Jody Summers's Blog, page 4

TED talks

If you’ve never gone to the website TED.com you really should. They feature short talks by people with amazing ideas about art, technology and business and how those ideas can come together. Here is one by the Author of Eat, Love, Pray that I particularly enjoyed.

This woman has to be a genius and is a wonderful speaker as well.

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating

 

The unexpected journey

The thing is,when I started writing about 8 years ago, I didn’t know i was entering into the vanguard of a new era in the publishing industry…. But I was.

Self Published and Print-on-demand were terms that referred to that garbage that people who couldn’t be published traditionally resorted to. But boy was that about to change. I want to use this area of my blog to layout what this journey has been like for me and maybe even offer some insight for others who might be starting out on the same path I took.

For sure it has been an adventure albeit a frustrating one and one that has been fraught with trial and error. That, at least partially, because it’s hard to keep your balance when the ground your standing on is moving quickly….

Hallucination High

 

This is what I woke up dreaming about a couple of weeks ago. And you wonder why I write books?

 

I strolled through the maze of tall buildings supported one level above ground by a myriad of giant square columns. Books rested in my hands. One was an address book of some sort and the other was a copy of Dark Canvas. People hustled by me in every direction, reminiscent of my years in college and the in-between-class bustle of everyday schedules. A girl appeared in front of me also holding books and smiled like she was about to speak. Her name was Martin, or was that my name? A scream disrupted my questions and I looked back to see people begin to run. Big, heavy machines were very slowly descending into the spaces between the buildings and people who couldn’t get out of the way were being crushed. I turned back to the girl to tell her to run but she was gone. I looked in every direction but even with wide open spaces  in every direction, I couldn’t see a trace.

The next thing I know I am stepping out from under landing feet of one of the giant machines and some beast that looks like a variation of an airborne Caymanian crocodile comes at me opening its jaws wide as it approaches. I don’t feel particularly scared, but as I raise my hand in an instinctive defensive gesture, the beast hits some sort of invisible barrier and proceeds to disintegrate slowly from front to back as it pierces the plane of the obstruction. The remains become pollen and dust particles that blow away on the gentle breeze until nothing remains.

No one else seems to notice.

I continue walking to some destination I couldn’t seem to remember. The blustering of other students has diminished and the huge machines were no longer in evidence. I paused at a concrete bench and glanced around trying to recall which direction I wanted to go. No information was forthcoming, but I had a sudden need to find the girl again.  While I considered this, I turned to sit on the bench only to find that two people had appeared there, one lying on the bench face up with a smug look on his face nearly obscured by a book he was holding, and the other standing by him in a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. Hoody turned to me and spoke, his face occluded by the shadow across his face.

“Get out,” he said. His tone wasn’t one of fear but of anger and threat. Smug face lowered his book and turned to me repeating the other’s comment. “Get out!”

I felt no need to disagree with them and even considered that their suggestion might be a good one. Eschewing any verbal response to the strange pair, I turned again only to see Martin in the distance once again holding her books, smiling and waving. Hers seemed as good a destination as any for the moment, so I accelerated away from the bench twins favoring her direction.

 

This is what I woke up dreaming about this morning. And you wonder why I write books?

Reflections upon a Dream

 

 

I tossed and turned,

Last night’s repose

Gave troubled dreams

And tangled bedclothes.

I suffered in slumber

For considered acts,

That as of yet,

Are not even facts.

Yet dreaming gave me

A most rare look,

At how I will feel,

For actions I took.

How strange to suffer

In darkest night,

For things not done

But only that might.

Yet insight is the greatest tool

And last night’s pain

Saved tomorrow’s fool.

MASK MAKER is released

Now available in both Kindle and Paperback

Poetry

I’ve had a few people tell me I should post some of my poetry. (since I’ve been writing it all my life) So I decided, what the heck.. Here’s one from over 20 years ago about a strange dream I had.

                                          Reflections upon a Dream

                                                I tossed and turned

                                                Last night’s repose

                                                Gave troubled dreams

                                                And tangled bedclothes.

                                                I suffered in slumber

                                                For considered acts,

                                                That as of yet,

                                                Are not even facts.

                                                Yet dreaming gave me

                                                A most rare look,

                                                At how I will feel,

                                                For actions I took.

                                                How strange to suffer

                                                In darkest night,

                                                For things not done

                                                But only that might.

                                                Yet insight is the greatest tool

                                                And last night’s pain

                                                Saved tomorrow’s fool.

                                                                       Jody. Summers   5-20-89

Why did I write Dark Canvas

I’ve had several people ask me this and the simple answer might be, “Because I could”, but I think it goes deeper than that. I have been writing something or other all my life. I’ve been writing poetry since I was in the fourth grade and as the years went by I became a more and more voracious reader. I found myself thinking with each new book I read, I could do that. Dean Koontz’s work especially did that for me. I never really thought I could write with the same technical expertise that Mr Koontz exhibits, but I did believe I could write something that would engage people. Make them SEE what I was describing and make them FEEL what the characters felt. For years I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to write a novel, but I never had anything grab my imagination sufficiently enough to actually do it until I came upon the general concept for DARK CANVAS.  As I mention in my forward, I met a girl in California on an internet date that was actually doing these paintings with the ashes of the deceased, but it wasn’t until I was describing the event to another wonderful lady in Arkansas, Debra, that it hit home. Her comment was something like, “That sounds like an icky profession but what a great idea for a novel”. Well, that comment grabbed me like a thousand pound wrestler, and I started writing the very next day. Six months later I had 155 thousand words and a first draft of DARK CANVAS finished.

Now the most gratifying experience I can have is when readers tell me they couldn’t put it down, or “When is the next one coming out?” THAT’S what I hope to accomplish in my writing . An escape and an experience that completely engages readers like so many wonderful authors have done for me….

Willpower

I found myself thinking about willpower years ago when I was in college. I even went so far as to take a sort of self-hypnosis class to improve my willpower. Well it certainly worked for the first year at least. It was just prior to my senior year in college, and I was behind in hours to graduate on time because I worked out in gymnastics 3 to 5 hours a day, 5 days a week and frequently competed on the weekends. At any rate, I knew I had to finish my hours to graduate by the time my elgibility ran out or I might never graduate, since I had no idea what I was going to do with a degree anyway.

Well, I did it. A year later, after I graduated, I started tabulating all I had accomplished in the previous 12 months.  I took 55 hours in college, got my pilot’s license, learned to play the guitar, learned to skydive and got scuba certified all in those twelve months. And I didn’t give up gymanstics, nor did I give up socializing…

So why have I not had another year THAT productive? Again it’s willpower, which I came to realize is like an escalator. You never get to stand still. You’re either going up or your going down. And deciding to change is not A decision. It is the decision to begin making a set of decisions in a certain way.  If you want to lose weight, you have to decide you will make that decision over and over again everytime you are faced with eating less food and exercising more. Although that concept makes the process seem a little more daunting, I think once you understand what you are dealing with in your decision making, it at least makes it easier to determine what you really want to do……..

Things we love to do

No this isn't WWII it was from my camera in April of this year

You know as the years go by we sometimes forget or neglect the things we enjoy the most (sometimes people included). I had a weekend here recently where I had the opportunity to enjoy two of the things I love. Flying and gymnastics. I got to go fly on a B-25 bomber. The ones that were featured in the movie Pearl Harbor as part of Doolittle’s Raiders. It was complete with a P-51 escort. What a trip!       Later that weekend I had the chance to make it to the NCAA men’s gymnastics finals and relish in the show and the memories. It was a very important lesson in remembering to take time to do what you love. Smelling the roses comes in a myriad of flavors.

I don’t know if this would qualify as “things I love to do” unless you are generically referring to photography but this is the second time in my life I’ve found myself photographing tornados. The first time turned out to be on a roll of film I used to photograph the Hale-Bop comet as well. One roll of film with only a comet and a tornado on it….hmmmm what are the odds? At any rate I took these two in Cherokee OK in April 2012.

This is why they're called Twisters

 

Twice the Twisty Fun

DARK CANVAS readers

So have you read Dark Canvas yet? What did you think?