Victoria (Author)

1. If given the opportunity to live during a different artistic movement other than now, which one would you choose? and why?

I'd love to go back to the roaring twenties and come alive with the music and fashion and changes of the world. With the end of the World War we were learning how to rebuild ourselves, and things were changing for women. I'd love to go back and write a column for newspapers, back at a time where so many people got their information from the papers. It would be amazing to be a a part of that movement.

2. So far in your career, what was the biggest antagonistic force that you encountered on your creative journey? 

The biggest antagonistic force as a writer is believing in writers block. For so long I let the excuse roll off my tongue, allowing the belief that I had writer's block and couldn't write if I tried to hold me back from the blank page. For weeks, then months, I lived in writer's block while feeling justified for my lack of product. Now I choose to write anyway. Several times a week I force myself to sit down and right even when it feels hard, because I've learned that creativity cannot flow when I allow myself to believe it won't come. I was holding myself back when I allowed writer's block to consume me, and it crippled my growth as an author.

3. What life-altering moment or event should every human ideally get to experience at least once in their lives?

At some point in everyone's life, I think they should experience two things, unbridled joy and strong fear. The joy that I'm talking about is the one that grabs your heart and makes you feel like you are flying because you are so happy. Everyone should get a chance to be that happy. And at some point you should know fear, because if you never know strong fear then you aren't living. At least once everyone should have an encounter that terrifies them, something that demands that they grow and overcome and persevere through. It changes you, causes you to assess your motivations and goals and reline your life with your vision.

4. Life is a magnificent web of dreams vs reality and aspirations vs expectations, the chaos has cadence even if sometimes it demands to be explained. How do you live life to the fullest when it is also vulnerably fragile?

Life is fragile, and life can be hard, especially when anxiety knocks on your door to remind you of all the chaos in the world. To overcome this crippling crutch, I remind myself to DO. I don't want to exist, I want to live. I have a rule I follow, every night I think back on the day and label it as Positive or Negative. My goal is to always have a positive day. A positive day can be eating healthy, or working out, or writing a new chapter or having intentional teaching time with my sons. Whichever way I accomplish it, I make sure that my day advanced my life somehow, so I'm never caught in the same place for years. It keeps me moving when the world is an easy place to get lost in.

5. What is your current state of mind?

My current state of mind is beyond excited! I have a new book coming out soon titled The Storyteller's Daughter and it contains my whole heart. The book is a redone version of the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin, with some new twists added.

You can find me on Instagram as victoria_mccombs to connect and follow my journey as a wife, mom, and author.