Keith Shafer-Renaissance Man

Texas Bluebonnet

Wow! Has it been almost four months since my last post…my how time DOES fly!

February 2019 is almost in the can and that means we’ve been in Fredericksburg, Texas now about four months…and that’s the longest we’ve been in one place since we went full time in our RV back in early 2017. In those four months a lot has happened.

1. We bought a house. Yes, we bought a house and will now base our travels out of Fredericksburg. Since Texas is pretty much in the center of the USA it’ll mean we’re not traveling coast to coast every year. Of course that means more time to stop and smell the Bluebonnets!
   
   
2. We’ve gotten involved. Ilene’s joined the local Native Plant Society of Texas, I’ve joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Ex-military Flyers, and we’ve found a wonderful church to attend, St Thomas Antiochian Orthodox Church.
   
   
3. We’re staying busy. We’ve both attended local classes on fly fishing, gardening, egg tempera painting, and Texas forensic archeology. Later this month we’re also looking at volunteering at a local historical site, helping to start a local flying club, and I just attended my first Urban Sketcher outing as part of the Die Kunstler von Fredericksburg group. Read the rest of this entry

That’s it, Inktober 2018 is in the can! Today I finished the last of 31 days of pen and ink drawings for Inktober 2018.

As I mentioned in my post last week it’s been a stretch. I decided to stay with the prompts and challenge myself to draw/ink pictures I might have otherwise avoided.

Some of the drawings I’m very happy with…others, I’m glad I did them but can tell I was rushed or didn’t spend much time planning the art. But that’s OK! I’ve learned a lot and can now concentrate on improving my work.

As you look at these pieces please understand how hard it can be to try and come up with a work of art from a single word prompt. Some ideas came to me right away…others, not so much. One of the fun things this month though was sharing the art on Instagram and having the chance to see what other artists came up with.

If you click on the pie you can see the whole month’s efforts. Compare them with the prompts and see if you’d have other ideas…I’m sure you would.

I hope you enjoy my art as much as I enjoyed the process of creating the daily pen & ink drawing. In the future I’ll work on my photography skills so my pictures will be cleaner and more indicative of what my pieces look like on paper.

Now I’m off to the next challenge—I wonder what it will be?

Shout out to Steven B. Reddy @steven_reddy, Alphonso Dunn @Alphonsodunn, and Steve Mitchell @mindofwatercolor for their guidance and inspiration.

Happy Trails, Safe Travels, and Make Art!

I’m a firm believer that artists may have talent but it’s only through hard work that artists get better. Just like athletes, writers and other artists can only get better by practice, practice, practice!

NaNoWriMo

To that end I have challenged myself over the years to practice my limited talents and skills with the help of online challenges. In 2015 I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and completed 30 days dedicated to completing 50,000 words on a NEW novel. You can read about my exploits here.

Now that Ilene and I are full-time RVers one would think I’d have more time to dedicate to my artistic activities…and you’d be wrong. It seems like the more time I have, the more time I don’t seem to have. I still have a home to take care of, this one on wheels. We do a lot of sightseeing since we travel more. Oh, and I seem to ADD more hobbies as time goes on.

What started as being interested in watercolor painting last November has morphed into pen & ink drawing, urban sketching, plein air painting and drawing, blog posting on three sites, working as a voice talent, and building an RV inspection business. And yes, I saw City Slickers—but I can’t seem to do just ONE thing! Read the rest of this entry

The motto of this blog is: “Just Write”. I chose that motto because it has been my observation when it comes to writing that to Just Write is the foundation for any successful writer. Advice from numerous successful writers led me to that phrase and cuts to the chase, as it were, about what one needs to do to become a successful writer.

Along the same lines I recently stumbled upon a TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, where she discusses the unseen force that gives writers and other artists the ability to reach the pinnacle of their chosen art. In a nutshell, she tells her listeners the job of a writer, or any other artist, is to Just Do the Work. By that she means a true professional will sit down at their word processor, typwriter, or legal pad each day and spend time doing the work required to write a short story, novel, or screenplay. In the course of doing the work a divine spirit, muse, or talent from within will take the writer to a state which produces works worthy of the writer. Read the rest of this entry

According to an article I read recently I wasn’t born to be writer. The article was written by a teacher, more specifically a  college professor, who taught creative writing and literature to young minds seeking a master’s degree in the “fine arts”.

According to this learned individual my chances of success in becoming a writer is quite bleak since I didn’t aspire to become a writer at a young age; nor did I follow the hallowed path of college and a liberal arts education immediately after high school. In his humble opinion there is little to no chance of me, or my kind ever becoming “real” writers. Read the rest of this entry

I picked up a copy of Let’s Write a Short Story by Joe Bunting not long ago because I believe, as do the author and John Gardner, author of On Becoming a Novelist, writing short stories is a great way to break into writing novels.

I’ve just finished reading the introduction of Joe’s book where he challenges his readers to not just read the book, but to Write a Short Story. In fact, he asks his readers to write a blog with “Let’s Write a Short Story” as the heading; which is the genesis of this week’s blog. Read the rest of this entry

Happy New Year!—Well, it is a bit early but just the same, I thought I’d take a moment and just throw down a challenge to my readers this week. Since 2016 is just around the corner, I’d like to know what are your writing goals for the coming year?

Writers Challenge # 1: Do you have a book, novel, short story you plan to publish? Announce your work to the world. Stop by either here at the blog or on my Twitter account and let us know when it’s out so we can pass along the good news!

My book, Crossroad in Time will be published early this year. I’ll let you know when it comes out. Read the rest of this entry

Chances are if you’re a writer you’re familiar with the story behind the successful book The Christmas Box. Richard Paul Evans, the author is said to have authored his book for his children. Originally self-published, the book became a local hit in Utah.

Needless to say, major publishing house caught wind of the book and Evans eventually received several million dollars in publishing rights. What began as a way for one writer to entertain his children became a successful writing career with over 20 million books in print. Read the rest of this entry

Night tells the story of a young Jewish boy, Eliezer Wiesel, who lives in a small town in Romania. Set in a Europe at war, the story begins with a warning, ignored.

An older Jewish man is deported from Elie’s town for being a foreigner in 1941.  Moishe the Beadle escapes and returns with warnings of mass killings and other Nazi atrocities. He pounds on doors and pleads with the Jews of his village to believe his stories, all to no avail.

“Who can believe such tales,” they ask, “What kind of men would do such things?”

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It’s the number one advice given to new writers. “If you want to be a writer, then write, and write every day.” Sound advice, and it makes sense, but…

As Jesus is said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” New writers want to write, but getting around to writing each and every day is fraught with peril and pitfalls. A writer will start the day with a set goal, resolved to write a magic number of words, then…

If you’re a writer or aspiring writer chances are good you know what I mean. Life gets in the way. And although you have every intention of getting 500, 1000, or more words onto the word processor—it just doesn’t happen.

How can you become a writer
if you don’t write daily?

Newsflash: Ain’t gonna happen

Read the rest of this entry