One of my overarching goals with my business is to be location-independent, meaning that I am not tethered to a particular place or desk, but rather I can roam the world (that’s on hold for a bit right now) and still serve my clients with the professionalism they expect.

If you want to be able to live and work from anywhere, or even if you are content to stay in one place but want to prosper and give back to the world in a way that a traditional job doesn’t allow you to do, you need to create an online business, your own business that you can run from your laptop, anywhere in the world.

Whether you are thinking about starting, or have established an online business, you need to build that business via the dreaded *M* word: Marketing.

The idea of marketing can send shivers up even the most intrepid businessperson’s spine. Enter Marie Forleo’s online business and marketing program, RHH B-School. I signed up for this program two years ago and it was the best thing I have ever done for my business, bar none.

RHH B-School helped me fine-tune my business and develop better relationships with my clients, and I am still learning from and building on everything presented in B-School.

Through B-School, I’m part of an incredible community of women entrepreneurs that offers me support, guidance, and wisdom, and RHH B-School has  led me to new clients and new partnerships such as the one I now have with my business partner and editor extraordinaire, Amy Scott.

I’m sharing this with you because it’s B-School time again, and this is your chance to get in on an incredible program that will catapult your online business from nascent (or just an idea) to full-fledged rockin’ success!

Registration for B-School is LIVE and Amy Scott and I are offering a special deal for those who sign up for B-School through us. If you’re looking for support and community to keep moving forward with your writing projects, our new online writing group is what you’ve been looking for! If you sign up for Marie Forleo’s B-School through our link (affiliate), we will enroll you in our new community, The Merry Inksters, for 6 months—free!

* “RHH” stands for Rich, Happy & Hot. Yes, that made me gag when I first heard that, but now that I know what Marie stands for, that this is much more than what it sounds like on the surface (and this is part of the “dirty little secret” she talks about in video 2. It’s about having a RICH, full life that makes you insanely HAPPY, and rocking a HOT online business that everyone’s dying to know more about. Sounds pretty good, right? Check out the videos and you’ll see what I mean. Marie is straight, no chaser—she does not mince words, she’s funny, and tells it like it is—you will love her and this program, I promise.

(Amy and I are affiliates for Marie Forleo’s RHH B-School. We will receive a commission if you sign up through our link, and we’d love it if you did! We only recommend things we truly stand behind and B-School is one of those programs.)

The stories you tell yourself about security, prestige, and company loyalty seem so phony. That’s because they are.

You are the only one who will care about your future and your now. You are the only one who will wholeheartedly invest in Y.O.U. You deserve and want more than a job—you want a way of life that fulfills you, allows you to play to your strengths, and doesn’t require you to do those stupid Ropes courses one weekend a year in an attempt to foster team work and corporate bonding.

If you have spent any time on the Internet, and have a passion for living and independent life on your own terms, then you likely know my friend Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Nonconformity blog and his first book by the same name. And if you don’t know who Chris is, then perhaps you come down from your mountain cave and find out.

Chris is a dynamo. The man has visited over 175 countries and will complete his goal of visiting all the nations on our fair planet by the time he is 35, which means he’s got one year to complete the task. When he is not globetrotting, he is putting on the World Domination Summit, for creatives of all stripes, to take place in Portland again this year or writing bestselling books like his latest, The $100 Startup.

The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future

The $100 Startup is subtitled Reinvent the Way you Make a Living, Do What you Love, and Create a New Future, and he’s not kidding. The book is practical, a road map—classic Chris all the way. Chris is known for doling out no-nonsense advice and perspective living a life of meaning, adventure, and service. In The $100 Startup, Chris shows you, through stories of others who have stepped off the corporate-go-round, that it is possible to start now, today, without a degree, heaps of cash, or special skills to start a business that feeds your passion and allows you to share with a world that is waiting for your expertise.

The valuable lessons that Chris shares, both of his own life’s journey and that of the 50 individuals profiled in the book, are actionable—you can craft a plan as you read, and implement as you go.

Let’s face it: the economy has changed forever. For better or worse, it is a new game. Learn to thrive in the new economy by starting your own $100 Startup business. Whether you are an employee looking for a side gig, or recently unemployed, The $100 Startup has something for you.

[I am giving away a copy of Chris Guillebeau's new book, The $100 Startup. All you need to do is to comment on this post and tell me what business you'd start today if money, time, or your fears were not holding you back. I will select a winner on Tuesday, May 22nd after 5pm PDT]

As a regular columnist, I have barely missed an issue (apologies to my editor, Deb Smouse, for the few I have missed).

All Things Girl is an online magazine that hosts an international choir of women’s voices: writers, artists, etc. The talent featured is rich; articles and features thought-provoking.

Much of my writing, in case you’ve either forgotten or just discovered me (hello!), tends toward the topics of relationships+life transitions+culture+travel and living life on my (your) own damn terms. Decluttering, living+loving small spaces, and the intentional life figure prominently in my work and my recent column is no exception.

So, from the latest issue of All Things Girl, here is an excerpt of The Art of Decluttering:

Spring is firmly upon us; a season’s whose appearance I welcome as I thaw out from the frigid San Diego cold. All right, all right, pipe down Chicago and Belarus, I am kidding about the San Diego cold, but I do so love spring. Tiny, tender shoots of chickweed push their little green plant selves up through cracks in the sidewalk while the birds make their appearance with a bit more robust song.

Yes, spring is the season to take risks, shake off the winter layers, and push up boldly through the cracks. And a part of shaking off the layers is my de-cluttering ritual. This ritual is no mere spring-cleaning thing. No dust-a-few-ugly-collectibles sissy sort of cleaning. No, this is serious get-the-detritus-out-of-my-life kind of cleaning that I call the spring purge. I am an unforgiving mistress when it comes to weeding out my humble abode. Anything that sits around too long unused, or even looks at me funny, gets the boot.

As a self-professed intentionalist, kind of like a minimalist with keen aesthetic sensibilities and a love of good quality things, I keep my possessions to a minimum. But for some reason, winter seems to be the season of accumulation for me, as if I were preparing for a long hibernation designed to help me endure the bitter cold southern Californian clime.

So, as spring starts sneaking in around the edges of February (yes, it happens a bit earlier here), I feel compelled to slough off the elements of my material world and pare down to the essentials. This shedding, like the snake’s skin, mirrors the progression of the seasons.

Read the rest of it here, and please leave a comment. What do you do to usher in the new season and clear out the crap that threatens to consume your space—both physical and psychic?

How do you pare down?

What’s your ritual?

If you liked it, I’d love for you to share it on Facebook, Twitter, G+, or whatever new platform was developed while I was sleeping. Use those snazzy share buttons below to make it so!

You don’t need to be a master researcher to turn up lots of writing advice if you’re looking to hone your craft.

A quick search of the Web or your local bookstore will reveal numerous articles, books, and manuals on how to be a better, quicker, or more successful writer. All of these strategies and techniques, some more helpful than others, require a sharp brain, some creativity, and the energy to see a project to completion.

Many tips offer cures for writer’s block or how to create believable dialogue, but an area often neglected is how to optimize the writer, not just the writing.

Writing, while a hobby for some, is a vocational aspiration for many. But to get to professional status, you’ll need more than superior writing chops and a few connections; you’ll need to be physically sharp as well.

Keeping your body and your psyche in fine working order will help to prevent burnout while making the writing process more enjoyable. With that in mind, here are some tips to keep you in tip-top shape:

• This may be obvious, but begin your day with breakfast. Start with a cup of green or white tea; it’s loaded with anti-oxidants and tastes great, too. Enjoy with a piece of fruit and a bowl of quinoa with a spoon of almond butter stirred in. This protein- and nutrient-rich breakfast is easy to fix and a body-friendly departure from the coffee and pastry habit you’ve developed.

• Get outside! Stepping away from the computer screen is sometimes the best thing you can do to move along a stalled paragraph, even if it’s just a walk around the block. Moving the body moves the blood, thus feeding the brain with vital oxygen needed to churn out that bestseller.

• Observe the world around you. While you are on a walk, look around for things you’d normally overlook. How many cats are sunning on porches? When did your neighbor paint her front door hot pink? Taking off the blinders allows your mind to expand and opens you up to new ideas for writing and living.

• Breathe. Most of us breathe short, shallow breaths that don’t fill our lungs. It’s important to inhale deeply, expanding your belly as you take in air, exhaling fully as your belly moves back toward your spine. The best way to re-learn how to breathe is to take a yoga class.

• Sleep. Get lots of it. The average overworked American gets only 6 hours sleep, but many experts agree that adults need 7 to 9 hours to feel rested. Some tips for a good night’s sleep: No caffeine 4 to 6 hours before bedtime, keep your bedroom dark and cool, and don’t use the bedroom for anything but sleep and sex. If you must nap during the day, do it before 3 pm and for no longer than one hour.

Try these tips to keep your body healthy and mind agile. Remember, writing is a discipline: to succeed, you have to practice!

(These tips are a part of The Un-process, An Alternative Guide to Writing, that I am creating. Stay tuned for more or drop me a line at shanna@shannatrenholm.com if you’d like support in this area).

We back each other, and we bash each other. The extreme dichotomy between these opposing positions seems to show up in all areas of our lives. And lest you think this post is for women only, it’s not. So keep reading, lads and lasses.

Misogyny, I’m sensitive to this. Defined as the hatred of women, misogyny, I’m noticing a lot of it lately. Not that this is anything new, it’s been standard operating procedure for much of what of Madison Avenue, the Hollywood machine, and Seventh Avenue spews forth, but the issue seems to be surfacing with increasing venom.

There’s a back and forth argument out there in the world wide web-o-sphere that looks like this or this . One camp touts the beauty of the ultra-slim runway model, and the other camp is in favor of the voluptuous form that Marilyn Monroe embodied.

You know, curvy is hotter than stick-thin, or stick-thin is so much prettier than fat (and fire her if she puffs up to a size 8, or size 4). Arguing about which body type is better or hotter, often under the guise of health (a related, yet separate issue), is polarizing women, pitting them against one another.

Women (and men) engaged in bashing women who don’t adhere to a body type that conforms to the fascist standards-du-jour perpetuate the myth that women’s worth is measured by her outward beauty; that a woman’s self-esteem should be derived from the reflection in her mirror.

Externally imposed ideals are impossible to uphold—whether the pressure is to morph our bodies into the airbrushed, ultra-thin type that stares back at us from Vogue or into the curvy Bettie Page body shape—the damage is still the same: women at war with one another and themselves for failing to fit into a false and dangerous norm.

I know a woman who is very thin. Her entire family has the same build—athletic, runner types. She had an eating disorder in her college days (even she felt fat), but that was many years ago. By the time I met her, this woman had a hearty appetite and no food issues. Sadly, women would come up to her at work and ask her if she was anorexic. To her face. As if asking her what shade of lipstick she was wearing, except with disdain in their voices. I worked with her for a few months and witnessed this on several occasions.

So, this body bashing needs to stop. And yes, health issues: obesity, anorexia, body dysmorphia, etc. are epidemic. We are an overweight culture, we make poor food choices, or we over-exercise and count every calorie within a 3-mile radius of our lips, but all this makes me wonder: without the emphasis on body-as-cultural-currency, would we have half the food- and health-related issues that we do? What do you think?

Walking down the street, wearing your favorite green high-tops

You see none of this. Vaguely aware that you did pass the homeless person (he asked you for spare change), but you couldn’t pick him out in a line-up. Never mind the birds and the nascent rose blossoms, you couldn’t pick them out, either (good thing birds and roses don’t suffer the humiliation of police line-ups).

No, you didn’t see the birds or the roses or the lady with the yellow hat (lady with the yellow hat?) because you are busy. Busy-busy! As you continue along your trajectory, serious and focused, your friend, a woman you haven’t seen in forever, comes out of the coffee shop and lands right in front of you. You stop, pause, and feel irritated that this woman slowed your roll, but then recognition kicks in and you realize that it’s Susie.

Susie, Hi! You exclaim (note exclamation mark for veracity of statement). Susie asks you how you’ve been and you reply, the same way you always do when asked this question, busy. I’m really busy.

Ah, busy, so important-sounding, such a modern affliction. If I had a penny for every time I asked someone how they were doing and they replied, “busy” well, I’d have a fistful of pennies.

What is it about busy? Why are we so freaking busy? Yes, I know all about the day-to-day pressures, things to be done, and read, and watched and eaten and ad infinitum, but do you ever stop to wonder why busy has become our, your, buzzword? Why, when someone wants to know HOW you are, and instead of replying sad, happy, grateful, you blurt out busy?

Busy is the veil we are afraid to lift for fear we will have to actually take the pulse of our life. If we stopped long enough from our busy, we might have to consider our jobs, our relationships, or the way we live. Does your relationship feed you; do you feel like you are loved and the beloved? Your job, it pays well, ok, maybe not even that, but hey, you have benefits, right? And you feel like you die a little bit each day you head off to work, don’t you?

I challenge you to lift the veil of busy, even if just to peek out a bit and notice what you might be hiding from with all that activity. Sit quietly, meditate, assess your one all-to-brief life and ask yourself if this is the way you want to be doing it. Is it fulfilling? Do you feel intimate with the idea of joy? Are you doing work that you love? Or are you just…busy?

I am posting this amazing offer as an affiliate of the Unconventional Guides, Chris Guillebeau’s informative and action-oriented guides for travel, self-employment, and now publishing. With the success of his blog, The Art of Non-Conformity, and equally successful book by the same name, his Unconventional Guide to Publishing is bound to be a hit.

There are few products that I love, fewer still that I am an affiliate* for, and, well, only one person (Chris) that I would give up precious blog space for. Chris has high standards of excellence and I heartily endorse his stellar guides. Chris is a good friend, and I believe in what he does. So rest assured, I would not recommend anything that I wouldn’t want my own mother to buy (hey, maybe she wants to write a book?).

Additional info. from Chris’ Sales Page:

You’ll Learn:

• Sample query letters and a sample agent + author contract
• How to find an agent (and why you need one)
• How to craft a strong proposal that will get editors excited
• Questions to ask when considering an offer
• The three clauses in every book contract you should pay close attention to (Warning: if you miss these, you’ll regret it later)
• Everything about money—advances, royalties, foreign rights, auctions and more

Chris is offering some special perks to buyers who purchase the guide between now and Friday, 1/13 at midnight PST. These cool extras are:

1. 25% Discount on the $129 tier (discount price: $97).
2. Extended Q&A conference call with David Fugate, veteran literary agent and author of the guide
3. Personal review of the buyer’s community-building plan with Chris Guillebeau

 *As an affiliate, I do make some $ if you buy from my link. No pressure either way (but it does support my chai latte habit, and for that, and to you, I am grateful).

Yesterday I awoke with a start, the mid-morning light

The delightful aroma of chocolate and butter, two of the most amazing elements on the planet, filled my apartment making my stomach grumble as I slipped into the kitchen to start a pot of tea.

I still haven’t gotten used to the fact that I can smell pain au chocolat from the boulangerie across the street while I float in early morning sleep.

My tiny 6th floor flat in a stately but worn eighteen-century building in the 6th arrondissement has everything I need and love: a cozy fireplace, sitting room with huge windows, a simple, but sunny kitchen; and an amazing bedroom with a claw foot tub under one window. I could easily stay in all day, enjoying the play between light and shadow as the morning turns to afternoon turns to dusk. Instead, I have a painting class in an hour and that bakery across the street has a croissant with my name on it.

Lost in reverie as I dress and consider my good fortune, an unwelcome intrusion imposes on my perfect Paris day. I wake up. For real. In my bed in San Diego. The incongruity of it all shocks me conscious. No smell of chocolate, no bakery across the street, no painting class to attend.

Now don’t misunderstand me, San Diego is a fine place, but it’s not Paris. Or Mexico. Or Argentina. Or Croatia. Or any number of foreign locales that get my wanderlust flowing. And while I don’t have a pied-à-terre in Paris, or any other town for that matter, that doesn’t keep my vivid dreams from insinuating themselves into my somewhat average life. I dream in color. I dream in adventure. I dream expatriate. I dream of zipping from continent to continent, touching down for a few months at home, only to jet off to another home—just one of a few scattered about the globe like crumbs along my path.

I am afflicted, in equal parts, with wanderlust and the opposing need for rootedness, for a sense of home. Like the Pushme-Pullyu, Dr. Doolittle’s fictional two-headed llama, I am torn by the leave or stay dilemma, a situation that makes my life a moving target. Just as I figure out a new neighborhood or town, and I get my home set up and infused with the things that make it mine, I am ready to shove off again for another town.

More compelling than the itch to travel is my desire to move to another country. To be foreign, a stranger, the other.

I love the challenge and the sensation of being in an unfamiliar country forced to use all my faculties and abilities to navigate curious streets and colorful maps while steering clear of creepy areas and food that doesn’t agree with me. To wake up in Paris or Prague and sip a strong coffee from the corner bar in my adopted, regardless of how brief, neighborhood gives me joy beyond compare.

Lately, these travel scenarios have become a mainstay of my nightly dreams and my daily musings. It’s a sign that I need to get out and unfold my wings. It’s been far too long since I have left the comfort of my country and done something other than work. I think 2008 will be a year of new adventures, carbon footprint be damned. And who knows, perhaps I’ll come across my dream country—a place I can truly call home.

[This piece was originally published in All Things Girl, Dec. 2007]

Sit down within the space of a few quiet moments or hours; think about what you want your life to look like in February and May and November. Jot it all down in ink to make it stick. Approach 2012 the same way you would any list. Decide what you want to accomplish, write it down, and make it so.

But, wait! Screech! Reverse!

Your life is not a friggin’ to-do list of tasks and goals. Your life at its most rich and rewarding is an organic journey, an opportunity to nurture your whims, a path without a destination to travel. In fact, life lived as it unfolds–without so damn much exertion–is a life to consider, and one that I suggest you try. Instead of striving for resolution, I propose evolution. Resolve to evolve. Be, rather than do.

Instead of front-loading a bunch of crap onto your days, as if you are a walking carbon checklist, perhaps you might try building in some room for rumination, some time for tinkering, and some space for spacing out. Yes, I am suggesting that you spend at least some of your days in 2012 without a plan! Crazy-talk to some of you, I know, but consider this your opportunity, a big shiny permission slip, to live without constraint—even if it’s just occasionally. Don’t worry, your list will still be there if you want it.

What, you wonder, would that look like? How would you spend your time? Maybe you aren’t even sure what you want to do with your life. No, not what you think you should want, but what you really want to do. I am not anti-goal-setting, I think goals, like anything, are best if approached without fanaticism. Feverish pursuit of the future blinds us to the gorgeous-sexy-goodness of the now.

And lest you think that I think you are independently wealthy and don’t need to work to pay the bills, I don’t. Most of us do need to work to sustain ourselves, and often there is little flexibility within our workday, especially when working for others. But the remaining hours of the day, at least eight of them, after you knock off the other eight with good quality sleep, can be yours. Yes, they can. You get to decide (unless you are a 6-year-old reading this, then I suggest you go outside and play, but ask your mother first) how to use them.

Consider: How much time do you squander away in front of the telly? Arguing? Gossiping? Shopping for crap you don’t need? Comparing yourself and your success (or lack thereof) to that of others? If you engage in even one of these activities throughout your week, you could free up at least a few hours (or more) if you just stop it. Now.

A new year gives us a point of reference for a new start. Each hour is a new hour. Each day is a chance to start fresh. How are you going to evolve in 2012? How will you get closer to living your life authentic?