Motivation and Literary+

By | Published Friday, July 6, 2012



Lest we forget that this is a writing blog:

I wrote over 1,200 words today, not including this blog post, and not including the paper I'm about to edit for my girlfriend. It was fiction that I wrote. I enjoyed it very much.

Today is the first day this month that I've written anything, and in June, the writing was sporadic at best. In my experience, when I feel fulfilled in other areas of my life, I write less, and even develop writer's block, because satisfaction is a poor motivator. When I'm dissatisfied, hurt, wanting, the writing is incredible. I spent the last couple of weeks in an emotional slump, so hopefully the writing will be picking up, but I won't hold my breath.

I'm at a stage right now where I don't need writing like I did 6 months ago, when I was working 8 hours a day on my novel. I've made my priorities elsewhere, have found satisfaction in other things than the written word. I can't say it's what I wanted. Last November I wanted to stick to this incarnation of my writing career. I wanted to push past the boundaries, the limits that have always held me back.

I have gone through several phases through the years, none of them materially successful, but all rewarding in their own way. I edited a couple of e-zines, made one into a paying market. I had a semi-successful anxiety blog that is still out there, hopefully helping someone somewhere. I've written several unfinished novels, many short stories, tried my hand at writing internet articles (I absolutely hate doing that).

I don't know what it is about me. When I'm on I'm on fire. I'm the most motivated man in the world. When I'm off, nothing turns me back on. 

Am I too goal-oriented? 

Success in writing comes slowly. It comes to those who stick to their guns, but slowly, and it's rarely ever (almost never) the superstar success non-writers imagine it to be. If you write for the end, you're going to be in for disappointment. If you write for fun, putting blinders on so you don't pay attention to the material success that may come, not only will writing be incredibly rewarding emotionally, but the money to be made may make for a nice surprise.

So I'm going to regroup. I hid most of my current projects in a folder, and have just two things on my desktop that I want to work on. They're two short stories I am passionate about, but haven't approached because I've been writing other things, things farther from being finished. I want to get work out there. I want to get more stories published. That is my main “professional” goal. But short of that, I want to have fun. That means I must write what I feel like writing; finding the path of least resistance while still challenging myself.

~*~

Now I want to shine a light on something a friend of mine is doing. Shen Hart is working hard to bring together writers. The dream is simple: we will help one another.

We will help each other edit and market and do all the little things that writers need to do to find material success (and we deserve it, too!). Some of us are much better at certain skills than at others, and that holds us back in certain ways. Combining our efforts may help some of us break out.

I'm incredibly proud of Shen for doing this. It's something I've tried in the past and have given up on because I lacked her passion and I lacked the community that is Google+.

If you're interested in joining Literary+, I hope you will take the time to speak with Shen. Find out what we're up to, how we can help you and how can you help us.

Many writers are at different stages of our careers, with different talents and different needs. But each of us may fit in somewhere, benefiting from the community effort.

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Independence

By | Published Wednesday, July 4, 2012

I wrote this post in pieces. Some of it early in the day, some of it later in the day. I've been struggling with these ideas because they are so new to me. Just two months ago I did not believe these things. I have undergone some sort of transformation since the beginning of May. Something shut off, something else turned on.

I believe there are three main reasons for this sudden transformation. I once believed that we needed war to maintain peace, that it was necessary for prosperity: I embraced the military-industrial complex. But this changed literally overnight when I stopped watching the news, began studying war from another angle, and began meditating more deeply than I had ever done before.

Without the news I was no longer fed negativity on a daily basis.

I studied the role America has played in its wars. I began to see holes in the logic that these wars were necessary. I began to see a dangerous trend. Morality was, time and time again, used as a motivator for action. America was portrayed as the great defender, the good superhero battling evil. Anyone who disagreed, anyone who challenged this belief was portrayed as a traitor, as unpatriotic. But like the super hero fights in film, the battles between Great America and evil Confederates and Nazis led to far more death and destruction than the enemy alone could have caused. I discovered that the price of war was greater than the reward. This was lost in the static of millions of well-meaning Americans falling for the morally based propaganda fed to them by the government. Even today I see good people, people who would do no harm to anyone, express faith in the flawed ideology that war, and the tragedy it causes people, is necessary to keep us safe. I hope to show below why this is flawed.

Through meditation, I was able to approach my true passions, and decide consciously where I wished to put my time and energy. Because of this, I am no longer concerned with politics, am quickly becoming a pacifist, and am struggling to find a sure footing atop my new worldview. I understand now that many millions of people are living out of fear, acting out of fear, and I realize, most importantly, that I was one of them.

There is no more fitting day than the Fourth of July to express these conclusions. My Independence Day.

~*~

I'm celebrating my Independence from Anger, Hate, and Violence.

The only way to freedom is to embrace uncertainty. You cannot be secure and free, because freedom means the ability to stay still, to fly, or to fall as one sees fit, as one finds necessary. Tethered to ideals, we are unable to maneuver. Especially ideals borne of fear.

Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity. It can be a hell of a lot of fun, but don't lie to yourself that it will work. It hasn't, and it never will. We are free not because of the wars we have fought, but because of the wars we have not fought; with ourselves, with each other, with the world.

Freedom doesn't come from the soldier on the battle field willing to kill, or die trying, but from the man or woman willing to die to avoid killing another human being. Freedom comes from men and women like Martin Luther King Jr., not from those like General Patton.

Anything short of that begs the question: Are we really free?

If it's not live and let live, it's not freedom, it's not independence. It's dependence. If we cannot trust others, we are only victims. If we cannot love, we are only slaves.

~*~

I believe American freedom is largely a product of intelligence and the creativity of its people. Through our technology we have been able to build a world with abundant resources, freeing us (mostly) from long hours in farm fields and in factories. It hasn't been a perfect evolution, but for the most part the average First World citizen has more free time than our ancestors (not just in America, but even more so in countries like France and Italy).

This has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing for those who have been able to take advantage of this, whether it be with an appreciation (realizing the ease of life), or using the extra time to exercise their creativity, furthering our resource capacity. It is the curse of those who are bored and cannot find a way to appreciate what they have, or passionate enough about something to add to the progress meter.

After all, freedom really is time. With abundant resources we no longer need to work 12-16 hours a day just to survive (to avoid starvation), but can work a 40 hour workweek and still cultivate our goals. For over a century many Americans toiled as poor farmers, in brutal slavery, and as share croppers (slavery except in name, a modern form of feudalism). Until the 20th century, most Americans were not really free. Even today, some aren't (for poverty is not freedom), but many more are than ever before, and despite our current economic trouble, the trend will continue to push upward as more technology leads to greater efficiency, and even more time.

We can use this time to enrich our lives, and the lives of those around us, or we can waste it through negativity and idleness. It's up to us, and that is also a freedom.

This type of freedom transcends political ideologies. It is not based on who won what war (it cannot be bought with a bullet). It does not depend on laws to protect us (it cannot be legislated into existence). It has arisen not from protectors, but from the ingenuity of the common man, their desire, not for power and control, but for what people seek throughout all the world, in America, in China, in Iraq, in Uganda, in Britain and Brazil.

Prosperity.

~*~

There is an argument made for war that, at first, makes sense to me. It is that many (a great many, in fact) of our technologies were created for the war effort. U.S. and German scientists, in an attempt to win World War II, made great strides in inventing things that would later find vital civilian uses.

I believe that civilian scientists would have eventually invented all of these things (be it the jet engine or splitting the atom). We may have had to wait a little longer, but war did not suddenly make us intelligent enough to discover something we would have been incapable of discovering without conflict.

Despite the technological advancements made during the World Wars, most of our greatest inventions came in times of peace, by private inventors. The telephone, the light bulb, the airplane, the automobile, the engine, the theory of relativity, and so many more.

I have a great faith in human ingenuity. I do not think people need any more motivation to do great things than simple inquisitiveness and passion, and a hope to make the world easier for our fellow humans.

We have prosperity and freedom despite war. Not because of it.

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The Can/Can't Mind Game

By | Published Saturday, June 23, 2012


Much of my anxiety is a head game. Someone asks me to do something, or tells me to do something, or encourages me to do something and I respond: “I can't.”

I don't always respond to them verbally, but even if I only think “I can't,” it is debilitating.

“I can't.” Not even “I won't.” “I can't.”

If it were “I won't” then it would be a choice, either laziness or assertiveness, but my decision.

“I can't” is saying it's not my choice, that it's out of my hands, that I'm doomed, fated to what I am.

While meditating I was thinking about the opposite of “I can't”: “I can.”

“I can” is pregnant with possibility. It's not quite as dominant as “I will” (the opposite of “I won't”) but it's quite powerful in its own right. I realized that so much of my anxiety is saying “I can't,” and believing it! Then someone says “do this,” and I think, “I can't,” and this thought pulls me in the opposite direction of where that person is leading me. It's a tug of war that causes much unneeded stress, fear, worry, instability, uncertainty, anger, and guilt.

It creates pain in the brain. But when I exclaim, “I can,” I may not ever do the thing in question, but I no longer feel the pain. I am free.

I also realized (though I'm not going to take credit for it, because any cognitive psychologist should be able to tell you the same thing) that the more I say “I can't,” the more I won't. And the more I say “I can,” the more I will. Each leads to its own conclusion, and giving up and saying “I can't,” is like closing a million doors of possibility all at once. “I can,” does not close doors. It may not necessarily shove me through any (“I will” will do that), but it leaves all opportunities open and acclimates me to facing the world.

This is the mind game then: If I leave these doors open and believe that a thing is at least possible, it makes that thing easier, and therefore less daunting. If I close these doors, I must face the reality that everything is too difficult—and so everything will be daunting.

If this was advice to give I would say just this: “Do yourself a favor. You don't have to go through any of these doorways, but at least don't close the doors. Don't lock yourself out of life. Don't give up. Keep the door open, even if it's only ajar, and wait. Practice, repeat over and over that you can, and wait. Sooner or later an opportunity will arise that you will want to take advantage of, an opportunity that you would be forced to miss if you closed any one of these doors.”

I of course need no guinea pig for this. I have myself. The advice is for me. But take it if you want it. I bet it will work for many things, not just anxiety. Leave these doors open in your education, in your vocation, in your personal life.

Live as if all the world is your playground.

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Blood not Thicker than Friendship

By | Published Wednesday, June 20, 2012


I am very thankful for the Internet. I will never take it for granted. It is a window into the lives of others, and a window for others into my life, and because of this, I am and have always been able (and always hope to be able) to connect with other human beings on a deeper, more personal level than I've found possible to do in real life.

Sunday was Father's Day, and Father's Day is always a reminder that my father never lived up to my expectations of fatherhood. I haven't spoken to my dad in nearly 7 years. For different reasons, I speak less and less with those on my mother's side of the family, people I live in close proximity to.

I cut my father out of my life because of the way he treated me, and I feel as if my mother's family is cutting me out of their lives. It's depressing—I feel like a wall flower, I feel taken for granted and neglected. I have tried to insert myself into their lives, but for many reasons it has not worked. I have an incredible gift of intelligence, passion, and creativity, but as far as my family is concerned, it matters not. They seem to only be able to judge me by my past, searching hard for examples of my present to justify their beliefs. To them, people don't change. (I admit, freely, that I was very annoying, talkative, too passionate for people who simmer on an emotional low.)

I am a Taoist, I temper my expectations as much as I can (and try to temper my mouth), having minimal expectations as often as possible, but where my family is concerned, I have failed. Failed both in not having expectations, and apparently being the person they want me to be. Like them: low key.

I don't do enough gossiping, I'm far too intellectual (this can be a real negative, especially when I'm in a talkative mood or “think” a lot—it's obnoxious, even to me), and quite frankly, we have nothing in common. You've heard it before, children should be seen and not heard. I'm an adult, and the rule still applies.

I have felt depressed about this, hopeless. I feel I can, and should, give up. To stop trudging forward through life with my head up.

Or I can turn to where I'm appreciated, turning to those who want me to speak my mind, to those who enjoy it!

That is on the Internet. Google+ has become a home away from home for me, not in the sense that I spend all my time there (I limit my networking activity to no more than a couple hours a day), but because the people there have become friends, and some have become more than friends—gaining my respect and trust.

I must refrain from expectations here as well, building these relationships to a point others cannot live up to. I must live for myself, and not judge my personal worth by what others say, do, or think (whether it's my family or anyone else). But it's nice to feel loved, even by people who were strangers to me just a few months ago.

I am a black sheep, but I am not alone—and black sheep must flock together (though it's unlikely that we will flock in lockstep; we're black sheep after all!). We have only each other. Our families, sometimes for the same reason, sometimes for different ones, have let us down. We are too different, relative to our blood relations. They have hurt us. They have in some cases abandoned us, or we have abandoned them, or both. But being black sheep, we have something in common with each other that holds us together a little more tightly than the tenuous lines of blood.

Blood may very well be thicker than water, but it can't parch the thirst of the soul.

The internet is incredible because it allows us to come together, those who would not have otherwise known each other due to the great limitations of time and space. In the past, most people have been stuck with those they've grown up with and live with. Times have changed, and there is a great deal of flexibility in human relationship these days.

On Google+ I wrote a short post that summed up my feelings. After I wrote it I was reaffirmed by the incredibly passionate thread, the comments by people I consider friends—my allies in life.

I am not alone. I may not be the right person for those who brought me into this world, but I am not trapped to them. I can grow, I am my own person, and I can find others who are like me, who not only can accept me, but want to. I still love my family, even (if not especially) my father. Yet I understand that some things just aren't meant to be. It's impossible to make others like us and still practice any sort of integrity.

Being rejected by family is not an end. Far from it. It is a beginning. It is an open door into a wider world. Instead of being something that I am burdened with (as I have treated these feelings in the past), this rejection is the push I need to be who I am destined to be.

Myself.

So here's to living comfortably in my own skin (and you in yours), and not resenting those who would have me change for them, and never taking for granted those who like me just the way I am.

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The Success of Spontaneity

By | Published Friday, June 15, 2012


When I talk of spontaneity to those hard-set in the ways of Western culture, the door is often slammed in my face. Of course this is no real door, but the door to their minds, because in our culture spontaneity is synonymous with idleness and a life without goals, and many people have already closed their minds to other possibilities.

To let things be what they are, to let come what may come, and to ride the wind conjures visions of bohemians, hippies, gypsies, and bums.

Not someone with goals, with a plan, with motivation, passion and drive to get from point A to point B.

I find myself spending a lot of time refuting this concept of spontaneity. I refute the claim because it's not true. Or, more specifically, it does not have to be true. In fact, spontaneity may lead to even more goals, plans, motivations, passions, and drives—for the right person.

What do I mean by the right person? Some of us go about success in the wrong way. We try to force it. We work very hard, living on our to-do lists, and expecting to get as much out of the system as we put in. When things don't go our way, we end up frustrated and dejected because this way of operation is cold and offers very little satisfaction—it merely turns real life into an assembly line procedure. We continue on with our to-do list, but with less motivation, more than likely losing the spark we began with.

The surest way to avoid this inevitable let-down inherent to our system of “productivity > enjoyment” is to venture from the regular path, to trust that we will fly when we do.

I feel as though I live a very spontaneous life. I still have goals, but I am not tied down to them. I am free to leave my feet when the spirit takes me, to go headlong into the unknown. If I were simply living life by my to-do list I would not venture. I would stick to the list.

Living a spontaneous life means living in a way that the list, if you have one (and I almost always do), is not the end-all, be-all of reality. It's accepting our human need for creativity and exploration. Yet spontaneity is not completely discarding the old forms.

When we have passion for a thing, it is very easy to spend time with it. I have passion for exercise. I do not need to keep a detailed to-do list when it comes to running. I just run. I do so often when I have passion. Many times in my life I have found that when I try to control how I run, the distance, the time, and the harder I control these things, the less joy I get out of running—and therefore the less I run. Despite detailed goals, I am less motivated. When I just run, I run farther and faster than I would if I approached running as a chore. I still carry a stop-watch with me, and I still try to improve from one run to the next, but I don't grow moody if I don't. I don't make myself. It happens of itself.

Spontaneity increases passion because it does away with our culture's have-to's. With more passion, we do not have to guard our steps. We can trust ourselves to do what we love, because we love doing it, and there are few things we'd rather do otherwise.

The argument against this tends to be “What if I find I don't have the passion, even if I live spontaneously?” My response: “Then why do it?”

We need money to survive in this world. We must eat, clothe, and house ourselves. Yet how we make that money is entirely up to what we enjoy doing. If you don't want to work in a cubicle, don't. If you don't want to be ABC, but would rather do XYZ, do what you must to get to that point. But do so spontaneously. Don't try to out-think life. Don't try to trick the system. Don't do a thing for any other reason than that you find joy in doing it.

When there is joy—joy borne of spontaneity—there is a way, a living, a life.

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Amina and Zen, "Sacrifice" Excerpt

By | Published Saturday, June 9, 2012


Below is something I wrote tonight. Unedited fresh copy for book 2 of The Czar Chronicles: Sacrifice. I'm slowly beginning to get into the story again after a much needed break, and am starting to do some outlining and thinking about what my goals for the novel are. I particularly enjoyed writing this piece, so I'd like to share it as an excerpt.

Critiques are welcomed, praise is welcomed. If you hate it, let me know, but tell me why.


~*~


She wasn't sure she could put up with Zen's innocence, with his apparent disregard for maturity. And yet something was drawing her toward him, something greater than the simple bond they shared—that of being creatures.

Amina Fay felt as though she could love the boy, and yet that's what she thought of him. A boy. A few months shy of his eighteenth birthday, a lanky thing though tall and with broad shoulders. In ten years he would fill out and he would look formidable. And he would fill out, as he continued to grow, because Zen was not like she was. He was still human, at least half so.

She was all dead. She didn't even breathe. She ate only one thing, blood, and she could get it from only one source, another living, breathing human being.

She crossed from the cellar stairway to the shop's front door, walking slowly, pressing her left hand against the textures of the bookshelf. Outside it was still light, but darkness was coming soon. She could feel it. She felt it even in the eternal darkness of the sewers Zen had saved her from. She knew when the sun sank and the sun rose as any human would know when it was time to wake or go to sleep.

She had been tempted to leave him. To slink back to her sewer or finally use this opportunity of leaving Zen to leave the city itself, to return to her origin, to renew the search of the man who had made her. But something stayed her. Zen.

She knew it, as she knew when the sun was beginning to set, feeling the vibrations of the planet, that he was one of a kind. She was also one of a kind. There may only be the two of them left—the witches had done their job well.

She had to stay close to him. If she left, would she ever find him again? If she stayed, would she ever have to leave?

Amina turned her head to the stairway, to the noise descending from the darkness above. The sky had grown pink, the sun no longer reflecting off the buildings outside the window. Zen came to stand by the window and his body was like a brightened shadow before her. Her eyes adjusted to the growing darkness and her true senses came to the forefront. She saw him in a way no one else had ever seen him. In the darkness he was not human, his body giving up a faint glow that only her heightened senses could detect.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“About what?” Oh she was so stupid! Beating around a bush like a girl less than his age.

“Will you leave like you said you would? Will you stay...”

He was beating around the same bush, she knew. He could not say what was on his mind. He could not finish his own sentence—with me.

“I intend to stay, Zen. For now. But I need to eat. It's been nearly a week since I came here and I have not eaten, and I'm starting to feel a little thin.”

“Clara said—”

“Oh, to hell with Clara!” She reached out and grabbed Zen's hard arm, harder than appearances suggested, stronger than anyone would have guessed. She squeezed his arm until she almost imagined the pain flaring up in her own tightened fist. She dug her nails into his skin.

He did not flinch. His jaw, set like stone, hardened.

She would have eaten him if only the sight of his green eyes staring down at her didn't move her with...passion.

“I must eat, and I do not care what she thinks, I do not care if it's dangerous. It is more dangerous if I go into a starving coma.”

“I understand,” he said. He took his free hand and gently placed it over Amina's wrist, and she let go. “But look, if you're going to feed, let's do it this way.”

“What way?”

“Don't kill anyone who doesn't deserve it,” Zen said suddenly, a smile erupting upon his face. She was looking at his arm, the bruise she had left there, and when she looked up the grin was still evident, glowing. “Let's hunt us up one of Czar's men.”

Yes, let's, she thought. “And where do you suppose they will be? It's far easier nabbing a vagrant in the alleys than it is breaking into a nightclub and kidnapping someone as important as one of Czar's henchmen.”

“I know of a place. I can take you there, tonight. We can leave when the sun fades.”

She loved him. She knew it then. And she knew why. Despite his innocence, despite his youth and immaturity, he understood her needs. He knew what it was like to be a creature. Clara and Tom couldn't fathom it. No one could—but for him.

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A Ray of Light

By | Published Wednesday, June 6, 2012

A Ray of Light Does Not Vanish into Darkness

No man has lived a more fulfilled life.
...and we are sad that he has gone?
Flying into the sun as he has, and his wings unmelted?
Nothing could he have achieved by staying a moment longer.
And you hold his spirit to us with grief?
Not a second will I waste in mourning, not for an Immortal.

I have been at the top of ecstasy, refusing sadness, refusing tears. Smiling, joyous.
Ray Bradbury is dead, you say? A great lie, that is.

You're sad because he is gone?
How dare you take him for granted!
Lift your head up, celebrate.

If ever there was a man worthy of celebration,
not because he has died, but because he has lived
--lived more deeply than you or I can fathom--
that man is Ray Bradbury.

Do not waste an ounce of life on grief.
Ray Bradbury has gone to the stars.
He needs only your Godspeeds and applause
as a chorus and rhythm to the echoes of eternity.

Love him. Share him. You cannot forget him.
You will always have him, and he will always be there for us.

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