Let's Talk Thursdays: My Fire Defined

Hello Awesome Visitors! Welcome to the latest episode of ...

Today, I'm going to answer a question posed to me from the heels of Concordant Vibrancy 4: Inferno's release, which is as follows:

If you could define your writing career in terms of one of the stages of fire, which would it be and why?

Before I tackled this question, I wanted to do some research. Here are the four stages of fire, according to this site:

• Incipient (also known as ignition)
• Growth
• Fully developed (maximum growth/hottest stage)
• Decay

Well, technically, I'm no longer a newbie. Kona has been some years back, so I don't think I'm in the ignition stage.

Yet Awesome Visitors, if I am to be completely honest, I do ping pong among the additional three stages.

One example of that is the saga involving Convoluted Prism. I was about seventy-five... no take that back, with edits along the way ... about sixty-five percent in with the 1st book when some events happened that halted the progress.

(1) Since the collection itself is a hybrid of reality combined with fantasy, some of the real-life events that contributed to later books got altered in real life.

(2) Due to those alterations, I questioned whether it made sense to paint out the trajectory of the first installment in exactly the same way.

(3) I tried to keep busy with other things, but the amount of activity couldn't take place of the proper mourning I should have done over the death of the changes.

(4) Because I didn't properly grieve or handle it as I should, the hype for the project encountered a standstill.

Therefore, the 1st instance of decay happened between 2015 and 2016, if I had to put a date on it.

Another example of the growth-fully developed-decay cycle happened with the stalemate which led to the delay of the 2nd Divergent Ink book being released. There was a bit of inner turmoil with the publisher at that time. I became disenchanted with everything that was happened. It spilled into my ability to produce. On top of that, I was the person the others in the project was waiting on because they didn't want to release it without my involvement. However, I didn't want to align my name with a house in disarray. So, I did a "Girl Bye" and my petty flared up, opting not to do shit. Not saying it was right but that's how things went down.

This 2nd cycle ... around 2016-2017 ish.

By now, Awesome Visitors, you may be wondering how it all came back together. You see, for me, the publishing house was like a family. I don't have much family of my own. The temporary dismantling I took personally because I felt like I was losing a family. 

There were a few of the authors I stayed in contact with during the hiatus. One even advised me I could just go independent. I admitted to being a bit lazy. I didn't want to learn how to do my own covers because the ones the publisher did for me were spectacular. The ins and outs of putting together book trailers to match the content of my work just made my head spin. 

I'm not the "I can do it all by myself" type of female. I like having a tribe. A girl like me needs a bit of help, a little guidance, a slight shove to get me in gear.

On top of that, I missed the togetherness of the authors who'd become my friends. It was like their creativity put fuel to my own. Yes, I'd written lines here and there but I lacked motivation to publish.

Until I caught rumor that the publishing house was getting its ducks in a row. Doing things differently and more selectively. The first order of business was finishing unfinished business.

First being Divergent Ink 2.

One of the authors told me that Divergent Ink 2 would be the 1st revitalized project and asked if I was still interested in submitting a story. I refreshed myself on the theme question for the project. Within weeks, the words flowed as if they'd never left.

Growth, then fully developed.

After that, continuing with Concordant Vibrancy. More growth, then full development. While I was working on my story for the 4th installment of CV, I put flame to my erotic flash fiction entitled Amoresels.

Growth, then fully developed.

The flame of the present had me revisit my old project Convoluted Prism. I realized that grieving for the previous vision was necessary to make room for new. To make way for better. Since I already have outlines for not only more Preludes but also side stories, I can write on those while remastering the original Convoluted Prism content. It's like a whole universe of connective threads.

No, I'm far away from the incipient phase.

I go in waves from growth to decay.

But I never stay in decay for long. 

Until next time,