Dream your dreams

Unofficial tumblr by author-to-be Y. Kent, est. 2017

[yvonnekent]

Welcome back once more

Each time I post an entry, I have ambitions to stay around and fill this page with content I can share with others. On my mind it appears easy and yet I disappear for a great length of time and come around to sneak a peak many months later. It reminds of the way I filled my diaries. I kept under my pillow or in the night stand, the drawer underneath the bed I had as a teenager and which was the bed I fell off one day and needed a recovery for a year.

I make these anecdotes, leaving a piece of me in some random post and leaving a hint like the way I plant easter eggs in unpublished drafts. Drafts that also never finish and yet the dream remains.

Today - I hope it’s different.

I would like to be around. I would like to be the person who finally fills the diary pages to have something to look back to and say that whatever happened the day, it will not be forgotten. 

I want to turn a dream into a blossoming tree. One as tall as an apple tree, the one I have always been connected to, whether it was allergies or being called a Snow White (does no one know I prefer the term a “vampire ghost”). Maybe a cherry tree, to remember my Tokyo adventures and the biggest adventure of my heart. A part of me would like a bonsai, small but ancient and a lot of hard work and discipline - but lost likely I am the unidentified shrub which cut down ear year as it grows in the garbage bin corner. Yet each spring it comes back, taller as ever. 

If I could be that shrub, for the first time I am proud of it. I want to be the shrub, and I want the shrub to be alive and grow this year.

My dear, I have finished a draft this year. A step closer to the dream. And with this I hope to stay, or at least make the next hiatus a bit shorter than the one before.

Y.

[yvonnekent]

A million lives

First of all - to all those reading, I wish you and your families all the love, health and happiness. <3

I have not been posting in Covid times. The new normal is something I at times cannot cope with really well and I am not alone with the struggle. I see so many working on their dreams and finding a strength that is marvelous and leaves me speechless. 

You all have been such an inspiration!

The lives we lost are irreplaceable but we will make them proud of us because we have them as our stars at night shining bright for us. A grandfather who lived all his life or the daughter gone too soon. In life and in death we stand together, in this new normal more than ever even if it is a social distance stand together. If we have to, we have to!  Distance makes no difference if you think of someone. At least this has become more apparent. I might have seen less of colleagues but I still feel closer connected to others who surprised me.

We are human. We are making mistakes, we do not know everything, but we need each other and I hope we learn to stand closer united. The news in Scotland are filled with neighbourhoods and streets spending their afternoons chatting, and while there are the terrible news of loss of lives all over the world due to hate (and this cannot be forgotten!) there are moments and little stories of hope.

5 months I have spend in my home now. Going for walks, starting to see friends only last month and still waiting to go back to work - now the motivation (inspired by so many impressive stories over the world) has reached me too.

I write. I write about humans. I write about the little mistakes and the loss of loved ones.

We all find our way and hopefully the pandemic has taught us this, how we can listen to ourselves in the silence and learn to love the little things.

[yvonnekent]

Be inspired

Today my best friend shared with me her character edits and I was both proud of her as well as feeling inspired. In the beginning of this year we have both promised each other to work on our ideas and dream big. Our goal was to visit a bookstore - maybe that amazing place in Tokyo were we spent hours between young adult, mangas and classics from around the world - and either see our books standing next to each other or sneak them to be around each other.

Covid has slowed down many ways but everywhere on social media I see people support each other; going shopping, sewing masks, be kind and making sure no one is alone.

I also see the many dreams we all hold on to now.

Some plan a big adventure or a travel, others learn an instrument or a language, many more share art and stay healthy by challenging themselves. Some of us just go for a walk and that’s important for the mind and being fit too. We look out for each other and for ourselves, and we dream again.

Like children, we use our inspiration again. We find ways how to interact, how to organize an 80th movie night or a pub quiz with our friends. 

I have not given up the dream my friend and I shared earlier this year. I see her inspiration and it inspires me too. I will try to catch up with her and when December comes, a dream could be true.

[yvonnekent]

Leave a light on

Currently we are all experiencing these dark times of a virus that locks us away from our friends and family. We fight a war against an invisible enemy that we cannot grab or stand up to - our only strength is patience and resilience.

Some of us are struggling and it is okay to admit and seek for a helping hand and a friendly smile. Some of you might gain strength by returning to our passions - write, draw, create in any way. 

At home I listen to the music of #covidceilidh which warms might heart and creates a bond between those sharing the music and those like myself listen and be inspired. Learn an instrument, learn a language - even if we have to do fight our war from our couch, we can be inspiring and be the heroes of our own tale. 

I had planned this year to be different and i can still be so.

Let’s not stop dreaming. See the little things now more than ever.  Leave a light on for hope and we will keep on fighting - for us, for our friend and family - for all of us.

[yvonnekent]

Motivation is key

During the first months of this year I am working on preparation for novel ideas while editing a few short stories which are all links to the universes of the largest of my ideas.

The variety of the stories helped me focus last year. In the early stages, so much of an idea is distracting and short stories can help to test out a scenario before it makes it to the final page.

This way I was also able to share the stories with a few people and got my first feedback on the worlds I created so long ago in my head. The feeling of finishing something is refreshing after years of trapping in the darkness of feeling not worthy enough of the own ideas.

Short stories help to find a voice and test out different ones until you find one that suits you before realizing the voice half way through a novel.

Of course not all stories will make it to the publishing stage and actually I intend to keep them all stored until sharing them as giveaways and special gifts when the novels and world created finally (and hopefully) be shared with you.

~*~

A dream is remaining just a dream if we don’t work hard on it to make it true.

~*~

The novels I am working on this year are a humorous crime novel and a supernatural detective novel. And while I still keep preparing for a while, my best friend requested a skip forward short story.

A conversation with a friend is both motivational and lets you gather more knowledge of your own world.

What are the questions your friend asks you to elaborate?

[yvonnekent]

Step by step

This year started by meeting great authors who I admire.

For a long time I tried to stay away from everything in my favourite genre to be sure not to be influenced or worse - see someone having the same idea. I did not stop to read but I read books which did not fulfill me or had the gift to make me dream.

Finally I got back with a book I was initially scared of. I read the first book in a series inspired by Peter Pan and bringing to live a city, ghosts and friendship. Yes, for years this has already been enough to scare me off. And while finally reading the book, I noticed it had nothing in common with my own idea. There were just three words and what we make with them is in our own hands. 

I cannot say that I am completely fearless now about speaking of my ideas, but I learned that fear has good and bad sides. Sometimes we need to be cautious and other times we need fear to push us a little.

In 2020 I am reading more again and on my shelf are standing novels again to remind me why this has been my dream for years. I do not want to be scared off but instead be able to place my book next to them one day.

So, go read.

Go and meet your authors and tell them they inspire you.

And while tackling one fear, maybe the blank page has not so much power to scare you anymore. By reading I learned about my own story, of what I want and want I don’t want. 

Now it’s time to fill the page.

[yvonnekent]

All things take time

I have created this blog some time ago and never actually used it. Posted privately is one post based on a story I want to share with the world, but at the time I didn’t feel quite ready to.

Not long ago, we all looked back at a decade that passed away and celebrated our greatest moments. To me it has been a decade of writing and dreaming, a dream which stayed with me and didn’t get to see the sun yet.

So, with this post a promise

2020s - a decade of making dreams come true and share stories, bring them to readers and dance in the sun, and Scotland has more of these days than you might think.

[lostiniceandshade]

sketch time 20

Happy Valentine’s Day <3<3<3

For Valentine’s Day I had in mind to draw a (created) legend of my novel I’m working on. I called it >> The dragon and the star << and even it’s not finished yet I want to share it with you on this day of love.