Victoria pens a guest blog on the future of creative writing for Ravencrafts’s Realm Blog. August 23, 2012

People ask me about “writers’ block” more often than you might guess. Honestly I don’t know exactly what it is or how it feels. I’m into creativity on several different fronts including art, music, and writing fiction. When I need a dollop of inspiration, it’s always there for me – KNOCK ON WOOD !!!!

My process is that I get completely quiet and completely still, close my eyes, and simply say, “Bring me a melody.” Or plot point or whatever. Fill in the blank. This method is as reliable as my belief that the sun will rise tomorrow in the east with or without me. I should add that a lifetime of “seeking” is a factor in the sense that I have been practicing meditation for twenty years and can achieve a state of concentration fairly quickly.

What do I need to make that happen? Not props or tools or other people or magick words or ritual or any other external thing. EXCEPT silence. Of course those of us who live in or near a city never experience true silence because our nervous systems are under siege by thousands of refrigerators humming and thousands of motor rpm’s grinding on the roads, whether we’re consciously aware of it or not.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the advantages of living in a technological age as much

as the next person and even more than most. Were it not for the internet I would not be sharing these thoughts with you now because my first book wouldn’t have taken off due to Amazon.com and electronic reading.

My problem is not with technology. Truthfully, I do love it and could probably write love

sonnets about movies, TV, recorded music, the convenience of internet research, not to mention electric guitars and fast cars. I would hate giving up all that cool stuff and would fight to keep it.        No. That’s not the problem. The problem is that I feel like my choice is being taken away. Little by little, in a most insidious fashion, I have experienced what I’ll call “noise creep” which finally came to a head at the gas pump. See the thing is that all I need to be creative is to be left the hell alone. Give me a few minutes and I may have a great idea. Whether that idea is a  book or song or painting isn’t important. What’s important is the creative exercise.

There was a time when I could get something else done if I was forced to be on hold. I trained myself to “tune out” elevator music, but there’s just no way I can “tune out” looped commercials. PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU, NOT AGAIN!!!

There was a time when I could wait in line at the bank and keep the company of my own thoughts. Now I get CNN on overhead TV monitor.

There was a time when I could wait for a plane in the boarding area with my book or my thoughts. No more. Overhead speakers wired into the fancy flat screens spaced at regular intervals mean I’m held prisoner by whatever is playing.

When I was in Ireland, the pubs that had been a place of gathering and conversation for literally centuries were being retrofitted with big flat screens for football (soccer) and turned into sports bars. Progress? You decide.

For me the tipping point was the new gas pumps with the viewing screen and obnoxiously loud speakers with snippets of news and commercials. I started pushing every button I could see. Eventually I found one that turned the sound off. Thank the gods.

So, with all this encroachment on our “alone” time and by that I mean the time when we get to enjoy the companionship of ourselves sharing communion with ourselves, how are we supposed to be creative? How can we function in this riotous new world that seems to CONSPIRE to keep us from thinking?

Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind that, the more you can distract people and keep them from thinking, the easier they are to lead. Shades of decades-old science fiction. Do I think all these portals that are vying for my attention are interlocked in a conspiracy with that old guy who runs G.E. at the helm? I’m not willing to go that far, but, I will say that merchants are always looking for a bigger, louder megaphone than the vendor in the metaphoric stall next to them.

Can we rise above this? Sure. But only if we’re aware of it.

Why should you care? Because our one true expression of the divine is creativity. All the other mammals eat, work, play, and procreate. This is the only thing that sets us apart. Whether you find that expression in writing fiction or sculpting mud pies with your kids is unimportant. What is important is finding a path to that expression even when it gets harder.

Now I really should say something about my books since I was given the opportunity to guest post.

The second book in my paranormal romance/fantasy/18+ series (heavy on the romance) will be released October 14th on Amazon.com in print and ebook. Being the second book in a series, The Witch’s Dream draws from characters and situation presented in the first book, My Familiar Stranger, available in e-format and in print within a few days. I will be releasing more excerpts between now and mid October and the book trailer will be available October 1st. Visit me on Facebook for up to date news. www.facebook.com/vdanann

Roxanne’s Realm Interview Questions

www.roxannesrealm.blogspot.com

1. What inspired you to become an author?

          My father was a great orator. He loved books and loved words – how they can be put together to inspire, to persuade, or even used as weapons. After I had exhausted the Bobbsey Twins series and Child Craft, he bought me the set of Scribner classics which was a library of the best literature for young readers. These included Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Fenimore Cooper and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

          Out of all those stories, I was captivated by the two that featured a young female protagonist who was physically capable and intellectually superior. One of these was a fairy tale called “The Last Dragon”. The other was one of the Arabian Nights.

          I wrote a lot of Bobbsey Twins novels as a preteen and wrote several pages of a paranormal romance in my mid-twenties, but put it down when it failed to impress my spouse. Now it’s excruciatingly obvious that he is not the reader I’m trying to please. Duh.

          Anyway, all this is to say the answer to the question is two words: Kresley Cole. I discovered her books two years ago and remembered how I loved those proactive young women and their adventures. I then set a goal to try and carve out time for writing. Kresley – thank you. You’re the best. 

2. Do you have a specific writing style?

I’ve never had a class on writing so I don’t know how to answer this question. I have picked up some of the inner circle writer’s lingo from reviews because I had to look up what POV means. I can tell you that, three months after initial publication, my target audience are right brained, meaning women who want to become emotionally engaged by a story, leave reality behind for a few hours, and come to the end of the book wishing they could experience it all over again. If you nodded and laughed when, in the movie “Dead Poets’ Society”, the Robin Williams character told the class to tear out the page that attempted to graph poetry, high fives all around. In my opinion, if you’re not a rebel, you’re probably not a writer.

3. How did you come up with the title for your latest book?

          Right up until release, the working title was Familiar Stranger  taken from the song, “Stranger” by Jefferson Starship. At the last minute I searched Amazon and discovered that there were several other books by that name. So I added the “My” to get a unique title.

4. Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Yes and I use it in promotional material all the time. The message is that true love can find you when you least expect it, in the strangest places, even when you’re far, far from home.

5. Is the book, characters, or any scenes based on a true life experience, someone you know, or events in your own life?

We are all defined by our experiences. Certainly that includes writers. Characters and events in my books are a little like a house of mirrors. They may be based on something real, but expanded, elongated, distorted, or otherwise manipulated into what serves the story best. They may just as easily be based on an idea gleaned from another book or a movie. Once I digest media through my own filter, it’s also a true life experience.  

6. If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

          Kresley Cole. I have never interacted with her by any means. If I were she, I would think it strange to be considered a mentor by someone I didn’t know existed. But there it is. As I say in my books – often – life is strange.

7. What is your current “work in progress” or upcoming projects?

          The third book in The Order of the Black Swan series entitled “The Summoner’s Tale” expected to release February 14, 2013.

8. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

I am locked in a life/death battle with time and, although I fight the good fight, I suspect I’m predestined to lose. If I had four clones, I would still not have enough time to pursue every interest or project I’d like.

          I still publish Seasons of the Witch  every year and oversee the operations at 7th House. The only way I could find time for writing was to back off music. My Classic Rock band broke up a few months ago. I can say I had the full rock and roll experience. I got to play Warrior Dash to 35,000 people and I got to play late night biker bars to fifteen people. It ended with slamming doors, lots of f u’s, and “I wouldn’t play with you again if you were the last bass player on earth!” type proclamations. Sigh.   

          So, rather than get with another band, I took that time and applied it to improving my guitar (my first instrument is keys). And started writing.

10. Who designed the cover of your latest book?

          I do the covers and the book trailers personally. It’s not that I’m controlling. Okay. Well. Maybe it is.

11. Do you have a song or playlist (book soundtrack) that you think represents this book?

The song that backs the book trailer for My Familiar Stranger is “At Last”, the classic love song originally recorded by Etta James. The version on the book trailer is done by Alicia Brass who is lead singer for a popular Houston variety band that I manage and, I might add, she is better than the late, great Etta James.

          The song that backs the book trailer for The Witch’s Dream is actually an integral part of the story. I found a real life (or close enough) Rammel Hawking who backs the book trailer with an acoustic version of the mystery song – used with his permission, of course. I plan to release the book trailer on October 1st, two weeks before the book in available for download.

http://gravetells.com/2012/08/09/book-tour-what-do-women-really-want-romance-or-action/

MY GUEST BLOG FOR GRAVE TELLS:

For me, there are two basic categories of fiction. Is it fiction set in reality as we experience it or is it fiction that takes place in a world that exists only in someone’s imagination?

I’ve never understood why someone would opt for the first if they could have the second. I mean, have you been here? To contemporary life on Earth? Why would you want to spend your precious leisure hours reading about that when you could be transported to a world that has been tweaked and debugged?

Taking that a step further, I write paranormal ROMANCE, heavy on the romance, because I think it holds the key to the answer to the giveaway question I love to ask which is: what do women really want? I love men, but I write for women. We want different things. Again, what’s in my imagination is better than what’s actually outside the door.

I mention that my books are heavy on romance because there is a lot of confusion between paranormal romance and paranormal suspense. A book can be classified as a romance when unless the love interest is the main plot and not the subplot. An action/thriller with paranormal elements and romantic elements is paranormal suspense.

One of the most satisfying things about reactions to the first book of the PNR series The Order of the Black Swan, entitled My Familiar Stranger, is that different readers fall in love with each of her three suitors and then write to tell me they wanted her to end up with this one or that. Someday I’m going to take a poll: Were you rooting for bachelor #1, 2, or 3?

Don’t worry. Each of them gets a story. In fact the next book, The Witch’s Dream, to be released in electronic format on October 14th, is one of those. Whereas My Familiar Stranger could be read and enjoyed as a stand alone novel, the second book picks up where the first ends which means readers will benefit greatly by reading the first book first. That’s why I have insisted the cost of My Familiar Stranger be kept to $.99 so that everyone who is so inclined has a chance to get in on the beginning of the series.