Love the look and the feel of this book. It’s a different shape from any of my others — “small square,” per the folks at Lulu.com, where it is beautifully printed. Fits just right in the outside pocket of my favorite purses, with the title showing bright and clear.

Writing the pieces that became Dream Repair Shop was heartfelt pleasure. Putting them together into a working manuscript was fun.

The most fun, though, is hearing someone say, “Wow! I can’t believe you wrote exactly what I needed to be thinking!” Makes it totally worthwhile to know these words are useful to other people, nudging them perhaps in the direction of their own dreams for their lives.

Starting with “Dream Stealers” and wandering through a total of 51 pieces related to dreams of life as it is, as it is not, and as it surely will be, including “Turtle Motion,” “Wings,” “Letter to a Son,” “Intentional Schizophrenia,” “Tarnished Pride,” and “Dream Repair Shop” on the way to “Never Forget,” this is a book to read a little at a time. Let that bit settle, think on it (or not), and then read another piece.

Each one is my favorite at the moment I’m reading it, so here’s a short excerpt from one of those favorites, “(R)evolving Door”:

Am I open that the world may see the person I know as me?
Am I closed from the exhaustion of not being those other persons seen
by my family and neighbors?
By those who would and would not have me work for them?
By those who would fix me and by my supporters?
By those I love and support?
By those I love yet don’t even know?
By those who have read a few of my words
and believe those few tell all I am?
By those who cannot understand that I am truly alive
even when they are not with me?

[continued]

Thanks to all who have eased the process of moving my words from handwritten pages to this bright, shiny book.  I hope each of you who is reading these words has as much joy in your life today as I have while holding this stack of copies of Dream Repair Shop.

Cheers!

Chas

p.s. We have moved to a new Web site, http://chashotbooks.com — please check it out!

Not many have ever accused me of being a patient person. While waiting for reviews and comments for the Dream Repair Shop cover and interior, patience has become a new habit.

The payoff is in the joy of words such as these:

“Dream Repair Shop is a book to be savored, not rushed. I would find myself reading one poem or story and laying the book aside to think what I had just read through and try to apply it to where and who I am today. It’s truly a thought-provoking book and I feel the author in every page. Chas really, really poured her heart out for all the world to see in this one.”  — [Carol Cleckler, retired and traveling, living a dream]

“I love this book! As an author, Chas again is enchanting, creative, witty, and thought-provoking.  Dream Repair Shop will speak to the heart of some and the soul of others.”  — [Gale Jackson, Motivational Speaker]

This is the week to choose among the available blurbs and send the file off to the printer. Then to wait (thank goodness I never learned to bite my nails!) for the proofs – practicing my new talent, patience, yet again.

While waiting, need to put this new book on my Web site and start re-installing ordering links. Plus, in the rest of my so-called spare time, I’m going to choose between the three other books ready to edit so the next one will be handy when I have time to get started “bleeding” on it.

Saving the world and creating peace for all will have to depend on others this month, although I’m happy to offer moral support and appreciation.

Cheers!

Chas

Do you ever feel as though your dreams have stalled somewhere out among the stars, leaving you stranded here on Earth waiting for them to show up? Have you wondered why your heart beats faster just thinking about what you’re going to be doing, and then wondered when you’ll get to actually live your dream?

Dream Repair Shop, my new book, is for you, a collection of poems, essays and tidbits that grew out of my own dreams and their repairs. Out of what I saw easing other people into their dreams.

Two and half years after publication of The Turnip Mercedes and Other Tasty Tales, I’m doing the final layout of Dream Repair Shop, Balm for Hearts, Souls and Funny-bones. Stay tuned for the publication date, either late April or early May.

I’ve long dreamed of publishing one item per month for a year, whether book, poem, song, or greeting card. Will this be the year? I’m not sure, but I know this is the first of a new string of publications. The dam has broken. The dream lives!

I’m happy to be back, to have good news to share with you. Get your dreams out, dust them off, and check to be sure they’re ready to go. Then fly!

You’ll recognize me among the clouds, the one with the biggest smile and a new book clutched to her heart!

Cheers!
Chas