Writing and Art. Art and Writing. One year later.
On July 27, 2011, in my social media and indie writer infancy, I posted in my Facebook Notes an entry entitled “Art and Writing. Writing and Art.” which I’ve added for your humorous enjoyment in the previous posting on this blog. Looking back on it a year later, I’m still proud of what I said. This was my first blog entry after all, and I wasn’t really sure what to write about. I figured I would scribble down what I know (like they always tell you to do) and then let the tide take me out to wherever I was headed. So, I wrote about writing and art, naturally.
Yes, my blog has morphed and changed over the course of the past year. For a while, I thought my blog entries would strictly be on that old lumbering behemoth we know and love that is Facebook. Then, when I set up my website, I added a page for a blog of trivial observances, which never took off, and has since transformed into a showcase for my photography. Finally, I settled on my favorite outlet for blogging: Goodreads, obviously. I like the set up, the layout, the color scheme, and the overall cleanness of it, but that’s for another posting.
Since that first A/W entry almost a year ago, many things have happened. I’ve published two flash fiction stories, a short story, and a novella, all of them getting fantastic reviews and stars all around. I’ve also been featured in a few websites, as well as published in a magazine with over 3,000 subscribers worldwide and won NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row. I’ve set up my website, shared my own art and photography, and reached out to over 1,000 twitter followers. I’ve jumped on the Amazon KDP Select bandwagon, set up five different social media outlets, made TONS of incredible new friends like you, and learned the ways and means of this exciting new world of indie authorship we are venturing through. Which, when you think about it, wouldn’t you say that is an Art in of itself? This list of personal accomplishments isn’t me gloating, because if you are wading through this digital swamp, you are probably working just as hard as me, if not harder, so you also deserve a pat on the back and an extra kick in your coffee. I believe it is an art for you to balance this world and your own life outside of it. And now, because of your support and incredible reaction to my work, I’m moving forward in my dreams of being a published writer and then some. For that, I’m forever grateful to every single one of you, especially knowing of the challenges a lot of you have to deal with that I’ve been incredibly fortunate to dodge. Thank you from the bottom of my strangely-shaped, French-fry grease clogged heart for one of the coolest writing years ever, friends.
But, in this past year, my scales have become imbalanced again. Sure, I’ve shown the world my art and my photography, but, I feel like those aspects have become neglected in this strange odyssey I’m on. Fun fact about me: I hate the word “journey” and have for a long time. I think it’s overused and applied in the silliest of ways in today’s society for people who want to sound deep and meaningful. You don’t sound deep or meaningful. You sound just like everyone else who is beating that poor word into the ground, therefore, giving it less and less meaning or power. Besides, to me, journey denotes a constrictive, suffocating path or road from one boring point to another – A to B. Yawn. Here’s T-roy’s advice for the day: too many people go on journeys and not enough people go on odysseys. You can quote me on that. For me, “Odyssey” signifies a series of adventures; a breathable, open playing field full of boundless possibilities and an opportunity to expand horizons by going places never believed to be within reach, instead of marching soullessly down a focused, singular corridor to a final, predetermined destination. I don’t have a problem with being focused, not at all. I just don’t think journeys are my particular cup of tea.
If you happen to catch the big July 6th announcement on my website, you’ll know that those sides of me will soon be available to one and all as the scales are shifting to become even once more. But this isn’t a sales pitch here. I never want this time, my blogging time with you, to ever to be an opportunity for me to sling my snake oil your way with a thinly disguised sale. This is you and me time, babe. My eyes are all on you and only you.
Regardless, my scales are becoming balanced again and that is what this post is about.
Since that first blog admission over a year ago, I’ve changed and evolved, as I’m sure most of you have too. I’ve gained an important relaxed ease to this indie life. Truthfully, I was pretty scared when I first got into it, like going alone into a dark jungle, but to quote a song title from my favorite band, If Not Now, When? When was I going to finally leave the comforts of the lonely beach to set my sails for the horizon? I wanted to know what was over the black, straight-line dividing sky and sea, even if the storm clouds were threatening and the waves weren’t the most welcoming. I still needed to know. I have to say, though, that this little odyssey of mine has been a wonderful experience, while further comfort lies in knowing this is just the beginning.
In that first, very truthful, reflection a year ago, the one thing I still stand behind the strongest is that we are always looking into the past and comparing ourselves to our heroes, but what we don’t do enough of is look into the future and make ourselves our own hero. That still remains as the truest statement, even after a year of trailblazing and coming into my own as to how this whole thing works. In fact, maybe that statement has become even truer, being that we are all new to this e-book landscape. All of us are trailblazers. Remember that.
I’ve also had to ask myself that final, closing question a few times during this year in indie life: what’s in my scales? Now, I’m asking another question and I’ll ask you to do the same: what else is in my scales?
What else is in yours?
Yes, my blog has morphed and changed over the course of the past year. For a while, I thought my blog entries would strictly be on that old lumbering behemoth we know and love that is Facebook. Then, when I set up my website, I added a page for a blog of trivial observances, which never took off, and has since transformed into a showcase for my photography. Finally, I settled on my favorite outlet for blogging: Goodreads, obviously. I like the set up, the layout, the color scheme, and the overall cleanness of it, but that’s for another posting.
Since that first A/W entry almost a year ago, many things have happened. I’ve published two flash fiction stories, a short story, and a novella, all of them getting fantastic reviews and stars all around. I’ve also been featured in a few websites, as well as published in a magazine with over 3,000 subscribers worldwide and won NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row. I’ve set up my website, shared my own art and photography, and reached out to over 1,000 twitter followers. I’ve jumped on the Amazon KDP Select bandwagon, set up five different social media outlets, made TONS of incredible new friends like you, and learned the ways and means of this exciting new world of indie authorship we are venturing through. Which, when you think about it, wouldn’t you say that is an Art in of itself? This list of personal accomplishments isn’t me gloating, because if you are wading through this digital swamp, you are probably working just as hard as me, if not harder, so you also deserve a pat on the back and an extra kick in your coffee. I believe it is an art for you to balance this world and your own life outside of it. And now, because of your support and incredible reaction to my work, I’m moving forward in my dreams of being a published writer and then some. For that, I’m forever grateful to every single one of you, especially knowing of the challenges a lot of you have to deal with that I’ve been incredibly fortunate to dodge. Thank you from the bottom of my strangely-shaped, French-fry grease clogged heart for one of the coolest writing years ever, friends.
But, in this past year, my scales have become imbalanced again. Sure, I’ve shown the world my art and my photography, but, I feel like those aspects have become neglected in this strange odyssey I’m on. Fun fact about me: I hate the word “journey” and have for a long time. I think it’s overused and applied in the silliest of ways in today’s society for people who want to sound deep and meaningful. You don’t sound deep or meaningful. You sound just like everyone else who is beating that poor word into the ground, therefore, giving it less and less meaning or power. Besides, to me, journey denotes a constrictive, suffocating path or road from one boring point to another – A to B. Yawn. Here’s T-roy’s advice for the day: too many people go on journeys and not enough people go on odysseys. You can quote me on that. For me, “Odyssey” signifies a series of adventures; a breathable, open playing field full of boundless possibilities and an opportunity to expand horizons by going places never believed to be within reach, instead of marching soullessly down a focused, singular corridor to a final, predetermined destination. I don’t have a problem with being focused, not at all. I just don’t think journeys are my particular cup of tea.
If you happen to catch the big July 6th announcement on my website, you’ll know that those sides of me will soon be available to one and all as the scales are shifting to become even once more. But this isn’t a sales pitch here. I never want this time, my blogging time with you, to ever to be an opportunity for me to sling my snake oil your way with a thinly disguised sale. This is you and me time, babe. My eyes are all on you and only you.
Regardless, my scales are becoming balanced again and that is what this post is about.
Since that first blog admission over a year ago, I’ve changed and evolved, as I’m sure most of you have too. I’ve gained an important relaxed ease to this indie life. Truthfully, I was pretty scared when I first got into it, like going alone into a dark jungle, but to quote a song title from my favorite band, If Not Now, When? When was I going to finally leave the comforts of the lonely beach to set my sails for the horizon? I wanted to know what was over the black, straight-line dividing sky and sea, even if the storm clouds were threatening and the waves weren’t the most welcoming. I still needed to know. I have to say, though, that this little odyssey of mine has been a wonderful experience, while further comfort lies in knowing this is just the beginning.
In that first, very truthful, reflection a year ago, the one thing I still stand behind the strongest is that we are always looking into the past and comparing ourselves to our heroes, but what we don’t do enough of is look into the future and make ourselves our own hero. That still remains as the truest statement, even after a year of trailblazing and coming into my own as to how this whole thing works. In fact, maybe that statement has become even truer, being that we are all new to this e-book landscape. All of us are trailblazers. Remember that.
I’ve also had to ask myself that final, closing question a few times during this year in indie life: what’s in my scales? Now, I’m asking another question and I’ll ask you to do the same: what else is in my scales?
What else is in yours?
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