Yesterday’s bookplates have been tweaked and I’m happy with them. Scroll down to yesterday’s blog entry see the new improved versions. I’d love feedback.

There are days I think I’ll never get the hang of this business. Yesterday, an author friend let me know that in the Romance genre sweet and sizzling do not combine. One of my bookplates said, sweet sizzling romance. Sweet is the Pat Boone as leading man scenario. Pat Boone never kissed his leading lady. It was always implied. Sizzling, well, my books sizzle. They’d make Mr. Boone and unsuspecting readers feel their sensibilities browning in a cast iron pan on the stove. I thanked her for catching that. Shaking my head here. That’s not a mix-up I‘d want.

In a few days I’ll be ready to promote my writing through author intro goodie bags. Next, I’ll make a proof sheet and see what my local office supply store can do for me print-wise. As bookplates, they’ll need to adhere to the books so the printing will be on peel and stick paper. I have a paper cutter and plan to do that part at home. I’ve said before I had no idea self promoting was part of the whole author gig. I really never gave it much thought before. As fun as these little trinkets have been to create, in truth, I’d really rather be writing.

The artistic drive to manifest imaginative thought can only truly be understood by another possessing the same drive. I don’t mean that to sound snobbish. No, not at all. It’s physiological. When a writer starts a story, we visualize the ending in our mind. Sometimes this is a vague thing off in the distance. Sometimes it’s already been determined before the first word is written. Everything else has to fill the space between the beginning and the end. This is the right brain hemisphere working.

We develop the plot by choosing the necessary elements in the same manner an artist sets up paint colors on a palette in preparation to painting. Mixing and matching verbal colors and arranging the shadows and highlights is what artists do, regardless if they’re painting a scene or crafting one. The modus operandi or operating method of the right brain is creativity. Critiquing what we’ve written is the purview of left brain. It loves being analytical. This physiological difference is what I’m talking about. My right brain controls my life. When I say I’d rather be writing than coming up with creative marketing items, it’s because on any given day there’s only so much creativity to go around. At least that’s how it works in my head.

If I use up my allotment for the day, there is none left for writing in my alter worlds. Nine-to-five creative sparks don’t exist in my realm. It’s a bubble on the bottom of the ocean or a snowball rolling down hill – a unique burst of inspiration that must take its course. This is not necessarily something an artistic soul always has on hand. And as art often comes with a bevy of emotion, the artist can sometimes get drained from the creation process.

If I could look inside my creative mind with say…an electron microscope, I’d see an entire galaxy of thought. One quadrant might have a meteor shower of possibility, another a comet of inspiration, while across the way a full-blown conceptual super nova is taking place. That’s what I deal with as a person able to manifest thought into a product. In other words, there’s a vastness to my brain galaxy but also a great distance between each super nova and only so much fuel to propel my little spacecraft along. I have to refuel after creating something before I’ll be able to travel the stars in my mind again. Sometimes refueling comes quick and other times days will pass before the creative spark finds me once more. Other artist/right brain thinkers know what I mean.

So before I go and blow it for the day 🙂  I think I’ll stop here.