Timing and the Creative Process by Lily Iona MacKenzie: A WOW Blog Tour
Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Lily Iona MacKenzie/@lilyionamac
“You don’t have to swing hard to hit a home run. If you’ve got timing, it’ll go.”~Yogi Berra
Please join me in welcoming Author Lily Iona Mackenzie in this WOW Women on Writing Blog Tour for her new book, Fling. Lily shares her thoughts on how timing impacts creativity and success. We all know life, in general, is “all about timing” so let’s see what she say about how it affects success in writing.
Welcome, Lily!
Author Lily Iona MacKenzie
TIMING AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS
I’m thinking today of timing—how important it is to success. Timing and perseverance: the two go together. I’m also noticing the seasonal aspect of creativity, how cyclic it is. That too is hard to grasp. I want it all the time. I’m afraid if it isn’t there, it won’t return. But I need to remember that if I pursue my creative impulses, and if they’re in accordance with my abilities, then there will be success. Maybe not financially, though that would be nice. But I’ll experience the satisfaction of achieving what I’m capable of.
I must keep in mind that the cup will empty and fullness will recede, as happens each night with the waxing and waning energies of the moon. I can’t help but hear “moo” when I write moon, those old nursery rhymes of the cow jumping over the moon still playing in my imagination. Of course, cows are very much moon creatures, with their emptying and filling, the various stomachs they have for digesting food that turns into nourishing milk. They’re a wonderful symbol for the creative person.
Perseverance is the key word. I need to keep this in mind to combat the bombardment of negative things I’m reading currently about being a writer. Not only is publishing like finding a needle in a haystack—especially publishing fiction—but also only five percent of writers support themselves on their writing.
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“Fling” summary: Lily Iona MacKenzie’s debut novel Fling!, a wildly comic romp on mothers, daughters, art, and travel, will be published by Pen-L Publishing in July 2015. The book should appeal to a broad range of readers. While the main characters are middle-aged and older, their zest for life would draw readers of all ages, male or female, attracting the youthful adventurer in most people. The heart of the book is how they approach their aging selves and are open to new experiences.
About Fling!: When ninety-year-old Bubbles receives a letter from Mexico City asking her to pick up her mother’s ashes, lost there seventy years earlier and only now surfacing, she hatches a plan. A woman with a mission, Bubbles convinces her hippie daughter Feather to accompany her on the quest. Both women have recently shed husbands and have a secondary agenda: they’d like a little action. And they get it.
Alternating narratives weave together Feather and Bubbles’ odyssey. The two women travel south from Canada to Mexico where Bubbles’ long-dead mother, grandmother, and grandfather turn up, enlivening the narrative with their hilarious antics.
In Mexico, where reality and magic co-exist, Feather gets a new sense of her mother, and Bubbles’ quest for her mother’s ashes—and a new man—increases her zest for life. Unlike most women her age, fun-loving Bubbles takes risks, believing she’s immortal. She doesn’t hold back in any way, eating heartily and lusting after strangers, exulting in her youthful spirit.
Readers will believe they’ve found the fountain of youth themselves in this character. At ninety, Bubbles comes into her own, coming to age, proving it’s never too late to fulfill one’s dreams.
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About the Author: A Canadian by birth, a high school dropout, and a mother at 17, in her early years, Lily Iona MacKenzie supported herself as a stock girl in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a long distance operator for the former Alberta Government Telephones, and as a secretary (Bechtel Corp sponsored her into the States). She also was a cocktail waitress at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, briefly broke into the male-dominated world of the docks as a longshoreman (and almost got her legs broken), founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County, and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in Creative writing and one in the Humanities). She has published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 140 American and Canadian venues. Fling, one of her novels, will be published in July 2015 by Pen-L Publishing. Bone Songs, another novel, will be published in 2016. Her poetry collection All This was published in 2011. She also teaches writing at the University of San Francisco, is vice-president of USF’s part-time faculty union, paints, and travels widely with her husband. Visit her blog at:
Author Contact Information:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lily-Iona-MacKenzie/829244327113557
lilyionamackenzie.wordpress.com
Amazon link:
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Thank you Lily for reminding us of the importance of timing and perseverance in writing. I wish you much success with Fling. I love the idea of never giving up on a dream.
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How about you? How has timing affected your creativity and, therefore, your success?
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, August 10, 2015: “Drawing Out The Sting: Finding Forgiveness by Memoir Author Gwendolyn Plano”, author of Letting Go into Perfect Love: Discovering the Extraordinary After Abuse. Gwen will be offering a book giveaway to a random commenter.
