Tag Archives: writing

Monday Morning Ramblings – 1/23/17

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I’ve been through quite a bit in my life. There have been many times when I’ve felt like giving up and quitting. In those dark moments, when despair seems too great to overcome and life feels as if all the joy is gone, it takes a tremendous act of will to remind myself that the darkness never lasts forever. Eventually the sun will rise, the clouds will part, and better days will come again.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about facing any kind of adversity is this: regardless of the situation, your best approach is to roll up your sleeves and put your energy into doing something productive. Hard work cures so many ills. Productivity makes you feel better about yourself and lessens the pain of whatever you’re facing. Despite already knowing these truths, I have to remind myself of them regularly.

Whatever you may be dealing with in your life, please remember that you can find the strength to face it. You have it in you to overcome even the most desperate of situations if you are willing to maintain a positive attitude and put in the work to accomplish your goals. And if you give it your best effort and fall short, you will still feel better about yourself for having had to courage to try than if you throw up your hands and quit. I’ve learned this from firsthand experience.

I want this blog to return to being a forum for like-minded people to share thoughts about our lives, so please, feel free to comment below with your experiences concerning adversity. Let’s start a conversation and motivate each other to overcome whatever challenges we face. This can be our Motivational Mondays.

 

Saturday Night Ramblings – 1/21/17

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Well, I survived the holidays and have managed to remain fairly productive. Book five is coming along very well. In fact, I’m about to start the final chapter. That’s right. I’m up to the last chapter of the entire series. After all this time, it feels surreal to type those words. So far, I’m really pleased with the manuscript. There are a handful of places in the middle that need to be ironed out, but overall, this is the most intense book of the entire series. I can’t wait for the fans of the series to read it and experience the culmination of these characters’ journeys. Hopefully the editing process won’t take too long, and the final draft will be available in the near future. Soon, I’ll be hiring the artist to develop the cover for this one. As soon as I have the final proof of that, I’ll share it on here.

Once book five is complete, I have a couple of other projects I’ll be working on. Both are really exciting and have a lot of potential. Those of you who have read the first novella of the Sam Skeen Series will be excited to hear that I’ll be working on the second of those tales. The other project I can’t really discuss publicly yet, but once I can, I’ll share on here as well.

Overall, life is progressing forward fairly well. I’m happy with the series’ sales growth since the relaunch (it’s amazing what can happen when a publisher actually promotes the books they publish). If you remember my previous entry, I’ve managed to heal the rift with my friend, and we are back to being the closest of friends again. I’m also still surrounded by some of the most amazing friends a person could ask for, so I have no complaints about life at the moment. I still believe that my brightest days are ahead of me, and I will keep striving to build that reality.

Monday Evening Ramblings

I went to Chattanooga to spend Thanksgiving with my friends Leslie and James, who were gracious enough to invite me down. We had a great time and ate way too much food. It was probably my most enjoyable Thanksgiving in 8-9 years. Planning to go back and spend some more time with them soon, probably before Christmas.

Friday was my 44th birthday. Got to go out to eat with my parents and then spent the evening with a friend. Probably my most relaxing and enjoyable birthday in 8-9 years, too. No stress, no drama, no nonsense. Just good food, good conversation, and good pumpkin pie.

I’m currently up to Chapter 11 on book five. For those of you who don’t follow me on Facebook, Chapter 10 might be the most intense writing of my career. Hopefully, my editor and beta readers will agree with me that book five is the best book in the series. That’s the reason why I’m so infrequent on the blog. When I’m in the middle of a book like this, I get serious tunnel vision and don’t write on much else.

Right now, my thoughts and prayers are with all of my friends and loved ones in Sevier County. The fires are unbelievable and many people I care about are under a mandatory evacuation from their homes. We desperately need rain in East Tennessee. Not sure I’ve ever seen it this dry here, not even during that terrible drought in the 80s. November is usually one of our wettest months, and so far, we’ve had .2 of an inch of rain this month.

That’s all for now. Hope everyone is safe and well.