The Artist's Way Update & Patricia Josephine Lynne Book Launch

On a previous post I talked about doing The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. I had intended to update each week, but I only updated for two weeks. Then things got busy and I didn't get posts up. So I thought I'd do a quick update on weeks three through five.

Each week has a different general goal. Week 1 was Recovering a Sense of Safety and week 2 was Recovering a Sense of Identity.

Week 3 was Recovering a Sense of Power. The chapter spoke of anger, synchronicity, shame, growth, and dealing with criticism. One of the exercises involved some free association with childhood and things I'd do if I'd "lighten up" and "if it weren't too late." Childhood was a big theme, but so were habits and people in my life. An exercise that fell flat for me was to list five people I wish I'd met. When it comes right down to it, I can name people because I get the idea of it, but I'm not sure I'd actually want to meet them. An activity that stood out was one involving looking at my habits and then having to quantify what payoff I'm getting from the bad ones. These were basically my secret foes. I can tell you one is shutting off my brain and doom-scrolling Facebook. I'd like to regain that time for myself.

Week 4 was Recovering a Sense of Integrity. This chapter focused on making honest changes and seeking out my buried dreams. I was supposed to practice reading deprivation, but I can't fall asleep without reading first, and as an insomniac since I was twelve, I DO NOT mess with my nighttime routines that help me at least get some sleep. I did practice it during the day by not reading at any other time than bed time, but I think this exercise greatly overestimated how much reading time I usually get, considering the list of things the author felt I could do instead involved time I didn't have, such as painting a room, rewiring a lamp, and repotting plants. It's not reading that is keeping me from these exercises. Also, I felt this deprived a specific group of people more than others. Specifically, writers. And the book is about the ARTIST'S way, not the author's way, so why is it just readers/writers that have to give something meaningful up? I realize all manner of people read; I just think this lacked balance. I think a more effective exercise would have been to make a list of things that take up time and to choose one to give up that week. This would have been more fair.

My current week, number 5, is Recovering a Sense of Possibility.  This week is for me to look at my limits and open myself up to the universe. Something that stuck out to me and that I'd already been thinking about a lot with my work hours increasing well beyond where I'd wanted them to go was the following passage:

"An artist must have downtime, time to do nothing. Defending our right to such time takes courage, conviction, and resiliency." And "For an artist, withdrawal is necessary. Without it, the artist in us feels vexed, angry, out of sorts. If such deprivation continues, our artist becomes sullen, depressed, hostile. We eventually become like cornered animals, snarling at our family and friends [...]." Now, she was implying it was family and friends making the artist feel this way, but it's me. It's work and it's me. My family and friends give me plenty of space. 

The exercises this week had to do with wishes and writing letters to myself from different ages (80 and 8). 

I haven't figured out my artist's date for this week, but for dates I've so far gone for a hike with a camera (it was a double date!), taken myself out to a smoothie cafe to relax with a book while having a smoothie and a matcha latte, lying out in the grass in my front yard and reading a book, and things like that. My goal has been more downtime than more involved dates. I have ideas for more involved dates in the next few weeks, though. It comes down to finding time to do it.

Now for some news! Patricia Josephine Lynne has a new book of micro shorts out. 

A Quick Test 

A Quick Tale #4 

Aliens 

Outer Space 

Experiments 

These mysteries fascinate our minds. Explore the unknown in this exciting collection of tales. Each story is told in exactly 200 words and designed to stimulate your brain no matter how busy your day is. 

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE. 

BUY at Amazon 

AUTHOR BIO: If you asked Patricia J.L. to describe herself, she’d tell you, “Too creative for my own good.” A paranormal and fantasy junkee, she loves to craft fantasy and paranormal stories about vampires, mermaids, angels, demons, zombies, and other mythical creatures. Aliens might even appear in her stories. No matter what mythical beast you crave. Patricia J.L. has a fantasy for every imagination. 

Patricia J.L. official started writing in 2012. She was bored and since she was always day dreaming fantastic stories, she thought, “Why not write them down and share them with people?” She's still deciding if that was a mistake or not. Since then, she has finished a dozen stories and has no plans to stop. 

When she’s not lost writing in fantasy worlds, she relaxes with knitting, drawing and art, and jigsaw puzzles. And of course, good paranormal fantasy books. Patricia J.L. currently lives with her husband in Upper Michigan. One day, they both hope to have enough pets to resemble a petting zoo. (Until then, can she pet your cat or dog?) 

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If you did The Artist's Way, were there exercises, chapters, or pieces that stood out for you? How about ones you were resistant to? What were your favorite types of artist dates?

May you find your Muse.

IWSG - Blogging Memories & Old Friends

It's time for the April Insecure Writer's Support Group!

Created by Alex J. Cavanaugh, the IWSG brings writers together to share their insecurities. Anyone can join; simply click on Alex's name and sign up on the IWSG linky list.

This month's co-hosts are Janet Alcorn, T. Powell Coltrin, Natalie Aguirre, and Pat Garcia. Thanks for co-hosting!

The optional question for April is: How long have you been blogging? What do you like about it and how has it changed?

I looked back and it looks like I've been blogging here since January 9, 2011. I did have a monetized blog called Not a Test Tube Baby in 2005 through maybe 2007 (it's long gone, so I can't check). The blog was about parenting a child conceived through IVF (which is no different than parenting any other child, lol, but certainly the experiences before birth were very different).

I had quit my job two weeks before my son was due, but had him about a week after quitting. I was working as a sub primarily in three schools at the time, as I'd narrowed down who I took jobs from, and the folks I subbed for were so awesome that they ensured they took their non-emergency time off to keep me employed nearly full time leading up to my last few days.

So when my son arrived, I wanted to have some income. I scrambled and got several work-from-home positions, on top of the Mary Kay business I already had (yes, I know - they roped me in while pregnant with promises of having an income...). The monetized blog was one. I had to send a pitch and once they accepted my pitch, I was given the URL matching my blog name and had to post consistently. I wish I still had access to those posts, because they were all stories about my son as a baby then as a toddler, plus pregnancy stories once I became pregnant with my daughter. I'm sure there were some gems.

I also worked for text answering services ChaCha and kgb, where people would text in questions and I answered via a portal on my computer.  

Those familiar with how busy I typically keep myself are 0% surprised that I also felt I needed to be productive as a new, stay-at-home mom. I was also volunteering for a local writer's group and starting my writing career.

Back to this blog, I started out posting weekly, discovered various blog hops, and at one point was posting daily, even outside the A-to-Z Challenge (which is currently happening)). There was a ton of interaction then, and I had more time to visit others, as well. Then I thinned to three times per week, with Wednesdays being something I called Wordless Wednesday, where I posted photos I'd taken since photography is also a hobby of mine.

There was a time where I helped with the A-to-Z Challenge, which all sprung from working with a friend I met blogging named Tina to create a road trip after the challenge to visit all the blogs and keep that community going. We did it from 2011 to 2015. Our graphics at the time were created by another friend, Jeremy. Both Tina and Jeremy are sadly gone now, but revisiting my past blogging brings back good memories with them.

This is from year 2, 2012

Here's one of the road trip posts from those fun times.

We were joined by a third person, Nicole, in the second year!

Then I was part of the IWSG! I don't remember when I started, but I handled the newsletter for a while and quit in 2019ish (may have been the end of 2018) while helping care for my dad, who had ALS, and dealing with a lot of health issues myself.

Ultimately, of course, blogging became less popular and people pulled back, including me. I went to posting once per month for the IWSG. Recently, I started blogging weekly while I work my way through The Artist's Way, though I skipped this past week and will catch up on the missed weeks next week.

Blogging introduced me to a fantastic community of folks where I've made so many friends. So while blogging has slowed, the friendships have continued, many of them on social media more than via our blogs. I wouldn't change any part of my blogging past other than to have saved my posts from the parenting blog for my personal memories and photos.

That ended up way longer than I intended, so I'll save anything else I was going to say other than to say a big thank you for those who helped with my book launch via your blogs, social media, and newsletters. I'm always grateful for this community! My debut novel came out last week, so now it's back to writing until the next book launch!

Universal Link for e-book and paperback

What are your insecurities? How long have you been blogging? Was it always on your current blog or did you have others?

May you find your Muse.

Week Two of The Artist's Way

This is week two of the twelve-week Artist's Way process. Each week we're supposed to have an artist date with ourselves. This doesn't have to involve anything having to do with writing, though I hope I squeeze that in at some point. Last week my date consisted of me just sitting and reading for an hour without it being before bed (since I read nightly before bed to unwind, but it is often the only time I get any reading in).

This week we had to write down a list of things we missed doing. My list was mostly minor things that I simply don't have the time for anymore, but I chose two from it I haven't been doing often enough for other reasons to do for my artist's date this week: walks and photography.

I have been getting some walks in here and there, but I miss the daily walks I used to take. A combination of medical issues has made it much harder to achieve, as has limited time due to work and other responsibilities. I've been trying to push past the issues to take some short walks with a knee brace I got to help with arthritis in my knee. The most I've gotten done in one week is three. While it's not perfect, I think that three isn't too shabby. But that was only one week. I'd like to get to consistently getting in three walks a week and a monthly hike. It would do me a lot of good. 

In terms of photography, I find that I struggle with that before I struggle with writing. It takes a certain mindset to walk around and look at my surroundings with that joyful, creative eye it requires to see those images I want to photograph. I love nature photography, and would like to get back to doing it. So I set out on today's walk in my neighborhood with the determination to seek out photo opportunities. They aren't great, but it felt good to spy things I wanted to photograph. What I really need is a hike in a new place with things to discover, but I wasn't up for that today.

Buds popping out on the first day of spring

The blue, blue sky

The back of the stop sign no one pays attention to

Three signs in a row (the stop sign in back is harder to see)

Someone's cute lawn ornaments

Last year's dried berries still clustered on a tree, along with old, brown leaves

Trying to capture the fuzzy buds, but it was too windy and the phone camera kept focusing on everything but them

Peeling bark

Tree with character

Two of the roots are crossed at the base, looking like a creature with its legs crossed

Just an odd-shaped tree

The skellies in my yard clinging to the last bits of snow from last week's blizzard

The snow on the ground probably makes it look cold, but it was a balmy day. In fact, it was so warm I had on a tank top and sweatpants, and I deeply regretted the sweatpants. Short would have been better. It's supposed to be warm all week, and then we'll see what next week brings. It's my daughter's spring break, and we probably get snow about 90% of the time for the kids' spring breaks. We're probably due one more at least mild snow before it hangs up for the winter. Possibly more.

Next week's my book release! I'm sure the time is going to pass quickly.

Wendigo Nights Universal Purchase Link 

(Choose your preferred market for e-book and paperback!)

If you had to make a list of three items you miss, what would it be? What's stopping you from choosing one to make a point of doing this week?

May you find your Muse.

Getting Crafty - The Artist's Way & Updated Book Tour

It used to be I was frequently surrounded by writers. There was constant interaction when I ran local writing events. Once I stepped down from that I was busy enough with other things that I didn't notice the gap. Of course, COVID was at its societal peak when I stopped running those events, so there were other things to pay attention to. Now, other than on here and social media, I rarely interact with writers in that sort of creative sense, and I realized I'm missing it, though not quite enough to engage in the community I used to volunteer for (last time I went back to engage as an attendee, I got dragged back in).

Instead, I've been reading craft books. Typically, I sit on my front porch with my breakfast smoothie and whichever craft book I'm reading. Only on sunny days, of which we've had a surprising amount lately. We've got a solid snowstorm heading our way this morning, so it will be at least a few days before one nice enough to sit on the front porch again comes along (March is our snowiest month here in Colorado). 

No worries, though. My current craft book is The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. After the introduction, there's not a ton of reading to do, but there are activities that take up the space of a week. I'm only in the first week now. The A #1 requirement at this point is to do "morning pages." These are handwritten (a must), three pages, and are about whatever comes to mind. I've seen the premise done differently elsewhere, but it might have been inspired by this book since it's been around awhile. 

The first day, the morning pages didn't take long at all. The second day, I dragged a bit, so it took longer. Yesterday went more smoothly. I'm writing this post before going to bed, so "today's" pages aren't written yet. I have a meeting first thing, followed by another meeting. Then I'll be getting ready for a livestreamed podcast episode on which I'll be a guest (Minddog TV, 8 PM ET). It should be fun! But that leaves my morning pages up in the air. I've decided not to stress about the pages tomorrow. As long as they get done when I'm able, it doesn't matter if I did them first thing.

I'm trying to go into this craft book and its exercises with an open mind, with the intention of doing all the exercises. The introduction says that if you don't want to do them all, you should do the ones you're resisting the most, because those are likely the ones you need the most. In this first chapter, I didn't have a problem with any of them. I believe this is a 12-week process, so we'll see what happens!

BOOK TOUR

My book tour is going on right now. Below is the current schedule:

March 4 - Patricia J.L.'s blog Twisting the Myths: I write about the background of Wendigo in Michigan Isn't Safe From the Wendigo

March 6 - Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog: I write about my favorite childhood myths in movie form in Childhood Magic

March 8 - Roland Yeoman's blog: I write about Sasquatch in A Sasquatch by Any Other Name *this one hasn't shown up yet

March 13 - Anna at Elements of Emaginette, where she'll be writing about her favorite mythological character

March 15 - Jonathan and Kristina will be writing about their favorite mythological creature(s)

March 15 - Sandra Cox at Sandra's Place: I write Three Character Foodie Facts with Selina Moonstone

March 15 - Nate at Habitual Hobbit: It's More Fun to Believe

March 15 - DeAnna Knippling at Wonderland Press: I write about Ogopogo and the Muck Monster

March 18 - Steven Arellano Rose at Far Out Fantastic with a Q&A

March 20 - Toi Thomas at The Toibox of Words

March 25 - Jennifer Lane at Jennifer Lane Books

And in April, Mary at Dimensions in Fiction

Thank you to the following people who shared out in other ways: HR Sinclair, Amanda Casey, and Natalie Aguirre.

Have you ever read The Artist's Way? Did you do all the exercises? Do you still do your morning pages? Were there any exercises you weren't willing to do?

May you find your Muse.

IWSG - Book Tour & Amanda Casey Book Launch

It's IWSG time! And I'm excited I didn't have another gap since I was running every other month there for four months.

The Insecure Writer's Support Group is a place for writers to air their insecurities and support each other. Created by Alex J. Cavanaugh, it occurs the first Wednesday of every month. Anyone can join. Simply click on his name and sign up on the IWSG tab.

The co-hosts this month are Kristina Kelly, Miffie Seideman, Jean Davis, and Liza Salerno.

The optional question this month is: Have you "played" with AI to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route? How do you feel about AI's impact on creative writing?

I'm not touching it with a 10-foot pole. I write because I enjoy writing.

I've also been seeing the harm it's causing from an angle maybe some folks haven't. Short story markets have been having to shut down over the last few months because they're being absolutely flooded with AI submissions from non-writers. Markets are having to figure out how to pick out the AI submissions. A highly respected speculative fiction magazine, Clarkesworld, had to shut down for a bit because they were featured in one of those articles on how to make easy money, with the pitch that you could use AI to write short stories and submit them. Since it's a pro-pay market, it was considered a great target. I'm sure others have been featured similarly. 

Because of all this, speculative fiction markets keep shutting down, at least temporarily, so it's already impacting short story authors. But even novelists are going to be impacted. The RWA is doing a workshop on using AI to help with your books, taught by an author who openly uses AI to mill out books already. Self-published authors were already constantly under attack from some traditionalists, and now self-published "authors" who use AI are going to make that worse by putting up poor quality novels that compete with the real books and make a joke of self-pubbed folks.

So that's how I feel about it. It's already impacting my worlds.

BOOK TOUR

My book tour is going on right now, though I'm still looking for help if you're willing and able. You can sign up by clicking HERE. Below is the current schedule:

March 4 - Patricia J.L.'s blog Twisting the Myths: I write about the background of Wendigo in Michigan Isn't Safe From the Wendigo

March 6 - Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog: I write about my favorite childhood myths in movie form in Childhood Magic

March 8 - Roland Yeoman's blog: I write about Sasquatch in A Sasquatch by Any Other Name

March 13 - Anna at Elements of Emaginette, where she'll be writing about her favorite mythological character

March 15 - Jonathan and Kristina will be writing about their favorite mythological creature(s)

March 15 - Sandra Cox at Sandra's Place: I write Three Character Foodie Facts with Selina Moonstone

March 15 - Nate at Habitual Hobbit: Topic TBA

March 15 - DeAnna Knippling at Wonderland Press: I write about Ogopogo

March 18 - Steven Arellano Rose at Far Out Fantastic with a Q&A

March 20 - Toi Thomas at The Toibox of Words

And in April, Mary at Dimensions in Fiction

Thank you to the following people who shared out in other ways: HR Sinclair, Amanda Casey, and Natalie Aguirre.

Speaking of Amanda Casey, she has a new book out, as well! You can find out more at her website.

I was a guest at Geeky Gamer Podcast. I can't even sum up what we discussed--creatures, books, Dreadlore (the game), voice actors, and more.

Do you listen to podcasts? What are your insecurities? How do you feel about AI? What's your favorite mythological creature? How do you feel about online book launches?

May you find your Muse.

Craft Book Recommendation & The Vibes Podcast Appearance

It's been a while since I read a craft book, and I felt like I needed something inspirational, so I found Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing.

This is exactly what I needed, so I wanted to pass it along. It's a collection of essays about writing and being a writer. They're realistic, rather than being like those books written by folks who stumbled into some massive piece of luck and then pass it off as the norm in books, just making you feel crappy. Plus, I'm fascinated by the snippets of his life and history that come through in the essays.

Don't come to these essays expecting to be told how to write or anything that straight forward, but do expect to be inspired and entertained.

The random days in the upper 60s we got that were full of sunshine also didn't hurt. In the picture above, I was enjoying the sun on my front porch with a cup of warm chai and Bradbury's book. I haven't finished it yet, but was eager to pass it along.

I was also interviewed on The Vibes podcast, which you can check out in the following places:

YouTube

Rumble

Odysee

Koyote was a great guy to chat with, super chill and interesting. I really enjoy getting to meet new and interesting folks on these podcasts. It's a little less than 30 minutes long.

And, of course, I'm still looking for folks to help get the word out about my upcoming book launch in March! You can sign up at this LINK.

Or if you like to share on social media, this image has the universal link on it so people can find the book at their favorite online bookstore. Feel free to share, and much appreciation for any help!

Have you ever read this Bradbury book? Are there any other inspirational craft books you'd recommend? Do you listen to podcasts?

May you find your Muse.

Labeled Paranormal Guest Appearance

Hi, guys! It's been a crazy week, but I wanted to pass along that I was a guest on Labeled Paranormal, talking about Cryptids and streeeeetching that definition to include creatures from Native lore.

Also, I'm still looking for folks to help with my book launch in March, so if you're willing, that sign up form link is HERE.