Category: inspiration

One Word for the New Year

While I’m aware that the New Year has been around long enough for even me to remember that I have to write 2016 on checks, it’s not to late to envision and mentally shape the future.

For 15+ years, I’ve been part of a writing group that meets online. For this week’s chat, the chat leader gave us the challenge of coming up with one word to describe how we plan to focus on whatever dreams and aspirations we have for 2016.

Her inspiration for this idea came from the web site below:

One Word 365

Their concept is that one word can replace a long list of New Year’s resolutions. I don’t think they’re the only one with this idea, as I saw a number of other sites with the phrase “One Word” in the title, but it’s a good starting point. You can see who else has chosen your word and join their tribe. You can also get help in picking out a word.

Without further ado, my word is “Presence.” This means I intend to be present to the moment, instead of being caught up in the past or the future.

If you like this idea, and you want to post your word, please do.

Martin Luther King Day

Probably one of the most inspiring speeches given in the past several decades is the “I have a dream” speech.

In my continuing musings about goals, plans, resolutions, and intentions, it occurs to me that dreams make the top of the list.

Nothing is more inspiring than a dream that pulls you toward it, leaving all your resistance, fear, and petty concerns behind.

Have a dream today—and every day.

New Year’s Intentions

This year I realized that the words “resolution” and “goals” didn’t excite me. I wanted a word that had movement and energy, so I chose “intentions.”

I also wanted a theme. I could have laboriously worked one out. Fortunately, my writer’s group, Artistic License, has a member, Marilyn, who’s a tarot expert. We’ve been critiquing the book, and the process (plus her brilliant and lucid explanations) drew me into a deep interest in tarot.

I decided to choose a tarot card that could be a key phrase for the year.

Here’s my card.

Ace of Wands: I am inspired.

This felt totally right. Thus, my overall goal is to increasingly act out of inspiration. In making choices, I will ask myself, “What inspires me?”

This will guide my writing choices, promotional and networking choices, and, most of all, life choices.

I intend to publish a book of advice for cats, for which I am the lowly conduit. The book is currently entitled Cats in Charge: A Guide to World Domination I am targeting April or May for publication and have compiled a list of bloggers/web sites whose owners review books about cats.

In August or September I will publish Book 4 of A Dragon’s Guide to Destiny, Book of Sorrows.

I will continue to work on a novel called Dystopia in Drag, intending a 2014 publication.

I thought the dragon series was over, but to my surprise, I got ideas for a fifth book. This one will be called (I think) The Rainbow Dragon.

As far as life choices, I realized that conscious intentions led to mindfulness, which leads to being in the moment. I couldn’t ask for a better guidance system for this year.

A fellow member of Artistic License, June Diehl, has also posted her intentions and tarot card selections. It’s a terrific post, and you can read it here..

New Worlds to Gain

As I noted in a previous entry, I’m beginning to set goals for the new year. Before formally doing so, I take time to imagine what I want. One thing I know is that an individual’s life doesn’t change until (s)he can imagine a different way of living.

In thinking about the future, I realized I could learn from my fictional characters. In the series, A Dragon’s Guide to Destiny, each main character is challenged to imagine a world very different from the one they know.

Melancholy Druid knows he’s the Dragon of Destiny, but he is sure he’ll fail to accomplish his purpose, in part because all humans have it in for him. Learning to trust a few humans and his own abilities will move him closer to his goal, but can he take that risk?

Tara, the Chosen Kitten, harbors a similar mistrust of humans. She also fears giant dragons. Can she imagine a world in which large and small, human and feline, can join forces?

Human Serazina has unlawful psychic gifts that could lead to her incarceration in the World for the Chronically Crazy (and that would be only the first of coming attractions). Although she must exercise those gifts for her world to be saved, she will have to risk her life to do so.

Phileas, Guardian of Oasis, lives in the tightest mental straightjacket of all, imprisoned by a rigid tradition of mental superiority that suppresses his emotional intelligence. Though he realizes that these limitations are jeopardizing the people he’s sworn to guide, he fears that a world in which emotions are fully expressed will be one of chaos.

Like Druid, I often doubt my ability to succeed. I also, like Tara, sometimes question the willingness of others to cooperate in the fulfillment of my dreams. In earlier years, I felt that my gifts and talents were unrecognized by society, and I regularly check to see if this belief is resurfacing. Likewise, I know it takes commitment to keep the creativity flowing.

Each of us may have different limitations in our ability to imagine a different world, but if we want our lives to accommodate our deepest desires and dreams, we need to imagine worlds that our new selves can happily inhabit.

I used to live in a world where my novels lived only in my computer. Before that situation could change, I needed to imagine a world in which they were published, read, reviewed, etc. Without these mental architectural drawings, I had no way to begin.

Now I’m thinking it’s time for me to make the stakes as high for myself as I do for my suffering fictional friends. That’s going to call for a lot of imagination.

And some inspiration. If you’re considering setting some high-stakes goals, you may benefit listening to the music that helped me write this blog.

Both are by John Lennon

Mind Games

Imagine

Happy New Year!

Dreams and Inspirations

I’m so excited Connie has invited me to guest on her blog today. I thought I’d share with you all some of the ways I get my inspiration.

I started having what I call “character dreams” when I was in high school. These dreams were more like movies and I found my awareness would bounce from the mind of one player to another. I’d only remember little snippets of these dreams the next morning, but they would stick with me so strongly that I eventually found the only way to resolve them in my mind was to write them.

Witch Way Bends started as just such a dream. I recalled a field of bodies and a woman with a pistol in hand. There were several men standing around, also bearing weapons. One man in particular drew her attention and he was obviously in charge. She had something to prove. He felt something for her and fought to tamp it down.

Years later this little clip transformed into the opening chapter for my first novel.

While I was in the process of writing Witch Way Bends I had a particular scene wherein one of the characters was injured. My heroine needed to heal him but I was having a hard time coming up with the details. I wanted the use of her healing powers to be different, unique. While jogging through the nature trail near my house about that time, I ran into a spider web. I furiously swatted the sticky threads out of my face in frustration as I tried to resolve the quandary in my book.

Inspiration has to hit you right in the face sometimes, because that cob web sprang forth an idea. Spiders. My heroine would conjure spiders to magically heal her friend’s wounds.

Probably the biggest source of my inspiration is music. Loud music blaring through the speakers when I’m driving to work. Whether it’s Muse’s “Uprising” to plan a big fight scene or Missy Higgins’ “Drop the Mirror” to explore the desperate soul-searching of one of my characters, music is very important.

I maintain the mood of my stories with music. It helps me hold tight to the theme or the atmosphere I’m trying to evoke in the words.

So I guess inspiration can be found in almost anything that stirs the soul. So many times I’ve despaired when my “muse” goes missing. Yet somehow, it always finds me again be it in dreams, in nature, in song or some other unimagined place…

About the Author

Olivia Hardin realized early on how strange she was to have complete movie-like character dreams as a child. Eventually she began putting those vivid dreams to paper and was rarely without her spiral notebooks full of those mental ramblings. Her forgotten vision of becoming an author was realized when she connected with a group of amazingly talented and fabulous writers who gave her lots of direction and encouragement. With a little extra push from family and friends, she hunkered down to get lost in the words.

She’s also an insatiable crafter who only completes about 1 out of 5 projects, a jogger who hates to run, and is sometimes accused of being artistic, though she’s generally too much of a perfectionist to appreciate her own work.

A native Texas girl, Olivia lives in the beautiful Lone Star state with her husband and their puppy Bonnie.

Connect with her Online

My Blog: www.oliviahardinwriter.com

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5354958.Olivia_Hardin

Twitter: http://twitter.com/oliviaH_writer

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/oliviahardinwriter

Books by Olivia Hardin

Witch Way Bends (Book 1 of the Bend-Bite-Shift Trilogy)

Devan Stowe is a woman on a quest. She has only one thing on her mind when she teams up with Kent Crosby and his associates—putting an end to her father’s child trafficking business. Her determination takes her on a journey to discover her true strength and… the one man she was destined to love. In his arms, she’ll learn the meaning of trust, honor, and courage. Old friends and new will come together to help Devan unlock an amazing gift that will free her from her past and open up a future full of magic, faeries and more things than she ever imagined possible…

Available at Amazon

Bitten Shame (Book 2 of the Bend-Bite-Shift Trilogy)

Jill Prescott returned from self-imposed seclusion to help save her best friend Devan’s life. Throwing herself into Devan’s problems and bringing an evil organization to its knees might just be the distraction she needs to keep living without the only man she’s ever loved. Her life changed forever when she was hired to spend a week with Doc Massey. On the day she became a vampire her youthful innocence ended, but Doc’s love rescued her from being consumed by the darkness. The shadow of that former life continues to loom over her, keeping her from realizing her own self-worth. Running from her past only brings her closer to a destiny that is inextricably connected to what she is trying to escape… Every gift has both a reward and a price, because All of it fits…

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Cupid Painted Blind is a collection of six short stories. Featuring authors: Liz Schulte, Lisa Rayns, Olivia Hardin, C.G. Powell, Cait Lavender and Stephanie Nelson.

“Tell A Soul” – Short Story by Olivia Hardin

He’s the dependable one. The strong and steadfast one. Still, there’s one woman who has always turned his firm resolve on end. Langston is surprised beyond… Belief to find Kristana again, and this time without a husband. Has fate finally given them the chance to be together? Kristana can’t escape her intense attraction for the strange giant Langston, but the murmuring voices in her head are threatening to drive her mad. Can she find a way to trade one torment for another and thereby find true love?

Available at Amazon