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This morning, my son asked what we did last night, I replied, “We cried.”

“You’re kidding me?”

He knew what I meant. When I dropped him off at school he said, “Be safe, dad.”
“You too, buddy,” I replied.

I’m not gay, not brown skinned, but I am an Atheist.

Today, I woke up after a fitful night of sleep and crying while I held my wife and we tried not to talk.

Today, we learned how much hate there is in our country, but we should have been paying attention over the last eight years, we would’ve seen it.

In every question of a black president’s birthplace, in every meme deriding him and in every person who didn’t support Gay marriage, it was staring at us, but we chose not to look.

We chose not to look for we thought better of our fellow Americans.

Our thoughts were not put into real action.

We had them, then let them go without the action of removing people from our Congress, without the oversight needed to make them understand, we’re not like that.

As someone who writes for a living, I will be writing more.  America is still dealing with its racist past and it doesn’t want to let go of it.

America hasn’t dealt with its racist past and it doesn’t want to let go of it.

I’ve loved this country since I learned about Thomas Jefferson.

Today, we found out the truth of the majority.

We discovered we’re not the greatest country in the world anymore.

We learned that hate is still strong and there are people who support hate against races, religions, and skin colors other than white.

 

 

Teaching my son, that learns like me…

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When I was in junior high, I hated school. I dealt with bullies; my grades sucked and whenever I mentioned the bullies to my father, he’d side-step, “how are your grades?”

What I recently realized through watching my son struggle with school is that I may have a learning disability.

He has issues with focus, I do too, but mine isn’t as pronounced as his.

This realization came to when we got his grades and how hard school is for him.

My wife doesn’t understand it because she learns the way teachers teach. I always hated those kids.

School for me was hard. I sat in front of the room, couldn’t have distractions and my son, he’s the the same way.

Now that I’m aware of this, I have to remember how I learned and teach him to learn.

Some teachers don’t care what your issues are; they’re in the classroom to teach those who don’t have the learning issues, this was obvious to me many times in school.

When I had a problem or didn’t’ understand something and asked for help, they acted put out by it, “Why can’t you just learn this?”

I know this is why I read so much as a kid, and still do. It’s the main reason I hide out to get my word count for whatever WiP(Work in Progress) is befuddling me.

Books were my escape from reality; video games are his. It’s his way to escape from the world and problems he’s dealing with, and I guess my wife and I didn’t understand why until now.

I think I wanted him to be more like my wife and get the grades and not struggle, but that’s not the case, and he needs that extra attention.

Do your kids learn like you or your partner?

What I learned after a year of writing full-time.

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You have to know what you want in life in order to attain it.

At 14-years-old I wanted to be a writer but was rebuffed by my father. “You can’t make money doing that.” He said.

Well, I may not be making money, yet, but I’m closer than I was a year ago stuck in a dead-end job that left me hating my life at the end of the day.

In the past year, I’ve written four short stories and one novel and I’m trying to get a novel on Amazon by the end of October.

Here is what I’ve learned in the last year of writing full-time:

  • You must create a schedule for yourself and stick to it.
  • You have to write every day, even if that writing is a blog post, you must write.
  • You must have a damn outline. This is the biggest for me. It gives me a path to the finish line. Before I was only writing and not finishing, if I have an endpoint, I get there.
  • You must go it alone sometimes. There are times you must lock yourself away to get writing done. People you love will have to understand that. If they don’t, they’re not worthy of your attention.
  • It will be harder than you think. You must push through those moments when the words suck and you hate the story. You must find yourself in the words and never leave until they’re done.
  • You must have a creative outlet other than writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s photography, painting or anything else, but you must have another place to create or you can get fried.

I could put more than this and it might be too many but in the end the most important is that you get words on the page.

If you’re not getting words on the page, you’re not a write, period.

Peace,

Brian

To Wallow or not to wallow

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Every once in a while, we get the chance to do something in our lives that matters and we’re excited about and talk about, then the damn rug is pulled out from under us and we’re sitting in the dirt wondering what the fuck happened.

We have a couple of options at this point:

  1. We can wallow in our own piss and misery.
  2. We can find something else to motivate us and get our ass up and work.

Number one is the easiest, number 2 is where we really learn about who we are, what we want and how hard we’re willing to work for what we want.

The dirt is comfortable and it keeps us closer to the easy life, but it doesn’t do anything to improve who we are.

Getting our ass off the floor and working on our life, that’s the best path, maybe not the easiest, but it is the best.

Dig in, climbs the walls, breach the battlements and steal the damn throne, that’s what we’re made for.

 

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When we decide to follow our dreams, it will be harder than we thought it would be.

We must orchestrate everything to make sure it happens. This goes for our family life and how we’re able to afford to take the monetary hit.

I like to say I work three jobs, but only get paid for two, but that’s not really true.

I think my writing helps me do the other two.

My writing frees me up and lets me do the other things that help my family. When I’m published and I hopefully don’t have to do those other jobs, I’m not sure what I’ll do with the free time I may have.

Right now, I’m writing more than I ever have and that is what I’ve wanted for the last ten years.

I see the improvement in my writing by get words every day and I see how hard I’m working to make everything work and I’m more proud of what I’m doing than at any time in my life.

I love what I’m doing and more than any other time in my life, I love what I’m doing and how I’m helping the world get better, either through my words or through my actions working for campaigns.