Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers

Why Being a Creator Never Ceases to Amaze Me!

The power of the Mind, Heart and Spirit never ceases to amaze!! (Image titled ‘Magnit’ courtesy of darkwater www.sxc.hu)

When I started with NaNo I never really understood how amazing my mind actually is until I was thrown into a challenge that limited my time to create something I’d never tried before. In my post titled “NaNoWriMo and Other Scary Events”, I declared how utterly nuts I thought I was about trying out a new genre for a writing challenge I’d never undertaken before, but also I also said how excited I was to push my imagination and creative skills to their limits because I thrive under pressure and always do my best when something is staring me in the face saying, “Go on, I dare ya!”

And the result? It worked!! Everything came together and I now possess an almost completed novel written in a handful of different genres I always wanted to try “some time soon” but only when I had all the time in the world to think it through and plan it and outline it, and, and, and…!

As of today I stand at just over 47 000 words and by tomorrow I will have won NaNoWriMo on my first attempt! Whoo-hoo!

But I digress a little from the topic!

What has blown me away is something that I have spoken about at length in earlier posts: the power of our creative abilities and how unlimited they are in every respect. I have read some incredible blogs and Facebook stories about how well other writers have done and about how much further they’ve gotten than they’d ever dreamed possible. And I wanted to shout out loud so they could all hear me, and say, “Why did you ever doubt yourself? Don’t you know how much power you possess in your incredible mind, in your big heart, and in your glorious and mysterious soul and spirit?”

What I love the most about NaNo is the hope it builds in every person who attempts it – whether they win the challenge or not. Whether they write only a few chapters or finish the whole book, it encourages all authors and would-be authors to think and imagine beyond their comfort zones, and when they fully embrace the opportunity and open their minds to the potential inside them, then magic happens!

There is an author whose blog I follow, who from the beginning doubted she could pull it off because she had so much other work to do, but she was one of the first authors to finish her novel and now it sits at over 80 000 words the last time I read her posts. She described her journey almost on a daily basis and shared her innermost thoughts and struggles with her readers, but in the end she triumphed above and beyond because she believed in herself, that she had an incredible story to tell, and that it needed to get done.

What excited me was how every time I sat at my desk and began typing I couldn’t stop. I also had a story that needed to come out, and although I only had a vague outline and a few major scenes with which to start, it bubbled up from within and appeared on the page in stark detail, every scene as astonishing as the next. The characters came to life and developed very distinct personalities; the various genres I was using (see my posts “Does Genre Fusion Work – and is it Wise?”(see below) and “So Far Genre Fusion is Working for Me – a NaNoWriMo Tale of Succes... for more details) complimented each other beautifully; and the scenery and atmosphere and detail of where the story takes place were created with no sweat and no tears of frustration. Every day I sat amazed at what I had achieved while the word count went up and up. The day I wrote over 7 000 words in one sitting is one of my favourite memories, even though my back and fingers ached and I couldn’t feel my legs and butt afterwards With utter amazement I looked at what I had created and realised that no matter what or how or when I write I will always be able to create – the flow will never cease and neither will the magic, that inexplicable force within all of us that just keeps giving and giving as long as we are open to receiving it and do not block it’s constant flow with self-doubt and low self-esteem.

Forgoing editing and fixing at the end of each day was the hardest part for me, yet I managed to control my perfectionism and stuck to the goal of getting it down first, reaching 50 000 words as soon as possible. The book will eventually be longer than the required word count to win NaNo, and once I’ve completed the challenge I will then continue until the story is finished and then put it to one side to let it stew for a month or two while I finish editing The Sword Bearer’s Awakening, Book 3 of my tetralogy, and get it ready for publication around March next year.

Image courtesy of: sofamonkez (www.sxc.hu)

Avalin: A Vampyric Legend is a powerful tale of desperation, lust, passion, love, hatred, war and the courage and determination of the human spirit to survive horrors beyond imagining. Here’s the synopsis once more:

“In the era of the gunslinger dangerous, hungry creatures of the night roam free and undetected.

A beautiful woman, once wealthy and respected and married to a man of great influence, is forced, out of great personal loss and desperation, to become a prostitute. Working in a high-class brothel, she catches the eye of two mysterious men and ends up spending a night with them, only to discover, in the heat of passion, that they are vampyres.

In what she thinks are her final moments, she begs them to end her life of suffering and grief. But these are no ordinary vampyres: they have searched for Avalin for centuries, they reveal to her, and now that they have found her they have no intention of ending her life. She has something they desperately need. She is unique, they tell her – one of a kind.

Fascinated, yet sad that her suffering will not end that night, she agrees to remain exclusively theirs, and so the extraordinary legend of Avalin begins. As she discovers more about her mysterious benefactors and protectors the more frightened she becomes.

These are no ordinary creatures of the night; they have a terrifying secret, a secret that could mean the end of all humankind!”

I’m hoping to get it published by mid 2013 before Book 4 of my Sword Bearers tetralogy. I will display it and promote it proudly as my greatest challenge and most satisfactory success because in writing it I discovered that when anyone tells me I can’t do something, that I’ve overreached, that I am crazy to try something I have no experience in, I will know that they are lying!

Believe in yourself, and never doubt for a second you are capable of more than you think!!

Please share your thoughts and experiences of your own self-discovery and realisations and how you see yourself – powerful or getting there or not quite there yet! I love hearing from you!