Summertime Fun Updates

So crazy month came and went and I’ve been spending the final weeks of August completing various projects. I got my level one certification with Katrina, started working on BATS items and Fall Equinox, and completed writing and sending in more reviews for Witches & Pagans magazine. Also been hard at work in trying to get my tarot business up and running. So far things are slow but steady.

The big news? Well, I learned how to crochet a few months ago. There was a particular thing I wanted to learn how to make so two of my fiber friends muddled through and taught me how to do it. And the amazing thing is that it’s stuck. I’m making thing after thing after thing and actually enjoying it. So, go figure.

A Blast from the Past

During my college years (back in the 90’s), I was big into zines. You know, those hand-made, hand distributed, mostly photocopied magazines that focused around a singular topic. I had two of my own. Mirror Imyaj, a personal zine that I filled with musings of my mind and daily life. The name was suggested by my friend Sanjay and from there I made maybe 4 issues. (Imyaj is my name spelled backwards… clever isn’t it?) Eventually it became the digital name of my online journal here at Shades of Maybe.

The other one, Twisted Realities, was a fiction zine. I scoured the internets and my college for short (flash) fiction, poemtry, and essays with an edge. I was huge into postmodern fiction and wanted to create an outlet for my voice, and to publish others who had similar ideas about weird writing to mine. Twisted Realities had a two-issue run, mostly because it was hard to scrape up stories from others. But I was fortunate enough to have works by friends, as well as Lance Olsen, in the collections.

Presenting Wine Inspired Writing Workshop

A few weeks ago, my good friend Anna and I decided to “do something together.” We weren’t sure what we wanted to do, so we brainstormed ideas. We listed things that we wanted to do (writing, design, divination arts, creative arts, writing) and from that list we brainstormed a few workshop ideas.

I’d like to present the first of our collaborations: Wine Inspired Writing. This course was inspired by Michael Gelb’s Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking. We explore the idea that wine can help inspire your muse and have designed some fun exercises to explore this connection! Click the read more link to learn more about what this workshop offers.

Midnight Musings

Songs and movies affect me in weird ways. We just finished watching Jackson’s version of The Lovely Bones. It was hauntingly beautiful and weirdly done. Towards the end of it, an all too familiar song (Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil) begins to play.

Images of my past scroll in my mind as they intertwine with the pictures dancing across the tv screen. Tears flow down my face as I wonder when my prose and the vivid worlds they create will touch the imaginations of others in this way.

New Renaissance Review of Fire from the Cauldron

The latest issue of New Renaissance’s newsletter features Shon Clark’s Fire from the Cauldron. I’m excited about this book because it’s the first book I edited for Megalithica Books/Immanion Press.

In this review, I gave some tidbits about what makes this book so important and special. Click here to go read it online. Thanks Erin Donley for allowing me to lend my voice to the review.

Gotham Writers’ Workshop Contest Winners Announced

Last November I entered TOUCHED into the Gotham Writers’ Workshop YA Novel Discovery contest. They announced the winners today. I was not one of them.

However, they had about 1,700 submitted entries which is pretty impressive. I’m not bummed, I know that when the time is right TOUCHED will enter the scene with force. Which means, I need to get off my butt and work on revisions.

Congratulations to all the winners!

DIYP Article Up: Review of I’d Rather Be in the Studio

This week I write an apology and review a wonderful marketing book catered to artists who want to turn their artistic passions into a full time career. Go read the article to find out why I had to apologize to the author of I’d Rather Be in the Studio.

2009 Wrap-up

2009 has come and gone and I wanted to do a nice wrap up post on all that I accomplished. While I didn’t post goals I had for the year publicly, I did have a few of them. Click on the link below to read what I was able to track through the year.

Women’s Voices Anthology now out

I have a few cool things to announce this month. On a whim, I submitted Touched to a Young Adult Novel Discovery Contest offered by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop. The contest asks for the first 250 words and the title of your novel; but the grand prize gives the winner the opportunity to submit their manuscript to a YA literary agent and a free writing course. It was mostly a spur of the moment thing, but I have just as much of a shot any one else. They’ll announce winners in February 2010.

I received news today that the Women’s Voices in Magic anthology is now in print! Order a copy of the book online through either amazon.com or the publisher. Please note that Immanion’s US fulfillment team won’t have copies in hand until the latter half of December, but they’ll keep track of pending orders.

Perpetual–The End

This is the last installment of Perpetual. It includes some of the hardest writing I’ve penned to date. Warning: some passages in this entry may seem harsh or a bit emotionally hard to deal with. And for the record, yes, I did cry. A lot. Thank you for reading. NaNoWriMo 09 winner with 50448 words (Scrivener tells me 50462 words however).

When I opened my eyes, I am no longer standing out in the cold. My hair is plastered to my face, wet with the melting snow that had fallen down from the sky. The sky no longer appears above me and I do not see my friends. Instead, I find myself standing out in the middle of the Consortium Chamber Room of the Council. I blinked and wonder if everything I had experienced was a dream, that the Portal had not yet transported me to the other side.