Just Joshing Episode 47: Clare C. Marshall

Tags

Clare C Marshall, Faery Ink Press, freelancing, Just Joshing, podcasts, writing

I’m back.   With everything that hit me, it’s been quite a while since I did a Just Joshing guest on the blog, but that returns today with Clare Marshall.

I met Clare at When Words Collide a year ago.   We didn’t really get a chance to speak until I attended Craig Dilouie’s launch party for Children of God a few months back.  What impressed me about Clare was the fact that she is so driven and passionate about what she wants to do with her career.

Her writing is top notch.  I have only started to read the Violet Fox, but was pleasantly surprised to find the opening chapter to be very engaging.  Kiera is a modern day Robin Hood, doing what she can for the Freetor people, who are oppressed by the Marlenians.   Chapter one involves a prince, a brooch, and a lot action.   So far, I’m engaged.

Clare just recently appeared on my show and was nice enough to answer a couple of Questions for the blog.  Below are her responses.

What are you working on right this minute?

I’m working on the next book in the Sparkstone Saga, Hunger In Her Bones, trying to get it into production. I’m also working on the third book in my YA fantasy series, The Emerald Cloth. On the business side, I’m working on improving my freelance business website (cmarshallpublishing.com), and increasing the number of shows I do next year.

 If you can talk about it, what has been the most fun freelance job you’ve done to date?

Hmm, that’s a tough one. I suppose I try to find the fun in all my jobs, Mary Poppins style, otherwise I wouldn’t be very efficient with getting things done! Any website job where I have a lot of creative freedom in the design and implementation is fun, because there’s a lot of problem solving, and I can usually listen to audio books/podcasts while I do it.

Is there a medium of writing you’d like to do that you haven’t done yet?  If so, what?

Yes! I’m very interested in writing a visual novel – they’re a kind of game, popular in Japan, though there are small/individual developers making them in the Western world. It would be a big project, so probably will work away at it for the next few years. Just have to brush up on and improve my coding skills.

Anything you’d like to add?

You can find my list of shows and appearances at https://www.faeryinkpress.com/about/upcoming-events

To sign up for the Faery Ink Press newsletter, you can go here: https://www.faeryinkpress.com/newsletter

If you’re a creative type and you’re looking for website design or hosting, or editing, formatting, or eBook creation, please contact me here: http://editinganddesign.com/contact-us/

Thanks Clare!

The only real other thing I have to add is that you can find her on twitter at @claremarshall13 .  Say hi.  She is awesome and someone to model your own work ethic and habits doing.  The podcast is linked below.  Have a listen.

http://jpantalleresco.podomatic.com/entry/2016-08-22T09_36_33-07_00

You Got To Want It

Tags

failure, life lessons, Stormdancer, The Watcher, writing

I can hear the groan in many a philosopher friend of mine reading this title.  “ANOTHER preachy thing about wanting something really really bad to succeed?”  Well, yeah, kind of.  But I promise a really personal slant about this.  an email just now and really thought about something.  What is the difference between someone that succeeds and someone that fails?  Keep in mind, I’m not talking about individual moments.

We all have plenty of failures there.

Writing is the business of rejection.   I’ve been told no far more times than I’ve been told yes.  “No, we can’t publish this story.” “No, this idea is awesome, but your word choices…not so much.”

With book 3 closer and closer to being completed I’m thinking more and more about my next challenges in the writing biz.  I want to do prose and comics next.  I have a deep love for comics and think I’m finally ready to try an awesome project or two.

(In fact, a revolution may be announced sooner or later.  I digress for now, but stay tuned…)

I had an agent interested in my ideas.  I rushed through putting all the pieces of the novel together for a writing marathon, thanks to my friends at Write Club.  I submitted it with my fingers crossed.  It turns out I’ll have to keep crossing them for awhile longer.

Old me a long time ago would have been crushed.  You don’t recognize the greatness of my writing?  That’s…that’s…inconceivable.   Modern me, has a more mature approach.  I wasn’t good enough…then.   Now?  Who knows?  But I will try again.   They are still interested.

Some of my interests have led me to go down different roads.  I’m trying my damnedest right now to get into the publicity thing.  I may not be successful at this.  It’s still in the air.  That said, I’m doing what I can.  This is about getting out there, getting contacts and making things happen.  If there is one thing I am good at is making things happen.  What remains to be seen.

But I could go and on.  Individual failures are still going to happen no matter where I go or what I do.  That’s life.  I got to take chances.

Individual failures is however, not failure in itself.  It’s one thing to fail in that moment; it’s another to accept failure as the way it has to be.

Failure is not something you have to accept.  The idea of trying again and again is a good thing.  We all get floored by failure, but none of us have to stay down.  We can get up, learn from our failures and keep going.

Here’s the part of this blog that isn’t talked about very much.   This all sounds so simple.  It’s easy to hear this.  But let me ask you something – have you considered how to do something?

When we fail, there can be a myriad of reasons why you fail.  Sometimes there are factors beyond your control, but more often than not, there are lessons in failure with how you do things.  A lot of my own failures have been in two key areas.  The first is how I present things.  I have great ideas but in writing and in life, sometimes the presentation of how I do things throw things off.  While I can contend that some of what I do wasn’t wanted, the truth is I wasn’t prepared, and ill equipped to handle some of the opportunities I wanted.

See?  Life lessons.  That said, I still don’t have it all together.  I’ll keep failing and learning.

The key in this is learning.  You can never stop learning.   If you are willing to learn, you will move past your failures.

That’s only the first part of the equation.  The second harkens back to the title of this blog.  Learning your lessons – what worked, and what didn’t, is only one half of the equation.  The other half is desire.  After you learn, there is a question you need to ask yourself.

Do you still want it?  Are you willing to work with this?

If the answer is no, it’s time to stop.  It’s okay to walk away.  That’s not failure.   It’s the work.  Getting up is tough, and going forward is never easy.  It’s a struggle.

For me, I still am enjoying the journey I’m on.  I’m writing good work, and seeing projects and doors open I never even dreamed were possible.  I am making things happen.  I still want it, after all this time.

Imagine

Tags

comics, imagination, just imagine, Michael Martineck, panels, solving problems

Imagination is our greatest gift.

If you’re reading this, you probably familiar with Albert Einstein’s famous quote about imagination.  If you aren’t here it is:

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

Cool quote right?  But what exactly does that mean? Imagination is something we possess in abundance as a child, but at some point in development imagination is ignored.  It’s not considered an evil thing or anything like that,  but things like real and possible are emphasized more as you get older.  Maintaining imagination is one of our greatest challenges.

Even if you do manage to maintain a shrapnel of that magic you had as a child, how do you use it?

First off, imagination wants to be expressed.  It’s that intuitive part of ourselves that desires a larger world than the one we see, feel, touch, taste and hear.  We express it in music, art, writing, and a myriad of other ways.  When we do so, we are reaching out from the aether and bringing something in ourselves to life.  We are encouraging our inner child to grow.

That is awesome enough.  Expressing ideas, concepts, visions of what might be, can be and maybe even will be has been a part of art for as long as we’ve recorded it.  I imagine that the first cavemen and women dreamed of greater worlds than theirs way back.  Wonder is something all of us had at one point.

Imagination isn’t just the expression of art – it is also one of the best tools we have of solving problems.

The best example of this to me is cooking.  Cooking is the ultimate example of happy accidents.  Once upon a time I’m sure someone somewhere accidentally spilled milk into a pot, and in so doing discovered stew.  My dad puts food and formulae together all the time to deal with matters of health.  Most people don’t visualize food as medicine, yet my father uses that vision to create some unique and powerful medicines.

That kind of vision can apply to any problem.   In fact, let me talk to you about one of mine that I solved.  I’ve been wanting to learn how to draw for a long while.  If I’m going to be honest, part of the problem was that I was scared to try.  Drawing has intimidated me since I was a kid.  Ironically, I need it more than ever with my current situation, but still haven’t found the motivation.

Until Sunday.  Talking to Michael Martineck, I recognized an opportunity to make myself get started.  Instagram had reminded me of something the first moment I saw it.  It was in that conversation that I saw the answer.   For me, Instagram is a panel in a comic.  A page is intimidating; a panel is not so bad.  I can go slower, and teach myself a valuable skill in the process.

Imagination is one of the best tools you can use to solve problems.  It allows you to see a situation in a different light, and find solutions others might not see.

But if I had to think of my favorite use for imagination, it’s the ability to make your dreams real.

We have the freedom in life to attain goals we set out for ourselves.  One of the keys to achieving any goal we have is to see ourselves doing it.  For example, I see myself all the time achieving my goals as a writer.  From getting published, to getting paid, to making a living, I’ve been pushing forward more and more.  I’ve been published, and paid.  I’m working on making a living and making something special happen with the books I produce.  I can see it.

(as an aside, and food for thought, a question for you dear reader.  If you make a dream come true, was it ever really a dream?)

Since I’ve had this vision in my head for a long time, I’ve seen it more and more manifest itself in my life.  Not just in my achievements, but in the people in my life.  More and more I see myself surrounded by those with similar visions; each of them trying to make that dream a reality.  It’s humbling to see so many great people come into your life that are amazing and magical in their own ways.

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here.  Others I realize I belong, for I too have vision and dare to dream.

There is a price though.  Imagination makes us bigger.  We grow and evolve with our visions, becoming as large as we perceive.  This means that as you make your dreams come true, your goals and your insights become bigger, which makes sense, because you’ve grown as a person.  You’ve become something more.  In turn, your wants and dreams become bigger.

Tonight I got some interesting news.  I was hoping to announce a book tour.  The original plan for it changed tonight with one email.  I wasn’t surprised.  Instead, another thought came into my head.  There is no doubt in my mind I can still make this happen.  The question is where do i go from here?  What do I imagine it going?  What can I do with it?

And do I really want it?

The last question might be the only cautionary thing I mention here.  Life will keep throwing you bigger and bigger things as you go.  As long as you want it, it will be there. The moment you stop wanting it, you should quit.  Recognize within yourself when you really don’t want to go down the path you set for yourself.   It’s okay to walk away.

Otherwise, there are no limits.  Einstein’s quote is a good one, but I always was a fan of a comic line Stan Lee wrote for DC.  It was called Just Imagine.  And that is how I’m leaving this entry.  What do you imagine?  What can you see yourself doing, and becoming?

You can make it real.

Just imagine.

Guest Post: Thea Van Diepen

Tags

crowd funding, kickstarter, Like Mist Over Eyes, monday miracles, The Illuminated Heart, Thea van Diepen

While I’m trying to do a million and one things, I thought the blog needed some new content, so I turned to my friend Thea Van Diepen to provide me some content.  Thea is currently kickstarting her novel Like Mist Over Eyes which you can click to right here to donate. 

I’m proud of her.  I’ve been very fortunate to read past works like The Illuminated Heart and know that Thea is talented.  It takes guts to face ones fears and worst experiences.   This kickstarter has already been a success for her because…well, enough from me.  Take it away Thea, and I will be talking to you guys soon.

I cried happy tears today.

Three years ago, I ran an Indiegogo campaign to fund The Illuminated Heart. The goal was $500 – the lowest they would let me set it at, which I did under protest because what I was really looking for was $400 – and the campaign was set such that I’d get all the money raised by the end of the month, even if I didn’t hit my goal.

The campaign went badly.

There were a lot of reasons for this, some out of my control, a lot in my control. And while I did end up raising $400, it was only after I realized that I really did need the full $500. I felt so ashamed I didn’t want to do another crowdfunding campaign again any time soon.

So when Josh and I were talking business talk last year and he suggested I do a Kickstarter for something, I balked. Hard.

All I could see was that $400 and all I could feel was that sick feeling in my stomach all over again.

In May of this year, neither of those had gone away, but I’d run the numbers and they were telling me that, if I wanted to publish Like Mist Over the Eyes this year, I’d need to run a Kickstarter.

It took me a month to convince myself I would do this. The things outside of my control last time had shifted by now in my favour (audience size and relative knowledge about what crowdfunding is are the two big ones), and the things under my control, well, I’d learned from them. Things would be better this time around.

It’s funny, though, how all those logical things you can tell yourself do nothing for that pit of emotion twisting itself inside your gut.

That gnarled mess stayed all through June, during which I got some excellent coaching from Tara Brannigan. My original plan had been to start the Kickstarter in July, but I kept putting off writing the description. And putting it off. And putting it off. I couldn’t think of how I wanted to say what I wanted to say.

“Why would anyone want to give money to you?” said that accusing voice that pops up when I’m feeling insecure. “You’re book might be the greatest thing in the world, but this has nothing to do with your book. You know how marketing works. You know that people who might even love your book will take one look at you and go ‘oh, ugh, it’s her’ and take off without another thought. Isn’t that how it went last time? Isn’t that how it always goes?”

What can I say? That voice is an ass.

And a liar, but a very convincing one when you’re already not sure what the truth is. I mean, I don’t know the motivations of the people who saw my Indiegogo campaign and didn’t pledge. But one thing I’ve learned since then is that knowing people’s motivations is irrelevant. I don’t even know my own motivations half the time, so why should I expect to know others? Why should I expect that information to be in any way useful to me?

The other thing that I’ve learned is that people’s decisions aren’t a personal statement about me. Even if it’s a social snub directed at me, even if they say it’s about me, it’s not about me. It’s not about who I am. It’s about how they see themselves. My decisions are about how I see myself. How people treat me is irrelevant to who I am.

But that second lesson still hadn’t sunk in completely until today.

By the end of Friday, the Kickstarter campaign for Like Mist Over the Eyes was at $460. More than I had raised in that Indiegogo, but still not the goal I’d set for it.

The thing about going and trying something again is that, even if all the details are different, you relive what happened before. All the emotions, all the thoughts, all the deepest feelings. At that point, I was still reliving the Indiegogo campaign and my shame about it.

It wasn’t the exact same – I have a lot more healthy things to draw on than I did a that point – but the reason I wasn’t drowning in it wasn’t because I was standing tall. It was because I was clinging to a wet rock as the waves pounded against me, all the while hoping and praying I wouldn’t drown. That I would not be doomed to repeat those same limitations over and over. That I wouldn’t be trapped forever in a past that I didn’t want to be my future.

For two days, I tried not to think about that too much.

Then today happened.

It takes faith (trust) to believe in something when you don’t see it. I didn’t have a whole lot of faith this past weekend. I wavered like you would not believe – I almost considered cancelling the campaign at one point! So the fact that Monday had to happen before I could really trust that this could work has shown me where it’s time for me to grow. Which makes me even more thankful for it.

I woke up this morning to discover that not only had the Kickstarter for Like Mist Over the Eyes passed $500 in pledges, but it had also shot past $600 in the same night.

Here is where I cried.

We don’t relive every previous instance of what we’re doing right now, only the most significant and all the experiences that support it. Regardless of how this kickstarter turns out, this has become the most significant of all my crowdfunding experiences.

Which means I’m going to be okay.

You know that thing you’re afraid of? That thing you want to do more than anything but, every time you try, all you can think of is all the times it went wrong?

Give it a try.

You’re different now, and you never know what’ll happen in the morning.