What Writing Can Look Like

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Writing doesn't always look pretty.

Yes, there are those who can sit at Starbucks or McDonald's from 8 am until 5 pm, Monday through Friday, banging out chapter after chapter of wordsmith genius that can be shared with the world in less than 6 months.

Then there are those of us learning the cycles of our writing lives.

From the time I first plunged into the blogger scene and donned my writing hat, I danced about in the long spring and summer of that part of my writing cycle. Then, after publishing Fable Ranger, Summons, life loopy-looed a different way, ushering in a long fall and even longer winter in my writing cycle.

So I empathize with the tree in this picture, a creature of nature reaching and stretching to the heavens, branches once thick with foliage, but now barren and skeletal, barely clearing through the fog.

But it is happening.

Spring is returning.

Slowly, but it is happening in my writing cycle.

It felt good adding conent to Fable Ranger II, the follow up to my MG fairy tale mashup story. Casey is in Lorealia. Dovetail is at his schemes once again.

But this time, it is a family affair.

So what about you, where are you in the cycle of your writing life?

IWSG and Rainy Days

First Wednesday of the month is IWSG posting time. I don't post as often as I did when I first started. I was quite the busy beaver in my early blogging heyday. Yet, I try my best to participate in the monthly IWSG.

This group has been a source of inspiration and motivation, and such a helpful support group when I believed I was dealing with something that no one else could understand. Because when I would hop around from blog to blog, I'd find out that in my good times and my bad...I wasn't the only one.

So be sure to click here and visit other blogs. See what they have to share. Perhaps they are posting about the optional question: When your writing life is a bit cloudy or filled with rain, what do you do to dig down and keep on writing?

Honestly, there have been days that weren't so much rainy. They were filled with rolling thunder so loud it shook the foundation of my writing life. Lightning crackled across a roiling cloud-heavy sky and struck me to my core. The rain fell with such might, crashing into the ground so hard and fast it bounced back up into the air creating the illusion of soaked grasses and streets sending rain upwards in reverse.

When those days happened, writing took a backseat to survivng daily struggles and making time for my daughter... for making time to take care of me.

The struggle gets SOOO real sometimes : ( (credit: Thinkstock.com)

But writing didn't go away.

I read, both fiction and some craft titles, keeping my love of words ever in the forefront of my mind. Maybe writing is in my DNA. Or maybe I'm like Linus from the Peanuts Gang, inseperable from his blanket as I am from writing.

What about you, what do you do when the clouds ands rains invade your serene writing space?

Vive La Revolution!

It starts as a spark, an idea, that something more can be done about an issue of concern. The issue on my mind is diversity in the arts.

What got me thinking about this is a blog post I stumbled across discussing how some publishers are hiring sensitivity readers.

Now, I've read and endured classical reads, such as Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, for school. Personally, I recognized that Twain wrote for what was his time period whether I liked certain word choices or not. I also read my fair share of sword and sorcery or saga/epic tales where nearly every "human" is white. Like seriously, I love Lord of the Rings and still realize that's just how it was.

It isn't how it has to be.

There are things being done, awareness being made. Stories where the MC is a member of the diverse universe - like they are a person of color and NOT in a gang or selling dope, or is a female and it ISN'T a romance, or they're challenged by a physical or mental impairment, or they're GLBTQ - are slowly fitting into the shelves.

Not filling them.

But there is progress.

There won't be any overnight change in publishing. Just as there won't be one for Hollywood.

But there is progress.

So I'm curious. I would love for you to share your thoughts. What do you think about publishers hiring sensitivity readers?

What the Google?

Credit

It's that time of year again. Time for school age youth to bustle about the house unencumbered by Algebraic equations that must be solved, essays to outline, or staring beyond the weirdly shaped mole on Mrs. Whats-her-name's face.

For us as writers, it may be a time to take a break from writing and spend time with the kiddos.

Just don't google "spring break" and click the Images option, especially NOT with the kiddos around. Seriously, like no joke. I'm no prude by any means. But the levels of skin on display make it seem spring break equals strip-club-at-the-beach.

So, changing gears, please do share, what are you doing for your spring break?

As for me and the kiddo, we're heading to a ranch in the "Cowboy capital of Texas" to enjoy some city-lights-free nights and some Cowboy style breakfast, lunch, and dinners, with a campfire and hayriding for good measure.

Of Sales and Hacks

Of Sales...

It has been a while since I mentioned anything about my books in a marketing way. Truthfully, where my writing took a hit and has moved at the speed of a tortoise stuck in mollases, my marketing took a deathblow to the head.

Today, I begin a rather slow resurrection by sharing that Fable Ranger: Summons is on sale. You can grab a heavily discounted copy today at Smashwords using the coupon code RAE50. Then you can discover the importance of the above picture. If Smashwords isn't your thing, I am sure you can find it discounted on Amazon as well.

and Hacks...

Anyone who has been hacked knows it is no fun. You have to do quite a few things to prove you are you so the hacker can get the boot. On Instagram, my tomewriter account got hacked. This tomewriter2 impersonated me, going to my followers, DMing them and goodness only knows what else. Thank you to those who hit me up and let me know that something was wrong. And I am sorry you had to deal with some cheap imitation of me bothering any of you.

After doing my part to prove I am who I am, Instagram notified me that the imposter is gone. Now, I'm a bit paranoid so I deleted my tomewriter account anyway and created a new account with additional privacy settings. Going to give it another go :-)

So, any book sales you want to share about in the comments? Have you been hacked? What was you experience like?