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Showing posts with label #antiochcollege. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #antiochcollege. Show all posts

Sunday, October 15, 2017

A glimpse into my process & A CHANCE TO BE A CHARACTER IN BOOK 3 of MYTHIC:PSION




I love easter eggs in tv shows and in books. Hidden little secrets that may be for a special person or for a group to get an inside joke or giving a nod to someone special. So when I write I don't intentionally set out to put things in a specific place but when an opportunity presents itself I shove the plastic egg in that hidden nook ever so gently.

One of my favorite parts of writing but also one of my well thought out is name selection. I have read books where authors use old phone books or name generators. But I like to use not so random selection for some of my characters as a way to give some love to people throughout my life that may never get a book dedicated to them but they are in my thoughts or in my facebook feed enough that they are in thoughts even as I write. Each for different reasons too. *I should add none of the names are exactly this people's names they are fantastical versions of themselves. They will know it's them but the public would never. It is all in my love and positive vibes for them all I do this*

I have a Chef Kitsune in the Mythic: Psion book 2 Life, Liberty And the Pursuit of Ginnie named for a guy I went to Antioch College with whom I haven't seen since we graduated but his anime drawings and amazing food porn on facebook lights up my days.

I have named the four demon victims for a random reason, One for a friend from Antioch that became a lawyer and I am so proud that she went all the way and is using her powers for good. Then there are the redhead twins I went to college with whom I love watching their families grow and they are still the most amazing sister team I have ever encountered. I gave Mackelmore a shout out because his first mainstream album really was motivational and got me pumped on days when I barely wanted to get out of bed.

There is a werewolf named for a cousin of mine who loves books and devours them like I used to.

There are other personal nods to people I love and have others I have lost. Some need no acknowledgment here, they know who they are.

Other names like Virginia, has two amazing ladies. One is a second cousin but I call her my aunt and another is a long distance bestie's middle name.

Would you like your name or a name of your choosing in the final book of this series? The one I am penning right now? Then comment below and we will pick a random number for the winner from the names below.


The other part of my muse beside names of friends and family is music. I love having a soundtrack to what I am writing. Sex, Drugs, And... Vampires? found me mused by the song "All Right Now" I listened to the song whenever I needed to get myself back to that time and place of the story. It was my time portal and it also pumped me up with my muse dancing in my head like a ninja at a drag ball.

Well enough reveals into my psyche for now...

Please Remember to leave a comment of your favorite Halloween costume ever to enter my contest to be a character in book 3.

And a bonus for new readers...SDV is free until the 17th...https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074F378XF

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Thank You Dave Chappelle-- Synchronicity Part 3 aka my 250th BLOG!!!



Every day we have the opportunity to make a change we think and talk about without procrastination. Sounds cliche but these last few days and weeks I have been analyzing my life, not it in a whole but all aspects. Particularly thinking about the memories I make with my kids and the lessons I need them to take away from their time with me, which in turn makes me look back to my time with my own parents. I probably reflect on parenting more than most people because I am a social worker and I see how parental action affects children daily and in the long term. It actually is the main reason I started looking for other fields to work in. The stress is too much for my soul to bear.

Watching new Dave Chappelle comedy special he brings up Sunday Dinner, a whole spread of food almost like a small Thanksgiving or Easter.I instantly pictured a table covered with dishes of veggies, steaming mashed potatoes, meat as the centerpiece, and everyone passing this and that around while talking about this and that. So I did. I went to the grocery the next day bought a turkey and had a mini Thanksgiving invited my Cousin, daughter's boyfriend, a family friend and we had a great First Sunday meal. Since starting this blog, we have done a second one-- taco and fajitas dinner with another cousin's boys as the guests of honor along with my immediate family. Two weeks of success!

Dave Chappelle lives in Yellow Springs-- which is where I am applying to work. The only job I really want, Admission Counselor at Antioch College. On Saturday, I was cleaning out one of my sheds part of my lent/spring cleaning/minimalizing our junk from our lives that we don't need and I came across a postcard sent to me from the Assistant Director of Admissions when I was in High School. This is the position I am applying for. This could be something I do in my dream duties. Sending out positive vibes, I put the postcard in my wallet. The week before the Sunday dinner revolution, I had found one of my Antioch School Ids. Meaningful coincidences? I hope so.

Silly Dany, you didn't tell your readers how all this really ties together. My fourth year (senior) at Antioch either during finals or while I was finishing my Senior project on the Creation and Childhood of Serial Killers, Dave Chappelle came to visit on campus where he was friends with one of the dudes on my dorm. He had just released Half Baked and the grandness of it all had most people running to kiss some ass. I was the one trying to finish my thesis and was bothered by the "star's" dog running up and down the halls.I was unimpressed and may have been a little vocal about it. It was straight out of a movie like PCU. Overworked college student losing their mind over a dog barking trying to finish their senior thesis! So, my first meeting of Dave Chappelle was in 1999 at Antioch College when I yelled about his dog not being controlled...

This was the last person I ever expected to bring a family tradition back to my life. But Dave, Yellow Springs and Antioch are all saying yes. So thanks, Dave. We are enjoying Sunday Dinner and maybe we will meet for times two, three and four in Yellow Springs some day after I have published my books and have been hired by Antioch.

Do you experience Synchronicity in your life? Comment below I would love to hear from you. I would love to know how others experience this.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

How we misjudge



How many of us have stopped following a dream because someone else has told us or we have believed they have said of us negative causing us to question our self. Or was there that guy in High school that you longed after wishing you would have asked him out in the lab but never did because you just know he would have said no?


My love for words started in Middle School. I still have binders and notebooks of sappy poems, short stories and other creative writing ventures I tried over the years. In high school, I wrote for my school newspaper and even was co-editor my senior year.
Then when I was accepted to Antioch and placed in a remedial English class for the few of us who sucked at writing based on a summer reading assignment. Why hadn’t anyone before now told me I sucked? The devastation was on par with a tornado or divorce it meant I could not be a writer; so I never wrote again--
Until 2009, when I was reading books by Charlaine Harris the author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. I read them, loved them, and thought I could totally write books like this. And I started writing again. Fast forward blur blur blur. Three novels unpublished and over 250 blogs later and I have to wonder how much better of a writer would I be if I had not stopped for over fifteen years?


No one ever said 'DANYEL YOU SUCK'! But being placed in a class that not everyone had to take made me feel stupid. I had just passed AP English with a B. I was so confused. I did not realize until years later that Antioch was not only teaching me grammar but to write my own genuine thoughts. The paper they graded was regurgitated from the book I read. Me and my high school had failed to find Danyel’s voice blending facts from the book with my opinions. That is why I was placed in the writing course, not because of my suckitude. *which are grammar rules, I know I have not a drop of the rules.
My true hippie happiness if I am completely honest is reading something I wrote and thinking, 'that is so awesome, someone else must have written that'. Then remembering that it was me, and I smile.

Friday, March 31, 2017

Finding the beauty in the Taint-- or Fuel for my muse




When I was little I tended to be sick, I would surround myself with imaginary worlds within the library that I had amassed by the time I was in elementary school. I now realize there are people who get to be around live muses, not just paper, film and digital muses. My friends were on the pages and inspired me to write and create and dream. Then slowly a few real ones have trickled in my life sending butterflies to my brain.

In my recent flu/viral URI, I have watched documentaries on Greenwich Village and other art communities. Which made my brain a little jealous of people getting To surround themselves with peers in your neighborhood with the same drive to create; what a fun experiment in the creative positive flow. There were flows like that at Antioch in my sculpture class, writing classes and watching the manic kids work all night turning videotapes into a full-scale spider web. I have always believed we are given people for a reason or a season. I love when new or old people come into our lives and revive something in us that move us to step up to the next level or get back to our love. Over the last couple years, I had some great editing and writing partners and I have since fallen out of regular contact with them and miss the conductivity between two minds helping one another in a creative process. That sharing was very intimate, especially a novel, or three.

I am not a very social person. I love talking to people one on one or in very small groups but anything else scares me shitless. To share my writing with anyone is like showing someone my boobs. I am no woo-girl. I am not at the bar flashing every person who buys me a shot of lemon drop.

The only reason I press send on this Blog is I assume Yes, Virgina you are my the only real reader. Where in the world is my reader? That should be the bonus in the comment section. I digress.


Finding our own Greenwich Village, no matter where we live. I am sending out to the universe that I want to be surrounded by more artists of all mediums. My best friend is a choreographer and dancer. I recently have been re-introduced to a writer/photographer whom I hadn't spoken with in 22 years. His photos have shown me beauty in Cincinnati that I didn't realize existed.


My mind had become so tainted to the ugliness of Ohio because of the burnout I feel in other areas of my life that I had stopped looking for the beauty that is still around us.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

How to find a job after being out of the loop...Or it's no longer found in the classifieds



When you have been out of the job market for long periods of time-decade or plural. You realize that not only are the ways you find jobs different-- Once you went to places looking for a sign in the window, looked in the want ads in the paper, some companies have computer terminals in their locations to complete applications and assessments, and now there are more than just websites. There are apps. But then within the apps, you have to watch who are posting jobs.

My current fave is LINKEDIN Here is my profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/danyel-statzer-mcdaniel-948b6610 Let's link up!


On the apps, you are able to scan and search based on location or keywords or both. When you get your results, that is when the real work starts. You must visually skim what is not for you. I have things in my head I am looking for-- insurance, retirement, but I am looking for a unique work environment. You have seen those workplaces on TV or heard about them. Free breakfast or lunch or a fun room where peers get together for stress relief. I want a company that truly has that philosophy that happy workers are better workers.


There are subgroups posting on these sites.

1. Recruiters for staffing agencies
2. Recruiters for companies
3. Recruiters for "sales" positions where you only get paid if you sell
4. Direct posts from companies by their HR like normal


I do not know if there are downsides to these differences but the loops to jump through a staffing agency puts me off a bit. I skim these jobs and so far none of them have made my short list, so it hasn't mattered.

The other part of my current research is what are the jobs out there? And do I need any additional certification or training?

If you are in the medical field, IT, engineers, sales, or skilled labor-- then SW Ohio is for you. I don't want to be in social services anymore; the field I have served in for 18 years. My first job out of college was in mental health switching to social work in the public school system in 2006. Now I want to learn new skills, try and utilize all I have learned in college, my internships (three in schools, one in a mailroom, and one in a homeless shelter), FWSP jobs in HR and mailroom at Antioch and one precollege job at a Thriftway grocery store and open that next door.


I have customer service experience, retail/grocery experience, mail standards experience, human resource experience, housing, teaching daily living skills, meal planning, budget planning, transportation, medication management, supervisor of 15 staff, QA financial, QA review, community involvement, blogging, accessing community resources, Microsoft Office, --I digress.

What I am getting at poorly but I am trying to pull the train back around to, I have what I feel like is a great tool box of skills but I look on these sites and I am like--- uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I don't think I am going to open the paper (kidding) and see my skills listed off perfectly and I will get a light bulb over my head, put on my best suit, walk into the Daily Moon and say 'Ms. Goldberg, I am the one you have been looking for', hand her my resume and we go to lunch to hash out the logistics.

Positive visualization.