THANK YOU!
Thanks to all of you who passed on kind words and love following the death of my best friend. I am fine, truly, sad but fine. I had time to prepare for this. I was able to visit Frank and say goodbye in person. So today I am filled with sweet melancholy, and I am celebrating a beautiful friendship of fifty-seven years. What a gift he was for me!
What a gift you all are. It is still amazing to me that I have caring, loving friends from around the world, friends I have met, many I have not met, all connected to me through writing, but also connected to me through our common humanness. Quite remarkable!
WRITING COACH
I will be announcing a January special for my writing coach services. If you have ever wanted your own, private, one-on-one writing coach, a great opportunity is heading your way. Stay tuned!
MY PROBLEM
Do you want to know what my problem is?
Well, one of my problems . . .
There is too much I want to do, and I fear not enough time to do it all.
I really, really want to start a podcast.
I really, really want to finish my memoir, then write another Shadow book, then write a retro 60’s book, then re-write the 12/59 Shuttle, then write the sequel to that novel, then . . .
And I have another blog I want to start, and then there’s this whole social-consciousness thing, where I feel I should get out in society and make a difference for some cause.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it all, and frustrated to the max.
Welcome to my life!
In truth, this is nothing new for me. I’ve always felt like I don’t do enough, that I fall short of my potential, and that I should be arrested for wasting time. I’ve always had an aversion to just sitting and doing nothing during the day. I’m like a shark. I must keep moving in order to survive and yes, you can toss in my addictive, compulsive tendencies and, well, that’s where I find myself today as Christmas rapidly approaches.
ELIZABETH GILBERT
I was watching, for like the 10th time, a TedTalks program featuring writer Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love,” or I may have those three words in the title mixed up. Obviously I’ve never read it, but it did spend a ridiculous amount of time on the NY Times Bestseller list in 2006 and 2007. Anyway, during this TedTalk, Gilbert talks about the fame of that book, and how some people have asked her if she’s worried that the best is now behind her, if at forty she reached the pinnacle and it would all be downhill from there. Should she keep writing, knowing she will never again reach that kind of success, or should she, like Harper Lee, just quit while she’s on top?
Gilbert’s response was two words: writers write!
That’s what we do . . . we write! If there is a passion for writing, it makes no difference whether fame is found, or whether the best is behind you . . . writers write!
Brilliant!
FROM MY UPCOMING MEMOIR, “AND THE BLIND SHALL SEE”
No talent there . . . or is there?
I look back now and I’m blown away. I beat some rather considerable odds. Lady Luck has been in the passenger seat of my vehicle for the entire trip. As I navigated through a blizzard of rather questionable decisions, I still managed to get a couple of them absolutely right at the absolute perfect time, and maybe that wasn’t luck at all.
I’m a big believer in the Butterfly Effect. You know, a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil and two months later a blizzard occurs in Sioux Falls, that sort of thing. I extend it to cause and effect within an individual as well. I fart when I’m ten and thirty-two years later I sign divorce papers, that sort of thing, nothing occurs in a vacuum, it is all related and it is all crucial as our life’s mural is painted. What I did at ten directly affected what I did at twenty, at thirty, at forty, and still today, at seventy-one. It can all be traced, gone over with a magnifying glass, seen for what it was and what it would become, connective tissues holding the host together.
It would be incredible if we could see the entire chess board as we lived our lives, like looking down from a thousand feet, perfect vision from above, able to see what each action will lead to, and what that will lead to, and that . . . but what I’m suggesting would literally require an extra-sense, or an intellect so well-tuned as to represent the equivalent of perfect pitch in music. The best we can hope for . . . the absolute best . . . is that we are aware and that we eventually understand our role in the greater picture.
Most of us have pretty good hindsight. It’s our foresight that sucks, but for years I chastised myself for not seeing it all approaching, for not preparing for it, for not being aware, and for not making better choices, when in fact I was just doing what humans do.
Have a great week!
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 