If you can still wonder, you may wander yet again . . .

 *Quotation from Tree by Tolkien by Colin Wilson.

Art Therapy

 

New Blog

Salutations fellow Earthlings!

I've decided to focus my attention on my new blog, iffymagic.com. Check it out for updates on my books and upcoming releases.

Wishing you all serendipitous days.

Pretensions of Grandeur

When you pretend you are a glamorous writer with a crystal inkwell. (Actually, it is a repurposed lamp base that helps me keep just one pen from getting lost!)

An Inktacular Announcement

So I have decided to take the initiative in the next step of my writing journey! I will be self-publishing two of my novels in print and e-book:

Stealing the Dark Moon: Dragon's Den Orphanage Book I

Hopefully by December 2017, but no later than January 2018.

and . . .

A Fair Account of the Traitors Snow White and Rose Red

Coming Summer 2018!

I also have a children's book, True Gossamer: A Wingless Fairy Tale, that I hope to have ready by September 2018. This story will take a bit longer to get ready because I have decided to illustrate it myself using a digital sketchpad, and I am still playing around and familiarizing myself with all the awesome options in Corel Painter Essentials 5.

I can't wait to share all the stories that have been kicking sequins and syllables around in my head for the last several years! I am also super excited that the fabulous Audrey Bagley will be illustrating my novels' covers. More story details and juicy tidbits to come later.

In the words of a cheaply cheerful dollar store poster I bought years ago:

"Dreams do not vanish, so long as people do not abandon them." 

-Phantom F. Harlock

Keats and the Kindred Fear

John Keats is one of my favorite poets, in part because I know the ache in his poetry is tied to the brief urgency of his life. His father died in a horse-riding accident when he was only eight, and later his mother and younger brother died of tuberculosis. He also caught the disease and died at the young age of twenty-five. Yet what he accomplished still dazzles the minds of starry-eyed English majors everywhere.

But beyond the lust for life, there is also a very familiar fear threading some of his lines; the fear of failure, of never finishing, of a blank emptiness haunting Keats as his time comes to a swift close:

When I have fears that I may cease to be

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
 Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

I would dare to say that every writer has known this same, kindred fear at some point. Somehow, knowing that Keats felt that yawning pit of despair but still inked his way out gives me courage to keep on inking on. I've lived almost nine years longer than Keats so far, and I want to make each precious additional year on this spinning marble count for something. But like love and fame, I will sink one day, too, along with everyone else. I just hope I can catch a few of those "huge cloudy symbols of a high romance" first and pin them to a page, no matter how ephemeral. For in the end, aren't all the people we know, and the stories we've heard, a "fair creature of an hour"? Time doesn't let us keep them. So we reach for each other, so we share tales, passing hearts and ink likes sparks in the dark that would be nothingness.

Hitting the Halfway Mark

Cue the confetti . . .

I'm halfway done with my current WIP!

I honestly never feel like I am going to finish a novel. I lose the vision too easily, I give up as the character and plot flaws pile into mountains. I actually have four unfinished novels totaling about 500 pages that I abandoned. And then I have 2 practice novels and 2 unpublished novels on top of everything else. So why do I bother slogging along? What keeps me going?

Good question. Many answers.

*Wisdom from fortune cookies! Seriously, this is deep stuff:

"It takes guts to get out of the ruts."

"The dream is within you."

*MUSIC. Shut up and listen. Then get your muse on.

*My peeps. Can't emphasize the importance of nurturing your relationships with friends and family enough. As an inky introvert, wallowing in despair comes naturally. A good friend will kick your brain back into gear and/or distract you with their awesomeness until the story bug bites again.

*Flexercise. Take a walk, engage in some form of (in my case, most moderate!) exercise, and chill with the tree babble. The leaves are saying far more interesting things than you or me. But don't take my word for it.

8 Methods to improve your Creative Madness

A novel never feels real to me until I hit the first ten thousand words. Then, I feel obligated to finish the dang thing! And excited...by the 10k word count, the ink threshold in my brain is beginning to overflow with ideas.

But how do I keep that creative momentum up? Here are a few of the methods that help me:

1. Morning Meditation: I read a bit of philosophy, poetry or biblical wisdom for a few minutes. My current favorite is Earth Prayers from around the World edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon.

2.  Exercise: I do physical exercises to get myself energized before I plop in front of the computer. Other times I write a little first and then exercise just to break things up.

3. Writing Excuses: I am getting into the habit of listening to this fabulous podcast whenever I exercise, or take a lunch break.

4. Online Stopwatch: I use the countdown tool to keep myself from getting distracted too often. Sometimes I set the timer for only 15 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. Usually I stop using it once I get into the flow of ink.

5. Music: Playing music often inspires me while I write. This method doesn't work for everyone, but it definitely helps me. Also, making up a track list that expresses the mood of a chapter or character also gets me energized to write.

6. Get gritty! I re-read this story shared by Paulo Coelho and written by W. Timothy Gallway, and tell my fragile whining ego to shut up because every story starts as a seed. Of course it will be gangling and strange as it grows and needs pruning to shape it into its end form. So take pride in the dirt and nourishing dark and keep pushing towards the light.

 “When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.”

‘We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.
“When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped, nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear.

‘We stand in wonder at the process taking place, and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.
“The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential.

‘It seems to be constantly in the process of change: Yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.
“A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing — a flower in the process of expressing its potential.”

7. Write something, even if it is just one sentence: still working on this one! The point is to get myself into the habit of facing my ink demons. Start with just a sentence, and the next day make it three, and before long paragraphs and pages come next.

8.  Fallow Days: Some days I just don't write, and that's okay. Quiet times nourish creativity, too.

 What are the methods that work for you?

New Novel Alert! Cyborg+Boy

So I have been working on a new novel since January!

Slowly,

EVER so slowly . . .

 

Getting the plot and character details right is taking much longer than I thought it would, but I hope to have the full draft completed by the end of June. I won't give any hints about the story today, except to say that this is the song I imagine complementing the last chapter of the novel:

Stars - Hold on when you get love and let go when you get it. (*contains epithet)

Writing by Taoist "Nondwelling"

"All beings work, without exception:

if they live without possessiveness,

act without presumption,

and do not dwell on success,

then by this very nondwelling

success will not leave.

-Wisdom from the Tao Te Ching 

These words struck a powerful chord with me when I read them earlier this week, because I realized I had forgotten how important the concept of "nondwelling" is in the writing process. I will break nondwelling down into four steps:

1. (Write) Live without possessiveness

Sometimes I hold myself back in my writing because I am unwilling to recognize that an idea is not working. I sabotage my own progress by clinging to ineffective plot threads because I want them to work. I have to let go in order to keep learning, improvising, and yes, revising yet again. Sometimes that means letting go of a sentence, or a page, a chapter, or even a whole book.

2. (Write) Act without presumption  

I have been guilty of presuming my own "inherent" creativity will provide enough sparkly thoughts to make a good book. But creativity is just a spark and even that becomes a weak ember when starved of fuel. The creative fire has to be fed, and that means hard work gathering all the kindling: reading other books to nurture my mind, refining my writing craft by learning from other writers (The Writing Excuses podcast is awesome!), and building a fairly consistent writing routine even if that means just one sentence a day sometimes.

3. (Just write!) Do not dwell on success

This is perhaps the hardest part of nondwelling to put into practice, at least for me. I always obsess over each word, wondering if it is inferior, if all my ideas are banal, if I am wasting my time on a novel that will never make the cut. Wondering if I just don't have what it takes: the stamina, creativity, humility, and diligence to polish a lumpy pebble into a scintillating syllabic jewel. Sometimes I don't. And that's okay . . . because I'm never done writing!

The only way to shake off my mental paralysis is to grow a writer's skin as thick as a dragon's hide, one scale of courage at a time. I must allow myself the right to ink my heart out because that is the wellspring of my dreams, while a publishing deal is more of a goal than a dream. If I obsess over whether I will ever become a published author or not, then I will fail my ultimate dream: to become a vibrant storyteller. This truth will make me suffer if I deny it, because then I am dishonest with myself about why I ever started writing in the first place.

4. (Write, and . . . ) Success will not leave?

Maybe success will mean a spot on a bookshelf and a shiny Kirkus Review one day. Maybe it won't. But if I can wholeheartedly commit myself to honing my craft, and make even just one reader laugh, or stay up late at night reading my novel because their fingers and brain are glued to the page, then I will have succeeded. 

Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi

Vibrant: this word perfectly encapsulates the world of Alice Alexis Queensmeadow, who was born into a world where colors and magic are intricately woven together. Hue is everything in Ferenwood, and while she has a hidden and much hated talent, to all appearances she is just a pale and washed-out albino with no magical abilities. But she has an even bigger problem: her father has been missing for several years, and when the wily boy Oliver promises to lead her to him if she will accompany him on a questionable journey, she takes a wild chance. They cross over into the Wonderland-like land of Furthermore, where the only thing more dangerous than the land's unpredictable magic are the natives, who like to dine on the magic-rich souls of any visitors who dare enter. One of my absolute favorite scenes in the book is when Alice meets a native boy who is her vivid opposite in rich colors, and instantly smitten, she stumbles over her words as she tries to ask him to marry her on the spot. Alice is no delicate damsel, but a willful girl who is not afraid to go after what she desires most. What I loved best about this story is how very human the characters all were in their wants, needs, and dreams: alternately selfish or kind,  brave or fearful, hurting and healing each other. The story wove a spangled tale of living, breathing ink. Here's hoping for more forays into Furthermore!

Secret Tree Star

A glint of light caught my eyes one blustery afternoon, and I glanced up to find a golden tree star winking back at me!

The leaves hid the secret all spring and summer. Only autumn told the truth. We are full of secret stars, too, I think. Sometimes strong winds strip us down to the bare glint, and we must learn how to shine again.

This little plastic tree star reminded me of a favorite quote of my mom's: "If at night you cry for the sun, you will not see the stars." -Rabindranath Tagore.

Heartstrikers trilogy! Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron

I bought myself the most delicious, non-caloric treat: the ebook trilogy consisting of Nice Dragons Finish Last, One Good Dragon Deserves Another, and No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished by Rachel Aaron. I finished off all three books in a week!

The Heartstriker series is set in a future where magic has returned to the earth after a meteor strike, and follows two principal characters: Julius, the youngest dragon in a family of violent, ambitious power hungry dragons who doesn't have an avaricious bone in his body. Disgusted by his gentle heart and utter lack of proper draconic behavior, his mother Bethesda seals him in human form and throws him into the DFZ (the Detroit Free Zone), telling him to Dragon Up or Die, basically. Too bad dragons are forbidden in the DFZ! But it is in this city that he meets Marci, a human mage who has a mysterious bond with Ghost, a spirit feline that isn't just a cat.

So what did I love best about this series? To start, the humor is hilarious! I especially loved the fact that Marci was no damsel in distress waiting to be rescued by Julius. Much of the series is devoted to her developing her powers as a mage and discovering more about her bond with Ghost. As for the other main character--oh Julius! He is stubbornly kind, non-violent and selfless even when his own life is at risk. And it is this very unique nature of his that starts to change the rule (and rules) of dragon society. The slow and sweetly awkward romance of Marci and Julius is also a pleasure to read . . . if you don't mind having your heart wrenched out now and then (no spoilers!). I don't think I've enjoyed a dragon story so much since Princess Cimorene and Kazul in The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede.

Very much looking forward to book 4!

Magic Places: Essence vs. Utter Reality

All our stories come from the earth. We nourish ourselves with the fantastic, find gods in a volcano's wrath and the turning of the seasons in pomegranate seeds. American poet Muriel Rukeyser said, "The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." An ancient prophet proclaimed, "In the beginning was the Word." Yet there is another truth, too; human imagination must first germinate in the mundane and wondrous materiality of existence before transcending the limits of the physical world.

This May, I was lucky enough to visit both Yellowstone and Iceland with family. Out of all the places that I visited in Yellowstone, my favorite was most certainly the Dragon's Mouth Spring, even though it wasn't as grand as Old Faithful in its towering glory . . .

Old Faithful

vs. 

The Dragon's Mouth Spring

And yet, this humble spring, a mere grumbling hole in a hill, filled me with awe because someone, sometime, had imagined a dragon lived there, snuffling spiraling puffs of smoke, its growling roar sending scalding hot splashes of water from the cave.

And the dragon does live there. I heard, I saw, I, too, felt the dragon's breath the second I read the sign and adjusted the lens of my imagination to catch the spectacular truth. The story makes the atoms true, in essence if not utter reality.

Iceland also proved rich loam for my imagination, or in the following case, mineral-rich waters. This is a picture of the stunning opaline waste waters of the Blue Lagoon near Reykjavik. You heard me right, these luminous blue waters are a by-product of a geothermal plant. The accidental lagoon was later converted into a spa that attracts tourists from all over the world.

The day my sister and I visited the Blue Lagoon was blustery and cold, but even so I felt I could gaze at the milky moon waters all day and never grow tired of the lapping brilliance.

The Dragon's Mouth Spring and the Blue Lagoon retaught me something: our world is filled with both big and little wonders waiting for someone to find their story. To read beauty into something as simply perfected as the fine serration of a rose leaf, or a dandelion's stubborn roots.

I just hope I pay attention!

Prairie Dog Days

I thought about writing something erudite for the month of May, but I'm exhausted from way too many projects and, you know what? Prairie dogs! Because everyone needs more cute critters in their news feed. The cutest colony of squeakers ever live at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Go ahead and bask.

Eenie, Meenie, Miny and Moe!

Most Adorable Flopling Award

Cuteling Couple

Eagle!

Lilliput by Sam Gayton

Sam Gayton’s novel Lilliput, inspired by Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels, tells the story of Lily: a three inch girl fighting to escape from a birdcage in the human world of 18^th century London and return to her own faraway home of Lilliput. All her misfortunes begin with Gulliver, who is now an embittered old man tired of being ridiculed for his outlandish stories. Desperate to prove he is not a crazy liar, Gulliver kidnaps Lily with the intent to show her to the world once he has finished his grand manuscript about his journeys. Despite her tiny height, Lily constantly tries to escape as she knows her time is running out as Lilliputians count their lives by moons, not years. She is soon aided in her escape by the orphan Finn, an apprentice of the cruel clockmaker Mr. Plinker. Lily frees Finn from a perfidious wrist watch that counts wasted seconds instead of time and constricts ever tighter if he is not continuously working. But even free they must find a way to outwit Gulliver and Mr. Plinker together, or fall captive again forever. I loved the ending of the story because it was true to the price and bravery of growing up; sometimes, even best friends must say goodbye and trust their hearts are shared across the miles.

The Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell

With fairy tales it’s sometimes easy to gloss over the horror and consequences of selfish human actions with a bit of magic and a happy ending. Not so in Merrie Haskell’s story, The Castle Behind Thorns. When the young boy Sand mysteriously wakes up in a ruined castle surrounded by vicious thorns, he can only survive by mending what is broken. For everything from blades of straw, buckets, anvils, coins and even the holy relic of a saint’s heart is split in two, as if by a curse. 

*Warning: next paragraph contains spoilers.

But shortly after he returns the dead body of a young girl to her tomb, Perrotte awakens to life once more with a terrible memory; her own murder several decades ago at the hand of her stepmother—and Sand’s father. Their budding friendship and desire to escape the thorny prison confining them to the castle is overshadowed by Perrotte’s desire for revenge on her stepmother, and the secret she is keeping from Sand about his father’s sin. But as the thorny barrier slowly shrinks and the miracle of Perrote’s return from the dead spreads, armies mass for lost gold and the families of both children confront them at the castle. Sand and Perrotte must decide which path to follow: the thorny road of vengeance and hate, or forgiveness and new life. This Sleeping Beauty tale is full of darkest human fears—and hope, utterly lost, then made flesh again in bone and blood. 

A Blizzard of Books

I don't need to close my eyes to remember the storm before my twelfth Christmas. I can still see, even now, the crush of snowflakes against the windshield, blinding in their white ferocity, and feel the slow creep of our car as a sudden blizzard ground all traffic to a crawl. My parents took the first exit off the highway and pulled into the parking lot of a Barnes and Nobles store. And the rest, as they say, is history . . .

We dawdled in the store for almost an hour as we waited for the storm to die down, perusing seemingly endless aisles and displays of scrumptious stories. My parents ended up buying The Green Sky trilogy by Zilpha Keatley Snyder and The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander as Christmas gifts for my sisters and I. These two writers exploded my imagination with their tales filled with heroes who stumbled and failed and were scared but still tried. Still cared, even when it broke their heart. They taught me how to be a better human in my world. And for that, I am forever grateful. 

I hope someday I can write a story with beating ink as strong as Taran Wanderer and Eilonwy's stubborn resolve, and as kind as Raamo's heart. 

Sun Bow

My windows are frozen shut, but I will outlast this winter yet! Of course, it helps when a lovely sun bow greets me outside. I will wait for spring...

Magnifical vs. Cool Beans

Want to express appropriate awe without resorting to "Sick!" or "Nasty" (both formerly primarily negative terms whose definitions have undergone a most peculiar process of amelioration)?

Ditch the "cool beans" and try "magnifical" on the tongue for taste!

A variation of magnific, this word is a delightfully archaic adjective best employed when one wishes to say that something is "magnificent" or "imposing." It can also be used to imply a sense of grandiose pomposity.

Try inserting magnifical into random conversations without seeming, well, a trifle magnifical!

Have you seen the new Star Wars movie?

Yeah. Magnifical, man! 

Ugh . . . maybe I should start with a more visual approach:

Flying between two cloud layers? Magnifical.