Following The Song: Recognizing A Friend's Accomplishment

This space is mine. I use it to write about what I do as a writer, to talk about the publishing business and my own work in that industry, and to announce new releases of my books. It's all usual fare for a writer's website. I don't get a lot of opportunities to give shout outs about what friends of mine are up to.

I have a friend, a musician, and a writing collaborator of mine, Brent Pasley, who doing promotions and gearing up for a summer concert event. It's one of those important milestones in a performer's life to get out there and show an audience what they can do. Pasley's always been a performer of one type or another. This, event far larger and ambitious than anything thus far to spring from the mind of my friend, is sure to be an experience you won't forget.

Pasley have known each other for most of our lives. It has been a tumultuous sort of life considering our roots in tiny rural America. We've been creative types for the duration, alway scheming or thinking about how we'd someday make our marks in expressive, artistic ways. We've been comic creators, played and written music together, and most recently wrote the novel, AUTUMN SKY, together.

I'll admit it. I get to share a bit of the limelight too. Some of the songs that I helped to write in my twenties will feature in this Rock Music spectacle. And that's just cool. No greater thing than for an artist to share his art. I've been lucky to have some of that already with the books I've written.

Me and my little publishing company plan to be there to support Pasley. For those of my readers who live locally, I hope you might plan to attend this concert. We plan to have a table on the premises of the Indiana Theater so you'll see my company, Founders House Publishing, there as well. We'll have books to sell and chances to talk with everyone.

Here are some important links for SUMMER ROCK 2013, which will be held on August 2, 2013.

1. http://www.pasleymusic.com/Page_3.html

2. Summer Rock 2013 Facebook Page. 

I'll add more if needed to this post so check back often.

Dear Writer: Where It All Started

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it!" ~ Toni Morrison

It started in my head.

It always starts in my head.

It probably starts in your head as well. We writers are often those peculiar and foolish sorts of people who spend a great deal of our time imagining things in our heads and then attempting to put them out on pages using words. We started out innocently enough, absorbing the stories that we were told as children, watched on television, or read in books. Humans need stories. It is one of the main ways they, social animals that they are, communicate with one another. Writers took that a step in one direction and said that it was not just that stories needed to be told, shared, and expressed in some fashion to others, but rather our stories.

Quite the egomaniacs, aren't we? I'll admit it.  I write because I want people to read what I wrote. It's not enough just to write the story and put it away in a drawer somewhere or store it on a flash drive. That line of thinking makes me an author. (Shh, it's not a dirty word as long as one doesn't use it as a badge that keeps them focused too long on one book or one story.) I can say with a hint of pride that I'm the author of more than one book. Still, I am a writer first and foremost, meaning I'm someone who writes rather than merely someone who has written. (In case you're wondering, that could be a simple way to explain the difference between the words 'writer' and 'author.' Many newer writers might be shaking their heads at this point. Sorry about that. Maybe I'll talk about it more in a future post.)

It started in my head when I was very young. It started then in your head too. While it's true that no writer is the same as another writer, it might be fair to say that we all cross a line between just playing and using imagination as other children would and really thinking that the things we made up are worth sharing with others. I don't know when I crossed that line. I could think of many instances throughout the rest of my childhood when those impulses reared up and sometimes even found outlets. You could too.

Dear writer, if it's okay with you, I will talk about this thing we do. I'll come back to this space every so often and unpack what we writers do, think, and grapple with as we, hopefully, continue writing. Thank you for tuning in and reading. It makes this writer happy.

Free Fiction Friday: City's Comin' Down

UPDATE: There was a story here called "City's Comin' Down" free to read for one week, but now it's gone and another story has replaced it. Check back here because I will post links to the story when it becomes available as an ebook. Thanks for reading. 

Free Fiction Friday: Vengeance

UPDATE: There was a story called "Vengeance" here free for one week but now it has been replaced by another original story. Check back because this story will be making its way to publication. I will post links and cover art. Thanks and come back for more free fiction every Friday.