A Storyteller's Stepping Stones
Walk With Me As I Journey Through Writing & Self-Publishing
Read About My Debut, Works In Progress & Thoughts On It All!
Magic Is In The Weaving Of Worlds With Words
Writing is integral to who I am.
I've been writing for as long as I can remember. From criticisms and lack of knowledge of the industry, I stopped pursuing writing. After much life had passed, briefly the spark of embers in me to tell a story, to write again, reignited.
Life moved quickly.
Marriage and motherhood came, and I never lost this spark. When a writer's workshop arrived in my emails that I'd been thinking about for years, I jumped at the chance to enter the Writing with the Soul community. From the moment I entered the workshop to a few months later, my full novel was drafted. I'd spent every late night writing. I showed up to writing sprints with my community. I reached out for feedback amongst peers. Then, I worked with my first professional editor.
I showed up every step of the way.
Whether I was basking in the sun outside writing for 10 minutes and 2 words down, or I was crushing the 700 words in a 45 minute sprint, I was present and pursuing.
Here I am, nearly a year from the first day of workshop, through Alpha Readers, Developmental Edits, and into Beta Readers.
My writing journey has transformed me, and I will never stop writing.
I will never let the flame go out, ever again. I write on.
As a newbie with no knowledge of any part of writing other than putting words to document, these were the essentials I always checked in with.
Savannah
Gilbo
Helping fiction authors write, edit, and publish stories that work.
Lauren
Belayneh
How to make your writing more skillful and compelling.
Lauren
Kay
Author & Guide
Books and other Resources I used for Writing:
Brandon Sanderson’s Youtube “Creative Writing” course
Refuse to be Done by Matt Bell
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
The Writers Guide to Character Traits by Linda N. Edelstein
Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder
Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg
The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass
Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes
Welcometo My Writer’s Journal
✍🏻Writer’s Check-In: Dev Edits are IN - Revisions Begin
✍🏻 Revisions. I am privileged to have a wonderful and personal developmental editor, NightShade Editorial. We discussed all the sticky parts and insecure aspects I had. We laughed and I confessed to crying upon reading the feedback. It was a good cry y'all.
✍🏻Writer’s Check-In: While We Wait..Dev Edits
So happy to have handed over my manuscript for dev edits. It feels like a sigh of release after gripping too tightly, pushing so hard, and wrestling over every scene or chapter. Now, I wait to see if what I’m trying to create is on the page. A story in my mind does not mean it’s the story on the page.
✍🏻 Writer’s Check-In: EDITTING
To start, How’ve you been? How’s your headspace with what you’re reading or writing? For me, I’m optimistic. It’s a first. Typically, I’m pessimistic til the end, when the failure hits and I’m not surprised, then I can move on from it. Well, I’ve already fretted enough over the failure scenarios. I’ve moved on to the “what this can be is [insert fantastical somethings]!”
⚔️Writer’s Thoughts - Feelings: Self-Doubt
Self-Doubt is the slithering snake in my ear. Those soul-deep concerns of inadequacy and unworthiness responding to the hiss. After finally getting to a point of “letting go, and handing over” my story, where I’m unhealthily aware of the mistakes and the errors and the inaccuracies from page 1 to the END.
⚔️Writer’s Thoughts - My Vulnerability in Process: it’s been a mess
My mind has been filled with other writers’ processes or spreadsheets or wild notebook filled scribbles. My process unfortunately lives like digital content, on a non-tangible electrical network of inter-“webbed” thoughts floating or running in the cloud.