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Appreciative Neglect

You may have noticed that I’ve fallen off of my irregular schedule for posting short stories and serials on this blog.  Or, you may be like most of the world, and this lapse has gone unnoticed.  Certainly, gaining ten thousand followers, readers, whatever – has not and will never be the point of this blog.  It’s just fun.

Fact is, I have written more in the past month than ever before.  In July, I joined Camp NaNoWriMo along with a group of fellow writers I met online and have been hard at work on a novel.  The goal of these NaNoWriMo things are to write or finish a novel in a month.  Since I’m not in college, I’ve got a demanding job, and even more demanding children, my goal was far more modest: write some things for a novel and then keep writing them after NaNoWriMo ends (geesh, those alternating caps are annoying to type).

I’m proud to say I’ve succeeded at that goal.  July has come to a close, camp is over, and I’m still working on that novel.  I found a healthy writing pace and have an idea about how long it will take to complete said novel.  I’m excited to spend the next two-ish months finishing up my first draft.  I say two-ish because ish can be – like – up to six months if I get really lazy.  Ish is a fantastic word.

While I’m working on completing my current project, my blog will continue to languish in appreciative neglect.  I’m continuing my daily routine of reading scriptures, posting mini Bible studies, journaling, and writing.  I just don’t have time to write a novel and keep up with fun short stories on this blog at the same time.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t had ideas.  I’ve started a Trello board to track short story inspirations and ideas which I fully intend to hammer out between finishing my manuscript and the first round of edits.

Anyways, I’ve got breakfast to make for the kiddos and a novel to pretend to finish.  See y’all soon-ish!

Oh, and post nano I found Pacemaker Planner and it’s a pretty nice tool to track your writing.  If you’re into that kind of thing.

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My Keystone Habit

I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve actually been writing almost every day since moving to Arkansas.  My mornings start early, before anyone wakes up.  I spend time reading the Bible.  Usually I share a post on facebook about something that spoke to me.  Then I hammer out between two and three pages of whatever is on my mind.  It’s something I learned from reading The Artist’s Way … most of the way through.  Or half.  I lost the book in the move, but it’s fine.  Anyways, after my morning pages, I work on creative pursuits until it’s time to wake up the kids and go to work.

I realized this weekend – when Saturday was almost over – that spending time in God’s word and writing my morning pages has become a keystone habit for me.  It defines who I am and how I will go about my day.

Saturday I slept in because we had a super late night at work.  Or an early morning?  Whatever, it sucked, it’s done now.  Anyways, I slept in and skipped my usual routine.  Throughout the day, I was filled with thoughts of negativity, doubt, and just all around unhealthy stuff.  I also realized that I felt that way a lot more often before making the decision to start my days off with the Word and my morning pages.

Which is actually pretty surprising when I step back and look at things.  From the outside, my life probably seems more stressful.  I took a pay cut and a  demotion to come live in Arkansas.  Our house in Houston hasn’t sold yet.  Spoiler alert, it’s really expensive and did I mention the pay cut?  I’m not succeeding in some areas that I normally do exceedingly well at.  My dad’s still sick.  My wife, two kids, an I live in the room that my parents have been so kind to bless us with.

Sidenote, my parents are awesome. I know the living situation sounds like a nightmare to most people, it’s not.  But it does seem like it should be stressing me out a lot more than it is.

Despite all of that, my life is transforming from the inside out.  I read the Word in the morning instead of at night when I am too tired to make much of it.  I work on creative pursuits before anyone wakes up instead of after everyone falls asleep.  When I get home from work, I get to focus on being a good dad and a good husband instead of worrying about the things that I haven’t done yet for that day.  I get a full night’s rest instead of trying to jam as much as I can into a single evening only to get a few hours of unrewarding sleep.  I haven’t had any real heart issues since moving here.  I’m thinking more about how to be an example of Christ to people around me.  Not super successful at it, but it’s something I’m focusing on and thinking about.

A lot of things are changing.  I would like some of the external things in my life to change, of course.  But I don’t have control over that.  God does.  Most importantly, giving God control of who I am and tying my success to that goal means that no matter what happens externally, I am still satisfied.  Yes, I may want things.  But I don’t need them.  I’m not disappointed if I don’t get them.  I may not be living up to the potential that the world would have me strive for.  Instead, I’m becoming the person God created me to be.  And that’s the kind of success God delights in.

Scripture says God delights when a sinner repents.  He delights in the first, small steps of obedience.  He delights in our mercy, not adherence to a written code or traditions.  He loves to see us love the people around us.  He’s filled with joy when our hearts point towards him and share his love with others.  And if that becomes our goal – to please God through being the person he created us to be – we can live truly fulfilled lives.  It’s what I’m learning right now.

It’s not always easy, and there are times when I still feel discouraged.  Sometime I view my life through the lens of this world instead of through the eyes of my Father.  But the majority of the time, I see the world and myself more like he does.  And it’s beautiful.

 

Photo by Aphiwat chuangchoem from Pexels

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State of the Blog: Email List, New Worlds, and Stats

Well, it’s been about a month since I’ve started this blog, and so far it’s been pretty fun. Not only that, but it’s completely reshaped the landscape of the internet. For those of you who are interested in just how pivotal this blog has become, there’s a guest video from my friend Kaiser Bergin at the end of this post that really gets into the full impact of the stories we’ve been running here. Kaiser Bergin runs a successful twitch stream and is in no way related to me. And he’s definitely not me.

That being said, I’ve got some other information to share in plain old text fashion. And memes.

Continue reading “State of the Blog: Email List, New Worlds, and Stats”

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State of the Blog: What is this Place?

Welcome, weary traveler of the internets.  I hope you’ve come looking for stories, because that is all we have to offer.  How many, you ask?  As many as time provides.  The story teller intends to grace this site with tales from several different worlds of his own invention.  Each story is meant to provide you with a short escape from your world into a world that is not your own.

What worlds does the teller plan to write of?  A few – not too many.  Well, perhaps too many.  Perhaps he will run short of time and only tell a few stories, but I have high hopes for this one.  Why?  Well, I like what he intends for his stories.  They are nothing like me, and I find the idea intriguing. Continue reading “State of the Blog: What is this Place?”