A Wish Come Clear

Tag Archives: publication

2 Guest Posts + 2 New Book Formats = 4 Reasons to Smile

April 15, 2013 – 12:51 pm

Hello & happy Monday!

Today, I’d like to share a few exciting announcements with you.

First, I have a new guest post up at MissMinimalist.com! (Longtime readers may remember my first guest post there 2 years ago as well – how time flies!) Miss Minimalist is all about “living a beautiful life with less stuff.” Author Francine Jay is a gracious, articulate writer, and her site is an excellent resource for simplicity-seekers.

Today’s new post is, Real Life Minimalist Update: Caroline McGraw.

Welcome to A Wish Come Clear, readers from Miss Minimalist!

Thank you for visiting! I’d like to invite you to receive posts via email, along with your FREE copy of Your Creed of Care: How To Dig For Treasure In People (Without Getting Buried Alive).

It’s a book about balancing your responsibilities to others with the responsibility of caring for yourself. It’s a labor of love, containing 60+ pages of true stories and essential insights. It’s about living a life grounded in self-respect. It’s about loving yourself, so that you can love people with others from a place of peace.

***

Next, in case you missed it last week, a piece I wrote was featured on Tiny Buddha; it’s entitled How Taking Quiet Time For Yourself Helps People Around You. I share a story of how a wise L’Arche friend’s comment changed my perception of silence, helping me to consider it as an act of service. (It’s my third contribution to Tiny Buddha, a community curated by the lovely Lori Deschene.)

Finally, my most recent book, I Was a Stranger to Beauty (Think Piece Publishing, $1.99), is now available for Nook and iPad readers! You can also find it on Amazon.

(And if you don’t have a Kindle, Nook, or iPad, don’t worry! Neither do I. You can use Amazon’s free Kindle Cloud Reader.)

What’s the book about? It’s the a story of a family moving through a terribly difficult time, and arriving at a place of acceptance and love.

In a way, it’s all of our stories.

It’s the time you got back up … even though you didn’t think you had the strength to stand.

It’s the time you trusted … even though you’d been hurt in the past.

It’s the time you opened your heart … even though you were tired and wanted to go home.

We’ve all been strangers to the beauty in our own lives. The question is, will we stay that way, or will we learn to open our eyes?

Happy reading!

Love, Caroline

If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your online community!

Tags autism, caregiver, caregiving, courage, disability, family, Francine Jay, I Was a Stranger to Beauty, iPad, Kindle, L'Arche, Lori Deschene, Miss Minimalist, Nook, publication, Real Life Minimalists, special needs, Think Piece Publishing, Tiny Buddha, Your Creed Of Care | Comments Off

So Much to Celebrate: Thoughts on A Wish Come Clear’s Second Anniversary

January 21, 2013 – 11:38 am

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Here’s what I’d like to share with you today:

1. A tremendous amount of gratitude. The launch of my new Kindle Single*, I Was a Stranger to Beauty, has been an amazing experience. I’m so thankful to have released this book with ThinkPiece Publishing; Adam Wahlberg and his team have done a phenomenal job. (And remember, sales support a great cause too: 5% of the proceeds from the first 30 days go to L’Arche DC.)

And thanks to your support, the Single debuted at #3 in the Special Needs Memoirs and Special Needs Ebooks on Amazon.

Going into this launch, I had zero expectations with regards to rankings. With every book I write, my hope is that the story speaks out to you. I hope that it makes you laugh and cry and have more brave days.

And of course I want it to do well. Yet as launch day drew near, I did what most writers do: I simply prayed that it would not be a complete flop. And even if it was, I prayed to keep it in perspective, to remember that real success is in the effort, the attempt, the ‘showing up’.

Given this, it was wild to see that we made the top three in two categories. Just wild. I was giddy, making ridiculous comments like, “Number three! You get a medal for third in the Olympics!”

The ranking was just icing on the cake, though. The substance of ‘success’ was the sense of having dared to put this book out there. It was the beautiful comments from you. It was talking to my parents, and seeing how our family’s struggle was actually helping others.

It was the feeling that this was exactly what I was meant to be doing. It was the same feeling I had as I walked up the stairs to a certain L’Arche home for the first time in 2007. It was the feeling of coming home.

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

*If you don’t have a Kindle, don’t worry! You can read Kindle books with Amazon’s (free) Kindle Cloud Reader. If you have Amazon Prime, you can also borrow the book through Amazon’s Lending Library.

2. Two new guest posts!

Tired of Manic Mornings? Trade Rushing Around for Cultivating Relationships (Guest post at RowdyKittens, created by Tammy Strobel)
Real People, Real Passions: How Caroline’s Childhood Dreams Merged With Her Adult Life (Guest post at BarrieDavenport.com)

My gratitude to Barrie and Tammy for allowing me to contribute to their lovely sites. And thank you to The Speech Ladies, Kristina and Cindy, who ran a special post to announce I Was A Stranger to Beauty.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An illustration from my very first book, age 5, entitled, “My Brother.”

3. A revised version of Your Creed of Care: How to Dig for Treasure in People (Without Getting Buried Alive), thanks to my dear friend and designer Tamara Templeman. If you subscribed within the last week, you’ve received the new version; if you subscribed earlier, here’s the link to download a copy.

This book is my gift to you; feel free to share it with those you love. If you believe that it will serve someone else, pass it on!

“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

4. A Wish Come Clear had its two-year anniversary last Wednesday; in the excitement of the launch, I nearly forgot. But two years, 126 posts, and an amazing community? That’s worth celebrating.

For two years, we’ve been sharing true stories together …

and sharing stories is a way of bearing the light.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

***

How will you spend the MLK Holiday? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

***

*L’Arche is a faith-based non-profit organization that creates homes where people with and without intellectual disabilities share life together. I spent 5 years serving the DC community in various caregiving roles.

Liked this post? Receive posts via email, along with your FREE copy of Your Creed of Care: How To Dig For Treasure In People (Without Getting Buried Alive).