Who Is ShadowsPub?

Yes, ShadowsPub is a real person. I live in a small community in Eastern Ontario. Many years ago, when I started writing online I chose to use this pseudonym to provide a level of privacy.

Over the years it has become my creative persona and I will continue to use it.

I know, some people have difficulty seeing me as a ‘real person’ which I makes me laugh. If I had used Jane Smith and created a fake image of what I was supposedly to looked like, no one would blink an eye. Yet, it would be about 95% fake.

Instead, within the bounds of my own privacy, everything I put out is 100% true. What are the bounds?

•  I don’t put my real name out to everyone
•  I don’t publish pictures of me
•  I don’t appear on video
•  I don’t publish where I’m located

So, with those boundaries in mind, I’ll tell you about me.

I am a creator in my sixties who has spent the majority of my life not focusing on the creative life I wanted. It took the pandemic for me to take the time and focus and do what I wanted to do.

I’m A Writer – But Haven’t Always Been Serious

I’ve written off and on over the years. I enjoy writing on a variety of subjects.

Many years ago, this domain, that is now called “Shadows Central”, was one of my original domains. I wrote a blog here that focused on political views. Mostly Canadian politics.

I enjoyed sharing my thoughts but, I didn’t enjoy when the angry, partisan types would descend. I didn’t want to have arguments, I just wanted to share some ideas. I let the blog go dormant.

Stumbling Into Web3 and Crypto

In 2016 I stumbled across a site called Steemit.com. I did some exploring and discovered this was a blockchain called, Steem, where people could write content and earn a crypto token called STEEM.

I had heard of cryptocurrency but didn’t know much about it. I decided to try it out, it was a place to write. Well, seven years later and a hard fork into a blockchain called Hive and I’m still creating.

Community Motivates Growth

Hive is more of a community than the social media sites I find on Web2. There are no algorithms determining who I see on the chain. There is more incentive to explore who is posting what and engage with others.

In the course of engaging and getting to know others, they get to know you. We tend to support each others efforts more. People try things they had not previously considered.

Pimp Your Post Thursday

On of the things I ‘tried’ was hosting an audio show on Discord. That was in October 2017 and it’s still running.

Pimp Your Post Thursday (PYPT) is a live content curation show where people share content. It can be content they have created or content they have discovered and can be on any platform. I record the shows and post the recording with a recap of the shares the following Monday.

I’d never in a thousand years have envisioned myself as doing anything that involved talk ‘radio’ but the community supports and encourages it.

Connecting With Spaces

Around February 2022 I heard about live audio on Twitter called “Spaces” and went to find them. I’m a laptop user, not a fan of using mobile for anything but texting and phone.

Turns out, Spaces had to be accessed through mobile. I ventured into one where I met Jennifer Navarrette (@epodcaster) and then into another where I met Alessandra White (@alessandrawhite).

From there grew a Space called HiveSpace where we talked about the Hive chain in non-technical terms. We had guests from Hive to talk about the great things happening there.

Connecting With Creative Work Hour

Alessandra introduced me to her Creative Work Hour (CWH), a daily coworking space held on Zoom. For an hour each day, those who can, show up and check in with each other before working on our intentions for that hour. Or, we may squirrel to something else. No judgement.

The consistency of showing up regularly to CWH sparked me into more consistently writing. I had a streak in 2022 of over 175 days of writing and publishing daily. Then in 2023 and so far in 2024, I have written every single day.

Imagine that, going from off and on inconsistency to over 365 days of creativity. It builds up motivation to establish the habit. And to keep it going.

Starting A Newsletter

On April 25, 2022 I published my first issue of Nicheless & Loving It. I had made the decision to embrace my nicheless creative ways and share what I do with others.

I’ve published 83 issues of the newsletter since then and have no intention of stopping. It is a free weekly newsletter where I share some thoughts I don’t write any where else and a roundup of what I’ve been creating or doing the previous week.

Connecting With Podcasting

Jennifer Navarrette is a professional podcaster. She had encouraged me to start a podcast but, I couldn’t see myself doing one.

Then along came November 2022 and time for the National Podcast Posting Month (NaPodPoMo) Jennifer had founded in the early 2000s. She’s my friend, I wanted to support her work. Would it kill me to try her 30 podcasts and in 30 days challenge?

I chose to narrate short stories, keeping each episode to five minutes or less. I found a group of short stories written by Leo Tolstoy and proceeded to organize them into 30 segments.

I completed the challenge and no, it didn’t kill me. I lived to tell the tale. I also decided to carry on with a Christmas series but shorter than November’s. I narrated eight Christmas stories written by Canadian authors.

By the time I completed them, I had made the decision to carry on in January with a weekly podcast, Nicheless Narrative, in which I would narrate content I’d written. An audio version of my work. It’s now in season 2.

Connecting With Myself

Over the last few years I’ve been spending some time on a personal journey getting to know myself and my faith better. It’s been enlightening to say the least. It’s also a journey that doesn’t have an endpoint. We always have room to grow.

I was having a conversation about this journey with someone on Twitter in 2022. He introduced me to Clubhouse and a club called “The Clairs Corner”.

It was a daily room hosted by Stacy Vaughan. Each day she read from Judith Orloff’s book, “Thriving as an Empath” and then led very lively and thought provoking discussions.

As I listened in the room each day I found pathways of awareness sparking inside me. I was finding answers to a lot of questions I had.

Well, maybe not as much answers as beautiful pointers to where I could seek to explore the answers, in my favourite hunting places – books.

Even better, I had a new friend I could talk to about these questions. The club has closed but the friendship with Stacy remains.

Connecting With AI

When AI emerged into public awareness in 2023 I found myself drawn to trying out generative art and loving it.

I could use text to do what I couldn’t draw… well some what. I spent hours exploring how to do the prompting and learning how to use styles.

I’ve been running an email list for about three years where I send out prompts for creatives to use as inspiration for their work. They are written largely for writers but, inspiration comes from many sources.

In June 2023 I started using the daily word prompt as the base for creating images. The practice evolved over time and I found myself drawn to seek out how the word resonated spiritually.

I started crafting quotes to represent the images and then I was drawn to write reflections on the quote. I really enjoy the challenge of exploring each word. Many times I find myself looking at a word and thinking “this is going to be a stretch to find how it resonates spiritually”.

Yet, each day I find myself learning more about meaning and how each word can play a part in personal growth and spiritual journey.

Connecting Deeper With My Faith

I identify as a Christian in faith but I have always believed that Christianity is but one path to faith, in the powers greater than myself. As a Christian, I call the creator of the universe “God”. Others will use other names and that’s okay.

Disconnecting From Religion

I keep religion out of my faith. That may seem like an odd statement for me to make. To me faith is developing an understanding and relationship with the all the powers that cannot be seen. The Bible is my guidebook, along with other writings.

Religion is the power that can be seen. We see it in church power structures. Religions, not just Christianity, has done a lot of harm over the years.

Connecting With My Faith Path

The path I seek is one of love, peace, growth and enlightenment. It’s a personal journey, not one to be directed or controlled by a church. I explore the writings of other wisdom traditions on my journey. So often I find the teachings of the bible, align with other teachings.

Connecting My Faith To My Art

As my word of the day generative art project evolved, I found myself drawn more strongly to use the project to deepen my explorations and then share through my reflections.

The reflections have evolved from about 300 words to around 1000 words each. I seek to dig deeper for meaning and understanding on each of them. In doing so I build my own knowledge and awareness.

Connecting My Creative Parts

Late last year I decided to take action in 2024 to bring my various interests under one umbrella. In doing so, I also decided to take a slight detour from my nicheless ways.

The Birth of Reflective Echoes

My generative art and reflections project now has a name, Reflective Echoes. A website is under development to serve as it’s home. It will offer the Daily Echoes, Reflections and merchandise using the artwork.

The Daily Echo is the art and quote I create every day. I have continued to do them every day so far this year. I’ve not been writing the Reflections in January in order to free up time to work on the websites. It looks like that will carry over into February.

I’m anxious to get back to them. I’m also anxious to get the sites up and running. There are only so many hours in a day.

My Invite – Connect With Me

This has been a long walk through my life. I thank you for following it.

Reflective Echoes is in many ways me exploring the journey and sharing it with others. If you come along on the journey and find value for you, I’m delighted.

I invite you to connect and share with me how what I share lands for you. I’ll be adding a contact form so you can make the connection. Or, join my newsletter for regular updates. You can just hit reply to connect with me from there.