With a vivid imagination and a love of reading Joy H has been neck deep in the world of the written words since she was in elementary school. Knowing that stories were not only an escape, but an enticement to living her best life.
Joy H has worn many hats over the years. Some fitting better than others.
Recently embracing her “empty nest” she has eagerly joined us here at Starkly Written. Here she hopes to share her decades of experience with reading and writing.
Starting innocently enough she joined National Novel Writing Month back in 2008, to see if all those dreams of writing were even something she should aim for. Surprising herself, imposter syndrome is alive and well in her psyche, she made 42,000 words her first try.
Starting in 2012 she joined an in-person group and hit over 72,000 words, though she never wrote “The End” that year. Standing with over a million words written during her yearly November escapade, showing the original basis of the foray is solid. Joy is an avid believer in using her Novembers to write outside her comfort zone.
She was first published in 2014 and again in 2015. Unfortunately, her publisher decided to end their imprint in 2016 and the follow-up to her 2014 novel never got out of editing. Though she still shared her stories on both Wattpad and Fiction Press. Even becoming finalist in contests held by various organizations.
A Sabbatical from looking to publish her work was needed starting in 2018. Due to multiple lengthy family health issues, publishing had to take a back seat to the realities of life and death. Stories were written, outlined and dreamed but the process of publishing and marketing them was a no-go for some years.
During those years workshops were taken to keep up on the writing world. Resources, such as books and websites, were vigorously embraced. Testing out different software to see what made her limited time more productive becoming a way to keep her creative juices from drying up.
Joy found during that time that doing graphics was a way to supplement when her stories went into hiding. Finding out that one trick she had seen passed around was actually a helpful fact for herself; book covers make a difference.
Having a book cover at the beginning of her writing offered encouragement to focus on just one story at a time.
This nugget of wisdom encouraged one of her renewed creative pursuits, designing book covers. Making them for her own and friends stories becoming a great way for when the muses went silent and restlessness for visual gratification couldn’t be denied.
Realizing that her love of writing was a wonderland of helpful tidbits Joy decided to become part of Starkly Written. She will be sharing her favorites, not so favorites, and downright resource wasting trials and tribulations.
Joy is also available for Coaching and Book Design.
You can contact Joy directly below:
Joy's Camp Project
