Guest Author Sarah Butland of Nova Scotia

 

It’s always fun to have one of my guests return for a second visit and that’s the case this week. Sarah shared an excerpt from her novel Blood Day on the last visit and you can see it HERE. She is kind enough to participate in a 4Q Interview.

 
 
Sarah Butland was born in Ontario, the year was 1982. She moved to New Brunswick for over 15 years and now resides at home in Nova Scotia, Canada. Butland has been married to her high school sweetheart and has a superstar son named William and Dogo Argentino named Lumen. Besides home schooling and working part time, Sarah finds time to follow her dream of being an author and teaching others that they can do the same.

 

 

4Q: It’s been awhile since your last visit Sarah. You’ve been quite busy as one can see from your website. Tell us about your latest work, I Saw the Forest.

 

SB: My latest work is I Saw the Forest, a short story, a practice in imagery and realizing my own obstacles I was letting keep me down. Being in the writing or any creative industry can be daunting and disheartening at times, frustrating when you feel like you’re beating your head against a wall in hopes someone, anyone, will hear. But for most of us in the creative arts, it would be harder to stop breathing than it would be to cease being passionate. 

I Saw the Forest ties in the saying “see the forest through the trees” as I have always had the opposite problem – dreaming so big I couldn’t see or celebrate the little steps or successes which often mean much more than we give them credit for. So, if you will, I always see the forest and not the trees.

 

 

4Q: So, where do your ideas come from Sarah? What inspires you?

 
SB: Good question and I wish I had an answer. The simplest way I can describe this is the ideas come through my fingers. Whether I’m typing or writing, I seem to be transported out of body to write the tales that come from literally thin air. Since I was a child I would wander through the forest behind my house and simply imagine. I didn’t need video games or role playing, I just needed a moment to enjoy the peace before the voices would visit and create chaos.
I write like I read, by the seat of my pants and not knowing what is coming next. It keeps me motivated to listen to the characters and the freedom to just tell their story with no expectations or fears of insulting anyone.

 

4Q: Pleased share a childhood memory or anecdote with us.

SB: When I was “taught” to craft stories in school it was mandatory to show a brainstorm or plot layout before writing the real thing. I struggled with this until I realized I could draft a story and go back to brainstorm or “draw the web” in the time it took my classmates to write out their plotline. I would present my scattered thoughts to the teacher, leaving my story on my desk, and then return to my seat to write another story so it looked like I was hard at work. Then, before the deadline, I would present the story I wrote and I don’t think my methods were ever questioned.  
 
 
 
 

4Q: You have an ongoing story on your website at present and you add to it daily I believe. What is this all about?

 SB: In March I happened to find an organized “AtoZChallenge” which invited participants to write a blog post every day in April starting with the next letter of the alphabet. I felt like I abandoned my blog for other projects at that time so immediately signed up, knowing it wouldn’t be easy but that it was necessary to get me out of my writing funk. And I did it! I wrote random posts about writing and the process of finding time to do what you love.

After I wrote I would occasionally blog hop to see what others participating were writing about and discovered some wrote a short story with each post. I thought it was brilliant and decided to personally challenge myself to keep going with the word a day challenge but write fictional pieces. When I got started I realized the project was turning into something bigger than I imagined as the story the characters were telling weren’t worthy of just one blog, they needed the entire month.

I try to write less than 500 words for a blog post in hopes that someone will actually read it and it just naturally breaks up like that.
*As I am replying to you it is May 27^th and I feel like it will either come to a very abrupt and awkward end or could continue. We’ll need to wait and see (or you can go back now as you’re readying this after May 31^st and see what happened). 

 

 
 
 

Thank you Sarah for being our guest this week and sharing your thoughts.

For those of you that want to discover more about Sarah and her writing, please visit her website at www.sarahbutland.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SarahButland/ and follow her Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/sarahbutland_co