Dear Friend, The Wind is Alive in Los Angeles

11/6/2023
Los Angeles

Dear Friend,

I could have the wind blow down the cliff and tangle your hair in knots. But why would I do that when I could bring everything in this world to life? Let’s give the wind a face and two naughty hands! The wind has a spirit that wants to tie my hair into knots on purpose.

My fantasy novel is sparkling with these kinds of conversions,  transformation, animations. In the first draft I wrote, “The wind rushed down the cliff side tangling our hair.” I circle back around around with a red pen and adjust the words to read, “The fairies of the wind rushed out of the cliff side, tumbling through our hair, tying it into knots.” I underline the word “fairies” because I am yet undecided whether I will specifically name the mystical creatures. I’m fond of the possibility that I might create a world for you that includes all the fairies without ever once calling them by name. I’d like to give your imagination the opportunity to create something fresh without previous labels and associations, whenever possible.

This is the fun exercise of most of my writing sessions. How do I explain what I’m seeing without using the obvious words? How do you bring a fairy to life inside of someone’s mind without ever calling it a fairy? Tricky, tricky.

Today, I’m playing with these wind fairies (though I’ll never tell you they are fairies…although I suppose it is too late now to say that), at a park in Glendale, California. I woke up before everyone else, poured a cup of steaming green tea, waddled in my pajamas down the sunny sidewalk to the local playground park where the grass is stained with dog pee, and set up writing shop on the plastic bench-table that was still damp with dew. Thankfully my sweatpants were thick enough that my butt didn’t get wet and cold. I’m still loving typing this novel on my iPad with the magic keyboard case. It is a game changer. I would never want to bring my laptop to the park first thing in the morning but I also don’t want to write this whole story by hand. I appreciate the ability to cut and paste too much. So this iPad is the greatest technological upgrade of my year! Now that I’ve put in my time today, an hour crafting this fantasy — today the characters were running away from a city, escaping through the fields, racing towards the ocean — it’s time to go back to the music studio.

I’m in Los Angeles this weekend writing a song with The Friz. We’ve been in the studio for four days, playing in our imaginations. You won’t be surprised to hear that our song is about mermaids and fairies. I can’t seem to escape the world of fantasy but I don’t mind. This world needs more magic, more people playing make believe, more women writing songs about mermaids and novels about fairies.

Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

Dear Friend, Fantasy Songwriting with The Friz in LA

11/4/2023
Los Angeles

Dear Friend,

Tori is tearing apart of piece of sourdough toast. She’d dipping it into potato soup. My tongue can still taste the yellow pepper and hummus I just ate. We’re taking our snack break. We’re on day two of producing a new song. I’m only in LA for the weekend, four days, but by the time I get back on that airplane to Seattle, there will be a brand new song in the world!

We began the creative process by lounging in Tori’s living room. Candles flickering, her meditation frequencies were playing on the speakers, the baby kittens were jumping all over us. “What should we write about?” We asked each other. How about sisterhood? How about we make a song that’s a celebration of how creative women support each other’s artwork? We see each other’s dreams and visions. Let’s sing about this journey we’re on together. We completely understand what the other is feeling and attempting to bring to life.

We dimmed the lights and brought out our journals. I heard her pen scratching on the paper. My own page filled up with images of mermaids and fairies. She’s a forest creature. Mushrooms decorate her home. She asks me questions about the ocean. Have you swam with the sharks? YES. What did you write on your paper?

I’m seeing a crystal cave. I imagine a mermaid swimming to the cave. Waves splash up. The forest fairy comes to meet her. Ouuuu yess….. I see it. There’s moonlight! The fairy could have twigs in her hair and she pulls them out like drumsticks and starts beating on the crystals. They could be on separate journeys and they come to the cave to recharge! Once upon a time these two mystical creatures met up in a crystal cave to share their stories with each other.

We spent all night writing lyrics.
Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

Dear Friend, I Can’t Write Past the First Page

11/2/2023 | Miro Tea, Seattle

Dear Friend,

Super Phoenix green tea is buttery inside my mouth and I’m victorious! I’ve transformed another page of reality into fantasy. I realized I was stuck on the first scene of the story. I was writing and rewriting the same scene over and and over until madness overcame me. I felt cursed by this project, doomed to dwell on the opening scene forever. Then a miraculous idea bonked me in the head yesterday. I’m not surprised I had a simple breakthrough. I spent the entire day lounging on the floor with cozy blankets and reading someone else’s fiction. A day off is the best solution for most problems. I was tempted multiple times to write but I resisted and trusted my brain to do its processing behind the scenes. Without fail, rest serves me. I awoke this morning with energy to write and a brand new idea that is painfully obvious now that its before me.


I decided to jump forward to the next scene. I was getting hung up on a desire to write from the beginning to end without skipping around. I was so stuck on doing it this one way that my tires started spinning and time was flying out the back like mud, wasted. By jumping forward one scene, I got to work on a fresh part of the project that I hadn’t touched in a long time. Suddenly, the heavy muddy slog was gone! I actually had fun writing this morning because I felt light and playful.

In this scene, my main character is in a classroom and the other main character is distracting her through the window. In reality this classroom was a yoga studio. In the fantasy realm I created a witch’s tower. I transformed a square orange painted drywall yoga studio in the city of Seattle into a circular stone tower up in the clouds in some mystical far away never land realm. It didn’t take much. I just change a few adjectives and the imagination runs with it.

I am continually amazed by the power of my imagination. I change one word and it creates a completely new picture. The new picture leads me to completely new emotions and the characters start to behave in new ways. Where do the ideas come from? Where do the songs come from? Wherever they come from, the way they get here is through a portal that is opened when I enter flow state.

Enough writing for today (or at least this morning). I’m going to go back to Elizabeth’s house for lunch and then soon I’ll skip to the airport and hop down to Los Angeles with my music making parts at the ready!

Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

Dear Friend, Let the Story Run It's Own Way to the Finish Line

10/31/2023
Seattle

Dear Friend,

Soon the trick or treaters will bang on the door. I’m in Queen Anne, one of the fancier neighborhoods in Seattle. I’m snuggling in a pile of fuzzy blankets that belong to one of my best friends. I’m here for a week to laugh and cowork. My friend has gone out on a run around the block to fill her lungs with fresh autumn air and I take this opportunity to video call my husband.

“Hey love, what’s up.” He says.
“Hey my love, I’m feeling frustrated this morning. I went to Fremont Coffee Company and drank a match latte with oak milk and spent two hours feeling gross inside as I wrote a new scene in the novel. I had the characters riding dragons in space and kissing each other and then I doubted if I should be focusing on this scene at all. I feel like I just spent hours on pages I’m going to end up deleting.”

And then I nod as he coaches me for ten minutes, reminding me that I’ve already written the first part of my story, the first book in my series, the first 200 pages.

“Just go back to the beginning and continue translating the first section into fantasy. It’s good right? Maybe it’s not the story you expected or wanted to tell but it’s still a story. The most important thing is that you finish this project. Your deadline to complete a book is March 17. You have to have something to publish or you’re going to be floating around in unfinished project land for eternity. Once you publish something then you’ll feel great. You’ll feel so much freedom and you can reassess at that point if you want to write more books in the series, write something else entirely, or just go back to writing music. You can do whatever you want after you publish a book but first you just have to complete a book. It’s not going to be perfect and it might not be what you set out to create but the most important thing is to have something to publish when that deadline arrives. You have to ship.”

We hang up the call and I make some tea, eat some salty chocolate, pet my cat and open up the iPad again. The morning writing session was uncomfortable because I doubted if I was focusing on the right story. The afternoon writing session was just as uncomfortable but for different reasons. I still feel I need to spend more time crafting the story structure rather than just writing by flowing wild intuition. I feel so much resistance to structure though and writing has always been a free flowing form of expression for me. This project is forcing me, inviting me, coxing me into a balance of the two. We need structure for healthy flow. The stronger my structure, the more fun it is to flow through it.

Oh, how tempted I am to keep adding new pages to this novel AND how much discipline it takes to focus on the rewriting process. I’ve decided to trust my wonderful husband who is so full of encouragement for me. Instead of writing forward into the land of dragons and mermaids and pirates, I’m going to go back to the beginning of the story on human land and transform it, convert it, magically turn everything from reality into fantasy. We’re about to head off the beaten path and let my life get twisted into something unexpected.

I have two hundred pages of autobiographical fiction to tap on the head with a magic wand and watch it transfigure into something completely unrecognizable. When I’m done, I’ll have a fantasy novel which might be the first book in a series or perhaps the first and final book of my life. I have a desire to write a saga, an epic journey, with all the details I can possibly remember from the realms of imagination AND I have a desire to finish this blessed project and move on with my life.

When I began this project I listed my reasons for embarking on such a creative quest. Why write a novel? My intention was to take on an extremely challenging project to build self-respect as I crossed the finish line, proving to myself I could do it. I wanted to write a story that would give me a safe space to creatively process the traumatic memories I’d been hauling around for a couple years with CPTSD. I wanted to write my way through healing and find clarity in my relationships with my husband and my music. I also wanted to become a better writer in general and specially for my songs. I’ve also dreamed of writing a book since I was a child. I’ve held a fantasy story in my head, loosely in random chunks, for years and I thought it a beautiful idea to actually jot it down into a novel. Now I’m so deep in this writing project — I’m wading through an organized chaos on my devices — and I’m just grateful to have accomplished most of my goals already. The big one now is to reach the finish line and just complete a book. So maybe I won’t tell the story I’d been dreaming of but my god, we’re going to tell a story and see it through to the final page…whatever it may be. It is an act of surrender to let the creative process have its way with me. I must release the reins and let it run away with the current.

Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

Stretching My Parts to Denver

10.18.2023 7am | SEATAC Airport, Seattle, USA

Dear friend,

I’m the girl at Gate A4, sitting on the floor, stretching by the window. It’s dark outside. I’m wearing my comfy pajamas and I will stretch until my flight leaves for Denver in one hour.

A Starbucks cup is sitting beside me too hot to touch. The green tea comforts me this morning as I leave my parents less than 48hrs after I picked them up at the airport. This is what life is like in a family of adventurers. The airport shuttle should add an extra stop at our front door, one of us is always flying away somewhere. It’s rare for us all to be at home together.

My parents and I have spent one day together. My dad and I drank coffee and talked about photography. My mom gave me really good hugs and she’ll feed my cat while I’m away. We all woke up at 4am to get me to Sea-Tac airport for this flight to Denver. Before we left the house I wandered around confused, forgetting how to dress myself for winter. Both of my parents offered me their winter jackets. Moms was too small. Dads is too big. I settled on an old sweater that reminds me of my husband and the night we got engaged. I’ll hug it on the plane and whenever I need to feel close to something warm.

The little girl in my misses them all already. The adults running my show are keeping me together but I still hear that little girl whispering, “Already? So soon. But we just got home!” I tell her “We’ll be back soon,” and I hope I’m speaking the truth. I don’t know the future. Time is pricking me with its preciousness this month.


What will I do in Denver? Why am I leaving my beloveds? Because I have so many loves around the world I can never be with them all at once. I’m riding this airmobile to Denver so I can sit on the couch and walk around the neighborhood with Lindsay, my intimate friend, therapist and writing coach aka book doula. This woman held my hand as I climbed out of hell. She introduced me to Internal Family Systems. When we’re together, we will talk in “parts language”.

“My parts are so happy to see you in person!”

“A part of me is sad this morning and a part of me is excited!”

“A part of me loves being a mom and a part of me wishes I could travel more.”

“A part of me loves the unknown and a part of me wants to get cozy on the couch with kids.”


Who are all these parts; these people inside me talking all the time? I call them my parts and I’ve given them names. Ive been getting to know them, creating with them since 2020. They’ve been inside me for much longer though, perhaps since the very beginning.


It was natural for me to make artwork, music especially at first, to express what these parts were feeling. A part of me paints. She loves dancing too. Another part likes writing. Another part loves photography.


Over the past seven or so years, I’ve created a fantasy world through my music and one by one my parts have stepped into it. It’s become a place they can go play; a safe spot in my imagination. Now my stories are making their way into a novel.

On the airport floor, in the backpack sitting beside me is an iPad with a brand new case that features a “Magic Keyboard” — so I can type on the iPad like a laptop. Super compact and facilitates the speed and ease with which I can write. Game changer! Im already seeing myself typing on the beach, a place I’d never bring my laptop. I love writing on the go. The iPad, laptop and phone all sync so I can work on my book across all devices. This is my first trip, a mini one, with the iPad. Let’s see how it goes!


The last time I flew to Denver I didn’t bring an iPad, a half written novel or this much confidence. Almost two years ago I sat in this airport, typing a letter like this one to my fans. In that letter I expressed how uncomfortable I was to fly after years of being grounded in Seattle and to travel away from my husband to whom I was codependent and anxiously attached. My online business was just taking off. I was nervous to be out in the world on my own again but I also felt familiar waking up inside me.

Who was yawning awake on that trip? It was the part of me who longed to explore the world and stretch my wings of independence. I’d love to board this plane and sit beside my past self. I’d love to tell her the stories about the whale sharks I nearly kissed on that sailboat trip in Indonesia, the first moment I breathed underwater in Thailand, how the food in Japan made my mouth water. I want to whisper secrets of the future into her ear. She’d be so happy to know that she had a new best friend from Australia and in a few months she’ll be going to a music festival in an exotic country she never imagined visiting.


I’d tell her that travel makes the words flow! I’d tell her she was about to write a book!

She’d want to learn more about my many lives and stories. I’ll tell her that all these stories I’m writing are constructing a colorful magical world, one word at a time; a realm for all my parts to inhabit, play in, process my life experiences and interact with each other in a safe space. In this fantasy world I can work through my most private and complex emotions. It feels like real action and i experiences results, changes in myself as I travel between the fantasy and reality. My life is an outward expression of my inner world and visa versa.

She would be fascinated. We’d talk the whole way to Denver. She’d want to hear about how I can pluck stories from this created world to share with you, a little contribution to humanity, a creative way to connect with people like you in this plane of consciousness who are intrigued enough to listen to the realities of my fantasy realm.


That girl and I have so much in common. It’s easy to feel her with me when I’m stretching. We both have always loved stretching. As I stretch on this grungy airport carpet covered in crumbs, curled receipts, plastic straws and stale M&M’s, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the dark window. I am often surprised these days to see myself. My parts have taken on such distinct appearances and none of them look like the face I see in this airport window. My face is the mask behind which all of my parts live. Who is she, the one in the mirror? She is many women.


Love & Rainbows,

Cha Wilde

Dear Friend, What Really Happened and Where are the Mermaids?

4 Oct 202 In the Backseat of the van going to the Denpasar Airport

Dear Friend,

I’m embarrassed to say I’ve barely written about mermaids. My book doula aka writing couch told me people often need to write a book they didn’t expect to write before they can actually get to writing the book they have a vision for. The vision of mermaids keeps getting pushed to the small pile on the side of my desk while pages and pages of my past are towering above me. I didn’t realize I needed to write all of this. It seemed off topic but I can’t seem to avoid writing it. It’s what comes out when I pick up the blank page. It doesn’t feel as fun as the mermaids and I’m praying I’ll get through this and swim on towards fun adventure. Maybe my perception is skewed. Perhaps you’ll love reading my pre-mermaid past. Maybe it’s the origin story I had to write first but man, I’d love to just slip into the future sometimes to create something brand new.


I’m wondering though…. If I can change my story and my entire life changes, the way I feel inside changes .. the power of which story I tell and how is in my hands. Why do I feel so compelled to focus on this one in this old way? I’m attached to it being this way. It’s scarier to invent something new even if it feels better. I want to be honest but I’m being told that my memories aren’t being honest with me anyway. So at the end of the day…what feels fun to create? Do I have the guts to just go with that?

Today I fly to America. Let’s go get my journals out of my parents loft and see what “really” happened all those years ago…or did it? Even my journals will be full of “what I thought happened”. Haha blame all this on education about human perception… I’m reading books about the human brain and storytelling.

Love & Rainbows, Cha Wilde

Dear Friend, You Can Read 187 Pages

22 Sept 2023
Dear Friend,

I hit a milestone yesterday. I can officially hand you a stack of a 187 pages that you can read start to finish. Although there may be some little flaws and strings that need to be tightened, it will make sense as a story. You won’t be completely confused or lost. You will come with me on a little journey and be able to tell me what happened start to finish. This is a major victory for a woman who six and a half months ago only had dream of writing a book. And I have been writing a book since then so it is no longer just a dream. I have 900 pages of words. The whole bunch is a mess of pretty beads strung together on a weak and fraying string. It’s shoved together in chunks and parts could disappear or destroy the others. So my mission this month was the clean up the first part. The first 100-200 pages needed to be completed as a stand alone book. Part one or book one of a longer saga. I needed to simplify and give myself limits for my own sanity and to make actual progress towards finishing something. I could easily have kept writing until I drowned in an ocean of almost attached puzzle pieces. I was wise enough to realize I needed to choose something simple and doable to focus on. The first part of the book felt the least exciting to me. It gets juicier and more wild in the my imagination as the story unfolds. I also felt the first part of the book was more pin-down-able. It was more from my real life facts. I felt I could follow a trail of memories and just write them down. This is how I held my own hand through the process of learning how to write a book. Unsure where to start, I started with what I understood and what I could see clearly in front of me. My memories were showing themselves to me loud and clear. So I just wrote them down. Done. 187 pages of my memories with minimal embellishment. This is what happened, as I’ve told it before and as I would keep on telling it for generations…


Until today… 

I saved a copy of the original memory and I opened up a new document. My test today was to see if I could translate the original memory into a brand new fantasy. The written memory is the template for the story. Now I actually have a cohesive start to finish story and I can get wild with the details and the telling of it. I can’t even begin to tell you how uncomfortable it was for me to exist for months writing a book without knowing what story I was telling. I was just a well of water pouring and gushing with no sense of where the ocean was. I had to drain the words out with faith that they would go somewhere, find their own way. Some words, the first group of them, have successfully made it to the estuary! Before we send them out to sea, it’s time for me to polish them up into something I actually want to push out into the world. 

As an artist, this is a very enjoyable moment. I get to be on the edge of my seat with curiosity and discovery. I am watching something brand spanking new be born to life before my eyes today. With the pressure of figuring out the story lifted from my shoulders, now I get to play with words and just take this story and make it as fun as I possibly can. To translate this for my fellow musicians…

The song is written. We know the lyrics and the basic melody. We’ve chosen the key and the BPM. We have our core instruments ready to hold down the fort. Now, let’s play! What else can we add in to spice it up? What little trills and doodles can we toss around to liven it up. What if we swapped a word or two or changed the key mid-song. Now….now it’s getting really interesting. 

Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

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Dear Friend, I'm Sprinkling in Mermaid Clues

9.21.2023
Amed, Bali

Dear Friend,

I love writing. I’m having so much fun working on this book now. I’ve gone through some dark spells, you know. It was a rough start and a deep gully to survive through in the first “semester” or quarter or however we are measuring. I’d like to think I’m at the half way mark now. I’m flying down hill with daily practice. My eye watches the clock 7-10am is the designated writing time, followed by the writing of this letter of reflection, preceded by hours of tea-sipping, walking, meditation, stretching on a lacrosse ball, and waiting for the sun to show up so I can see the paper clearly enough to write on it. My last candle extinguished its own life this morning. I sat in darkness as the stars bowed out one by one.



I’m still listening to Persian instrumental music as I type this story. Today, I’m referring to the ever humorous poetry of Hafiz (see his book “The Gift” for my little droplets of inspiration). I’ve also been reading Inner Engineering by Sadhguru and Secrets of Divine Love by A. Helwa; both are keeping me inline with my spiritual practices as I delve into my imagination. Can I write from a place of deep wisdom? How much of my writing is purely ego? How many parts of myself are taking over to write this book? How Self led am I…actually? How Self led do I actually need to be in a project like this? As much as I want I suppose. The book becomes a blend of wonderfully ridiculous wordplay, joyfully sculpted highbrow communication of my philosophies, and raw expression for the purpose of healing what needs to be touched by the light. Oh look at me go…haha. What a simple joy to play with words. I can build an entire universe, construct an entirely new identify, and then destroy it all and build something new again. It’s madness on paper. This must be the feeling of God. Delightful. 


My heart was sparkling with joy as I leaned over the edge of the sailboat and peered into this turquoise water in Komodo National Park in Indonesia. — Sept 2023



The more I write, the more each letter becomes a color and each words takes on a shape. The sentences are movement and paragraphs are dances with many limbs. The whole book is an amalgamation of many art forms wrestling to have their way with me. 

Today was big. I reached the end of part 1. I now have a complete, almost complete, journey from start to the end of the first section of the story. Now my fun task for the rest of the day is to go through each sub-section and sprinkle in little clues. I have core themes that I needed to weave through the whole story so my strategy is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs, one little hint in each section.

Since I’m writing about mermaids, one of my themes is legs, feet, tails and fins. Can I somehow drop a mention of feet or fins on each page, subtle and artistic…little Easter eggs everywhere? This type of embellishing work is some of the most fun I have inside this writing project. I have no idea how it will translate to the reader or how effective it will be…maybe I’m walking down the wrong path and my feet are leading me astray (hehe)…well, at least I’m having a good time while I learn through my own mistakes. 


Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

Dear Friend, I'm Learning to Exaggerate Prose into Scene

9.15.2023
Amed, Bali

Dear Friend,

Today was a bit of a slog. The lines between memory and imagination were foggy. I’ve reached the moment in the novel where I reality is about to tip into fantasy and lacing these two realms together is the trick I need to find up my sleeve. 

The back of my head aches. At first I thought it was from hunger. Now I’m guessing I’ve spent too many hours staring at the computer screen this week and not enough laying on the beach with my face in the sand. Matcha green tea is keeping me company through the pages today. My progress this morning feels slow but still there is a steadiness in it. I know I can rely on myself to show up again tomorrow. 


The sun is hot outside and I’m about ready to close this laptop and go get a massage. The structure of my life supports deep work and allows for full rest. I’m also looking forward to my evening workout and yoga practice at sunset. These are the moments when I’m open to receive breakthroughs and genius ideas. Solutions come to me on the yoga mat that I would never be able to squeeze out onto the page if I just sat there staring at paper. 

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I am holding the story in my hands like a bunch of curious threads who are wondering what it will feel like to be tied together. They don’t know their fate and I can’t see their future. It’s scaring me just enough. I feel the power in my fingers to tell this story. I can make up anything I want. I can change who I was. I can transform something that still has not transformed. I can delete a character faster than I could kill a person. I can travel anywhere and do anything. I am god. It’s fun and terrifying to pull the trigger and make a story come to life. 

When I started writing this book I was stuck in writing prose. I only knew how to string beautiful words together like a speech. I had no grasp on how to write dialogue or paint a scene. I didn’t know which style or voice to use. I was stabbing around in the dark with every paragraph. Now, as I pull old pages out of the pile for review, I have a much clearer sense of what I’m doing. I read what I wrote four months ago and edit it so it fits. What started as a lofty dreamy monologue is sculpted into an elaborate moment between two people in a fantastical location. 


The game I’m playing with myself right now is exaggeration. How can I write so boldly that someone reading my work might tell me to pull back a bit? Where do I embellish? How do I take what happened and tug on pieces of it so it gets more intense and dramatic. How do I take us up to the edge so the risk increases in each moment? This is where it’s getting interesting for me, really interesting. 



How do I describe two people eating sushi in a way that makes you feel like you’re about to die? How do I describe someone dancing in public so you cringe with embarrassment for them? Which words do I use to trick you?

I’m using so much mental energy to write this story that there isn’t much left over for my other work. This project is teaching me to focus and to let go of whatever is non-essential. I feel the cutting sword of sacrifice and the reward of progress. I long to make music and dance around. I think of how much fun I have when I’m performing and teaching people yoga. I really love and enjoy those activities. Running a business is fun. Traveling is fun. Watching movies and playing games is fun. And all of that is patiently watching me sit at the desk in the cafe and type a book onto the screen. This work is deeply nourishing and worth the life changes. I’ve heard many times that writing a book is transformative and right now I sense I am in the thick of it. 


Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

Dear Friend, Do I Have the Guts to Change My Own Story?

9.9.23
Amed, Bali

Dear Reader,

I am trying to give myself permission to change. To take what I have written and twist into a new shape, a story I didn’t actually live that feels more fun than the reality. My reality was fun for me so this challenge scares me. To tell the story in a way that changes everything into something completely new. I feel so attached to my story and the way it came through for me originally. I remember though that we have creative memories. I don’t remember what actually happened accurately anyway. I’ve written down what I’ve recited to myself secretly for years. Why not change it now for the dramatic effect, for the play of imagination.

Do I have the guts to change my own story? Do I have the courage to let go of my own memories? I feel the rush of excitement thinking of this. My stomach is tight and my heart beats louder. I gulp in the throat and my mind buzzes with possibilities. I reminds me of sex. I know how to surrender into a puddle of pleasure. Where do I reach inside myself to find the commanding power to take the reins and steer the situation with my own will? I am the captain. I am the one who decides and determines what happens next. I have ultimate power. I am god before the blank page. I am the sculptor with a chisel in my hand, staring into a piece of marble that is 900 pages thick. What do I need to let go of so this can become what it needs to be? I am scared to act and I must act. 

Ask me, what is my book about?
What will be my answer today? If I let you read through my draft you would drown in chaos.


A woman who is seduced by a man who helps her break free from her inhibitions.
The man betrays her and she is heartbroken.
She runs away to the ocean, longing to be healed by a mystical adventure.
The woman drowns in the ocean and is rescued by a ship full of magical women who teach her how to love again.


I also have the ship loaded with anti-man boobytraps. I have wild beasts flying out of a pit in the desert. Stars hold onto people’s wishes and the final wish that weighs them down too much is the cause for falling stars which land in the ocean and become mermaids. This is all legend and lore, original stories tangled with imagined futures, and  embellished memories that feel like raw truths. 


I sit in the cafe today for hours and hours. I’m editing and cleaning up the writing. Great progress today. I’m feeling more willing to just keep going. Friends file in and sit around me at the big table. I’m finally blending into the community in Amed. Headphones come off and the book sits patiently on the table while we dive into deep conversations. We’re all freediving, yogis, interested in living a peaceful intentional life. We share honestly and laugh loudly. When the coffee is gone, everyone grabs their fins and waves goodbye. I’ll see them later this afternoon at the gym and then again tonight for the cheesecake tasting. This small town life feels like the best kind of summer camp; friends and food and fun activities all day long, everyday, forever…until the volcano explodes or Amed turns into a big city or we all move away or die. Such is life. Right now I’m in a season of wonderful. 

Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde


Dear Friend, Cringing at How I Used to Be

9.10.2023
Amed, Bali
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Dear Friend,

Three hours of writing each morning this week and I’m sweeping through the early pages of the novel with a broom and a needle, cleaning it up and tying loose ends together. I cringe a lot when I’m reading what I wrote so many months ago. I write differently now, better. My mindset has drastically improved. My outlook on my relationships has dramatically evolved….dramatically, through the act of writing drama I have somehow, miraculously though not surprisingly, moved through my own drama and trauma.


When I wrote these pages earlier this year I was so charged with violent emotions, parts of me demanding my attention, whining, screaming, distracting, avoiding. I longed to tell this story. I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to get it out of me and out there into the world. I wanted to be seen and understood and over it already.


When I read them now, I feel like I’m reading an old diary from a younger woman. I am I suppose. A younger version of me wrote a story that an even younger version of me lived. Reading it, I feel so intimate and personal, vulnerable and real and yet it’s also distant, foreign and almost silly to me now. I can measure my own growth and evolution on the pages I’ve filled over time.


As I edit I try not to think about my family reading this book. A writer friend told me to pretend my parents are dead…when I’m at the writing desk. If I try to protect people or hide from them, the truth can’t come out into the page and the truth needs to be touched by the light. We can edit it thoughtfully later.


The pages I’m reviewing this week are recounting the way I met and fell in love with my second husband. It’s a scandalous escapade wrought with anxiety, insecurity, lust, and break throughs. The summer of 2015 was a turning point in my life. I decided to taste life as a bad girl. I took off my clothes, swam naked, kissed strangers, sang on stage, told lies, broke hearts, turned my back on my family, found a new one, and flew head first into a wild fantasy.


I’m chomping at the bit to write the stories of my most recently lived experiences, stories inspired by sailboats and Balinese culture, stories of my life in Asia and stories about my relationship with art as it is now, more healthy and peaceful. I am writing down these new stories and someday all the stories old and new will weave together neatly…somehow. I’ll find a way to tie what happened before to what is happening now and what I am imagining is happening in a different realm.

My playtime is writing from imagination. My discipline is writing down these old stories that feel the weight of reality. I’m excited to play with words in clever ways that lighten the burdens of reality and ground the fantasy in truth.


My heart still sings and new songs are eager to burst to life through me. I’m writing my songs into the novel as I write my way back to the stage. I’ve grown accustomed to writing pages and pages of fiction everyday that now writing a simple song seems challenging again. I remember when I began this novel project that it was easier to write a song than a long format story. The tables have turned.


Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

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Dear Friend, Have I Written Too Much?

9.7.2023
Amed, Bali

Dear Friend,

I have reached a moment of stalled reflection.


I’ve invented a world. I have many characters and their individual plot lines. I have multiple realms side by side and I’m wondering if they are meant to be separate or intertwined. I’m slowly reading through one page at a time, patience patience patience. I am eager to write more words on fresh pages and my discipline now is to sit with one page and study it. Why did I write these words? Can I delete them? Do I still need them to exist in the word? What has this story become along the way? Can I remember why I started telling this story and do I have the courage to surrender to wherever it’s going now? I feel like a passenger on this creative journey and I am also the captain. 

I’ve written the story in many different voices from different perspectives. Reading back now I observe which personas, which narrators make me pay attention and feel. Which words do I skim through and which do I savor? Which feel most vulnerable and which are most beautiful? Do I feel proud to publish these words or do I cringe? This is where I am now. 

Sunset on sailboat beside Sotonda Island in the West Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. It is off the north coast of Sumbawa island.


This month of September 2023 is dedicated to reviewing the writing I’ve created in the past six months and my mission is to clean it up into a draft I can actually hand over, rough but somewhat complete. A rough draft of a story I can read from start to finish on the airplane to America. Exciting announcement…I’m traveling to America for the month of October.

I’m traveling across the world because I need access to my library of personal journals from which I will draw direct quotes for the novel. I will back them up as well for future reference and digital versions I can take with me anywhere I travel. Also backing them up in the event a disaster destroys the paper copies. I’m also visiting my writing coach, my book doula, my therapist and friend who helped me begin this project and now I desire to sit with her in person as the project turns past the half way point. I am also going to attend the IFS conference in Denver to refresh my connection with this therapy model, this lens through which I’ve viewed life, this approach to the inner world that I’m using as a main tool in the writing of this book. 

The book has been a creative exploration of my many parts, turning different parts of myself into characters in a story. This is IFS in practice. I’m looking forward to being with the IFS community in person and attending workshops that will deepen my understanding of the theory and practice behind the method I’m applying to my own life and art forms. 

Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde