July 31, 2017

"Unpacking" yourself in your writing

Kely Sarmiento wrote: "I'm writing about experiences I've lived through. It's hard because the problem is not writing, it's facing myself and putting myself out there, being vulnerable. I start writing, and it's like I open a Pandora's box. I can't seem to finish the frigging thing because I want to put everything in there. It's this "all or nothing" dynamic—I tiptoe around myself, work on the corners, the edges and all around. I don't go to the core of it all. It might be about having the patience to somehow "unpack" myself, but how do I do that when I have a storm inside me that is screaming to be put somewhere? It certainly feels like I have to write or else I'll go nuts, but at the same time I'm not accomplishing much."

Dear Kely, thank you for this. This is beautiful, what you wrote. So here is the thing.

Start small.

June 12, 2017

The value of a book giveaway

by Ksenia Anske

What if I told you that the number of books you give away isn't enough? And I mean actual paperbacks, not ebooks. What if I told you that if you're cringing about the idea of parting with hundreds of your books for free, "You know nothing, John Snow?" What if I said 1,000 might be the number to come close to yield what you desire—albeit only the beginnings of it—which is, the road out of obscurity?

Yeah, I know. I had my hair move on my head too after I recently dove into marrying my art (book writing) and my business (book selling) and started researching book marketing tactics that would get me on the New York Times Best Sellers list, because that's my goal and my dream, and I'll do a naked dance for you if that happens. For real. Until then...

June 24, 2016

I've been called a dangerous idealist

by Ksenia Anske

In the light (darkness?) of what just happened in the UK, and of what's happening in America with the whole election circus, and of what's happened a long time ago in Russia beginning with Lenin, hell, even before that, and of what continues to happen now under Putin, whenever I try to understand the global politics charade and voice what I think, my opinion proves highly unpopular. The "dangerous idealist" epithet at least has the word "dangerous" in it. Some other, more primitive names I was called include "seriously dumb" and "naive" and "typical woman," which comes full circle back to dumb, according to how women are viewed in our society, our value in our looks, not our brains, and our emotions dismissed as unnecessary drama. Not that I presume to understand any of what is going on. I don't have enough information to form a decisive point of view, and the information I do have access to is the news has been pre-filtered for me by the media, and so hardly any truth remains there.

November 30, 2014

THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS TO HELP MY DAUGHTER

by Ksenia Anske

I feel so much right now, my heart is bursting. You lovely loving human beings, you have donated a total of $1183.45 to help my daughter recover the things she had lost to a burglary. She told me that all those shoes that were taken, she won't be replacing, but instead will buy a new laptop, since her old one is dying, to she can make more art and more beautiful covers for me. She asked me to give you this message (and she drew the picture you're seeing above):

November 29, 2014

My daughter's apartment got broken into, ART SUPPLIES GONE

by Ksenia Anske

You, my amazing readers, asked me to throw this post together, so we can help my daughter, who makes all my book covers and is a graphic design student in California, recover what was stolen while she was in Seattle, visiting me and her dad. She just called me, curiously very composed, and informed me that their apartment (she shares it with several roommates) had been broken into, turned upside down, and many things are gone. Whoever did this, took my daughter's art supplies, ALL OF HER SHOES, clothes, her Xbox, her roommates' 2 TVs, and, worst of all, both of her passports, American and Russian.