that they have enough weight to be picked up and tossed high
that they find anyone who will get something from reading them
May they find the ones who need them and the ones needed by them
I pray they reach people and inspire them, to positive change
I ask the Universe God, Buda, Allah and Zeus to aid them to fulfil their mission
And I declare that if only one person, by only one phrase I have now published, get to one worthwhile realisation, it will have been worth…
The timeless hours; taking notes through the night, disturbed sleep, anxiety, study, reading, re-writing, correcting, editing, the watching of others nipping and piercing through your creation, the pain, the joy, the despair, the fear and the fulfilment
It will have been worth it
My deep gratefulness for the privilege of putting these words to the World
By the power invested in me
Amen
“The world is changed, I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost…”
Galadriel’s words come to me when I look at the publishing world. I’m seeing many bookstores closing, I look at my own reading habits and how much they have changed since I acquired my first Kindle.
When I look at Amazon’s best sellers lists I see several self-published books competing with the largest publishers, and quite often these publishers are not doing a very good job in promoting their books and authors in the ebook platforms.
I have knowledge of ebook publishing and can see several errors in basic strategy that are more common to the publishers than the individual authors.
I look at all that is changing and see great opportunities. There are so many wonderful books I would like to re-read that are not online; there are many great books in other languages that were never translated because of the difficulty to reach a market. So many series forgotten in libraries because it was hard to get all the books in the series, in their proper order would have been even harder.
The ebooks bring the classics for free and a lot more for free, good and bad. These free books are wonderful opportunities to promote a new author. Writers able to create series of books are the ones who are more prone to success.
What I believe is happening is the old publishing houses to be stuck in their stubbornness to prove they are right, instead of looking ahead of what is coming next.
I understand, quality will suffer, glamour is lost, jobs are on the line. But change is change and there is no point struggling against it, you have to go with it, see where it takes you. I find there is a need to find new avenues to promote their books and their writers. I have read mostly unknown writers since I have gotten my kindle. Before I would go to a library or a bookstore and choose among the best sellers and known ones.
I still feel a bit romantic and would love to see my book in hardcover, do book signings in a bookstore. But that may be a scene from the past, is is possible bookstores are doomed and I am part of what caused this change.
What is that saying? Lying in the bed you’ve made? I hope I can do it, with pleasure.
I wonder if one day I will know what works and what doesn’t for me. In inspiration and writing, every time is different. I’m creating a new book, one written in English this time. But my inspiration and especially my confidence are fragile.
How much feedback is good? What to accept and what not. Sometimes I feel I don’t want to listen, unless it is positive. On the other hand there is a great benefit in listening, to the good and the bad, learning, adjusting, in finding the way.
They say everyone is a winner, I feel like one even though I was very far from 50,000 words. There is this website http://www.nanowrimo.org where people log themselves in to launch full on into a competition, except they are really just competing with themselves. Nanowrimo stands for national novel writing month and it runs every November. the name is actually wrong because what started with a North American website where about 40 registered over 10 years ago, today it is fully international with more than 300,000 registered in 2012.
You sign in and every day register your word count, attempting to reach 50,000 words by the 30th of November. I’ve made it to about 7,000 words. I won’t stop writing and participating in the event gave me inspiration and ideas. I’ll just need more time than a month.
The best I took from it was that, for the first draft, it is smart to turn the internal editor and critic off.
I also feel good I actually intend to do something about my writing and not just put it into a drawer once it is done. I’ve met a few winners who have been doing this for a few years, and every year, after writing 50,000 words, they put it somewhere and forget about it.
That is why I think, in my failure, I feel successful, because my writing will see the light of day.
Although I’ve been writing less here, I’m writing more in general. I’m on a new path now: I’m doing a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at UTS. I’m loving it. When you are “on purpose” and doing your passion it always goes well.
Funny thing is that I didn’t even know such thing existed! I’ve always wanted to do a masters degree but not of something that wasn’t a priority. As soon as a friend from a writer’s group told me about it, I went for it!
This blog and my website, I’m sure, helped me to get accepted for the program. The Advanced Narrative Writing classes taught by Rosie Scott are not only a high level technically, they are also great fun. I’m also on a Theory and Creative Writing class, where we talk about very strange notions, ininteligible texts, obscure writings and intelectual conundrums. All worth it.
The end result of the course is the writing of a novel. I was going to write a novel anyway, to have such a structure to guide me through it will be great. Being a migrant with English as a second language, I can grow much more for having this contact.
Again I feel privileged to be in Australia where there is a government program to support students. Had I not been here, I wouldn’t be able to be doing this right now with the easy I’m doing it.
I know this all looks too positive, suspiciously so, I could imagine, but it is how I really feel.
I have created a website from my writing. It may seem a bit crazy but the idea was “spoken” in a dream by my own voice inside my mind: “create a writer’s website”. www.taniacreations.com
Writing this website is like going on a road that you don’t know where it ends. It is unpredictable, with unfathomable results. Here I am investing in something I have no financial reasons to do but I am intuitively sure it had to be done.
It has been an interesting journey, becoming a full time writer… At the beginning I was terrified when people asked me:
– What do you do for a living?
Shaking I would answer in a very low voice “well… I’m a writer, trying to publish some books in Brazil”. And felt I could possibly die if anyone asked me:
– And is it possible to make a living out of it?
Now I am confident, smiley even. I’ve settle for the truth as I see it, not what my physical senses are telling me right now. I go for the reality I am creating:
– Of course it is!
Now I can scream out loud: I AM A WRITER, FULL TIME WRITER!!! You will be able to buy my books online (if you read Portuguese) very soon. But the next book will be written in English!
And you know what? The feedback I’m getting is wonderful. Every single person I talk to motivates me to go on.
This is the reality I am creating: walking in the sun recording my thoughts for future writing, spending the days (sometimes nights, sometimes weekends) writing.
I hope you enjoy the website, it is, literally, a dream come true!
I used to be afraid of publishing my books. I am not anymore.
It is such a simple reasoning and yet, it evaded me like the vampire avoids the cross. I was so scared of criticism, of not being approved for publishing, of not being sold or not being liked that I stood frozen.
Suddenly (with a lot of internal mental work) I realised that nothing matters except putting the books out there.
If I don’t get a publisher I will pay for the publishing myself; if it sells, awesome, if it doesn’t, I’m a published author. At the very least I shall sell a few books to friends and family If people like it, great! If not, at least I have written and published a book, not everyone can say that.
Thinking of the books as stepping stones, as possibilities, as one of the ways that my writer career could climb, I can be happy with any results that come from them. Treating the books as my sole chance of success was absolutely killing my will to get published.
So you see, it is easy, forget all the reasons you have for not offering your book for publishing and send it out today.
A few months back I had two books that were written but needed revision to be ready for publishing. I then decided to take time and do just that. I have accomplished my tasks and completed them, they are fictional novels, written in Portuguese; one is about a colourful Brazilian guy who dates an Australian girl and the other has true tales from my grandfather’s life as a fictional ghost.
I have sent them to copyright; then distributed them to some chosen editors and finally promoted them at a specific website which distributes the books to potential publishing houses according to the book style and the editorial line of the publishers.
Now I am waiting for answers, let’s see how it goes. Wish me luck!
I feel like I was born to write. It just feels right. The feedback I receive is that I do have a gift. So this is what I am doing. Although I am posting less writings in my blogs it is because I am actually acting on the becoming a novelist part.
I have just finished preparing my first book for publication. I am currently distributing it to editors. This one is written in Portuguese, as is the next one. I have another fiction novel written which I am now going to correct and prepare for edition too.
Thinking about all that it came to my mind something I have written about before: thinking like a writer. Writing is so right for me because I am always thinking as if I am writing a story. That is how I came to the thought that it is a veritable crime that telepathy, controlled telepathy, doesn’t exist. I would love to jump to another person’s mind just to see how they process their thoughts; it has to be different from where I do. Imagine that a musician would think about the world as the sounds it produces. And a painter see the colours, almost as if the sounds would be fading, just background. A photographer would think in still poses, while a videographer would always think about the connection of the events.
It was in this thought stream that I realised I can, and I do, enter other people’s minds! Reading, listening to music, watching a movie, through all arts. Maybe that is why art is so imbedded into humanity, for the capacity it has to bring us the power of telepathy.
We create a world around us always based on the way we think. I wonder if I write because I think in narratives or if I think through stories because I am a writer. The egg or the chicken? Have you ever realised that most characters from most writers in history like to read? And it is pretty common for the author to make a remark in the story saying that the character likes to read, usually a lot. Writers, by definition, like to read, so our lives in general sieve through the life of the beings we breathe life into.
I am living this life of my dreams. I have given myself the permission to go through my savings and write for the love of my life, in the sense of survival. As if it was the only thing I was meant to do. And it feels so perfect. I trust the universe to bring me the means to continue to do that. Meanwhile I am dedicating myself of living life fully and as a full time writer.
If you don’t know Radar you have to see it. It is a magazine about the Brazilian culture for the Australian market. It is special. It has an amazing quality in all senses, good printing in a glossy paper, with a layout that is almost sexy, the pictures are artistically chosen and distributed, the writing is not only journalistic, it is almost literary, like chronicles of life’s best. All done in two languages: English and Portuguese.
I have great news! Radar Magazine is opening a new Latin Dance Section from the August edition. I’m very excited as I’m the writer and reporter. http://www.radarmagazine.com.au
I fell in love with the magazine when I first read it and contacted them saying: I want in. That is how I ended up writing for them about the Sydney Salsa Congress and a few tourism pieces.
The Latin Dance Section will have one or two pages full of pictures and information from the scenes in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.
The intention is to draw the attention of the Latin scene to the magazine so we are doing this as a trial. I intend to make this section so good people will salivate looking at it.
To know more about my writing check all my blogs.
One day a friend said:
– You talk like you are writing.
I remember the day: we were in a dance congress in Brisbane a beautiful sunny day straight after a shower with the wind blowing the leaves of the trees and an atmosphere so magic it made me describe it to my two companions. That’s when one of them said I talk like I write.
That made me see my life in a different way. I realised that I see life through a writer’s eyes. That all my perceptions are made in descriptive terms. That my experiences are not totally put into perspective until I have told them to myself adding adjectives, weight, smell and flowers as if I was writing it all.
Yes, my friend is right, I do talk in a different ways and I use words that are not common in both my languages. The words come from things that I have read and those are much deeper in my mind than any other experiences I had.
I can only learn a new word if I see it written.
That is why this blog has so much to do with me: written life… that’s my soul, that’s who I am. A life in writing…
writtenlife.me 