Writing – Dahlia DeWinters

photo of rainbow colored painting on canvas

Anxious? Get Those Creative Juices Flowing!

Oh, anxiety. We’re all too familiar with that nagging beast, aren’t we? It rears its restless head at the most inconvenient times, leaving us tense and overwhelmed. Not fun! But don’t stress, lovelies. You know by now I’ve got a trick up my proverbial sleeve just for you. Let’s talk about creative playtime. That’s right! Tapping into your creative side can whisk those worries away. Remember “whistle while you work”? I’m talking art, music, dance…anything that sparks the inner muse. Trust me, anxiety doesn’t stand a chance against an actively creative mind. Now I know what you’re thinking… Did he fire six shots or only five? ….wait, that’s not what you’re thinking. What you’re really thinking is: “But I’m not artistic or talented…” My friend, come on, that’s so not true! We ALL have that creative flair within; we just have to reconnect with it. In fact, let your… Continued

Movies--Books--Music--Television, Tuesdays, Uncategorized, Writing

The More You Know: the Magic of Why

I’ve been writing professionally for about seven years. The one thing I’ve noticed about my writing and my production of published books is that I’m a slow writer. Now, don’t take that to mean I put in a comma in the morning and remove it in the afternoon, no. It’s just that my stories come together very slowly. Sure, I may have an awesome idea for a book, but to be honest, it takes years for some books to come to fruition. I wrote my first published book, Kitty Wishes, in a week. It’s cute enough book, but it’s not satisfying to me. I feel I could have done a lot better. But hey, it was my first book and it was a learning process. Another of my books, Loving Among the Dead, was basically written in 2012, but fussed over and revamped until it was published in 2014. It

Blogging, Real Talk Thursdays, Writing

For Writers Only: Coping with Criticism

Writing is not a profession for the faint of heart. Sure, you wrote a paragraph or two about how the end of The Walking Dead should have been, or an alternate version of Breaking Bad’s nursing home scene (I’m still sick sick sick over that) , but when you REALLY take the plunge, you’ll know. The Degraded Life of a Writer Let’s look at the downward spiral you will take. First, you have to complete a story, a task in and of itself. Many different endings will present themselves to you, if you’re lucky to get that far. Otherwise, you’ll dilly dally around the middle, adding in a character, or three, perhaps a death or some kind of natural disaster to get you through the classic “center of story” slump. Or, you’ll shilly shally around the beginning, crafting that perfect first word, sentence, paragraph, chapter, over and over again. Whatever

Writing

#MotivationMonday – 5 Ways to Kickstart Your Muse

We all have those days where we’d rather be writing, but nothing is flowing. Instead we putter around, catch up on programs or simply sit and stare at a blank page. Believe me, you’re not alone. It happens to everyone. I don’t like wasted time, because you never get it back. I try not to dither away time on social media either, because that’s a hole you can get sucked down and not emerge until three hours later. While I do love the cat vids and the cool memes, there’s a time for work and a time for play. This brings me to the point of my post. Sometimes inspiration doesn’t sit waiting for you, you have to run it down and beat it into submission. Inspiration is wonderful. Inspiration can get you writing 5k a day. However, when inspiration decides to take a little break, what do you do?

Blogging, Tip Tuesdays, Tuesdays, Writing

Tip Tuesday – Make it Work with One Notebook

For those of you who’ve seen me flitting about on social media, especially Instagram, then you know how much I love my journals and notebooks. It is truly an affliction. I can’t resist the call of a beautiful looking journal, knowing I can fill its blank pages with my genius thoughts. Once I get the journal home, it’s another story. The pages are so pretty and pristine, I am reluctant to sully them with my less than important. So, I put the date on the journal and place it on the shelf. It still looks pretty, but it’s unused. What happens next? Well, I get into an organizing frenzy. Since I see so many journals on the shelf, I pick one for story ideas, one for daily to do lists and one for note taking. Since they’re so disparate, I do need the three journals, right? After about a week,