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Worry for Fun and Profit

 

A Plan to Love Your Body – Worry About Other Things Instead

 

A new Nordstrom’s Rack clothing store opened up in my neighborhood. I discovered something so exciting; there is a designer line of shirts that fit in size XL. Alberto Makali. Made in China. (Fine, everything is from China.) It’s truly exciting to find comparatively cheap, yet high-quality clothing with buttons I can close. It was enough for me to throw out all my scratchy, ugly polyester clothing from Kohl’s that was too small in the first place. I was thrilled to pitch t-shirts that are made more for Hannah Montana than an older gal like me. What was I thinking?

But clothing has never defined me so I can’t say that I ever threw away tons of old pairs of size 6 pants and dresses.  Nor have I been a yo-yo dieter. I’ve just appeared big all my life. That’s because I am. I stand 5’11” tall and weigh 185 pounds. And each of my fifty plus years on this planet has added on a few more pounds. (That pesky thyroid condition hasn’t helped, nor has the para-menapausal thingy. Awe, yes, the pause that refreshes. Can somebody get me a cold glass of water? Then go ahead and throw it at me.)

How can I be concerned anymore about my ever-expanding epicenter? There’s just too much else that’s sucking up my somewhat already fried brainwaves. Oh, I don’t know, things like aging, indigestion, men issues (intimacy – not one of my things), global warming, Lehman Brothers, dying, animal cruelty and Sara Palin. As I mature (hate that) things like my mortality start to take a front seat, and…oh, money.

The main thing that has caused me to stop thinking about my big fat ass is worries about my big, fat somewhat empty wallet. I balance my Chase Premiere banking account by going to an ATM and seeing if I have anything in it. Not good. Not according to Suze Orman.  Suze is my new hero. I bought her audio program, Women and Money and I found out that I am not alone. 97% of all successful women (okay, I’m doin’ alright) are worried that someday they will end up bag ladies. Thank god I’m not alone.

There you have it. I’ve finally replaced one big fat worry with another. I hope this gives hope to young women everywhere. Someday you will get older and stop worry about how many calories you just consumed in that Burger King Steak sandwich, and start obsessing about how low your ass is hanging to the ground. Then that next pesky question creeps in; can you avoid becoming that person that check people’s receipts at the exit of your local WalMart?

I wish I could be more inspiring, talking about how I love myself and my body type to the core of my being. Some days I actually am okay with the way I look. I no longer need to be stick thin, competing for roles in Hollywood, like the old days of my short-lived career as a minor luminary in Hollywood. (I starred in a few films out there, but never got a big break because I was always too fat. Actresses in Hollywood I went up against for roles rarely ate. Me, I refused to give up my potato chip obsession so gals like Daryl Hannah and Heather Locklear got parts instead of me. Boo hoo.)

Now, I’m just older and wiser.  I mildly obsess over my age and my bank account.  One is up and the other is down. Isn’t that like life? Isn’t that the point – that there are good days and bad?

It feels mind-bendingly freeing to get over the damn crisis of how my buttocks looks in a pair of jeans.  I can’t control my ass anymore. It has its own agenda. Like gravity. It sucks. Life doesn’t. I know deep down that worrying about anything is useless. Being miserable about something will never make it better, never make that thing go away. It’s all fleeting. Now I live for today…and that new extra-large silky, Alberto Makali blouse from Nordstom’s. (You gotta’ love a bargain.) You should see me in it. I’m hot!

               

 

Upcoming Teleseminar with…okay,me.

There has been a strong enough response to a How to Get Published Seminar, so I have gone ahead and set up the free conferencing hotline and set up two dates for everyone to choose from.     Teleseminars: How to Get Published, from the Big Publishing Houses to e-books.   Dates: September 25th, 2008            October 2nd, 2008  (same seminar different dates)   Time: 7pm – 8pmEST   Conference Dial-in Number: (218) 339-4300 Participant Access Code: 262261#   Please send me an email confirming your attendance into which event. Thx.     What we will cover:   1) How do I choose what to write about? 2) Coming up with a great title. 3) Outlining your book. 4) The book proposal.  6) Shop the book to agents. Send them your book. 7) Hooking the media. Sign with an agent and get published.  9) Non-fiction vs. fiction? Big tip. Could save you years. 10)  Query Letters and submission guidelines. 11) Create a small book. 12) Book Expos and invaluable trade magazines, and pitch sessions/conferences. 13) Agent – what the contract should and shouldn’t say. Other topics we can cover, time permitting: ·        Working with your editor ·        Meeting deadlines. You must. (Story of how our editor missed our deadline.) ·        Grammar usage. ·       Writing for Quick Cash. ·       Structuring your work schedule to write. ·        Website ·        Radio and TV ·        Bookstores ·        Bus Tour ·        Find your niche ·        Giving a great interview ·        Amazon.com        There will be an opportunity to purchase – My book - Embracing Your Big Fat Ass with free shipping Peter Miller’s book and CD at deep discount Dominican Republic Writer’s Retreat (March, 2009) One on One Consult with Laura Banks Weekly Video Conference/Teleconference Writer’s Circle Writer’s Intensive Retreat at Laura’s Home (see testimonials below) Meet the Agents – a special conference call with Peter Miller of PMA Literary: http://www.pmalitfilm.com/ Testimonials for my writer’s retreat: The Writer’s Intensive was an invaluable experience.  Never before have I been in an environment where I felt so able to share and create and discover.  I will be forever changed because of this experience – oh yeah – and so will my writing.    ~ Aly Viny   Laura’s writers workshop creates not only an environment for creativity but a place to examine accomplished past work.  This is not an ordinary, dry, what-to-do-next workshop, but an experiential program designed to further your artistry, as well as your ability to market that artistry.  Add some food, fun outings, and social activities, and you have a super weekend workshop well worth your time and money.    ~ Lisa Gold, Owner – Actors Connection, Public Speaker and Future Published Writer

Up until now I felt like I was groping in the dark for an elusive prize. Thanks to Laura Banks, I now feel part of a community and better equipped to navigate the waters of the world of publishing. Laura is full of insights, tips, and tools of the trade. If you’re serious about getting published, then this course is a must. And to top it off, it’s fun too!

 

Listen to Janette and I on the radio!

For those of you who may have missed our wonderful Empowerment Library segment with Janette Barber and Laura Banks last night, I strongly encourage you to listen at the archive link, at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/EmpowermentSanctuary/2008/09/02/Empowerment-Library-Embracing-Your-Big-Fat-Ass

For the first hour, Kelly, Laura, Janette and I discussed the book and the concepts behind it, plus Laura and Janette shared some great stories from the book along with their most treasured personal achievements.  In the second hour, Kelly and I continued the show by talking about reasons for being overweight, plus powerful tools we can use to combat the battle of the bulge.

 

This show was an absolute blast, and I hope the listeners had as much fun as we did!

 

Want to listen and / or download the MP3?

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/EmpowermentSanctuary/2008/09/02/Empowerment-Library-Embracing-Your-Big-Fat-Ass

See you in September…

Hi everybody, wassup? I’m trying to get back in the swing of things after a long, fabulous summer. The book came out, FINALLY, and I got moved into my new place. Yes, just as the book says, I do tend to move as a hobby. I now have a really great place about a half hour north of NYC. I just taught my very first writer’s workshop…helping folks to write their first book. There were 7 participants – great time had by all. We had a fun representation of a few genres – female non-fiction, horror, children’s lit and romance. My assistant EJ and her friend Patti were in the course. It was nice to be able to give that back to EJ after all her hard work.
This fall – what the heck am I doing? I’m going to visit my brother in Denver. We will be camping out along the Colorado River. My dad will be joining up from his hometown, my old hometown I’d never go back to, Kansas City, Kansas. (It’s nice and all, just not enough comedy clubs and too many Republicans.) I love my dad, he’s 83.

My fella’ Daniel is swell. We’ve been together 5 years. He’s eight years my junior and real sweetie. His artwork is on my site. His daughter, Sara is now 17 and heading into her senior year of high school today. She’s artsy just like her dad.

Anyway, that’s it. I’ve got to get ready to go into NYC today. I’m going to see my dear friend, Susan Winter. She wrote the book, “Older Women, Younger Men” and was seen on Oprah. She did a blurb in the back of the book. She’s got a new fabulous lover/boyfriend. (He’s twenty-four and she’s 53. What fun.) Then Janette and I are finally catching up in person at our favorite diner, The Comfort Diner. Yes, we eat comfort food there…and often laugh until we can’t breathe anymore.

Oh, and by the way, our book just got a publishing deal in Germany (Random House)!
I’d love to get an update from my b-fab sisters.
Love, love yourself, then love me,
Laura Banks

From my friend Peter Who Came to Our Book Signing in Greenwich Village

Thepracticeofyourlife’s Weblog

Reflections on being on track with your life’s purpose – whatever you create that to be

Embrace Your Big Fat Ass

June 19, 2008 in Letting Go | No comments

You heard me! It’s big, it’s round, it’s talked about, it’s yours. So learn to love it.

Would like to say this is a quote from “Embracing Your Big Fat Ass: An Owner’s Manual,” but I haven’t read it … yet. Actually I probably won’t but it is possible. While big fat asses are not high on my issues list, the book is well written and funny. How do I know that? Well, the authors (Laura Banks and Janette Barber) read excerpts to the biggest audience at a Barnes and Noble book signing short of a Harry Potter release. And they had the audience rolling.

I knew I was in for a good time when my good friend Donna Moore ,(the creative force behind the soon to be Broadway production Cougar), called me earlier in the day and asked me if I wanted to come and support her friend’s book signing and I asked what the book was about. Well the bellow of a laugh I let loose when she told me the title made everyone in the crowded noisy Starbucks stop and look.

Now the obvious question is why would I, a confirmed legs man, be writing about Big Fat Asses or BFAs as the authors refer to them. And what does this topic have to do with living your life as a practice?

The answer: Everything!

At the book signing a lady with a BFA (actually she was behind me I couldn’t see), asked the authors if they had gotten any flack for the book. They replied that they had. Some people are offended by the title, and some expressed concern that the book encourages women to be fat. Their response to this second concern is what made me see the connection to the practice of your life.

Janette and Laura said that the book is about playfully accepting your body as it is, which is the necessary first step to transformation or allowing your body to become any slimmer version than it now is. Not their exact words but essentially what they meant (that’s what the comments below are for ladies).

I couldn’t agree more. So many men and women go around resisting what is, that they keep it in place. There is no space for what they say they want to show up because they are busy resisting the crap job/body/relationship that’s there now.

Transformation/law of attraction 101: Stop resisting what is. All resistance does is keep what you don’t want in place.

Embracing Your Big Fat Ass shows women how to be comfortable with the way they are in a very humorous way. This is an important message because the funny thing about things that are not accepted/acknowledged is that they keep showing up until they are. Even if it takes the rest of your life.

Okay, Now What?

I haven’t posted in awhile, so I thought it would be a good idea. I moved into my new place just outside NYC. I love it here. As far as the book goes, it’s out, and we haven’t started our PR campaign yet, so the book is sort of lingering out there in Amazon-land. It’s so funny, you write a book for two years, then it comes out…it’s so anti-climatic. You’re waiting for people to discover you, to be found out, to be rich and famous like all those people in Star Magazine. Anyway, what have I really been up to? I saw Wall-e three times. I love Pixar and I desparately love Wall-e. In fact, at improv rehearsal tonight, Rick said that he knows someone who worked on some water images (animated) so I asked if he could get me a glossy photo of Wall-e. I love this movie. I love futuristic stuff, and it sort of reminds me of Bladerunner, only without the blood. (I can only imagine a Pixar film actually directed by Ridley Scott. How cool would that be.)

What else? Oh, I stopped going to the gym again and I gained back all that weight I lost at OHI. Oh, well. I’m glad I wrote the Fat Ass book. I can relax into the truth of my waist size. I’m tired now, must get sleep. Wish “mo” could come clean my house.

Response from Tyra

<<Posted on Tyra’s website:
Tyra, I just want to thank you so much. For so long I’ve been struggling with my weight and my appearance. But after watching your show I now see that everbody hates something about themselves wether they’re thin or overweight. I can now look in the the mirror and appreciate myself. I may not be thin, but I’m still me and that’s all that counts!!! I luv my BFA!!!!!!!!>>

Posted by Ashley Wilson 06/20/08 10:02 PM>>

So You Want to Be a Published Author

So you want to be a published author. Just do what I did. Tell everybody you are one before you become one. I was faced with multiple rejections with my first book Love Online. I wrote Love Online before lots of people were dating on the internet – basically the book was ahead of its time and I was an untried writer back in 1996, so I had the joy of getting lots of doors slammed in my face. But as my mother would say, “Laura makes doors where there are none.” I chose to go ahead and create my own small, self-published  book; Modem Mating a Guide to Online Dating. I had just taken some courses at the New York School of Visual Arts and had learned how to use Photoshop. I took a normal page of white writing paper, 8 1/2 by 11 and folded it in half to create the book size. (It was more like a nice pamphlet, about 40 pages in length.) Presto! Now I had a book. At least I liked to call it a book. It wasn’t really a book. But I was an author.

 

Now that I was a self-proclaimed woman of letters, I started to call the local television news stations, saying that I was a writer and had a new book coming out. When the TV producers asked me to send over a copy, I thought for sure that it would end there. I sent the thing that was almost a pamphlet, and, actually, I started getting bookings on the local and yes, even national shows as an expert on online dating. MSNBC, Fox News, Good Day New York and others started calling me in to be on a panel to discuss the latest news on this growing phenomena. It was amazing! They even would photograph a copy of my book and show it as a graphic during the interview. I remember thinking how great it looked on camera, all lit up with pretty bright lights behind it. Soon, newspapers and magazines were calling for interviews and quotes. USA Today used a few of my quotes. Amazing.

 

I collected my TV appearances on a reel and made copies of my reel, then started sending my small book and video to literary agents. I signed with an agent, Jeffrey Hermann, a pretty well known guy, very fast. We got rejected by about ten houses, until Career Press Publishers took it on.

 

I got a small $5,000 advance and the book came out with little fanfare or interest. (Not enough people were dating online at that time.) My second book with Career Press went on to sell over 125,000 copies – that was written with my co-author Janette Barber and it was entitled Breaking the Rules, Last Ditch Tactics for Landing the Man of your Dreams. That became a USA Today bestseller with appearances on Rosie O’Donnell, ABC World News, and lots of morning shows, dozens of local and national radio shows, the L.A. Times, People Magazine and more. Now Janette and I have our next book Embracing Your Big Fat Ass, published by Atria, a division of Simon and Schuster. We got a pre-emptive offer before the book went to auction. That means Warner Books and Crown Publishers had also made bid and offers on the book. Publisher’s Weekly reported the story and we ended up with a six-figure advance.

 

That’s a long way from sitting by myself, teaching myself how to type with a Meavis-Bacon typing program on Love Online in a high rise apartment in New York City. Janette and I can wait and see how our new book goes, but what the future holds is anyone’s guess. There’s one thing that is for sure – no matter what, I will always find ways to make things happen. I can always write more books, somehow. Even if I get rejected – I will create the buzz and then get the deal.

Amazon.com Bestseller…how the heck did that happen in only two weeks?

In only two weeks, we are already bestsellers on Amazon.com! We are #16 in the Self Esteem category! http://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Your-Big-Fat-Ass/dp/1416542795/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212695270&sr=8-1. We’ll be filming the event.

 

 The Tyra Banks http://tyrashow.warnerbros.com/2008/06/embrace_your_bfa_big_fat_ass.php appearance didn’t hurt, nor did Janette’s dear freind Rosie O’Donnell putting us on her website! www.Rosie.com. The New York Post http://www.nypost.com/seven/06032008/entertainment/butt_seriously_113672.htm full page piece was a nice bump in sales, too. Anyway, enough about me and my brilliant co-author Janette (who is up for her sixth Emmy Award today for her work on the View!) what about you? Are you coming?

 

 Wednesday June 18 – 7:00pm
And after the party…there’s an afterparty

 

Barnes & Noble Book Signing
NYC Greenwich Village
(8th Street and Ave. of the Americas)

 

Our appearance will be only 20-30 minutes long starting promptly, hopefully at 7pm. Party on by no later than 8:30. Please come, this feels like the official launch of the book. I need my friends there to make me feel better about myself. (Yeah, right. Oh my god what shall I wear? Spandex?)

 

After party location if you can’t make the signing:

(email me for the location)

 And if you’re still reading this…and you can’t make the signing help us hit more bestseller lists by buying our book. If you want to buy three books directly through me, I’ll give you the “inside friendster” price of only $10.00 per book ($30.00 total) personally autographed and shipped.

 

And if you are a testimonial in our book, you get a book for free when you come, if I get my shipment from Simon and Schuster in time.