Writing is Believing

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Life is full of wonderful beautiful things. We know this through our discovery of the world around us.

We see them walking through a park, hear them at a concert and smell them at our favorite restaurant. Then why is it so hard to believe in our writing?

There are many reasons for our lack of belief. but the main ones I’ll list here, then I’ll make you believe.

  • We’ve been told by someone we trust that our writing is horrible.
  • We think there is some kind of magic those who’ve been published possess.
  • Your family doesn’t support you, this is the hardest to deal with.
  • You don’t believe in yourself.

Let’s begin with the First disbelief: It’s not that your writing is horrible, it may be that the person you’ve let read it doesn’t understand your story.

My wife doesn’t enjoy reading sci-fi or fantasy, she’ll read some of my stories and just stare at me. That’s how I know I need different eyes on the story than hers, because hers aren’t the correct lens to view the story and I have to find someone else.

You have to find someone who enjoys the same type of story you’re writing or there will be issues with whether they like it.

Second disbelief: There is no magic pill. There is nothing to change your writing from having grammar issues to not.

When I first started writing I bought a lot of books on writing. I did this because I believed in the myth that there was a magic pill or book to help me. What I learned is this, The only thing that will improve writing is to write. The more you write, and nearly more importantly read, the better your writing will be.

There is no magic book to help you. You can learn a lot from those books, but mostly you’ll only be frustrated and envious of the book’s author, which is never good.

Third disbelief: Having a support staff is wonderful, but sometimes there isn’t one.

When I was writing short stories and angst ridden poems in my teens, I never showed them to anyone because I didn’t want to be judged by my peers, parents or teachers.

Unless it was for my writing class, no one saw it, not even a girlfriend. That last part was mostly from learning that those you date will use things you’ve told them against you in the harshest ways possible.

I didn’t have many friends in high school, and even less in middle school, but those I did have had no interest in my writings. Showing them to my parents would have been a one way ticket to a therapist’s office, not a good thing.

Fourth disbelief: Your lack of faith in yourself is always the thing which holds you back from doing so many things.

You worry about the consequences. About the after..

Look at what you do as if there were no After.

We should think about life as right now. What you’re doing right now, what you’re writing right now is the most important story in the world.

Remind yourself of this daily, either through meditation, prayer or notes pasted around your dwelling.

These subtle things will keep you wanting to do the things for you. They’ll remind you of a couple of things, 1, You’re important…2, What you write is important and 3, You’re important.

Finding yourself and not doing what the world wants is what makes each of us unique.

Keep being unique, never let anyone change that and keep writing…

 

 

Crawling from the Chasm of Doubt and into the Pool of TM.

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When we think about truth, we usually think about the opposite, lies.

What if the opposite of truth weren’t a lie, you just didn’t know the truth to begin with?

This is how I came to understand my life before TM. The fact that I’ve improved my life, relationships and writing through TM isn’t the big thing, it’s discovering the lie we’re told as kids.

The lie says this: We have to follow the things those before us did. We must have the family, job and spiritual life of our parents h. At least that’s what I believed growing up.

In truth, we’ve always been in control, but the things we didn’t know about who we were are great enough they were overwhelming and thus creating a chasm of doubt you’ll struggle to climb out of your entire life, not mention the loss of creativity due to trying to climb from the chasm.

Each day we wake up and decide what to do with our life.

What if you could get past the lie and create a world all your own and dive into a deep, calming pool twice a day? A pool filled with radiance you’d never felt before.

This is how TM (Transcendental Meditation) feels.

I wake up an hour earlier than I did before TM, I go to bed earlier and I have more energy than I did in my teens.

One the biggest, and most obvious to those who know me is the feeling of your mind being at rest all day. There are hiccups, but for the most part nothing bothers me.

I go through my day job with such energy people have asked what I’m taking. None of them know what’s going on, and I like it that way. I like to keep them guessing.

My creativity is higher than its ever been. I can recall my dreams, and nightmares, with clarity; something I’ve never been able to do before.

Writing is no longer as difficult as it once was, the editing side still is. The first draft comes faster, I get in a rhythm earlier and I hit “The Zone” earlier than I have with anything I’ve written before.

I’m taking more time to enjoy my wife, kids and my wonderful 16 year-old dog.

Honestly, there a million ways to describe TM, but until you try it, you’ll never understand.

If you have any questions about TM, ask them here or find me on Twitter.

Writers, stories come from anywhere.

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French Quarter

While I stared at nightlife along cobblestone of the French Quarter, a man stopped in front of me. He wore no smile, he bore no burden, he only looked at me, nodded his head and kept going.

My wife was nowhere to be seen, my fedora, which I began wearing again resting softly against my scalp, pulled at me, as if it were saying follow him.

I stumbled along the cobblestone, my shoes scuffing as I nearly fell a few times in pursuit of the man, he turned a corner, I followed. Then, when I nearly gave up, he turned, tipped his top hat and began walking again.

Through alleyways, in front of churches and finally I was on Bourbon Street. The man, the gleam of his top hat catching the light of the gas lamps lining the street, glowed eerily, but I pressed on.

I was nearly out of breath when I caught up to him, grabbed him by a dirty sleeve coat, and asked him, “Why?”

He looked at me quizzically, “Young sir, you’ve been chasing me through the quarter, I thought you were mad, or inebriated, but standing next to you, I know you’re neither. What could I do for you?” He said.

My eyes must have looked like fire as I stood underneath a gas lamp of the quarter, “I only wish to thank you.” I said.

“Thank me?” He said, his large eyebrows crawling into his scalp.

“Yes sir, you’ve given me plenty to write about when I return home.” I said.

“Than this has been a good trip indeed.” He said and vanished into nothingness.

Stories can come from anywhere, remember that.

Writers, put down the controller and write.

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Each of us fall behind our goals.

We stay up too late playing video games, watching movies or we read later than we planned because the book was just that good.

With the invention of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, among others, we’re bound to get sidetracked from the things we need to get done.

This is why a plan of attack is necessary. You must have a plan or there is less possibility you will achieve your goals.

The first thing you should do is decide what you’re going to do tomorrow and do it. Follow a path that leads you away from the temptations I mentioned above.

I’m not saying to do away with the fun stuff and give up on the things you enjoy, everything in moderation.

But when faced with sitting down to write or playing another round of Wii Golf, put away the controller and write.

There is no other way to do it than to put the things away or have your spouse, other half or partner hide these things when you need to write. This is truly the only way to keep your mind on track.

Sometimes it’s necessary when you can’t keep your focus on what matters to have someone take over the reigns from you and control the things you can’t.

Once you’re able to take control, there will be no need for anyone else to.

Back to your morning and following a path.

You should have planned your day out the night before and if you have day job it is best to plan around that.

Once you have your plan for your day job, plan your day and your writing around that.

Once you have that, your day should go along without incident…

5 Things which can change your life and how they changed mine.

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For most of my life, I’ve lived in the shallow end. I did only what I needed, I wouldn’t rock the boat and I never wanted to do the things which made me happy, I always did things which made those around me happy, or things I believed would make them proud.

Living that way taught me a few things:

  1. You can’t make others happy, regardless of how hard you try.
  2. You must to what makes you happy, to hell with everyone else.
  3. Your immediate family (which for me is my wife, kids and dog) are the ones who will support you no matter what.
  4. What you choose to do creatively can be the most important thing in your life and will give you more guidance than any book, speech of movie.
  5. You must find peace within yourself to do anything worthwhile creatively.

These five are the biggest things I’ve dealt with in my life and I’m going to go through them and tell you how I discovered the importance of each.

For Number One.

My biological dad has been out of my life for most of my adult life, this is a mutual thing and though I’ve tried and he’s tried, we can’t reach a point where we are amicable to each other.

When I was a kid I played soccer because my parents wanted me to, I was 4 and had no choice. When I was six, I started playing ice hockey, and though initially I did it because of my parents, I began to love the game and watching hockey, especially playoff hockey is a part of who I am today.

In my teens and toward my senior year in high school I wanted to do something which would make my dad proud, I enlisted in the Marines, and was discharged after failing tests in receiving.

I started college because I wanted to make him proud and it was my best way out of a bad situation, I failed at that too, completing only a year with poor academics.

When I moved to Las Vegas it was because I had no place to live as my biological dad and step-mom asked me to leave because of my relationship with my then girlfriend and present wife. Along with their not being happy with my relationship and my academics I left with my sister for Las Vegas, my girlfriend followed me to Vegas a month later.

I began writing again in 2001 after insistence from a friend and encouragement from my wife.

Initially I did because I wanted my dad again to be proud of me being published, but that never happened. After a reconciliation after my son’s birth in 2004 and eventual falling out, we didn’t talk until around 2009 when my daughter was born. That reconciliation like the previous one, didn’t end well and I’ve moved on.

I learned that my biological dad will never be satisfied with anything I do and the only person I should make proud of my achievements is myself.

For Number Two.

Along with the falling out I had with my biological dad, my sisters and a few other parts of the family stopped talking to me.

This taught a great lesson: Your family will not be there when you need them, and you must do only which satisfies yourself and ignore what everyone says about you.

I’ve since reconnected with my sisters and those other parts of my family and they are some of my greatest supports now. I don’t know how I could have dealt with my grandfather’s funeral without all of them!

For Number Three.

When others gave up on me for falsehoods they were told, my wife stood by me, and without her by my side the last sixteen years, I’m not sure I could have handled everything as well as I have.

For Number Four.

When I began writing again, I read books, watched documentaries and began following creatively gifted people on social media. I learned they are as clueless as the rest of us when it comes to how they got published or why they’re successful in their art.

Neil Gaiman said it best in his commencement speech, “Sometimes people get hired, because they get hired.” Which is the best example of how artists, writers and actors make it in their fields.

Neil Gaiman and others worry that they’ve perpetrated to some crime in their success and worry that their will come a time when someone will show up and take everything away.

I choose to write for myself, not because doing it for anyone else didn’t give me the results I wanted, but because I like to see the stories which come out and I enjoy coming up with the ideas, characters and worlds which come out so wonderfully on the page.

For Number Five.

Through all the things I’ve dealt with in my life, my parents divorce when I was eight, going to 11 different school and having to adjust to each, being discharged from the Marines, family giving up on me and being estranged from my biological dad, I no longer carry any resentment toward my family, my biological dad or anyone else.

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I learned this year that dwelling on anything never helps and that meditation and living for yourself and doing the things which matter to you are the most important things you can do in your life.

Your life is your own, no one else can live your life, no one can write your stories.

Your entitled to the life you want, and don’t let anyone, anyone tell you different.