The Art of Juggling.

As I have mentioned before, my passions are writing and music. I am currently immersed in both of them right now and the juggling act is quite intoxicating and frustrating. In the writing of SURGE, I was completely focused on writing and could stay in what I refer to as writerhead most of the time. Writing for me is about 40% of time sitting at the computer banging on keys and 60% doing other things,playing golf, going to movies,etc, but constantly thinking about whatever project I am writing on. Therefore, I am in writerhead 100% of the time. The problem I am having now is that the music projects,which I love, are taking me out of writerhead.

The problem is not just a scheduling problem where I can say Okay, I'll work on writing on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, and music on Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays. Physically I can do that, mentally I can't.

But since I am determined to have my cake and eat it too, I will figure out how to make all of this work. Stay tuned for future adventures.

Gratitude

I had a great gratitude check this week. My biggest passion next to writing is music. I am working on a demo with one of the bands that my partner and I manage. The studio we are working in is on the other side of town from me and so I've been taking the toll road which I very seldom use. So about the sixth trip, something dawned on me as I was pulling away from the toll booth. Since I don't use the toll roads very much, I don't have an E-Z tag on my window where you can fly through almost as fast as the money is sucked out of your bank account, I had to stop each time and pay the toll.

No matter what time it was or how crappy the weather was, and it has been very crappy lately, the person in the toll booth always had a smile and said something nice to me. I found that amazing only because to me that would be a really horrible job which brings me around to my gratitude check Yes I am very glad I don't work in a toll booth, but what came to mind was how lucky I've been to spend most of my life doing things I really love to do.

I have done a lot of things in my life but have had very few jobs. Being on the radio, producing or promoting music, writing screenplays and novels has never felt like a job. I've had jobs and I know what that feels like. Dreading getting up, not wanting to be there and being fairly miserable when I was.

Gratitude checks are great and I'm hoping someday they will be as habit forming as some of my vices.

Happy Days

When my wife first asked me if I was interested in doing some blogging I said, no way. The music is dumb, I hate those shoes and I don't see the point of jumping around like your feet are on fire. She then explained that was clogging and blogging is about writing. Well excuse me.

Anyway today the rain has stopped and that makes me happy. I'm also happy to be working on a new book. I had taken quite a sabbatical after finishing SURGE which was published in 2004. SURGE is a thriller about a Category 5 hurricane hitting the Houston/Galveston area and I had killed thousands of people and was worn out. I do have to mention my wife and I had written two screenplays prior to that. I had only intended to take about six months away from writing but it turned into years right before my eyes.

The new book is called Double Fault and is much lighter and fun. So far, I have only killed one character and he is very minor. I have to admit there is more of me in this book than anything I have written and sometimes that is a little hard to put on display for the world to see.

Enough for today.

A New Blogger on the Block

As you can probably tell from the name of my blog that I'm not a morning person. Actually I am a person in the morning as well as the rest of the day, I'm just not awake. It is currently almost midnight and here I sit writing words. I am a writer and in the midst of writing my second novel.
I struggle enough everyday trying to get Double Fault completed, so I'm not sure why I decided to take on a blog too, but I think it will be fun.
It seems most of the blogs I've read (and that's not very many) rant and rave about stuff they don't like or who or whats pissed them off that day or week, so I want to write about things that I like or make me feel good.
So if you looking for someone raging at the cruel world you've come to the wrong place but if you want to read something that might make you laugh or feel good, come on in. Just be sure its afternoon.