Happy 5 Year Anniversary to My Blog!

Today is the five year anniversary of my blog! I have to say, I find this so incredible. I’ve celebrated this day in a lot of different ways over the last few years, like writing super long blog posts or by doing giveaways and going to community events. This year, I'm going to spend it reflecting, planning and having some small adventures with my family. I have some giveaways planned for later in the summer, but today is definitely a day for reflecting about how to take the next step with my writing and creative endeavours, including language. 

Last year, I wrote about how I started this blog because I wanted a space where I could share the positive things happening in my community. That I started it because I loved Turtle Island and I wanted to do my utmost to honour creation, my ancestors and my family. All of that remains true today and that love has helped me so much over the past five years. It’s helped me work on difficult and important projects. It’s helped me understand how much I want to learn the language and develop a plan to do so. Most of all, it's helped me to realize my dream of being a writer and a storyteller, and given me a place to think out loud about the learning that goes into finishing a story and turning it into a book. 

I’ve written a lot of stories over the last few years and independently published the majority of them in one form or another and as hard as this journey has been at times, I've truly treasured every minute of it. I've learned something new with every project and endeavour I've undertaken and all of that learning will help me to create even more over the next five years.

One of my mentors, Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn, talks often on her podcast about how she wants to measure her life by the things she creates. I want to do the same. And when I look back over the last five years and see that I have written ten books, several short stories, and started to paint more seriously, it makes me feel incredibly happy and peaceful about this goal. It also makes me feel proud of the work I've started and positively energized about the work to come. I know that the more I learn and practice, the better a writer and painter I will become. And there is still so much to learn!

Over the next five years I intend to continue making books and art, but I also want to expand into making music, films, resources, podcasts and comics. I want at least half (if not more) of those projects to be in the language. I want to make cool stories for my children. I want to improve my speaking proficiency. I want to measure my life by what I create, and I want to share and inspire others to create things as well - if they are so inclined. In honour of this new goal, I thought I would share a little snapshot of some of the things I’ve created since 2012.

Books and Prints!

A recent painting with some interesting filters added. 

My daughter Ione looking at an inked sketch.

My current favourite painting. Watercolour and ink. 

A watercolour with some interesting filters applied to give a burst of colour. 

Looking at them makes me so excited.  I am so grateful for all of the learning that has gone into these projects. Five years ago, I couldn't have imagined how awesome it would be to focus some of my time and energy around being creative or how much it would help me to focus my passion and love for my community and Turtle Island. I am so excited to see what more I will learning in the next ten years! 

Happy writing and creating! And Happy Indigenous Day Turtle Island!

Maintaining a Writing Routine After a Maternity Leave

Illustrated by Sara General

So it happened. I returned to work last week after being on maternity leave for a year. My work is exciting to me in that it’s an area I’m quite passionate about—Indigenous education and Indigenous language revitalization. And while I’m excited, I’m also trying to figure out how all of the pieces fit together. How do I keep writing, making art and contributing to my community in the best way that I can? How do I continue to make progress with my language learning and honestly have time to send good energy back out into the world? This is really important to me. Especially because I think the world needs good energy right about now. Needs to be reminded that peace is important and that it is possible for us all to have enough. Anyways, here are some of the things that are working for me at the moment—bearing in mind that none of this is really advice, just me sharing how things are going :). 

1. Make a schedule. Whatever schedule works for you.

Right now, my schedule includes waking up early to write from 6-7 a.m. Then get ready with the rest of my little family and be out the door by 8:10 a.m. We are fortunate that the daycare and our place of work are within five minutes of each other so we don't have to leave at a super early time. I have a nice day working on projects that are important to me and hopefully, will be good for our community as well. Then we pick up the girls and are usually home, have exercised and eaten by 5:30, which leaves us a few hours before the girls have their baths and go to sleep. My big goal next week is to be in bed every night by 10. We’ll see how that goes. (UPDATE: It's not going well, lol).  

2. Plan evening activities the whole family can do 

This past week, I did the majority of my art work in the evening, painting sketches as a way of relaxing and disconnecting from the office. My oldest daughter likes to paint as well, so it gives us time we can spend together doing something fun and creative. This is good, but also challenging in its own way. It feels like to fit everything in—we're having to use every bit of time that we have. I'm okay with this approach for now, though I have to admit, I was exhausted by the weekend and felt super grateful that it was a short one, work-wise. 

3. Protect your creative time by making it a priority

I used to be something of a workaholic, but that changed when I became a mother. Now I know to take time and make sure that I’m living well. I’m grateful—beyond grateful that things can be that way. I also know that I have to keep doing creative things. 

Now that I’ve had a few days to reflect on the first week and how it went, I can think more carefully about how to make sure I don’t lose track of my writing. That I continue to work at finishing stories, bit by bit. Writing and creating is the thing that fuels all the other things that I do and doing it makes me a much happier person to be around. So it has to be a part of the daily routine. 

4. Write the project you're most passionate about (even if it wasn't the one that was next on your production schedule!)

This past week, I wasn’t sure exactly which project to start writing. I have at least two completely brand new projects that I want to tackle this year and that are written into my production schedule. I also have four books at various stages of completion—some more complete than others. I surprised myself by taking a lot of joy working on a book that hadn’t even been on my radar. to work on and that I actually wrote more than a year and a half ago. But i chose to work on it because something about it was really rejuvenating for me and as I go through it, I’m reminded of why I like it so much. It's also making me really enjoy the process of revising and editing. The book is about Indigenous women, language, empowerment, artwork and funnily enough—it’s a romance. I can't wait to share it with you! Now of course, I agree that production schedules are important, but wow. This little deviation from mine was exactly what I needed. 

In the meantime, I've added some of the new paintings I did to my Art page. Have a peek!

I hope you like them & that your own creative endeavours are going well!

Til next time,

S. 

My Creative Goals for 2017

2016 was a difficult year for the world, filled with loss and change. In some ways, it was difficult for us too but it was also a tremendously special year and I’m grateful for all the wonder and happiness that entered our lives. 

My husband and I celebrated our one year anniversary in September. We welcomed our second daughter in May. And we moved into our new house in October—all very wonderful things.

2016 was also the year that I made the most progress with realizing my writing dreams. I launched my production company on January 21st, 2016 and published six books over the course of the year.  

I also formatted and designed a book for a fellow artist and writer from my community, Elizabeth Doxtator. We launched our books together at the Woodland Cultural Centre in November of 2016 which was a really great experience. Our friends and family came out to support us along with local MPP, Dave Levac who also gave us a very kind congratulatory certificate to mark the occasion.

I continued my language learning and started to make comics in the Cayuga language with my husband. 

I bought some recording equipment and began learning how to record some of the piano music I’ve written.  

I set-up as a vendor at three events: The Six Nations Language Conference, The Grand River Champions of Champions Powwow and The Everlasting Tree School’s Healing & Wellness event. 

And finally, I finished the first year of my doctorate program and started into the second year. 

Needless to say—it was a busy, busy year and 2017 shows every sign of being just as busy! 

 

Looking ahead to 2017

My goals for 2017 are to do more of what made 2016 as great as it was. To spend time with my husband and daughters. To write more. To paint more. To record my piano music as well as my books. To learn more language. To read more about Indigenous language revitalization. To read more legends and do more research. To be a healthy creative person who eats well and exercises regularly. And to share the positive energy I gain from creating things with the world.

I have specific goals, too. They are:

1. To write 500 plus words a day

2. To edit for an hour.

3. To write two novels, one novella, two short stories and three essays.

4. To publish three books. 

5. To read 25 books. 

6. To record an audio book of Spirit & Intent. 

7. To make a short album of piano music. 

8. To continue to learn more about writing and publishing.

9. To continue working in the area of language revitalization.

But my big goal in has everything to do with art. Over the last few months I’ve realized that while I have a lot of writing and publishing goals—I have just as many goals when it comes to drawing an painting and illustrating. There is a lot of art that I want to create. Art for essays I’m thinking of writing. Art for my book covers. Art for Cayuga language books I want to write for myself and my girls. Art on canvas. Art for print. Digital art. 

Some of the work I did in 2016.

I have so much to learn when it comes to art that it sounds weird to say that I have a dream of being an illustrator—but it’s true. I have a dream of being an illustrator. So 2017 marks the start of a more intensive concentration on my art practice. I’m not ready to define my goals here yet but overall, I'm looking to amass a body of work that I'm happy with and to learn new techniques and experiment with more tools. I’m very much looking forward to sharing what I learn and I'll be sharing my work on my Instagram so come check it out!  

Phew. So there they are. My goals for 2017. I am super excited for them all and for the wonderful new space we have to work on them all in. Building our house was a long and challenging process but having a home of our own is something I am immensely grateful for every day.

Here's one last thing before I go. Since 2013, a few key words have helped me to really determine the direction I want to move my life in. I thought I would share them with you, because although they’re just words, but they really did help me quite a lot. So here they are—in picture form :). 

What about you? What are your goals for 2017?

Til next time, happy writing & creating!

S. 

Happy November

Wow! How is it almost the end of November? This year has sped by and the last few weeks have been particularly crazy. There have been a lot of things happening in my life on a personal level lately and a lot of things happening out in the world. I'm just going to take a minute here and send a huge blast of compassion to you all. I find myself more and more aware of the challenges our different experiences and ways of thinking create but I'm going to keep hope that we will find a way to practice compassion and empathy with one another. I'm also going to keep hoping that we can all find a way to come together to protect the water, because truly - no matter what views or beliefs we have, we and our children need water to survive. I'm so grateful for water and I know it's one of those things that is too important to take for granted. It's also something we can all work together for. 

The last few weeks I've been super busy with my course work and preparing my research proposal for my dissertation. Academic writing is so interesting (very different from my creative writing) and I have really valued learning how to go about it.The topic for my dissertation is exploring community-based collaboration in the area of Indigenous language revitalization - which is a passion of mine. It's nice to read about the great work that's going on and it's also nice to be inspired to speak and use the language more (I'm learning Cayuga). 

I've also been working on producing/designing/formatting a book for a friend of mine. It's called "Art of Peace" and was inspired by the story of the Great Law of Peace. She also asked me if I wanted to launch my book Spirit & Intent when hers launches next week and so that's coming up as well, which is super cool. Here's a little poster. We're having the book launch at the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford, Ontario - a place I love and have been going to since I was little because their collection has some of my dad's art in it.  

Last week I did a short reading of one of my stories at a really cool event called Stories From the Land. I was a bit scared - it was my first time reading one of my stories out loud and in public but I was very excited and grateful for the opportunity to be apart of the project. Stories from the Land is a podcast of 12 storytelling events happening in First Nation communities across Turtle Island. The stories are meant to be about our connection to the land, community and culture. Very cool stuff. The stories will eventually be available for listening and I'll be sure to post a link here when they are! 

Ahh. What else? Oh yes! I've been learning to make comics. I've only really done a test one so far but I'm really excited to do more and I know I will get better at them as time goes by. Along the same lines I also started another special project that combines my love of painting, stories, language and videos (and also music in the future). It's here - a short movie about the story of The Vampire Skeleton which I illustrated using a combination of watercolour and shadow puppet theatre. I LOVED this project and have already started working on another. Moving into 2017, I'm going to be doing a lot more of these. Here is some of the art that I made for it:

And lastly, I'm about to finally (after months and months of delays) release a very special YA fantasy book called The Fortune Teller's Daughter. Stay tuned for the cover release next week!

Okay. Phew. I think that is all from me. Busy busy busy times ahead as we move into the last month of the year. I hope you are all well and as always - happy writing! 

S.

Home Sweet Home

I sometimes lose track of how many activities I like to do. Reading. Writing. Painting. Running. Playing video games. Taking long walks in the forest. But over the last few weeks I’ve remembered just how important they all are to me. They make me feel truly alive and happy and healthy—which helps me to feel more creative and imaginative.

We’ve just finished moving into our new house (yay!) and are in the process of getting settled. After so many months of being in transition—packing up one house, living with my very kind sister and her family for two months until finally coming here—I can honestly say that I feel like the luckiest person in the world. 

The process of building a house is complicated. There are these milestones, things that have to be done so the house can be built, and while they look straightforward on paper—none of them speak to the emotional and spiritual toll that building a new house can have. We've been working through this process for the last year. In many ways it’s just like writing a book—so much harder and involved than it looks like from the outside. It’s such a relief to be through the majority of it. Now I feel like it's time to replenish my spirit, fuel my imagination and create ALL THE THINGS.

I started my attempt to create ALL THE THINGS by playing my piano (probably because it had been put away in storage for two and half months), and I was blown away by how happy it made me. Like real and true joy happy. It was like a piece of me had been missing and was slowly being restored with every note I played. I also missed running. The track I like to run at is just down the road and as I write this, I’ve just returned from my first proper run in months. Years actually, since I wasn’t running a whole lot over the times that I was pregnant. I also went for a walk and played a video game with my niece. All of it was amazing. Awesome. Fantastic.

I suppose my point is, I am just very happy and grateful to be back to having time and making things again (including blog posts!). Last week felt like my first substantial opportunity to get back into the swing of things with my writing and it felt good to settle into a rhythm, working on a new book first thing in the morning, editing another book just after that and spending my afternoons getting back on track with all the projects I had to put aside. Plus it's just nice to be here at long last, creating our new space, here in the forest, surrounded by trees.

Right before I moved, I wrote this blog about how happy I could be with so little. And that’s still true. Moving taught me that more than ever, that home is where my family is, my husband and my children. But having space to actually create all the things I most dreamed of—movies, poems, paintings, comics—I am so very excited about that. Especially because I hope for many of them to be in the language, as another way of helping me to learn.

I’ll be sharing a lot more of those creations here and other places in the coming months. It’s going to be awesome. It already feels that way!

Happy creating,

S.