Guest Post: The Creative You

Please give a warm welcome to fellow pirate Steven Southard . You can catch him over at his blog, here, where he has been kind enough to interview several of his fellow authors (including me! )

Thanks, Wynelda, for this opportunity. In one of your blog posts [April 21, 2014], you explained why you write, and I liked the part where you said you write because you “have to. A compulsion, a spilling forth of part of your soul…” I’d like to extend that further.

My theory is that everyone, everybody (yes, I’m looking at you, Reader!) has a similar, soul-born compulsion. Not necessarily the compulsion to grab a keyboard and pound out a novel, but an inner drive to create something.

For some of you, it’s a story; we humans love stories. For others it’s an abstract thought, an idea.   Whichever it is, you then turn to the problem of expression, of conveying that inner notion to others. Some turn to sculpture or painting. Others turn to music or dance. A few turn to writing. There are many creative outlets and each of you finds one to try.

Your first attempts are earnest, fueled by that soul-spark, but also a bit tentative and maybe even playful.

Then the problem starts. You get partway done, or maybe all finished, and you gaze at what you’ve made. You hate it. The real-life creation is nothing like you imagined. It’s crap. You know others would hate it too.

Moment of Truth time. What are you going to do now? Will you conclude, as with a thousand other failures in your life, you gave it a try, but you’re obviously no good at this?

Or will your inner fire find a voice that pushes through your feelings of inadequacy and disappointment? That voice might say, “I’m still here, deep inside. I’m not going anywhere, so you’re going to have to deal with me. Either put in more practice at what you’re doing, or find some other creative outlet, ‘cause I’m here to stay, and I’m going to shout even louder from now on.”

What will you do in your moment of truth? The world is out here hoping you’ll listen to your soul.

Hello Darkness, my old friend

I have in the past suffered from what I call situational depression. In the past, it has reared it’s ugly head when I was unemployed. All the classic signs of depression– excessive tiredness, not wanting to do anything. Every day, being overwhelmed with the feeling of hopelessness. The stoppage of writing.

Something has been bothering me for a while.

The symptoms were there.

I chose not to see them.

Because I’m working. It can’t be the same situational depression if I’m working, can it? Well…. apparently, yes, it can. So I sat down with my dad on Saturday morning and had a long heart to heart with him about what’s going on. He didn’t offer advice— by this point I knew what was going on.

I started making the changes that I need to make to feel better. One of them was admitting and recognizing what the problem is. It’s not something that will go away over night, but it is something I can work on. I have to work through the feelings of inadequacy to do that… But hey.

I can do that.

One of the nice upswings of this edition of my old friend D. is that I am still writing. I am still getting up and moving. I go to work every day, make it through the day. Even though I get home and collapse, I still get back up and do dinner and homework with the prince. I’ve also been working on other projects that help push it away bit by bit.

This time is different. I am going to break this cycle.

I am more than this.

If i keep telling myself that, and taking the steps I need to…. Maybe I’ll be able to step back out into the light. Nope, I take it back. I’ll be able to step back into the light more quickly.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back at the writing posts with a guest post from my fellow pirate, Steven! He was nice enough to do an author interview of moi, which you can find here.

Talk to you soon, my lovelies! Be kind to one another

Avast! Ye Airships!

Coming February 26, 2015  the anthology that I love love love! Avast, Ye Airships!, Edited by Rie Sheridan Rose.

I love even more that I actually did make it in!

Why the vote of no confidence in myself?

Steampunk is a genre that I came to a few years ago. Rie, actually, is the one who suggested Gail Carringer to me, and it was love at first read. But it’s not especially in my wheelhouse, writing wise. I’ve never attempted anything other than traditional fantasy or paranormal/urban fantasy. And on the last, I just finished the first complete manuscript.

So. We have a sub-genre that I love, but am wholly intimidated by. How does a poor writer deal with that?

Wellll………….

One of the things I have been really wanting to do was a tribute to The Secret Garden by Frances Hogson Burnett. Not a straight retelling, but more of a nod to a story that meant so much to me growing up. Since receiving my first copy (coughcough) years ago, I have never been without it. It speaks to me.

I know you’re going to love it!

And that cover! Swoon!

I will try to get my fellow pirates to come over and play with us, too!

Say it with me now… “Ahoy, ye mateys!”

Argh! I couldn’t resist *big grin*

Talk to you soon, my lovelies!

Meanderings

This weekend has been a bookish weekend. Elizabeth Haydon returned to her Symphony Series after 8 years, and I missed it! Thankfully, only had 2 books to catch up on 🙂 And yes, I’m on the second one.

Other than that, it’s been writerly bookish stuff. Writing a short bio for the anthology I’ll be in next month (much more on that soon, promise!) as well as doing my edits. I hate edits. The Boy says “Editing makes Mommy mean!” All I can say is… Out of the mouth of babes…. I don’t know why this happens every time. It’s not like I hate what’s being said, or that I’m offended. All of the edits make the story much better.

But editing makes Mommy mean. I’m going to have to work on that.Also need to start thinking of my next project. I have one  that is kind of a serial/ series but need to find out what’s going on with part 1 first. And of course, my poor Goblin Queen. Need to do something with her soon.

Met with my lovely and talented assistant for my Author Facebook Page. We will be having contests there pretty soon, so go take a look. Hit Like. You know you want to!  The first contest will be a $10 Starbucks Card, to be done at 50 Likes on the FB page. It should be up and running on Monday.

Why a Starbucks card? Well… In Clickety Clackety, the first short story in The Golden Apple and Other Stories, coffee plays a part in it. Specifically Irish Creme Coffee, but Starbucks doesn’t carry that hehehehe.  So you are free to get your favorite beverage of choice 🙂

I’ll be over on the MMP Blog tomorrow, too. Come by for a visit! You can also check out all the other fabulous authors we have there.

I’ll do a cover reveal over here tomorrow. The anthology is going to be great!

Trying to be… a Marvelous Me

So I’ve been gone a bit… The holidays crept up on me. For New Years, the Princeling and I went out of town. I can’t even claim that I didn’t have my laptop, for I did. I was also, however, trying my best to make a deadline for an anthology I wanted into (Made it! More on it later!)

Also in that mix was doing the launch of a newsletter with a company I’m involved with. Not my day job, but still. I was on pins and needles, but not for the reason you might think. There is someone I deal with that does have a rather different view on marketing, and I end up doing revision after revision after revision. Not this time. Not only is it something I’m proud of, they seemed to like it at first go, too.

Whew!

Then this weekend I decided to finally make my Author Facebook Page. You can find me here. Hopefully, if I did the link right. If not, search under Wynelda Ann Deaver. There’s some photos up right now, but not a whole lot of content. Next Saturday, I’ll be going out with the Admin for my page (because I know I can’t do it on my own), and talk about where we want to go and what I see it as. One thing we’ve started is uploading images both under inspiration and Wayfarer Wanderings. We’ll be running contests, such as small gift randomly at 50 likes, a literary art gift at 100 likes, and then something super cool at 200 likes. I firmly believe that on the Author Facebook page, if I make it all about me… it will fail. I look at all the author FB pages I like, and they share a little bit about what they’re doing, of course…. but it’s not all “Buy my book”.

I could be wrong, but it’s the way I’m going.

Do you have an Author Face Book Page? How do you decide what to put on it? Do you enjoy it?

Here’s to Breaking Writing Rules—Rebels With a Cause or Rebels Without a Clue?

Love this post! Food for thought in the new year.

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Orignal image via Wikimedia Commons

For the past several years, I’ve always begun the New Year with predictions of what the publishing industry would or wouldn’t do in the year to come. But this year? I’m being a rule-breaker and taking a different perspective—one I believe has greater impact and longevity. Algorithms rise and fizzle, publishers go out of business, change paths, or change rules. Heck, Amazon changes its mind more than my mother trying to pick a restaurant. So…eh. Not going there this year.

Unlike the days of early artists, we live in a light-speed society where something can fall flat or catch fire in an instant. This is an exciting time to be a writer.

We are in a New Age of the Artisan. When I give advice to young people about a future career, I simply want them to ask these simple questions. Can what I do be…

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