Happy New Year!

 

Making a Luscious Life!

 

Many years ago, I dyed my hair purple, wore a hot pink coat, an acid green sweater, and visited to the waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge. The air was fresh, wet, and clean. Walking around the many waterfalls in the Gorge illuminated many things I had not realized before.

I discovered I wanted to live a luscious (my favorite word) life. I didn't want to wear boring black clothes. I wanted color, exuberance, and pleasure. I didn't want to live filled with anxiety or constant worry about what could go wrong.

As part of wanting a luscious life, I took last December off.  I had written eleven books in two years (one of the few bright sides of lockdown).  I liked them all, but i was worn out. I had ruptured the meniscus in my right knee last year, in addition to a number of weird stresses. Over my vacation, I decided I wanted to try new things.

I want to rework how I do my outreach. I want to make it more fun for me.

I always want to bring you the very best of me and my work so I get wound up about writing meaningful, deep, thoughtful essays. My vacation taught me that I was making the stakes for my newsletters and blog waaaaaay too high. What does that mean?  More pretty pictures! More talking about creating a life that makes you shine.

We are going to have so much fun.


 

 

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2013 Resolutions: The literary life and me

My favorite book on writing, bar none, is Making a Literary Life, by Elizabeth See. The section she wrote on rejection is life changing. I wanted to discuss it today, but I’d have to quote the whole damn thing, and that was way too much copyright infringement, even for me.

Instead, I’m going to discuss her chapter on making the magic, going beyond the words on the page, and into creating the life that makes you shine.

I can’t say it better than she does, so here it is.

Any philanthropist knows that the more money she gives, the more she’ll get back; any volunteer knows that hour spent in a good cause give us golden time. We all know, at some level, that stinginess doesn’t work.

If you start giving away what you want, you give the universe a nudge – you get the cosmic Jell-O trembling.

If you feel you don’t have enough love in your life (no writer, art6ist, human being can exist without love), don’t go around trying to steal it at low bars from impressionable young men and women: Try giving it away, in a blaze of affection, compliments and hugs. Start with your musty old grandma, your lumpy wife, your doltish dad: hugs and compliments- because you have so much love in your bank that you can afford to give it away, lavishly and recklessly.

So what are you waiting for? The best part of the literary and creative life is giving away what you most want. 

My books:

Dracula’s Secret

Dracula’s Desires

Dracula Unleashed

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2013 Resolutions: Jamie Brazil and the Future Mrs. Elton John

Do sunglasses and the literary life have anything to do with one another? They do for me.

As a kid growing up on the Canadian prairies with no cable television and six-foot-high snow drifts surrounding our home in winter, I obsessed over Elton John, the writer of the greatest rock and roll song ever written, Crocodile Rock.

Elton always wore sparkly outfits and his trademark wild sunglasses. He was the man of my dreams, and at eleven-years-old I knew, and I mean KNEW in an absolute and certain way… in my hearts of hearts… in the very depth of my soul… that I would marry Elton John.

I was the future Mrs. Elton John.

You can imagine how devastated I was when he married Renate. When I saw the photo of her sitting on Elton’s lap I wept. I bawled like a baby. He was supposed to be mine.
Turns out, he wasn’t Renate’s either.

Years later, I take solace in the fact that Sir Elton married fellow Canuck David Furnish and I wish them all the happiness in the world. Even if there’s now little chance of my childhood dream coming true. Some sunglasses, once removed, cannot be put back on.

My vision of creating a literary life has been permanently altered, too.

The writer I wanted to be when I began writing is not the writer I am today. I had some success with my Renate (nonfiction), but Renate was not my true love. 

Fiction was. Yet the world of million-dollar advances for first novels doesn’t exist anymore. A digital landscape exploding with possibilities took its place.

So what’s a girl to do when her old dreams bite the dust, when she accepts there is no going back to the way things were? I’m taking a lesson from Elton. I’m buying new sunglasses and reinventing myself. I want my new shades to have frames as large as my dreams, and rose-colored lenses to see the wave of digital opportunities in the best light.

And Crocodile Rock is still the best song ever written!

 Check out Jamie's wonderful book, Prince Charming, Inc.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:

http://jamiebrazil.com

http://facebook.com/BrazilBooks http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5281706.Jamie_Brazil

Maggie Jaimeson - Take a Vacation

Jessa Slade - Get Organized

Paty Jager - Volunteerism

Linda Mercury - Creating a Literary (or Creative) Life

Jenna Bayley-Burke - Eat Healthier

Cassiel Knight - No More Procrastination

Cathryn Cade - Take Time for those OTHER Creative Passions

Su Lute - Reduce Stress: Find and Follow Your Bliss

Jamie Brazil - Shrink My Closet

2013 Resolutions: Maggie Jamieson and Being the Best ME possible

Resolve 2013: Be the BEST Me Possible

Maggie Jaimeson

HEALING NOTES

Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.
– Neil Gaiman  addressing  The Philadelphia University of the Arts Class of 2012

Leading a creative life is not for the faint of heart.  It is highly likely that many people you care about will at one time or another do a “tsk, tsk.”  If you dare complain about the challenges of creating, the lack of money, the difficult choices you have to make, most people will not understand or empathize. Some will actually be I-told-you-so friends or will distance themselves because they just don't get it. Leading a creative life during the Renaissance was prized, but during 21st Century America not so much. Today, for many, the belief is you’re an adult and you should know better than to make such a (feel in the blank with a word akin to “stupid”) choice for a career. However, for a true creative person it is the only choice that brings fulfillment. So, how do you make it work? How do you keep going in spite of the naysayers and the challenges?  Here are a few rules of the road that work for me.

1. Embrace Failure. You will fail at some point, and probably at multiple points. It is inevitable. I had 39 rejections before getting my first book contract. Other writers were successful with several books and then couldn't sell anything for years. It's the nature of being a working writer. If you paint, draw, dance, act, it is the same. Creative people fail, but they also succeed. Embrace your fear of failure and get on with it, because you will eventually succeed. Let's face it, you ARE a creative and that means you must create.
2. Embrace Success. Because most creative people fail a lot before they get to the point where they are selling regularly, once success happens it is natural to think it’s a fluke. Watch out for this kind of self-talk: “If all those readers, buyers, publishers, editors, really knew that this book is no better than the other nine I couldn’t sell, they would run screaming.  Gosh I hope they never figure it out.”  Make peace with the impostor syndrome that comes with success. You will be visiting success a lot. Enjoy the time you have there and accept it as an affirmation of all your hard work.
3. Don’t compare your success to someone else. Each creative person has a different path. You have no idea what that other person did to get there and, even if you did know, chances are your choices would be different. 
4. Celebrate each small victory. Don’t get swept up into the next thing before being fully present with the joys of this one.  In the beginning I celebrated rejections because it meant I had the guts to send out my work. Then I celebrated edits because at least I had an editor. Then I celebrated publishing. I even celebrate bad reviews because I know the person read the book and cared enough that he or she was angry when I didn't meet expectations.  OMG! A person READ my book. That is a reason for celebration. Celebration is key, don't let an opportunity for celebration escape you.
5. Make up your own rules. This is an era in which the creative landscape is in constant flux. The rules are being broken down, the gatekeepers are being replaced and displaced. There are no hard and fast rules. Do works for you.
6. You are unique and only you can tell your story.  You don’t need to copy others, just be the best you possible. Make your art, tell your story, find your voice.

Now, go forth and conquer! 

Contact Maggie: Website | GoodReads | Facebook | Twitter | Blog

Maggie Jaimeson - Take a Vacation

Jessa Slade - Get Organized

Paty Jager - Volunteerism

Linda Mercury - Creating a Literary (or Creative) Life

Jenna Bayley-Burke - Eat Healthier

Cassiel Knight - No More Procrastination

Cathryn Cade - Take Time for those OTHER Creative Passions

Su Lute - Reduce Stress: Find and Follow Your Bliss

Jamie Brazil - Shrink My Closet

2013 Resolutions: Jessa Slade and the Literary Life

 Resolve 2013: Chaos and Creation

Jessa Slade

The Darkest Night (A Marked Souls Christmas novella) 

Whenever I have friends and family visit me in Portland Oregon, I frequently haul them up to Mount St. Helens in Washington to admire the devastation a volcano leaves behind. The visitor center shows a short film called “Chaos and Creation.” The narrator says “chaos and creation” repeatedly (with very dramatic intonation) and inevitably, for every group I escort up there, the phrase becomes the running joke of the day.

I think living a creative life is having a small thing -- a dream -- writ large. Basically you are making a mole hill into a mountain, and that means fomenting a certain amount of chaos in what other people might consider a “normal” life. To pursue a creative dream, sometimes you have to destroy the peace and quiet and sacrifice chunks of everyday life.

I’ve accepted some chaos and sacrifice to make room for my creative life:

1. Drastically reduced TV: I’m a storyteller at heart, so of course I love television. But committing to my own stories means sacrificing someone else’s. I still have a couple favorite shows, but most often I have to flip through a copy of Entertainment Weekly at the grocery store to keep up with popular culture.

2. Less-than-perfect housekeeping: Okay, admitted this isn’t much of a sacrifice, but it can definitely lead to chaos. In the end, though, I’d rather have my words written than my socks folded and put away in the drawer. I’m just going to wear them again anyway!

3. Tight finances: This is an ugly reality for most creative folk who don’t have a reliable source of income (trust fund, understanding spouse, blackmail scheme). Making a creative life takes an investment of time and resources that can wreak chaos on AND demand sacrifice from your checkbook. But who needs fancy shoes when you’re at your computer in fuzzy socks anyway?

Are you willing to let in a little chaos for your creation? Please share in comments.

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And follow my A LITTLE NIGHT MUSE blog tour for a chance to win goodies!

Continue the blog party!

Maggie Jaimeson - Take a Vacation

Jessa Slade - Get Organized

Paty Jager - Volunteerism

Linda Mercury - Creating a Literary (or Creative) Life

Jenna Bayley-Burke - Eat Healthier

Cassiel Knight - No More Procrastination

Cathryn Cade - Take Time for those OTHER Creative Passions

Su Lute - Reduce Stress: Find and Follow Your Bliss

Jamie Brazil - Shrink My Closet

2013 Resolutions: Paty Jager and the Literary Life.

Following Your Dream by

Paty Jager

I’m not sure when the true bug to be published bit me, but once it did, I took writing classes, tried to joining a local writing group(they ended up being all poets and not helping my fiction writing), and eventually connected with Romance Writers of America. 

The hardest part about being a writer is first believing in yourself and your craft. Anyone, be they a writer, an artist, a musician, not only have to learn how to do the art form they love, they have to be able to convey feelings, and paint pictures with words and music that others can resonate with. 

Once the craft is learned, and you believe in your work, you have to put that work out there for others to purchase and enjoy. You also need to surround yourself with people who encourage your writing, people who hold you accountable for the best work you can do, and people who believe in you. 

Never let the naysayers or jealousy pull you down. If you are surrounded by the right people, your creativity will soar and you will be able to follow your dream of creating a literary or creative life. 

 Secrets of a Mayan Moon

Places you can connect with Paty:

Website               Blog        Goodreads         Facebook        Twitter         Pinterest          

Maggie Jaimeson - Take a Vacation

Jessa Slade - Get Organized

Paty Jager - Volunteerism

Linda Mercury - Creating a Literary (or Creative) Life

Jenna Bayley-Burke - Eat Healthier

Cassiel Knight - No More Procrastination

Cathryn Cade - Take Time for those OTHER Creative Passions

Su Lute - Reduce Stress: Find and Follow Your Bliss

Jamie Brazil - Shrink My Closet

2013 New Year's Resolutions!

Starting January 1st, eight other romance bloggers will be posting a nine part, cross blog series of articles on various resolutions for the new year.



Here is our schedule!

THE RESOLUTION TOUR - January 1 - 9, 2013

Maggie Jaimeson - Take a Vacation

Jessa Slade - Get Organized

Paty Jager - Volunteerism

Linda Mercury - Creating a Literary (or Creative) Life

Jenna Bayley-Burke - Eat Healthier

Cassiel Knight - No More Procrastination

Cathryn Cade - Take Time for those OTHER Creative Passions

Su Lute - Reduce Stress: Find and Follow Your Bliss

Jamie Brazil - Shrink My Closet

Each of us will be hosting essays written by the others on each theme. So head's up, everyone. The New Year is coming in with a bang.

Dracula’s Secret

Dracula’s Desires

Dracula Unleashed

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