Dark Mystic Quill

A end-of-the-year retrospect of health and writing.

What NaNoWriMo means to me and why you should bother.

A bit of rambling about my new book and other stuff I do.

What happens when the universe sends you a random sign?

I'm back, peeps.

Then I decided, I should go into my own magickal journey and tell you how I’ve ended up here, in this place. I first started in college with The Book of Black Magic by Aleister Crowley. I remember getting it at a yard sale when I was in my teens. At the time, I was being bullied in school and was looking for a way to get the bullies to stop. I was ready to try anything, and Black Magic seemed to be the way to go at the time. I tried to read it, but it was too difficult for me at the time, so I remember hiding it away—so well, I can’t find it even now. That led to my first tarot deck, the Aquarian Tarot, which I still have. I remember buying it when I was fourteen or fifteen—I say fifteen for ease of counting—at a place called the Curly Caterpillar, which is no longer there; it’s a coffee shop now. I also remember locking myself in my room with that and Eden Gray’s book on tarot, trying to figure out the meanings of the cards. I practiced bridge shuffling for hours, both a regular deck and a tarot deck. Eve

I’m sorry that I haven’t been consistent with my podcasts. I’m undergoing dialysis. Preparing for it, doing it, and downtime from it takes up most of my time now. I’m still finding time to write. My newest work in progress is about a small gang that gets betrayed by an organized crime boss. No magic involved here. I also read a lot. I tried reading some business books but they were so dry and boring that I quickly gave up. I tried a book called “Once Night Falls” by Roland Merullo. I gave it fifty pages before  gave up on that one. I did finally finish a book called “When I Was You” by Minka Kent. It has more plot twists than a corkscrew. I almost tossed it in frustration but I forced myself to finish it. It wasn’t spectacular. I read it in two sittings. I’m in the middle of reading 365 Tarot Spreads by Sasha Graham, and going through each of the spreads day by day. She wrote a follow up book called 365 Tarot Spells. I’m really working on improving my tarot skills. I’ve been reading tarot for over ten year

It’s nine in the morning here, on a rainy Sunday. A good day to crawl back into bed with a few good books on my Kindle. Or a good day to write. I think I’d rather do the former. I skipped the entire week for NaNoWriMo. Dialysis kicks butt. Just sayin’. So my word count is the roughly the same as last week: 24,000 words. There’s probably no way I’m going to make 50K, and anyway, I’m bored with this project. I’m itching to try a new novel planning workbook that I purchased, or trying to develop a “beat sheet” from Save the Cat!. I want to start something brand new, but I have no idea what. My life has been eaten up by dialysis and work, with no time or space really for creative endeavors. Heck, I can’t even think about “what ifs” for people I see on the street. I used to do that. Now, there seems to be no inspiration. A friend suggested I read more fiction, so i tried that. The problem is I just couldn’t get into the books I read. Three urban fantasy books. The first book had a main character I didn’t like (

I've been slacking. Hear all about it.

It’s six thirty in the morning here and I’m settling down to write. I just got caught up after taking Tuesday off, so I’m at the 15,000-word mark. Last week I discussed character-driven stories. This week I’m going to discuss plot-driven stories. I read a book called Tarot Inspired Life by Jaymi Elford. A link is in the show notes. Last week’s card reading was taken from this book, but I put my spin on it. This week’s card layout is taken directly from the book, which has a chapter on how to use tarot for writing. She’s not paying me for this plug, but I want to give credit where it’s due. She has a three-card layout for plots. I’ve been using it to develop subplots in my story.  Shuffle the deck thinking about having the cards tell you a story. You will chose three cards: beginning, middle, and end. I wanted a subplot for Lena’s brother, Isaac. So I drew three cards. In the beginning was The Moon. There’s a secret here somewhere that gets hidden or swept under the rug. The middle was the seven of cups

Hey, Nanowrimoers and welcome to Season two, Episode 3a of the Dark Mystic Quill podcast.. I am your host, L.A. Jacob. I was up at five this morning and got my word count in by six-thirty. The story I’m writing is about a Latino band singer who is trying to make it into the big time. I don’t plan on publishing this story because I would have appropriated the Latino culture, which I am not a part of, nor am I deeply familiar with it. In short, I don’t want to insult anyone. When I started, I only had the line, “She’s a band singer.” I had the first line, “Lena didn’t usually answer the phone if she didn’t know the number, but she was bored.” It’s supposed to be a mystery, but it’s moving so slowly right now because I’m stopping to describe everything in detail to get the word count up. But this podcast is not about what I’m doing, it’s how to  help you with what you’re doing.  Because I write character-driven books, I have a habit of throwing in characters to get plot moving. Maybe you do the same. If you

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My exploration on how your health and impact your writing and writing-related productivity.

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Did someone say Black Friday?

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