Author R.A. Gasparac

-Dark/Paranormal/Fantasy/Horror AUTHOR -Human/Hyrax Hybrid -Dark Empress of Delayed Reactions

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  • Making art is a form of protest.

    Remember the last thing a fascist regime wants is people to make more art because art makes people think. It’s ok to use your art as an act of protest.

    #writingadvice

  • Soothing The Writers Soul

    Ok, I have yet to work on the most important part of my Query Letter for my Novel, but I have sated the sleeping dragon. I realized recharging my batteries was more important than the multitudes of deadlines I imposed on myself. So, as I left my day job, sleet ( a wintery mix of ice and rain) began to trickle down from the heavens. A familiar bone chilling wind hit my face, and I was brought back to a better time.

    I remembered myself as a child, coming in from the winter after hours of play on the south shore. I grew up in the suburbs between Montreal proper, and the end of the Appalachian ( for my US readers) mountains. I knew I wanted stew, but not just any kind – it wasn’t exactly French, but it was made with French technique. My father, a Serb/Croatian would favor thick hearty stews, and left me with the know how.

    I spent an hour preparing all of the ingredients, and subsequently another two hours of cooking time. All I had eaten was oatmeal for breakfast, and four chocolate chip cookies for lunch ( because we all try to eat healthy meals apparently.) Thirty minutes into cooking. I chastised myself every time I would reach to tear open the pot and devour whatever was there our of sheer survival, but my head won out. Patience would reward me with layers of flavor.

    Sitting down with that first bowl soothed something deep within me. I wasn’t judging myself for what I didn’t do for the day, and allowed myself to take in a bit of life before it starts all over again. This is my mental break. I know I’m no closer to being a bestselling Author the longer my Query collects digital dust, but I had to stop beating myself up about my unrealistic production goals. The Query will come, but like the stew, I have to layer the flavors, carefully prepare each sentence before I combine them all on the page to create something so savory, that I will have my choice of Agents and Publishers.

    So far it’s been three days in a row that I’ve actually written sequentially on here. I should feel bad for that, and calling myself a writer – but it’s ok. I am perfectly imperfect. Rome was not built in a day, and my writing career will not be either. One ingredient at a time.

  • Water off a Ducks Back

    *I wrote this post four years ago, and i look back at how this perspective shifted everything in my life in a positive way*

    One thing I have learned is this: if you are happy, there will always be someone who resents you for it. Day job has a lot of useless drama that serves no purpose. Toxic situations can happen anywhere.

    This post will focus on turning something negative into a positive. In our everyday lives, there will be situations and people that will test us. We can choose to let it affect us, or we can use it creatively to try to move past it. Haters gonna hate. Crush them up and use them in your writing. Try to explain or highlight their malicious nature.

    Lately I have been re watching A LOT of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and I just finished the season with Jinx’s Monsoon. In that season she was bullied, but held her head up despite the jealousy thrown at her. Frequently when she didn’t know they were recording she would recite to herself under her breath, ‘water off a duck’s back.’

    Don’t let every drop of hate seep into you, let it roll off your feathers. They want you shaken. They want you second guessing yourself. They want to know they got into your head. They want to see you stumble because they aren’t brave enough to do what you do.

    Writing gives us the opportunity to adapt and overcome.

  • Morning Routines

    I forget who says that developing a good morning routine sets your day off on the right foot.

    They definitely were right. Even though I struggle to maintain it every morning, it ends up with me being satisfied at the end of my workday. Whatever career you desire, always ask yourself in the morning what someone in your ideal career would be doing. Then we have to just suck up our excuses and do it.

    A common misconception of a writing career is that if you are an aspiring writer or author, you have to write everyday. False. You do however have to work on something in your career. Writing consists of a large spectrum of activities such as drafting, revising, editing, Brainstorming, and Structure planning.

    If you are working on one of those you are in fact writing —everyday.

    So start your day off right and make the choice to live the life of your dream career now. Before you know it, it will be your reality.

  • Well well well…

    It has been a minute since we’ve seen each other, isn’t it? While i have not been posting for a few years I HAVE in fact been working in the background on launching my Fantasy Author Career.

    What have I been doing all this time? Well, loosing a job first of all.

    Hear me out, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was putting my job and that corporation first and it was not doing the same for me. So when the universe blew my cars engine it gave me the opportunity to build my authors brand on social media. ( It also needs to be said the only reason I could make this decision was the support of my Fiancée. Without it I would be back in the workforce slowly dying inside. And my manuscript collecting dust.)

    I started with zero followers, and now I am part of such rewarding writing and authors communities. My TikTok account is growing daily, and I am finally able to connect with my readers in a much more authentic way.

    On top of growing my authors platform, I have been working tirelessly on my debut fiction Novel. It’s time it is out in the world. It’s long overdue. Title is finalized, and the cover is 99.99999999999% complete.

    Which brings me to…

    The rebrand of this site. As many people find my tips and tricks most useful on TikTok, I will devote this blog as a means to communicate my inner thoughts and inner struggles as I navigate this next phase of my writing career. Maybe this will find someone who is going through the same issues as I, and will help them on their own journey.

    Get ready for venting, and brainstorm dumps my darlings!

  • A writers life is like sitting in traffic

    Here we go again. This time I am not making any promises about updating more regularly. I am not trying to be the next blogging sensation that imparts little value to people, so when I feel the need to write about soimething it will be genuine.

    I am aware this is not the ideal way to build a writers platform – but I dont believe in spamming my readers with content they dont care about. This is who I am and I am PERFECTLY IMPIOERFECT. (see what I did there?)

    We’ve all been there. Traffic. Just the other day while i was sitting in my usual commute home I had a thought, and used my powers of observation and noticed Traffic is the perfect analogy of how we as humans react to adversity. For the sake of this being a blog about my trials and tribulations on being a writer, I will use them to that context ( but honestly they speak of any situation).

    Like in traffic, there are three types of aspiring writers. The first, want to barrel through the obstacles without want or care of hitting another vehicle or increasing the length of time traffic for themselves and others by becoming a hazard.

    Ok, what do I mean by this? This aspiring writer just wants to barrel through the entire process, not taking time to gague the temperature of thier readers, or potential warning signs that will further delay them ( like a lane ending but you cut into the highway on-ramp and get hit by another vehicle who had the right of way – because you crossed a line.)

    The second type of writer/driver tests which lane is most likley to garner results. You will see them respectfully switch lanes when an opening appears, and they drive responsibly. They are trying out new methods of results even though they know there is a risk that they will spend more time in the communte – however they have that knowledghe for another day.

    This type of writer is doing the first big step in honing thier craft. They are willing to make the mistakes, and learn from them. This is how we as humans improove. We arent trying to get to the end game any more quickly than anyone else, but we strive to learn the patterns around us, and how we can better shape them in the future.

    The final type is where I found myself. The lane moving the slowest. You ask why I chose to purposly be in the lane where traffic is moving at a snails pace – when I could be zipping and darting around trying every method to get my writing noticed. Because I had traveled that stretch of road more times than I could count and I knew the easiest way was to get in the lane that everyone would initially try to get out of – but when construction zones begun – I knew they would all soon . So in a sense everyone got themselves out of my way so I could get by.

    First I had to be the second type of driver, testing out what worked and didnt. Like all traffic, the only way to do so is to sit through the slow and fast parts, wait when I needed to, and move forward when it was my turn. I saved more time staying in the slower lane so I could speed up past all the other lanes.

    Where are you sitting in traffic?

  • Off the Wagon

    So – I fed into my addction, and I went on a bender. It set back everything I had planned and I gave in. That vice’s name is PROCRASTINATION.

    It does that when I’m happy. I should have known it would use this time to bask, and convince me that all those other things just dont matter as much.

    I listened. While what makes me happy is greater than those things I want to accomplish – it’s for that reason I am happy now -that I want those things so badly. I dont want it for fame and fortune – because everyone will succeed just like J.K. Rowling did – RIGHT?!

    Whomever goes into writing for fame and glory needs thier heads examined.

    But I’m trying again – knowing i will likley fail … again. BUT I will continue to try.

  • Leting it go

    Someone from my past reconnected with an appology. I didnt feel at all how I thought I would based on that situation.

    If a character in one of my books had been treated so unfairly, there would be an entire chapter about how sweet that moment felt to them, but I learned something. Our characters will not grow if we do that.

    When I recived that appology I took it graciously, and with little to no feeling past the gratutude that someone took time out of thier day to try and make mine better.

    I taught myself that our Main Characters will not act as we expect with a victory march, but a quiet brush off. They moved through and past that situtation, so we should be mindful to remember the growth our characters have been through – and to have them let the past go as they move on to thier next chapter.

  • The Need Is There

    I know it is there at the back of my head. That voice that is usually screaming at me that I’m not as productive as I should be at the moment… but they are strangley quiet for the first time in a long time.

    For all I know, my subconcious could have admited that negativ voice into an insane asylum and it is now in a drug induced coma – that or I am in my pre writing phase again.

    I’ve noticed there is a period of my life before I start writing fervently. It is my creative brain arranging all of the little ducks in a row before a major project. I wish I knew which one was begging to begin – but thats part of the process.

    Remember that as a writer not every moment you are breathing should be devoted to typing out words. If you dont observe the world around you, there is nothing noteworthy put on those pages.

    Go outside, and drink some water. Stay still and just listen to the world around you. OBSERVE, dont memorize or try to write a story from what you experience, just exist and observe.

    Before you know it, your fingers will be assaulting that keyboard.

  • Back Again

    So the last time I was on here talking about anything, I was in a horrible job and crumbling marriage. I was gaining weight, and under an unhealthy level of stress.

    I binge watched Marie Kondo on Netflix, and got rid of everything that didn’t ‘Spark Joy’ in my life.

    So fast forward to a semi-post-pandemic-quarantine-world… a few months and everything has changed. Including a new job, new relationship, and a shiny new computer to create.

    I sent out some Query letters as promised – I did ten out of about two hundred, so I have some work to go there methinks. What I didn’t expect was a rejection letter that warmed my heart.

    A wonderful angel of an agent apologized profusely for not being able to take my book or me on as a client at this time, even though she loved what I produced simply because this type of work was not on her list. She encouraged me to keep trying and the I will land an agent in no time.

    So I guess to sum up this post is to NEVER GIVE UP ON ANYTHING. Just because it looks like the world has stacked everything against you, it is not the case. YOU MATTER. WHAT YOU CREATE MATTERS. – AND- NEVER DOUBT YOURSELF.

    ( I am also shedding pounds without trying.)

  • Secret Pleasures

    Most people dont know this about me, but I am actually (secretly) a massive fan of old-school Disney movies. I know- I know- I’m a goth from the 90’s. I love horror films.

    You know what else I love? Singing along with Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid, Lion King, Aladdin, and Cinderella. Those stories help shape me to be the storyteller I am now. I learned a long time ago that in order to write the dark stuff, you have to know and appreciate the lighter stuff.

    So, I turn the interrogation light over your head now – what do YOU secretly love too?

  • Fining My New Normal

    With the Corvid-19 Pandemic, I cannot help but see the silver lining. I have been afforded the gift of time. Did I spend all this time actively plugging away at my writing? Absolutley not.

    At first this concept irked me until I realized that as writers we cannot spend every second actively working on our writing. I am aware I have touched on this subject before, but the pandemic has highlighted this fact for me. It is reinforced by the breaks between active work.

    An empty cup cannot quench anyone’s thirst. My constant plugging away was doing more harm than good. I let my days of action and inaction happen as they may. Here is what I learned about my writers brain.

    The first phase of being gifted with time was most efficiently used as a vacation from my writing career. I suffered from the day to day hustle, and the stress it causes. I had to get that stress out of my system before I could be useful to myself and my writing. I had to remember how to take deep breaths again without my negative inner talk saying, “You should be writing.”

    The second phase was stepping back and taking an objective look at my writing career, and what was and wasn’t feasible. Were my timelines unrealistic? Everyone wants to be a bestselling author – but you have to have a plan to get there. I also planned out how I can keep myself from being discouraged, and fighting the urge to give up before I began.

    I am currently in the third phase, the tornado of action. Surprisingly enough, the calmest period I have been in quite some time. I sat down and made some difficult choices about where to focus my energy while I still have this time, and how I will be able to incorporate it after ‘normal life’ resumes.

    My next phase is going to be how to stay focused in a post Corvid-19 world once my days become more prominently day job oriented. My hope is that I built a satisfactory foundation I can build upon later. While my day job pays my bills, I like other writers want to support myself on my writing. I hope to carry over the balance in what I am most passionate about.