Three Things I Learned In My Debut Year - Kara Isaac

Happy 2017, everyone!

For me, 2016 was a crazy year for all the right reasons. My debut and sophomore novels released in April and October and then the most important release of all occurred in December when our family welcomed this little guy...

Since I'm in the middle of broken nights and unpredictable days and not exactly at my intellectual prime I thought I would quickly share with you three things (in no particular order and not even necessarily the three most important!) that I learnt in the year that my first two books released.

Put the phone down. Because of the time difference between New Zealand and the US when I wake up in the morning it's already well into the afternoon in the US. Many mornings I would find myself reaching for my phone before I'd even properly opened my eyes seized by the fear that something really important might have happened while I was sleeping. The truth is that 99.99% of the time my email and social media feeds were filled with nothing that needed my immediate attention but once I was in them I couldn't resist liking this, or retweeting that, or replying to a non urgent email. The effect was that I started the day already feeling like a hamster on the social media/IT wheel rather than enjoying breakfast with my family or even a few minutes of quiet time. Even if there was something "important" it was never anything that it couldn't wait a little longer. Now I leave my phone downstairs overnight so that I'm not even tempted by it first thing in the morning.

Sales numbers are not a reflection of your worth. Because of the way the reporting cycle of my publisher works I still have no idea what the sales figures across all channels for my books are. I can tell you that I have neither (a) landed on any bestseller list or (b) have my publisher falling over themselves to write me a check for another contract so they definitely haven't been breaking any sales records! As a writer when your pour your heart and soul into your books and also into the pursuit of the publishing dream it's easy to let how your books do (or don't) sell define you. The truth is that we could all name books that aren't worth the paper they're printed on that have sold enough copies for their author to wallpaper their house in cash while other brilliant works of literature languish undiscovered by the general public. The first little while after Close To You released I watched my Amazon sales ranking obsessively, as if maybe by sheer force of will I could send it skyrocketing. The only thing that went up was my blood pressure. Eventually I managed to embrace in reality what I already knew in theory. How well my books do is up to God but there is no correlation between that and my value as either an author or a person.

Appreciate and celebrate the "little" things. Authors have big dreams, that's how we've survived the rejection and setbacks that come with chasing them. Bestseller lists. A final in a prestigious contest. A top pick or starred review from a well respected industry source. It's easy to be caught in the hope of them that you forget to pause to appreciate the small things. An email from a reader who loved your book. Seeing your book in a bookstore for the first time. The first time you write a scene in a new project that has a little bit of magic on the page on the page. The truth is that, for most of us, the big things may never happen. Finding contentment in the "little" things sets us up for success no matter what happens.

Kara Isaac lives in Wellington, New Zealand. Her debut romantic comedy, Close To You, is about a disillusioned academic-turned-tour-guide and an entrepreneur who knows nothing about Tolkien who fall in love on a Tolkien themed tour of New Zealand. When she's not chasing three adorable but spirited little people, she spends her time writing horribly bad first drafts and wishing you could get Double Stuf Oreos in New Zealand. She loves to connnect on her website, on Facebook at Kara Isaac - Author and Twitter @KaraIsaac     

Inspiration for Writing: Living As a Sponge

I don't know about you, but I prefer washing dishes with a sponge. Sponges are simple things, not deeply complicated or awkward to get along with. But they are great. They absorb huge quantities of liquid when they need to, but they also let it all out again at the slightest squeeze. 

Except for the bit about not being complicated, that sounds like us writers, doesn't it? (Complicated? Who, us?)

Think about it, we absorb everything: the pitch of the irritated lady's voice in the queue ahead...  the sad creases of disappointment around a little person's mouth when mom says no! to his nagging for a sweetie. The flush on the cheeks of a teen around their current crush.

Life is never boring when you are constantly surrounded by techni-colour material that will breathe life into your next bit of writing.

Even our own insides become grist for the mill... Think about it - we have ringside seats to what churns inside when bad news comes at us down the phone.  How about the Adrenalin thumping, squeal-inducing good news we've been waiting for?

I'm training myself to savour and ABSORB each moment - good and bad - analyze it, tag on some appropriate words, then file it away in my mental filing cabinet for the 'write' moment. I've found inspiration in the weirdest places. No, really! Look at this:

An topographical map of a new planet? Alien skin perhaps? What about the inside of a cave wall threaded through with an undiscovered mineral that could repair the hole in the ozone layer... Tracks in soil - clues for our hero to unravel? It could be all those things.

But in reality, it is just burnt spaghetti at the bottom of a pot I forgot on the stove because I was writing. With minds like ours, it doesn't have to stay as 'just burnt spaghetti'.

Life is truly a delicious array of  inspiration. Good and bad. All of it can be used.

Your turn. I want to hear about the strangest source of inspiration you've found and what you did with it.

Dianne J. Wilson writes novels from her hometown in East London, South Africa, where she lives with her husband and three daughters. She has just signed a three book contract for a YA series, Spirit Walker, with Pelican / Watershed.

Finding Mia is available from Amazon, Pelican / Harbourlight, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.

Shackles is available as a free ebook from Amazon & Smashwords.

Find her on Facebook, Twitter and her sporadic blog Doodles.

Lessons in an Art Gallery by Marcia Lee Laycock

Untitled by Emily Carr

There was a hush on the fourth floor of the Vancouver Art Gallery as we entered, almost a reverence, I thought. People meandered quietly through the halls and rooms, taking time to study the paintings on the walls and read the commentaries and quotes from the artist’s journals. As I joined them I was aware of my own sense of awe. Emily Carr was an artist I had admired since I was a child. Her work always made me pause, drew me in, made me aware of something beyond myself.

The quotes on the walls captured my attention as well. This woman, who is famous in my own country and beyond for her depiction of the west coast region of Canada, was a woman of faith, struggling to comprehend the greatest mystery there is - the deep, deep love of an all-encompassing God.

Emily Carr’s work depicts that struggle, that striving to faith, that longing to comprehend that which is unknown yet deeply sensed. The first quote visitors to the Vancouver Art Gallery see as they enter the exhibit is “Art is Worship.” Ms. Carr worshipped with every stroke of her brush, the swirling movement in her work drawing the eye up toward the heavens. A painting labelled Untitled, one of my favourites, is especially strong. The artist’s love of creation and its creator shouts from the canvass.

Emily Carr saw the divine in the deep dark forests of British Columbia and in the work of others, especially some members of the Group of Seven who welcomed her as one of their own. She was dumbfounded, while at an exhibit of their work, to see one of Lawren Harris’s paintings, Mountain Forms, ignored even by a priest. “Surely he would understand,” Ms. Carr wrote in her journal, “Wouldn’t the spirituality of the thing appeal to one whose life was supposed to be given up to these things? He passed right by …”

I understand Ms. Carr’s frustration. So much that is redemptive in this world goes unnoticed at best, scorned and ridiculed, at worst. Yet those things that draw us all closer to our creator are enduring. Mountain Forms will soon be auctioned and is expected to sell for between three and five million dollars.

As I wandered in that gallery that day I was not only stirred by how Emily Carr drew us to the Divine through her work but by the recognition that we can all do the same, whatever our field of endeavour. We have all been created to express praise and adoration through everything we do, whether we work in oils or with words, whether we sweep floors or design buildings, whether our work is recognized or ridiculed. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters … It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23,24).

I was also struck by the reality that Ms. Carr caused me to praise and worship without saying a word. There was no banner declaring “Jesus saves” scrawled across her paintings yet we are able to stand in the midst of those deep dark forests and worship with her. It made me wonder, does my art cause people to worship? Does it cause them to ponder the depth of God’s greatness and goodness? Does it glorify Him? Walking among Emily Carr’s paintings made me pray it may be so.
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Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone. The sequel, A Tumbled Stone was short listed for a Word Award at Write Canada. Marcia also has four devotional books in print and has contributed to several anthologies. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan.

Her most recent release is Christmas, a collection of short stories that takes the reader from the far reaches of the galaxy to Arctic Circle and the streets of an inner city. In every unusual setting the Christmas spirit blazes with light. 

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