Dropping One Dream to Pursue Another

Well, folks, here we are. It was this time last week that I said I was going to take a break from posting blogs for a while. Then I realized I was on #27, and I didn’t like that, so I said, “Well, I’ll do 3 more, so I have a nice, round, even 30.”

This is #30.

Why am I putting this on hold for a while? Two reasons really.

1. There are other things I need to get done. The good news is, these are finite tasks; it’s just that, with my attention being pulled in so many directions, it means it takes me FOREVER to get even the simplest things done. If I trim away the fat and focus on these handful of tasks, then I can finish them faster.
2. I need to reassess the blog, where I’m going with it, and how to get there. Fortunately, there is another blogger (he may or may not realize this, but I’ve known him for quite some time now) who is offering me help with that.

Being a writer is the longest dream I’ve ever had. I don’t necessarily mean a world-famous one like Stephen King, although it would be cool to earn enough to quit my day job and do nothing but write. However, I’d even be happy with a small cult following, not unlike the fanatical fans of bands that I like, such as My Bloody Valentine or Sunny Day Real Estate.

However, as I have gotten older, there are other dreams that have arisen. One of them is to help people who struggle to get better at martial arts, and I am speaking in particular of the style known as Wing Chun Kung Fu. I want to spread the word about the training tips and ideas that I’ve created. I want to be known as an authority on the subject, and the only way to get there is focus.

It took me a while to face the truth, but after a while, I had to accept it: pursuing this dream meant I’d have to STOP pursuing another…at least for a little while. Once I am into the swing of things, it will be no challenge to juggle both. However, during the learning phase, I need to concentrate.

The question was: how? I still have 4 novels and 10 poetry collections that I want to put on Amazon! One day I sat down and figured out a plan that will allow me to get all those writings up there by the end of the year, barring some catastrophe of course. In fact, I’ve been putting this plan into action for about a week now, and so far things are going smoothly.

I have a projection that the writing will all be done by the beginning of 2020, and then I can bring in the New Year by starting work on my martial arts business. How long will it be until I return to writing? I can’t say for sure. That all depends on how quickly I pick up on what I have to do.

Also, I’ve been thinking about something the other blogger said to me: he said I want to post on a consistent schedule. I knew that part, of course, but then he followed that by saying “…even if it’s only once a week.”

Once a week? Really? That’s okay??? Well, shoot! In that case, I might not abandon the blog completely after all! I could manage to do one blog per week. I have to talk to him more about this, so I can’t say for sure yet.

However, there is one thing you can count on: you will know when I do!

 

~~~Steve

How Do You Make Summer Less Magical?

Two words: “GET OLD.”

I cannot stress the importance of this enough: if you have children who are in school, teach them the value of summer. Teach them to go out and absorb the wonders that surround them every time that season of freedom rolls around.

Why? Because that magic doesn’t last.

I was talking to my 13-year-old son a few weeks back. It was a weekday. I asked him how his day was. He said, “Boring. There was nothing to do. I just sat around all day watching videos on YouTube.”

I said, “That might feel boring now, but you ought to enjoy it. Don’t take it for granted because someday you might WANT to do nothing but watch YouTube, and you won’t be able to, even if it is summertime. Want to know why?” I paused for dramatic effect. Then I said, “Because you will be old like Dad, and you will have a job, and summer won’t mean the same anymore.”

Yes, it’s sad but true: summer has no more magic once you finish high school/college/grad school. Once you have bills to pay and a job to attend, that season means nothing. The only exception would be if you are a teacher, but even they can be busy with “adulting” instead of getting some sun on their faces.

I hate feeling so jaded, but I can’t help it. The only positive thing I see about summer is that I don’t have to go outside earlier than usual and clean mounds of snow off my car. For a moment, I was tempted to say that I don’t have to warm my car UP, but summertime means you have to cool it DOWN, so there is no difference between the seasons (other than the way the temperature gauge moves, of course).

Although we are one-third of the way through September, we are still clinging to summer-type temperatures here in upstate New York. Yesterday I got home early, and I was alone because my girlfriend had an appointment. After taking some time to catch up on emails, I had nothing to do. I found myself standing in my living room, looking out the window at the empty street, my arms folded, my mind slipping into a haze of nostalgia. For a moment, I thought, “Man, I wish I still had a bicycle because I’d take it out for a ride right now.”

Then it dawned on me: no I wouldn’t. If I did, I’d probably enjoy the ride for a block or two before adult thoughts crept in. I’d start looking at my phone to see what time it was. Then I’d start to wonder when I should get back home. I’d start to feel anxiety over any chores I hadn’t done or any writing that I was neglecting by going on this bike ride. Not only did I have to get back home so I could get all that done AND get to bed at a decent time, but I also had to be sure I didn’t go so far that I still felt worn out from my trek the next day. Shoot! What was I thinking, taking my bike out on a weeknight???

You see what I’m trying to tell you, ladies and gentlemen? Please do this, for me and for the love of all that is sacred, teach your kids EVERY DAY to appreciate those “boring” summer days because when they get older, “boring” days will be all they wish for!

The Right to Disagree Depends on Your Fame

Recently, someone wrote a review about one of my stories. Before they got to the story itself, they said someone sent them a blog in which I gave a rebuttal to a reviewer. (I’m guessing it was “How Reviews SHOULD Be Done.”) While the reviewer did wind up proving that he understood my story and even complimenting it quite well, there was one thing he said that stuck with me: he said that this rebuttal blog was a “red flag.”

I can only assume this statement means something like: “Uh oh, here is a super sensitive writer who can’t handle criticism, and he is going to lash out at every reviewer who says his book sucks.” On the contrary, I can take criticism quite well. However, I think there is a right and wrong way to do it. If you give my horror novella Maybe the Dream Knows What is Real two stars out of five because the main character is not someone with whom you can empathize, then you missed the entire point of the story. You AREN’T supposed to empathize with him. In fact, that is written in the synopsis.

With that said, I started to think about other artists who have responded to their negative reviews. Let’s see:

• Billy Corgan (leader of the Smashing Pumpkins) called Jim DeRogatis “that fat fuck from the Chicago Sun-Times” because DeRogatis had said of the Siamese Dream track “Hummer” that the lyrics were sophomoric and stupid.
• When Roger Ebert gave a scathing review of The Brown Bunny, the director Vincent Gallo said that he hoped Ebert got cancer.
• When Salon book reviewer Laura Miller wrote a brutal review of Chuck Palahnuik’s Diary, the author sent her a letter which includes the following quote: “Until you can write something that captivates people, I’d invite you to just shut up.”
• The music magazine Hit Parader was very critical of the band Quiet Riot. In one interview, the lead singer said he loved the Hit Parader because it was good to wipe his ass with!

The thing is, I hardly ever hear anyone coming down on these people for lashing out at their critics. Okay, maybe I do with Billy Corgan because everyone thinks he is an asshole anyway, but I have never heard anyone say what a scumbag Vincent Gallo is for wishing cancer upon Roger Ebert, not even after the critic really did die from cancer. Has anyone come down on Palahnuik for his letter? If so, I never heard of it.

Then I started to think: what is the difference between these artists and myself?

There is really only one thing.

Fame. (Well, there is money too, but usually money comes with the fame.)

Some people might be tempted to say, “Well, they are better writers than you,” but I don’t know how that can be judged. For everyone who thinks Fight Club sucked, you might find someone who thinks Maybe the Dream Knows What is Real is a masterpiece. So let’s discard any discussion of who is better for now.

So why are things this way? Why is okay for famous people to fire back, but not some unknown writer who may very well have as much talent as the famous figures? Does this mean that, if my books were picked up by a publisher and I was suddenly famous, THEN I would then have the “right” to post a retort?

No, I don’t think so. And do you know why? Because I think I already have that right. We all do. Even if you wrote just one short story, and someone wound up giving you a lousy review, but in that review they prove they missed the entire point of what you were saying, you would still have the right to a rebuttal.

But hey…maybe that is just me. Maybe I stand alone in this opinion. Who knows? All I know is this: yes, I did write a rebuttal to a critical review, but I don’t see how that should count as a “red flag.”

And the sad thing?

By writing this, I’ll probably have TWO red flags under my belt.

You don’t have to be writer or musician to have an opinion on this blog. If you DO in fact have one, I’d love to hear it in the comments below!

 

A Brief Intermission (Almost)

Hello to all my readers!

Recently I purchased a training course called Video Ranking Academy 2.0, which helps you learn how to optimize and rank on YouTube. Unlike a lot of similar course, I think this one is really going to do the trick.

However, here’s the catch: to make sure it DOES do the trick, I have to buckle down and focus. Therefore, I think I am going to take a break from blogging for a while. My goal is to wrap up any writing tasks that I have laid out before me, and then start hammering away at the VRA just as the New Year comes around. How’s THAT for a way to bring in the new year?

Actually, I am at 27 blogs once I publish this post. I don’t like that. Therefore, I think I will call it a night after 30. I like round numbers.

What are my writing tasks? Oh, let me count them:

• Reformat 4 novels for Amazon
• Reformat 10 poetry collections for Amazon
• Make revisions to one of the Wing Chun books I wrote

Three lines’ worth of tasks? Might not sound like a lot, but believe me: it is! I need to dedicate every second that I can to knocking those out. This temporary absence is necessary, so that I can come back strong and be uninterrupted.

There will be 3 more posts before I hang up a “closed” sign, but I thought I would at least put up the notification that it’s coming.

When What Was Fun Becomes a Grind

Sometimes the things we love to do can become a grind. I’m sure this happens to all of us, but I want to give an example about what I mean from my life. It is about writing. Now I’m willing to bet that not a lot of people reading this are writers, but stick with me, and I bet you can relate. Just replace “writing” with something you love, and you can probably think of a time when you were in the same spot.

For a while now, I have been following this morning routine:

• Submit my novella Maybe the Dream Knows What is Real to 10 book review sites
• Reformat at least 5 pages of my novel The Humanitarian Murders so it displays properly on Amazon
• Post a new blog on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

However, when I got up this morning, I realized I didn’t want to do any of these! Yet here I am, slogging through it, because I turned my reluctance to blog into the TOPIC of my blog. Clever, eh?

Well, it’s not clever enough. I still need to think a way out of this rut. It’s not that blogging itself is a chore or that I have already lost the fire to do it. In fact, I don’t think this lack of ambition is tied to the blogging part at all. This is related more to the formatting and submitting part.

When it comes to site submissions, I am almost done. I had a list of a whopping 630 book reviewer sites. Today, I just finished reaching out to numbers 531-540. However, the reformatting is what kills me.

Before I was working on the novel, I was reformatting my poetry collections. I have 30 of them, but I got bored working on them, so I decided to flip-flop between poetry and prose. How so? Easy:

• Format 5 collections of poetry
• Format a novel
• Repeat

Sounds simple, right? I mean, the poetry collections are only about 30 pages each in MS Word, so I can tear through them. The snag came when I got to the first novel. Why? Well, because those are longer, and they have a LOT more words per page than poetry.

For now, I am going to stick to my plan, which is formatting and then releasing The Humanitarian Murders. I will also finish submitting to the remaining 90 blog sites. However, after that I don’t know what the plan is, and I need one. I’ve got  3 more novels and 12 more poetry collections to reformat, and then of course I have to go through the motions of submitting these to review sites. That is where I get one break: once I make it through the list, I can go back and remove any sites that are now defunct, or any that were duplicates, or that don’t accept my genre.

But enough about me.

I’d like to hear from YOU. Can you relate? Is there anything in your life that normally brings you boundless joy, but sometimes feels like a chore?

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