What It Takes…

This blog post is about what it takes to be a writer, but you can also apply this advice to pretty much anything in life.

You need four things to be a successful writer.

1. Lots of courage
2. An above average work ethic or discipline
3. A little bit of talent.
4. A touch of luck or blessing

Courage is the key to writing. Regardless of what you write about if you are afraid of failing, being ridiculed or humiliated, or being negatively critiqued then you won’t make it as a writer. Likewise you will probably have a rough go in life outside of the arts as well if you fear these possibilities. And if you do worry about these things and you are trying to write, then stop. But by having courage you have decided that you will put yourself out there at the risk of looking bad to potentially millions of people including some whose opinion you value at least to a certain degree. If you are scared or insecure, but still want to put your art into the world, then maybe the way you find the courage to do it is to focus on what your intentions are in creating things that evoke thought and emotion in other people. If your intentions are good, benevolent, then you will probably summon the courage to push through any obstacle to get part of who you are into the world.

The second key to making it as a writer or in life is a good work ethic. And a good work ethic helps with the final two smaller aspects of making it as a writer or in the mainstream world.  A good work ethic keeps you coming back to the lab and creating your alchemy. A good work ethic also can help when you are feeling a bit insecure, when your courage is not at its peak. But being disciplined will make your lack of talent if there is a lack disappear over time. You will get better at writing or whatever it is that you do in life if you stay focused, keep working at your craft. There will be others in life and in the arts who are more talented than you. But as the saying goes, “work ethic can outdo talent in the long run if one sticks to the process, one keeps growing and learning as they go.” And remember most of us are not born knowing much of anything, but we can learn pretty much anything over time. Some are born with God given talents that make it easier for them in certain fields, but there are piles of bodies of talented people who never reach their potential because their work ethic was lacking. Finally, a good work ethic plus courage will help with the luck or blessing one needs in order to make it the world today. There is a maxim in the sports world that speaks to this. There are good teams in the athletics who seem to get all of the breaks. Many will say these teams are just lucky and that they are not as good as advertised. Sometimes this is true, more often than not it is a false statement. You see, my friends, what these biased people don’t realize is that these teams create their own luck, they get the “lucky breaks or bounces” because they work hard, they do the little things well long enough so that when there is a chance that a call or a bounce that could go either their way or to their opponent(s) that it usually goes in their favor because they done the right things long enough to create luck or blessing. This is true in life as well. Lastly, one can create a better life if one practices being grateful for having the courage, work ethic, talent, and the blessings that it takes to make it in this life.

I love you all.

I’m Publishing In 2019

Hello faithful followers of mine.

Happy Holidays and here’s to a prosperous 2019 for us all.

I’ve signed a contract with a company to publish my book, “Fight the Good Fight,” in 2019.

The quick pitch goes like this: A group of 12 soldiers and an army Chaplain form a rogue fighting group called the Valhalla Unit to fight those who create wars: war profiteers, bankers, and politicians.

SilverWood Books of London, England did an editorial assessment and here are some of their comments:

“‘Fight the Good Fight’ is a modern war thriller for a general audience. Following battles and principals of a rogue U.S. fighting unit in Afghanistan, the Valhalla Unit is a force for peace. They stand in contrast to the antagonists: a banker, a war profiteer, and politician. Eli Silver, a banker, finds himself caught up in military financing with Terry Smith, a Representative with an agenda. Lillith Rice, CEO of STC, Inc., uses the war to try and further her career and make money. The narrative’s protagonist, Thad “Cotton” Kristofferson, muses on his involvement with the Valhalla Unit 15 years on from the opening of the book in 2002.”

They added further:

“This is a fast-pace and exciting read. The richly descriptive writing style is immersive and shows through research on the subject matter. The manuscript has a good balance between Thad’s reflections 15 years on, action on the ground in the Valhalla Unit, and snapshots of the lives of those profiteering from the war. The writing moves smoothly between dialogue and descriptive, with highly immersive and descriptive passages standing out, creating a well-formed world. Characters are well-developed.”

 

I hope you will join me and the Valhalla Unit as we traverse uncharted and dangerous territory.

Have a great New Years!

 

Artists

Rest and Writing

While writing a novel I have all of my characters swirling around inside of me–their motivations, their fears, their joys, their good days and bad. Right now I am working on a war novel that is about a group of 12 soldiers and an army Chaplain who fight those who create wars: bankers, politicians, and war profiteers. And I carry all of these characters with me inside of my subconscious throughout my waking hours and for the entirety of the time I write my novel until completion.

If you want to know what I write about, imagine war stories, serial killers, people who are insane, people who have been hurt, tormented in life. And I know all of my characters as much as I know myself. At times it becomes painful knowing all of these things, carrying their pain and suffering with me along with my own.

And though I enjoy what I do immensely, it is very trying at times, as I’m sure you can imagine, to have these characters, some who are not the nicest people in the world, hurting some of the other characters who are nice and kind people around inside of me. They are living beings, doing their things, sometimes harmful things to themselves and others, and I have to remember that they are simply characters in a work of fiction.

But that is also why I have to have a drink, exercise daily, and get plenty of rest otherwise I am overwhelmed with my characters’ battle fatigue.  When it is time to rest it is time to rest. Usually I slog along until the novel is done and then I take my vacation from those very painful situations and strained individuals. A welcomed respite indeed.

The American Empire Part 6 Conclusion

The American Empire will collapse someday…as all other great civilizations have in the past when they’ve turned from truth, tradition, and soul to mindless amusements, the God of government and money, and brutality.

In the end it will go like other empires, burning at the hands of barbarians, lost in the sands of time with only broken monuments as a remembrance of something staggering and wonderful in its inception and a slide into moral and ethical decay.

Can we save it?

I believe we already hit the iceberg and are sinking like the Titanic did some years ago. The main reason I believe this is because everyone has become accustomed to their lifestyles regardless of what they might hold. And in order to save it we would have to change a lot of things about how we act in our communities and around the world. There are a lot of people in high and low places with their snouts in the trough. In fact everyone has a part in this game though it’s not completely our fault: most of us were handed this life and told to get their piece of the pie.

Sadly, America will be remembered, as all empires are, as once a beacon of hope for its people and those who wanted to partake in it from foreign lands who then slid into an avalanche of things that didn’t matter and concluded with non-traditional values.

I don’t care what happens at this point. I feel the empire will outlast me. But someday it will be gone and whether it happens in my lifetime or not is moot. I feel like if it does collapse in my day that I will actually get some enjoyment out of the sublime destruction of a Titanic unsinkable ship as it breaks up in the sea. But, I would also like to be there to throw a life raft to those in need and to rudder toward calmer waters.

The American Empire Part 5

Our final destination on the Titanic sinking of the American Empire is the devaluing of human life.

Since World War II America has been in at least 37 nations fighting wars (against whom and for what?) and has caused approximately 20 million deaths to for people living inside the war zones outside of the United States.

The number of war deaths of Americans since its inception stands at approximately 1.1 million.

A staggering number of modern United States Veteran deaths by suicide since the fighting in the Middle East after 9/11 is more than its combat deaths during those wars. (But these wars are “good” wars?)

 

Another way the American experience devalues human life is how it treats its children. More than half of all American marriages end in divorce. The staggering statistics on children raised in single-parent households tells the tale of what impact that has on the children involved in those divorced households.

Children living in single-parent households are 200% more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems than those in two-parent households. 80% of psychiatric hospitalizations are children and people raised in single-parent households. Across the board children in SP households are worse off. Grades, truancy, substance abuse issues, criminality, teen pregnancy rate, the aforementioned psychological issues, ET AL. are all worse when a child is raised in a single-parent household. (But we love our children.)

 

Two final notes about the devaluing of human life are controversial. Assisted suicide, which some would argue is necessary and needed, as well as abortion being a choice that a mother should make are demeaning examples of how Americans view life.

The pictured crazy-eye doctor is Jack Kervorkian, a euthanasia provider and proponent, who claimed to have killed at least 130 people during his reign of terror in the 1990s. Say what you will about someone who is suffering who chooses to kill themselves, but regardless it is a devaluing of humanity when we commit such acts.

 

And the issue that will probably get me pilloried for speaking out about is the hot-button issue of abortion. Since it became legal in 1973, abortion has ended the life of at least 50 million children.

The comic is one of an America abortion doctor named Kermit Gosnell who recently went to prison after his acts were brought to light. He is said to have done abortions on babies that were “big enough to walk around with me or walk me to the bus stop” (his words) just before severing their spinal cord with a pair of scissors. This is the extremes of what abortion providers do as most abortions are early-stage deaths. But even so, I ask to you, those who feel like abortion is proper if you’ve seen an abortion taking place or seen the tiny body parts of aborted fetuses? Personally, before I’d seen anything related to abortion I was Pro-choice. After, I see it as barbaric, a war against children, and an essence of what America has become: brutal and mindless.

 

Concluding thoughts by EOB on Thursday of this week.

 

 

 

Music pt 1

Music saves lives. Music might (have) save (d) the world.