Category: motivation

Be Brave and Enjoy the Sunlight.

I wonder often about the life I’ve lead.

It comes to me at night. I’ll ponder the things I’ve done. People I’ve wronged and consider whether the life I have has been worth the things I’ve been through.

Those moments are surrounded by others.

These others are filled with the laughter of my kids, my wife’s kiss, and my morning writing.

For the first time in a while, I feel like my life is going in the correct direction.

Yes, I write fervently. I get my word count on a new WiP every day.  I work on revisions and edits every day on another story or novel.

But all the tired nights, exhausted mornings and cups of coffee are worth it for what I’m attempting.

Each person reaches a point where they want to stop. I have a couple of times.

When this point is reached, we have to look around and think about how far we’ve come. And all we’ve done to reach this current state.

That moment may come while we’re in the shower or it may come in a flash of fireworks erupting over our heads as we look at our wife and kids.

Today, I’m in a good place. I know they aren’t all good so I’m going to recognize this one. Have a good rest of your day.

Things happen for reasons we don’t understand.

In July of 2015, after we’d moved, I found it difficult to locate employment.

We didn’t plan for this.

After bartending in Las Vegas for 17 years, we thought it would be easy.

It took me until the end of August to find the job I currently have.

I love bartending weddings and events. You see people as they begin their lives together, learn about their family, and often meet some great people.

The other events are mostly corporate parties. They are fun, but the weddings are my favorites.

Going back to the start of this post, we were perhaps naive.

We thought, “Who wouldn’t want to have a Las Vegas bartender?”

Apparently every bar and restaurant I applied for from Salt Lake to North Ogden.

In the beginning, when no one called or those who were interested changed their minds for unknown reasons, I became depressed.

We lived with my mother-in-law in those early months after our move and I felt like a failure.

We never discovered the reason the interested places changed their minds. I gave up caring about it a few months ago.

In hindsight, I thought, ‘I’d failed my family.”

Today, I believe if I had procured one of those jobs, I wouldn’t be able to write full-time. I’d probably be miserable in any of those jobs. A year ago I sent my resumé out again, but I’ll never do it again.

Sure, my wife and I struggle, but I write full-time, and we can pay our bills. We were able to take our kids to Universal Studios this past June.

It was something, with our limited funds I had to plan a year out, but we all had fun.

I have a novel out to agents currently, will send it to more by the end of the week, and I’m starting revisions on another. I plan on submitting that one either in September or if more rewrites are needed January 2019.

I started writing a new novel at the end of June.

I write every day. Sometimes the words come easy, sometimes I struggle, but I get 1,000 words or more a day.

I’ve written seven novels. If we’d have stayed in Las Vegas that number would be stuck at two. If I’d had found a different job, I would have maybe three or four, but not the eight.

Keep working, keep grinding and remember things happen for a reason.

How I took over control of my life.

This year has been about regaining control over my life.

First, it started by fixing my writing.

I listened to myself when I was writing more often, thought through sentences more carefully, and paid attention when a story went off the rails.

Today my wife will be finishing her first read-through of a novel. I’ll start revising it next week.

I started a new novel yesterday.  I’m currently outlining it and creating a beat sheet.

It’s something different from my other stories, in structure and content.

Second, I’ve been exercising more.

The end of last year was a tough one. My brother passed away from an aneurysm.

Technically we weren’t blood, but he’ll always be my brother.

When he passed, I realized I wasn’t taking care of myself as well as I should.

I’ve worked to correct that.

I work out four to five days a week, restrict my caffeine intake and make sure I’m eating decently.

Third, I spend more time with my wife and kids.

Three years ago I lived in Las Vegas. I worked a job I hated and was stressed all the time.

The hours I worked made it nearly impossible to get any time with my wife and kids.

I’d spend a few days here and there with them but it wasn’t quality time. It was usually in a movie theater.

After we left Las Vegas our goal was for me to write more, spend more time with each other and give our kids a better environment.

We’ve managed to do all of those things.

I’ve written four novels since we moved, over a hundred short stories and with each I see improvement.

Our kids are doing better in school. My son almost made the honor roll, which was unheard of in Las Vegas.

We hike, spend time outside and sometimes we go to the movies. The movies used to be our family time. Now its secondary to doing other things.

I have no doubt I’ll be published soon. I know I’m in better physical and mental condition than I was three years ago.

My relationship with my kids and my wife is stronger than its ever been.

If we wouldn’t have left Las Vegas all of us would be miserable.

I fight my way through depression daily, my wife does too.

There are moments when life seems hard. At those moments I look around and compare the life I had three years ago to my current situation.

Things are better.

I took control of a lot of things this year. I’m also working harder at my prose than I thought possible. I never would have had the time to focus during our Las Vegas life.

Today, I have the time, the strength and the ability to push towards my goals.

It all started by taking control.

Not Giving up on what I want.

There are dreams in the world that happen because we take a chance.

We’re capable of doing great things, but there are moments when we falter.

The truth is, for most of us, fear runs our lives.

It keeps us from achieving greatness.

I used to be one of those people.

I feared people would read my writing and hate. But they’d judge me based only on my writing, not on who I am.

A year ago I sent off my first short story to a magazine. The rejections have come in ever since.

Not one of my stories has been picked up. I don’t know why, but I’ll keep going. I’ll keep improving. The only way to get published it to improve every day. The only way to do that is to write every day or if you’re not writing, at least be reading.

This year I sent off a novel. It’s been seen by three agents. Two of them still have it. The third sent a form rejection.

But I’m not stopping.

I have eight more agents on my list.

When I get rejections from all of them, I’ll shelve it and work on the other one.

I have a goal. It won’t be achieved until I’m published.

I’ve written seven novels, over 100 short stories.

Some of them good, some bad, but I keep writing.

I won’t accept being unpublished.

This year I’ve improved more than any year. My focus hasn’t wavered.

I’m starting another novel next month, another novel I’ll be editing, and few short stories I’ll be submitting.

This road doesn’t end until I’m published.

The path forward

With each passing day, each rejection letter or rejection form letter, I find myself narrowly continuing to write.

Yesterday, while I sat in the barber’s chair. I listened to my barber talking to a young kid.

At first, the kid said he wanted to be an apprentice.

As the conversation developed, the kid’s view changed.

My barber is a smart dude.

He knows what he’s talking about. I enjoy the conversation in the shop as much as the haircut.

When I was this kid’s age (21) I had no idea what I wanted to do.

It took me until I was in my thirties before I knew I wanted to write full-time. Now I write full time, don’t get paid for it and enjoy my life more than I ever have.

Sure, sometimes we struggle, but the moments when I write something that resonates with my wife, those make this worth it.

I bartend to make ends meet. My wife had a good job that allows me to write full-time.

When we left Las Vegas three years ago, we knew it was time to get out.

I knew I couldn’t do another year in Vegas.

I dealt with severe depression, a job I hated and an environment that wasn’t good for my kids.

Three years on, I’m getting better.

I’ve written four novels in the last three years. I have one being queried another I’m editing and I work on short stories daily.

The way you look at life matters.

Three years ago, we arrived at my mother-in-law’s, our belongings in storage, it took me two months to find a bartending gig.

We hadn’t anticipated that it would be hard for me to find a bartending gig after seventeen years on the Las Vegas strip.

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen the places I work.

For the longest time, I was afraid of getting my work out there. But I have a wife and two kids who need me to keep going.

I need to show my kids that you can do what you want in this life if you work for it.

They need to know that hard work pays off.

The last three years have been difficult, there’s no doubt about that, but without difficulties, life wouldn’t feel as good when we reach our goals.

I’ll continue writing because I like it and it’s one of a few things I’m good at. Bartending and being a dad are some of those things.

Life matters, no matter how hard it gets, life matters.

The Effort it takes…

There are those who say that we don’t put enough effort into the things we want. They haven’t lived our lives.

People don’t understand where we’ve been.

There isn’t a VR for that, yet.

What we can do is push towards our goals,

We can contribute to the world around us by writing, creating, living, enjoying, and thriving.

Pushing towards our goals, regardless of whether there is a choice in our lives don’t matter.

What matters is how we make people feel.

It matters when you say good morning to someone. It matters when you call your parents after not talking to them. Sure, you can text them, but calling them, they love that.

Make your way towards what you want.

Let life set a path for you and follow it until you attain your goals.

 

The Way it Happens.

Life is the way the world happens to us.

There are little markers along the way. Sometimes those markers aren’t what we want them to be.

There are those who it be the marker to be success in business. And then there are those who say they want the marker to be a family. But none of it is in our control.

We like to think that we control the world, but that’s not the truth. The truth is we’re floating around on a big blue and green mudball and we have no control.

Sure, we can choose to go to college, date a certain person, but whose to say those things weren’t supposed to happen.

That’s the funny thing about life, fate, choice and who we live our lives.

Sure, we can say we make choices but are they preordained?

This is a puzzle we’ve been trying to work over since the beginning.

Are we in control of our lives or is there something else dealing the cards?

No one wants to think they’re not in control of their lives, but I don’t think we are.

Whatever controls us, a God, Fate or something else, they have a plan for where we’re supposed to go, when we’re supposed to go there.

I have to believe that.

We may work towards the way we want our life to be, but we don’t know it’s supposed to be that way. It’s only in our belief that it occurs.

We have to believe so strongly that our belief becomes our life.