Episode 12: Summer Reading

The host welcomes listeners to A Cup of Creativity in the Literary Lounge. She discusses the importance of taking a break and introduces some shout-outs to organizations she appreciates. She talks about her passion project, Faith Publishing, Inc., which focuses on helping underrepresented voices and creating scholarship and creative opportunities. She encourages people to join in and connect through stories. She also shares a mantra and discusses some changes she's making to her writing community. She expresses excitement about working with the Barton International Group and invites listeners to share their ideas. Finally, she mentions her work as a teacher and her recent book publications. Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome, welcome to A Cup of Creativity in the Literary Lounge, a place where writing doesn't have to suck. I am your host, Kenda Faith, and also the Executive Director of Faith Publishing, Inc., the company that is sponsoring this program. So, welcome back. I hope everybody is refreshed. I certainly am. It's good to be back after taking some time just to kind of do a little reset, like a summer reset. So, today I want to address taking a much-needed break. Do whatever you can afford. But before I dive in, let me, of course, do a couple of our shout-outs. The first one is going to be at the Wichita Advanced Learning Library, the AV Studio. Thank you, thank you for having this equipment, I guess, all ready, and the staff. The staff is amazing. So, if you haven't heard, there was some, like a cybersecurity issue with the City of Wichita recently, and believe it or not, all of the systems, directory systems in the library was completely down. And I will tell you, these people are amazing. They are finding all sorts of workarounds to try to find call numbers for different books. I don't know. I just want to applaud them. And that, and of course, thank you for helping me figure out which speaker I need to work, which one I need to plug into. And of course, I also want to do a shout-out to the Barton International Group, also known as BIG. I call them, like, the BIG kids. This is a group of undergraduate and graduate students from the Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. They took on, we call it Project Faith, or, I don't know, I just think that sounds cool. It kind of reminds me of Spike Club, like Project Mayhem, Project Faith. Anyway, these people came together and they are working on consulting. And so they took my project, Faith Publishing, Inc., and we did some, I don't know, they did some amazing research and generating of ideas, and so I want to give them a shout-out. I'm so excited and working with them, and I was thrilled about their presentation, and just, oh my gosh, people, I don't know, the business world is going to be taken by storm by them. And then, of course, obviously, I want to talk about Faith Publishing, Inc., my passion, my passion project. Now, it is just my life. It's turning into my life. This is a nonprofit publishing company, and we focus on helping underrepresented voices. We want those voices to share their stories. And while we're doing that, I want to build sustainable scholarship opportunities, scholarship opportunities, and actually other creative opportunities for our community. The cool thing about this is that Faith Publishing, Inc., we are the only, the only publishing company around that is doing what we are doing, right? Not only do I want to help voices share their story, and I want to help kind of culture and help grow our authors, and I want to grow our stories, but I also want to give us opportunities that are kind of outside of just a book or reading something online, right? I would like to help college students, young people, anybody, let's just be real. I would like to help anybody find their passion. Maybe it is that business consulting, and they can help shape our board of directors or shape how we're going to be growing as a company. Maybe you are interested in becoming a book cover designer, and you want, you're interested in graphic art. Maybe you're interested in social media. I mean, the possibilities are endless, and as more spastic as I sound, I just get more and more excited. I just, I think this is a big thing, and I want people to join in, because it is so, so important that we connect. We connect through stories. Every single story matters. So, kind of, I'm going to use one of the phrases that the big group used, and they said, Together, we are the audience. Excuse me. We are the audience. We are the authors, and we are the legacy. So, every voice matters, right? Every story deserves to be heard. So, let's get together, let's inspire, and let's be inspired from each other. Yay! So, with that, before I dig into today's topics, let's do, excuse me. Apparently, that much-needed rest got me a little allergy. Anyway, let's start with a mantra. Why do we do mantras? Mantras help us kind of just see, and help us focus, and help us overcome. It's kind of like a self-fulfilled prophecy, right? That's like one of my favorite communication theories, is if you hear something, see something, absorb something, over and over and over again, you are going to believe it. Now, unfortunately, this happens for negative things. So, if you are told, or if you are surrounded by negative messages, you actually start to believe it. Well, I like to do the counter of that, because, you know, I'm rebellious like that. The counter of that is, I want to be positive. I want to see what, if we keep on saying something, over and over and over and over again, we are going to believe it, right? It's kind of like the, if I keep on telling you that our stories matter, everyone's going to start believing that our stories matter, because they do. My creatives, let's do the mantra. Today, I will face fear. Today, I will be brave. Today, I will struggle. Today, I will grow. Today, I will get through this. Huzzah! Jazz hands. Yay! I hope you can just like hear me shaking my jazz hands back and forth. Alright, my creatives, let's get down to business. The first, again, I want to say welcome back. I've been gone, well, kind of off the platform for a little while. Not necessarily completely gone, but I had this, I don't know, maybe like an epiphany, that I can't do everything. Now, if you give me a strong cup of coffee and maybe like a cape, I really seriously think I could save the world, but I also need to think that this is not about me, you know, gathering amazing authors and ideas and whatnot. This is not about me. This is about us. And it's also about me kind of having that realization that I need to take a step back sometimes and I need to reset. I cannot do everything. So I made the executive decision to kind of take a step back in the month of May. So, what did I do? I put the P&P Writing Society on hold. Now, I don't want it to go away because I'm kind of excited about the people that show up and we meet at Norm's Coffee Bar in Newton, Kansas, which is amazing. I kind of want to take a break and I want to switch it to some Saturday sessions, right? I kind of want to reframe some things. I would like us to build our writing community, but I have to do that one person at a time or one group at a time. So I think I'm going to start doing a Saturday session. I will be posting something shortly, probably a calendar link. And so you can sign up. It's free. Let's just talk. Let's talk about writing. Let me read your writing. Let me see what kind of ideas that you're having. I think that is going to be really, really exciting. That way, I'm not driving somewhere. I don't really think any of this is a waste of time, I think I just want to reframe and use our assets, I guess, time. How can we use our resources a little bit more wisely? So I want to try that. The other thing that I didn't do, well, I did do, and I mentioned it previously, is BIG. That's the Barton International Group, a consulting group. Oh my gosh, I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this. And they just recently gave a presentation, and of course that generated more ideas. And we're kind of working on strategic plans, and maybe how to build a board. And how do we build this foundation? I want to start a writing revolution, people. This is amazing. The more people I talk to about their stories, I am just enamored. And so I'm kind of going to put some more things up to you, my creative listeners. How can we build something, build something and become part of this foundation? Maybe you know an attorney who really likes poetry, or who likes to tell tales, or maybe you know an accountant, which, seriously, accountants are something else, a different breed of people. Maybe they have this love for sci-fi, or maybe they just like storytelling. Maybe you are a master at social media, and you're like, I need to share my talents. Yeah, contact us. I think this is going to be great. In the fall, the big consulting group will be looking at trying to gather or trying to put a lasso around my ideas, if you can visualize that. And maybe we can put them in order, because my superpower of attention deficit only goes so far. So I want to incorporate other people. So if you have some ideas, excuse me, if you have ideas, share them. Yeah, let's jump on board. Let's get on this whacked out crazy train, and let's start something, or let's build something amazing. The other thing I did do, so if you didn't know, I teach creative writing, I teach the rhetoric of horror, and I teach English at Newton High School, which I absolutely love. May is a crazy time for teachers. I had a senior class, and we had graduation. I had a daughter that graduated, so yay to that. I also had vinyls to grade and write, and I also published four books. I did not do all the work, but I'm really excited. One is called Cold. It's by Connor Reed. It's kind of a dystopic soldier story of sorts. I'm really excited to see how people react to this novel. It's his first, and what's even more amazing about Connor's work is that it won a silver key at the Scholastic art and writing competition, and if you guys don't know what that is, it's massively huge. It is a big, big, big, a big writing competition. It's a national competition, and other works or other authors that have come from that program, Stephen King, Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote, Sylvia Platt, the list goes on. Amazing writers competed in this when they were in high school, so I can only imagine where Connor is going to go with this. I'm thrilled about that. Another book that we did this past May was called The Intermachinations of a Messed-Up Mind, and like I said earlier, I and another colleague teach a class called The Rhetoric of Horror. While I don't necessarily like being scared, younger, when I was younger, oh heck yeah, I totally loved horror stories and flicks, and I don't know, things have changed as I am aging, so I really like analyzing it. Well, one of the, kind of in our inaugural bout, I suppose, is we decided to have the students write their own horror stories. So with this class in particular, myself and Ryan Copper decided we were going to study five different horror tropes, right? So we have the bad place, that's going to be kind of like a haunted house. We have ghosts, we have vampires, we have the beast within. Think of like Hulk, right? Or maybe a serial killer. That could go. The thing with no name. You know, that kind of thing. And then at the end, so while the kids we analyzed short stories, of course we watched movies, they had a podcast on serial killers which was fascinating and disturbing, I'm not going to lie to you. And then they had to write their own horror story. Each student had I believe it was ten pages, and wow, just wow. Some of the things that they came up with were just fascinating. In addition to addressing a certain trope, they also had to address a societal fear. You know, whether it be safety, technology, promiscuity. They had all of these wonderful topics that they all explored. If any of my readers like scary stories, definitely dive into that book because wow, those students blew my socks off. I mean, wow. Not just like the gross factor, I'm not going to lie, there's a couple gross factors, but the storytelling, I was really impressed with. And speaking of other storytelling, I did another anthology with my creative writing classes, and this one is called When Was This Due? And so it kind of has like, I almost thought like an ongoing joke because all of my students hated me telling them that they had deadlines. And while I understand I come from a different mindset, some deadlines are deadlines, my friends. So I'm excited about them too. We have lots of poetry and some short stories and a wide arrangement of just techniques. Right? It's not just all like, we're not talking like Dr. Seuss poetry. We're talking like some really intense amazing metaphors and whatnot. And then the other one, the last book that we just published, and I'm going to destroy the title, and I apologize for that, is Algo del Corazon. And the whole entire book is in Spanish. Yay! No, I did not write it. Unfortunately, like the only other language I know is sarcasm. And maybe crazy. I'm pretty fluent in crazy. Anyway, this was a new project with Chandler Ochoa, and we had the Spanish 4 students write poetry. The whole entire book is in Spanish. And what was kind of cool about it is that the students would ask, because I'm like, oh, maybe we should put this also like an English translation on one page and then in Spanish on another. And they were like, no, not going to happen. Everything is always in English. Forget it. And so I am super excited about this. I think it's going to be just amazing. I hope I can get more people that are bilingual that would like to write. I mean, I can help you write poetry. I don't necessarily know about the different words. I would say one of my favorite projects, several years ago, I had a foreign exchange student from Brazil. And she, of course, was fluent in Portuguese. But she loved writing. And we had a lot of... It was funny. It was really funny because as her English comprehension grew, my understanding of how different languages work also grew. And so we would essentially just get around Sasaris.com, which someday I'm going to get a plug from them. And we worked at different words. You know, what does gloomy mean in a different language? And does it translate? So I think this whole idea about writing in a different language and maybe even addressing the same issues, I think that's just... Maybe we'll learn about how limited language can be. And then also how fluid and flexible it can be. So definitely check that out. I don't know. I'm really excited about it. All right. So that's my very first thing. That's kind of why I did my little reset. Because I just... I couldn't do it all. I couldn't do it all. And if I could just unplug my brain and just share it with somebody, oh my gosh, that would be amazing. So one of the things that I always do after school, and I've done this for a year. I didn't do it last year because it was weird. I was traveling abroad, going to Ireland. I usually do... My kids call it the purge. You know, I don't kill people. I kill dust bunnies. I rearrange things. I mean, I do a serious, serious deep clean. And my cleaning is kind of like, you know, yeah, I wipe away all the dust and I vacuum and I do all that. And I'm kind of like the crazy plant lady. So of course I have to, you know, plant my garden or redo my house plants. But then I also go through all of my belongings. And essentially what I do, and I've read it in a couple of books, and I've read it on such and such, you know, there's so many different ways to organize. I... If it makes me happy or if it stirs a thought, then I keep it. I don't worry if I haven't tried on that sweater in eight years. I don't care. If it makes me happy, I'm keeping it. Right? If it does not make me happy or if it does not stimulate some kind of an idea, then I get rid of it. So my advice for this reset for you is to go through your notes. I know. I'm sure people are writing things down in their phones. They take pictures. What I do, I actually have a notebook. I have a notebook junkie. You can ask any of my students. If I come across a phrase, a conversation, a situation, anything that just gathers my attention, that gets my attention, I write it down. It could be anything. And then, what I end up doing, and this is what I suggest that you guys do, get your notes organized. Right? So I have just like... I have a sticky note. This is my process. It's not really the most efficient process, but I write down notes either in my notebook, it could be on the back of a receipt, it could be on a napkin, it could be on a sticky note, and then I then finally, when I have some time, I sit down with all of these notes and whatnot, and I put them down in one location. Last year, I took one of my notebooks that I finished, and I ended up making a book called Binding Your Words. And all it is, are just phrases. It's not really anything. I... let's see. I'm trying to find some that you... that kind of caught my attention. And these could be positive, negative, otherwise, whatever. I'm just looking at some pages from this past year. Let's see. In complete darkness, there is no discrimination. Okay. Well, that's something. Or another one was... Hmm. Let me find a good one. This struck me as somewhat fundamentally stupid. I'm pretty sure I was watching Invader Zim where I was writing that. Sun smothers with attention. Or running a cult keeps me busy. So these are like just phrases. There's no rhyme or reason. Sometimes I can tell you what I'm reading or what, you know, caught my attention. Anyway. Organize your notes. I'm sure everyone has a story. Maybe you can retell a story that you've heard. Maybe you have a favorite, I don't know, a story between your best friends or a personal joke. Or maybe you have a family story. Right? So one of my family stories is every Christmas, the family, one particular side of the family, would pick the person, you know, it. Somebody had to be it. And that person would get a gag gift every single Christmas. Right? So, for example, mine, I'll put myself out there. My sophomore year of high school, I was pretty much, like, grounded. Like, the whole year. Not because I'm a bad kid. Because I really wasn't. I mean, I grew up in a town that didn't have a stoplight. Right? So it's not like I'd get in tons of trouble. But I did not. I had issues with time. Which is funny that I actually have students that don't like deadlines. So I think it was all coming back to get me. Right? Anyway, I would be grounded. And then I could wager. I could make a bet with my parents. Right? I could play my mother in tennis. Which she happened to be my tennis coach. I could bet on the football game. Nebraska and Oklahoma was really big back in the day. I could play my stepdad in basketball. He was 6'7". You guys can see where it's going. So if I won, I was free. Woohoo! And if I lost, I was grounded a month. And that part sucked. Well, I learned I do not wager. I don't. I'm not going to go to Vegas. I'm not going to be counting cards. And so I was grounded all the time. And that particular family story, that particular Christmas, I ended up given prison clothing and a plastic ball and chain. That, I think is hysterical. Maybe that is something that I would be organizing my notes. Maybe you could go through your pictures while you have to downsize your Google Drive and start thinking about the stories behind those actions. Right? Everything, sure there's a bajillion selfies, but what was happening at that selfie? Was a certain music going on? Was a certain time of your life that was going on? So that is definitely one thing that I would suggest when you're doing your summer reset. Purge! Get rid of all of the things that don't connect anymore and then go through and kind of organize your thoughts. I think this would be great. Another one that I do, this is going to be kind of my final one, it's sort of short, is you need to be grounded. Now, for me, I'm actually very literal. I take my shoes off and I walk outside. I know, I sound like a weirdo. I love dirt. I love gardening. Believe it or not, my nickname growing up was Mud Puppy because I never wore shoes and I was always in the mud. Right? I really like gardening and that actually kind of helps me calm and helps me go through ideas and I kind of wanted to take this gardening analogy or this gardening metaphor is I want you to grow your dirt. I want you to compost your ideas. And you're like, what? Compost? Okay, so if you don't know what composting is, I take everything that is plant based, right? I'm talking like banana peels, parts of bananas, plants, whatever. Any, you know, paper, anything that's biodegradable and I put it out in a bucket and then I'll put, then I rotate it and then I put like grass clippings and blah, blah, blah. And then eventually all of that good earth, you're making good earth, you're making good soil, can go back into your garden. So I'm really excited that I'm, you know, I'm growing peppers and tomatoes and lychee. I'm really, really stoked about lychee. But anyway, I get sidetracked. Composting your ideas. So ground yourself. Like, take a moment. It's okay to take a month off. I mean, I was still working, but it kind of also gave me some time to just ground myself and find what was important and what was connecting, right? So, grow your stories. Compost your ideas. And take a reset. It's okay to take some refreshments. Maybe get on a swing or a hammock. Maybe daydream a little while you're looking at clouds. And I think that we're going to have better stories. I think we're going to have that better foundation once we have good earth. So, here's my call to action to you. One, rest. It's kind of summer. It's after school. We can take some down time. You can kind of relax a little. You're not going to have Miss Faith yelling at you because you're missing a deadline. Blah, blah, blah. Right? You can relax a little bit. And then reset. Reset. Plant your feet and find your good stories. Grow your stories and compost your ideas. I think when you do that, I think our stories are going to be amazing. So, my name is Kinda Faith. I am your host, your gracious host, and the executive director of Faith Publishing Inc. And I look forward to reading your work and seeing your stories. Until next time. Stay refreshed listeners. We'll see you. Ah! I hope everyone is refreshed. Grab a nice cup of joe or a beautiful cup of tea and welcome to the Cup of Creativity in the Prairie Lounge, a place where writing doesn't have to suck. I am your marbled mouth host, Kinda Faith, and I'm also the executive director, founder of Faith Publishing Inc. Today I want to address healthy writing habits. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to eat lots of vegetables and do calisthenics. Well, baby. I want to talk about healthy writing habits, establishing a writing routine, and then actually mapping out and enjoying your process. But before I do that, I want to do a couple of shout-outs, just like normal. I would like to first give a shout-out to the Advanced Learning Library here in Wichita. They provide an amazing AV studio. I believe that you could probably record video in here too. I'm not that adventuresome. But they have this amazing setup and they will always help you out. So that is great. I also want to do a shout-out to BIC. That's a Barton International Group. It's a consultant group of students at the Barton School of Business at Wichita State University. I have really enjoyed their energy and how they structure things and they come up with more ideas. I just love, love working with them. I also want to give a shout-out to the Space Publishing Inc. Board of Directors. We're always looking for more, by the way. But I love that they help keep me grounded. I always say that my attention deficit and ideas are like a superpower. But sometimes, you know, Superman or Wonder Woman kind of need to take a little breather and kind of reframe themselves. So I really thank them for using their networking ability and their ideas and I love that we are building a foundation together. And then finally, what this all is about outside of writing and creating is about Space Publishing Inc. We are a non-profit publishing company. We are probably the only one around that do what we do. And what do we do? We want to foster, grow, support underrepresented voices in our community. As a great quote, actually the big kids got it, they mentioned that we are the audience, but we are also the authors and we also create a legacy. And I think that's absolutely amazing. Because every single voice matters. Every story matters. And every story also deserves to be told. So that's what Space Publishing Inc. does. We foster those stories and those voices and the people that help create the foundation to make those voices be heard. This is everything from some students who want to be book cover designers. Students who want to focus in communication and social media. Maybe it's in strategic planning. Maybe it's in helping capture the stories of your neighborhood or your community. Right? Maybe you are helping find all those stories, whatever you are working as a CNA at a nursing home. Maybe you are just looking at a restaurant and you are just gathering all the stories that you are seeing. I want us to be inspired. I want to inspire others and be inspired at the same time. But before I get onto my little platform, let's do the mantra, because you know what to do. Right? You can stand, you can say it in a different language, you could say it in a funny accent. You know, whatever makes you happy. It will make me happy. So here's the mantra. Today, I will face fear. Today, I will be brave. Today, I will struggle. Today, I will grow. Today, I will get through this. Huzzah! Shaking a jazz hand. Yay! Come on, you like it. I know, I love it. Recently, I was going through my Google Drive. I did not know I had a limit. Apparently, I have a limit. In it, I was trying to rearrange where my pictures go, my videos go, my pitch and such. I came across videos, and I do this almost with all of my different classes. I have them say the daily mantra. In the past, I've done it only on Mondays, but I might be bringing it back on a daily basis, just because it makes me feel good. Anyway, I would record them. I kind of just got a big kick out of watching each class. I had one class that they would say the mantra of the kazoo. I had another class that did the whole dead poet society thing. They stood up on their desks, and they yelled it. It's hysterical going through that. Say your mantra. Create your own mantra. Recently, at the last semester, some students at Newton High decided they wanted to create a writing club. Not just a creative writing class, a creative club. They were writing their own mantra. I think the power of mantra is healthy and super cool, because it will help you. There's my little segue to go into what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about healthy writing habits, establishing a routine, and finding your process, enjoying your process. It's funny, because when it comes to writing, I genuinely think there's not one true, big T truth way of writing. You have your own process. I am a shotgun approach kind of gal. I have got tons and tons of ideas, and I've got them on sticky notes all over my office and in my study. When I'm ready to focus, I go shopping for story ideas or phrases or whatnot from those sticky notes. Then I sit down and I just start writing. I get to know my characters, and I get to know the situation. While it just seems like organized chaos, I really enjoy my process. There are some famous authors that have had different processes. Hemingway, I want to say that he said this, but don't quote me on it. I have a sticky note on it that says, drink less and write more. Or I also see, you know, write drunk and edit sober. I've heard all sorts of different phrases. What I'm going to be doing today is I want to give you a couple suggestions for writing habits. I think writing can be cathartic. It can make you feel good because that's what stories are. Not necessarily warm and fuzzy, but it makes us feel good to get it off of our chest or that we have some kind of resolution or some type of closure. Some of these may counteract each other, perhaps, but I wanted to throw it out there anyway. Just so you can get some ideas. This whole process, this whole journey is why I'm doing what I'm doing. I want to be here to help you on your journey. I would like to be that mentor, the little crazy guy at the bridge that tells you what to do. I would like to guide people and share in their journey. One of the things that helps me out at the beginning is devoting myself to a bigger purpose. I wrote my very first book on sticky notes. It's crazy. I took sticky notes. At the time, I was working for the Department of Transportation. I had a 15-minute break in the morning and a 15-minute break in the afternoon and a 30-minute break for lunch. Every single day, until my brain turned empty, I would put these ideas on sticky notes. Then I would start putting them together. Then I'd start finding a pattern. Then I had a story within that. Such and such. The thing that really kept me driving is I wanted to write a novel. I wanted to write a story to show my grandmother. She was diagnosed with lung cancer. I felt like the time was really pushing it, that I needed to get this out before she passed. It was a beautiful, wonderful process. Hard, but great. I really enjoyed writing it. Devoting myself, putting myself under that little extra pressure to complete a project before my grandmother passed was something that helped keep me motivated. Not that I'm saying you have to do that. Perhaps you can just do it for yourself. I'm going to give you a couple suggestions about a healthy writing habit. One of the things is, I'm more of a night owl, not going to lie to you, you can always wake up early and read. I will tell you, you need to read. Writers, read. You're going to get better at writing by reading. It doesn't really matter what you read. I always suggest reading a little bit of everything. You can have influences from all over the place. It can be from a post, an article, a book, a magazine. I always think of this as a treat. I don't know, blow yourself a little and read. If you want to wake up early, by all means do it. I believe our friend Papa Hemingway wrote six hours a day. He wrote first thing in the morning, and he had his coffee, and he was sober. By the evening, he was not sober. I don't know. I would pick a time and read, or pick a day. That's what I do. I know that I have a lot of things going on, and I need my ideas to stew a little bit. I read. I usually have five books going on at the same time. I'll read a chapter, and then I'll switch to another book. I would do that. The other one I think that could be helpful is creating a playlist. I don't know about you, but I love playlists. I usually have a playlist for anything, because my music tastes vary. My music tastes can be, I have to listen to Old Soul or Motown when I'm cleaning my house. I read the Franklin, and God rest her soul, we'll probably never know how much motivation she gives me to vacuum. Create a playlist. My music tastes vary depending on what I'm doing. When I'm reading, or if I'm writing an academic paper, I'm usually listening to Yo-Yo Ma, or some kind of Bach or Beethoven, I'm not necessarily going to be singing the words. If I am writing an email, or if I'm going through more business type of stuff, I will listen to R&B, or I don't know, lately I've been listening to a lot of country, so it kind of just varies. Make yourself a playlist. You could even make a playlist for whatever you're writing, which I think would be really, really fun. One thing to note, you don't necessarily need a muse. If you need the inspiration, I understand, but sometimes we just write to write, which leads me to writer's block. I have many students and many authors that are just like, oh my gosh, I just don't know what to write, and I just have writer's block, or I have creativity block. Well, here's the thing, I'm going to counter that. Nobody gets talking block. I mean, I stumble over my words all the time, but no one ever stops talking. They don't have talker block. So the thing is, one thing that you can do, a nice habit, which could turn into a routine, just write. It doesn't have to be great. Just write. You're just going through the process. It's kind of like, I do not run. I'm more of a thrower, short distance kind of a gal, but watching long distance runners, or people that do any kind of distance exercise, whether it's swimming, or running, or whatever. They keep running, regardless if they have side cramps, or if they have such and such. It kind of goes the same with writing. You need to keep going through it. If you're going to have a writing block, that's okay. Start writing something else. Sometimes it feels good just to type somebody else's words. Now, I'm not saying that you should plagiarize. I'm not saying that at all, but sometimes it feels good just to type a sentence or two, and then it just sort of takes off in your own world. I think that is super good. So definitely keep writing. That's going to be kind of healthy. We already talked about writer's block. We don't necessarily need to have a muse. It's super helpful, but you can find inspiration anywhere, whether it's from that playlist, or from reading that article. I think that would be a good thing. While you're going through your process, stop your bitching. Right? We all have suffered. We get it. You don't need to talk about it. You can write about it, but you don't need to be talking about it. Writers write. One thing that also helps me, which I think would be good, to help establish a routine, or something that's good for you, is I would grab a sketchbook, or a notebook. I am always carrying notebooks. It's also handy if you use your phone. And just start taking down notes or little doodles about some kind of idea that you get. My idea for the past, I don't know, couple days is I have been really digging in dirt. I love dirt. It's dark, black, and it's just, oh my gosh. Anyway, I have been writing down all of these gardening terms, and flowers, and photosynthesis, and I don't know what I'm going to do with that, but I have a feeling that I can turn it into something. You're constantly looking for material. Whenever you get that crazy phone call from your grandma, or a text message from your mom that has absolutely no context to it whatsoever, my son is great at doing that, use it for source material. I'm sure that they'll be flattered that you write about them. Everything can be source material, whether it is seeing a homeless guy hanging out at the library, or maybe it was just a really nice person that decided to buy you a cup of coffee. Just keep your mind open, and you're always going to have material to write about. I will say that when you're kind of stuck, or a good habit to get into, is you're constantly researching. Please, please, please, please be curious. Always be curious. I think that's going to be a great habit. You're never going to be bored if you're curious. It can be curious about anything, right? I was driving down the road, and I saw some random boot on the side of the sidewalk. What happened to it? Who did it belong to? Start getting into the habit of being like that annoying three-year-old and start asking questions. Why? Why? Why? What happened to this throw-off-of-a-truck? Was the guy riding a bicycle? Where did it belong? Did a dog take off with it? There's endless possibilities. Endless possibilities. If you're feeling researchy or more curious, I kind of pull an Alice in Wonderland, and I totally go down the rabbit hole. The Internet can be a very dangerous, dangerous place for me, because it's just like the daisy chain, right? It just goes from one thing to another thing to another thing, and you just keep on going. Keep track of that, and that's going to also help you with your writing. It is a complete, complete process. While we're talking about process, once you start getting things together, you're going to start noticing how things fit, kind of like a puzzle, right? I have a distinct method of writing. I will get kind of a random idea. I will start just gathering information, or kind of gathering my sticky notes, and just let it stew for a bit, and then I put them all together, and then I start writing. While I'm writing, I'm getting to know my characters, and the more I get to know them, I like them. Even the ones I don't, you know, the antagonists, and the ones I don't really like, I like knowing how they tick. So that has been really fun for me to see how they kind of intersect with each other. So I think once you find your method, how you get ideas, how you get ideas to the page, and how you do that, how you foster that composting, your ideas, how you foster all of that process, I think writing is just going to be more enjoyable for you. I do suggest that you stop occasionally, and one, don't edit. Do not edit while you're writing. My editor voice, my students have named her Janice. I'm sure there are some very nice people named Janice in the world, but mine's kind of bitchy, and has got seriously high standards. So while you're writing, catch yourself a break, and just start writing. Don't worry about what you need to be changing, or how this voice should be, you know, how it should be heard, or if you're only going to be writing to the ear, it is okay to catch yourself some slack. The important part is that you're going to be getting something on the page that you can work with. Now, that being said, I would suggest not making, like I call it, the vomit draft. You can make a vomit draft, just so you can get something on the page, and just so you can kind of get yourself, you know, you're working through that running cramp, so to speak. That does not mean that that is what you need to be using as your final draft. It is okay to let things stew for a little bit, but you need to work through those cramps, right, those growing pains. You're growing as an author, you're growing as a creator, and it's okay to be in metaphorical pain while you're working through something. Finally, while you're enjoying your process and you have created this wonderful baby, so to speak, right, I think of any kind of creation as kind of like childbirth or getting pregnant, right? You are impregnated with this amazing idea, and it's growing, and people are exciting, and you can eat whatever you want, and you can wear overalls every single day if you want to do, and it's a great day if you want to do, and it's exciting, and it's wonderful, and you're like, oh my gosh, how is my life going to change? Then it starts going, and then when you're like, I need this baby out, I need this story out of my head right now, that can be kind of difficult. You could have labor pains. That could be equated to you just going through the editing process. It could be equated to taking critique. Taking critique and writing, or writing and creating is one of the bravest things that you can do. It is absolutely horrifying. I'm not going to suggest that it's not. It is hard to, when you have held this idea, this creative baby, so to speak, and you've held it in your room for nine months, and then you have to let it out, and you have to show it to the world, and that moment right there, that moment can be the most liberating and terrifying moment ever. But, remember that when somebody is critiquing, right, not criticizing, critiquing. Criticizing is like we are as deconstructive. Critiquing is constructive. We want to build you up. It is okay to tell you that you use the word very way too much. It is okay to tell you that the only body language that you describe in your characters are raising their eyebrows. Somebody needs to tell you that. It's not a knock on you, okay? It is not a knock on you. It is a suggestion to make your story better. It's okay to take critique. So, I'm going to leave you with two more things with regards to this process and being healthy and establishing a routine. One, when you establish a routine, you are making healthy choices for yourself and that is good. While you are making your healthy choices, please stay sane. It sounds insane. It sounds crazy. You need to stay sane. It's okay to walk away from a story for a little while and then you can come back to it. There is a fascinating correlation between writers and other substances. It's kind of crazy. There are several books on it. We'll just learn Hemingway, for example, Hemingway and Drinking. Sometimes you can't write all of your pain away, but remember to stay healthy. Stay healthy. Keep yourself sane. Learn to take critique and then enjoy your process. When you enjoy your process and you know that this is exactly how you are going to work, you are going to turn into something so amazing and so good that no one could ever ignore your story. So, compost yourself. Stew in your ideas. Generate those. Make that good earth, that good story earth and make yourself that good writer. That is my challenge for you. I think you can do it. You can write anywhere. You can write at any topic and you can tell your story in any way. The important part is that you have healthy habits, you have routines, and you have amazing stories. I'm Kenda Faith with a cup of creativity in a literary lounge. I look forward to seeing your work. Until next time. Hello, creatives. This is Kenda Faith with a cup of creativity in a literary lounge, a place where writing doesn't have to suck. I hope that you have a cool beverage next to you and today we are going to be talking about reading. Some are reading lists, some may be your summer wish list. I want to talk about reading in general. I want to talk about why it's important, how you can benefit as a writer, and then also maybe creating a summer wish list, a summer reading list, or fall, or winter, or spring. You know how it works. Before I dive in, let me do a couple of shout outs. First, I want to give the Wichita Advanced Learning Library a total shout out for this library. If you have not ventured out, I love this library. It's bright, it's colorful, and the staff is absolutely amazing. Right now all of their systems are down because the city had a cyber attack, had some issues there, and these people, even though they don't have a catalog, they don't have access to a catalog, they can actually access other libraries and try to find a book for you that way. I don't know. Their sleuthing is amazing. Their workarounds, I don't know, props to them. I love it. I love watching wonderful book nerds solve problems. I think the world would be different if more could solve more issues. The other one that I want to give out is the people that help out at Faith Publishing Inc. That is, we are a non-profit publisher. We focus on under-represented voices, which honestly could be anything. Together we want to focus that we everyone, everyone is the audience, we are the authors, and we are also the legacy. Every single voice matters. We learn everything through stories, right? So every voice matters. Every story deserves to be told, whether it's amazing or not. Maybe they're uncomfortable, but they're still a really good story. We learn everything. So I would like us together, I want to inspire others, and I want to be inspired by others. Faith Publishing Inc. focuses on kind of like two-fold. One, we're working for sustainable programs so that way we can bring in, we can create scholarships and writing fellowships and give other opportunities for stories to be told. Now, that being said, it's not just for writers. So if somebody is interested in social media, they can work with me on that. If we have people that are interested in graphic art and book covers, we've got book cover designing, we've got that going on. Oh my gosh, there's tons of things. Maybe you're interested more in organizing or planning events. Those are all these things that we want to actually give opportunities to our community. That's what Faith Publishing is all about. Our slogan is that we are supporting the writing journey. Everything is a journey, and we want to be part of that. Before I go into my lovely, geeky reading, I want to say our mantra. I love our mantra. Are we ready? Come on. Put your hands on your hearts. Stand up. Today, I will face fear. Today, I will be brave. Today, I will struggle. Today, I will grow. Today, I will get through this. Huzzah! Woo-hoo! Jazz hands! I love saying that. I don't know about you, but it is. I love that self-fulfilled prophecy that you say something over and over and over again, you believe it. So you know what? I know that I'm going to grow. I know that the people with me are going to face fear, and we are going to get over this, and we are going to have a hella good time doing it. We're going to have some great stories in the meantime. So speaking of stories, I want to talk about reading. Reading is important, and it's not because I teach English, and because I make books. Reading is a skill that can help like no other. It's tied to communication. It's tied to learning. It's tied to cognitive skills, and not, I don't know, it's not nearly as popular as it used to be, and people need to start reading, right? You need to start paying attention to the stories. I, and I've said this before on blog posts and in interviews before, I sucked at reading, not going to lie to you. I was not good at it. I didn't like it. I would much rather be outside, you know, as a kid dealing around, I don't know, playing with dogs and riding horses and I don't know, picking up bugs and snakes and whatnot. That was kind of my go-to. I loved listening to stories. I liked making up stories. I liked making songs and making poetry, but I didn't want to write it and I certainly didn't want to read it because I was bad. I wasn't good at it. I didn't, I didn't, that was not a strength of mine, and thankfully, I had an amazing piano teacher that picked up on it. She knew. She knew. You can't BS a BSer, right? As the saying goes, and so she knew I struggled, but I was really good at other things. I was really good at music. I was really good at using my hands and whatnot, and so we started reading with a beat and I will tell you, this family, if you're out there, I thank you because that has changed my world. You can learn anything in, I don't know, every corner of the planet through reading. Every single thing that we have ever learned is through reading. I mean, of course, there's the oral tradition that we pass down our stories, but how do you keep those stories? You have to write it down and then somebody has to read it. So, just to kind of keep things in general, why reading is important, just as a nice little reminder, it informs, right? Obviously, we know everything from the movie to, somebody, you have to write a script, somebody has to write down all of that knowledge, right? Believe it or not, reading helps your mental health. Now, I don't know about you, I love the stories, and it doesn't even matter if it's just an informational, like a how-to book, or if it's a really emotionally tied novel. I love the novels where I'm kind of sad when it ends because I feel like my friends have left me. I know that sounds kind of depressing, but those are the kind of stories that really, really impact me, and I will tell you, I'm never lonely. Right? There's a difference between being alone and being lonely. I'm never lonely reading a book. My curiosity is satiated. You know, I feel good, I feel full, I feel, you know, full of energy and full of ideas when I'm reading a book. Reading also helps you make sense of the world. Now, I teach rhetoric because I think rhetoric is super awesome cool, and it helps you, I don't know, it does make sense of the world, but it actually helps you analyze. So, just because you're reading something doesn't mean that that is necessarily big T truth. But, the more you read, the more you get to exercise your cognitive skills. You get to decide how that information is being processed. So, when I think about communication, I, like, way back in the day, I used to coach volleyball, and I would have balls everywhere. And it sounds awful because I love throwing balls at kids. Right? And so, I would tell them that if I'm trying to communicate with you, I have said ball, and that is the message, and I'm going to throw it at you. Now, you are going to catch it, hopefully, right? And then you'll process it, and then you can throw it back to me. And that is how communication works. Well, that's also how reading works. You read, they throw something out at you, and you have to read it, and you get to decide how you process that. Right? Am I going to be bombshell by this news about the character, I don't know, stabbing somebody on a bench? Am I going to be cajoled because somebody else stole a baby? I don't know, whatever. So, you get to decide how you process that story, or how you process that information. Also, when you're reading, it makes us more empathetic. Right? The big, famous, to kill a mockingbird, you know, when you can walk a mile in somebody else's shoes, that is empathy, and that is, guess what, a freaking amazing book. No wonder you want a Pulitzer, right? So, it helps you become knowledgeable about the world, it helps you become more empathetic as a person, because you're learning to see other people's viewpoints. And, it also stimulates your imagination. I will tell you, I consider myself an extremely empathetic person, an empath. One thing that I don't know how to connect is someone not having an imagination. I think that would be the most tragic thing ever, for a person not to have an imagination, which I should write that down, because I think that would be a great story. You see what I did there? Yeah. So, when you're reading, it actually, you have tons and tons of benefits. Now, here's the other thing, here's the second point I want to make. Reading also benefits you as a writer. I mean, it could be writing essays, it could be writing poetry, it could be writing a recipe book, it could be, I mean, you have, oh my gosh, there's tons and tons of skills. First off, when you're reading, especially if you're reading different types of materials, which I strongly suggest that you do, it helps you know what the reader wants. So, have you ever read something and you just were left unsatisfied? Yeah, that sucks. So, like, for example, if I have a novel, I give it a three-chapter rule, because there's a lot of books here, and I do not have a lot of time. So, I give it a three-chapter rule. If it does not grab me by the third chapter, I am not meant to read it. Or teach it, for that matter. So, by reading, you actually understand what the reader wants, and you actually kind of get to know that what you, what your readers want of you. So, I think that would be good. Another thing it helps out is it gives you strong fundamentals of, like, story structure and plot development. I know I'm going to sound like a broken record, because every single English teacher under the face of the planet, even literature, whatever, they're always going to talk about a plot structure, or a story structure. And there's tons of different ways that you can do it, right? You've got the nice little triangle, you can do the hero's quest, there's tons of things. But the more that you read, you're going to start seeing patterns. I mean, yes, we are original to an extent, but to another extent, we all kind of, I don't know, replicate and repurpose stories, and that's okay. But the more you read, you get to know that. Another way why reading helps you is you get to find, maybe kind of play around or expand your style. I love doing style studies. Both of my children are artists, and I love when they do style studies, because they try drawing in a different manner, right? So, my daughter is really into, like, cartoons, anime, that kind of thing. So, that's what she draws. But it's really fun when I see her try to draw her characters in the style of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts, or Invader Zim, or Owl House, or whatever. It's really fun to see how you're still drawing, it's still a character, it's still her character, but the shape of the nose is different, the clothing is different. And I think that you can do that same thing with regards to writing. Recently, if you haven't checked out, and I guess this will be on my summer reading list, my Todawn list, Stephen King just came out with a new compilation called, I think it's called, You Like It Darker. And it's a series, it has a couple novellas and some short stories, and there was one story that I cannot think of the title off the top of my head. It talks about a family who is going to see a grandfather's sister because she has cancer. And so they're in this car, and they're driving, and there's like two annoying kids, and the dad's driving, the mom's in the front seat, and the grandpa is in the middle, and I'm reading this, and I'm like, oh my gosh, this sounds so familiar. What the heck? So I keep on going, I keep on going. Now, it's not verbatim, it's not copyrighted, it has nothing like that, but the story structure was the same. And lo and behold, I kept on thinking, like, this sounds like a Flannery O'Connor story. Right? And I kept on reading, and now what was super fun is once I got to the credits of the book, Stephen King actually gave props to Flannery O'Connor, and I got such a big kick out of that, because I'm like, if I wasn't well-read, I would never have picked up on that. So, I don't know, if you've read The Good Man It's Hard to Find, and then you read Stephen King, I think you would appreciate what he did kind of an homage to her. So I think the writing styles are super fun. It's really easy to do, especially if you write poetry, there's tons of ways that you can write a sonnet, just like Shakespeare, or maybe you want to do a spoken word, like Taylor Molly, or, you know, or maybe, just maybe, you are really into rap music. Anybody ever check M.F. Doom? His rhyme schemes and his, oh my god, the structures are just, wow, just magnificent. It's like looking at a Mona Lisa, all off rap music. Anyway, it gives you different writing styles, and so you can kind of try those on, and you can see those things. In addition to that, when you're trying and you're expanding your style, you get to know your language. And many times, I think the English language is limited. We all say the same things, and we are still trying to figure out the best combination of words to say what we need to say. What is the, there's a phrase like, Inuit culture, their language has like 23 different words for the word snow. It just kind of makes you wonder, like, how is our language, what does it show of what's important in our culture? How does that work? So I think whenever you're looking at writing, and you're looking at styles, and you're reading this, and you're picking things up, yeah, I think it's going to give you a bigger appreciation of our language, and how, excuse me, and how that language and how those words are used. You can do anything with language. Language is power. Right? So I always talk to, I don't know, especially my lower level students, or lower, not lower level, but lower classmen, you know, and we'll talk about grammar. They're like, why do I need to know this? And I'm like, seriously, in 20 years, no one is going to ask you what an adverb is. No one cares. Seriously. Not unless you're going to be in writing. No one cares what an adverb is. But the important part is, how can you use that word? Now, like academic language, to me, the academic writing, that is language of power. So you need to figure out how you want to use your language. Is it going to be for power? Is it to persuade? Right? Maybe it's in media, and you're wanting somebody to do something. Are you trying to evoke a certain emotion? You can do anything with language. You can build somebody up, and you can absolutely destroy a person just through language. So I think when you're reading, and you're seeing this, you kind of see this as this malleable, I don't know, kind of gel, or goo, or clay, or whatever medium you want to think. You can form it into whatever you want it to be, which I think is absolutely fabulous. Not only that, it's going to improve your vocabulary. Again, I'm someday going to get a boost from these people. Thesaurus.com. I love Thesaurus.com, or the people that give you emails about, like, the word of the day. Try things on. Try it out. Find a new word. See what, I don't know, see what you can discover. I have mentioned this before. I have worked with a student, a student author. She's from Brazil, and when she came to the U.S., she wanted to learn how to write her poetry in English. And so we struggled for the first month or two. We were trying to find, like, what does this word mean in this language and vice versa? The funniest thing, I don't know, I got the biggest kick out of it. I asked her, her name was Maria, and I asked Maria, like, what are your favorite words in English? And we talked about Thesaurus.com because that's what we did. We sat next to each other, we did a lot of panel mining, and we ended up writing amazing, amazing poetry. But her two favorite words were gloomy and marvelous. And I got such a big kick out of it. So I'm like, I'm going to challenge you to find a word or a phrase of words that you're just like, yeah, that's totally it. Gloomy is, like, the best word ever. So I challenge you that. The final thing is how this can benefit you. Reading can benefit you at, let's try that again, how reading can benefit you as a writer. As anybody, actually. It's going to open opportunities. The more you read, the more you see what's going on. If you're reading news articles, you're going to know what is happening in current events. You're going to start seeing patterns. Oh my, there's a revolution going over here, and wow, those sure look similar to what's going on over there. You're going to see contests, you'll see, oh my gosh, writing opportunities, you'll see scholarship opportunities, job opportunities, I mean, it's endless. So the more you read, you are literally opening the book of the world. And that's what's kind of what you're going to get out of it. Now, I kind of want to do one final little push before I put this to a close. I think everyone should have a summer reading list. Now, I have mentioned before, I always keep notebooks with me because, oh my gosh, there's no way I could remember all of this. And I have so many people, I have so many students and other authors and friends and colleagues. Oh, have you read this book? No. Have you read this book? Ah! So I have this running list of titles. I have titles that I want to reread, new books that I want to read, or sometimes there will be a topic that just sounds really, really interesting. Yeah, explore. So, a couple of things I would like to add for you is Faith Publishing Books. What? Yes! You can find them on Amazon. You can also find them at our website at faithpublishing.org. A couple of the novels, it kind of depends on what you're looking to read. I do suggest that you read different genres and different types of writing. If you are looking for novels, I've got at least three off the top of my head. My newest one is from Connor Reed. It's called Cold. It is kind of a dystopic, like all of humankind is, you know, radiated and have turned into these really weird zombie thingies, and there's only a small group of people left. So, that's all I'm going to say about that, because it's amazing. There is Finding Light by Abigail Shepard. Completely different side of the spectrum. She writes an analogy of depression, and she has this character who actually goes out on this quest to find rocks so he can make friends at this gem society, and he ends up meeting all these interesting people on his little quest on doing that. It's a quaint, heartwarming story. If you want something that's a little bit I don't know, a little bit more adult and kind of humorous, I kind of would equate this to a little Irma Bombeck-esque. It is Funeral Dinner at Lakeview. Hopefully I got that right. It is hysterical. It takes place in Kansas, and it takes place in a small town, which I think many people can relate to, and these two best friends get in a tiff about who is going to be in charge of organizing the dinners when funerals take place. That sounds like a very somber topic, but the book is hysterical. I read it in one sitting, which never happens. I laughed out loud, and I actually cried. It is a beautiful, beautiful story, and I would love to see it be made into a TV movie or something like that. I don't know. I love it. If you're looking for something different, I have got a bajillion authors of poetry. I have several poets, lots of poets. I've got some poets like Matt or Gray Evergreen or Adele Leimer who actually have their own books, but check out the anthologies. There's some amazing writers coming out of Newton High School. I'm hoping to expand that and find more writers. I know that I am biased. I will say that I am biased. Kansas has got a myriad of experiences that no other place can offer. One, I think we have the most amazing sunsets. I mean, I've been around the world, and Kansas has a beat. The other thing is we have, I don't know, it's a different type of people that live here. I'm not saying that that's bad, because it's not. We have a little bit of everything here, and it's slow enough that it can simmer, and we can really feel the flavors, taste the flavors of what comes through our state. And I think that's probably why I'm so adamant about finding the stories that come from here. So whenever you're reading, check out Faith Publishing. Check out the books. Make yourself a wish list. Know that this reading helps you. It opens up opportunities. It helps you understand the world. It creates you as a better writer. And again, it can open up your eyes. So that is my challenge for you, my lovely creatives. This is KindaFaith, with a cup of creativity and a literary lounge, a place where writing doesn't have to suck. I look forward to reading your reading list, and I can't wait to see how this affects your writing. Until next time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .