Faith, journeys, ​and progressions

Every day we have the opportunity to solve our problems.

We have a chance to stand out in the world for who we are, what we want and whether we’re going to do what’s needed to accomplish our goals.

Today, I sit in a better place than I’ve been in a long time.

I still struggle with depression, though its no longer a constant.

In the past, I would blame others for my failings. I would stoke fires of hatred towards those who I believe wronged me.

In this life, our journey’s and endings are determined by how hard we work for what we want.

I never thought about working hard enough to achieve my goals. I never understood what it would require.

There were times when I’d have little glimpses of what I thought it required. Those glimpses allowed me to narrow my focus.

Understanding the journey and the faith it required in myself created a radical change in how I approach my writing, life, and daily challenges.

I use to hide from what I wanted. Expecting it because I believed I deserved it.

Nothing comes to those with those beliefs. The only way to get what you want is to work your ass off.

Today, I understand that faith in myself and my writing will bring m to where I want to be.

I understand the journey I’ve been on has led me to this place.

I believe the progress I’ve made in recreating who I want to be has made all of the above possible.

We can get through life without failing ourselves. We can understand that our faith will guide us to where we are required.

Somewhere in the middle of all of it, we’ll reach the place where we’re needed.

Coming around…

The world changes, the night comes and we wonder where the hell everything that made us feel good about what we’re doing went.

It happens in mysterious ways.

We feel we’re destined for great things and they appear to fall apart. As if the strings that tie them were pulled and we’re left with a pile of yarn.

It’s the persistence that moves us closer though it feels more like pestilence has ridden through our lives.

What we thought has become past and what we want is continuously in the future.

It’s in this future that the world we want resides.

We need to work harder.

There are moments when the world continues its run. Where it continues to be bothersome. These are the moments we need to keep grinding.

We want what we want but sometimes for one reason or another, we’re afraid to.

We feel we’ll alienate those around us.

We feel our spouse, partner, children or whatever will be angry for spending more time with ourselves than with them.

If they feel that way than we’re not telling them enough.

We’re not showing them what we’re doing or how much we love what we’re doing.

In the end, our lives are proof of either how hard we worked or didn’t.

Your writing…

Your writing and your life get to where they need to be through persistence and hardship.

You never truly know how far you’ve come until you’re sitting at your writing desk leafing through past books and you’re truly thankful every day that you get to do what you do.

When you stare at unfinished books on your hard drive or books that you’ll never publish you’ll understand why you grind every day.

When people ask about your writing you tell them your working but never give specifics because you can’t.

There are days you only get a few hundred words and you get worried or depressed that you’re not pulling your weight with your family.

Those days are the hardest.

Then you hit a new goal, figure something out and you’re back at it.

You’re still not published because you’re afraid of what people will say.

You continue to work because it’s in creating characters, worlds and stories you find the most peace in your life.

You’re not always happy but you get to a place when you’re writing that makes you feel something that nothing else gives you.

You have to keep writing for no other reason than you love to create lives.

Keep going.

The Decisions we make.

This week has been one of those where ideas come up. Things happen I consider doing things that aren’t in my ten or even twenty-year plan and I have to abandon them.

I’ve been trying to write another book this year and I haven’t been able to get any words on the page. I’m not sure of why. Maybe my mind is occupied with the world around me and I can’t shut it off as easily as I did last year.

Last year was a banner year for my writing: Three books were written and I’ll be submitting two of them.

I have big plans for this year and the one idea that came up this week would have thrown all those ideas out the window.

The idea was something I’ve always wanted to do, but it wasn’t in my plan so it got tossed.

When ideas come or opportunities present themselves there are decisions to be made.

I made the decision to finish my plans for the year and to ignore any distractions.

If it’s not pushing me towards my goals, it’s a distraction.

Anyway, move forward and don’t stop until you’re there.

The Struggle of Something New

I started writing a new story this past week and if you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen the struggle I was going through midweek.

I’ve always pantsed my books and they’ve never gone anywhere.

I’ve written 5 books, but they were all pantsed.

When I looked back at what I’d done wrong with them there was only one explanation for what I’d done wrong.

I didn’t use an outline.

With this new story, I’m using an outline, beat sheet and a story development sketch.

I figured if, after five books that I didn’t feel good enough about, I should try something else.

The definition of insanity is doing something over and over expecting new results.

That’s why I’m writing the new story with a beat sheet, outline, and story development sketch.

The need to move my writing forward, get published, and help my wife out more is what drives me to write, that and I really love the work. I love writing, I love it more than almost anything.

I love writing, I love it more than almost anything.

My goal this summer has been to improve my writing. I’ve done that by reading books, practicing sentence structure, and writing stories that I wouldn’t write otherwise.

This last step–an outline–is where I’ve struggled most.

It’s like learning to write all over again. Following the beats, outline and other pieces within

Following the beats, outline and other pieces within the structure, I’ve set for the novel is more difficult, but I know the book will be better for it.

It’s hard but without the difficulties, my writing wouldn’t improve and that was my goal for this summer.

I hadn’t planned on writing a long-form story this summer but things change and we have to improve to grow our craft.