Want to Write A Book?

Want to write a book?  Then do it.  It's that simple.  But I must warn you, writing a book is much like giving birth.  The thing will take on a life of it's own, you will pour your life into it, then it will grow legs and walk away.

For those of you out there who have ventured into the untamed jungles of the written word, those paths teeming with wild beasts for us to slay and drink their blood, you may be more well-acquainted with what I am trying to speak.  The more I hurtle through the cosmos in this intriguing physical body, firmly planted on a swiftly spinning blue and green orb, the more I seem to meet people who either already are authors, or are aspiring authors, and by that I mean they have an idea for a book.

Maybe we all have more in common than we think.  I believe we are all authors.  We all have stories to tell.  It's who we are.  It is the medium that may be different for each of us.  Whereas no one can turn a phrase quite like old Bill Shakespeare, no one can cut a deal like The Donald (Trump, that is).  I hope you catch my drift.  Some of us put pen to paper, quill to ink, brush to canvas, etc, some of us cut deals, handle money, build things with our hands, etc.  Each and every part of it, every act tells a story.  In fact, the more conscious we are of our eternal core, the more we will find that EVERYTHING we encounter, from the most insignifant speck of light, to the birth of a newborn child, all of it is talking to us all the time. 

With the ease and accessibility of new self-publishing tools, the creation of a pretty nice self-published product has put a new face on literature as an industry.  It has also made it easier for any crack-pot spin half-realized theories bind them into a volume and have them blasted onto the international marketplace.  What has emerged is that now we have even more information being presented to us in much larger quantities at a much faster rate.  With such a realization sitting over us (myself), I'm always left wrestling with the question:  Why would anybody want to read what I write?  What makes what I have to say worth anybody's time.

As I have sat and mulled that over time and time again a couple of answers have remained consistent.  1.  I don't care if anyone wants to hear what I have to say or not.  The process of composing and creating breathes enough life into me on it's own.  2.  I can't stop myself.  These two answers are in constant conversation and crossing one another's lines.

But often, over the past two years more frequently and specifically I have been approached by several people in this manner:  "I have this idea.  Do you think I should write a book?"  My answer is always a resounding yes.  Write it.  It is never going to get written if you sit there constantly and simply just talk about it.  Ideas have to be anchored into something manifestable on this plane of existence, otherwise they just simply remain ideas.  Yes, an idea can change the world, but an idea devoid of any means to be communicated ultimately turns to dust. 

In the midst of wrestling with your creation, (aka the writing process) you will discover whether the idea is enough to carry a full-length work, whether you need to stop and take a few steps back and let the work breathe to give the ideas new life, or you may even discover the idea you had in the first place was just one link the the chain to a list of much bigger ideas, thus spurring you onto a much bigger, greater and/or different work. 

Point being...Go for it.  Be open to everything.  But ultimately, for me at least the creative process and the discovery it brings forth is the ultimate reward. 

Prime example: Over the course of the past 10 years...I've written 3 full-length novels.  8 Collections of poetry.  1 full-length play.  2 one act plays.  1 novella.  Exactly 15,235,874 blog articles.  Of which only one poetry collection and one novel have seen the light of day, and those two only to an audience of a few hundred people.

Is it worth it?  Yes it's always worth it.  If you're asking that, then you're asking the wrong question to begin with. 

Go, get on it.

Also, you can purchase my books Lambs that Howl and Outside Time and the Voice in Your Ear by clicking on the titles. 

WHAT DOES TODAY LOOK LIKE?

   Don't ever worry about your past rearing it's ugly head.  The past is not a garden to eat from, for its fruits are already dead.  Looking back with fondness and a thankful heart is ok, but try to go back there and you will get pulled apart, blood, guts and all.  While the man who plants a garden must first till up and turn over the soil, remove the weeds and clear the ground to make a nice patch for planting, so is the past.  It has been there and been prepared for you only as a springboard to launch you into more growth.

     You are alive.  Living things grow.  Get the picture?


     Call it God, call it The Source, the Energy, the Force, The Sworce, The Aura of all Auras, call it what you want.  He's not offended by the different names you may have for Him.  Ultimately, He meets you right where you're at, beckons for relationship and shows you who He is.  Without fear.  Without conditiions.  Without reservations. 

     If there wasn't so much negative stigma attached to the term "Christianity" would so many of us still be reluctant to call on the name of Christ?

     He is the master of time and space and He has placed an eternal seed within you.  You too, are not subject or bound to any definition time may try to dictate.  Instead, time is a substance you can use as a tool, but time is by no means the governor of the realm (earth) as so many are convinced.  It is the worry that there may not be enough time (like currency or resources) that has so many beautiful humans striving and at war with themselves or each other, or heaped under a weight of condemnation and unforgiveness.  Maybe, on a large scale we have yet to meet God, to meet God in us and to meet us in God, to meet God outside of time.  Maybe that's why we still view time as our master. 

     It's sort of backwards, though.

     He made time.  Surely He will use it to our advantage if we allow it to happen. 

     Therefore, do not look to your past and wonder, "what if??..."  This is why Lot's wife got turned into a pillar of salt.  Stop trying to inhabit a land that no longer exists.  Stop trying to sustain yourself on farflung ashes.  Stop missing the great harvest that is stretched before your eyes, right now.  Today.

Do What Gives You Life

Do What Gives You Life


          Write, my son!  Write as if your life depended on it.  No, better yet, write because it is your life.  Write because it's what you do.  No, better yet, write because it's who you are.  And nobody can take that from you.  You create, you pour straight from that place where reality is unfiltered and let it take shape through your vessel, to escape and show the beauty from which you are made.  Write as if you don't have a choice.  Write because you are.

     People often ask me what I do.  For the past few years I have been hesitant to to answer that question because I am not the sum of my deeds.  Honestly I can do absolutely anything and any box any one person tries to put me in will be smashed rather quickly.  I don't always answer that I'm a writer when asked such a question, because really I just hated the box that such a name creates, and to be honest, there are certain assumptions people make and attach to the 1st world small talk question of "what do you do?"  What people really mean, is "what do you do for a living" and sometimes if people actually make the entire statement, I answer, "I live".   

     More recently I've felt more comfortable with telling people that I'm a writer.  Well, really most of this has happened over the course of the last year since I've been married, and Stef, my wife, is quick to tell people I'm a writer and I've published two books because she knows I'm not going to say anything about it.  Usually then, there's a money question:  "Do you make any money doing that?"  Personally, no.  A couple hundred dollars here and there.  The more artsy types usually ask about my process or what kinds things I write. Even in the realm of writing I don't stay contained to one genre or experience.  So when the question comes, "what do you write?"  I don't know.  I just write.

     Why do I write?

     I write because it's who I am.  I write because I enjoy it.  I write sometimes even though it drives me mad.  I write because it's who I am.  I write because I can't stop.  I write because God has given me a gift and it is my honor to share.

      For a sneak peak to those of you who are curious (or may have actually read one of my books:  Lambs that Howl or Outside Time and the Voice in Your Ear both available at amazon.com), here is an example of something that I write:

Once Upon a Time I Stood on a Beach, Stared at a Burned Down Hotel and Thought about Fishermen:

I eat degrees for brunch

I boil hypertext at 481 Kelvin

I have a line in the mouth of a giant great white

I am the ojo del tigre, the crop of the cream, the cake sitting under the icing

I sting like a scorpion and suck the poison out

I am what drugs are afraid of

I am the trip to end all trips, the hallucination and the jump to hyperspace

I am a tree of life

I am the ark of the covenant

I run barefoot and perpendicular to the horizon

I sing like the desert at night and hiss like a hard rain on winter’s edge

I am every silver city and ashes in your mouth

I am the lake of fire

I burn so hot that it’s hard to see me

I am he and she given new eyes to make new eyes

I roll hard

I eat bugs sometimes

I find boredom to be an interesting topic,

and again,

I burn so hot that it’s hard to see me.

 
  
     Do what gives you life even if no one else notices.