Shameless self promotion

Shameless self promotion or....Sorry I am bad at this, I'm British.

I do a great many fairly (you see what I mean) talented things. I am (in general) rather pleased with what I do (I never think it is perfect, except that lamb dinner I made last week, could not have been improved on) and I work hard to be better, brighter and closer to that "perfect" while accepting it is unlikely to reach it and there come a point when I have to stop tinkering with it or I will ruin it.

Yet the self pride in the work and belief in myself (which took years and is still a work in progress)is there, the whole shouting, smiling, pushy BUY MY THINGS, is as uncomfortable as wet cold jeans.

Yet I see folk brazenly selling crap for far more money than I sell my decent, lovingly made things and it both makes me jealous that they can, and infuriated in equal measure. How? How can you crow so loudly, make so many posts? It is like those awful (and secretly very funny) shopping channels that make me glad I don't own a television. How can they stand there with a straight face? 

As a Brit, we all get a bit embarrassed by that sort of thing. We don't like it much either. When people are proud (not for themselves at any rate) we get a sort of smug derision. Pride is either a pint of beer (don't ask it is revolting) or something reserved for a team you support. Pride in yourself is a social foe pas, a clumsy and unwelcome emotion, which will come before a fall. Even accepting compliments is a complicated mixture of emotions. To willing to accept and your smug confidence is enough to crucify you in some social settings. Pride and self belief also come with a good dollop of social and personal shame. 

Yet I make and write things to sell. I happen to really like my own creative products (gasp). 

I spend hours making incense. I spend weeks researching, making notes, making it in my head, re-making it. Trying to balance it's magick ingredients with a landscape of scents to create something.

Something I AM proud of, that I would put my name to. Yet the ability of other to throw three herbs from one Scott Cunningham's reference books into a jar or bag and call it incense, incenses me. 

I have come up with countless blends (many lost to time as I didn't write it down). Yet the more I do (I am very impressed with my Faery blend and my Goddess Hecate blend) the better I get. 

I love working with others too. TK made and pyrographed this wand, but I did the design work and placed the symbols appropriately. Isn't it lovely? Simple, elegant and not covered in toxic choking varnishes or oils that transfer and stain? It would suit a lefty in my opinion too. It is very traditional (old school Gardenarian/Alexandrian) in some ways but would work well with any Wiccan's work. 

Recently, a few months ago, I got removed from a facebook group for self promotion. I was as mystified and shamed as any self respecting Brit should be. The "promotion" in question was responding to questions or debates by pasting a link to this blog with an answer to (usually in great detail) the said question. I was at first mystified, then just sort of glad. I don't have adverts or make money from this blog. TK also got removed for reporting admin for breaking their own rules and more importantly the law. 

I genuinely had not seen it as self promoting. Just a quicker, more streamlined way to answer some questions, requests for help and so on. Especially as the same questions got asked repeatedly. Copy, paste, done! Yet maybe that is all promotion is. Answering a question posed by someone.

I write books. Books about Craft and poetry. 

The Key is getting a serious edit for second edition at the moment as well as having diagrams and art work added. I have a large chunk of book two written also. I really want to get second edition done before Yule but I am waiting on art work and understand not rushing is probably a great idea. 

Poetry has been a passion since I was a child. It was Samuel Peeps that was my first inspiration into pure poetry rather than just song lyrics. I was about 8 years old. Poetry makes sense to me, the way mathmatics makes sense to others. I understand the multiple meanings, the multitudinous kaleidoscopic ways a single word can paint different pictures. I adore it. Yet promoting my work which is so personal, is the worst of all. I do not want to shout about my poetry not because I do not think it worthy but because it seems alien to me. 

So here goes. Buy my things. I make them because I don't know how not to any more. Most of it is better than stuff people spend a fortune on. I ship world wide (though I can't send incense to New Zeland or Australia because they have strict laws about none native plants.)

Sorry.

I mean.

My stuff is brilliant and full of magick. It is really good. No bad reviews. 

Bright blessings xxx