Our Creativity Era Has Just Begun

Some Ideas for Leaning In to Your Creative Calling

Winter Oranges on Silver Tray, SRB 2026

In This Issue

• A Short Note from Shelley

• Our Creativity Era Has Just Begun—a February pappus

• In Defiance of Sharks—a short story excerpt

• Writing & Publishing News

• Pen & Ink

A Short Note from Shelley

Dear Friend,

First, I want to thank all of you who read the seven launch week emails. I enjoyed sharing more of the “behind the scenes” story of how Strawberry Moon Mystery came into being, and from your comments both here and in other places, I think you enjoyed them, too.

Second, I’m moving past the frenetic energy of launch and salesy stuff and into a renewed era of being creatively focused. Sharply focused on just that—on creativity. I know it’s been a touchstone for this newsletter since its inception, but other parts of my writing life distracted me in a way that no longer feels worthwhile or even useful, namely social media and marketing and striving (the worse-tasting word in the world) to get attention in the “attention economy.”

More on that topic in the pappus essay along with some ideas for embracing your own creativity.

Third, I’m going to begin sharing snippets of short stories or complete flash fictions in each newsletter. I’d love your feedback as these might end up in a collection. Check out the excerpt from In Defiance of Sharks in this February edition.

Fourth, I’ll tell you a little bit about how the launch of Strawberry Moon went, what I’ve learned about indie publishing through this process, and what I’m working on next. See the Writing & Publishing News section.

Finally, as I’m embracing—in a tight, lover’s grip—this creative era, I long to move beyond the screen and into IRL again, including physical correspondence via the post office. Mail. Paper and ink and stamps.

I hope this Pink Dandelions newsletter/publication inspires you every month in your creative journey, whether it’s art or writing or decorating or gardening or crafting of all types. I want to hear about it! I truly want to know what you love and feel a need to create. Comment or send an email reply. I write back.

Please join me on this journey, and keep the swirling & blissful Creator’s Energy alive in your heart!

In solidarity & love,

Shelley

February Pappus: Our Creativity Era Has Just Begun

A pappus is the seed fluff drifting on the current soft air, carrying the seed to fertile soil in which it can germinate.

Since the new year and returning to Guam, I’ve been journaling nearly every day, sticking to that practice because it’s good for me emotionally, mentally, and creatively. These pages are free-form. Sometimes I make lists. Sometimes I free-form write a scene or a few paragraphs. Sometimes I plan and plot and bascially “take notes” from my imagination.

My journals are for me and only me. I rarely revisit them except if I want to retrieve some of those notes or plot ideas. I don’t care if they are pretty or ugly or in a different ink or uniform in structure. My handwriting is attrocious most of the time.

Yesterday, following this frantic, months-long period of rewriting, formatting, uploading, launching, and marketing my first self-published book, I found myself taking a deep breath, pouring words onto the page, and rededicating myself to the force that inspired me to write that book and everything else I’ve composed in my forty years of writing practice. The force of creativity.

Our New Creative Era Rising

With everything going on right now, and in spite of the tasteless, smell-less, sterile poison that is AI’s non-living“breath” seeping into nearly every corner of our human world, I feel something rising in humanity: a desire to turn our backs (some a little, some a lot) on technology and to return, instead, to our humanity. All our messy, emotional, fleshy, smelly, oozy, soaring, dancing, laughing, swirling in circles on the grass, and lifting our faces to feel the rain humanity.

Do you feel it? Do those words grab you by the hand and swing you around? Do they make your heart lift?

Typing them makes me feel happy. I wrote about this creativity era in my journal yesterday, about how I feel as if we are moving into a new phase of life, one that is more connected with actual, living things: people, nature, animals, human-made art and crafts, voices raised in song, feet pounding a rhythmic dance, long hugs, big smiles, and laughing together over a shared experience.

Our new creativity era has begun, I feel it swirling around me, and it brings a feeling of peace and giddiness at the same time. I want to create. I want to share. I want to be in commune with other creators.

I’m dedicating myself to creativity. I’m letting ego and the materialist/capitalist side of the writing life become just a sidenote to the main event. It feels like turning a corner. Here, something whispers to me, is the human-scaled place to dwell.

The road to this place has been rocky.

My Failure

Dear reader, I’ve failed. In the attention economy, I’ve failed. Pretty sure my heart wasn’t in it enough, or else I just wasn’t good at it. I never wanted to be famous, not even a little bit famous. I really just wanted my stories to find readers who would enjoy them, who would find my stories a respite from daily struggles, boredom, or even pain. But, yes, I wanted a somewhat larger number of readers than I’ve managed to gather so far. That’s my failure.

I’m confident in the quality of my work and storytelling. My failure is not reaching my readership.

I kept telling myself that I needed to be on the social media platforms in order to do everything I could for my stories (and for my publisher, too.) See, back in the 2010s I’d deleted my original personal Facebook page after getting sucked into political debate once too often. It felt icky. When I decided I needed to get back on Facebook in 2019, it was with a dedicated purpose: my professional writing career.

That was the year after I’d worked as a ghostwriter, wrote my first published book, saw it go into print by an academic press. I felt like my career was truly beginning after decades of practice, short story publication, and newspaper writing. I wanted to help that book succeed.

Sometime after that, I started an Instagram account. As I published two small press mystery novels, I shared the ups and downs (but mostly the ups because . . . marketing is a fake it until you make it kind of proposition) of my writing life plus parts of my life that might interest people in “the person behind the pen.”

And I was authentic. I don’t really know another way to be. I kept some things to myself (hello, politics!) yes. However, I didn’t gloss my life up to unreal shine and sparkle. I let my little light shine in belief that I’d attract the right readers, the right people into my circle.

But. BUT.

The culmination of my social media-ing has amounted to very little. If this is the “crowning moment” of my creative life, then I’m in deep trouble. Around the same time I jumped back into social media, the tech companies made that big algorithmic pivot. No longer would posts be shown to everyone who followed/friended you. In fact, the systems deliberately curtailed organic reach. It’s gotten worse every year.

It didn’t work for me. It’s not working for society, either. It’s a pox on our soul. So, I’ve decided I’m done with it.

Inspired by a few podcasters who happened to speak out against or at least investigate the dangers of social media—smart folks from different disciplines like Becca Syme in the writing coach space; Cal Newport in the tech space; Scott Galloway in the entrepreneur space; Jonathan Haight, Ezra Klein, Jon Favreau, and too many others to name—and some writers who have already taken the leap away from the social media platforms, I’m taking a 30-day break from Facebook and Instagram with the idea that I probably won’t return.

It feels like giving up on my writing career, but that’s a false message. It’s all a lie they’ve told us, the technocrats.

We don’t need social media. Social media needs all of US.

I am feeling very confident that I can be a happy, creative human without being on social media and begging for likes and follows and feeding a dopamine addiction. I can get pleasure from writing and quiet contemplation and by being in community with other people.

If this sounds appealing to you, but you aren’t sure where or how to begin your creativity era, read on.

Five Steps to Begin Your Creativity Era

One: rethink your relationship with social media and technology. I’m just beginning here with a 30-day hiatus from Facebook and Instagram, but I have a pretty good inkling that I won’t be returning. I’m going to delete my Bluesky account because I rarely use it. I never had TikTok. I’m 99% sure I deleted my old Twitter account after Elon grabbed it, and I never liked it anyway.

There are much better uses of my time than making social media content and the endless scroll.

What about Substack? Substack is a combination of blog, newsletter service, and social media, and I’m using it mostly for the newsletter service. I do subscribe to several letters.

Okay, it’s 35.

I know. I have a problem. It was 70 subscriptions yesterday, though, and I culled them to half. More culling to come.

There are a LOT of great people talking about cool things on here, and it’s tempting to want to “support” people we know and like. Still, if we are to listen to our own small, still, inner voices, we need quiet and we don’t need a clamour of other voices in our heads. So . . .

Two: Curate your inspirational sources. There are likely several podcasts, influencers, authors, newsletters, journalists, etc. that inspire and inform you in your daily and creative life. We all need this! However, we have so many choices and an overabundance of information, ideas, and inspirations that we can overwhelm our senses and become numb or envious or distracted or confused.

The cure is to curate your influences to only those that are the most helpful. Yes, I understand this might mean Pink Dandelions doesn’t make the cut. That’s okay. I just want you to focus on your best creative life. If I’m part of it, great. If not, let me go. (Although at one newsletter per month, I try not to be intrusive.)

Three: Dedicate a specific time for your creative practice and make it a habit. This can be controversial because I know some people do better with a more chaotic, random approach, but for many of us, we put our creative time LAST on our priority list. If we are going to honor the creative energy inside us (and the force I’m calling The Creative Energy of the Universe, aka the Creative Force), we need to set aside time to be with it. To practice. To get into flow. To build our creative muscles. To learn what resonates with us and through us.

Four: Share your creativity with others & make at least some IRL. This is the part that gets tricky. I don’t necessarily mean marketing or trying to capitalize your art. Those are fine, of course, but in some ways monetization distracts us from our original creative impulse, gives us an unhelpful “scorecard” of success, and potentially either corrupts or demoralizes us in our endeavor. Sharing, on the other hand, is a communal activity.

In Real Life, aka IRL. Take a class and meet some others who practice your art or craft. Start a group. Try to not always be online. Go to live events and talk to people about their work and yours. Read or sing at an open mic event. Conferences can be a good opportunity if you go for the knowledge and the community and not for the marketing. (see: scorecard above)

If you have the creative urge to start a newsletter, blog, or podcast, go for it. If you want to turn your short stories into a collection or your 350,000 word manuscript into a beautiful published novel, do it.

Just beware of the pitfalls of comparison, growth, attention, or lack of it. Do it to DO it, not for the attention or for money. There’s nothing wrong with making money. If you can make money with your art, excellent! I’ll applaud you. I don’t believe it is selling out by any means, and I love the idea of people being fairly compensated for the creative labors. If only we could all be so blessed. However, we all aren’t. That’s just the truth.

Hear me people: if you can’t make money with your art, it’s truly and magnificently okay. Do it for the love of creation. It will feed your soul, if not your stomach.

Nobody can take soul food away from you. If someone you follow consistently posts about success, specifically in the arenas of attention and money, and it makes you feel bad about yourself, drop them and take that power back. You deserve to feel good about your creative work. It’s what the Creative Force wants for us. I believe this with all my heart.

Five: Get into nature. We are of nature and by nature. We are closer to an ant than we are to that electronic plastic silicon screen device you are staring into right now, even the one with an artificial intelligence staring coldly out at us and analyzing the way we talk so it can better mimic us.

Nature soothes us. We breathe it in. We breathe it out. I quite like the Bible verse that goes: “Consider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:27) Nature has so much to teach us. It nurtures us. So observe it. Eat it. Wear it. Take care of it.

I hope these ideas inspire you and give you some hope. Let’s just get out there and play, people! Let’s be our crazy, emotional, creative, human selves. Our creative era has begun.

Short Story

Excerpt from “In Defiance of Sharks” by Shelley Burbank

Bose worked at Skiff’s, a salty bar off the boardwalk and known for cheap well drinks and negligent carding policy. San Diego college girls patronized the place, and Bose spent more time in campus dormrooms than many matriculated students. If he wasn’t “at school” as he called it or behind the bar at Skiff’s, he’d be on his longboard, paddleracing anyone and everyone to catch the best waves, riding in with an enviable beauty and grace. As far as Lisette knew, he had no loftier ambitions, no secret desire to study philosophy or become a novelist or own his own bar or surf shop someday.

Lisette dragged her wetsuit over her rashguard and wiggled her arms into the sleeves. She found Gabe and Bose in the kitchen eating strawberry-flavored Poptarts. “About time,” Gabe said.

Bose met her eyes and tossed her a packet of pastries.

She smiled at him. “Thanks.”

—this is just a short excerpt from a longer, but not much longer story. I like it. I might include it in a collection one day. Do you like to read fiction here in the newsletter? I can never quite tell. If you do, drop a comment or reply email.

Writing & Publishing News

Strawberry Moon Mystery: An Olivia Lively Novella launched as an ebook on KDP January 28 and in paperback on Amazon February 11. Despite a lot of stated interest from lots of people over the last year and a half, sales have been sluggish.

It could be the length. Novellas are harder to sell than full-length novels. It could be the topic. Plagiarism isn’t as tasty to mystery readers as murder. It could be indie pubbing versus having a small press behind me. It could be the time of year, the after-holidays slump when the credit cards bills come due. It could be the chaos of the world. It could be the cost of everything and the affordability crisis. It could be I didn’t reach out to as many bookstagrammers and reviewers. I could be all of this or none of this.

HOWEVER, it’s not the quality of the work that’s the problem. It’s good. I know it is. What reviews have come in are glowing. I’m very pleased with the product itself, the paper and the format and the cover. It’s a piece of art on which I’m proud to have my name. It will sit on my shelf with the first two books in the series. I’ve sent a copy to my parents. I’ll sell it in person at events down the road. I’ll even do a Goodreads giveaway for the ebook once I get a few more reviews so hopefully I will reach a few more new readers that way.

This is the part of the writing career that tears at my heart like claws. It feels awful. But it’s part of the creative journey. I’m already working on the next full-length book.

I guess I better put a dead body in it just to be safe.

Anyway, it’s got a madly awesome hook. I can’t wait to tell you about it once I’ve drafted the thing. I have a good title, but for now, it’s just Liv 3. I’m holding the title as a surprise.

Paper & Ink

Since January I’ve been writing and sending paper & ink letters and cards through the mail. I’m really enjoying the old-fashioned correspondence! I encourage you to make a list of a few people and send them a letter. They will probably send you a letter back.

I have a couple of ideas for how our Pink Dandelions community can have some fun with snail mail. For one, I am making a bookmark from a hand-drawn and colored illustration of a scene from Strawberry Moon. These will be signed and numbered limited edition bookmarks, and I want to be able to get one to you in the mail.

[I made a sign-up form and was going to link it here. However, I remember the issue I had with putting a link in one of my newsletters. It tanked my deliveries. So I have to think a little bit more on how to do this efficiently. Stay tuned for details in March.]

That’s all my lovely people. Have a fabulous month, and look for the next newsletter the third week of March.

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”—Eleanor Roosevelt