The Entrepreneurial Mindset

Before we begin, let's recite the working artist's prayer: Grant me the serenity to accept that I do some creative work for money, the courage to make art I don’t sell, and the wisdom to know the difference. -Ann Friedman

 

age 17, high school grad photo

I am supposed to give a talk this week about being an entrepreneur (a word I would usually misspell... but it's an impressive word, don't you think?)

Here is a brief condensed background on how I learned to work and get paid:

Like many kids, my first paying job was babysitter for neighbors, family and one of my grade school teachers.  I'm not sure I got paid when I sold bingo cards one night a week at the Catholic Church in Superior, Wisconsin.  That same church asked me to run a daycare during Sunday mass so parents would leave their kids with me.  In high school I worked part-time at City Market, a grocery store, stocking shelves and cashiering. 

It's not always glamorous what we do to make money.  But it's how we decide our future....

I started college when I was still in high school so I had more than one work-study job to help cover the costs of tuition.  Off campus, I was a waitress at a local eatery Kings Inn. (My boss was Greek and I loved how he gave me a free meal every shift). 

It's true I have had a job of some kind since I was 12.  I don't remember getting an allowance from my adoptive parents Edie and Sev, and both worked full-time. (Maybe I did earn a few bucks but they always bought us new clothes for school, church and holidays.)

Early I learned to work hard and joyfully, so you can experience people.  And remember: "Be good at whatever job you get."

My first gift store was l’quix fix, when I was 30.  My last store was ZOOLOOZ in Old Town (located in the New Market Theatre in Portland, Oregon) (1986-1990).  I worked seven days a week.  And yes, it was tiring, fun and exciting!

 

WHAT ABOUT WRITING?

When my dog was hit and killed by a car, I decided to write about his death in a spiral notebook, as a way to process what I was feeling.  Maybe I was 10 or 11.  I realized then that keeping a journal was good for me, like therapy,  and some of what came out was poetry, too.  No one told me to do it... I just did.  And it never stopped. 

One big thing I noticed when I was working on my memoir ONE SMALL SACRIFICE was this: use a notebook, pen and paper, and write a draft by hand. (I would get up at 4:30 am and sit at the dining room table.)  The connection of heart to hand really works. (If it's really hard to write about: I used hard labor, manual labor, like installing mosaic tile in my bathtub.  Sometimes remembering the past and processing is mental work, so you'll need a physical release.) 

Another huge thing a writer needs is practice.  When I was living in Rockaway, Oregon for a year in 1994-5, I bought a used copy of THE ARTISTS WAY, by Julia Cameron.  It's a brilliant workbook.  MY ADVICE:  DO THE MORNING PAGES.  It will change your life.  It did mine. (LINK)

Honestly, I didn’t think I had the right to an opinion until I understood many viewpoints and lived around the country awhile.  Eventually I did live in many different places (12 states), and worked many kinds of jobs.  I needed to do it because it’s how we listen that makes us good writers. 

After my year in a beachhouse writing my first play, I did the morning pages, tried short stories and even submitted articles to a magazine.  It seemed I had lived enough, and had enough jobs and experiences, to finally have the confidence and I became a journalist in 1996.  I always knew I'd be a writer, but it took years to grab on to that decision and make it happen.

TITLES

At one time I collected titles like prizes: homecoming queen, rock singer, arts council coordinator, shop owner, record label exec, museum buyer, Native historian/ book junkie, award-winning journalist, poet, author, radio show producer, editor, publisher, sales clerk/window decorator, cowgirl/wrangler, clothing model, struggling actress in NYC, blogger… 

HEY... those are just skills: la-dee-dah.

Titles change. People change. You change. I change. 

The people you will meet will take your breath away.  That is what we live for, right? 

BE PREPARED for anything, and TRY everything... 

 

MY VERY FIRST BOOK

When I was a girl, I loved the 1964 movie MOON-SPINNERS: A teenage girl, vacationing in Greece with her Aunt, who stumbles upon a young man being chased by some local criminals.  The book by Mary Stewart was the first fiction book I’d ever read!  I picked it up at our library in the summer of 1963.  The Moonspinners is now considered a classic! (I became a huge fan of Hayley Mills and watched all her movies)  Her British accent was just like my grandma Kathryn Usher-Pearson Larrabee, Edie’s mom.

READ EVERYTHING (newspapers, blogs, etc.!) READ MORE BOOKS.  You'll read more than you will ever write, and trust me, that is good.  Then write the book YOU want to read.

WRITING BOOKS: in the immortal words of Diana Vreeland, "You're not supposed to give people what they want, you're supposed to give them what they don't know that they want yet."

AUTHORS and NAMES

FYI:  My name change to Hentz was official in 2014, though I got married in 2004.  30+ years ago I changed my name to Trace—first it was Tracy Ann DeMeyer on my fake birth certificate.  Earlier it was Laura Jean Thrall on my real birth certificate.  Getting done with DeMeyer—that took longer (writing professionally with a name does that...). YOUR name is sovereign.  Choose wisely.

        Officially Trace Lara Hentz (since 2014)

 

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My wordpress blog (I started in 2010) is updated and you can go read history and news on Indian Country, adoption issues, orphanages, and human trafficking there 👉 https://laratracehentz.wordpress.com/ 

My work blog (the Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects book series since 2009):  https://blog.americanindianadoptees.com/

PUBLISHING Collective (since 2011): BLUE HAND BOOKS

Bad Banana Books and Gifts (2025):  https://badbananabooks.blogspot.com/

MY BOOKS: https://badbananabooks.blogspot.com/p/trace-lara-hentz-demeyer.html 

 

Award winning journalist Trace Hentz (Shawanaga Anishinabe-Shawnee-Euro) is former editor of tribal newspapers the Pequot Times and Ojibwe Akiing.  She has contributed to adoption anthologies: Lost Daughters, Adoption Reunion in the Age of Social Media, and Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists.  In 2013, she was co-editor of the anthology Unraveling the Spreading Cloth of Time: Indigenous Thoughts Concerning the Universe with MariJo Moore.