Thanksgiving

As I’m sure you know, Thanksgiving is coming up, so I thought I would tell all of you what that day means to me. It can often be overshadowed by Christmas and Black Friday, but I believe it has a meaning as important as any holiday.

Thanksgiving is about exactly what it sounds like. We’re supposed to be thankful for what we have in our lives. Sure, we all get together and eat, and our children are told stories about the pilgrims and Indians, but why do we get together with our family and friends on this day? Is it simply to commemorate an anniversary to a feast, or is it about more than that? I believe it’s about spending the day with those we’re thankful for, and the food and drink that we share is just a reason to get everyone together. It’s a shame it takes a feast to get everyone together, but in the hustle and bustle of life, we can often forget what’s truly important. So without further ado, I want to tell all of you what I’m most thankful for.

   The first people I couldn’t live without are my family members. It might seem odd to most, but I’ve never felt the need to have an overbearing amount of friends. As a matter of fact, I spend a lot of my time being what most would consider without friends. I don’t see it that way, though. My family has always consisted of people who I would be proud to know, even if we weren’t related. You see, my family are the only friends I’ve ever truly needed. My parents were very young when they had me, and instead of feeling like I was raised by them, I often felt more like I grew up beside them. My grandparents have always been a source of fun and inspiration, too. Most people talk about their family teaching them life lessons, and all of them have certainly done that, but there’s more to my relationship with these people. They’re the type of people I can call up to go to a movie, go to a football game, or just come over to lounge around on a day that’s been way too hard. They’re the best friends anyone could ever ask for. I’ve also found friends in cousins, aunts and uncles, and many more who have given me everything I needed from the start. You see, I’ve never had to search for much in my life. I had a near perfect family and friends from the start. Sure, not everything was always perfect, but we’ve all grown together into something that’s more perfect than I think we realize until we actually stop to reflect on it.

    Here’s the condensed version of what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful that I’ve never had to worry about love, money, or companionship. I’ve never been the most popular person in the room, and I’m certainly not rich, but I’ve always had more than I need.

   On your Thanksgiving, I want you to see passed the turkey or a day of materialism. I even want you to look past a man in a red suit. Instead, I want you to tell the people in your life how thankful you are for them. Maybe not everyone in your life is good to you, and maybe you don’t always have enough, but if you search, I’m sure you’ll find someone who would do their best to give you whatever you needed in life. You’ll find that person who is home for you. Truly treasure them on a day that’s all about blessings. I know I’m going to.

The Unseen Series

   I want to update everyone on where I am with The Unseen series. I have, of course, finished with the second book that will be released very soon. It’s very action packed, and I think it takes the characters to a lot of places that I’ve always wanted to see. If you’ve been following what I do, you already know all of that, though. Here’s what you didn’t know. I just finished writing the third and final Unseen book. It’s not edited, and a lot will probably change about it before it’s released, but the bare bones book is finished. It has a definite ending that even surprised me. I had an ending picked out when I started writing the last book, but my characters had other ideas. I have to say that this new ending is a complete improvement over what I had originally wanted to do. It leaves the series in a way that I believe will tie up all loose ends and satisfy fans of the series.

   Now, I want to tell everyone what this series has meant to me. There is a lot of death throughout the series, and I purposely made it more action filled than past series that I’ve done. I wanted central themes of loss, lies, and death to be in the books. It’s not that I wanted the series to be depressing, but I feel that’s often how life works. I don’t mean to seem like I’m attaching too much symbolism to the series, but in my life, I’ve found that I always have to go through a lot of dark periods to see the sun again, and sometimes we never get to find a way out of the dark. That’s what I wanted to show in these books. I didn’t want Drew and Lindsey’s relationship to be the picture of perfection, and I didn’t want everyone’s story to end with a happily ever after because that’s not how life works. Life is hard, and relationships are complicated. I think that by the end of the series I identified with Drew and Lindsey as much as I did with my past characters, and that says something, considering that at least two of my past characters were based off parts of myself. I don’t want to give up too much about the next books, but I will say this. You guys are in for a rollercoaster of action, romance, death, secrets, and hope in the face of impossible odds. I can’t wait to share it with all of you. I enjoyed every minute of the ride with Drew and Lindsey.

   I suppose you might be wondering when the next Unseen will be coming out and when you can expect the third and final one. Here’s the easy answer to that. I plan to release The Unseen: Shadow Wars in mid to late December, but I’m making some last minute edits now, and depending on how smoothly things go, I might have to push things back to early January. I think I can have it out, though. I’m just trying to be cautious. I want this second book to be the best it can be. It serves as a great bridge between the first and third books. Don’t let that word fool you, though. It may be a bridge between the two books, but it’s the most action filled book of the three. I think it’s a bridge worth crossing for any lover of action or romance. As for the third book, which I haven’t given a definite title to yet, it will be released sometime next year. I haven’t decided when yet, but if I had to guess, I would probably say very early in March. I want to give everyone time to check out the second one before I release another, and more than that, I want to take a lot of time and make it the best ending to this series that is possible.

   I want to say one thing about the future before I go. When The Unseen is over, I’m going to be releasing something that’s far different. I have been working on a murder mystery novel that I think people will love, but I’m going to put releasing it on hold for a while. I started in the spy genre and then went to a young adult murder mystery series. After that, I wrote a sci-fi novel that got me out of my comfort zone. It turned out to be one of the best things I ever did. It made me realize how possible it was for me to expand my categories in writing. I don’t have to write in one genre or be pinned down by the expected. I can continue to try new things, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do down the line. I’m going to write a single book that doesn’t involve spies, detectives, psychics, or disasters. It’s just going to be about every day people and the lives they lead. The central theme will be relationships. It’ll have a lot of comedy and romance. I think it’s time to write something out of my comfort zone and hopefully find that I love writing slice of life stories as much as any others that I’ve written.

    Thanks for reading, everyone. I can’t wait to see how people react to the last two Unseen books. Next year should be interesting, too. I’ll be releasing a book in a new genre for me, writing a murder mystery book from a unique perspective, and releasing the final volume of Wrong Visions. I can’t wait to share it all with you. It’s strange. Every time I write the last words in a series, I feel sad because it’s like leaving some old friends behind. Still, I get to move on to new characters and challenges every time. I’m proud of where this series went to, and I can’t wait to show everyone what else I can do!

Living In Your World

   I wanted to share something with my readers today. It’s something we all know but make no effort to actually do. Live within your world. What does that actually mean? Some think it means to be happy with what you have - to be content. I completely disagree with that belief, but I do think there is something to be said for not daydreaming about what is, and always will be, out of your reach. Let me explain a little.

   As human beings, we always strive for more. We want a better car, a better house, a better relationship, and better friends. That’s all wonderful, but what happens when your dreams drift outside of reality? What happens when we want respect that we haven’t earned, a relationship to be great when we’ve done nothing to make it that way, and friendships to fall into our lap? What happens when we want it all and we don’t want to do anything to get it? That’s the state most of us are in. We want something. We can see it in our mind’s eye, but we can’t have it. I know I do at times. I want a million dollars, the perfect woman, better friends, and even deep respect from certain people. Here’s the thing, though, I write. A million dollars might come one day, but it’s not very likely. The perfect woman will never exist. What I need to be looking for is the perfect person for me, not someone I’ve cooked up in my head. Who knows? Maybe they’ve always been right in front of me, but my head has been too far up in the clouds to see what’s there. I need better and closer friendships, but I haven’t done a thing to find those friendships. I do the lazy thing and explore the same old options. I want respect, but I don’t bother demanding it. Don’t you see? I want it all, but I only seem to want it on my terms. I want it in some other space where it all comes so much easier. That’s not the space I live in, though. I live in a space where things are hard. To get to where I want to be, I have to write more, gain skills, search for what I need instead of what I want, be social despite my instinct not to be, and maybe most importantly, demand the respect that I know I deserve. It’s not easy. God knows that I’ve earned everything I have so far, and everything I ever get will be hard, but it is what I want. There’s something that a wise person once told me. You can only live within your own space. Look three feet in front of you. That’s what you can change. You can’t change other people, and you can’t immediately change your location or situation. You just have to take a metaphorical hold of whatever is three foot in front of you and start climbing to where you want to go. It’s that simple. I write books for a living, so it’s my job to dream up fictional situations, but it’s something that I need to stop doing in my everyday life. I can’t keep dreaming of what could be somewhere else or with someone else. I find myself doing this often, and it’s unhealthy. I’m not saying I shouldn’t dream or expect more. What I’m saying is that I should dream of a better reality and find ways to make it so within my three foot radius. I should write better, demand respect of those within my space, and find people to put within that space who are worth being around. There is something to find, and I’m sure that it’s close by. I won’t find it in my dreams, though. I’ll find it by slowly but surely climbing up to it one day at a time. That’s what I wish for all of you. Stop dreaming of things beyond your control and stop wishing that those within your space were someone else entirely. Instead, focus on what is right in front of you and who could be the perfect people to stand beside you in that space.

The Plan

   All right, I thought it was time for me to update everyone on my future plans in writing. I’m releasing the second volume of Wrong Visions on Halloween, and I’m very excited about it. It’s by far the longest book I’ve ever released, and it’s roughly twice the size of the first volume, so it should keep all fans of the Wrong and Strange Visions series reading for a long time. I think these stories are very diverse. We explore some familiar things like Nathan and Sam’s everyday life and Trent and Ally’s life back in Nashville, but we also have stories about characters that haven’t received the proper amount of attention in the past. Dan gets his own story that involves a mysterious character from his past, and Robert gets a story that centers around his detective work. Of course, there is at least one story that brings them all together that’s packed with action, too. To say the least, this is going to be one that takes more than a day to read, but with the diversity of the stories, I think readers will come back to them again and again.

   Now, on to The Unseen. I released The Unseen: A Broken Mind a few weeks ago, and its sequel, The Unseen: Shadow Wars will be released in early December. It’s action packed all the way through, and it goes to places that the series has never gone to before. It manages to explore more personal aspects of Drew and Lindsey’s lives without breaking with the action, and it goes in a direction that will ultimately lead to the ending of this series. I’m working on the final book in the series now. I have an idea for how it will end, but the weird thing is that these characters keep surprising me. I’ll have an idea of what Drew should do before I start writing, but just like living things, my characters seem to have better ideas, and I write what I see. The truth is that I have no idea how this series will end. I have about five different endings picked out, but who knows? All I know is that The Unseen will be coming to an end with the third book, which is untitled at the moment. I’m hoping to be able to release it in late February of next year.

   The Wrong Visions series isn’t finished either. I’m working on it as a side project at the same time as The Unseen. I have no idea when the third volume will come out, and I want to really take my time on it and enjoy it because it will be the last volume. I’ve enjoyed writing these side stories that involve the personal side of some of my favorite characters’ lives. An action scene is nice, but sometimes I just like to write about everyday life and sprinkle in a little romance or comedy. Wrong Visions has been a nice release for me as a writer, but the third one will end my collection of side stories. I’m writing the first story in it now, and I can’t give many details about it yet, but I do want to say this. It’s going to be fun to dive back into the Wrong and Strange Visions’ worlds once again. It’s a little odd, but The Unseen has been the set of books that pushes me forward as a writer while Wrong Visions has been something that pulls me back to what I already know. I needed both of those things in my life over the last few months. It’s nice to move forward and see that you have new things in you, but familiarity can remind you of why you started to begin with.

   Finally, I have new projects on my mind, too. After I’ve finished up with these two series, I want to try something totally different. I have an idea for a murder mystery book that would be a bit darker than what I’ve written in the past. It would be from a unique perspective, too. I’m toying with that at the moment, and it’s a project that probably won’t come to fruition for quite some time, but it’s something that keeps my mind ticking for what I might be able to do. Honestly, I think this idea will be something that a lot of people like if I can execute it right. I have another idea, too. It doesn’t involve murder or agencies. It doesn’t even have a sci-fi element to it. This book would be a simple one that only involves romance and a little slice of life feel. I want to write these two books together over time. When you’re writing something darker you have to be in a certain mindset, and that can bleed into your everyday life. I don’t want my murder mystery book to take me to a bad place, so I’m going to work on something lighthearted at the same time. It’s going to be challenging, but I want to be balanced as a person and a writer. I want people to know that I can be serious, funny, romantic, adventurous, and imaginative in my writing because that’s who I am in real life. I think these future projects are really going to communicate that. That’s the real purpose of all this. It’s all about expression. We lose sight of that as authors at times, but at the end of the day, nothing is better than putting little pieces of yourself out there and having them accepted. Nothing is worse than having those parts of yourself rejected, but that’s the risk you run to have a voice. I don’t know how long I’m going to have new ideas or want to share them with people, but for as long as I do, I want to stay true to my vision and present something original and imaginative. I hope you all enjoy these future books, and I hope that I continue to have new ideas and explore new avenues on my way to wherever it is that I’m going. I still haven’t figured it all out yet. Will I write forever? Where will I be for the rest of my life? Who will I spend that life with? Does Donald Trump really have hair? I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, but I do know this. I’m having fun on my journey to the answers to all of it.

Grief

Grief is a terrible word in the English language. We associate it with so many negatives. We most often think of loved ones who have passed on and the feelings that we get as we realize that we won’t be able to spend time with them again. True grief can be the worst feeling in the world. It cuts worse than any knife and wreaks havoc on our minds worse than any social disease ever could. Still, I think grief is good. That might sound strange, but I think grief is a sign of everything that is good in this world. Let me spend a couple of minutes telling you why.

   The more you grieve and hurt, the more you usually cared about the person who has passed on. Maybe they were a family member or maybe just a close friend, but one fact remains. When true grief takes over, you see the world through a whole new lens. You see all the ugliness in it and all the heartbreak. For a moment, you don’t even know if you want to hold on. Maybe it would be better if you weren’t in this world. After all, in those moments, it seems like there’s nothing left for you but pain. It is those moments that show us what we have to lose, though. Here’s a fact about grief. You would never feel it if you had not opened yourself to a person and allowed them to mean more to you than you probably ever knew they could. Maybe you’ve lost your mother or father, or maybe it’s even more serious. Maybe you’ve lost a husband or wife or even a child. There’s no doubt when they leave your life that the world will always be a little colder for you, but I look at grief so much differently than others. It is painful, but it is what life is all about. Life is full of two things - love and pain. Even if we don’t always see it, you can’t have one without the other. No matter how much two people love each other, one day they will have to lose each other, whether that is through death or just separation for some reason. This creates pain born from love that will never quite fade but never be the same either. In my opinion, it is that pain that lets us know we have lived life with at least one individual in the way that God intended it to be lived. We loved and were loved. Over time, our lives became so intertwined with another person’s that we could barely tell the differences between our two worlds. They were a part of our world and even the deepest parts of our soul, and when they’re gone, a part of us dies with them. We become colder as we lay them to rest, and there’s one less person in this world for us to live for. Still, it’s such a testament to how we live our lives and how they did. Our grief shows everything we accomplished together. As humans, we’re made selfish. It’s not in our nature to care about much more than ourselves, but in our grief, we find that we cared so much for someone that a part of us is laid to rest with them. Can there be anything more beautiful than that? Can we honestly say that grief is bad when it is proof that there is love, and even in loss, there is remembrance for those who forever altered our lives and souls?

   You might wonder why I’m writing this. I’ve lost someone recently, and I’ve seen the toll it has taken on those I love. I don’t believe in naming names on blogs or online in general, so I won’t say who’s hurting or even who has passed on to a better place, but I will say this. My loved one changed my life for the better, and I know that as I see the grief in many of my family members’ eyes that he changed everything about who they were down to their core. Part of them has been laid to rest with him, but another part lives on in them and in their children. That grief in their eyes is a testament to everything that once was and still is in our hearts, minds, and spirits. We should really redefine how we think of grief. It should be celebrated because when you grieve, it shows that you got to know someone who altered your life in an extraordinary way. There’s no better achievement in life than to know that you made a lasting impact on those you loved. The person you’re missing did that, and that’s something truly worth celebrating.

Finding Hope In A Game

   Recently the state of Mississippi has been at the forefront of news in college football. I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably tired of hearing about how Ole Miss and Mississippi State beat Alabama and Texas A&M. After all, most people are. In a way, even I am, and I’m here at the center of it. I heard someone say that we needed to act like we had been here before. That’s good advice, but here’s the thing. We haven’t been here before. I want to explain why this is a big deal to the people of Mississippi and why it’s such a big deal to me.

   First, let’s look at Mississippi’s history. We’re known for division in race more than any singular thing. We have a dark history, and in recent years, there has been a lot of debate on what to do about that. Some say we should sweep it under the rug and let time slowly heal all wounds. Others say that ignoring it will do nothing. They believe we need to learn from the past. Then there are those who don’t believe anything has to change at all. Have I said that there’s some division here? Then there are the issues that are most pressing in today’s world. We’ve been rated as one of the most illiterate, obese, corrupt, and drug filled states in the nation. After someone tells you for so long that you’re going to be fat, stupid, and that your leaders are ripping you off, you start to believe them. You start to think there’s no future at all for you. Since I could remember, I’ve been plotting a way to get out of Mississippi. It wasn’t that I didn’t like some people here or that I thought it was the worst place in the world. It was just that I didn’t see a future here for myself. No one did. We’re the poorest state in the nation, and we have absolutely nothing to cheer for. We have no professional sports teams, and no one is alive who remembers the last time State or Ole Miss actually won anything meaningful. That changed on Saturday, though. We all saw something that we might not see for another 50 years. We’re all trying to be optimistic that this run by both teams could continue for the rest of the year and spark a new attitude in Mississippi sports, but there’s a part of us that has been beat down for so long. That part tells us that this moment is fleeting. We need to enjoy it to the fullest right now. Cue tearing a goal post down and going crazy over the biggest weekend in Mississippi sports history. I’m not saying that it couldn’t have been handled with more class, but I am explaining something very important. We haven’t had hope in a long time. Yes, I know it’s just a game, but something that truly surprised us happened Saturday, and if that could happen, who knows what others surprises could be waiting?

   I want to explain things from my perspective now. I don’t care about these two teams as much as everyone else here. I view it as a game. I’m happy, but it’s not the most important thing to ever happen. Here’s the thing, though, despite it only being a game, it has given me something that I didn’t have before. I’ve been dealing with a lot of things in my life that have been pushing me away from the person I need to be. I’m trying to be a good person, and I’m trying to keep my faith intact, but over the last few months, I’ve been tested more than I felt like I could handle. I’ve lost friends, discovered things I would have never believed, been blindsided by things that I still don’t understand, and I’ve had a loved one recently get sick. This week has been the tipping point. It feels like I’ve lost almost everything. A few months ago I had good friends, and things were starting to come together. I was doing the right things, and it felt like I was being rewarded for it. Now, it feels like no good deed goes unpunished, and the more I pray and try, the worse things get. Finding out that someone I loved was fighting for their life this week was enough to make me doubt everything about who I’ve been and where I’m going. I was already shaken, but now I’m truly scared of what new hell might come next. Here’s the thing. A game transitioned into something else for me Saturday. I had no doubt that both teams would fail like they always do. Was it a miracle that we both won? I don’t know. Maybe we were just better, but I do know this. Everything changed for two programs in one moment. I had forgotten that things like that could happen. Everything can change for you in one moment. I can’t say that I feel good about where things are or that I think things are magically going to get better either. I feel confused by why I’m going through this - why the people I love have to suffer. Still, I’m going to keep being me and doing the right things. As two teams showed the nation Saturday, hard work, faith, and determination do eventually pay off. I’m going to believe that a loved one fighting for their life will win that fight, that God takes some friends away for a reason, and that someday every good deed, intention, and act of love will be returned.

   That’s all I have to say about two games that were nothing more than just that - games. They gave us hope, and they gave me enough strength to move on when I felt like I couldn’t anymore. Here’s to hoping that MSU and Ole Miss continue their run, but more than that, I hope we all remember in this state what it was like to feel hope, happiness, and like anything was possible for a day.