce myself, I generally get a response of, “What was your name again?” I think that sums up international publication for most of us, and I don’t expect that to change because I actually write a book as opposed to my smattering of short articles.¹ Fortunately, I’ve gotten bits of help and nudges along the way – Lisa of Cybercoven.org² has definitely sent some good information my way, as have local members of my writer’s group who also know the metaphysical publishing field.³ Yesterday, after finding the post through a comment over on Lupa of Therioshamanism’s livejournal, I discovered RuneSoup. The post was the Five Laws of Occult Economics: Why We Suck at Money. There’s more digging to do, on this, of course, and I am a true Scorpio in that I’d like to pluck at the underlying attitudes while people get mad at me for making their internal buildings collapse, but for the on-the-table reasons that you can’t ignore, this pretty well covers it.

I read through the blog post, found it valuable, commented as such and marked it in my “Read It Later” plugin. Apparently Howard likes to get to know his readers, because he contacted me today to tell me he wrote about my project on the Divorce and Wicca (or whatever title gets picked for it) here – I’m example 5.1. I think his plan is intriguing, and while I have every intention of hiring a publicist and actually have a specific publicist in mind, I can’t see how that person would object to me doing a chunk of the legwork myself.

While this book isn’t nearly as fun as the Urban Wicca book I have on backburner, I suspect it will be received more easily since it is unlikely to challenge any (Wiccan) assumptions. I suppose writing this is after all the literary equivalent of eating my vegetables first. At least it’s not brussel sprouts.

I am grateful for the help and tips I’m receiving along the way. Article writing, once you get into a groove, is relatively easy. But writing a book is daunting, because there actually aren’t many places that spell it out all at once: a marketing plan should look like this, a book length should look like this, a query letter for an agent should look like ___, for a publisher like ____ and you can do this and this with proposals, etc.

I’m not a babe in the woods in this, but I am a toddler. I appreciate all the points I get that encourage me to er, toddle along.

Handparting and Wicca passage

March 23, 2010 – 8:00 am

I suspect this will need rewriting or reframing, as it’s a hobbling concept but one that rings true at the moment:

“Forgiveness itself is a complicated issue that’s treated badly in western culture. Because of Christian thinking, there are people who believe they’re entitled to forgiveness from everyone. They’re not. Forgiveness, like respect, is an earned and mutual process, and far too many people push for you to forgive others because they do not want to deal with the very real consequences of someone else’s pain.”

I really have encountered a lot of people who think that they’re just owed forgiveness for the harm they do. And others that push me to forgive wrongs done to me despite no efforts made to right or even apologize for/take responsibility for the cruel action. I don’t practice a religion founded on some guy forgiving all my sins, and when I did practice that religion, I was not so convinced of my moral rightness that I eschewed responsibility for my actions.

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the Big Picture

From Handparting and Wicca: the youngers and the elders

February 25, 2010 – 12:46 pm

In Wicca the young are served the least and the worst. While honoring our elders is much needed, the dismissive or exploitative way people under 35 (or under 30) are often treated by more “traditional” Wiccans sets us up for a troubled future – some of which we are already experiencing. There is a very real generation gap, and some of the ideals that were adopted by Wicca in the 1960s and 70s are still there among the youth but are moderated by a reality of very different demands than what has been experienced by our elders. The elders must learn to respect and listen to the experience of the youngers; without this considered exchange the wisdom of age is rendered irrelevant because wisdom that helps no one is not wisdom.

I’m going to expand on this at some point¹, particularly in light of Starhawk’s statement last year that pagans need to reach out to younger women via their own platforms (Facebook, Myspace, etc.) While this overlooks young men, I agree with the general spirit of the sentiment.

I’m seeing some success in that direction in the Twin Cities community, and I’m delighted to say I was wrong about how effective they would be. The reaching-out is working because those managing it are managing it exactly correctly. The trouble, frequently, has been one of relevance. There’s a lot of “pagany” stuff that I don’t like or don’t want, and I’m not alone – but I’m also one of the few unafraid to say it out loud. Hell is likely to freeze over before I’d go on a “pagan campout.” I don’t do festivals. I like the great outdoors, and I am grateful that nature allowed humanity to evolve the sense to move into caves.

However, I’m impressed to see a job/business networking program and some integration with “geek culture”² without confusing religion and fandom.

What really needs to happen first though is that the elders who want to reach out to the youngers must stop and really examine their attitudes and assumptions. Maybe do that exercise where you deliberately call up stereotypes about different groups and where those stereotypes come from. The youth will benefit from doing the same exercise. Before the groups can connect you have to look at these attitudes, as they really are dividing us all right now.

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readers may have to remind me [↩]
although I can’t say I’ve cared for the way it’s been done in the past [↩]

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Diana Rajchel

Tag Archives: handparting

The next phase of Divorcing a Real Witch

More From dianarajchel

Divorcing a Real Witch intensive survey: beta testers needed!

More From dianarajchel

Divorcing a Real Witch Update: the full scope of the project

Divorcing a Real Witch: the survey in phase 2 development

More updates on the Wicca and Divorce Book

More From dianarajchel

More progress on Divorcing a Real Witch

The first draft is done!

As of Thursday: The first draft on handparting and Wicca is done! Joy!

Handparting book project gets mention on Runesoup

More From dianarajchel

Handparting and Wicca passage

From Handparting and Wicca: the youngers and the elders

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