The Stelladaur Series
The Portal
Imagine. Believe. Discover.
August 2020 Edition

Welcome

Thank you for joining me through The Portal—a place where together we can safely step into imagination, and believe that there’s always more to discover. In fact, there is no end to imagination or discovery! I hope my monthly musings and findings on these topics will inspire you to explore your own imagination more deeply, and in so doing, live life more joyously.

In this edition

• Author Updates
• The Stelladaur Academy: FREE DISCOVERY GUIDE
• Step Into The Portal
• Beyond The Portal

I recently finished reading all three Stelladaur books for the umpteenth time. I needed to get a grasp on a particular scene that I’m writing in Forever Changed (Book 4), and it was important that I thoroughly understood how introducing a new main character would impact the flow and development of the existing main characters. Writing fiction is akin to a careful examination of real-life personal relationships and assessing how adding a new dimension to a relationship would likely change it. And then deciding if that change is necessary, relevant, and welcomed. Ultimately, will the change have purpose and meaning? Will it serve the story well? Does it allow the characters the needed space to evolve? Those are the kinds of questions I ask myself when I write—and which help me to live my life more fully. BTW, I added the new main character and I think you’re going to love her!

Read more about the series at Stelladur.com

Available for purchase at this Buy Now link.

With parents, teachers and students searching for ways to navigate an unprecedented change in the way education is administered and implented, now is the time to introduce tools that build confidence, provide life skills, and encourage well-being.

The Academy motto is: “To facilitate the discovery of individual potential, and the development of confident, creative and compassionate youth.”

If you are a parent, grandparent, teacher or friend of a youth age 9-17, NOW is the time to introduce them to the Stelladaur Academy! The FREE DISCOVERY GUIDE and exciting SUPER HERO ACTIVITY GUIDE will help kids explore a world where fantasy and reality unite—and give them hope for the future!

Find out more here.

This month’s Stelladaur quote is from Finding Tir Na Nog (Book 1), where a mystical creature named, Fiala, helps Reilly begin to understand his innate power.

“When one is ready to experience pure imagination, he or she is infused with an accompanying feeling. But imagination is not the feeling—it is what creates the feeling.”

Fiala and Reilly watch as various characters sketch their dreams on a 3-D moving sidewalk, with a magical piece of chalk. She tells him, “Sketching dreams brings perspective to desire.” Reilly doesn’t understand and asks her how it works.

“By bringing feeling to the imagination. It is feeling that brings form. When form is manifested in an undesirable way, it jumps out at them as a warning that the truest self is not being honored.”

Renowned author, Ursula K. Le Guin, who died at the age of 88, said this about the great gift of imagination: “Imagination is the single most useful tool mankind possesses.”

Read more about Le Guin’s perspective in this thought-provoking article.

Last month we talked about Creative Savoring. (If you missed it, you can read past editions here. Scroll to bottom of page where you’ll find the Newsletter Archive, just above the book trailer.)

I hope you’ve taken time to do some daily Creative Savoring. In an effort to be more intentional, I kept a list of some my recent Savoring experiences:

• Eating a fresh, juicy peach (One of my favorite fruits!)
• Drinking water from the running well at my childhood homestead (See the photo of my granddaughter at the well. Notice the tin cup hanging from the pipe—it’s been used for decades!)
• The smell of rain
• Hugs
• Picking blueberries with my sister and making blueberry pie with my niece
• Watering my flowers
• Driving my Mini Cooper S (It’s just so much fun and always makes me smile!)
• Wind on my face
• Eating gourmet chocolate (Confession….it may be a vice!)
• Sound of waves along the beach
• Prayer and meditation
• Sweaty body from 4-mile run
• Song of seagulls on the water
• Writing
• Walk with my husband to the mailbox (Some days that’s as far as we get out of the house!)
• Smell of lavender in a field
• Playing with grandchildren
• BBQ with a few friends at a lake
• Watching a brilliant sunset

Try keeping your own list. You'll be pleasantly surprised how easily you will begin to Creatively Savor daily experiences.

I’d love to hear from you! Reply to this email or you can reach me directly at fiction@slwhyte.com.

Thank you for connecting with me through The Portal. 

I hope you always Imagine, Believe, and Discover.