Passion ~ by Cynthia Land LMT, RYT

One of the great things about starting a diet or projects/resolutions at the beginning of the year is that there is so much wonderful collective energy around them.  In yoga this determination or passion to persevere is called tapas. The yogic principle of tapas refers to three ideas simultaneously; heat, discipline as well as passion. Tapas comes from the second of the Eight Limbs of Yoga  .  When we discover something we’re passionate about we can say that it lights us on fire. Sometimes fire doesn’t carry us all the way and we have to have discipline to carry us through to achieve our goals. 

When I discovered how wonderful yoga made me feel not just physically but also mentally and emotionally, it lit me on fire. I became passionate about learning how to teach it to others. And 17 years later I am still passionate about passing on its powers to others.  Tapas is why you see professional football players become coaches, it’s why are you see professional dancers become instructors, it’s certainly one of the reasons why you see people like Neil deGrasse Tyson pontificating about astrophysics, it’s a passion so strong it cannot be contained to one medium.

You don’t necessarily have to be great or gifted at the thing you do. I am probably the least flexible yoga teacher I know.  That is why I have the discipline to keep working on my yoga poses to maintain my flexibility. However I have such a passion for the philosophy of yoga and a desire to learn, that I continue to delve into the books and teachings, broadening and deepening my knowledge base. 

As you can see right here on Originality by Design there are many things keeping people passionate and on fire.  What keeps you passionate in life? 

Adventures in Writing ~ by Holly Barbo

Every author brings to their writing elements of their past, their interests and… what makes them tick. They create the magic from the essence of what they are and you; the reader, gets transported into another world. I write in and mix several genres. Not sure if that makes me confused or multi-faceted.

~ grin ~ 

One of my earlier childhood memories is of wanting to learn to read. Starting school meant going to that place where I would learn the key. It was the only purpose for school, in my mind. Well… it turned out it wasn’t quite that simple, and I struggled with the skill. The much younger me persevered. I was determined even then.

Once I caught on, I sampled different genre of books in the school library but, I found the stories that swept me into another place fell into a cluster of categories: adventure-intrigue, suspense, thriller, sci-fi / fantasy and historical fiction. Those were magic. My childhood favorites were: Mara- Daughter of the Nile by McGraw, Mrs. Mike by Freedman, several of James Michener’s books and, of course, all of the Dragon Riders of Pern tales by Anne McCaffrey. If you are familiar with any of these you can see what makes my writing tick. Writers were a marvel! I was content to sit with these books and never write… only read.

In spring 2009 I was working in our furniture store. The market had crashed 6 months before and business was quiet. A story crept into my mind. I pushed the bothersome thing away. I needed to vacuum, dust, fluff pillows and make my store appealing to the invisible hoards of customers who were waiting to stream in and be tempted beyond their restraint. Once the housekeeping duties were done the story pushed again. It wanted out. Finally I gave in and sitting down at my computer I began to write what became The Sage Seed Chronicles. For the most part, I was the conduit. Ten months later, four of the five books in the fantasy series were complete.

We list The Sage Seed Chronicles as fantasy but it also has sci-fi elements. I seem almost incapable of writing a pure genre story. Eventually I sampled writing in several other genres: steampunk, thriller, dystopian, adventure, historical fiction and suspense. Several are combination. But what I was drawn to write is where I loved to read.

One of the online groups I was a part of suggested a multi-author short story anthology. Short story? How do you write a short story? Really. I’m sincere. I hadn’t a clue. I’d just completed five books with the word count around 86,000 each. The pace and development of a novel is measured and developed. Now I’m being asked to write a story in about 5,000 words? 

After the initial disbelief in the concept I read and studied a few short stories. The pace was different, and the skill was to cut out the unnecessary… whatever that was. I took on the challenge. My first short story was also a new genre for me: dystopian. The Tin of Honey was a hit with the readers and eventually made the Semi-finals in the ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story competition.

Since that time I’ve used short stories to explore genres. I don’t write romances, zombies, horror but seem to be suited to weaving historical with contemporary-suspense/thriller and like world-building.

From the very first of the Sage Seed Chronicles I’ve taken current event worries and woven them into a plot. The books aren’t diatribes on what is happening now. I work hard to take concerns and put them into another setting. It’s therapeutic to “solve” something in a story I have no power to fix in real time. 

If you look at the graphics, you will note the genre spread: steampunk, thriller, dystopian, adventure, historical fiction and suspense. Currently I have nine full length books. Three books have won a single award and Vortexes has four by itself.

~YAY and Happy Dancing~ 

Also on my bookshelf are several short stories. We titled one set Quick Reads (above graphic) and the tales are longer. Perhaps a couple of lunch breaks in reading time per story. All of these are long enough to be singles but are also gathered in a five-story collection. Another set, above, is a trilogy and (LOL) one is waiting to become a trilogy.

~Whew~

Continuing to a smaller scale, I’ve a seven-story collection of mini tales that are too tiny to be out on their own and are only found under the title of Tendrils. Again, whether it be books or short stories, my genres cover the same territory… that which I fell in love with as a child.

I need to make a point here. Many of my short stories have children in them but are NOT children’s books. My readers range from 14-16 to in their 90’s. I write about serious topics which are not intended for young children. The only ones which could be read by kids, as far as subject matter, are The Dragil (from the Quick Reads set), Rockets (found in Tendrils) and the Beyond Time Trilogy.

A bit about me. Earlier I mentioned a furniture store. We closed the

Author Holly Barbo and Misha

store but continue to custom build, restore and repair wood furniture. You can see examples on our biz website: https://www.barbofurniture.com. Yes, I still write between work projects. You must do something while glue is drying, etc. My author website is http://hollybarbo-books.com. Come visit. 

Oh… and I’m currently working on a new thriller. Watch for it this year.

Meet Our Founding Members ~ Cynthia Land

Cynthia Land

Cynthia comes from the fast-paced world of broadcast news. As a reporter and anchor at KOMO radio in Seattle, she’s gone from interviewing CEOs including Starbucks Howard Schultz to breaking news of earthquakes. 

To read more about Cynthia and her prior blog posts, please click this link to her MEMBER PAGE

A Bit of Erie Lore ~ by Marj Ivancic

Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior—the five Great Lakes. Dug by prehistoric icy fingers, they have been a source of employment, entertainment, and transportation since man first lashed two planks together with a dream of sailing. And as such, their waters have given rise to countless urban legends and

photo: Wikipedia

folktales. 

My beloved Erie may be the shallowest of the five, but with about a quarter of the total shipwrecks to her name, she is just as rich in myth as her brethren.

When I was a young kid, a friend’s mom told me a tale about how a local nursery came to be because of the less-than-honorable entrepreneurial spirit of a pair of brothers who got the money they needed to buy the land by pilfering the dead bodies of shipwrecked immigrants, many of whom had drowned because the coin sewn into their clothing dragged them into the cold, dark depths.

I don’t recall the name of the brothers or that of the nursery or the ship that sank, but the story always stuck with me. In my mind, I picture two twenty-somethings slinking along the beach, their Boilerman caps pulled down low on their brows, their frames thin and hungry, kerchiefs up about their noses to block out the smell as they strip the bodies of their valuables. They move quickly, one ruthless, the other nervous, popping up now and again to make sure no one else was about to witness their thievery.

Did these men exist? Was the story true? It didn’t seem so because no one else had ever heard of it.

And then I stumbled on the story of the G.P. Griffith.

In June of 1850, this streamer caught fire on its way from Fairport

photo: Wikipedia

to Toledo, then ran aground on a sandbar about a half mile from shore. Sadly, many of the crew and nearly all its passengers (over 250 immigrants from Germany, England, Ireland, and Scandinavia) died, either burned in the flames or drowned in the waters. A number of the dead that washed ashore were claimed by loved ones, but the majority were laid to rest in a mass grave near the water’s edge.

With record keeping being what it was back then and with much of the paperwork lost to fire, the exact death toll is difficult to verify, as is the manner of their death. Some versions claim that many of the people drowned because the money they carried on their persons, either in money belts or in their clothing, weighted them down, making the half-mile swim impossible. Other histories say they drowned because they could not swim, that only one person was found with money in her clothing.

But was that because the money was already gone? Had two shadows already crept from body to body, checking pockets and seams for gold and pennies?  Or was that one woman’s demise the spark for dramatic rumor?

Like most historic events, time has shrouded the truth, and both imagination and interpretation have colored it in. I doubt we’ll ever know for certain. I’m not even sure that the G.P. Griffith’s tragic story was the basis for the tale I heard as a wide-eyed child, but it’s fun to think that childhood urban legends may be more than just tales. 

Happy New Year From Your Friends at Originality by Design

Thank you for making 2019 so successful! It's because of you--our readers, guests, and members--that Originality by Design has over 43,000 views in our first year as a blog.

We have many more creatives waiting to share with you their books, music, artwork, and more.   

Here's to a New Decade. Here's to a New Year.  Happy 2020!