Let Writing Open Doors for You

“Life can surprise you with newer and better things that you didn’t know existed.”

Things don’t always come together. Some things fall apart and lead to nothing at all. But and I mean Buuuuut

there’s very often times that things flow into newer and better things that you didn’t know were possible when you started.

There was so much I didn’t know about writing before I started writing. I didn’t understand the versatility of creative writing. Once I learned the unlimited ways I could sling a story, I was pretty much hooked. When I first started writing, I couldn’t have imagined my first novel Writer’s Quest. I didn’t have access to the vision I needed to bring something so unique to life.

If I hadn’t stuck with writing and if I hadn’t explored all the different ways writing changed the world and how it changed me, I would have a very narrow idea of what it meant to write fiction in today’s world.

I’m no master of the craft. I still have things to learn but I know a lot more now than when I first started and that opened doors I didn’t know existed.

-Saschia ✨Jayne✨ Johnson

Is Writing Liberating You?

“Writing is hard but the liberations outweigh the struggles.”

Creating is liberating and it’s also one of the hardest endeavors. To bring your thoughts to the surface in a way that moves the observer. To wrap a lifetime of a million tiny moving parts into a work of art, unfathomable. We as creators have to learn to pick and choose which part’s worth sharing. The truth is all parts are worth sharing but time is precious and most people don’t have it in them to read every single detail. We must choose. We must nitpick and figure out which will be part of this work and that.

It is possible to write for the rest of our days and still leave this world with more to say. And still, I feel more liberated as a writer than all else. I’ve done jobs well enough. I’ve been loyal to a fault. I’ve shown up to a workplace knowing very well, that wasn’t my calling. And still writing is where I return.

Even with my dedication to writing for 10 years now, I still …read more

Save Yo Self

A little post on saving yourself

People will disappoint you. Life will be shitty a lot of the time. I think I’ve reached an age where funerals are just as normal as weddings. I talk about life in a positive way because I was a sad girl for a long time. There’s a lot of hard stuff that we navigate as we move through this life. I don’t think we should invalidate the tragedies that come with living.

Yes, those things you survived were fucking hard. And I don’t demand you be something more or less from them. There’s no heal-all balm for the nightmares life has handed any of us... read more

Transformation, A New Creation

Choose Life, Choose the challenges, Become a new You.

The initial coming to life wasn’t a choice we got to make but living our lives is one of the most beautiful choices we could make every single day. Not everyone’s living situation is a walk in the park where everything comes easy. Some people may dream of a certain type of life while others believe that life is below them. This post isn’t to turn my back on situations where life is tormenting and inhumane. This post is to acknowledge the beauty that comes with choosing life.

And now the question is what is the beauty in living?

For me it’s transformation. What does it take to transform?

A seed of truth alone can send someone into a rabbit hole until they find enough information to satisfy themselves. It’s usually one thing leading to another until finally someone learns about a dead language in the middle of a desert that was once flowing with milk and honey. You go into that rabbit hole as one person less aware and come out someone new. Someone who understands there was bliss where there is now nothing to show for it. These deep dives of curiosity open our minds to new worlds that maybe no longer exist.

Our perceptions transform and in turn we transform into something new, maybe even a little more unhinged.

Transformation

When we transform, the old falls away and it’s this beautiful becoming is all that’s left to share. Subtle transformations in writing are my favorite. I think Henry James depicts this with skill in his works. In Portrait of Lady, it was the change in the man pursuing the main character. He had never met a woman like her, and she made him quite curious.

Transformation is also biblical if you’re into that type of thing. There are specific instances of Christ’s transformation. There’s one when he is first baptized and there’s one when he returns to heaven called the transfiguration. This is when he is turned into a glorious state on a mountain.

Those are just a couple examples. Transformation is universal. We don’t come into this world knowing. We come into this world learning and adapting to our environment. People reach a point in their lives where they don’t rise or sink below a threshold. They no longer seek out different ways to learn and grow. And they die just like that. That sounds tragic but I think it’s important to point out that they didn’t go their entire life that way.

The beauty I find in transformation is that it’s possible for humans to do often and they don’t have to be very good at it. They just have to stay curious and find interest in life. Being released into the world without his creator transformed Frankenstein and each small event changed him more and more over time.

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

The challenges that transform us are cumbersome and sometimes debilitating. Yes. They don’t have to be the end of it all. Challenges can be invitations to become something new and unfamiliar even to yourself.

The Magical Bean

“I like coffee because it gives me the illusion that I might be awake.” –Lewis Black

I didn’t realize how much coffee helps until I played a cat sudoku game right after a long nap and a cup of coffee. I was whizzing through those puzzles.

It’s funny because for a long time, I was jealous of coffee drinkers. They’d talk about how much coffee was a magical bean and how they could not have written a book without it. Yes, I started drinking coffee to increase my writing abilities, which makes me laugh now.

It didn’t happen overnight. I didn’t like the way it tasted for a long time but then I realized I just had to learn how I liked my coffee. It did take quite a bit of trial and error, but now it’s a part of my daily productivity.

What I have learned is that coffee does not aid in pumping out novels faster, but it does help corral a short burst of decent working brain cells to finish at least a paragraph and in some cases that require research, a properly worded sentence.

How is coffee part of your daily routine?