Category: Unraveling Light

New Poems & News

Leave a comment

Guess who’s dropping a new poetry collection this week? 👀

Yep, it me.

As some of you might recall a few months back, I decided to start a new series called elluminations, which I originally planned to release quarterly through Patreon, while the first volume was made available for free.

Well friends, there’s been a change of plans, and this post is Part 1 of 2 explaining why. (Keep an eye out around mid October for the exciting surprise that is Part 2. 😉)

Say-No-to-Spoilers-Doctor-Who
Sooooon…

Part one of said change of plans is that I have decided to make elluminations vol. 1 available for free as well, and I will be releasing the whole collection over the next two weeks via this blog, Medium, and my Instagram page. This new collection is a bit shorter than vol. 0, and is called Love Lessons. The poems included in it are about personal experiences and struggles I’ve had in both finding love, and learning to love myself more. If you read the Love section in Unraveling Light, these poems serve as a nice companion to that.

The first poem in this collection, Seasons, will be released this evening here on Elayna Musings first, and then you can find it elsewhere on the internet tonight!

9BbJ
Huzzah for poetry!

However! As excited as I am to announce this new set of poems, I do have one last part to this update, and that is that after a lot of deliberation over the summer, I’ve decided to phase out my Patreon page. Getting people to subscribe there has been a challenge, and while the people at Patreon are seriously creating something amazing for artists like myself, it just doesn’t seem to be the right fit for me. I’ll be posting an announcement over on there to let patrons know that as of October, that page will be inactive.

October is going to be a big month though, for while I am phasing out Patreon, I do have something new coming for y’all to take it’s place. Till then, I’ll be sharing the new elluminations poems, and finishing up the sending out of the Kickstarter perks for Unraveling Light. (Which if you haven’t ordered one yet, you get get your copy here, here, or here!) Thanks as always friends. Looking forward to sharing more stories with you soon! 😊

Like poetry?
Add Unraveling Light on…

Goodreads

Or buy the book on…

Barnes & Noble | Amazon | IndieBound

(Featured Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash)

Advertisements

• Nostalgia •

Leave a comment

The word evokes in most
Nickelodeon or N*Sync
or any of the other trappings
of our childhoods.
But for me, nostalgia has always
emerged in ways that
to the world might seem strange.

Backstage darkness,
the smell of lumber,
the hum of light fixtures.
12 scoop ice cream sundaes
from Friendly’s after
every special occasion,
and lying in the freshly
mown grass of the football field.
Candle wax between my
fingers while lying on the driveway.
Nights looking for meteors,
and cool, rainy mornings
in the shadows of stone history
when we were hoping for a sunrise.

Nostalgia tastes like
Charlie’s greasiest pizza,
smells like sweet incense,
feels like warm pavement,
and looks like starry skies.

Want to read more from Unraveling Light? Add the book on

Goodreads

Buy the book on

Barnes & Noble | Amazon | IndieBound

(Featured Photo by Blake Cheek on Unsplash)

• Enough •

Leave a comment

No amount of you
will ever be enough,
the voices say.

I’ve come of age
in a cold hard time
that has lied to me
so much and
so well that
I’d grown to believe
they were right.

You’re not enough
because you weigh too much.
You’re not enough
because you’re broke too much.
You’re not enough
because you love too much.
You’re not enough
because you think too much.

No matter
which way
they cut me
or divided me
or tried to summarize me,
I was never enough.

But I’ve had enough.

So I’ll become more than
they thought I could
because I’ve always
been more than
I thought I was
because the secret is
I am enough.

• ❇ •

Wanted to share this particular poem from Unraveling Light in honor of World Suicide Prevention Day. May it serve as a reminder that you are enough, that there is hope, and that there is so much more to you than you can ever realize. You are loved. Please keep fighting.

• ❇ •

Featured Photo by Milan Popovic on Unsplash

I Am Unraveled

Leave a comment

Every so often, I write a blog post that calls back to the title that is displayed on my blog. Capturing Life’s Chapters, it reads. When I started this blog, it didn’t have much sense of direction. All I knew was that I had just changed my name, and needed a fresh start on the internet. A place to share what I’m going through, what my dreams are, and to reflect on where I’ve been.

Today is one of those posts, because today friends, is in a way, the first day of the rest of my life.

Unraveling Light is officially for sale, and I am a published author.

oscars-2013-quotes-22
Me at my first book baby.

The day in all did not come with much pomp or circumstance. I haven’t even left the house, because I’ve just been mostly going back and forth between cleaning my room and posting about the release all across the internet. It’s been a lot of staring at my screen, and feeling like I’m shouting out into a void. But the congratulations from friends and people that did find their way to me where all so heartfelt and genuine, that you’d think from the look on my face that I landed on the NYT list. My first book came in with a whisper, but it was a whisper full of love and kindness and excitement, and I will forever be grateful that my journey into publishing began this way. With unexpected surprises, with unbridled enthusiasm, and even in some cases, making people realize they could love poetry when they never had before.

q1T6uJRJ

I’m so beside myself with joy that I really and truly do not know what else to say. My heart is just so very, very full. 

I know that ahead lies uncharted territory. I have a whole new world to navigate before me. New stories, new adventures, and new perils as well. I know it won’t be easy, but I feel a kind of ready that I have never felt before. Just a thousand thank yous to every person who helped get me to today, and here’s to whatever wonders await for tomorrow and beyond.

I should probably get some rest after such an emotional day, but y’all know me. 😉 I have something brewing, and as my favorite GIF to use for writing days always says…

supernatural we got work to do

Unraveling Light
is now available to order on
Barnes & Noble | Amazon | IndieBound

Fresh Start

1 Comment

It’s days like today where the subtitle for my blog (Capturing Life’s Chapters) feels particularly fitting. After writing yesterday about my end of an era with working for MuggleNet, today feels like a bright new beginning, with lots of exciting things ahead.

Now that I will have more time, I have big plans to make Elayna Musings my main focus. What with Unraveling Light on the way, pending queries out there for They Are the Last, and a bunch of bubbling new ideas, the next few months look to be unreal levels of exciting. So I thought to kick things off, I’d share an update, detailing all the awesomesauce things y’all have to look forward to in the next few months. Let’s get to it.

They Are the Last

As I’ve been working on the poetry, and also waiting to hear back on my first major round of query letters, this project has been on a bit of a hiatus. I’ve got big plans for working on what will be the third draft this summer, before sending out more queries this fall. Just know that even though I haven’t been talking about it as much online, does NOT mean it has gone anywhere. Trust friends, I’m doing my best to get Piper’s adventures into your hands ASAP.

Unraveling Light

As of this writing, the manuscript is in the hands of my editor. (GOSH DOES IT FEEL COOL TO TYPE THAT PHRASE) She is hard at work doing final edits, as I’m over here finalizing the art work and making perks. Currently, we’re still on schedule to release it June 26th, 2018, but keep your eyes on this space for any updates should that need to change! And while you’re waiting, feel free to add the book to your shelves on Goodreads! *faints in disbelief over having a book on Goodreads*

Patreon

This is something I have always regretted not having more time for, because so many of the volunteer things I was doing on the side took up my every extra hour. But now that I’m re-centering on my own creative works, I’m psyched to announce I have done a 100% overhaul of my Patreon page, including a new about section, rewards, and goals. Y’all know well enough by now that being a full time writer and making you more stuff is the dream, so if you have $1 a month to spare and want to help make that happen, head on over. It is in conjunction with Patreon that I am absolutely bursting to tell you about another new project I am launching as of today.

elluminations

Bringing Unraveling Light to life with you all has been one long, magical dream, and it has made me realize how much I desperately love writing poetry. Having to keep that book down to just poems that suited the themes became harder and harder as new poems and ideas poured out of me. But to publish full collections of them with art included on a frequent basis would be something that would burn me out faster than you could blink. However, Patreon’s monthly subscription model has birthed an idea for how I can share my poems with you all on a more regular basis, without fizzling out.

Introducing elluminations. 

elluminations is going to be a quarterly chapbook that I plan to put together for you all so that when I don’t have a major release coming out, you still can have new, original content from me. In keeping with the theme of Unraveling Light, I felt elluminations was the perfect name, because not only is it a nod to my first published collection AND my own name, but it also hearkens back to illuminated manuscripts of medieval texts, in which monks painted elaborate designs around their letters and pages.

A chapbook, for the uninitiated, is just a shorter collection of poems by a single author, so you can expect that each one will contain anywhere between 10 and 30 new poems for you. Since monthly would be too hectic of a turnaround, but one a year would be too few, I’ve decided I will release a new volume each season. (So for the rest of this year that means you can expect one in June, September, and December!) Each volume will be named by a unifying theme to tie these little collections together. I already have some ideas brewing about the first one, which I’m hoping to release right around the same time as Unraveling Light this June.

But HERE’S THE REAL EXCITING PART! These past few weeks, as things with Unraveling Light have been flourishing, I’ve managed to put together a Volume 0 which will be free and available to the public, both here on my blog and on Medium, so that you can get a taste of what to expect from future editions!

Volume 0 is titled Independent, and the theme deals with the journey I found myself on as I struggled through the loss of my parents. A rough topic to start on I know, but this mini collection (which features 17 poems in all) is very close to my heart. And if you end up enjoying what you read, you can hit up Patreon to become a supporter, so that you’ll get all the future volumes delivered to you once they’re done! (So for $5 a month, you get a subscription to elluminations plus a bunch of other cool stuff!) I am so, so excited to get this project started.

—

So that about wraps things up for now! As I said a dozen times in this post, I am THRILLED to finally be dedicating my time to writing and creating original things for you. 2018 really is shaping up to be one helluva creative year, and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. ^_^

 

 

Cover photo by unsplash-logoDebby Hudson

 

Survive

Leave a comment

I do not always succeed. I feel I fail more often than not. But I am trying. I am fighting. I won’t let my efforts be forgot. There’s this pressure from the world, that I must meet specific goals. But my heart says something different, it sings a song of old. Before the world knew war, and before hatred plagued our souls, love brought about creation, the Greatest Story Ever Told. Evolution is a process, but does not mean love isn’t real. Science is the explanation, for why we feel the way we feel. To think the spirit does not exist, and that the soul is in our imaginations, is a fallacy most high, and shows the devil’s desperation. We are beings of magic and atoms, trying to do our best. And while we fail some of the time, we succeed the rest. Every second I keep breathing, is an accomplishment of joy. Every moment that I keep going, that’s a failure I’ve destroyed. I do not always succeed, but ever, I still try. I won’t let the world make me broken. Somehow, I’ll survive…

• ❇ •

This poem will be featured in Unraveling Light, my debut collection of poetry*.

 

(*Cries for days because I can finally say that phrase.)

First Memory

Leave a comment

First Memory

It was an earthen rainbow,
a sprawling sea of leaves,
bright reds, brilliant yellows,
fading greens.

We’re all packed in the van.
Mom’s driving, always
steering our family forward,
though getting no more credit
than a stranger driving a cab.

I know these things now,
for losing her taught me much
that I wish I’d never had to learn.
But I treasure those changing trees.

I don’t remember
the 90s song that
played on the radio,
but I remember
that earthen rainbow.
I remember the
September breeze
through the window
dusting my small cheeks
in the same way
I remember my mother…
with love, and with peace.

⚬⧝⚬

This poem is an excerpt from Unraveling Light, Elayna Mae Darcy’s debut collection of poetry, coming summer 2018. The book is currently available for pre-order on Kickstarter.

 

 

 

 

You

Leave a comment

C3Eift4l

You

First,
I had to collapse
and admit to the power
I’d given my name,
and know that it had
become a black hole,
consuming who I
wanted to be.

I came undone,
a revelation that lasted
twenty-four revolutions
around the sun.

Across time and space
who I could be
called out to me,
a quiet voice,
somewhere beyond,
out in the void.

Alone, in the quiet
with fabric sheets and concrete
separating me from the sky,
I heard her…

I found her.

And though she spoke
in a whisper,
I knew she spoke truth,
I am here.
I am light.
I am you.

—

For this poem and more, pre-order Unraveling Light, Elayna’s debut poetry collection, now crowdfunding on Kickstarter.

 

My Turn

2 Comments

As a writer, I have always agreed with J.K. Rowling on her words…

Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.

That statement has proven true in my life time and time again. For every word that has hurt me, there have been more that have healed. For all the words that cause me to doubt, there have been just as many to inspire, and it was three words my roommate said to me about two weeks back that ignited something inside me.

Our conversation wasn’t unlike many of the others we’ve had before. One of the biggest topics was my fear that I can’t do “this.” By “this”, I mean be a published author.

Waiting to hear back from agents is painstaking. Watching other debut authors bask in the glow of their first books is incredible. Feeling like I could never be among them even if I tried has been disheartening. But on this particular night, there was one thing my roommate said that must have been exactly what I needed to hear. With three simple words, he sparked a fire…

“It’s your turn…”

This struck me, and it is because of that conversation that a project that I’ve been working on for months is about to come alive in a way I had not originally planned, but which am now thrilled to pursue. It is because of those three words that I was able to find the courage at last, make this announcement, which I’m happy crying over as I type.

I’m publishing a book, y’all.

Allow me to (tearfully) present to you, Unraveling Light, my debut collection of poetry.

a collection of poetry

As of the time of this writing, you can click the above link and be whisked away through the interwebs to a Kickstarter campaign, where I am raising the set-up funds to self-publish the book this summer. My starting goal is only $900, which means if 36 people decide to pre-order a signed paperback right now (really, did I mention the link’s right here?) then that’s it. I’ll have the funds needed to publish, and the rest is just whipped cream and cherries.

As I’ve shared this news with friends and family in the past few weeks, some have expressed surprise that I write poetry. Trust me, no one is as surprised as I am that my first published work is going to be poems. For while I’ve been actively writing poetry for the past few years, I never would have dreamed when I started that it would ever be something I would want to share with others, because of how deeply personal much of it is. But as I’ve been chipping away at progress on my YA series, writing poetry has become a truly joyous outlet for me and has served as a magnificent means of self-expression. Putting together this collection, and subsequently finding a passion for doodling and word art that accompanies the poems, has been an unbelievable experience of growth, and so I couldn’t be happier to finally be ready enough to release it.

The campaign runs from today until April 25th, concluding on that date because that would have been my mother’s birthday, and she is the one to whom this book is dedicated. I tear up thinking about her, and wondering how she would feel to know that not only am I finally chasing my life’s greatest dream, but that I am doing it on my own terms. My mom always supported me, and I wouldn’t be the writer, dreamer, or person I am without her encouragement, even when the rest of the world didn’t believe in me.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some teasers of the book here on my blog, but you can get more frequent updates by donating to the Kickstarter today so that you get notified as soon as something new develops with the project! For donating, you can get all manner of fun things from handmade bookmarks, to audiobooks, to signed copies of the book, and even custom art prints. By donating, you’d be helping me to achieve something I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid. So basically a ton of great karma on top of all the swag. A pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

I know there’s not many people who read this blog. I know that as far as the publishing world is considered, I am still a nobody. Hell, even when this campaign succeeds and the book is out there, it still isn’t likely to be a bestseller or to change the world. But it is my heart put to paper. As my campaign page says…

The words in this volume serve as not just the written sum of one person’s experiences, but as a celebration of surviving them.

As I begin this journey, I find myself so happy to have survived. I am so happy to still be writing. I am so happy to be alive to share this with you. I hope that whoever you are, stranger or friend, you can find some shred of magic in my words, and that through that, you can feel the same hope I feel as I put Unraveling Light out into the world.