GIVEAWAY!!!

Okay, guys. I'm having an awesome giveaway on my Facebook page. Go to my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/Mitchel.Grace.Author. Like the page, and share, share, share!! As soon as I reach 1500 Likes on my page, I'll have a random drawing through random.org. The first name drawn will win a $25 Amazon Gift card. The second name drawn will win a free Kindle copy of Strange Visions: The Beginning. The third name drawn will win a free Kindle copy of Wrong Place. If you already have the book you win, I'll send the next in the series instead. Spread the word, everyone, and THANKS!!!

3 Things You Can’t Buy With Money

   I thought that I would do a random list today, and this subject seems interesting to me. The first thing I want to talk about is love.

   You can never make someone love you, no matter how much you spend. Sure, a large bank account can land you a supermodel wife or husband, but no matter how much you spend, they probably won’t ever love you. In the same way, your friend’s love can’t be bought. A good friend is someone who wants to be around you when you’re too broke to go out at all. Great Christmas presents won’t buy your children’s love either. It’s actually strange how much we equate gifts with love when they’re so useless in expressing what true love really is.

   The second thing that money can’t buy is happiness. This is something that I know from experience. I’ve gone through ups and downs throughout my life. I’ve turned to better clothes, entertainment, food, and in general, I’ve thrown more money at the problem than most people, but none of it ever got me out of whatever metaphorical pit that I was in. No, I’m not going to say something lame like that true happiness comes from within because that’s absolutely ridiculous. I think that true happiness comes from the people we spend our time with. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing or if money is even involved. All that matters is that we have the people in our life who make life worth living. Until you find those people, your life will always feel somewhat empty.

   The last thing is a big one. Money will never give you a clear conscience. Many people tithe or give large portions of their money to charity, and that’s a really great thing. Unfortunately, trying to help others with the wrong intentions does you absolutely no good. We’ve all been in the situation I’m talking about. We’ve done something terrible that eats away at us, so we start trying to make up for it by throwing a little cash to a worthy cause. Somehow we think that brings us redemption. Unfortunately, it never does. Actions will always trump a handout. If you’ve wronged someone, going to them and getting everything out in the open is the beginning to clearing your conscience, or at least that’s my experience.

   Now, you may ask, why the list? The truth is that I’m a little bored right now. I’ve been editing so much on Strange Visions: The Storm that I haven’t had a chance to write a new word for two days. That’s kind of starting to drive me a little crazy, so I thought I would write some little random thing for my blog. Money has always been an interesting thing to me because it’s so important to so many people, and yet it can’t actually give us the things that we desire most.

   I’ll have an update on the new book soon. For now, just know that my editing is going well. I’m 95% done with the book, but I’m just trying to go over it a lot to make sure that everything is like it should be. This is the last book, after all. I think that Trent and Ally deserve a perfect sendoff. Thanks for reading, and look forward to reading the best and final Strange Visions book soon.

Living Your Dreams

   Dreams are a strange thing. People often think of dreams as unattainable goals that we can never accomplish. At other times, people think of them as something we have in the night. I think of them as something that I experience every day with eyes wide open. My dream is to be able to do something with the daydreams that have always been rolling around in my head. I want to hold on to every good thought and put it into something that can take me to a greater place. I also want to see those thoughts entertain people and at times, help people through difficult times in their life. You see, my dreams aren’t a wish. They’re a longing that I’m actively pursuing at almost every moment. We all have wishes that we don’t think can be real, and sometimes that might even be true, but you never know until you try. I’ve also learned something else through my experience. NOTHING comes all at once. No one ever picked up a pen or a guitar and was instantly rich and famous. As a matter fact, most people who have made a name for themselves through writing have spent years trying to build their name up and get better at their craft. It can be work to constantly pursue something when you don’t know where it’s going to lead you. Will you end up at your desired destination, or will all the effort only lead you back to the same place that you already are? That’s a question that I’ve found myself asking a lot lately, but it’s not the thing that I should be concentrating on. I’m doing what I love, and maybe that’s going to lead somewhere. I believe that it is anyway. It’s already led to more than I could hope for at this point, so I should be ecstatic.

   I guess what I’m writing this about is to give other people and even myself some advice about something that I should have realized much sooner in my life. Only pursue the things and people worth pursuing to you. Always have high standards and expectations for yourself and everyone around you, but let those be long-term expectations. Anything good takes time to be recognized, and even really good needs time to become great. Most of all, when you’re living your dream, LIVE IT! Don’t look back to the past or to the future. Just see the moment that’s right in front of you. Tomorrow will either be great or terrible, but don’t ever miss the journey to that day.

   Thanks for listening again, guys, and remember that it’s never too late or too early to pursue the most important thing to you. We weren’t made to drone through this world doing things that we hate. We were made to work at things that we love and to be with the people who we truly care about. Life isn’t always that simple, but it can be when you realize that the main person keeping you from living every day as it could be your last is you.

Journeys

   So I’m feeling pretty good today. I’ve been working on a side project. It consists of a little more than 19,000 words, and it’s set in a world that is very foreign to anything we know. I’ve always written books that were set in the modern world. It’s been really great to build an entirely different society in this untitled book, and writing it is reminding me of why I’ve always loved writing. When you throw out all the rules and all the expectations, you can just write freely. This new story is leading me. I have no idea where it’s going or how long it’s going to be, but I really like the characters and setting of it. It’s kind of odd, but it’s a lot more fun to write a book when you only write it for yourself. This new book may be released at some time in the very distant future, but right now, it’s just a little gem that I get to keep for myself. Regardless of what I do with it in the future, it’s nice to go back to a mindset like the one I had with Wrong Place. I didn’t know if I would ever release that book, and that gave me complete creative license. I didn’t have to consider how anyone would perceive it or what type of people to market it to. In a way, the first few books I wrote were my favorites because they came from a really good place. I was able to pour every interest, everything I love, and every painful moment in me into those books, and it gave me a peace like nothing else. It’s nice to get back to that.
   Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m really excited to get the last Strange Visions book and the final two Wrong books out there in the future, but it’s nice to create again instead of just edit. When you’re constantly looking at what you do in a critical way, you can get down on yourself pretty quickly. On the other hand, when you write a few thousand unedited words that you absolutely love, it can give you so much confidence. I think I’m going to start writing at least one new thing everyday from now on. It makes me happy, and it reminds me of what writing really is to me. It’s a way to express something that I can’t express with speech. Editing those thoughts is one thing, but getting them out is truly heaven.
   Anyway, I didn’t mean to go off in left field today, but that’s what’s on my mind. I love to write, and it lets out thoughts that otherwise would drive me crazy. I think we all need something that gives us relief from the rest of our lives. Writing is something that I think that everyone should do because there are some things that you just can’t say. For anyone reading this who might be thinking about writing a book or just telling their story, I encourage you to do something that, in my opinion, won’t ever be a mistake, and this writer might just answer any questions that you have. I don’t know much yet about the business side of writing, but I would love to help or collaborate with anyone in the future. As authors, we view ourselves as competitors too often, but I’ve never bought into that mentality. My writing is the story of my journey, and if I can help someone tell his or her story, then I would be thrilled to do that. Thanks for reading again, guys, and check back for updates soon.

Perception and Images

   I hope everyone has had a good weekend! Mine has been great so far. I’d like to address all the new likes and followers on Facebook and Twitter. I’m very surprised to see how many people have started paying attention to my pages, and I’m definitely grateful. In less than twenty-four hours, my likes on Facebook have more than doubled, and my followers on Twitter grew by over a hundred people. I’m hoping that all this new attention will translate to sales, but either way, I’m happy that I’m able to network with everyone.

   Today I’d like to talk about perception and images. It seems like a simple enough thing, but it’s really complicated. Look at entertainers, for example. We think of certain musicians and writers in a certain light, but the truth is that ninety percent of the time, the people we see and the people who actually exist are completely different people. Oftentimes, when we see our heroes in a different light, we throw around words like fraud or phony, but that just isn’t the case. Take a man who has been considered a villain in music for over a decade. Marshall Mathers is a rap artist who has made his fortune by using extremely emotional and controversial lyrics. Some people think of him as a terrible person, and most people truly believe that the person we hear behind the mic is the real Marshall Mathers. Here’s the thing, though. When people have been interviewed in Marshall’s old neighborhood, most of them described him as a quiet and respectful kid. How did this quiet kid become so controversial then? It’s simple. If he had written songs about peace and love, no one would have paid attention to him, so he did what most artists do. He wrote what people wanted to hear. He even created an entirely different persona to sell to people. I know it’s apples and oranges between music and books, but I also know for a fact that a lot of authors feel like we have to write what people want to hear. Our books can become a chore because at some point, they stop being a reflection of our psyche and start being a mirror image of what the people around us want to see. It’s at that point that an author begins to doubt themselves. They’re playing a role just to be accepted. Dark thoughts start to creep in, and you start to wonder what must be so wrong with you if no one will accept the most intimate thoughts in you. I’ve experienced that and almost reworked my books to match a more conventional format, but I’m ultimately glad that I’ve decided not to write conventionally and not to sell people an image of something that I’m not.

   I guess my main point in all of this is that some people say they want something original and that they want to see the true image of what someone is, but one fact remains. The majority of things that really blow up are as false as they can be, and that’s not the artist’s fault. For some reason, that’s just how most people seem to want things. Images of things sell, while truth sits on the shelf. It’s really a shame, too. If there is one thing I’ve learned from all of this, though, it’s that I don’t ever want to create an image or sell anything that isn’t original and every part of me. Whether I’m met with rejection or acceptance, I’m in this for better or worse. I just hate to look at the world around me and see so many artists and writers having to change truly unique works to fit a very ordinary world.

   Thanks for reading, and I’ll have some big news soon for everyone. The final Strange Visions book is very close, so stay tuned.