When It Rains It Gets Wet

So, my posts have been sparse lately, forgive me. I've been crazy busy.

I know I meant to share more info on my adventures as a ghostwriter, but MORE has happened!

A few of you might have heard of the SOUL SURFER movie coming out about Bethany Hamilton, a young surfer girl who was mauled by a shark, lost her arm, and not only returned to surfing, but became a champion surfer.
Well,

See, my dad's name right there in small letters!

I got a chance to work with my dad on the book "Raising a Soul Surfer" which he wrote with Bethany's mother, Cheri Hamilton. (Actually, my dad is the "with", it's Cheri's book)

It's a movie tie-in book. An "Inspirational Autobiography."

And I got to earn some industry cred... or maybe crud... by helping my dad to crank out the manuscript in record time. I edited, fact-checked, and occasionally rewrote chapters at Cheri's and my dad's direction.

It wasn't quite as legendary of ghostwriting 50k words in 50 hours, but it was close! haha.

Also it was an interesting glimpse into the professional world of writing.

Those of us who write take for granted that the written word is our milieu. Words are our spirit's limbs, moving them, arranging them, crafting them to convey and emote.

We forget that many many people who can communicate in person, on screen, etc, etc, etc, aren't as comfortable with words. They can say it, speak it to huge crowds with passion and clarity, but when they sit down to write a book it just doesn't come across like they want.

I suppose it's like people who are photogenic, and those who look normal until you take a picture of them and they seem to look goofy no matter what.

Or like otherwise accomplished people who can't sing in tune even with training. (I've met these people, they baffle me!)

It has been exciting to help a woman who has a pretty amazing story share it with the world...

But MAN it was a lot of work. I had to sort through a half dozen insertions and notes and possible scenes--and the deadline was like a bear gnawing on my shoulder.

It was new realms of intensity, frustration, and validation.
Sending it off to the editor on the last day before DEADline felt sooooo good.

Now I can actually spend time wroking on my book! sheesh. :)

Why My Writers' Group Rulez

When one of our members (Mercedes M. Yardley) needs a writerly kick in the proverbial pants, who's there to put their boots on?

The Illiterati, that's who:

http://abrokenlaptop.com/2011/02/16/bust-it-out/

You can be sure we are awesome. They should bottle our sweat and use it to fight fires, because everyone knows forest fires yield to awesomeness.

I'll Smack You With This Blog Post

This falls under the tag: "Stop Procrastinating Dude"

Ok, allow me to do a few laps as a chicken with no head. This has been a crazy few weeks.

I've got two kids under 3 bouncing off the walls, a house that looks as if a tornado localized in each room, people asking me to book shows for them. I have a reading to perform this weekend and I've got to organize my back-up dancers and pyrotechnics. Not to mention the writing gigs are flying my way faster than I can juggle them: from my day job (freelance technical writer), to possible journalistic endeavors, to contests, planning committee invites. And the band needs to practice for our upcoming shows, I have to find a babysitter, I've got a few recording sessions coming up, I'm trying to remember if I invoiced for the last one...

It's all enough to make a slacker like me turn to the Playstation for a coupla hours of veg time.

But NO! I'm the one who wants to pile my plate up high. Life's meant to be lived to the fullest!
Slackers don't win. Heck, they don't even finish!

So enough complaining. I'm jumping back in with both feet. Next time you hear from me it should be about the things I've accomplished!

Writing is a committment. Heck, living is a committment. You can't just quit. (Well, you could, but I don't reccommend it.)

We are writers because we write, not because we dream about writing, or tweet about writing, or blog about writing. So time to stop procrastinating and get back to the grist mill. Time waits for no man, unless that man is sucked into a gravitational anomaly... that's different.

But if I ever hear someone complain about how they don't have any time to write I'll smack them with this blog post by the estimable Mercedes M. Yardley.

For those of you wondering why Mercedes and I are always talking each other up (or talking smack) it's because we both belong to the Super Secret Order of Interdimensional Wombats, also known as The Illiterati. It's a critique group, it's a writers' group, it's a superhero convention.

If you've not found a few like-minded writers to meet up with (IRL or online) you need to get on that. If you want help or have questions, or just want to vent about some of the crazy critique group stories you have, please drop me a line!