Work In Progress

by Elle Maxwell

Unknown Binding

About the author

When I was twelve, after spending four years in a special class for gifted children and after winning the highest award for academic excellence in that class, I wanted to be: a secretary, a teacher, a farmer, and an artist. I have no idea why!

I achieved those dreams in varying degrees, and in that order. Just think, if I had wanted to be a talk show host, a media mogul, and an iconic success who overcame a disadvantaged childhood, you might have heard of me by now!

My best friend in that class wrote her first full-length novel when she was ten. In the darkness cast by that friend's shadow, I thought I couldn't write. I recall how aggrieved my friend was when I won a writing contest and read my story to the class. At that time, we both thought my talents lay in visual arts.

As a teenager, I wanted to be a fashion designer, but the only fashion design schools were in New York and Paris, not in Western Canada where I was growing up. I applied to the Traphagen School in New York and was accepted. Because I needed to earn the tuition fees and living expenses myself, I went to college and took a "Secretarial Science" course in order to get a higher paying job. Someone should have told me I'd make more money as a waitress. And I never discovered what "science" secretarial work entailed. Were all bosses bacteria? None of mine were!

I never made it to New York to study fashion, but I designed and sewed my own clothes and made a one-off collection to help a friend stock his store. My collection sold so quickly that I could have made more, but it didn't pay well and I had that Western Canada problem. This was long before the Project Runway shows gave amateurs a forum.
In my early twenties, a spiritual quest claimed me, and I spent time in a Zen monastery. Before arriving at the monastery, one evening in my home I experienced Kensho - enlightenment. I became the essence of what human beings really are, not what our sense organs and mental processes reflect back to us.
Because of that experience, when I was at the monastery I could answer all the Zen master's koans (theoretical riddles). Of course, it helped that one of the first koans he set for me was, "How do you wash the rice without wetting your hands?" During my enlightened state, I had washed my face, and I understood how to answer. However, I never regained that exact Kensho experience but returned to my usual state of perception.

In my mid-twenties, I was guided to the ashram of an Indian guru and finally found a way to enjoy true and lasting inner fulfillment. I also received lucid answers to all my important questions.

By that time, it was evident that spiritual awareness and spiritual truths came easily to me. But I recognized that the material world - despite its underlying confluence with the spiritual world - presented me with my greatest challenges.

And so I fostered my career, took courses in night school, and eventually secured a position teaching in a community college. I continued to teach fulltime in colleges until I radically changed my life to become a writer.

I allude to many of my life experiences in my books to make them feel real, but the characters are fictional, as are the events.

I am married to a unique and special man whose amazing qualities and gut-busting sense of humor keep me entertained, even in difficult times. I am a privileged Mother to one perfect son.

I hope to join you, my readers, on this marvelous journey of life, knowing that your thoughts and insights are as important as mine. Each human being creates his or her own universe. Welcome to mine!