Reading & Writing

If you have read my blog, then you know that I am a writer, and for the millions who haven't read my blog, I am a writer but I am also a reader. A voracious reader. I went back and looked at my reading habits for the last six months and I have read 58 novels. That averages out to a little more than two a week.


I have decided to start sharing my finds of good reading, some great, with you. I am not going to give you a review but simply let you know when I come across what I consider a good read. I don't read reviews myself, mostly because 99% of them give away too much of the book. I don't even read the inside flap of the book. I don't want to know anything about the story, I want to discover it all for myself. Here are some of the ways I decide on a book; knowing the author,looking at the cover, reading the back, and reading the first chapter of the book.

I will tell you I lean toward thrillers, but I read all kinds of books about all kinds of things. I read mostly fiction but do read some non-fiction. I am interested in a great story that is well told and I will only tell you about books that I enjoy, I have no interest in slamming something I didn't like.

Next post will have a few of the good books I have read lately. Stay tuned for future adventures.

National Poultry Day

Today is National Poultry Day. I wasn't going to write about this but my wife egged me on and I knew if I didn't, I would probably end up with egg on my face so here it is.I'm not sure what we are supposed to do or how we are to celebrate it, but here are few ideas. One thing is, you could go visit the National Poultry Museum in Bonner Springs, Kansas. (Here's a link for Backyard Poultry telling all about it.) It looks like a fascinating place if you are a fox. Another is to make a list of every "Why did the chicken cross the road?" joke you can think of and have it framed to be hung in your kitchen. There is even a "Why did the chicken cross the road?" website to help you out.

You could also adopt a chicken for a pet or put on a chicken suit and tell everyone your name is Chicken Little and that the sky is falling. (I did a tv commercial once where I had to wear a chicken suit so I really don't recommend doing this as they are very hot.) How about talking like Foghorn Leghorn for a day or throwing away your alarm clock and hiring a rooster? These are just a few suggestions and I'll bet you can come up with many more to do or say, unless you chicken out.

I personally think the day came about to honor the world's first and greatest debates, and there have been many; the Lincoln/Douglas, Kennedy/Nixon, less filing/great taste, to be or not to be, Coke/Pepsi, to name a few, but the original debate has always been; which came first, the chicken or the egg.

I do want you to know, I had to scramble to get this together but I hope you enjoyed it.

For future adventures, stay tuned.

Writing Woes

One of the things that gives me the most pleasure in my life is writing. Writing makes me feel alive. It also gives me a feeling of accomplishment like nothing else. I have been writing for a long time yet it wasn't until a few years ago that I would actually call myself a writer. Writing was always that other thing I did, not what I really was doing. I can remember when I was in high school and the principal would come and get me and say "Uh, we have a assembly program coming up but we don't have anything" and I would write them something to do.

I have written two screenplays, a three-act play, sketch comedy for television, lot's of jokes for myself and other comedians including Jay Leno, poems, a recorded country song and currently working on my second novel.

So the question is....Why is it so damn hard? I can find more trivial, meaningless things to do than sit down and write and yet it gives me enormous happiness.

Oh well, back to the grindstone.
More adventures in writing later.

Fun in the Studio with Sound Breaking Ground

An update on the fun in the studio. I love working in the studio with talented people and I am very fortunate to be working with some extremely talented folks right now. The band is called Sound Breaking Ground or SBG as I refer to them most of the time. They have been together as a band for about four years but they all have been playing music for years and it shows. Speaking of shows, their live show is incredible.

Recording a song is like painting a painting. It comes a few layers at a time. About mid-way through you are wondering if this is going to be something or not, but as the layers come together and the picture starts to come into focus, it's like magic. At times it is very tedious and nerves can get frayed quickly when you have to work on one tiny section over and over but, when it finally comes together it is a feeling of great joy.

To me, being in the studio and bringing a song to fruition from beginning to end is the ultimate creative process in action. Don't I look active on the couch?

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.