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On Mattering
We all swim in the same sea of people wanting to matter, voices wanting to be heard, and an endless search for validation. Without this community of people that believe in you, even if it’s just a little bit, it’s easy to fall into depressed feelings. Then there’s the other side – what if you have this big community but you feel alone? Both sides can be difficult, and social media makes both sides easy to find – emptiness and fulfillment. If you sign into social media you can see people with SO many followers. It’s hard to look at the numbers and know exactly how they got there. Was…
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Tautology
Noun. The saying of the same thing twice in different words. Dictionary.com I was some editing stuff and I wanted to get a few pages in, but I was hid hard and heavy with the word tautology and the example her own. There was no way I did this in my writing, right? WRONG. A quick search and I had seven (in 20k words). I had just gotten used to the problem of using just too much, and using too many ellipses (…). Alas, I want to be a better writer, so here we go – down tautology lane. What are some key ones you can add to your round…
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Zombie Days
Some days suck. Writing doesn’t flow, thinking doesn’t flow, existing doesn’t flow. Those days are brutal. Those days are the days you HAVE TO have a win – and when productivity is refusing to be anything but constipated and annoying, you just have to figure out one thing you can do. Why do I force it? Because bad days prelude to bad weeks. Bad weeks prelude bad months. If you don’t, at some point, just say “I’m doing this, the end,” then you might never do it again, or by the time you do you’ve wasted so much time you have to scrap what you were doing. So here I…
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Origin | Nell
It began in 2013, with a drawing. Or maybe it began long before that – when a young girl (about 7 years old) heard, “I will always buy you all the books you want,” I found my way to the mythology section. I had discovered a new type of heaven. I filled my basket with a variety – Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English, Classic…Some were new books, some were used. In the end, my basket was so heavy it grazed the floor as I lugged it to the front of the store, stopping every few steps. I made it, and my mom did not look thrilled. The price rang up over…
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On Drafts
It’s just a draft, I remind myself. Again and again. It’s just a draft. It’s not supposed to be good, or perfect. I know that. Everyone knows the first draft isn’t built to be what you present the world. Maybe it’s good, maybe it needs to be entirely redone. I’ve been dueling a new side to this – I have a polished advanced copy of Blue Note that I’ve been using as a mouse pad for the past week, and I have the roughest of drafts for The Last Salamander on my screen. I want perfect words to flow from my fingers, but TLS is still being molded into whatever…
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Why I DON’T Use Media Scheduling Programs
I’m not just an author. I run a business (my publishing house). I run the website, the social media accounts, the everything accounts – banking, emails, most of our URLs, everything. I have a million accounts I keep track of in a dozen places. It can be disruptive to my desire to write and be creative. Many people turn to scheduling bots, for good reason. But I believe in being 100% authentically, presently, me. For some people, the bots don’t degrade that. When I tried using them, I felt like I was doing something because I was supposed to, not because it felt right or I cared about it. I…
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On Passion
So you’ve found passion. Why don’t you feel amazing all the time? Why is it hard? Now what? (if you just want the highlights, scroll to the list at the end) Passion is impatient. It’s relentless, and it’s angry, and it’s excited. Passion is 6 am and my mind is awake, and 12am and my mind won’t shut down. It’s knowing every hour as 0900, 9AM, 12PM at Krissy’s or 1600, 4PM, 7PM. Automatic. It’s sore hands and a mental exhaustion like you can’t imagine. Passion is amazing. I am so blessed to have passion. I am grateful. I am thankful. I begged myself to find passion for years. I…