Shalla Magazine Q and A Huge Success

Yesterday, Shalla de Guzman from Shalla Magazine invited me for a round-table-style Q and A. It was an amazing experience and a little overwhelming. There were so many brilliant questions passed my way that I really needed to keep on my toes. There was a also a brief snafu where my answers didn't get posted right away so when I sent them they disappeared into the black hole of cyberspace. Yikes. I literally had to rewrite my answers to approximately 8 questions. And, let me just say they weren't yes or no.

I did a brief tally afterward on MS Word because I wanted to make sure I was saving my responses. I had 5000 plus words logged. That's 3 days worth of writing by Stephen Kings standards. But, I was game. I was juked. And I wanted to share every bit of micro-knowledge I've learned yet far. I'm sure I passed the neonatal stage of author development, but I have a long way to go. Plumbing the inner writer has both an uplifting and a exhaustive element. The deeper the introspection helps you learn more about yourself in the process. It was truly great fun.

One of the promising young writers, a college student, told me she was majoring in sociology but her passion was for creative writing and she wrote stories on the side. Boy, did that remind me of me way back when I was an Anthropology student at Hunter College. I too called what I did writing on the side. I was quick to point out to the student that writing is writing. It's a calling and when we discuss the craft with others we shouldn't be afraid to call ourselves writers. There's no harm in that. We are all in different stages of development.

It's funny too because shortly after "Shades of Luz" went into print I went into my own kind of Postpartum depression. Writers give birth to their works. We share a piece of our soul. I felt exhilarated, exhausted and a little afraid that I didn't didn't deserve to be out there yet even though 3 different publishers had accepted my novel. Colleagues from my MFA program and former professors raved about my book. None of it seemed to matter. I had to come to grips with it myself.

I stumbled out of the gate. Somebody had immediately asked me to do a reading and I didn't even respond. I was that despondent. I had to convince myself what I did mattered. A good friend and a terrific writer, editor, literary shaman of sorts Nannette Croce invited me to guest blog on her Zine Writer about my experience publishing my novel and I did. She had published an essay of mine last year called "Boba Fett Blues" when she was with The Rose & Thorn.

I learned so much about myself writing that blog about my spiritual growth writing "Shades of Luz" that I think was OK with myself afterward because I realized it is all a process and not a product. My novel might come and go, but I will always grow as a writer.

Thank you Nannette

Thank you Shalla