Dear Reader, Love Lucy Adkins & Becky Breed

Dear Reader…

            Have you ever felt you’re missing out on life? Noticed you’re no longer singing in the shower and can’t shake the I-don’t-want-to-get-out-of-bed-feeling? That there is something in you that’s unfulfilled and wanting? Deep down, maybe you’re wondering if you are living out your dreams and honoring your talents and gifts. I know it’s complicated, that restlessness could mean a lot of things, but it might have to do with how you are nurturing the deep relationship you have with yourself. The innate desire to make and do. As authors of The Fire Inside, we believe if you’re asking these questions, we think we have answers.

            As babies, we are born with an insatiable curiosity, a need to explore and seek. Wonder was a moment to moment experience, our world to connect and uncover. We had a fire inside, urging us to move our bodies, rise up on our feet and walk, use the heat of language to satisfy our needs, “Cookie,” we said. “More” and “up.” Those impulses to link with and be part of the vibrant world are still with us today. That fire inside can be called different things: desire, passion, an indescribable yearning. We call it the amazing gift of creativity, the seeds of desire to bring forth something new in our world. “We are whole creatures in potential,” as Eric Butterworth said, “and the true purpose of desire is to unfold that wholeness to become what we can be.”

            The Fire Inside was written with you in mind—to encourage you to latch onto the wonder of creativity with greater power, more feeling. To crack you open to new worlds, different perspectives, and to learn to trust your own potential as a creative. And if you do, once again you’ll feel roller coaster excitement like you’re a child let out of a stuffy classroom into a blue-sky spring day.

            We believe creativity is an innate gift, part of your DNA, and in order to live a fulfilled and satisfying life, you must pay attention to it. The Fire Inside is jam-packed full of ideas and tips, daily meditations and writing/creativity exercises to help you find new ways to explore, dig deep—uncover a bigger life. Maybe even have some fun. Our book looks at traditional ways of being creative, painting, music, dance and the like, but it also includes the everyday ways that we can live our lives more imaginatively.

            We hope you pick up The Fire Inside today, browse its contents for a while. Does it speak to you? Remember you have the life force of creativity inside. We hope you continue to nurture it.

Wishing you all the best in your creative life.

Love,

Lucy Adkins and Becky Breed

            

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lucy Adkins earned her MFA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and is a writer of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in many journals and anthologies, and her first poetry chapbook, One Life Shining, was published by Pudding House Press. She co-presents the Nebraska Humanities program “Diaries and Letters of Early Nebraska Settlers,” and is a frequent writing instructor for OLLI, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and the Larksong Writers’ Workshops. Her book, Two-Toned Dress, was the winner of the 2019 Blue Light Press poetry chapbook contest.

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Becky Breed, a veteran educator, poet, and essayist, co-wrote and facilitated “Women at the Springs,” a Nebraska Humanities program empowering women to live more courageously, as well as “The Intergenerational Project” connecting elders and teens through stories to promote communication, writing, and use of the media. She has an Ed.D. in Education, and in addition to teaching at the university level, was the principal of a Gold Star School which was awarded recognition for significant improvements in reading, writing, and math. The students’ resiliency and drive to be the best they can be helped shape the fabric for several of the enclosed essays.

Together the two co-authored Writing in Community: Say Goodbye to Writer’s Block and Transform Your Life, which was awarded an “IPPY” in the Independent Publishers Book Awards. Writing in Community, the first book in their “Essential Writing and Creativity” series, along with the impact of Adkins’ and Breed’s many presentations and workshops led to their being named winners of the 2020 Lincoln, Nebraska Mayor’s Arts Award in Artistic Achievement in Literature.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

The underlying principle of The Fire Inside is that we all have within us vast untapped reservoirs of creativity, and when we recognize and begin

to connect with that potential, our lives will open in ways we cannot begin to imagine. Many books have been written about the art and craft of individual disciplines of creativity. Yet few are so inclusive, so welcoming as this book, offering insight not only for furthering ones abilities in the traditional arts, but also in our day to day creativity, which so enriches our lives.

Based on the authors’ combined fifty-five years of teaching, working with writing groups and providing workshops on writing and creativity, The Fire Inside is written in a spirit of warmth and generosity. It invites the reader to:

Say yes to creativity and the nurturing it provides

Choose to live a bigger life

Uncover inner sources of inspiration and discover how “the magic” happens

Become a part of the creative community

Let go of forces that try to limit you

Develop skills for what it takes to live more creatively

Locate the “sweet spot” needed to build your life as an artist and creative being

Wherever  one may be in his or her creative life—just tiptoeing in or fully immersed in the life of the imagination, The Fire Inside will be a companion in that life, a source of encouragement and inspiration. The manuscript is composed short essays designed to provide a daily dose of support and motivation. It includes anecdotes, inspirational quotations and end of chapter meditations and exercises which ask Why not me? What gets in my way of being creative? In what unknown ways am I waiting to blossom. 

More and more, we hunger for meaning and for opportunities of self-expression. The Fire Inside, in its bite-sized essays which can be read in five or ten minute increments, speaks to that hunger, and provides a source of the creative nourishment we all need.

ORDER YOUR COPY

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