But the point of all this was to talk about what was the ultimate motivator that pushed me to finish writing projects. It’s so very easy, despite how much you or I love writing, to procrastinate, or to jump from unfinished project to unfinished project; or to be afraid of actually finishing something because it might be proof that we are not very good writers. I love writing.
In this Wednesday edition and 9th episode of Djuna Shellam The Write OWL video series, “I’m Not Em,” I address the notion that my character Em Martín might somehow be me. I understand, in some ways, why that assumption might be made. I’m not able to speak for other writers, but for myself, I can say that there is some truth running through all aspects of my characters and storylines, so that in a way, yes, Em is me. Except she’s not.
Intro To Alice Hollywood Book One The Em Suite Djuna Shellam The Write OWL Episode 8 Hiya. In this Sunday episode of my video blog, or blog, Intro Alice Hollywood, I talk about my first book in the series The Em Suite. I have so much I’d like to say that gets stuck somewhere in my […]
Holy Chickens!—Djuna Shellam The Write OWL—Episode 7 Welcome to this Wednesday Djuna Shellam The Write OWL episode—Holy Chickens! In this episode, number 7 to be exact, I talk about holy chickens,—real experiences in my life—and how I might possibly incorporate them into my writing. You see, for me, writing is an interesting combination of abstracts of my actual […]
In all seriousness, I do address the question to a degree in my video blog, but I’d love to explore the topic a little further here. The fact is, I write adult themed novels, and do include sexual scenes into my books; but for some readers, there’s either not enough of it, or it’s not explicit enough. What can I say?
In this new episode of Djuna Shellam The Write OWL, Djuna muses about the difficulty of writing versus speaking off-the-cuff.
Speaking for myself, as an artist, I spent a great deal of my youth looking for some type of reassurance, validation, something, anything, that would tell me, yes, I am a fill-in-the-blank artist. I think it’s the nature of the beast for some.
Many, many years ago—pre-Internet—I considered using a pen name, or, nom de plume, for my writing, but rejected the idea for one reason, and one reason only—ego. Hell, yeah, I have an ego. Doesn’t everyone? I couldn’t imagine it. I thought, what’s the point of working so long on something to have a “fake” take the credit? Despite knowing that plenty of successful writers have used pen names, most notably Mark Twain, Anne Rice, George Eliot, Richard Bachman, JK Rowling, to name a few, I was still reluctant to do so.
Episode 2 is where I address the million times I’ve been asked by friends and acquaintances who have read my books whether these are my personal stories. You know, did all this stuff in my novels happen to me? I’m laughing right now.
Welcome to Djuna Shellam The Write OWL video blog series, Episode 1—Character Development. Of course you know this is about developing fictional characters and not about developing your own personal character, right? Just wanted to make sure you realized what we’re doing here. [Insert smiley face right about here]
