Happy Lunar New Year, all! It’s the Year of the Ox and I hope it’s a great, steady year for everyone.
Tag: shburgessauthor
I recently took on the role of VP of Communications for the Virginia Romance Writers. As an introduction to the group, I filled out a little Q&A and I thought it would be fun to share here!
Name: SH Burgess
What do you write: It depends on what mood you’re catching me in 
I love creating characters with traits from paranormal/sci fi and mashing them up in an usual setting and they’re probably a sociopath with a killer smile. However, I recognize this is not for everyone so…Last year, I did finish a short contemporary romance. It’s going through some edits so we’ll see if it winds up a long contemporary, lol.
How long have you been writing? Since Kindergarten when I wrote the True Book of Paleontology instead of the standard My Dinosaur Book.
Published? Working on it, unless you consider my 11th grade English poem being published in an anthology of VA English students.
Best writing advice: Keep going until it’s a habit and you can’t imagine not writing every day.
Plotter or pantser: What is plotting? 100% panster. If I try and plot anything there’s a revolt in my brain and everything is full stop.
Favorite author: Preston & Child write my absolute favorite series. The Pendergast series are action packed, horror, science fiction, suspense, mystery, mind bending, spectaculars. I also love KMM and the Fever Series.
Last thing you read: Eyes That Kiss in the Corners by Joanna Ho – Great kids story about diversity and representation.
Other hidden talents/hobbies: I’ve played the flute for over <gulps> 30 years. And due to Covid, I think I’ve become the ultimate multitasker trying to do the day joy, hustle job, teacher job and cat wrangler all at the same time.
What keeps you motivated? The idea that my story is not like everyone else’s and someone out there may read it and like it.
What is the strangest thing on your desk? Maybe it’s more around what is missing from my desk, which would be the kitchen sink with the amount of stuff I have residing on it. Currently, I have a cat, two computers set up, a printer, an ipad, two phones, a Nintendo switch, endless amounts of post-it notes, stickers, notebooks, journals, a desk fan, countless water bottles, a cup of coffee, random snacks, nail polish, rubbing alcohol, 2 boxes of pens, a cactus and 5 cups of pens…make that 6. And then there’s also the clutter 
The creative brain is messy.
What do you listen to as you write? Going back to the second question, it depends on the mood. I love Sara Bareilles, she’s my music muse, so she’ll be on more often than not. I have a couple of writing playlists on Spotify containing everything from Linkin Park, 30 Seconds to Mars to John Williams and the Boston Pops to Bon Iver.
Thanks for learning a little bit more about me. The beginning of the year has already been slammed with non-creative time. I’ve been feeling very guilty about neglecting my writing but since it doesn’t pay the bills at the moment, I have to let it be a sidelined. Hopefully, only for a little bit longer. If you’re interested in following some of my other social media, here’s where you can find me.
Happy New Year! We made it to 2021! I hope everyone had a great first day to the new year. I had a few moments of inspiration and a couple of new characters decided to introduce themselves to me. Seems like they’re a little lukewarm towards each other but meant to be, so I’m excited to see where they’ll be taking me next. If you can’t tell already, I’m a total pantser when it comes to writing. Any outlining, plotting, planning or other logical systems to character development and writing just don’t work for me.
My main goal for this year is to keep writing, a little something each day. It can be a blog post, edits or new material, just anything to keep my fingers and creative brain active. And then my big, hairy, audacious goal is to publish Zak and Sadie’s story. I’m not sure what the timing would be since they need those edits but before the end of the year, I’d like to feel that book in my hands.
I received my NaNoWriMo winner’s shirt yesterday in the mail. There was a strange, really joyous emotion which created a gigantic smile as I ripped into the mailer. Perhaps it was the euphoria of being a first-time winner or maybe it was because this simple shirt made the win feel tangible. Someone had to package this shirt and send it to me. It wasn’t me printing off my own winner’s certificate. Weird, maybe? I hope and plan for future wins, so I’ll have to remember this post and see if I have a similar reaction.
My day job has been ramping up and therefore it has been consuming most of my brain power. My analytical and logical thoughts are drowning out my poor creative muses. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that as we approach Christmas, the workload will die down a bit and my muses will still be there to write. I feel an itch in my fingertips to just let their words fly over the keyboard, that’s right before my head drops and my chin hits my chest from exhaustion. They’ll just have to be my dancing sugar plums for now.
It’s gloomy here in my corner of the world. A nice grey, slightly windy and rainy day to close out the month of November. For some odd reason, I feel like November was a fast month. Does anyone else feel this way? Perhaps it was the buzz of sprinting towards a NaNoWriMo finish or maybe it was looking forward to putting up some festive decorations and trying to find cheer in the midst of this pandemic year.
I’m sure next month will bring on a whole new set of challenges as we figure out how to close out a most interesting year. While 2020 has been, to quote almost every person, “unprecedented” <can we all agree just to retire this word?> I have, personally, found much joy and growth in the darkened storm clouds.
This month, I’m thankful we decided to decorate a little earlier with Christmas lights and cheer. I’m also enjoying the fact so many others have decided to do the same thing. The twinkling little lights keep me company as I sit at my computer at night and type. I’m grateful for the 20-minute sprints I was able to cram in and become a first time NaNoWriMo winner. The joy from writing another novel has really buoyed me these last few days of the month.
All right, time to return my thoughts to my day job and daydream about the writing process for later in the night.
SH Burgess 