This Summer

Summer is almost here, and I am already gearing up for what I expect to be a very busy fall season. Let's face it: when Halloween time starts to roll around and the nights grow longer, more people are in the mood for a scary story. I have been and will continue to be doing research on local legends here in Utah. It is amazing to me how many haunted spots and cryptids have been spotted all over the state. I am digging around to gather as much information as possible about these places and creatures, and will be bringing them to this blog and also my Examiner paranormal column. Some of these tales and places are not really well known, even to residents of the state of Utah, so I am very happy to be bringing you the stories.

Sorry to cut it short, but I really don't want to give away any surprises...

Working, working...

I have been spending so much time writing other things that I have not been writing on my blog here very much at all. Sometimes writing can take up serious amounts of time, and if you want to succeed in the world of writing you must be prepared to buckle down and work your brains out. Literally, your brains -- at least that is how I feel so many nights.

Back when I was in high school I decided to go out for the cross country team. I had never really ran more than a mile at a time in my life, and the first day of practice we ran three miles. I thought I was going to die. After the first week of practice I think I ran further than all the times I had ran in my life combined. Muscles I never knew existed ached and begged for me to stop the insanity. What did I do? I persisted and became better.

I never was the big star runner in cross country -- sorry to disappoint. What I did learn from the sport, though, was the value of sticking things out, of digging deep inside yourself to keep going and pushing yourself. Writing is a lot the same way. If you write every day (and you should if you want to become truly good) there will be days you just don't want to do it. There will be days you are tired, work was rough, you have a mountain of dishes and errands to run, a great movie is on TV, or something else will be calling you from your writing. The key is to keep going.

That being said, remember to be a balanced person. There have been many writers who have locked themselves up so they can "just write" and not have to deal with life. I think they missed something, no matter how great of writers they were. Live life, write hard.

Might Over Matter

The more I write, the more convinced I become that writing -- like so many other activities -- is a matter of might over matter. I know, a lot of people think of a weepy-eyed poet sitting under a tree in a pristine meadow somewhere who drips pure poetry off his melancholy pen. Yeah, that meadow and poet don't exist, they are simulacra. The truth is writing is hard work, it is like so many sports or other physical activities where you think you have reached your limit and yet you have not reached your goal. What do you do? Do you give up? If you want to succeed you don't, but you dig deeper and realize you have more in you. You rise to a different level of ability. You shed your old skin and rise above past restraints.

I have a quote purportedly from Napoleon Bonaparte. I admit I haven't checked out the quote (bad writer!) but I like it and don't care if Napoleon said or wrote it or not. "The word impossible is not in my dictionary." Wow, what a quote. I admit the world "impossible" still appears in mine, and that is something I am working on throwing out. I think so often we hold ourselves down out of fear that if we soar too high the fall will hurt. Who said anything about falling? That deep, dark voice in the back of your mind. Yes, that's right, fear said something about fear. Ironic, isn't it?

I cast off the shackles of fear when I penned Shadow House. It was hard, the book pushed me, and yet I pushed on and rose above. Some people have loved the book and couldn't put it down. A few have told me it wasn't quite their thing. You can't please everyone. I myself know I can write a much better book, and I am working right now on outdoing Shadow House. This new book is more of a challenge and it is pushing me to the point sometimes I feel I am going to burst, combust, or disintegrate (or at least my brain will). And I push on, casting aside the fear. That's really one of the key ingredients to writing. Sure, there's more to the craft than just this, but I am convinced there are a lot of writers who are good writers that could be great writers, but this is the single biggest thing holding them back.

You're not Icarus, your wings won't melt, so fly high.