A Miscellany of Updates

There's been lots going on that I have wanted to share with you over the past weeks. But it's been too much for me to write into individual posts and too much for you to read as individual posts. So, instead, I've created this digest of capsule updates that will answer some of the questions you've been asking me and bring you up-to-date with some of the cool things going on over here...


1. The Q'ntana Trilogy: Complete At Last...
Sort of...

I was minding my own business last week, working on a first draft of my MoonQuest Musical (see #3, below), when The SunQuest shouted, "Publish me!!"

Although The SunQuest, final installment in my Q'ntana Trilogy of fantasy novels, had been finished for some months, it had never felt time to release it into the world. After all, I had just published The StarQuest (book II) in June. I thought I might wait at least until my birthday in October. But, no. Apparently, when it's time, it's time! So Book III is now available, completing a journey that begin for me in March 1994, when the first words of the first draft of a MoonQuest novel I knew nothing about dropped onto my blank page.

Of course, the journey is not entirely over. There's still The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies and now, it seems, The Q'ntana Trilogy Musicals. But more about those in a moment. For now, all you need to know is that now you can discover the Q'ntana story's gripping and startling conclusion (it was even startling to me as I was writing it!).



Two Men, A Single Destiny: 

Ben, grandson of Q'ntana's greatest elderbard, and Bo'Ra K'n, whose tyranny has ruled Q'ntana for generations. 

Whose vision will triumph?



• Get The SunQuest: The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book III today in the Kindle, Nook and Kobo stores for your e-reader, tablet, computer and smartphone. (The SunQuest will be available in the iBookstore in the next days or weeks.) Why today? Read on to find out...


2. The Q'ntana Trilogy: 
Super-Duper Labor Day Sale!

To celebrate the release of The SunQuest, all three Q'ntana Trilogy books are on sale this Labor Day weekend -- for only US$2.99 each!!

Find out why these books have been so popular that some readers read them again and again. And get your copies today!! (Kindle, Nook, Kobo stores.)

While you're picking up your Q'ntana books, be sure to check out my other titles:
• Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir
• The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (also available in paperback at Amazon.com)
• Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow
• The Book of Messages: Writings Inspired by Melchizedek


3. The Q'ntana Trilogy: Movies & Musicals

In brief, the film project is still moving forward! Like all epic screen productions, though, it takes time to get everything in place...but we're working on it. The good news is that not only is there lots of enthusiasm out there for the project, but there have also been some pretty amazing developments in recent months. As things progress, I'll do my best to keep you posted!

If you follow this blog regularly, you'll know that I began work on a stage-musical adaptation of The MoonQuest a few weeks back. My goal is to continue with The StarQuest and The SunQuest as well, creating a third version of the trilogy! If you missed my original post about the stage project, you'll find it here.

Meantime, revisiting a trio of stories that is so much a part of my inner story has definitely pushed buttons as I get to relive, in my own life, all three stories' major themes. It's turning out to be quite the journey! I'm sure I'll have more to say about that in the coming weeks.


4. Pulling the Plug on My "Electric Muse" Radio Show

My Electric Muse radio show is no more. The show had a great run of nine episodes through June and July, with a stellar roster of creative guests. But when the hosting network and I failed to agree on the best way to move forward, we called it quits.

The good news, though, is that you can still tune in to those great shows. You'll find links to all nine episodes in this blog post.

The even-better news is that I have now interviewed the guests I had scheduled for August and September shows, and I am turning those conversations into a series of video chats that I have dubbed One-on-One with Mark David Gerson. Three of them are already on my YouTube channel, and three more are on their way.

Here's the One-on-One conversation I had with The Secret's Bob Doyle (use this link if the embedded player doesn't show up for you)...

Here are the other One-on-One guests already featured on my YouTube Channel...
• New York Times bestselling mystery author J.A. Jance: Find out why she never outlines, how she took literary revenge on the creative writing prof who barred her from his program ("creative writing isn't for girls") and where she got the idea for her newest mystery, Second Watch, and her first book of poetry, After the Fire, both of which hit bookstores on September 10.
• Vocal coach Sally Morgan: Find out why nearly everyone dreads public speaking and get some quick-and-easy tools to grow both your skill and confidence when speaking before a group...tools that will also help you with all your creative pursuits!

And coming up in the next weeks...
• Mystery writer Ellen Hart, whose newest release, Taken by the Wind, releases on my birthday!
• Author Susan M. Heim, who has authored 10 Chicken Soup for the Soul books, including this summer's Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers: 101 Motivational Stories for Writers - Budding or Bestselling - from Books to Blogs
• Publisher/author/filmmaker Michael Wiese, whose new memoir, Onward and Upward: Reflections of a Joyful Life, is guaranteed to move, entertain and inspire you!
Watch for these three new videos, coming soon to www.youtube.com/markdavidgerson!


5. And Speaking of Videos...

There are lots more inspiring new videos on my YouTube channel, in addition to the new One-on-One interviews. For example, I've added Let Judgment Go, a short meditation in the spirit of my popular You Are A Writer (now approaching 13,000 views!). Like You Are A Writer, it features an audio track drawn from my recording, The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers, and visuals from my photography.  

Other new videos include readings from Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir, tips to help you overcome writer's block, an updated book trailer for The MoonQuest and readings from both The StarQuest and The SunQuest. I hope you'll check them out!

6. And Speaking of My Photography...

As I posted here back in July, I've revived and expanded another facet of my creativity: my fine art. At the time, I had only just launched my dedicated art website. Now, barely a month later, I have posted 75 images (with more going up every day), and these photos, drawings and inspirational quotes have attracted more than 4,000 views! As well, my Instagram photography is featured at Instacanvas. 

Particularly gratifying for me is the fact that those images that blend my writing and photography are among the most popular on both sites!

Most of my images on the two sites are available as unframed prints, framed/matted prints, canvas wraps, metal prints, acrylic prints, greeting cards and iPhone cases (with other phone cases coming soon). Please drop by both sites and look around. I'm excited (after some initial resistance!) to be sharing this facet of my creativity with you!

Well, that's a wrap. Thanks for sticking around for the updates. I've got musicals to write, drawings to draw and photos to take....so I'm outta here! But before you take off, please take a minute to "like" these Facebook pages...

• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Voice of the Muse book + Writing Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

And please follow me on Pinterest and Google+ 

The Art of Surrender

"I still couldn’t call myself an artist. The way I saw it, I created energy-enhancing tools and just happened to employ the same instruments used by 'real' artists." 
~ from "The Art of Surrender" in my memoir, Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir

•     •     •     •     •

Some years back I was coaching an accomplished writer who had already published several short stories. She had even won awards for a few of of them. I'll call her Sally, but she's a composite of several clients, all of whom carried a reluctance similar to the one I'm about to describe.

Sally asked me to help her with a novel she was conceiving. As we worked together over the weeks, I discovered that she refused to call herself a writer. "A writer has written a book," she insisted. "I've just written short stories."

"A writer writes," I retorted, quoting the You Are A Writer meditation included in my two books on writing. The meditation continues: "That’s what you have done. You have written."

For homework, I insisted that Sally listen to the recording of that meditation at least twice a day for a month.

You are a writer. 

What you write is powerful. 

What you write is vibrant. 

What you write, whatever you believe in this moment, is luminous. 

Trust that to the best of your ability, in this moment. 

Acknowledge the writer you are, in this moment. ...

You are a writer.

In less than a month, thanks to You Are A Writer, Sally could finally state clearly and unequivocally, "I am a writer."

I have no difficulty calling myself a writer, perhaps because my writerly identity snuck up on me so sneakily and surreptitiously, and over so many years. But I have never been comfortable calling myself an artist. 

Never mind that I've had photographs published in The Globe & Mail, Canada's most prestigious English-language daily, and that I've sold my artwork all over the U.S.

Yet if a writer is one who writes, then an artist must be someone who creates art. Given that I have been creating art for decades, isn't it time for me to surrender to that part of my identity?

All artists in all media are storytellers. At our best, we create from that innate heart-spark that everyone carries. We also create from that place of authenticity, discovery and revelation that can make us feel vulnerable and scared, that can hold us back from sharing our work...that can keep us in hiding.

I realized, when I recalled the Sally story a few days ago, that I can no longer hide this part of myself -- from me any more than from the world. It's time to claim my artist identity. It's time to do what I inspired Sally to do. It's time to say it, publicly as well as to myself:

I am an artist. 
I am an artist. 
I am an artist. 

There. That feels better.

But there's more to do. Without action, those artist-words could easily be empty words.

What's my next step? The answer is clear before I finish asking the question: I must claim my professional artist identity.

I start by ordering new business cards, long overdue. For the first time, these add "artist" and "photographer" to "author," "screenwriter" and "creativity catalyst."

It's a start, but I know that it's not enough. I need to do something more concrete. What I decide to do is to create a new website, a dedicated online gallery for my work.

Suddenly, my drawings, photographs and inspirational art are being sold in a professional setting, and it surprises me to discover that I feel more anxious about releasing my visual art into the world than I do about putting my books out. (I've probably forgotten how scared I was when my first words hit print 37 years ago!)

Yes, I'm feeling anxious. But I'm also excited. It's energizing to share the fruits of my creation in more than a casual way. It's even more exhilarating to integrate into my "family" an orphaned inner child that I have long been reluctant to acknowledge, to give yet another part of me a voice in this sometimes messy, often paradoxical, always unfolding agglomeration of bits and pieces that is Mark David Gerson.

In the end, though, isn't coming back into wholeness what this journey is about? It's certainly what I have written about and taught for more than two decades. Whether I'm aware of it or not, I'm sure that even my art reflects it.

And so my artist website is launched, with more images -- art, photography and what I'm calling "inspirational art" -- being added to it every day. Apparently, I am an artist!

Please check out my drawings, photography and inspirational/motivational art at
• Mark David Gerson Fine Art/Photography
• Instacanvas


click on any image for a larger view 
and to access additional images

Photos (c) Mark David Gerson: "Passion Flower," "An Open Heart Knows No Limits" and many other images are available from Mark David's fine art/photography website unframed and as framed/matted prints, canvas wraps, acrylic prints, metal prints, greeting cards and iPhone cases.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books
• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Voice of the Muse book + Writing Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

Please follow Mark David on Pinterest and Google+

Electric Muse Radio for July: Authors, Photographers & Celebrities!

One month's radio shows done...and what a month it's been! The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson got off to, well, an electric start with four creative stars: 

• Luke Yankee, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart, and an accomplished writer/director/producer/actor in his own right.

• Michael Scott, the New York Times bestselling fantasy author of the six-book series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

• Dorothy McIntosh, dubbed the "next Dan Brown" and an author whose debut novel, The Witch of Babylon, was an instant hit in some 20 countries.

• Photographer Melissa Vincent, whose 200,000-plus Instagram fans have turned her into a mobile-photography superstar. 

(Click on any of their names to listen to a replay of their episode.)

July's lineup is just as good...if not better!

• July 9 ~ Truly a Renaissance man of the arts, Dan Stone is an author, poet, fine-art photographer and visual artist. On this episode, we'll be talking about how each of Dan's artistic pursuits feeds the others and what it means to be creative. We'll also be talking about dreams. As Dan puts it, "Most of what has come into my life so far or what I hope is on the way, started with a dream."

• July 16 ~ Hollywood visual effects master Ed Kramer, whose technical artistry brought you Harry Potter’s Quidditch field, the multiplying puppies in 101 Dalmations, the dinosaur stampede in Jurassic Park II, the weather and ocean effects in Twister and some of your favorite moments in Star Wars. Ed has lots of entertaining stories about Hollywood and moviemaking to share with us.

• July 23 ~  Photographer and watercolorist Lynn Lane, one of Houston’s “Top 100 Creatives,” is exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. With styles from documentary to edgy, he is a favorite with commercial and creative clients alike, from Cirque du Soleil to Saks 5th Avenue. He's also a documentary filmmaker and, a cancer survivor himself, founder of the Voices of Survivors Foundation, which has given scores of cancer survivors a human face and voice.

• July 30 ~  Author, biographer and ghost writer Jenna Glatzer was a recovering agoraphobic still unwilling to be enclosed in an airplane when she was asked to write Céline Dion's authorized biography. Two weeks later, she was in the air, enroute to Las Vegas and to an adventure that would change her life and launch a career that has resulted in more than 20 books, including an authorized biography of Marilyn Monroe. She tells that story in the newest Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul book, and she'll share that inspiring experience and others on this episode.

Wait! Why did I leave out July 2? Because this episode is going to be a bit different...well, a lot different! Instead of asking all the embarrassing questions, I’ll be in the hot seat, answering them! In the host seat will be author Amy Robbins-Wilson. Why the switch? To mark this week's release of The StarQuest, the second book in my Q’ntana Trilogy of fantasy novels, Amy will be interviewing me! So, for a look at the author behind the host, please join us this coming Tuesday via this link!

Meantime, get yourself a copy of The StarQuest in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iBook stores -- and check out all my titles, on sale for US$2.99 through July 2 to celebrate their new sibling. (The book is in the Kindle store right now; it should be in the Nook, Kobo and iBook stores later today or during the weekend.)

To listen live to any episode or to hear a replay after the broadcast, click on the name link for any guest. And visit the Electric Muse pages on my website for more about these and other past and future shows.

Tune in to The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson every Tuesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. 

Don't you dare miss an episode! But if you must, you can always catch it after the fact. Just look for links to every episode on my website.

Don't forget! Every Tuesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET: The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson.

~~~~~

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books

• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

Please follow me on Pinterest and Google+

June's Electric Muse Radio: Authors, Artists & Celebrities! Oh, My!

What is The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson? It's a brand-new radio show featuring an eclectic blend of authors, playwrights, screenwriters, directors, musicians, photographers and visual artists -- all talking about themselves, their work, their passions and their muse. And it launches this month with an exciting roster of guests!

Read on to see who will be joining me in the studio. (Click on the date/name link for each guest to be taken to the show page for that episode -- to listen live or to hear the archived version after the broadcast. And visit the Electric Muse pages on my website for more about these and other upcoming shows.)

June 4 ~ Luke Yankee grew up around a glittering galaxy of stars that most of us know only from our seats in a darkened movie theater. Marilyn Monroe played catch with his older brothers on the set of Bus Stop. Paul Newman showed him how to upstage fellow actors in a school play. And in a true Auntie Mame moment, Ethel Merman taught him how to make the perfect Merman martini.

How did Luke Yankee get to be so lucky? An accident of birth: His mother was Oscar-winner Eileen Heckart, remembered by many in more recent years for her portrayal of Mary's feisty Aunt Flo on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but a film and theater star long before that television success. Luke has written about growing up with his famous mother in his memoir, Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart. And he'll share with us some of the funny and touching stories from the book, as well as some of his own accomplishments as a gifted writer/director/producer in his own right.

June 11 ~ Michael Scott is one of the most prolific authors you will ever encounter, with more than 100 books to his credit that span fantasy, science fiction, horror and Celtic folklore and that include his six-part New York Times bestselling fantasy series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. Given that Michael has only been writing for some 30 of his 53 years, that's three books a year: a prodigious output for any writer, especially when you consider that he has also written for stage and screen and was, for a time, head of drama for the production company that created Riverdance. "Some stories wait their turn to be told," says Scott. "Others just tap you on the shoulder and insist you tell them."

But it was the quality not the quantity of his work that prompted the Irish Times to crown him "king of fantasy in these isles" and that caused Who's Who in Ireland to name him one of "the 1000 most significant Irish." During this episode of The Electric Muse, Michael will talk about the world of mythology and his writer's world and will, hopefully, tell us how we, too, can produce so many good books in so little time!

June 18 ~ D.J. McIntosh. How do you get from Toronto city planner to internationally acclaimed author? D.J. McIntosh will share part of that journey with us on this week's show, as she talks about The Witch of Babylon, the page-turning initial installment in a projected trilogy and a first novel that has already propelled her to the top ranks of historical-thriller writers. CNN called The Witch of Babylon, set against a backdrop of the Iraq war, one of the "top six enduring historical thrillers" and McIntosh has also been dubbed "an erudite Dan Brown" for her expert blend of intrigue and historical depth and accuracy. Book II, The Book of Stolen Tales, is just out, and we'll be taking about that too...along with some of McIntosh's more "interesting" writing habits!

June 25 ~ Melissa Vincent discovered her obsession for iPhoneography in 2011 when she created an account on Instagram. She had always taken photos of her kids, she says, but "Instagram stirred up a creative part of me that was dormant for a long time." The result: more than 200,000 followers on Instagram and an increasingly high profile, not just in the mobile photography world but in the photography world in general. Her surreal, storybook images with a Southern sensibility have been exhibited in galleries from coast-to-coast and were recently featured on National Geographic online, on the cover of Time magazine’s first annual wireless issue and in The Huffington Post.

Melissa takes all her photos on her iPhone; she processes them all on her phone as well. On this episode of The Electric Muse, she will be sharing not only her art and her passion but, for all you mobile photographers out there, she'll also be sharing her favorite apps and photography tips.

• Tune in to The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson every Tuesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Don't miss an episode! But if you must, you can always catch it after the fact. Just look for links to every episode on my website.

Don't forget! June 4 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET...and every Tuesday after that: The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson.

~~~~~

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books

• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

Please follow me on Pinterest and Google+