Goddess of the Week: Sara Beth

Exciting news.  My blog friend Joanne DeMaio (you hear her often in the comments) has just published a novel called Whole Latte Life.  I asked her if she wouldn't mind taking on goddess duty so we could find out about it.  Take it away, Joanne:

If my novel’s main character were to call upon a goddess, she’d need a goddess of reinvention.  Throughout Whole Latte Life, Sara Beth faces moments when she has to begin again … .Whether it’s with her marriage, or repairing a friendship, or finally living the life she loves, beginnings play a pivotal part of the story, right through to the end.

And what I learned writing this book is that beginnings play a part in all of our lives.  Because a surprising twist came in my own as the novel took shape, in that I saw myself develop on the page.  Without realizing it, I was writing a little of my own journey … of my desire to become someone new.

So I worked on that story, following the writing rule to write what you know.  I incorporated what I knew about trying to become the person I wanted to be.  And then I upped the ante.  I stretched that rule.  I challenged the boundary.  Ultimately, I wrote a new rule.

Through Sara Beth, I decided to write what you dream.  Write what you wonder.  Write what you desire and crave and long for.  Sara Beth became the vehicle through which I learned to reinvent myself as an author.  When she bravely started living her choice life, so did I.  Because of her, I now have a book published.

Like a Finnegan goddess, Sara Beth taught me, in my own words.  Her triumphs motivated me to find my triumphs.  She found a way around the challenges and obstacles, and so did I.  In writing about a character’s dream, her story moved me further along on my own author dream. 

So, I’m introducing a new goddess here at Finnegan Begin Again.  Sara Beth is the goddess of reinvention, of beginning again.  From walking out of her life, to tossing her wedding rings into the Hudson River, to getting herself kidnapped, this is one goddess who reminds us that though the path is winding, we can find ourselves somewhere, somehow, among motherhood and womanhood and the journey of life.

Channel Sara Beth when you’ve decided it’s time to live your dream.  To live what you wonder, even in some small way. 

Thanks Margaret for having me here today, along with my guest-goddess of reinvention … Coffee cheers to a latte life!


(Margaret here.  I have already downloaded Joanne's book, which is available both digitally and in print.  Learn more about Whole Latte Life at Joanne's Amazon page and the book's website.  Also, check out Joanne's Whole Latte Life blog.  It's very inspiring.)