Guest Post - Lost in "Lost" by Mary Beth Maziarz, author of "Kick-Ass Creativity: An Energy Makeover For Artists, Explorers and Creative Professionals"

Lost in “Lost” 

By Mary Beth Maziarz, author of "Kick-Ass Creativity: An Energy Makeover For Artists, Explorers and Creative Professionals"

(Warning - there will be gratuitous photos of the gorgeous men of Lost scattered throughout this post! - Sharon)

In August of last year, my husband Mark and I pulled the first season of the TV show “Lost” off our DVD shelf.  It  had entered our lives via Ashley -- a sweet, but unreliable babysitter we’d had a few summers ago -- who thought we might like it and had brought it over for us to check out.  The set of DVDs became marooned on our media bookcase when she inexplicably stopped coming (and answering texts) one day.

So, with our three-year-old asleep (and both of us surprisingly still awake and alert one late summer night), we launched into the world of Lost.  

(Let me note for the record here that, yes, I know we are behind the times and most of the world was into Lost for the last several years.  We were apparently TiVoblivious; before starting to watch it, Mark and I both were under the impression that Lost was some kind of reality show.)

Desmond was a smart and interesting character - cute too!

We’d heard it was a well-done series, but had no idea it would be as engrossing and addictive as it turned out to be.  The characters and their world came to life as we devoured each episode, often two or three at a time.  I found myself thinking about the show as I went about my daily tasks, wondering at the wackier supernatural aspects of the plot and trying to weave together clues from different episodes in order to guess what was really going on with the ever more-complex plotlines. 

We found ourselves keeping our obsession with the show private.  It was too risky to mention socially, lest someone spoil the ending for us and wreck our delicious evening ritual.

Sawyer - hubbahubba ... need I say more?

The end came, as it does.  We watched the final episode last week, and though it was fairly satisfying, I feel empty, as if part of me is missing.  

And this is why stories matter.  

When we allow ourselves to be drawn into a good story, there’s a type of surrender that takes place.  Like falling asleep or falling in love, we suspend practical concerns and fall into another world, where different things happen and different characters ask us to understand new points of view.   When stories drift into the fantastic or a medium is limited, there’s a term -- suspension of disbelief -- for the leap that we’re asked to take in order to fully immerse ourselves in a narrative experience.  

ah, Charlie - that Aussie accent gets me every time!

I believe it’s suspension of disbelief that moves us to write and read and lose ourselves in great stories.  

Children are champs at losing themselves in fantasy.  They play-act all the time -- pretending and imagining are a natural part of their daily reality.  I listen to our daughter Daisy as she plays with her mermaid Barbies and beloved stuffed “froggies,” hearing echoes of our real life interwoven with increasingly fantastic plots and dialogues.  She’ll circle around the same topic a number of times when trying to understand a new concept or work something out.  

Handsome Jack!

Teens are often admonished for forays into fantasy.  We’re pulled -- kicking and screaming -- from the rich, dramatic narratives of music, complex video games, gossip, and young love.  Instead, we’re ordered to get our heads out of the clouds, return to earth, buckle down and get serious.  Most of us heed this sensible advice eventually, and in the process, discard one of our most instinctual methods of sorting out life’s puzzle pieces.  

And so by the time most of us reach adulthood, our fantasy/imaginative lives have been stripped to exercises of the ego or libido.  We look for drama in our friendships and marriages -- sometimes finding it when it isn’t even there -- and create narratives about the rhythms in our workplace or neighborhood stops.  

yep, even Hurley was a cutie- pie! Don't ya want to hug him?

But the lucky ones among us regularly find rich escape each time we allow ourselves to suspend belief and fall into a story.  We travel across time and place, we meet new people, we inhabit the minds of animals or inanimate objects.  We see ourselves in characters, we recognize similar dynamics in their lives, we note the paths they take in trying to resolve conflict and find love and fortune.  Story serves as the surrogate for the playful parts of imagination that drift from us as we get older and ‘wiser.’  

Today I reach out across the worlds of all the characters with whom I have laughed and cried, winced and willed great things.  For those I’ve been lucky enough to have loved, and grieved in this odd way, I thank all the authors and the inspiration and the discipline and energy that brings them to life.  I am forever grateful to you for the hours of escape, excitement, and adventure. 

Here’s to getting Lost, over and over again.  

About The Author:

Mary Beth Maziarz is a creative fireball. Her book will be embraced by all artists, wannabe artists, and all those interested in personal development and energy work. Mary is a professional songwriter, performer, workshop facilitator, and author. Check out her website at http://www.kickasscreativity.com/


GIVEAWAY:

Mary Beth has graciously offered a copy of her book, "Kick-Ass Creativity: An Energy Makeover For Artists, Explorers and Creative Professionals" to one lucky commentor on this post!  Just leave your name and email on this post, and I'll draw for a winner on April 4th. This is a wonderful book that will kickstart your creative life!

Guest Post by John Ames, author of "Adventures in Nowhere"

Today, I'm pleased to introduce you to John Ames, author of "Adventures In Nowhere."

John was gracious enough to write a guest post about how his childhood experiences influenced his writing as an adult.

All authors draw from their own lives when writing fiction, but many are reluctant to go into detail on the subject, thinking it might diminish the mystery in their work. When I was asked to demonstrate how an aspect of my novel, Adventures in Nowhere, connects to my childhood, I had a moment of doubt myself, but I’ve made it no secret that a lot of material in my novel is based on personal experience. And, even though I am retired, I still have the teacher’s impulse to explain things, so I agreed.

The visions of Danny Ryan, the ten-year-old protagonist of Adventures in Nowhere, suit the task. As he sits beside the Hillsborough River, Danny imagines on the opposite bank a pleasant house where he might live free of the tensions in his own home. Gradually, his imaginings become more and more real to him, but at the same time the house on the other side of the river becomes more mysterious, even menacing. Danny wonders if he is losing his mind and begins to feel panic on the bank of the river that previously provided him welcome relief from his father’s frightening moods.

I spent a great deal of time on the banks of the Hillsborough as a boy, though I never imagined a house on the other side of the river. What I did do was look across the water at what appeared to be a step on the opposite bank. It was probably just a flat rock, but I often wondered if that step was the first in a series of steps leading to a mysterious dwelling that I could not make out through the dense foliage. This was the beginning point of the mysterious house Danny imagines.

Danny’s increasing anxiety comes out of another of my childhood experiences. For a short period of time when I was young, I developed an irrational fear of birds circling in the sky. I remember when it started. An adult I didn’t know very well kidded me by saying something like, “Watch out, those birds might swoop down and peck you.” At the time, I thought it was a stupid thing to say. I knew very well those birds were no threat to me. However, within days I found myself terrified by the very birds I had previously laughed off. I couldn’t understand what had happened to me. I realized it was crazy, yet I remained afraid, running home in the afternoon from the school bus stop with my book bag on my head. I doubt the fear lasted more than a week, but it gave me a sense of how quickly one’s mind can move from stable to unstable, especially under pressure.

Danny Ryan’s imaginings, his apparent loss of control over his imagination, and his rising panic have their origins in the real experiences I have described. Of course, I added a great deal of context to them, and I have indulged in some wishful thinking, giving Danny a chance to triumph in a way I never did. That’s the beauty of fiction.

About The Author:

John Ames has a master’s degree in English from the University of Florida, where he was a Ford Fellow. After graduation, he built a rustic house and lived for several years on the edge of a spiritual community located near Gainesville, Florida. John’s search for enlightenment ended when he decided that he was too far from a movie theater. He moved inside the Gainesville city limits and taught English and film for thirty years at Santa Fe College.

He has produced and acted in numerous short films and videos, including the cable TV series the “Tub Interviews,” wherein all the interviewees were required to be in a bathtub. For ten years he reviewed movies for PBS radio station WUFT.  He has appeared as a standup comedian and has designed and marketed Florida-themed lamps.  He coauthored Second Serve: The Renée Richards Story (Stein and Day, 1983) and its sequel No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life (Simon & Schuster, 2007), and Speaking of Florida (University Presses of Florida, 1993).

His recent book is a coming-of-age novel titled Adventures in Nowhere.
You can visit his website at www.johnamesauthor.com.

My Thanks to Dorothy Thompson with Pump Up Your Book Promotion for arranging this guest post.

Reader Feeback - A Guest Post by Author D.W. Richards

Reader Feedback

A Guest Post By D.W. Richards, author of Pairs

Prior to writing my first novel and then subsequently “Pairs” I used to email a growing collection of people humorous anecdotes taken directly from my life. It was an intermittent and very informal affair with each relating, in sometimes granular detail, the unfolding and outcome of a single event.

These would go out into the world and for the longest time I never had any sense of how they were being received. Were they ignored? Were they an annoyance? Were they appreciated? I had no idea because no one ever replied.

It wasn’t until I was visiting a friend at her place of work that I got my first inkling that my emails might be quite popular indeed. When she gave me tour of her department, the group was noticeably welcoming; far more than office etiquette would require when being introduced to your boss’s pal. My friend later confided to me that they enjoyed reading my emails. This was my first taste of celebrity in the real pithy substance of the word; complete strangers felt unusually comfortable and familiar with me.

A similar event happened later that same year when I was invited to a party of another friend. Beside the hostess herself, I didn’t know a single person. Conversely, everyone there felt that they knew me. And, to some degree, if they had been brought into the email readership, they did. It is an interesting position to be in.

These brushes with celebrity, no matter how fleeting they had been, were very welcome. Until those moments and the encouragement I felt from them, I had been writing in a complete vacuum of feedback. It was not too much later that I finally received my first actual ‘reply’ to one of my anecdotes. For the life of me I cannot recall what my email had been about but I can come pretty close to quoting the response, partly because it was one sentence. LOL, you are wasting your time in accounting.  I was hooked.

With my first novel there were incidences like that from time-to-time and with “Pairs” it happened quit recently. A woman that I’ve never met or heard of rated my book four out of five stars. I’ve been debating with myself whether tracking down her address to send flowers would be a little weird.

About The Author:

D.W. Richards is a member of the Canadian Authors Association and beyond being a novelist he is also a script-doctor and freelance writer. An excerpt from Pairs will appear in the October 2010 issue of the international literary PDF quarterly Cantarville as a standalone fiction piece. In addition to creative writing, D.W. Richards has a Bachelor Degree in Psychology from Carleton University and is a Certified General Accountant. He divides his time between Venice, Italy and Ottawa, Canada.

Visit his website at www.pairsthenovel.com or connect with him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DW_Richards.

You can purchase a paperback copy of Pairs online by clicking here or order the Kindle edition by clicking here.

My thanks to Dorothy Thompson of Pump Up Your Book Promotion for arranging this guest post.

Guest Post by Jennifer Lynne Matthews, author of "Fashion Unraveled"

WHERE I GOT MY INSPIRATION

by Jennifer Lynne Matthews

I have always written, mostly for myself in the way of journals, so my work has never really been read by others (except by my sister when she stole my diary). When a colleague suggested we write a book together, I was more than excited to jump at the opportunity to have my words read for individuals other than my sister.

We both started our businesses in the fashion industry around the same time, hers was accessories and mine was lingerie. We teamed up and started networking with other designers trying to find the answer to the secrets of running a small business. We passed on our valuable insights to each other and had weekly sewing parties to brainstorm.

As time passed, we both had our struggles and occasionally (in my case, often) we made poor decisions, but what this did for us, was give us an education no college ever had. I opened up a boutique and began to host fashion industry networking groups. She began consulting with small businesses and a few years after that, we formed a business together.

We started a consulting business to coach fashion entrepreneurs on the ways of the industry. Through this, we created a two day workshop as a crash course to running a small business. We received such great feedback and the information was overwhelmingly helpful, so we decided it would work out well as a book.

It was the outline for the course that began our journey into creating Fashion Unraveled. For a few months, we met up weekly and exchanged outlines. This slowly built the outline to around 30 pages. It was at this point, that I began to fill in the blanks and write the chapters. Motherhood took over for my colleague, so I continued the book on my own; although I am forever in her debt for getting me to write it.

When writing my book, I pulled from my business, her business and from my students. You see, I am a fashion design instructor in the university system. My students were my ultimate inspiration on the subject matter. So many of my students were graduating without jobs, becoming entrepreneurs was the natural course for them.

Each day between classes, I would have a group of students come to ask me questions about getting a business of their own started. I felt it was important for them to be fully informed and that I had the information that could help them create a successful business.

The books that were currently out when I wrote the book, I felt to be inadequate, outdated or not written for a creative individual. I wrote Fashion Unraveled to be none of those things. I just released the second edition and I plan to update this book every three years with the current status of the industry.

About The Author:

As an educator at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (San Francisco & LA), Jennifer Lynne Matthews, recognized that there was a need for a step by step educational manual to teach her students on how to start their own business. Consequently, Matthews wrote the first edition of Fashion Unraveled in 2008 to provide such educational material; the second edition is due out in early 2011. Matthews, also a lingerie designer and entrepreneur, began her path in the fashion industry in 1994. She attended Florida State University, then the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, completing her degree in 1999. With a specialization in intimate apparel, Matthews began working in the industry as a stylist and freelance designer.

In 2002, Matthews opened her own business, Porcelynne Lingerie. Fashion Unraveled is built on Matthews’ experience in both  opening and  sustaining a successful business. She brings the knowledge of running a small business and her expertise in the industry into her book and it continues into her classroom teaching.

Matthews has won numerous awards for her designs and has received worldwide accolades for her work, including the Best of the East Bay and the Best of San Francisco Mastermind awards for her lingerie designs. Her most recent project has been on a reality TV show (currently being pitched to networks) as a co-producer and fashion consultant for a lingerie design competition show.

Future plans include authoring a collection of books on lingerie design, draping and clothing construction.  She also aspires to open a showroom and education studio in the garment district of Los Angeles.
For more information on Jennifer Matthews and her work, see http://www.fashionunraveled.com/ and http://www.porcelynne.com/.

About Fashion Unraveled:

"Fashion Unraveled" offers an inside look into the operations of a small fashion design business. This book offers tips, tools of the trade and valuable insight into the industry. This acts as a guide for developing a customer, market and collection. The book introduces the reader to sourcing and production, as well as explains marketing concepts. Whether the reader is an entrepreneur, designer, student or craftsperson, this book will guide one through the business implementation process.

"Fashion Unraveled" introduces an in-depth look at creating a costing model, solid pricing and realistic budgeting. "Fashion Unraveled" is user friendly and was designed for the creative mind. Chapters are laid out with definitions and web links located in the sidebars of the book for ease in use. The second edition features over 400 pages of information transforming this into the “must read” resource for every designer entrepreneur.

This book offers a new case study feature, following a small fashion business through their business launch, including their business plan. "Fashion Unraveled "also features several designer interviews, including a Q&A with British designer Timothy James Andrews and couturier Colleen Quen.

My thanks to Pump Up Your Book Promotion for arranging for this guest post from Jennifer Lynne Matthews, and for the review copy of this book!  I was not compensated for my opinion.