Happiness

I want to share something with everyone today that I think we’ve missed out on in our society. In this country, and most places I’m sure, we tell our children they can be anything they want. They believe it, too. It’s amazing to watch them dream in ways that we can barely even remember dreaming. They’re hopeful for a future where they can be like their heroes. There’s just one problem with our statement. It’s a lie. They can’t be anything they want. I know. It’s a hard concept for some people to grasp, but if your kid grows up to be 5’6”, odds are they will never be an NBA player, and without an education from a top tier school and a lot of money, they’ll never be president either. To make a long story short, we are predisposed to a certain kind of life based on biology and the situation we’re born into. Now, I’m not saying we don’t have control of some things because we certainly do, but you can’t be just anything.

Let me share my personal experience with you. When I was 2, for some reason, I wanted to be the garbage man. It turns out where I live you have to be a prisoner to pick up garbage, so that’s not happening. When I was 9, I decided I wanted to be an NFL quarterback like my hero Brett Favre. I wanted to make millions and be someone else’s hero. Then when I was 12, I wanted to be a doctor. I didn’t know how much med school cost at the time. In my 20s, I decided to write books. I wanted to sale millions. Do you see a trend here? Almost all of it involves a career where I make a lot of money, and none of it is really me. That’s not to say I don’t like many of the things on the list, but who I am doesn’t lie in those dreams. I could never commit a crime big enough to land me in prison. I wouldn’t last two seconds in the joint. ;) While I can read a defense pretty well, I don’t have the monstrously large hands of most NFL quarterbacks, so that dream was never realistic. I didn’t want to spend my life paying off student loans, and honestly, being a surgeon would have been a horrible career choice. I’ve never had steady hands. Finally, there are the millions I want to sale in books. Don’t get me wrong. I still want those millions, and if you want to make me a millionaire, I’m on board with that, but I don’t really write books for the masses. I write things I enjoy and think only of that. I think most writers who are extremely successful write to their audience’s taste, and I’m not saying I don’t think of my readers, but I like to write things that keep me on the edge of my seat. It’s about enjoyment in my alone time as a writer more than it’s about the check at the end of it all. I’ll probably never be a millionaire. To most people that might sound like I’m giving up on a dream, but I’m really not because it was never my dream. I thought as a kid, I could be that doctor, Brett Favre, or for some reason my local garbage man in Sledge. As an adult, people said “you could be John Grisham. He was from here.” I failed miserably at trying to be anything other than me, however.

There’s a silver lining to all of this. Lately, I’ve been figuring out who I am. I’ve been embracing the nerdy side of myself and reading books that I can nerd out over. I’ve been playing the games I love instead of the ones my friends do, and I’ve been watching television shows that aren’t as popular as the ones everyone says I should be watching. I’ve also been writing two new series that won’t be ready until 2017, which are exactly what I want to write. They’re complicated and out there at times. I don’t know if they will be everyone’s cup of tea or not, but I know I’m enjoying the journey of these new books more than I’ve enjoyed anything in a long time. I’m becoming myself. I’m not watching the shows my family and friends are, and I’m not worried about if what I’m reading or playing is considered “nerdy.” I’m certainly not trying to be someone else either. I don’t want to be a professional football player who gets pounded daily, and I don’t want to be a doctor. I certainly don’t want to be John Grisham, no offense to him. He does a good job of being him, but I’ve got different stories to tell, and I write and live each day for so much more than money. For me, none of this is about business or fame. It’s about enjoying every moment of life. It’s about embracing who I am and proudly showing anyone who wants to see, no matter what the results are.

So what do I think we should tell our children? I think instead of telling them you can be anything you want and then introducing them to heroes who play sports and write stories, we should tell them you don’t have to decide what you want to be when you grow up. You just have to keep being you. That will lead to a career, happiness, and a certain pride that none of us seem to have in ourselves. We measure our worth in money, cars, and how big our houses are. The stuff defines us. We value ourselves based on what we have. We never think is this who I am. Is that what I was born to do? Is this where I want to be? Am I even reading the books and watching the movies that I want to? Am I just a reflection of what I think I ought to be because someone convinced me I should be like someone else? Life comes down to one simple word at the end - memories. What do yours say about you, and what do you want your children’s to be? Do you want the memories to be filled with jobs they didn’t care about, a need to always impress, and a never-ending need to be like someone else? I don’t want that, and I’m finding that happiness is the simplest thing in the world. It isn’t about having more money, a nicer car, or even the perfect girl. It’s about not wasting your days on chasing someone else’s dream. What makes you happy? Identify it, and then chase it. You can’t be just anything, and most of us will never be rich or famous. Accepting who you are is the key to happiness because once you’re okay with it, you start to become the hero in your story as you identify your strengths and turn them into a life full of open doors instead of closed ones.

A New Project

I’m working on a new project currently that gets closer to completion every day. It’s called Hollow, and it’s far different from my previous works. This is a disaster book and not in the same way as The Divide was. This book is about a city gone mad in an epidemic that’s as big a mystery as it is deadly. Let me tell you about this new set of books I have planned for everyone.

Let’s start with the first one, which is simply titled Hollow. I wanted to make characters who were young and inexperienced in bad situations for the first book. The purpose behind it was so the characters would be experiencing the same fear, shock, and confusion that the reader would be as the pages turn in what’s a mysterious event all the way to the final few chapters. This is a disaster book that pulls inspiration from The Walking Dead while making itself a unique story that is different from the zombie genre. I can’t say much more about the disaster without spoiling the whole book, but Hollow is about the bond two people form through loss and what they will do just to survive. It’s about finding truth in the darkest corners and wishing you hadn’t. It’s a dark book in places, but it’s also full of so much life and humor. When I set out to write this one, I thought what do I like to read and watch? I didn’t want to write for anyone else, which is the number one thing you're supposed to do. Writing 101 is to write to your market, but let’s be honest here. Do you really think the creators of The Walking Dead ever thought their story would be mainstream? Sometimes you just have to let a story lead you where it will and write what you love and just hope it becomes a trend. That’s what I did on this one, and it was an entertaining journey that came with ease. I think people who like action above romance with a mix of mystery and sci-fi will love this first book.

The second one is named Hollow: Revelations, and I can’t exactly tell you what it’s about because it would spoil the first story. All I can say is it’s about characters a bit older, and while it keeps many of the same elements as Hollow, this one is about tying up loose ends and giving the story the closure it deserves. I didn’t always know if I would release Revelations because I loved how the first one ended, but there was an opportunity for a bigger story with more characters in a whole new background. I took it and made a few alterations to the feel of this series in general. The original Hollow can feel a bit hopeless at times because of the epidemic, and so can Revelations, but I wanted to provide some kind of hope for the characters in this story and give the reader an indication that maybe Hollow’s story might end happily. I can’t say if it did or not, and in fact, I’m not quite sure even now if I would qualify it as good or bad, but I can say for sure that Revelations provides answers that anyone who loved the original will want. The first was all about a journey, and the second is about finding the end to that in a manner that stays true to Hollow while also adding some elements that makes it feel new instead of like a repeat of the first.

So this is what I’m working on now. It’s a two book series that I hope to release soon. I also think that I can release them within a month of each other, which has always been the goal. I don’t want my readers to have to wait too long to finish this story. It was such a joy to write, and the feedback I’ve gotten so far has been very good. I hope you’ll love it, but more than that, I have to say I’m glad I took a journey into Owen and Piper’s world. It had all the elements I love in a great story. I’ve often written stories that were full of action, romance, or mystery. This provides a lot of action and a healthy dose of the others, which is just my comfort level. I’ve been challenging myself a lot to write outside of where I’m comfortable, but I have to say that if ever I were going to settle down into one genre, I think it might just be into this one. Disaster stories mixed with sci-fi have so much potential because nothing is truly off the table in them. They require creativity, whereas in other genres, you’re required to color inside the lines so often. I’ve never quite been good at staying in those lines, so I ditched the whole coloring book for this one and drew my own picture made up of all the things I love about books, television, games, and even comics. I can’t wait to share this side of myself with everyone because it’s the truest side I’ve shown to people yet.