The Simple Life

Happy August everyone! I hope all is well. I am smack dab in the middle of packing up the house we’ve been living in for the last four years and getting ready to move to our new house in a few weeks. It's exhausting to pack. Exhausting to see how many things you can accumulate over four years. Exhausting to sort through and figure out what it is you need to let go of. 

I've made a lot of promises to myself over the last seven days and pretty much all of them have to do with the fact that I’m just as happy when my house is empty as when it's full because I'm fortunate enough to share my life with people I love. I don't need things to be happy. It's one of those things you know, but can also forget. At least it is for me. 

At this very moment, all we have is a bed, a crib, a bassinet, a super small tv, our phones, computers, a piano and some food (a few Nintendo 3DSs and a PlayStation 3) and we are literally having the most wonderful days ever. Life would be perfect except for the cold my daughter and I have had the last three days. 

Still. This last week has taught me a lesson about minimalism. A lesson I seem to need to learn every little while. To spend my time making memories, having experiences and creating things—stories and art—-and not worrying about anything else. 

If you've ever moved, you know as well as I do that it can be super stressful. At first, I had planned to stop writing altogether during the month of August. I needed a break. I needed to read and research and otherwise replenish my creative stores. But I had to break down and write a little bit and when I did, I was reminded again of how truly happy it makes me. I'm so grateful for writing. For learning about writing. For the new projects I'm going to be working on over the next few months. It all fills me up in their very own, very special way. Even writing this blog is helping me to relax!

Anyways. This is just a small note of hello from an empty house in the quiet aftermath of what was a packing frenzy. I have to say, I'm enjoying myself immensely. July was a fabulous month and August is shaping out to be just as fun.

Wherever you are I hope you're having all an awesome time writing and creating. And if you aren't writing and creating--what are you waiting for??? Get started :). 

Happy writing everyone! Til next time! 

S.

#HoldTheDoor - Studies in Storytelling

I'm a huge Game of Thrones fan. A good friend of mine gave me the first two books to read just before he died, so in many ways, they were special to me even before I read them. I remember him telling me about the Seven Kingdoms over bubble tea, how his favourite character was Tyrion and that the person he hoped would rule Westeros was a girl who was living across the sea. Still, it was several months after he died before I finally got around to reading them. I don't know why it took me so long to start them. I think I was scared that once I finished them, my last connection with my friend would disappear. 

Instead I found a world of story. A world of history and magic and politics and warfare and shocking loss. This series more than any other was what made me love fantasy. After reading it, I read more and more. Robin Hobb. Jacqueline Carey. Robert Jordan. Guy Gavriel Kay. Many others I can't name but can tell you where I found them—on a blog called Pat's Fantasy Hotlist that I obsessively followed for book recommendations. I even won a free book in one of his giveaways one time. I think it was called The Blood Knight. Anyways, I finished reading the series (A Storm of Swords was out by then) and quickly searched to find out when the next one came out. In the process of researching the book, I stumbled across the Song of Ice and Fire Forum. This place was a goldmine of discussion, theories, book recommendations, reading groups and so much more. I spent countless hours reading the forum threads, thinking and theorizing about the series and its wonderful characters. 

When I found out HBO was moving ahead with bring the books to screen, I was very excited. I'd seen how they'd done True Blood and as a reader of the Sookie Stackhouse series, I knew they would do an amazing job. There just seems to be a lot of creative flexibility with that network. Their shows are interesting, dynamic and beautiful in a way that television doesn’t always seem to be.

I haven’t been a fan as long as some people, but I’ve definitely spent a lot of time over the last ten years on the forum threads, obsessing over the untold stories of the series. Things like R+L=J, what Ned found at the Tower of Joy, Dany's visions, Loras's fate, Ashara Dayne’s relationship with Ned Stark. Whether or not Sansa will really marry Harry the Heir. If Aegon is the real thing. Whether Jaime will go to Cersei’s aid. Mysteries both big and small. 

But when one of those mysteries was finally revealed this past Sunday—the mystery of why Hodor only says “Hodor”—I was completely shocked. I’ve never in my life had such an intense reaction to a scene of television. And it had everything to do with the way the story was told. It wasn't because I'd read the books and liked Hodor more and longer than other people. It wasn’t because I’d been engaged in the mystery through the books. It was because his story was told with such intention and skill. I admit, I’m still amazed by the tragic beauty of it all. Everything. The shots. The music. The flashing back and forth between the two time frames. It was masterful.

I want to be able to tell a story that well. With words. With music. With intention and care. I want to be a better writer than I am. A better artist. I want to study. And read. And practice. I want to recapture from my own writing, what I felt watching Hodor hold the door. Because what I felt in that moment was enormous compassion and love.

I read a lot of articles and reactions to the scene. This Vanity Fair article mentions how the show runners brought in a special director for the episode—one who they knew had experience with time travel scenes and making them effective. That fascinated me (but made total sense). It also made me realize I want to do some studying. I want to practice some things. Experiment. So I decided to spend some time over the next few months studying the elements of storytelling that made Hodor’s scene—and other scenes so impactful. 

In a way it’s the perfect time for an experiment. I had writing plans for this year (write two books, a few short stories, a poem, a novella) and for the most part, I’ve accomplished the rough draft of all of those projects. Production wise—I have some time on my hands. With that in mind, I’ve decided to spend some time over the next few months studying the elements of the storytelling that made that scene so impactful. 

I’m starting with the book Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee. And I’ll definitely be sharing what I learn as I go along. 

And finally—because I can’t resist sharing my happy news—I gave birth to my baby this week! A little girl. And she’s glorious and precious and perfect and mysterious. Ah. It’s hard to express just how grateful and thankful I am for her and my little family. Nya:weh universe for this very special time! 

Okay. Til next time, happy writing everyone! 

S. 

Writing to Heal

Lately, I've been feeling all kinds of stress. The stress of building a home, of growing a life, of working away at my doctorate. It's a stress that comes from deep within me. It's a stress that seems exasperated by the movements of the planets. And I realize a lot of people might think that is silly but I think it's real. That we are the land. The water. The universe. That what happens to them is also happening to us. And likely vice versa. So there are things that are important for that reason as well. That sense of connection that we have to the world. The invisible (and sometimes not so invisible) ways we are connected. 

For the last few days I have been doing a lot of reflecting and soul searching. I need to do this every so often to find myself a calm and centred place to operate within. Lately, it's been harder than usual to find that space. 

What seems to help, what seems to always help - is writing. Writing makes a huge difference to my overall health and well-being. Creating something everyday, even if it's not something I share or plan to publish, is important. It helps me organize my thoughts and ideas. It helps me focus my feelings and search them out fully, even when I'd rather ignore them. This has been an important lesson for me to remember this week. A reminder that even though I often wish writing were my full time job, I'm not doing it to make a living. I'm doing it as part of the way I live and thrive and move about the world. 

Remembering this can be hard to do when you know that to be successful as an indie author you have to do certain things. Write a lot. Publish often. Market. Advertise. Get yourself out there. It can be a lot of pressure. But the most important thing is to feel the joy of creating. At least it is for me. 

A lot of why I write is to heal and find peace so that I can share that peace with the people closest to me and hopefully spread it into the world, one drop at a time. If I'm acting frustrated or burned out or stressed out, those interactions aren't going to be what I want them to be. The people who I chose to navigate this world with won't be able to benefit from the very best parts of my spirit. 

This week I was reminded to do everything i can to protect those relationships. To let writing be the joy it needs to be for me. To let creating and sharing ideas and thinking about things happen. To share. To forgive. To not judge. To be present in the moment. To let go of my insecurities. It's a wonderful feeling. Like I'm starting something new. Cleansing a slate. Replenishing my creative energy. 

This week's Creative Penn podcast was super inspiring for me. It was very much about making art over a lifetime, about replenishing creativity and believing in yourself. I hope you have a chance to listen to it! It was exactly the message that I needed to hear and I definitely plan to read Lisa's book (and share it with a few other artists I know)! 

Til next time, happy writing everyone :).  

S.

6 Lessons Learned from the Indie Author Fringe Festival

I just finished watching another great presentation from the 2016 Indie Author Fringe Festival that took place at the London Book Fair last week. Basically, #IAF16 was twenty-four hours of incredible interviews, presentations, blogs and podcasts. You can find them all here. There was so much fantastic information that it was a challenge to keep track of all the things I wanted to work on by the time the event was over, however—I have picked out a few follow-ups I think are achievable within the next year. So without further ado, here are my 6 takeaways from #IAF16, organized into short, medium and long-term goals. 

Short Term Goals (1-2 months)

LESSON # 1: Update my social media descriptions. I’ll be the first to admit that when I first joined Facebook and Twitter, I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted to represent myself to the social media world. I have a ton of interests and all of them seemed important or central to my online identity. I care a great deal about humans all over the world having fresh water. I want the education system to represent diversity well, particularly where it concerns Indigenous Peoples. And I love learning to speak the Cayuga language. But what I find myself tweeting, or reading and thinking about the most is my passion for writing and the incredible joy that I get from every aspect of the self-publishing process. There’s a better way to succinctly communicate that via my social media bios, and I’m going to take some time to figure out how.

LESSON # 2: Learn to use bit.ly to make my links shorter. One thing I've learned is that the little things can go a long way to tidy up or better organize the information I’m sharing or want to share with the world. I always wondered how people managed to make their links shorter—especially given the character limits on various platforms. Fortunately, this presentation by Jane Friedman helped shed some light on how easy it is to make links more accessible. There's several other nuggets of wisdom in her presentation, but this is a small one I was super happy to hear about. 

Medium Term Goals (3-6 months)

LESSON # 3: Record an audio book. At present, I have three books out. One is a short novel, one is a collection of stories and the third is a novelette. I would love to turn these into audio books. Over the next 3-6 months, I will be working on bringing this material to life in the audio format. This presentation by Joanna Penn was incredibly helpful in determining how and where to get started.

LESSON # 4: Practice making stronger and catchier images/covers. So, a confession. It was only in the last month that I discovered the wonder that is Canva (this despite the fact that I’ve read about it in so many self-publishing blogs) and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. I love how easy to use it is and moving forward, I plan to use it a lot to help me craft images for my blogs and design cool infographs or just make more interesting images. And while for the most part, I plan to hire out all of my cover designs, I still love making the attempt to design covers on my own (even though I’ve made pretty much every rookie mistake that the three wonderful cover design presentations covered!). One of my favourite presentations was this one by Derek Murphy. I took a ton of notes and look forward to trying to make better images based on what I learned here. And I have to admit—this is probably not the best use of my time as an author but as I’m super fortunate to have all of this really amazing software (InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere, etc), it would be a real shame to not put it to some good use—if not for my own author brand, then definitely for my publishing company’s. 

Long Term Goals (6 months - 1 year)

LESSON #5: WRITE MORE BOOKS. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last two years of serious writing, it’s that making time to write every day—even 500 words a day—can really add up. The number one piece of advice I heard consistently in each panel and presentation—was to keep writing and producing great stories. Not necessarily social media posts, or newsletters, or blogs, or sales descriptions—but work hard to finish that first novel, then the second, then the third. This year I plan to write three new books, a non-fiction book, plus write a novelette and a few short stories. So far, I’m doing well in meeting that goal. I’ve written the first draft to a book called The Wall of Bones, and I’m working on another book called The Fortunes of Ithaca right now. I’ve also written two short stories. Since creation is the funnest part of being a writer, it’s easy to make time for it. That doesn’t mean the ideas are always there or that I still don’t get lost—I definitely do. But making time to write every day has certainly paved the way for me to write more stories than I’d ever have dreamed possible as little as three years ago.

LESSON #6: Continue Organizing My Writing Business. In March of this year (right at the start of my March break vacation), I hired a facilitator to help me work through a strategic planning session for my author business because I wanted to get organized around the activities I was going to undertake on behalf of my books, as well as those I was going to undertake for my publishing company (since they are slightly different and have slightly different audiences). 

This exercise was incredibly helpful. It helped me to set some specific targets for what I hoped to achieve over the next year such as establishing an email list, setting up my finances in a responsible way, taking care of my intellectual properties, and understanding my distribution networks in a way that didn’t interfere with the creative/creation aspects of writing. It also helped me to see that you don’t have to do everything all at once. That it’s okay (and honestly better) if you tackle one thing at a time. For instance, I spent the last week getting more familiar with Canva. The week before that, I spent setting up a separate business account for author related expenses, and the week before that I spent learning about how to create ebooks in Scrivener, etc., etc. Tackling these new tasks or technologies in bite-sized pieces has made it a lot easier to incorporate them into my work in a meaningful and effective way. 

So that’s it—those were among my biggest takeaways from the Indie Author Fringe Festival. I am super excited that the Alliance of Independent Authors has made the presentations available for everyone to view. The presentations are an incredible resource and even though I knew you could watch the videos at any time, I still woke up and tried to attend most of the events on the day of because I’ve never been to a writer’s conference before and I thought it would be fun to pretend I was (which it absolutely was). So I want to say a big thank you to the Alliance of Independent Authors for creating a space for these topics to be shared with those of us who can't travel to these book fairs in person. I learned a lot and I appreciate it so very much! I hope you all have a chance to check them out as well!

Happy writing everyone!

S.

How My Research Needs Have Grown Since Becoming An Indie Author

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of non-fiction reading. This is because I'm trying to learn how to better share my books, make them look nice, and adapt them into other formats (ebooks and audio books). There are a lot of amazing tools and resources that enable you to do all of these things within several different budgets. 

But one thing I’ve noticed over the last few months is that the type of non-fiction reading I’m doing has changed significantly since I first started out trying to write seriously. Like many writers I know (on Twitter for example), I read a TON of blogs posts and books about writing. I still do. Only now, the books I’m reading are very much about the business side of being an author. I can definitely see how once I made the decision to move in one direction (indie publishing) over another (traditional publishing), the kinds of resources I needed to help me do so shifted dramatically. I stopped reading certain kinds of blogs and started to seek out others that had the information I needed. 

The more I understood about how the publishing industry operated (as much as anyone can understand the way the publishing industry operates give the amount of change it’s currently undergoing), the more inspired I felt. For example, one of the first books I wrote that will be published this June, is a young adult fantasy called The Fortune Teller’s Daughter. This book is just over 57,000 words long. I love this story, but when I was thinking about going the traditional publishing route, I worried about the length of it. In my mind, after nine or ten rounds of edits and working with a developmental editor as well as a proofreader, it was done. It felt done. It felt like the perfect length. But I was worried an agent or publisher wouldn’t see it that way. That they would want something more around the 70,000 word range, as this article suggests. And of course, like most writers I know—I’ve read Stephen King’s On Writing, which is a fabulous book but talks about him writing 180,000 word books which was very intimidating, but only because it was outside of my comfort zone of length (and also we write in very different genres).

Then I read this article by Dean Wesley Smith and it opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t the only writer struggling to fit into word length categories. It also helped me understand where some of these debates about word length were coming from. Check it out—trust me, you will find it illuminating (or at the very least—interesting).

What is the takeaway from this? For me, the takeaway is to keep writing, to keep reading and to keep working to become a better storyteller. After all, these are the things can help you generate and build trust in the stories you write, that result in a lot less second guessing and help you produce more work. And no matter which sources you are getting or seeking guidance from, these are the messages that seem to be consistently presented, which is comforting—at least to me.  

And in case you’re interested, here’s a little infographic of the subtle shifts in the podcasts and books I've been reading over the last year, once I decided to become an indie author. (All of these resources are still valuable of course, I just find myself using one set more than the other).  

What about you? How have your needs changed over your writing journey? Are there any resources and tools you find yourself using more than you used to?

Til next time—happy writing everyone!

S