Back to the Basics

I’ve been thinking about something lately that needs to be said. A lot needs to change over the next few days. For weeks now I’ve been letting outside influences dictate what I do, what I say, and even how I write. This blog was supposed to be about my life and nothing else. I’ve heard people telling me how I should promote my books on here constantly and how I should always be positive because apparently that’s what people want to hear. Believe it or not, I’m not a machine. I don’t always feel positive or inspired. I don’t always think about books either, so I’m going to let you know who I really am and end the stupid idea that my blog, my Facebook, or my books should be marketed and written in a certain way that supposedly appeals to the majority of people.

Hi, I’m Mitch Grace. I love writing because it’s a safe place for me to hide from a reality that’s anything but what I need it to be. My other comfort is music. I can’t wait for the new #Avenged Sevenfold and #AFI albums to come out later this year. I also love a band that’s not as well-known, named #One Less Reason. If you’re ever going to give a band a chance that you haven’t heard of, that’s who you should listen to. I absolutely love video games, and in general I’m a little bit of a nerd. I would rather be on the computer or playing a game than out with friends at a party or a bar any day of the week. As you can see, I’m not the most social person in the world. As a matter of fact, I find that my personality doesn’t click with most people. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t make friends easy, but if I do like you that probably won’t ever change. I love the #Green Bay Packers, and I used to love SEC football until a collection of idiots turned me off of that. I don’t like unintelligent rivalries like the one between #Mississippi State and #Ole Miss. At the end of the day, I think a rival is someone you should be able to respect even if you don’t like them. I can’t respect the attitude of most football fans where I live. I love basketball also. No, it’s not the most popular sport where I live, but it provides a certain level of excitement that even football fails to do at times. I love the #Boston Celtics, #Indiana Pacers, and #Memphis Grizzlies. I absolutely hate walls. That probably sounds odd, but it’s true. I always hated the inside of classrooms, and at times, I hate the walls in my home. I hate feeling like there’s nowhere to go or that I’m helplessly trapped in the area I was born in. That sounds bad. I’m not running down this area at all. There are some great people here, but there is still a large part of me that wants to see more of the world and experience cultures that I can’t experience here. Here’s another thing you may not know about me. Sometimes I get extremely angry. Yesterday was the perfect example of that. A message board was started without my knowledge on a site online, and some idiots on it made a campaign to apparently try to ruin the work I’ve done on my books. These people had never read my books, and I know that because I looked through my sales. There had been no new ones. Within one hour, they all went through and marked every review I had on my book as unhelpful. I’m not going to be surprised when I start seeing bad reviews popping up from these people. I don’t mind bad reviews if the person has actually read my work. Bad reviews are just an opinion, after all. When you haven’t read what I do and you want to attack me, it makes me angry, however. I know that these people are nothing more than internet trolls, but there’s still such a part of me that wants to find them and make them hurt for trying to ruin something just out of meanness. I’ve never understood people like that, and as wrong as it sounds, I hope that people who rain on others parade just to do it are unsuccessful and unhappy for all of their days. That was another thing I wasn’t supposed to mention. As an author, I’m not supposed to even acknowledge the trolls on the internet, but you know what? That’s just not me. I love music that falls into the rock/emo/and metal genres, I don’t turn the other cheek so easily, I love sports and talking to intelligent fans about them, and most of all, I love writing because it keeps me sane. It allows me to release something that otherwise might kill me.

I guess the whole point of this was to get one message across to everyone who wants to say what I ought to do. That message is that there is no right or wrong way to write a book. You just write what you want to write and be you. Reviews will come when they come, and success will come when it does. There’s no need to hurry, and there’s no need to lie about who you are to try to make it come sooner. For me, what I do is a window into my soul, and from this point forward all people will see is what there is. I’m flawed, sometimes I’m happy, and sometimes I’m sad. I feel love starved, I say the wrong thing more times than not, I’m clumsy, and most of all, what I am changes from day to day. Here’s to being exactly what I am. People can like it or they can’t. I don’t really care because quite frankly I love what I’m doing as long as I’m doing it my way, and from this day forward that’s how it’ll be done, for better or worse.

Progress

It’s officially started out as a good day. I’ve written a new chapter in the new Strange Visions book, a new title in the Wrong series is 99% finished, and I even found out that I have some people from England and Malaysia who are reading my book. I’m going to write more in the new Strange Visions book today, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to do another read through of the other Strange Visions books soon. They’re almost ready for release, and I’m on a good pace to reach my goal of July 14^th for them. I’m starting to wrap up with the editing process, and I’ve been moving quickly with writing new books, so that got me thinking. When I’m finally done with the Wrong series and the Strange Visions series, what should I write about? They’re both very different from one another. Wrong is more of a CIA thriller with elements of romance and even comedy. Strange Visions is a young adult book that centers on crime, Sci-Fi elements and incorporates romance into it. If I’ve delved into the thriller genre and the sci-fi/crime genre, what should I do next? It’s a long way off. In fact, it may be over a year before I’m done with these two series, but I can’t help but think to the future. I had an idea for a Christian book. My other books aren’t Christian books, but I think it’s something I feel like I need to do at least once because there’s a story to tell there. After that, I don’t know, however. I don’t want to be like some authors and get caught into the trap of writing in the same genre all the time. That’s why I created the Strange Visions series to coexist with the Wrong series. The challenging thing in the future is going to be coming up with new ideas that in no way resemble my old ones. There are plenty of things to draw from, though, so I’m not too worried. I have interest in doing books that fall in the Romance, Sci-fi, Christian, sports, and even children’s genres. Maybe I’ll eventually be able to write about all that, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Finish what you started first, Mitchel is what I should be saying to myself, but who knows? Maybe I’ll find the time to work on a side project or two during my work on these two series. I would love to hear from anyone out there who has any ideas. I love all sorts of things, so no idea would be a bad one. What do you guys like to write or read? I really would like to know that because I like to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone. Strange Visions was a storyline that was outside of my comfort zone. I’ve never like the idea of writing a book with Sci-fi elements in it, but once I forced myself to write it, I found that it became natural. I had stretched myself to a new limit and found that I could do something I was initially uncomfortable with, and after a while, I was not only comfortable with it, but I didn’t know why I never wanted to write something like it to begin with. It was a second home for me in my head, and I want to build more of those homes in the future. Let me know what you think, and tell me what you want to read. Also, leave me some reviews on Amazon of my current Wrong books when you get time. The more reviews I have, the more people will take a chance on reading something I’ve written. I want to reach as many people as possible. Thanks.

 

 

Strength and Overcoming

What makes strength? Is it physical power or is it mental power? Is it something altogether different?  Recently a lot of negativity has crept into my life like a cancer. I don’t exactly know how I’ve gotten to a place where everything feels worse than it should, but I’m there, and so are many of the people who will read this. My definition of strength is changing as my viewpoint changes. I’ve felt like I didn’t have a voice in the past, and I’ve felt like I was weak in many ways. I’ve never been the strongest guy physically, and I’ve never been the one who everyone wants to listen to, or at least I never was in the past. I’ve had to overcome things, people, and even thoughts that held me back over the last few weeks. In those few weeks, and even days, I’ve found what strength is to me. It’s knowing that no matter what obstacle is in your way, you’ll still be firmly planted where you once were. It’s failing and then getting back up. It’s standing up to people and refusing to stay quiet any longer about who you truly are. I have a voice today. I’m not a multimillion dollar author, and truthfully, I don’t know if I would ever want to be. There’s something pure about what I do right now. I can reach an audience and show them exactly who I am on a level that comes very close to my soul without commercializing it in a way that I think will simply sell. That takes courage, and it takes strength. In the same way, it takes strength for any of us to make a change that the people around us may feel uncomfortable with or even that we may feel uncomfortable with. I guess what I’m saying is that no matter what anyone thinks, or no matter what doubt creeps into your mind, whether it’s by your own doing or a jealous or idiotic so called friend, be what you are, and always know that success will come from that. I know it to be true. It’s already happening slowly but surely for me. Every day my ideas and voice take on a new shape in the mind of someone else. For me, there is no better way to pass on who you are than to take something so intimate and share it with the world. My stories are my inner monologue, my daydreams that my first grade teacher wrote a note to my parents about, and my inner demons. If people can understand and get a reaction out of that, whether it’s negative or positive, I’ve succeeded. Find your voice, and never let fear stop you or let someone else’s voice drown you out. Stand for the things you are, the things you believe in, and the people who really love and support you. If you can do that, everything else in life is just background noise. Every critic and every doubter just fades away into the shadows of your mind, and you can reach a place you were born to go to. You can finally become the strong and unique person that you were made to be, and leave behind every person who gave up on life and love a long time ago. So what is strength? It’s a lot of things to a lot of different people, but I’ve found my definition. I’m still standing firmly. I’m comfortable in my own skin, with my own beliefs, and most of all, everything else and everyone else is just background noise. Here’s to more strength in the coming days. I’ve got a lot of work to do, so I’m going to get to it . . . I say work, but I love this. Thanks for listening, and always find a way to do what you love no matter what fear may be there because once you do, all that fear and all those people become what they should be:  background noise.   

All Nighters

It’s been a long day. I’ve worried about sales, how to increase sales, and if this is something I can do long term. The truth is that today has been full of nothing but worry over something I can’t change. Sales are doing well, but the worry that this won’t be sustainable is something that scares the hell out of me. Sorry for being crude there, but that’s just how I feel. I’ve made a decision. Tonight there will be no sales . . . or at least if there are I won’t be seeing them. I find myself looking at my sales page every few minutes. Tonight, I say no more. I’m going to go back to what I know. I’m going to write all night long. That’s what I’m good at. I’m not a promoter. I’m a writer. As a writer, I’m going to go back to the basics and do the only thing that has ever been natural to me. I’m going back to the “lab” again or at least that’s what I’ve come to think of a certain room in the house where I lock myself away from the rest of the world. It’s strange. When I’m in that room, I’m more alone than I ever am otherwise, but I’m also free. Maybe everyone has a comfort zone like that. There are no expectations in that room, there are no judgments, and most of all, there are no people. That last statement sounds unhealthy, but here’s the truth. I don’t quite know how I fit in with people. I always felt like I could figure out the most complex problems in school. Then something as complicated as writing a book became a breeze to me. How is it that simple socialization makes me so uneasy? I almost feel socially retarded. Maybe it’s just who I am. I can’t relate to people, but I can relate to the worlds I build in my mind and put on paper. I hope that others can relate to that world, too. I think we all have that safe place where we lock ourselves away at. Is it unhealthy? Yes, it probably is. Would I get rid of it if I could? No, I wouldn’t, and you shouldn’t either. Find what you love, and do it. That all sounds simplified, but that’s what I need tonight. It’s back to the basics. Maybe we should all go back to the basics because in my experience everything else is just a headache.  

The Wrong Series

My first three books went live on Amazon Kindle yesterday. So far I only have one review up, but I have been informed that many others are pending. I’m very proud of the work I’ve done. It may not be everyone’s favorite book, but I’m very confident that most people will like it. It’s been a long road to this point, and I still have a long way to go. I need to promote like crazy, write, edit, and somehow maintain some kind of life. As you can see, it’s not going to be easy, but it’s all worth it. I love what I’m doing today, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. My hope is that one day I’ll be able to just write and do nothing else to make money. The good news is that there’s no reason for me to believe that won’t be a reality someday. I’m off to a great start. I don’t know who all reads this, but if you have a Kindle, an Ipad, smart phone, or something with a Kindle app, I would love for you to check out my books. You can get a free preview of my book on the website if you just want to check it out before buying. It is also free for Amazon Prime customers. Thanks to anyone who already has purchased my books and those who will.  Here are the links to my books.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DE6GP24

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DEI4I5S

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DEI4GIC

Fear

        Hi, everyone. I was fortunate enough to be a guest blogger recently. This is what I wrote, and I would like to give everyone a link to my friend's blog. It has some great information in it about a disease, Chiari Malformation, that we need to raise awareness for. Thanks for reading, and if you don't mind, check out her blog.  

        Fear is a subject that a lot of people don’t understand. Some people treat it as a defect in our emotions, and others treat it as a normal human emotion that keeps us from doing things we shouldn’t do. Is it normal? It certainly seems that it is. Everywhere you look, someone somewhere is afraid of something. Is it healthy, though? I would say yes and no. We naturally fear death or losing the people we love. My friend Michele Collum has a rare disease called Chiari Malformation, and that is very scary. In truth, I knew almost nothing about this disease until I heard about her situation. This disease is something that someone should fear if they have it. Cancer is another disease that we should fear. Why do we fear these diseases, though? We fear them because they could take us away from the people we love. If we don’t beat these diseases, we’ll never have another opportunity to love our families or experience anything on this earth again. That fear is normal, and it’s healthy. We should always strive to live against all odds. Here’s a thought I have concerning that, though. How many of us are actually living before we find out we’re living on borrowed time? We all talk about all the things we’re going to do in the future, then one day we wake up and realize there isn’t enough time to do those things anymore. We wasted our time being conservative and safe. Look where that gets us, though. We all leave this world with regrets, but most of them are because we didn’t do what we should have done. I’m still a young man, but I can honestly say that I let fear defeat me for twenty-four years. If I wanted to do something, I thought about everything that could be wrong with it until I talked myself out of it. I never talked to that girl who was supposedly a little out of my league, and I never truly expressed my own opinions. After all, my opinions were different than every other person around me. While other men in my area were obsessed with things like hunting, fishing, and cars, I was more into writing and music. I felt alone, and I was afraid that by stepping out of line and simply being who I was, I would be rejected. Last year that changed. I had always wanted to go to Europe. I wanted to go to Italy and to France. The cost was pretty astronomical because there were a lot of things I wanted to do there, and I was bringing two other people with me. I feared that somehow this experience would fall short of my expectations and I would be left with far less money and no experience to show for it. Was Europe overrated? Yes, not everything was like I thought it would be. Did I still have a unique experience that was truly needed at that point in my life? You better believe I did. It didn’t stop there, however. I had always wanted to write a book. I lacked the confidence to do it in the past, but little by little I was gaining that confidence. After you’ve survived the Roman traffic with a crazy taxi driver you can do anything, I told myself. I started writing, but every time I did, something got in the way. I would write a chapter, and then fear would set in. I would think things like: Is this what people want to read? What are they going to say when they see this garbage? For some reason I just knew that what I was doing was going to be rejected by the people around me. I’m still afraid of that. When January rolled around, I had absolutely no writing material. I had literally erased everything I had ever written. That’s when I made a decision. I was going to start doing things the way I wanted to do them. So what if someone laughed at my story, and so what if someone might think that they could write a better story. The fact is that very few people actually write a book. If I was going to do this I had to conquer my fear. I wrote five to seven thousand words every day, and I refused to edit one word of it until I had finished my first book. It was raw, and in some places it might have even been a little ugly at that point, but it was mine. I was proud, and more importantly, I was confident in what I had done. I continued writing because it was what I had always loved to do. Then came the hard part. I started letting people know what I was doing and even let some people read what I had written. At first it was hard, but now it’s easy. The same principle works with everything else. I have read that Michele has started learning to fly. For many people and for her this is a very unnerving process, but it’s all worth it when we push ourselves to the limits of fear. It makes us stronger, and most importantly it makes us check off something on our list before the clock runs out. So in closing, the only thing we should really fear is losing the ability to make more moments and to stretch ourselves to our limits. Stretch yourself to those limits, and remember one thing. You’ll never get another chance to live this day. Love like there could be no tomorrow, and just as importantly, fear and overcome that fear because you may wake up one day with a real reason to fear. We’re living on borrowed time, people. Learn to enjoy that time, and yes, I mean that you should even learn to enjoy the challenge and accomplishment of overcoming your own fear.

www.constrictedcranium.blogspot.com
www.andsosheflies.blogspot.com

Nervousness

     Hello, anyone and everyone who runs across my blog. Today feels like it’s going to be a really good day. I just finished up with a brand new book, and I haven’t reread it to see how many errors are in it yet, but I think it’s going to go along nicely with my “Wrong” book series. It’s sort of a prequel but not really, if that makes any sense. I guess you could say that everything I write about in the past relates to the present, so it doesn’t feel like a prequel, even though that’s basically what it is. I’m getting excited and ahead of myself, though. After all, I haven’t even released my first three books in the “Wrong” series yet. I’m really excited to see what people will think of what I’ve done on June 21st. Honestly, I’m also a little scared, too. Writing a book is like a lot of different things, I would imagine. I would compare writing a book to a musician who writes an album that he or she puts all of their self into. It’s a story, and yes, it’s supposed to be designed to sell, but to the person who did it, it’s so much more. There are parts of that person sprinkled all throughout their album or book. When someone accepts their work, it’s like a weight has been lifted off of that individual. Their work has been justified, but in a way, who they are at their core has been, too. When someone rejects that work, however, you feel as if someone is rejecting you in the most intimate way possible. It’s like standing naked in front of a crowd. Are they going to accept you or ridicule you? Maybe my fear of being rejected is a little illogical. It’s not like anyone can truly tell me my worth or the worth of my books, after all, but that’s just how I feel. I want this to succeed, but not for money or for some kind of recognition. I just want to know that one of the only things I consider to be beautiful inside me is for other people what it is for me. I’m not stupid. Some people aren’t going to like it no matter what kind of quality it is. Everyone’s opinion differs, but still, I want to know that most people who take the time to read my books do enjoy them. In a way, I need that vindication as a person. I’ve always been more of a person who liked to think rather than do. I’ve dreamed rather than been what most people call realistic for most of my life. Those thoughts and dreams have now materialized into something very real. A part of me wants to know that it all means something good, and that who I am at my core fits into this world because I can’t turn that part of myself off. It’s simply who I am. If this doesn’t work, I’ll still continue to write and dream bigger and bigger dreams. Will it be stupid? To some, I suppose it will. Does any of that matter? No, it doesn’t. This is who I am in my soul of souls. Whether you believe that our personalities are a result of a bunch of chemical reactions, or you believe like I do that God made me exactly who I am, and that’s who I’ll always be, it doesn’t matter because deep down I think we all know there are some things we just can’t turn off. Some people may be natural born caregivers and others may be naturally athletic or artistic, but we’re all something that we don’t know why we are, but we just are. This is just me with my heart on my sleeve, and I need this to work out. Am I nervous? Yes, I’m beyond nervous. Am I excited? Yes, this is the first thing I’ve ever pursued with everything I have in me. Will it all come together, or will I look like a fool? I wish I could answer that now for my own sake, but at the end of the day it probably doesn’t matter. I wrote six stories in the time it takes most people to write one to two books. That’s something to be proud of, and even more than that, I have to look at the effect these books have had on me. I honestly believe the Wrong series may have saved my life. I based every character in that book series on a different part of my psyche. Strangely … as some of them healed, so did I. The Wrong series isn’t over, and it probably won’t be complete for quite some time. I still have some healing to do, after all. It’s a strange thing. I never read much when I was younger, and still to this day I only find certain authors interesting, but I never knew where a simple book could take me. I never thought I had anything good inside of me, but this proves that wrong. When I started writing back in January, I dreamed that something would come out of me that could turn into a career or at least make a little money on the side. I never dreamed that what I wrote would give me hope and a reason to go on.

     Wow, I didn’t realize how long I had been rambling on about this. I swore when I started this blog that I wouldn’t end up making it solely about my books, but today it can’t be helped. Today I’m tired, and I haven’t even been working that long. I have a ton more to do, and if I were doing anything else that took up this much time, I would probably hate my life right now. For the last few weeks, I’ve literally been putting in ten and twelve hour days every day. I don’t even take weekends off. It’s hard, and it’s stressful, but the reward I’ve gotten out of this makes every part of it worth it. Here’s to hoping that I get out of releasing these books half of what I’ve already gotten out them now.   

 

Givers

I was thinking back about some people I’ve known in the past, and I just thought I should share some thoughts for anyone who wants to listen. I’ve met some people who truly give without ever keeping a mental note of how much they’ve received. I haven’t met many people like this, but they exist. They all have one thing in common, though. They’re under-appreciated and for some reason, no one strives to be around them. They pull all the weight in their relationships. That fact got me to thinking about something. What is wrong with everyone? For that matter what’s wrong with me? We all try to get the woman or man who pays us no attention, and in truth, is completely wrong for us. We all try to get into the social group that’s hardest to get into, and doesn’t care if we’re there or not. We all try to get the job that appears to be the most impressive one, regardless of whether it’s what we should be doing or not. Where did the culture of us trying to be where we aren’t wanted begin? Where did my own pursuit of dreams and relationships that I truly didn’t care about begin? Maybe it’s just human psychology to want what you can’t have. I do wonder what it would be like to surround yourself with people who wanted to help you just because they were naturally nice, though. What if we didn’t pick on the people who were nice in school and glorify the people who made us all feel a little worse about ourselves? What if we did work that we were passionate about and not work that gave us X amount of dollars and a certain status? What if one kindness was always returned for another? Where would we be? It sounds like a pipe dream. Not everyone can get along. I get that. Some problems can’t be resolved with kindness or passion, but why is it that we ignore those who are there for us? All the majority of us do is take from them and move on. I guess what I’m saying is if you have someone in your life who always puts your interest before their own, never let them go, and return the favor because there’s nothing worse than waking up one day and realizing that the best thing you ever had is gone because you were off being someone else’s priority when something better had always been waiting on you.