SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER (Guest Post by Jessie Rex)

So You Want to be a Writer?

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.”
—Enid Bagnold

You glance over at the table across the room and although you cannot hear the words the couple are saying, you can clearly imagine the conversation. You notice the way she touches her ear as she speaks, the way he looks into her eyes.

When you go anywhere your senses come alive to the noises that you hear, the smells, and the sights, taking it all in. You take mental notes. This is something you do automatically, even when you are trying to focus on something else.

Back home there is a stack of one sentence notes laying on the table. Beside your bed in a drawer are multiple pens, a note pad and torn pieces of paper with scribbled thoughts on them. Scattered throughout your home are journals in various colors and sizes.

Your desk has transformed into a mini mountain that is overgrown with notebooks, hardback books stacked and some open, face-down, highlighters in a rainbow of colors, and a laptop bordered with sticky notes.

When someone asks you what your hobby is, casually say you like to write.

So you want to be a writer?

Brace yourself. If your life is similar to what I just described, you do not ‘want to be’ a writer. You ARE a writer. Why do we find it difficult to tell someone we are a writer? What are the qualifications to be considered a writer?

There are times I have shared that I am a writer and you could see the smirk or hear the scoff in the voice of the listener. Just because some cannot imagine you as an author unless you’ve sold as many copies as J.K. Rowling or other big names in books, does not dictate your authenticity. Don’t fall into this delusion. You are your own style and you don’t need to sell a million copies of anything to be a true author. Besides, these type of encounters with skeptics are wonderful practice for your upcoming-if not already-critics. Critics are a positive force in a writer’s world. We learn, we grow, and we can gain an imaginative vocabulary thanks to critics.

I want you to know that just because you’ve only written a few articles here and there, perhaps worked on a blog, or write ads for newspapers, if you enjoy it, you’re actually writing, no matter how short or small it seems to you, you are a writer. We can be our own toughest critic. We compare our work to someone else. Guess what? They are on their own journey. You have your own unique way of putting something into words. If you dream of publication, then that’s fantastic! If you want to actually be published, you must put those dreams into action. You have to actually write. Not just talk about it, dream about it, or jot down notes. You must write! You must do your homework and get connections, seek assistance with editing, research places to publish, spread the word, take workshops, and ask a lot of questions. It takes action to get published.

So go home and gather up all those notes and journals. Organize and outline. Take workshops and read, read, and do more reading. Send out questions and apply those answers to your daily life and your writing.

All that work is part of your life, but you don’t mind at all. Why? Because you are a writer. When you ‘are’ something, you are persistent, committed, and you believe. Do not let the outside discourage you into living something that is not your joy, because writing is the answer to everything.

Jessie Rex

Certified Master Life Coach

www.JessieRex.com

Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover....

Insomnia & Inspiration

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                                                          Insomnia & Inspiration

               
I remember the first time insomnia gripped at my bones shaking me with adrenaline and ideas that flooded over me like ice. I was laying in my bed staring up at my ceiling. I saw millions of stars blinking back at me showing me not only a world of possibilities, but an entire universe filled with stories that were waiting for millennia to be heard.

My mother had just a few months prior painted my room, my entire room like the universe. Stars in countless constellations hovered just a few feet above my head often soothing me to sleep. But upon this evening I found the paint had come to live, my walls were breathing and the stars glowed just a little brighter as I listened to the story the world was waiting for me to hear.
 
I treasured every dream my memory managed to capture, savoring them as they fed a hunger I had yet to understand. My bones craved words to be etched upon them with my soul as the pen, a story of dreams and stars that would fall from the ceiling disappearing within my skin burning me from the inside out with a feverish urge to tell the stories that stars would whisper as I slept.

Sleepless nights arrived bringing with them dreams that would taunt me in the darkness, weaving between the stars on my ceiling words would write themselves upon my mind with a light so bright I was sure I would never be able to sleep through it.

I would lay down imagining blank pages inside my head and by morning they would be so full of rich words, imagery of castles and lands that stretched so far beyond the horized my whole body itched to explore them.

Stories would tumble from my lips the way you would imagine stars to fall from the sky, with a force so uncontrollable you can not help but give in to it.

Now as I am older I channel the stories onto paper, filling up journal after journal with words written over and over trying to express emotions and lives so rich and colorful they pull me beyond the typeface of the letters and straight into the world I have penned down so much about.

The nights have become an excuse to travel and explore places that some are not willing to travel, I witness the things that go bump in the night and run through forests catching leaves in my hair.

The moon became the light to guide me as I wrote my way through adventures and mishaps, gains and losses. I ached for the night knowing that the stars had been waiting for us to meet again.

Though that room that I first discovered worlds beyond inside is now what appears to be just a room, four walls and a door, I still feel the hum of the words they spoke to me when I was younger. I can still see the glittering stars above my head showing me the way towards magic.

Sometimes in the pitch black of night, even with my eyes closed I can see the stars rearranging themselves in a chaotic order or inspiration and creation.

Though I do love to sleep, one cannot argue that there is magic in staying awake.

November has arrived, which means so has self inflicted insomnia as I deprive myself from my sleep to meet with my muses once more for National Novel Writing Month.

I hope everyone has had a good day and continues to have a good week!

See you in the future!

LexiLoopsy

GLITCH FIRST EXTENED SNEAK PEAK

Glitch First Extended Sneak Peak! 


Mimics are the new craze. Once only available for the sick Mimics were there to help ease people with PTSD and those dealing with sudden loss. But now Mimics are new and improved, they now can't feel pain. The government has opened bordellos where you can divulge in your darkest desires without any repercussions. Bringing the virtual world into our own the Mimics are a step beyond video games. Bordello Avarit invites those that are curious, those with bubbling desires to brig their innner sadist to the surface. Purchase a Mimic and the world is suddenly full of possibilities.

Dr. Cavanaugh stared at his purchase with a malicious grin distorting his already uneven features. Black soulless eyes assessed and appraised his hard work, tracing the way her dark hair curled into spirals.

He saw her mouth moving but heard screams instead of an introduction. As he stood there he saw her bare collarbones bloom with bruises, like flowers with petals the shape of his fingers. Her neck was tiny and he wondered if he could snap it with one hand?

The brief thought brought a mangled smile to his face, the lovely noise he imagined her bones breaking to be sent shivers down his long spine, ordaining his arms with goose bumps. As if the standing hairs on his body gave proof to his sinful thoughts he shied away from her curious filled gaze.

It was her small, nervous smile that did him in. The movement of her lips sent his imagination into overdrive, awakening a hunger for her flesh and a sudden desperate thirst for the pleas he was sure she would make.

Excitement overrode every other emotion in his body; tremors shook his legs as he took a shaky step forward.

“When I was little I liked to star gaze. I used to think it was so silly to love watching something that had been dead for such a long time, but now I understand that you can’t be perfect until you are still. I can promise you that even though you aren’t real you will burn in my head brighter than any star I have gazed upon.”

His voice was thick with an unrivaled anticipation, “I am going to make you perfect.”

Music, he decided after he finished. He had made music in the process of making a star, a masterpiece of ribboned skin and blood used as his paint against the wall as a canvas, telling a story of unfounded beauty.

As Cavanaugh caressed the soft skin surrounding him one word was writing itself on every piece of his mind, taking over his every thought. Branding it against her skin with his mouth with every kiss he pressed upon her, whispering frantically a promise and a threat, “Again. Again. Again. Again.”

Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed this extended sneak peak of Glitch my upcoming Science fiction novel!