About Lynnda Pollio:
Lynnda never expected to be a writer until she started hearing the mystical voice of Addie Mae Aubrey, a Southern, African-American woman who asked Lynnda to share the story of her teenage years in the late 1930s.
Born in New Jersey, she grew up surrounded by trees. Lynnda wandered through a childhood feeling like she belonged somewhere else…like there was always some time, some place that was waiting for her. As an adult, she moved to New York City and eventually stumbled into advertising, settling into a corporate, urban life. After not seeing her father for seventeen years, Lynnda took care of him the last year of his life. A few days after he died, she heard a voice tell her to go to Sedona, AZ. She had never been there. A few days later, she was on a plane, with no plan, nowhere to stay and no idea why she was going. In Sedona, Lynnda immersed myself in raw foods, spiritual disciplines, energy work and levels of awareness. There she began a journey into spiritual awakening, journey that led her to Addie Mae and writing Trusting the Currents.
Lynnda has always been deeply committed to elevating human consciousness. This life purpose guided her as an advertising executive, as a consultant and thought leader in conscious business practices, and as the world’s first Chief Consciousness Officer, supporting Fortune 100 companies by helping them engage the human technologies of wisdom, intuition, compassion, empathy, forgiveness and gratitude.
Currently, she is an Empathic Consultant, helping people and businesses navigate the patterns and blocks holding them in a limited space. She supports anyone going through profound change and are ready to dive deep to seek the truth. Lynnda believes answers are always found in the heart.
She hopes Trusting the Currents helps readers through their own life struggles, just as it helped her.
What inspires you to write?
It’s more like an compulsion. When I hear words in my head, I need to write them down. It always amazes me when they actually turn into something. It usually begins very deep within, with some feeling or insight that wants to emerge. Then the work begins as I find the right words and cadence.
Tell us about your writing process.
I get a “pressure” to write. I usually don’t know what it is going to be. The writing will come out first as feelings and then I have to find the words that resonate with those feelings. I will begin by writing stream of consciousness, just to get the general idea out. Then go back and find the right words, and also the right cadence. With my writing there is an important rhythm to the writing. And sometimes I will work on one sentence for hours until it sounds right when read aloud. I always ask my readers to read passages aloud that they really like because I think there is a sound therapy embedded in the cadence of the writing in those passages. I write like I am squeezing toothpaste from a tube. I keep re-reading a paragraph and editing until the words reflect the feeling I have about it. I never know what I am going to write until I write it.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I completely listened to Addie Mae. I had no idea I was going to write a book. I didn’t know it wanted to be a book until I had been writing her story for about a year. I just HAD to listen to her and write. She never went ahead in the story. She always picked up right where she had left off. Addie Mae has been the most important person who entered my life and she was only in my head and heart!
What advice would you give other writers?
It’s odd, because I don’t consider myself a writer. I was just someone who heard a voice and felt compelled to write down what she was saying. I didn’t even accept myself as the author for the first couple of years. It wasn’t until I spent years editing the book that I felt ownership. I am in awe of those who write book after book. It took me ten years to finish Trusting the Currents because life kept getting in the way. I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning. Then when I figured out it was a novel, I only knew I had to finish it. I didn’t think I was going to publish it. If you are supposed to write, you will write. You will have no choice. One of the biggest lessons for me was having faith in myself as a writer, and faith in the messages I was entrusted with. It still is!
How did you decide how to publish your books?
After much research, I decided to Indie-publish. Even though I found an agent easily, I was a first time novelist, writing in a unique genre which did not fit into any category. I had gone to a big industry publishing convention in NYC and after speaking with publishers, who could not understand the book, self-publishing companies, and many authors, who encouraged me to self-publish, I took the leap into the Indie-publishing world. I also decided to self-publish because one of the many messages of the book is about self-reliance. It took 1 1/2 years of near insanity to get the book out. Hiring an editor, book designer, getting up a website, engaging all the social media sites, learning the biz of publishing is not for the faint of heart. Marketing is the hardest part. Still is! Particularly, if you have a book that is difficult to explain. Trusting the Currents is hard to define. But one that when fully experienced, transforms the reader. So marketing has been a challenge, even after winning 12 book awards. (Which was a lovely surprise for me!) I now have another agent, as I am hoping to make the book a movie. I am reaching for a universal audience of readers who are going through change in their lives and looking for guidance.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I really don’t know. Indie-publishing will grow but it needs to have a better reputation and more support from places like Amazon, readers, reviewers and libraries. There are limitations and you must have a solid genre-based book with an audience to really make it work. The industry itself is archaic. The system is slow, they are very limited in the kinds of books they will accept and you lose your rights, with no recourse if the publisher does not support your book. It’s sort of the wild west in industry right now. Each writer has to decide where they are the most comfortable. But its important to educate yourself about the industry before making decisions. And regardless, it has to be a good book! Well-written, professionally edited and beautifully designed.
What do you use?: Professional Editor, Professional Cover Designer
What genres do you write?: visionary fiction, spiritual fiction, consciousness
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Lynnda Pollio Home Page Link
Link To Lynnda Pollio Page On Amazon
Link to Author Page on other site
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
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All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
