I don't fight / I don't argue / I just hit that bitch with a bottle
~Miss B

I'm back from Alaska. Pictures are online here.

I'm still recovering from the trip. I miss my early twenties when I could go out every night, survive on four hours of sleep and treat my body like an immigrant in a sweatshop with no ill effects. Now, if I skip my morning cup of coffee I'm like a head trauma patient the rest of the day.

So in hindsight the decision to book myself on the redeye home was probably a poor one. At the time I did it, I thought it would be easier and cheaper than spending money on a hotel or hostel in Anchorage. I didn't figure that as the trip was drawing to a close we'd all be going out more and I'd only be getting about four hours of sleep a night in a cold tent pitched on a rocky beach.

By the time I got on the plane at midnight, all I wanted to do was sleep. Alaska Air had fucked me into a middle seat but I didn't care. Since I was just going to pass out for the next six hours, I would have been content to fly in the lavatory if I had to. Now, I'm not really in a position to make fun of people's weight, as I'm not as svelte as I once was, but the girl in the window seat had me by about 60 pounds. She literally had to fight the armrest down past her thighs when she spotted me coming. I may be heavy, but I still fit into the airline seats.

The kid in the isle seat wasn't a lightweight either but he didn't look like something poured into a garbage bag and left in the sun to ferment. He was, however, wearing a plaid shirt, beard, Che Guevara baseball cap and designer sunglasses. He could have been the spokesman for an Alaskan Fifth Avenue, equal parts fashion and wilderness.

But that's not what bothered me about these two. What bothered me was the "sheep to the slaughter" looks of happiness they wore. It's the kind of look that only comes from the abdication of any sort of independent thought. And looking around, there were a bunch of them. Alaska Air hadn't just fucked me into a middle seat. They'd fucked me into a middle seat in a nest of Jesus Freaks.*

So I squeeze myself into the seat and close my eyes. This is the conversation:

Girl: I so totally read the ticket wrong. Do you want this seat? I totally thought I had the window seat.
Guy: No, it's okay. I had the window seat on the way here.
Girl: I totally didn't do it on purpose. Are you mad? Don't be mad.
Guy: It's okay.
Girl: I just read it wrong. We can switch.
Guy: Maybe we can switch like halfway through the flight.
Girl: Okay, yeah. That's a good idea. (To her friend in another isle): Did you see what happened I totally read the ticket wrong. I'm in his seat. Isn't that funny?

She kept rambling about her inability to read but I managed to fall asleep so I'm not sure what happened next. I would have probably slept all the way to Los Angeles but I woke up to the guy shaking my shoulder.

Me: Huh? What? Did we land already?
Guy: No we're just about to take off.

It was at this point that I realized that he was holding hands with the fat girl next to me and with the girl across the isle from him. In fact, it looked like all the jesus freaks were holding hands. I had a sick feeling in my stomach.

Guy: We always say a prayer before we take off.

Let me stop here. Normally I'm a pretty even-tempered guy. I don't like jesus freaks but I'm content to let them do their thing as long as they let me do mine. Normally if someone asked me if I wanted to pray, I would just say no and leave it alone. So I don't have an explanation for what came out of my mouth next.

Guy: Would you like to say a prayer with us?
Me: I'd like to fist fuck your teeth into the back of your head.

And that was it. Even with the engines running, my voice clearly carried over the whole group who all immediately stopped talking to stare at me. I'm convinced that you could have heard a pin drop. In that moment, with them all grasping for a reaction I was afraid I would start laughing hysterically and I wouldn't be able to stop. It was so absurd, especially because I had simply meant to say no and close my eyes again. Seen from their side, I must have gone from a slightly dirty, very tired looking backpacker to a raving violent lunatic in the space of a few seconds.

Instead, I just crossed my arms and, pressed between my two fat jesus freaks, I fell asleep. The next time I opened my eyes was on the final approach into LAX.

Anyway, the pictures are here. Enjoy.

*Now before I get a ton of self-righteous indignant email let me explain something. I understand there are many people out there who are down to earth, smart, rational thinkers who also have faith. I have no quarrel with you. It's the "We're doing this for Jesus!" crowd that I dislike. If you've ever snowboarded for jesus, or skateboarded for jesus or done any other normal activity in the name of jesus instead of in the name of simple enjoyment then you should stop reading my site. I don't want you here.

I'm going to Alaska for two weeks. Lots of new stuff when I'm back.

My flickr account is here, and I'll be uploading pictures when I can. Also, if you want to follow me complaining about how cold it is, my twitter account is here.

I'm not real happy with myself this morning. I know for some of you, misdemeanor vandalism is just the way you end the night, but I'm not really sure I want to be the guy in the middle of the street throwing bottles.

I'm trying to be more emotionally honest in my writing and with myself. That means digging into a bunch of shit that is painful and uncomfortable. A bunch of shit I've spent years running away from. And when you mix all that up and add whiskey, well bad things happen.

So why write about it? And why leave the original entry up? The old me wouldn't have. I would have deleted it and pretended that nothing happened. But if I'm going to be honest about who I am, then I have to be honest about all of it. I can't present the good and gloss over the bad. And so as much as I want to forget last night, if I'm ever going to fix all the parts of me that are broken I have to first acknowledge that yes, there are parts that are broken.

And now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

At some point you stop caring about the consequences. And that's when you're truly free to do anything.

I just went outside and smashed two whiskey bottles into the center of my street. I'm not sure why I did it other then the fact that it felt like a good idea.

We all feel like just losing our shit at some point. But we don't ever do it. We bury that feeling down deep, we repress it. We go to work every day and smile in the face of our asshole boss. Or capitulate to our girlfriend's demands because we think, "if I can just make her happy then everything will be alright."

I did it. I worked jobs I hated because I wanted that next promotion. I drove my ex-girlfriend around to whatever errand she had to run because I thought if she could just see how much I loved her, she would fall in love with me all over again.

We do stupid, foolish things because we think it's what we're supposed to do. I did stupid, foolish things because I watched my parents hate their jobs and hate each other and so I figured that's what life is supposed to be like.

Being happy is harder than being fucked up. Being fucked up is the norm. It's easy to live beyond your means or medicate with anti-depressants so you can wake up and go to work every morning.

I'm not saying that I'm above any of this shit. I'm still smashing bottles into city streets in a vain, stupid effort to find meaning in it all.

But I want to be above it. I desperately want to be above it.

I recently had the opportunity to write a chapter on spec for a project dealing with werewolves. Unfortunately I didn't get the job but it was fun to write something that's so far from what I normally write. And since I didn't get the job, I'm posting the chapter here. Enjoy.

At War with the Lycanthrope: A Year Living Among the Monsters

So what does it look like when someone is doing it right?

[In the following post, I know I sound like an American Apparel fanboy, but it's because I want to highlight a company that's doing more good than evil]

I had the chance to tour the American Apparel factory in downtown Los Angeles today. Normally, I wouldn't be all that excited to tour a clothing factory. Clothing is about as far from my areas of interest and expertise as you can get, but this was different. American Apparel is what a manufacturing company looks like when it applies edge economy principles to an old business model.

The conventional wisdom is that you pay your workers as little as possible, either by putting your manufacturing centers in places with a very low cost of living or outsourcing the whole operation but they don't do this. The whole operation is contained in two buildings in downtown Los Angeles (not counting the retail outlets), a city with an unbelievably high cost of living. And while other factories in Los Angeles pay between $30 - $40 a day, at American Apparel it's possible for the garment workers to make between $80 - $120 dollars a day[1]. To put that in perspective, my friends who work as assistants to Hollywood agents make less.

More important than the pay is the functional organization. Instead of having an assembly line system where people are disconnected from each other, people are organized into groups and the group decides how many articles of clothing they're going to make that hour. Since everyone is paid a base of $8 an hour and then a bonus for hitting certain production goals, the group decides how hard to work and how much to make in a day.

A group meeting on the production floor

Each group has a board that tracks what their goal for the hour is

And it's the small things. American Apparel fosters an environment that takes care of their employees. There's a medical clinic in the factory that serves not only the employees but their families as well. And since most of the workers are legal immigrants with family outside the United States, there are phones in the cafeteria that allow for free long distance calls to anywhere in the world. The phones also have assigned phone numbers so that people are able to take phone calls there as well.

It's an amazing amount of freedom to give people and the potential for abuse is huge. Think about what's happening here. It's the garment workers who decide what daily production is going to be. And American Apparel has to eat the cost of an international phone call whenever someone wants to phone home. But it works and it works because when you invest in your people and take care of them, they have no incentive to abuse the system.

But what's the advantage for the company? Having everyone in the same place allows for a huge amount of flexibility. A designer can come up with a design in the morning and have a sample that afternoon and the product in stores the next week. This is only possible because everyone is in the same building. Contrasted against other clothing manufacturers that have to scan and email designs then wait weeks for the samples to be mailed back, American Apparel is nimble in an industry that isn't.

All advertisements are done in house as well.

A bigger advantage however is that everyone's incentives are aligned. American Apparel wants to produce and sell as many t-shirts as possible and since people are paid by the only metric that matters, how much they produce, they produce[2].

What American Apparel has done is turned the conventional wisdom of manufacturing on its head. Instead of outsourcing, American Apparel is located in one of the most expensive cities in the world. And instead of paying the average wage, they pay 2 to 3 times it. Instead of tightly controlling costs by cutting services they're giving away health care and the ability for people to connect with their families. Instead of mandating quotas, they let workers determine ouput.

And then there is the political involvement. American Apparel is involved in both immigration reform, with their "Legalize LA" campaign and environmental reform with solar panels on the top of the factory that reduced energy costs by 20% and the use of organic cotton in their products.

I know I sound like a paid advertisement but I'm not. I want to highlight that there are two ways of doing things. There is this idea that capitalism is a race to the bottom, that it has to be cutthroat and ruthless. But I think that's wrong. There are ways to invest people into the jobs that they work so that value is created all along the chain. From the factory workers to the consumers and everyone in between that makes selling a product possible.

Solar power

I also understand that most people go to work for the paycheck. Most people wouldn't show up to work if they weren't getting paid. But that doesn't mean they can't love their company or be treated right. It doesn't mean that their companies don't have to make the right decisions.

---
[1] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/07/04/BUGB67G1G21.DTL
[2] http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2007/company-profile.html?id=2006308

As a follow up to my earlier post, I give you this post from Ryan.

Your blog will fail unless you post on it. Your delicious account is worthless if you're not using it. You'll get nothing from Wikipedia without editing. You'll never be the source of conversation if you don't personally start it. Your connections will dry up unless you make consistent contact. And all of the equalizing power of new media is lost on you if you can't step up and extend yourself.

His focus on building a new media resume but really the advice is universal. If you're not involved, you're not going to be successful.

And if I can add something that's not in his post: Don't be afraid to suck. Building a new media presence, writing a novel, starting a business, learning to juggle -- you don't develop any of these skills without actually doing them. And when you first start anything, unless you're some sort of savant, you're going to suck. That's not the worst thing that can happen.

I've been blogging for almost ten years. I started on diaryland, moved to livejournal then to blogger and now I'm under the Rudius banner. And I'm still learning what it takes to have a successful career as a writer. I'm not there yet by any stretch of the imagination but I'm working on it.

Before I could even start working on it though, I had get past my fear of sucking, of putting my work online and letting people read it. I had to get past my fear of walking into a classroom and listening to 14 other people tell me that my work wasn't as perfect as I had imagined it.

So here's your homework assignment. Take one thing you wish you were doing that you're not doing. Now, everyday take an hour (or maybe ten minutes) and do whatever it is. And in a year you'll be able to look back at how much you've improved. Or in a year you'll still be sitting around thinking "wouldn't it be cool if I did _____."

So why do I have such a bug up my ass about TBS? Because I think the decisions a person makes and the actions they take matter.

Look at the way TBS treats it's viewers. Now look at the shows that TBS offers. I don't think it's a coincidence that the best shows on TBS are ones they buy from other networks.

It's a little before my time, but in researching TBS I came across something called Turner Time.

On June 29, 1981, TBS began to use "Turner Time". While other television offerings generally began at the top and bottom of each hour, TBS decided to begin airing programs five minutes later, at :05 and :35.

By using "Turner Time," TBS programs were listed under their own time entry in TV Guide, thus enabling the program listings to catch potential viewers' eyes more readily. It also encouraged channel surfers who could not find anything interesting to watch at the top of the hour, to still be able to watch a TBS program without missing the first few minutes. Most importantly from a strategic standpoint, since shows ended five minutes later than normal, the off-time scheduling usually encouraged viewers to continue watching TBS rather than flip to watch another program already in progress.

TBS started to cut back Turner Time in 1997 and scrapped it completely by 2000. TBS now schedules programs conventionally, at the top and bottom of the hour.

This is a network that has never been willing bet on the quality of their shows. They're betting on gimmicks and that their viewers would trapped into "watching TBS rather than flip to watch another program already in progress."

A lot of people want to work in TV. If you're one of them, where do you want to work? HBO on The Wire or the Sopranos? Fox on Family Guy or maybe at FX on The Shield? Or do you want to get up every morning and drive to TBS to try and figure out new ways to trick viewers into watching sub par shows?

TBS isn't some alien collective making decisions from orbit. TBS is a collection of people who everyday have the choice to make one decision or another. And so far I'm not too impressed with their track record.

But why does all this matter? Because I think the decisions a person makes and the actions they take matter. I've worked for companies I didn't believe in on projects I didn't like. I came home every night feeling like shit and I hated waking up in the morning. It was a pretty miserable existence. And when it came time to make those kinds of decisions, the "do we institute our version of Turner Time," I was too apathetic to fight for the right choice and that just reinforced the fact that I didn't believe in whatever company I was working for.

I guess if you're two years from retirement then none of this matters (but thanks for reading). But if you're still young enough to believe that you go to work for more than a paycheck, then TBS is a good lesson. Most of you are going to be (if you're not already) in a position to make decisions at some point. And not bullshit, should be we order blue pens or black pens decisions. You're going to be able to direct the direction have a real say in the direction of, if not your company, at least your group within the company. And you're going to have people under you who are responsible to carry out the decisions you make. So which route do you choose? Do you fight to create the next Wire or do you institute Turner Time to keep people watching?

There's always going to be pressure to take the short-term view. To "Turner Time" the decisions. It's harder to fight for what's right. Sometimes it's hard to know what's right. So you need to know who you are and think these things through before you are faced with the decision.

And that's why I have such a bug up my ass about TBS. Because at the end of the day, it's a decision as to whether I'm going to wake up and do something I believe in or wake up and do something for the paycheck.

Laura wrote in the comments

When I read that post on Maddox's page I was like, man, Orbitz is fucked. But... were they really? Who knows. I've never bought from them.

I've heard here and there that TV networks were going to push to advertise in different ways because of the DVR popularity these days. The stuff you're saying in this post is the first example I've seen that it's a reality. I might be out of touch, though, since I just download everything haven't owned a TV in over a year.

In some ways you're right. Orbitz didn't go out of business when Maddox posted that so we can debate the actual effect all day. And TBS certainly isn't going to fail because I, and a lot of other people, hate their new ads.

But in a way I think that your comment also proves my point. You've never bought from Orbitz and, after reading Maddox's post, unless you really like horrible experiences you'll avoid them in the future. And the more you read about how intrusive and annoying advertising is on TV, again unless you're an idiot, you're going to keep downloading your TV shows. Reading about how bad the experience is keeps you away from buying a TV and paying for cable.

Look at what happened to Dell. Obviously there were a lot of people who were unhappy with Dell's customer service before Jeff Jarvis starting writing about his experiences trying to get a computer fixed, but in writing about it, he became the flashpoint for a huge outpouring of anger at Dell that forced the company to make real changes in the way they deal with customers

And that's the point of my previous post. It doesn't have to be an avalanche or an immediate effect. If I reach a few hundred people and the next blogger reaches a few hundred people and the next blogger reaches a few hundred people, pretty soon there are a lot of people who are mad about something and now they're all talking to each other. That's pretty powerful. When you get enough people together, it can have a real effect.

I'm not sure what those idiots over at TBS are thinking.

One of the shows I record and watch is Family Guy. Family guy runs on four networks in my area. TBS, the local Fox affiliate, USA and the Cartoon Network. So if I want to watch it, I've got a lot of options. TBS isn't offering anything I can't get somewhere else.

So what's different about TBS. Well the first thing is that during Family Guy, TBS will pause the show -- in the middle of a scene -- and run an ad for the Bill Engvall show. It's not bad enough that most advertising is awful and makes me actively resent the products being offered, but to pause a show in the middle of a scene just seems to show a total lack of respect for the viewer. And I'm not alone, searching for "Bill Engvall ads" on google brings up four complaints about the ads and one negative review in the first five google results. I'm not sure that a network could be more out of touch with what their viewers are thinking.

Consequently, I've taken TBS out of my DVR. You can only shit on your viewers when you're the only game in town. When you're offering something that I can get three other places, I'm going to get it somewhere else.

Normally I'd write some big long thing about creating value for your viewers as opposed to extracting value from them but in this case, it seems so obvious.

And I know the counter argument, that there are a lot of people who will watch TBS and not get annoyed enough to stop watching it. But if you think about it, TBS is running a pure numbers game here. They didn't create the Family Guy franchise; they're not making any money from DVD sales or any of the intellectual property associated with Family Guy. The only revenue stream is selling ads around Family Guy content and ads are priced on how many viewers they get. So in theory, every person like me that they piss off is a dollar they lose in ad revenue.

That's your business lesson for the day. Don't be TBS.

Edit to add: This is an interesting phenomenon. I know this is just an angry rant on my blog and we can all sit around and discuss how arguing on the internet is akin to winning the special Olympics but what happens when someone like Maddox shits all over orbitz? Does it matter when 2.6 million people see the article? How about a million? How about 500? At what point can you afford to just say "fuck that guy and everyone he is talking to?" Maybe I'm below that point, but is Yahoo! Answers?

I spent the day filming "behind the scenes" material from the movie with Real Tucker and Movie Tucker. This was the first time I'd met Movie Tucker and while I'd seen him do a chemistry read with the other male leads, I didn't really have a feel for him as a person. Movie Tucker is very cool and very nice but he is very, very different than Real Tucker.

Chemistry reading aside, I spent most of the day wondering how Movie Tucker was going to play Real Tucker. It's not enough for Movie Tucker to just understand the character of Tucker Max. A lot of people are going to understand Tucker's character in the movie, much like most people understand the Tucker character in the stories. Movie Tucker has to go much deeper, he has to internalize Real Tucker's motivations and actions. He can't just know what Real Tucker would do next, it has to be instinctual for him to act that way. Otherwise it won't feel natural or authentic to him and it won't feel natural or authentic to the audience. And like I said, they are very different people.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the whole thing. I'm not sure how actors internalize the characters they play. When I write, I've fully internalized the characters I've created. But these are characters that spring from my own experiences and from my own emotions. I'm not sure I could create a character that feels something I've never felt.

But that's what Movie Tucker has to do. He has to take a character that he did not create and become that character. Movie Tucker and Real Tucker spent eight or nine hours together today, doing everything from taking about the person Real Tucker is, to going over the script scene by scene to get what Tucker's character is thinking and feeling moment to moment. Movie Tucker calls this research. I call it exhausting.

And yet, somehow it works. There were these moments today when Movie Tucker would pick up Real Tucker's mannerisms or his way of speaking or he'd say something that Real Tucker would say. It was a little startling to see someone I just met basically nail the behavior of someone I know. I could see him start to internalize Real Tucker as they went over the script.

I've got a lot more respect for actors.

Pictured: Real Tucker. Movie Tucker is similarly covered in wing sauce.

There are a lot of good comments over on this post. I normally like to respond to each comment but I've been lazy. You guys are right. I'm incredibly lucky that I have very good, very accomplished writers around me that are willing to take the time to not only read my work but sit me down and tell me how to get to the next level. There's a lot to be said about the people you keep in your life.

This post is filler. I've been sitting here for about three hours trying to write a blog post. All I have to show for it is a dead battery and the paragraph above. Some days are like that, the urge to say something outruns whatever you actually have to say. Some days, the magic is knowing when to quit. Have a good weekend.

Edit: As a bonus, here is me being a total cliche. The aspiring writer sitting in a Los Angeles Starbucks with his shiny MacBook Pro. Have your people call my people, we'll do lunch.

I've done something that I promised myself I wouldn't do. I signed up and paid for a flickr account. There's a lot I like about flickr but until now my two big stumbling blocks were that they're owned by Yahoo (and maybe by Microsoft) and they're essentially a pay service if you want to do anything cool.

But if you're going to do photos on the internet and you want to be part of a community, then flickr is the only game in town. I had been posting all my photos to picasaweb but there's no community there, no groups, nothing to get excited about.

That's a pretty important lesson that a lot of people overlook. We're past the time on the internet where if you simply build it, they will come. If you want people to check out what you're doing, you need to go where the people are.

I get email all the time from people who want to know where to start. They want to be a writer / make movies / work for Rudius / work in entertainment / start a business / you get the idea.

There's only one answer. You have to get involved. Whether it's artistic, business or criminal you have to find a community and become a valuable part of it. There aren't any tricks or shortcuts.

And this isn't new. Timothy Leary hung out with the beat generation. Earnest Hemingway was in Paris in the 1920s. Andy Warhol had NYC. If you're really into technology there are 2600 meetings, if you want to go to law school, every school has a pre-law society, or a pre-med society or an engineering fraternity.

The internet has changed the way in which we interact but not the reasons why. The internet has made finding people with similar interests easier but it hasn't done away with the need for social communities.

So get involved in meaningful and valuable ways. Find a community of people that you enjoy and become a part of that community. This isn't about spamming your work on them, or using them in an underhanded fashion. Leave comments on other people's work. Find people you respect and start a conversation with them. Be the kind of person that you'd want to interact with.

And this should be enjoyable. Getting involved in a community isn't about becoming rich and famous, it's about connecting with people who are going to help you get better at whatever you're doing.

I didn't join flickr because I want to be a photographer. My skill at taking pictures is average at best. Photography for me is a hobby but I still want to connect with other people who are excited about photography and I want to find people who's work I really enjoy.

In the same fashion, I didn't join the messageboard because I wanted to be a writer or because I could fool people into reading my work. I posted short stories to the messageboard because I enjoyed hanging out there. And I took the time to comment on other people's work as well. Everything that came afterwards flowed out of me just trying to be a better writer and connect with writers that I liked.

Once you're part of a community, the opportunities will come.

The writing program at UCLA is surprisingly solid for a school that doesn't have an MFA program. Since the instructors decide who gets into the class, you get both a baseline of talent and people who are fairly serious about their writing. With all this in mind I was chuffed as fuck to get into my first class.

To write for a class like that, you've got to have a lot of confidence in your own writing. If you don't, there's no way you're going to be able sit through an hour of people critiquing your work.

In order to have this confidence, I have to believe that whatever I'm currently working on is the best thing I've written yet[1]. If I don't believe that, then why bother. Why bother writing it, why bother sharing it, why bother posting it to my site? People know when you're phoning it in.

The first time I turned in for the creative writing class, I truly believed that the story I'd written was awesome. Not just awesome, but mind blowing. I'm not sure what I expected from my peers, applause maybe, but I knew that my shit was good and I expected them to recognize that in grand fashion.

What I got was exactly the opposite. It's not that they didn't like it, I could have written that off to differing taste. They tore it to shreds. My character motivation was nonexistent, my dialogue was weak, the plot had barely more than one dimension. It's not so much that they didn't like it, it's like they were frustrated that I wasn't a better writer.

Sitting there listening to the rest of the writing group tear into this story was awful. I really thought I might be sick and when I got out of class I went home and did shots of rum until I stopped feeling like a jackass. I just couldn't believe I had misjudged my writing ability so badly.

But worse than the embarrassment of sitting through that class was the loss of confidence in my own ability. For weeks after that, I couldn't write. I'd sit at the computer and just stare at the cursor. My fear that whatever I wrote wouldn't be any good wouldn't even let me start.

It's an awful feeling. Writer's block is a hundred times easier.

I don't bring this all up as interesting historical fact. Wednesday night we were talking about where we see ourselves over the next ten years. Obviously I want to write. I want to support myself as a writer and I want the recognition that only comes with being a best selling author.

The unfortunate truth is that I'm not there as a writer. Maybe I'm good enough to get published, maybe I'm even good enough to make an average living with as a writer. But that's not the point. The point is to make the best possible art I can make. It's not about writing well enough to get paid, it's being the best writer I can possibly be and letting the money follow.

I might have to spray paint that on the wall. Burn it into the carpet. Carve it into the desk.

Wednesday wasn't easy. It's never easy to have two people you like and respect tell you "there are assumptions you've made about your life and about your writing that are wrong."[2] And hearing that I need to challenge those assumptions is scary and uncomfortable. I don't want to shine a light on a lot of things that I've lived comfortably with for many, many years. I don't want admit that I've been lying to myself, or that I haven't been true to myself.

But easy or not, it's necessary. Without challenging those assumptions there's no way to grow as a person or as a writer. And that means I have to make a choice. Am I willing to do what's necessary to take my writing to the next level? Am I really committed to this, will I push through what's comfortable and easy or do I blow it off, tell myself they're full of shit? Or worse, do I say the work necessary isn't worth it that I'd rather accept who am I at this moment and never leave my mark on the world, never move past this point.

I guess I've chosen to push through it. I sat here Wednesday night and most of Thursday and almost all day today afraid to put anything on the page. Write a line, delete a line. The only way to get through it is to get back on the horse and write. And so you get a bunch of naval gazing, sorry about that.

---
[1]When writing fiction, blog posts are different
[2]Paraphrased

Presenter: Who likes the Beatles?

Crowd: Cheers!

Presenter: We wanted to do something special to thank you tonight. This is the most authentic ... these guys are just so authentic ... they really are the authentic experience. I give you BeatleMania Live!

Crowd: Cheers!

So Authentic.