Love and Writing

I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be a writer.

I’m not the get-rich-quick schemer that America loves to celebrate. I’m a slow cooker and an intentional learner. It’s nice to have time to think about which lessons to bring and which ones to chalk up as “just a part of life.” Rainer Maria Rilke once said,

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”

It’s not just about putting words on a page; it’s about love.

It feels good to have somewhere safe to pour your love. There are plenty of places that will swallow your love whole and leave you drained, but writing doesn’t do that for me. This is slow love. This is intentional and aware. It’s dedicated and fiercely loyal, and I made sure all that is a part of my writing space.

I hope that someday I get to share that with other writers.

Speaking of love, Writer’s Quest has been poured into for 5 years.
I’d be more than happy to share some
of this love with you.

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James Joyce was my Guardrail

“The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole Life to reading my works.” -James Joyce

In Ulysses, James Joyce uses different types of storytelling while mirroring The Odyssey. He has a table of connections to help his readers to navigate his works and clear knew the investment was placed upon his reader was enormous. It took seven years for him to write Ulysses, so I guess I can’t complain so much about the 5 years of work I spent on Writer’s Quest; however, my novel isn’t even a tad bit as detailed as Joyce’s work.

That was intentional on my part. I wanted my book to be challenging, but at the same time, I wanted it to be accessible. Joyce’s work requires a significant understanding of outside literature prior to grasping all the connections in his novel. Not everyone has the time and support to understand the literature required to connect with Joyce’s work. When I read his book, I dove in, but I was a full-time writer for a chunk of that time. I had to watch videos, reread The Odyssey, and eventually learned his works are much better understood when they are read by someone with an Irish accent who understands Irish culture. Doing all that was exciting and adventurous, and I wanted more people to appreciate that type of adventure right where they are in life.

A Casual Reader’s Guide to Ulysses

I Want to Honor My Teachers

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

If there’s one thing I want my writing to do, it’s to honor my teachers. Teachers come in so many forms: professors, people we hope to never be, infants and children, lovers, and nature, just to name a few. Some teachers invest in us just for the love of it. That always feels nice. And so the point is that Writer’s Quest, in essence, was written while I was full of gratitude every time I sat at the computer. Not that I was some toxically happy individual. No way. Writing this novel was hard work. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into this novel.

But

if there’s one knowing that showed up with me while writing every single page, it is that I wouldn’t have been able to write a single page without my teachers.

(And muses. But that’s another topic for another day.)

Valuing Your Writing

The Magic Behind Storytelling

Writing is more than just telling a story. If you’re a writer, you’re a multitasker in your most natural state. You’re a visionary, communicator, researcher, and an editor—among all the other stuff we must do as humans. When we combine all these, we become something else entirely: a world of our own, especially if we write full time. It’s only natural for writers to step away and become the observer. We need it for our stories. And the world needs our stories.

That’s exactly why, as writers, it’s important to value our effort. Don’t underestimate the amount of magic it takes to tell a story.

This is About Mentors

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writer’s Quest is about three women who find their own way to liberation. Their liberation is spiritual and deeply internal. The thing about being human on the path toward liberation is that we often need a hand or what some may call a mentor. Mentors can feel like magic the way they show up, and maybe there is a little bit of magic in there, but what is really happening is intentional patience, compassion, and understanding. What I’m saying is that mentoring someone can mean a new life for them, not just because they gain skills to help them navigate the world, which does happen, but because they gain a wider perspective of the world and a little more hope.

I know I started this post about women, but the truth is that there are amazing mentors out there who are ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary.

Did you find an amazing mentor?
You might relate to Senta who found a mentor she adored from the moment she saw them.

If not,
Writer’s Quest: A Triptych can be your first mentor.

Psychology and Philosophy from the Mind of a Creative

Writer’s Quest is a walk through psychology and philosophy from the mind of a creative. Bad things happen; it’s tragic, but the good news is that good things happen too, and that’s a wonderful feeling. The many folds and layers we walk through bring us closer and closer to ourselves through good and bad experiences. Character comes as we learn that the horrors of this world must be accepted, and at the same time, we must give ourselves what we need to heal from them.

But let’s lighten this up.

There’s plenty of room in this world for goodness and joy among the chaos and darkness. The thing about it is that you have to give yourself permission to have goodness and joy in your life. Humans thrive best when they allow themselves permission to have a full range of feelings.

You get the honor and privilege of being your own body boss; make it a good year.

Looking to treat yourself? Give yourself permission to get yourself a little treat.

It’s Ok to have a Growing To Be Read Pile

My To Be Read (TBR) pile is getting a tad dusty, but that didn’t stop me from getting The Maidens written by Alex Michaelides. Yes, books are supposed to be read, but me and the rest of the reading community fully support books on the shelf that haven’t been read yet. Here’s the truth, you could read all the books in your TBR pile, and it will still feel like you have a million more books to read. So here’s permission:

buy the books even if you think you won’t read them!

👇🏽👇🏽speaking of books here’s mine👇🏽👇🏽

Writer’s Quest is an experimental fiction novel about a painter who’s searching for her mom and meets a mystical mentor. It’s a story told through different styles of storytelling that shares a woman’s artistic and personal transformation.

Working on My Log Line

Writer’s Quest is an experimental fiction novel about a painter who’s searching for her mom and meets a mystical mentor. It’s a story told through different styles of storytelling that shares a woman’s artistic and personal transformation.

Do you have a log line you’ve used? Share in the comments?

I found a insightful blog post written by Karen DeBonis. She uses examples and has great comparisons from book descriptions to something called WOMM or Word of Mouth Marketing. I really felt better after reading her post.

Here’s the a link if you’re interested in log lines for your writing.

My Ebook Writer’s Quest: A Triptych is available for purchase On Amazon.

A Human Story

When it comes to writer’s quest,

I’m not promising anything but a glimpse into the mind of a woman coming into herself.

Some might say Writer’s Quest is told in a divine way, but the goal was to be my own strange and authentic self. It took a lot of work to dig this woman out of my chest. That’s why this book means so much. Kafka once said, “A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.” Writing this book served as the ax to keep my heart from freezing over. It kept me warm and soft and beating with life.

I can’t think of anything more beautiful.

Irresponsibility, the Pleasure of Art.

“Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.” -James Joyce

James Joyce was an instant favorite of mine. It was like he crawled into my head and spoke my language.

I started with Finnegans Wake, what is often considered his magnum opus. Then I read Ulysses. I also found it fascinating, but I never finished either of them. After those, I read his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and that sealed the deal.

He was a genius, and he made me feel like a real writer.

It’s funny because while I was in my writing cave (a short spurt of my life where I spoke to no one, just wrote and studied the greats), I thought he was one of the greatest writers in the world and that no one would ever dispute that. I came to find that many people greatly disliked Joyce for the torture he placed upon them. One woman had no shame in calling him an a$$hole in the middle of a writing group.

That moment fascinated me.

Because what I experience as brilliance, others experience as torture.

The way Joyce writes makes me feel like he narrows in and develops the ability to listen intently to the world inside his head, almost like Daredevil, but his own internal universe.

If you consider Jungian concepts, it’s almost like he tapped into the collective consciousness. That’s something I say with fantastical excitement. Jung’s concept of the collective consciousness is that there are inherited “thoughts” not from our own lived experience but handed down from those before us.

It took me much longer to appreciate Jung, and I really didn’t connect with him until after I finished his Red Book. But once I did, something clicked. The world of Finnegans Wake that Joyce seemed to hear suddenly had a place.

My novel absolutely holds both Joyce and Jung at its roots.

If you’re interested in Joyce or Jung, let me know; you can see their influence on Writer’s Quest.