Most of these were taken actually in the middle of “creeks” that are running high still from the spring thaw and a few weeks of steady rain. You have to get close, where the rush of the water is making you shiver, even though you’re wearing a sweatshirt and jeans in mid-May. You have to feel the mist after it crashes into the rocks that over time are worn smooth and covered in the greenest moss you’ve ever seen. You have to reach your hand into the ice-cold softness of this eternally-running perfection while you’re hunting for the ideal picture to remember your day by.

A lot of the time, I haunt these North Georgia woods on my own. This weekend, my guys took me to this place where I’ve never hiked before, so far interior my husband roughed it with me until the woods swallowed up the trail and there was no room left for us. My son’s gift–staying back at the B&B we’ve been to so many times, the owners are the best of friends, studying for his AP Bio exam and the rest of his finals so I could have a day of not worrying if my celebration would cost him points he can’t afford to lose. And it was raining, water finding water and filling us and misting our way through mud and dampness and the feeling that we’d moved back in time to a place where nothing electric or motorized or man-made had ever passed.

Of course, it was just a day trip. We’re not embarking on a trek across the AT. But it was glorious, and then I got to go back to the Inn, clean up, and on Sunday we hit the best cafe in a nearby town, all prettied up for brunch.  Don’t give me that look! I am a mother, after all. I like to be pampered as much as the next girl. I just like the water more, and you can’t get to the kind of water I like without a little mud and a challenging mile or two. And on some of these trails, a girl needs a little company to get close enough to what she likes.

My family gave that to me this Mother’s Day.My quail on a bed of fresh spinach seasoned with warm bacon vinaigrette on Sunday was lovely, too. But so was my mud. ‘Cause for me, in case you haven’t read one of my books, the very soul of what you love is a shy critter to hunt. And it’s the chase that entrances me the most. I like to dig around a bit–well, a lot. I like the kind of lovely ending that getting muddy along the way makes a hundred times better.

One last look at what I mean? You’ve seen my Shoes are My Heroin posts here and likely the running shoe-orgasm on my Pinterest Shoe Page. But I’ve never shared the before and after. The very beginning and end of what fascinates me most. The tomboy mom lusting after the perfect water, and the designer shoe mom who wants a long, beautifully prepared meal with my guys where we talk about all kinds of things we let pass us by on a normal day.

So, yeah. I’m the kind of mom who likes to hike through the mud to the wettest, most beautiful sights I can find. Then the next morning, I like vintage wine with my orange juice ;o)

Here you go–my PERFECT Mother’s Day shoes. My weekend wouldn’t have been complete without either pair. Let me know which ones you like best ;o) It’s a toss up for me. I’m just that kind of mom…

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My answer–I don’t know if I can do it, until I do it.

Then again, I don’t let myself up from that desk, until I’ve found a way to plug into the muse, the creative inspiration, that will take me a step or two closer to realizing my dream for this new book, the way I have for all the other ones that have driven me equally crazy. Crazy, you understand, having become my natural state, so it’s not so strange a thing to be asking myself to dig deeper into the crazy well, whether I feel like it at that moment or not.

I love talking with small groups of authors, many of whom aren’t yet writing on publishing deadlines. Their energy is kinetic, frenetic, and contagious. They’d do almost anything to make their stories better and sellable and one step closer to being published. No matter how busy their lives are, no matter how much trouble they’re having with everything else, these hungry writers are dying to get back to their books and their critique groups and their creativity and make something happen on the page. 

I need to see that as often as possible, which is what makes weekend events like the one I just taught with my literary agent–and the first pitches I’ve officially taken for Entangled Publishing ;o)–exactly what I need when I’m too mired in my own impossible deadlines and creative low spots. Because fresh, energetic, wanna-be-published-at-all-costs authors like the ones at Carolina Romance Writers have just as much of a message for me as I do for them. Their very existence begs me to answer the question faced by all published authors who can’t find the inspiration to write when they know they need to to meet their current deadline: Why can’t you direct your creativity now, and get the words on the page now that you’re under contract, the way you did when you were hungry and eager and dying to be published, just like these hard-working women? Hmmmm???

There are a lot of answers to this very important question, and none of them easy to discover or accept. And a lot of unpublished authors have creative draughts, too. It’s a very individual journey, learning to direct your creativity and harness it into productivity, even when you sometimes feel there isn’t any point, or when the voices in your head have gone quiet, or when you doubt that anyone will ever give a damn about anything that you’re writing. But that doesn’t make it any less our job, to learn how. Which is what I teach when I do my drafting workshop–a bit of which I touched on while talking communication skills over the weekend.

Because I think the kind of inspiration we all must have, as creative artists who want to be successful commercially and finanicially as we practice our art and reach our readers, is the kind where we’re communicating with ourselves that there IS hope, and there is a kick-ass story to be told, and there are characters we need to bring to life so others can see them. And when you’re not-yet published, I sometimes think it’s easier to see just those things–the heart of what you want to do–rather than the make-it-or-break-it success we all seem to think we need to become once we’re offered that first book contract.

Yes, once again, I’m talking about fear, and the complete mind f**k it can do on us, as artists, if we let our negativity, rather than our love of story, take over.

When we’re scared, our direction goes out the office window and our emotions lock the keys on our keyboards and we see failure instead of opportunity with each new idea we attempt to embrace. When we think we’re going to fail before we start, as is so easy to do once someone is actually expecting you to succeed, our minds often protect us by simply refusing to start doing whatever we’re feeling threatened by.

Sound familiar?

So, my advice today is simple: don’t write that way. Don’t live that way. Don’t see your writing that way, whether you’re on book contract or still dreaming of having one.

Harness the positive crazy inside you instead. The hopes and dreams and impossible expectations for yourself that have inspired and driven you to get this far. You want to see the world in your own unique way, and you want others to see your world, too. You fee more alive when you write, than you do almost anywhere else in your life. You create because you can’t stop, not because you don’t want to fail. You will keep creating, even if every opportunity that could slip through your fingers actually did go away. So, create today, and don’t care so much how strange that makes you or what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Direct your creativity, yes, to produce something tangible in your story that will inspire you to even greater creativity tomorrow. Challenge yourself to write, even when you don’t feel like, just as you did when you were first starting out. But not because you’re afraid of never making it any farther than you have already. Challenge yourself to create, because your life is better and your heart feels lighter and your mind opens just an inch more, every time you do.

On my hardest, craziest days, that’s what keeps me writing, I told my weekend students. My love for the story and the words and the characters that I feel inside me and want to see you feeling, too. That’s why I’ll write today, and tomorrow, and every day between now and my next scary deadline.

Love what makes you crazy, my friends. Because the crazy’s not going away, and neither is the drive to write. Might as well buckle down and get to work!

Scoot on over, read some creepy, psychological-thrillerish prose, comment to win a FREE download, and have yourself a fine “bandit” day!

And just to set the tone a bit better, here’s some creepy, Gothic imagery to get your morning going on the right note. Bwahahahahaha…

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Unforeseen events, warnings, daja vu, illogical or irrational outcomes that somehow manage to come true…do you have to be psychic to believe that dreams can share things like this? I don’t think so. I’ve had my own premonitions for years, sometimes not realizing that’s what they were until the unforeseen event begins to play out, reminding me that I’ve “seen” something like this before. Scary, right?

Wrong!

That kind of heightened awareness can be spooky at first, but it can also be reassuring as you find your way through whatever event or potential conflict you face. It’s not so much about accuracy as it is about learning that your instincts talk to you in a lot of different ways, and they tend to keep talking until you pay attention ;o) Even if your subconscious has to weave stories within your dreams, in order for you to “see” what you need to see.

No, I’m not saying this sort of thing happens all the time, though I keep working premonition dreams into the fiction I write on a frequent enough basis that interviewers and book bloggers always ask when I’m going to do it again, LOL! I’m not saying everything you experience in a dream will come true. In fact, most dreams are about things that have already happened and what you should learn from the experience that your sleeping mind is storing away in your memory.

And, no,  you don’t have to be psychic to get something tangible out of your dream life.. The trends and patterns of the forward-thinking parts of your dreams are something to follow closely, if you’re one of those lucky people who actually do remember what you’ve experienced once you wake. There’s good stuff in there. There’s your very intuitive brain, process and analyzing and hinting at things to be on the look out for, opportunities you’re overlooking, or hidden difficulties you could avoid if you plan well enough in advance.

Of course, most of my heroines, including my latest, Shaw Cassidy, in Her Forgotten Betrayal, must remember what they’re dreaming and heed the warnings their nightmares are shouting at them, or there will be much danger ahead. But that’s because I often write creepy suspenses. Our normal dream patters are far more calm and healing. They’often hinting and possibility, not danger, and potential for self-improvement, not who the killer stalking us might be ;o)

So listen next time, when you get the chance to go back over a dream. Feel the emotions that stay with you, take a closer at the imagery that remains in your mind once you wake. What kinds of real-life hopes and dreams might they be standing in for as you sleep, and how are they suggesting that you go after what you really want most, in order to achieve the best possible result?

Let you dreams inspire you. Let them paint a brighter future.

Anyone want to share a few personal experiences???

I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours ;o)

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Related posts you might find fun to read:

• realmeaningofdreams.com’s take
• how stuff works is always a cook place to research the scientific side of things
• dream symbolisim–it’s all subjective, but this is a pretty cool starter article