The Challenge

   I’ve been thinking about something lately that we probably all think about. There are so many things I didn’t do in my life that if I could go back I would do. Now, I couldn’t have known that I should have put ten grand down on the New York Giants to beat the Patriots, and I had a hunch that the Saints were on the rise, but I couldn’t bring myself to put cash on a team that had just won their first playoff game. I’m talking about more than that, though. Haven’t you ever wished you had told someone you loved them? Maybe your regret goes to the other side of the spectrum. Maybe there was someone who tormented you, and you wish that you had punched them just once. I have a lot of those types of regrets. There were people I would have approached, people I would have stayed away from, and for God’s sake! I would have never tried Gelato. That stuff has completely made any workout routine I try to get going useless! Here’s the thing, though. There are still a lot of moments left in my life. I’m going to be faced with opportunities to act or walk away, and I think I’ve decided what type of person I want to be.

   I examined my past, and something weird happened. I always thought that I would look back at those embarrassing moments and cringe when I got older. I really don’t, though. A girl turned me down or I said something embarrassing. Is that really such a big deal? Doesn’t everyone get turned down at least once in their lifetime, and honestly, if you can find someone who doesn’t say at least one stupid thing per day, then I want to meet them. The things I remember are times when I was afraid of rejection or embarrassment. You see, I don’t talk about this a lot, but I’m really self-conscious. I’ve always thought too much about what I’m going to say, which often leads to me saying nothing at all. I get scared of how people will perceive my ideas, and on a bigger scale, I get scared that if I hand my heart to someone on a silver platter that they’re going to crush it. Those fears are normal, but the fear that had paralyzed me in the past isn’t normal. It’s something I’m slowly overcoming. I still struggle with it, but things are getting better. I’ve actually examined the boy I was and the man I’ve become. I should have never felt insecure. Physically and mentally, I have all the tools to be successful in any given area. The only person who has been holding me back all these years is myself. I think it’s strange how that’s often the case for all of us. We know what we want, but we don’t have the confidence to pursue it. That beautiful and smart person could never love you, your ideas aren’t worth anything, you’ll just say something stupid. Why do these thoughts come to our minds even when there’s every reason to believe that we’ll succeed? I can’t figure it out, but I am finding ways to work against my own insecurities.

   I’m going to start doing something today. Every day, I’m going to find something that I’m uncomfortable with and do it. I probably won’t pick anything too complicated at first, but I know one thing. No opportunities for what I want or who I want to be around will pass me by again. I deserve great things and people, and I’m more than capable of finding them. This is the first brave thing I’m doing. As a man, I’ve been taught to appear confident my entire life. After all, women find confidence attractive, so why wouldn’t I walk around like I thought I was great? Here’s the truth, though. I know I can do great things and that I can make the people in my life happy, but there’s still a lot of insecurity that creeps its way into my brain. I’m not perfect, and I’m sorry, but I’m also not confident or comfortable in social situations. That’s the truth, and that’s me. I’m the guy who plans a little too much and worries too much. I think that’s the first key to gaining confidence, however. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and see everything you are and be all right with it. I did that recently. I saw someone with a lot of potential that was being wasted by his own insecurity. I’m working on that now, and I challenge you to do the same. I don’t care who you are. Everyone has that little voice that tells us we’re not good enough. It might not be in social situations. It might be at work or in school, but I’m telling you that I’m going to start challenging my doubts. When that voice tells me I’m not good enough, instead of accepting it, I’m going to find out if it’s right. If it’s wrong ten percent of the time, I’m going to be significantly better off than I was before, but there’s no reason to believe that I won’t be successful the majority of the time. I challenge you to do the same thing. When that voice says you can’t, look at it as a challenge and not something written in stone.

   In a nutshell, I hope that all of you will do what I’m going to start doing. Challenge one negative belief you have about yourself every day. By the time you’re through, I guarantee you’re going to find that there’s not half as much wrong with you as there is right.

Projects and Direction

   From time to time, I like to update everyone on what I’m working on. I haven’t released anything since last month, and I usually try to release a project at least every two months, but that’s probably not going to happen. You see, I’ve been working on getting my newest book ready. I’ve written new parts and edited it. It’s called The Divide, and I think it’s going to be amazing. I want to run over it one more time before I say it’s ready. Now, you might be asking this. Why won’t it be ready by next month if all you have to do is run through it one more time? Here’s the answer. I’m sending this one in to publishers. I think it’s a great book, and if I can’t get someone to pick it up, then I’m probably not going to be getting any offers from anything else. I believe in this one a lot, and I want to give it the best chance to succeed on a bigger scale. I don’t know how long it normally takes to hear back from publishers, and I’m not going to give up if the first person I send it to rejects it, so this could take some time. My guess would be that either my next release will be by a major publisher within a few months, or that I’ll put it on Kindle after enough time has passed for me to know that it’s not a publisher’s cup of tea. Make no mistake about it, though. I don’t think this book will fail. It has everything in it that most people look for in a book, and it explores some themes that are really popular. I want to share it with you guys right now, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to share it with even more people if I’m just patient. I’ll be sending it in to a very notable publishing company at the end of this month, and I’m sure I’ll hear something back within a few weeks.

   Now, on to other things I’m doing. I’ve written an entirely different book that involves espionage. It’s edited fairly well, but it’s not anywhere near ready for release. I’m in the middle of writing its sequel. I’m almost half way through writing it. I’ve also been writing a lot of short stories, and one really long story, that involves a lot of the characters from Wrong and Strange Visions. I’m just writing those for my personal enjoyment, but you wouldn’t believe how much of my time I’ve been putting into that. (I really need to work on that.) I already know what I’m going to do after I finish writing my sequel. I’m going to start on a sci-fi book. I have a few ideas about what to do. The weird thing is that I have some other ideas to write, too. One is more about personal relationships, and another is about religion and morality. Honestly, there are too many ideas, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to use all of them, but I’m thankful that I have them.

   Not everything in my life is about books, however. I’ve been house hunting because I want to own my own house, and I have found at least a couple of places that were perfect. Unfortunately, if you think something is too good to be true, you shouldn’t wait on it because a lot of other people will show interest really fast. I haven’t been able to get anything yet, but I’m still actively looking, and if I haven’t found anything by the end of the summer, I’m just going to say forget it and have a house built.

   All right, that about covers what I’m doing. I’ll be updating everyone about The Divide’s status as I hear back from publishers. Hopefully one day we’ll have the Divide and all of the Wrong and Strange Visions books in stores everywhere, but for now, I’ll just say that I’m thankful to the supporters I have and ask for everyone to look forward to what’s around the corner. It’s going to take some time, and regardless of whether a publisher takes a chance on The Divide, it’s going to be an excellent book.

Eternity

   Today I wanted to talk about something that I’ve been thinking about lately. I’m scared of death. I think we all are to some extent, but not existing on this earth is truly terrifying to me. It’s not necessarily the pain from dying that scares me or the lack of new experiences. It’s something deeper. It’s the thought of being forgotten. I don’t want it to be like I never existed in this world. With time, there’s a chance that my mark on this world will permanently fade, however. The people I loved will die, and their memories of me will die along with them. How do you live with that? We all want to be immortalized. In fact, we want that so much that scientists have been trying to figure out ways to do exactly that for years. People have tried to figure out how to stop the aging process, how to develop ways to make the body heal itself more efficiently, and lately, theories have even been thrown around that involve the possibility of transferring our consciousness into something else. It’s not that simple, though. We die. That’s the truth. No amount of research or technology will ever make us indestructible. It’s a cruel fact, but it’s one that I’m starting to come to terms with.

   That’s not what I wanted to leave everyone with, though. It’s just something you have to understand before you can fully appreciate how our world works. People pursue a lot of things, but very few people try to immortalize themselves. I’m here to tell you that you should spend as much time as possible trying to do exactly that - just not in the same way as people try to do it in a science fiction movie. There are many people who have shaped who I am. My parents have given me many good traits through seeing their example, and I’ve even picked up a few bad ones from them. You see, what I take from them goes farther than genes. I’ll teach my children a lot of the things that they taught me. Let’s go even deeper, though. Long gone musicians and writers have been my inspiration to push forward in life, and honestly, I haven’t been able to keep from drawing inspiration from their work. Even when I try to be completely original, there’s still one simple fact that remains. My inspiration and ideas are linked to things that a lot of great men and women did. My ideas are often built on principles that they created. I see how they did things, and I want to do them even better, but I have to acknowledge one simple fact. I might not even have the desire to do the things I do without them. In a way, everything I do is theirs. I can say the same for teachers. Their passion for writing, science, and history has rubbed off on me. I see my love for these subjects as my own, but it’s really not. It’s a reflection of a seed that they planted in my mind. In a way, every single person I ever help develop a love for one of these things will be because of the person who first gave me that love.

   This is the basic thing I want anyone reading this to take away. Give your children lessons that they won’t be able to help passing on to their kids, be passionate in such a way that it’s infectious to those around you, and finally, write down every thought, record every moment, and take every picture possible. Your actions, passions, and the records of your life are going to be what’s left when you’re gone. I fully plan to be immortal, or at least I plan to do everything I can to stay a part of this world for a very long time. I’ll love, impart knowledge, write, and leave behind a trail of breadcrumbs that future generations may not even realize belong to me. I’ll live through my future children, my characters, and maybe most of all, the seeds that I plant in everyone around me - the ones that people can’t help but spread to other people in their lives.

   If you want immortality, it’s actually within reach. It’s not in a pill form, and it’s not accomplished by some type of program in a science fiction movie. It’s much more simple than that. It can be seen in complex people like George Washington, Frank Sinatra, Robert Frost, and every person that history didn’t write down who shaped these influential individuals. It’s an example or a memory, but not an ordinary one. It’s one that transcends time and even when we don’t realize it exists, continues to keep our hearts beating, if nothing else, in the minds of everyone in our world.

Night Terror!

   I had a night terror last night for the first time in years. In case you don’t realize what I mean by night terror, I’ll tell you guys what my experience was with them when I was little. I would be completely asleep but also sort of awake. I would be dreaming about something terrifying, but I would spring up out of bed in a complete panic. My eyes would be wide open, and I wouldn’t be able to catch my breath. A lot of the time, I would also feel like my heart was going to explode. That was the main thing I remembered about them. I remember my dreams, but I don’t actually remember running around the house in a panic and saying things that made no sense. That’s just what I’m told I would do when I was little. Here’s the thing, though. It happened again last night, and it might surprise you what I was dreaming about when I felt so panicked that it felt like a thousand pounds was sitting on my chest.

   I distinctly remember dreaming about how I needed to get more likes, write at least six thousand new words, edit a few chapters, write a new blog, post something on my regular Facebook and my street team page, promote my books on whatever sites would let me, and finally, to live. I just couldn’t understand how I was supposed to complete all of these tasks and still be able to have one moment of fun or at least peace. That’s when I started to feel myself losing it. It was like my airway completely shut off. I was told I was talking about likes or something in my half-awake state. (I assume on Facebook.)

   There’s a point to all of this. Many dreams exist to tell you something important. My body felt like it was dying, and my mind was in absolute turmoil to the point that I couldn’t even control it. That’s how I feel a lot now. I love writing, but I hate having to spend every waking minute doing a list of things. I’ve gone out with a friend once in the last four months, and forget about dating. It’s been non-existent, and for what? Because some people say that I need to do all of this? If I’m going to write, edit, promote, blog, and interact with people all the time, then something’s going to give eventually, and I’m afraid that something is going to be me. I don’t feel happy anymore with what I’m doing, and what I’m really writing to tell everyone is this. Things are about to change. I’m going to write what I want to write, books are going to come out slower, and I’m not going to take any of this so seriously. It’s killing me to take it seriously. Most importantly, I’m going to start focusing on what really matters. I need a life outside of this. I work on this stuff eighty-four hours a week. If you don’t think that’s true, then I invite you to come live with me for a week. You’ll see. It’s all I have time for. I’m scaling back to no more than forty hours a week, and I’m taking every minute of the weekend for myself. I need to find a girlfriend, friends who share my interests, and a quiet place to just shut off my mind. I’m literally working half of my life away, and the other half is being spent in thought of what I need to be doing. (Even when I’m asleep apparently.)

   Thanks for reading, and I hope you guys won’t mind waiting a little longer for books to come out in the future. I put out twelve books in ten months, but over the next ten months, I’ll be lucky to put out half of that. I think that’s for the best, though. I need to enjoy what I do, and to do that, it can’t be something that’s nightmare worthy. I still have a lot of passion for writing, and that’s what I want to concentrate on - that passion. I don’t want to concentrate on the negative things about this or to be dragged down by an endless amount of tasks. This isn’t a job. It’s a lifestyle. Real writers are addicted to writing. We couldn’t stop if we wanted to. It’s just who we are, so I’m going to stop treating this like a job. This is my passion, and it’s a place to show my creativity, no matter how long that takes or what anyone thinks of it.

Nerve

   There are a lot of things that are important in this world. The most important characteristics to individuals often open doors to them. We put a huge emphasis on education, creativity, looks, social skills, and being spiritually at peace. These can all be important in certain situations, but I want to talk about the thing that is always left off the list of important things about people.

   I would argue that nerve is the most important thing for a person to have. Do you want that job you don’t feel like you’re fully qualified to do, that girl who’s supposed to be out of your league, or how about that house or car that people say you aren’t going to get for under a certain price? Getting all of those things can be really simple regardless of how smart you are, good looking you are, or how well you can negotiate. Having the nerve to actually apply for a job that’s a little above you while presenting yourself as fully deserving, talking to that girl and treating her as your equal and not some unattainable person, and simply offering only what you want to and sticking to it, can and will get you all of those things. Sure, you’ll get rejected by employers and women sometimes. Not every homeowner or car dealership will work with you either, but here’s the thing about this world. Anything that is possible will happen eventually. So you want the perfect job. Keep applying for your definition of perfection and never cease in doing so. There’s someone out there who will give you a chance, and if you keep pursuing your dreams, they will become a reality. If you want the perfect man or woman for you, it’s not accomplished by dating a bunch of people who aren’t that. It’s accomplished by having the nerve and confidence to approach exactly what you’re looking for. Sure, three out of four of them might reject you, but wouldn’t you rather have the nerve to face rejection than succeed on finding the opposite of what you’re looking for? Finally, the key to negotiating is simply to stick with your instincts. If a deal isn’t right, have the nerve to never cave.

   All of this sounds simple, and I know you can’t go to job interviews and constantly be rejected. Sooner or later you have to pay the bills. That doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to apply for and pursue better things, however. I also know that many people don’t want to be alone. That’s understandable, but I’ve looked at that part of my life like this. I see so many people who are afraid to be alone. Their marriages end in divorce or in never-ending resentment most of the time. Wouldn’t you rather have the nerve to wait it out - to be lonely? What if you could find someone you wouldn’t resent? What if they would be the person you were looking for? That can and will be a reality if you simply have the nerve to only pursue the exact people you’re looking for. It’s the longer road, and it’s the harder one, but ultimately, just like most things that are hard, it pays off in the end.

   I guess the main thing I’m saying is this. Have the nerve to bet on you today. Do you think you can do more or that you deserve more? Start letting people know that, and never doubt anything that you’re doing. Know in your heart that you deserve it all. Here’s the thing, when you start believing that, so do the people around you. When you tell your employer why they need you and not the other way around, it’s an eye opener for them. In the same way, realize that anyone you could walk up and talk to would be lucky to have a conversation with you. Have the nerve to realize your own value and to put a value on every situation you walk into. Then do one thing. Never settle for less than everything you’re worth.