WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO BE PATIENT IN LIFE

I am a writer and that means I'm, by nature, awkward, moody, prone to anger, and sometimes arrogant  given my own feelings on life. My experience, my background, and my nature often times put me in a spot where it's difficult to see certain things. I may write a political entry, an entertainment entry, or an entry about life itself. What I write often depends on my mood, but chances are that as I go I will miss a thing or two. One thing that I learned while working on my MFA was to be patient.

As a writer I wanted perfection, the white elephant that does not exist, except for in fairy tales. I wanted so bad to write a perfect screenplay that some times I would drink myself blind with frustration. During a drunken attempt at perfection I decided to take a nap. When I woke up some twelve hours later I looked at my computer screen and I had one word on my screen, patience.

I realized that I was not happy because I was so impatient. I was reminded of all the conversations that I had with people not only in school but throughout my life. Everyone from my father, to my brothers, to everyone I ever met that succeeded, had real patience. Patience is that one virtue that you can always gain if you are willing to open your eyes for a quick second. There is something about patience that just  makes success and life in general, that much better.

Patience is not easy to come by and sometimes it's nearly impossible to get. I don't consider myself a fully patient individual yet but I am getting there. I am surrounded by people I don't always agree with, techniques I don't like, and views I want to wipe my ass with, but I am somehow able to bypass that and look at the long term. The word long frustrates everyone because it implies wait, suffering, and a lot of headaches that are impossible to handle.

In life nothing you do will ever be perfect, but learn to wait, learn to be patient and ultimately the payoff will come around.

NEVER GIVE UP

I have heard that I need to give up my dreams and ambitions so many times. I have heard it said that I have " far out" goals and the truth is I don't give a shit. People that criticize me for taking action in pursuing my dreams are also the very cowards that do not have the courage to go after their own dreams. The fact is that dreams will only as far as you take them. If you have your dreams stuck to a pillow chances are better than average they will never come true.

I am living my dream because I want to live my dream. I am a writer, I am everything I wanted to be. I do get paid to do what I love but not as often as I need to. I know I will get paid more eventually and I can make the adjustments but giving up is not an adjustment I am considering. I made a decision that I would not put myself in a position where I would be the waiter and writer combo. This is not me being arrogant or unrealistic, it's me saying that if you want something in life you get it regardless of what you are told.

Life was meant to be lived with real desire, we are not here to exist and just be. To hell with all the cowards that are willing to wake up and exist. I respect every person's decisions in life but to be honest I don't really care what they think of mine. I am a writer, I write because I love to write and because I can write. I live life to the fullest because it's what I want. Every possession I have will live on because I can't take it with me. My dreams are something that will define me as they become reality and when I am gone people will remember what I dreamt, what I accomplished and what I stood for.

Dream on if you have the courage, achieve if you have the strength and never give up if you have the heart.

IF YOU CAN SELF PROMOTE YOU ARE OKAY

I love the term shameless self promoter because it's kind of a contradiction. When a person says you are shameless they almost mean it in a derogatory manner. I am shameless but it's because I have nothing to be ashamed of. The fact is that when you are starting out no one will promote you so you have to do it yourself. If you are a writer this means multiple things outside of putting pen to paper on a daily basis.

Oh my blog! let's all get on the blog train to blog city. When you are a writer looking to get attention it's a great idea to go ahead and start a blog with opinions on relevant topics. The more outrageous your view the more attention you can draw to yourself. It's not about shocking people so much as it is about getting a little attention from different places. Of course there is a secondary option outside of blog city and that is self publishing.

The chances of you writing a best seller without any proper backing are very rare but if you have that little book to demonstrate what you can do as well as that sense of esthetics that's ever so important you definitely have an opportunity to draw some much needed attention to yourself. The point is to make yourself as visible as possible in order to show potential backers who you are and what you can do.

Always remember that no one ever paid attention to a person with little to say.

WHY BLOGGING IS NOT FRUITLESS

I used to think of blogging as another way for over opinionated people to spew their pseudo intellectual pearls on to the rest of the world. I will go as far saying that the word blog itself made me want to throw up in the sense that it was a word used largely by people that I perceived to be complete assholes. One day a childhood friend said "You should start a blog" and I decided to give it a shot just to see if I could be a lesser evil. The first year I had this blog I only put out some six blog entries total and did not bother to look at stats or anything of the sort.

As time went on I kept hearing that question about why I wasn't doing anything with my blogs. I never bothered to answer because frankly I felt that I did not need to do so. One day everything changed as my paid writing assignments started to wane a bit. I began to wonder about my writing and how I could stay relevant to myself. I was reminded of a tidbit  read my first day of class in Full Sail's MFA in Creative Writing program, that tidbit was that writers write. I hear that over and over and I realized that I would be doing myself a grave injustice if I stopped writing on the basis of what I was or was not earning.

Over the last six months I have been averaging something close to thirty entries a month and over that period of time I have been reminding myself of several things. First thing is that writers starting out have to be consistent in order to get somewhere. The second thing I remembered was that writers must self promote in all possible avenues. Every writer has a strong point and that can be anything from telling a story, to relating facts, to giving an opinion. I was reminded that building up volume of work helps get your name out there. In a six month period I have managed to build my stats to nearly 14,000 views in over 180 entries. I have finally taken in enough income to buy myself three candy bars from my google adsense and I am seeing exposure of my work in other countries even if it's only ten people that hit the page.  

If I continue to go at the pace I am going I know eventually I will hit some sort of niche. Blogging also makes social media useful as it's good to showcase your work in facebook, and twitter as well as google plus in order get that work in front of as many people as you can and make sure they are as varied a crowd as can be. The bottom line is that if your serious about getting exposure and building something relevant to put in your resume a blog is a great way to go.

THE TORTURE THAT IS WRITING

I must have read enough about writing to teach a small village. I spent countless hours working on an MFA with the focus on Creative Writing and one thing never changes, writing is pure torture. Some people love torture and I guess writing is that type that drives you insane but you just can't get enough of. There are so many dimensions to writing that just seem so wrong.

The first thing about writing that bothers everyone is subjectivity. You can write something that you hate and everyone else loves and something you believe to be your best and everyone thinks is absolute crap. No matter what you do or don't do you always have that nagging "I want to be liked" feeling when crafting a story. There's that desire for perfection that you end up having to cut out in order to do what's right for the story.

It doesn't really matter what you do you will always find a flaw with what you write and when someone else point's it out you will be infuriated but the fact is that fresh eyes see far better than a tired mind. Writing is a passion and like all passions it can be unhealthy in multiple ways. Ultimately writing is that ex girlfriend that you loved but drove you insane, that parent you idolized but could not stand and ultimately it's that one fantasy that will be as painful as it is joyful once it becomes reality.

THE RED CARPET DUMBASS SYNDROME

I love idiots that think they are members of the elite, highly limited true celebrity group. I find it entertaining that said idiots consider themselves players when in all reality they are quite the opposite. In the age of social media they take pictures of themselves with or at the very least near celebrities and refer to them as "my dear friends." Seriously, how pathetic can you be? Some of these morons have day jobs that they want to keep a secret because they don't consider them to be on par with their "celebrity" status.

I guess that by that set of standards I can consider myself a superstar author. I mean I have ghost written a book, self published another and between my blogs and articles for yahoo I have generated somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000 hits. I guess that makes me a red carpet, no wait it doesn't and neither does the fact that I was a finalist in the Beverly Hills Film Festival Screenwriting Contest.

I don't care for these little pretenders that consider the people they have requested their " lovely dear fans." I have news jackass and those news are that no one knows you, at least not yet so please stop the bullshit. The truth of the matter is that there is only one real red carpet and everything else is a cheap imitation. Don't call yourself a player if you don't know the rules of the game, it's immature and annoying.

Be real and please don't try to flaunt a talent unless you actually have it.