Dreamward Bound is the longest blog series of forthejoyoftiff.com. It is all about Tiffany Joy’s journey towards her dreams and how she worked on achieving her goals.
She is of course not complete with her journey, but has since turned her writing time over to a few different pursuits.
If you know me or a random cashier that rang me up last night, you know that I am going to South Africa soon. I mean really soon, so this will be my last post for a few weeks. Â I will try to post a video on YouTube. If I don’t post my send off video there I will at least tweet a signing-off type of tweet.
I don’t really have any other updates besides my trip. I mean it’s a big trip and I have been focusing on that all week. Plus I am working a little bit on my other projects, but nothing that I can really talk about. It’s all just working stuff out with them.
When I get back from my trip I am sure I will have more updates and things to talk about.
Hello you wonderful people. As you can tell from reading this post, my site is back up. It took a longer than I thought and hoped for. Plus, it’s not what I had been planing, but I will work on separating and cleaning everything up from this point forward. I just really wanted some sort of website up.
Now, there are a few updates I should be sharing here. The biggest thing is that I am going to be going on my first out of the states missions trip soon. I am super excited for that. I will be going to South Africa at the end of this month. I actually made a video while the site was down explaining it a little bit more. Here is that video
I am also working on different projects that I will be publishing. Right now I am focusing on getting the first five out. I am hoping that I will be able to have finish products starting close to when I get back from South Africa and others being published every quarter. This seems like a feat and it is. It is do-able because the first one is a re-publishing/ second edition of my Growing Poems and the most of the others are short as well. I will be publishing them all on Kindle unlimited and may even look into publishing them through Amazon’s self-publishing company CreateSpace as a hard copy.
I mentioned Growing Poems, but I do have other ones and plans for them. After Growing Poems I will be publishing Poetic Art this is another poetry book, but it has a twist. These poems are coming from my more recent writings and from this blog. You may have noticed that about 100 posts have been removed. Now not all of these are being used for Poetic Art but some are. The twist with this book is that as of right now it will only be published as a hard copy, because after I have all the poetry pick, edited, and printed out I am going to draw, doodled and maybe even paint around the boarder and white space of the pages. This will bring another aspect to the poetry. I do have the actual poems pretty much edited how I would like them. Most of the work now will be the visual art.
I was going to do this next book a little farther down, but it seems to be the next easiest one to edit. This is a compilation of my short stories. Some are taken from this blog, others are taken from classes and I believe there may be one or two that I just never shared. I am going to be editing them and maybe expanded on a few micro stories. This one will need some more work and a title. For the title I’m thinking Stuff and Things, but I’m not sold on that. I feel like I should mention that if it is a series of short stories or was suppose to be a series of short stories I am not adding them to this book. This means that the I Am A Bagel, Story Time With Pink Sunshine, and Space-Riders will not be in this book. I also am going to try to revisit those series for this blog more, but we’ll see.
Now about 3 months after that is published I am going to be publishing all of my writing prompts. I am working on editing them to be clear and helpful. In addition they are being organized into story, poetry and other prompts. It may have a fourth section if I decide to re-organize it with a ‘strengthening your writing skills’ section. I will also be adding more of a description into how the prompt could help you and adding some more to the book. My goal for this book is that it will be able to give a year of inspiration at least to one person, so 365 quality prompts. That is why I am shooting for a Q4 (end of the year) publish for this book. I also need a title for this one.
The last one, besides my novel, that I am actively working on is a book called To Love. I might change the title to To My Love, but I’m not sure. The basic premise of this book is that it is a long love letter to my future husband. I have written him little things in the past, either when I am lonely or wishing for him to be known. I am also adding short stories, poetry, and I think a few monologues in the book. In addition I did add the first chapter of the first novel that I technically finished. It was just the first draft and I lost the story half way through the second draft.  I added the first chapter though, since the novel was my fantasy about how I would find him and who he would be.  Now, some of the writings may find their way into the other books, but I am editing the writings in this book separately. This will cause/ allow each writing piece unique to each book and give the readers something new.
I also have a few others that once the ones listed are done I will be able to actually focus on. The first one is called The Listening Tree and will be a kids book. I’m calling the one after that Dear God right now and it’ll be like To Love in that it will be a compilation of writings to a specific person. Dear God will just be the poetry, short stories, or some of my prayers to God. I am hoping with this to share my relationship and journey to God. Lastly I have one I am calling Journey To Me and this is more of a memoir type book. It is also the one that I am most fuzzy about. I know the general idea will be looking at how I became the person I am. I think it will be goal oriented and explaining how I viewed myself along with how I now view myself. It may turn into a self-perception study and most likely will have some psychological aspects to it. I am not sure though. I’m not really focusing on that or any of the last three I rambled off.
Finally I am working on my novel. It is titled Duality and I am about half way through my second draft. I don’t really want to give myself a dead-line with this. I am going for quality not quantity with this one.
I did say pretty much all that in the video below.
With all that being said, I am still going to be doing weekly DreamWard Bound posts. However, I do not foresee being able to do much more than that. Perhaps if the books become successes than I will be able to free up my time and write even more, but as the plan stands I will only commit to one post a week.
It seems like a long week, packed with work and social media. I have reasons for feeling like this week was focused on social media and the internet. I took a webinar, my improv troupe created social media accounts, and I am starting a new project that requires accounts. There are reasons why you have not heard about the new accounts that I helped set up and will be working with.
The improv troupe is still getting the promotional information up. We should be tweeting and posting later this week. When we do I will be retweeting and sharing posts.
The other project still needs some definition and to be smoothed out. It also needs images or at least a logo. When we have everything ready for that I will also be retweeting and sharing posts. I will also be talking about it more and giving you details.
In general I am going to try to be more social on social media. I am going to try to share more things that I think are interesting and basically just be more active. I learned a lot of tips while taking Amy Jo Berman’s webinar about social media. I also had a few smiles when I realized I am doing some things right.
That being said once this site is on the right server I will be changing my site up. It will have 3 distinct areas. Each are will have its own feel and aspect of myself. This means that when you go to the home page there will be 3 sections to choose from (Actor, Author, and Artist). I will have the most recent blog post on the home page, but everything else will be under one of the other aspects. This way I can represent myself more clearly and fully. It is exciting to be making changes, but it will also be a lot of work.
Looking back on this post, it seems like a lot of it was what will happen. I promise I did do things. It takes work to set up awesomeness and I believe that all that is being set up now will be great.
I feel like I am getting back into being dreamward bound. My schedule is filled up with meet-ups directed towards my creative life. I am painting every month with a friend. I am writing/ editing with another friend every other week. Reading articles and tips about acting almost every day during breaks from work. I am also starting to work on getting my wardrobe audition ready. This means that I am trying to buy more professional looking clothes instead of just t-shirts and jeans. I am also getting back into shape and went back to BJJ for the first time in about a month.
Yes, after a hard time of being so busy, stressed, and drained my life if back on track. It may even be more on track than before. I at least feel more thankful and blessed now, which causes a greater happiness. Basically what I am trying to say is that life is good after a stressed out and draining month or two.
The only thing that is not so great is that it is taking longer for this site to be transferred over to HostGator’s servers, which means it is taking longer to get everything configured how I would like it and set up revenue. Â Also, since I thought my site was going to be transferred over this week I did not want to post/ write things that may disappear if something went wrong.
This week I was packed full of work, Halloween and site stuff. I am in the process of transferring over this site to hostgator. I put on a Haunted House for my work. It was also my birthday on Thursday. Plus, I had to work a slightly later, which mean traffic. This week there was a lot of traffic in my life. It really was all traffic and Halloween crafts.
Yes, this week was busy, and I am happy that it is over. However, I am excited for the new things that will be coming to this site. I will be practicing my coding a bit more since I will have more control over the code. I will also be able to put ads on the site. I know it’s not great, but if I can get a little revenue from this site I can do more creative stuff. That means if I have ads I can post more fun things on this site.
Now, I am drained, but with the creativity of the Haunted House it is in a good way. I think I deserve the rest of the day to myself watching Shakespeare or vampires (not the sparkly kind).
This week was a good week. I was productive, although you, my blog, saw none of it. I have a couple of poems that I will be typing up and posting this week. I also worked on my book for 7 hours last Saturday and painted for a few hours on Sunday.
In addition I am gearing up for my first improv show. I’ve of course have acted in scripted plays and musicals before, but never an improv show. I am really excited to be getting back on stage. It is not for a couple of months, but we still need to get performance ready.
Since it is almost Halloween I am also working on getting everything ready for my work’s Haunted House.  It is turning into more work than I have time for, but it is fun. Really, anything besides writing and acting takes up too much time in my opinion, at this moment. It is fun being creative in this way. It is basically putting on a production with very little resources.
This week’s post is pretty short and I am trying to think of other things to write, but there is nothing. I also just want to type up the poems I wrote and get going on my day, so that is what I will do.
I hope you have a wonderful week and enjoy or enjoyed the two posts that I wrote this week.
The past two or three weeks have been pretty stressful for me. I couldn’t figure out how to balance my day job, commute, and creative life. I just could not do it. I realized this week with a little help from a friend that I needed to step back and breathe. I needed to reset to see my projects as projects not stressers.
Taking a step back meant that I focused this week on resetting my brain and relaxing. I needed some rest, because I work 40 hours a week at my day job and then 20 hours (on a ‘good’ week) at my creative life. Most Saturdays now are focused solely on creative stuff. Sundays I force myself to not be creative. I basically burnt myself out and tried to keep going, until this week.
This week I took a break from everything. That is why I only posted one thing this week. I only worked on my creative life on Monday. The rest of the week was focused on helping friends, hanging out with them and not worrying.
I also took yesterday off of work to do errands and adult stuff that I never have time to do, so that is a load off my shoulders. I was going to be creative for most of the day, but adult stuff takes time and a friend was able to do lunch while my car was getting its oil change. Hanging out with my friend seemed like a good plan, especially since this weekend will be heavily focused on creative stuff. Today a friend and I are getting together for Caffeinated Creative Capers, which is basically us sitting in a coffee shop working on our projects together for 5 hours. Than on tomorrow I will be painting with another friend. We will be painting faces and on canvas, so I am looking forward to that.
Hopefully this packed weekend of creativity will complete the resetting of my brain and push me towards my goals and dreams quicker or at least help me get there. I know stress, worry, and a clouded head is the worst thing to have when trying to be creative. I just need to remember to make sure I clear away the cobwebs of everyday living regularly, I guess.
Now, I am going to prepare for being creative and leave you with the one thing I did this week.
This week I was partly trying to find balance in my crazy life and partly giving in to the low brain power that kept happening after work. I just could not get motivated or inspired to do anything creative this week. Even now it’s hard to write this. I just want to relax and watch television.
The last 2 days after work that is what I did. I just watched television shows until I went to sleep. It was nice to unplug my brain by plugging it into some interesting shows. I hadn’t watched a new show in a very long time. I hadn’t been watching television for most of the summer and wanted to limit my television time when I started again. I have only really been watching my three shows (Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Once Upon A Time) by myself. It was what I needed after a draining week at work.
I also went to BJJ class this week, which was the first time in about a month. It at least feels like a month and hadn’t gone for 3 weeks in August, also. It is getting tough to wake up on Saturday morning to go and Mondays have been crazy busy for me. I went this week though. I got there late, but I got there. It was good to be on the mat again.
I wanted to be creative and write. I do have a list of creative things I want to get done and projects I should work on. It was not the week for creativity. Other things took up my time. I guess it is okay to have off weeks, even though I do not like them.
Another note worthy thing is that I may start focusing on my list of projects that I would like to see done. I have my kids book that is still in the works. My next poetry book has a title and a few poems listed to work on. I also have my web-series, production company, novel and acting career that I would like to work on too. In addition I will be looking to find things that will create some extra income, so that I can either save up or have a little automated income stream in order to take a year off and focus solely on my creative life. I am hoping little steps now will lead to big success later on.
With all that random disjointed stuff being said I will leave you with the two things I posted this week.
Work was a little crazy this week. One of our offices had a power outage for two days, which meant we covered for them. I also, did not feel like I was able to get into a good rhythm for the entire week. Every day just was a weird stress and distractions. This combination drained me and caused me to come home late at least 2 nights this week.
On top of that I am supposed to be switching to a hosting company, writing a web-series script, editing my book, and writing artistic posts for this blog. I have other projects or things I should be doing too, but those are my main focus at this time. I do want to do another recorded monologue, finish my kids’ book, work on my poetry art book and figure out the best way to start selling some art pieces. I just don’t have time to do everything I want.
I think it is needless to say, at least as far as explaining, but I am feeling an immense deal of pressure this week. I am wondering when a break in stress will come and looking for some free time. I don’t mean a day or so off of work, but a change in work, so that I can have time to actually follow my dreams. I know something needs to change. I just need to find out what and how. I like the company I work for and enjoy most of the work I do, when I’m not stressed.
It stinks that this stressful week came after only two weeks of artistically productiveness. I was hoping for a snowball effect. Instead it came to a screeching halt, which makes everything feel worst.
Thankfully there was some sunshine and happiness to this week. Last night I went to a friend’s band’s show. I took pictures and danced. It was a great stress release. It was also a wonderful boost in confidence when a college girl came up to me to request a song. She may have had a couple, but when I told her I would see what I could do. I mean the band’s set list was set and I wasn’t sure what songs they cover. They had already planned to play that song though. When I went back and told her she was thrilled. She was so happy that she started to shower me with compliments and hugs. I should restate, she was drinking that night and is a college girl. She loved everything about me and I’m going to accept the compliments. She also asked what I was studying as if I was a college student too. I smiled and told her I graduated college. Yeah, I got my bachelor’s degree 6 years ago and at least with my makeup done and in a dark room I look college age to a tipsy girl.
I also have some fun things planned for today, although I am would rather just stay home and work on my creative life. I know being social, helping a good cause and being around friends are good things though. I need balance in my life, so I am going to force myself to have balance and be happy.
Well, I’m going to finish this post like I always do. Here is a list of things I did this week.
I was going to go to BJJ training today. I started to wake up early enough. I actually thought I didn’t turn on my alarm, because it seemed later than it was. I wanted to go, too. I need to get back into a routine with training. It would have been really great to move my body and feel great about myself. However, Saturdays are my only day I get sleep in and relax in the morning. I also realized I have a full 8 hour day of editing, writing, and producing, well setting up the first things for my production company.
This work is good. I am actually taking major steps towards my dreams. I can see things coming together. Really, it is the beginning of things coming together. I am still far away from every real dream I have. And, it is also a lot of work to get to my dreams. I just have to keep reminding myself that it will be worth it. 8 hrs of work on Saturdays, weeknight work sessions, commuting to my day job, and working 8 hrs at my day job will be worth living my dreams.
I also have made a decision to start researching different hosting platforms and ad services. This way I can actually make profit with this site in hopes that I can partly support myself with this site. I am also looking into creating an online store on this site, so that you can buy my artwork easily. Basically, I am looking for different income revenues in order that I can free up my time to do more creative things. Freedom seems a long way away. Still, success is made up of little steps in the right direction.
Yes, I have a lot of work ahead of me and I am procrastinating by looking around the internet. I mean, I have looked for YouTube videos about the top hosting companies and microphones for better sound quality in my videos. I have also been looking at my Facebook and Twitter to see if there is any new interactions and talking with an actor friend. It’s not like I went around looking at cat pictures or goofy videos. Still, I do need to get to work on editing, writing, and producing.
I’m going to go do that now. Here is some other stuff that I did this week.
