I was talking to my best friend, whose wife had just given birth to a son, about the best way to practice writing. Taking heed to Buddha’s words, I said dive into the work. He went on to tell me his preferred method. That he analyzed other writers’ work to find what made it click. That he worked with a writing coach. That he practiced specific techniques that he found valuable. And that practicing needed to be perfect practice.

I then calmly asked him, “What the hell is perfect practice?”

To me, it sounded like you couldn’t make mistakes while practicing when it’s really the best time to make mistakes. It’s those mistakes that we make in practice or immersed in our work that can give us some of the most profound insights. I told him there’s no one correct way of doing anything well.

It’s the geniuses, the innovators that create the rule, the market. Just look at the world of media. We have books and TV shows about wizards and vampires and wolves.

When I had my teaching and mentoring business, I was all about changing behavior. Shit. I was one of the laziest people I knew. I watched TV to no end. I had little passion for anything, or at least I thought I had little passion for anything. I slept for most of the day when I could. That was the life! Then something changed. A yearning grew. Not that yearning. Well…not the place to discuss.

I started to think about the things I wanted. Things I wished to accomplish. And somehow I was disciplined enough to go to the gym, write, have a social life, teach, and still have free time to just chill. How did I become disciplined? Hell if I know.

Actually, they were things that I wanted to do. Loved to do. I mean going to the gym was easy. There’s a lot of hot chicks there.

During the years that I taught, I made a slow discovery. As awesome a teacher as I was, I couldn’t make my students do anything. Yes, they listened to me. Yes, they behaved when I shushed them. But they eventually fell back to their shenanigans.

What I could do was listen to them, guide them toward their own well being, help them realize their own potential in real time physical exercises, and help them realize what they truly wanted in life. Their behavior was outside of my reach, outside of anyone’s reach, except their own.

One parent came up to me and was extremely concerned about her child’s time management skills. He loved to procrastinate. She was my client, so I did my best to try and change that behavior, asked him why he procrastinated, gave him specific things to do to swerve him from waiting till the last minute.

He made the changes for a day. Then he reverted back to his old ways. His grades never improved from the mostly A’s and B’s he already received. I know, I know.

Now in college, I asked him how school was going. He loved it, tried a slew of different things, as I suggested, so he could have a better idea of what he might love to do in life. I asked him how his grades were. Mostly A’s and B’s.

I asked him if he was ok with that. Totally fine, he answered.

Do you still procrastinate, I asked. He reluctantly nodded.

I laughed, told him that this was his method and that it seemed to work. If he felt bad about his grades, that he wanted to improve, then changes may need to be made (depending on why he felt bad). Since everything was fine, there was nothing to do but catch up on old times.

I had told my best friend this story, as he’s also close to this family, and the silence on the phone meant he didn’t agree.

He has his way toward excellence. I have mine. And as long as those methods work for us without any feelings of guilt or anxiousness, but with peace of mind, then whose to say that were wrong?

I’d just come back from Sin City.   And you know what they say? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.  Unless you post it up on your website.

I’d retired from teaching but retained a single student per his parent’s request. I happily accepted.  Our lessons are to end in a couple of weeks and, as part of his birthday, his parents generously treated him to go to UFC 98.  His parents asked if I’d go with him.  You’ll find no resistance here. I actually can’t say what we did for fear of arrest.  We had a good time.

UFC puts on the best events. The preliminary fights were awesome. The main card was even better.

My student and I rooted for different people.  But when it came to the light heavyweight title fight between champion Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida, we rooted for “The Dragon”–Lyoto.

Lyoto had been training in Karate since he was born.  He’s always dreamt of being champion.  His father emmigrated from Japan, and being 5’6″ tall, he changed karate to suit his height.  A lot of Brazilian men tend to be closer to six feet.  Lyoto has then trained in Machida Karate and has adapted it to the world of mixed martial arts.  He’s also a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

When Lyoto first came on the UFC, he’s been chided for being a boring fighter.  He’s naturally a counter striker, waiting for the opponent to make a move, and strike at the opening.  He’s done this since I’ve been watching him.

Then in his last fight he faced Thiago Silva, an aggressive striker who’s also well rounded and undefeated.  Both Lyoto and Thiago put up their undefeated records.  Undefeated is very uncommon in MMA because there are so many ways to win.  Thiago played right into Lyoto’s hand, fighting aggressively, and The Dragon knocked him out.

When my student and I got off the plane, we ran into Rampage Jackson.  Another UFC fighter.  It was kind of surreal to bump into him.  He was in line to fight Rashad for the title.  But he suffered a broken jaw in his last fight.  So next up was Lyoto.

When the fight finally arrive, we were excited.  My palms were sweaty.  I was nervous for Lyoto because Rashad has never been knocked out or defeated.  And he’s fought much bigger guys.

Once the fight started, both fighters circled the ring, feeling each other out.  The crowd started booing because there was no action.  I waited patiently.  Then about 3-4 mintues in, after a few non-consequential exchanges, Lyoto kicked Rashad in the head, and knocked him back with a follow up punch.

Lyoto didn’t follow through, didn’t finish.

Round 2.  A wild exchange between the two fighters sent Rashad against the cage.  Lyoto jumped at the opportunity, threw several punches that not only landed, but knocked Rashad out.  My student and I leaped off our chairs and yelled our heads off.

Lyoto is now the UFC light heavyweight champion.  Through conviction, hard work, and not listening to his critics, Lyoto’s dream came true.  He then said in his interview, “If you have a dream…it’s possible.”

Do dreams come true.  Most definitely.

Last night was one of those nights.  I couldn’t sleep.  No diet Coke.  No late night coffee runs.  No chocolate.  Nothing that would turn me into an insomniac.  In fact, I’ve had more nights of insomnia in the past few years than in my whole life.  Which is interesting.

My sister had a Feng Shui master come into the house.  The master saw my room and asked my sister if I was sleeping well.  My sister didn’t know.  The master masterfully suggested in her wisest of wisdom that I move my bed to another wall, turn it so my feet would point east, and my sleeping problems would be solved.

All righty then.

One day, I came home and found my bed pushed against the other wall.  At the time, I didn’t know why.  Nor did I know a Feng Shui master had wisely assessed my sleeping arrangements, using thousands of years of Feng Shui know how.

That night I lay my head down to sleep.  My feet pointed east, though I normally don’t make a note of where my feet point.  An hour goes by, and I’m like, WTF mate?  I’m still awake.  It usually takes me fifteen minutes to say hello to the sandman.

Another hour goes by.  Crap!

An hour later I’m still freakin’ awake.

I got two hours of sleep that night.  I remember because it was the start of a line of sleepless nights.  A month later my sister was kind enough to inform me of what the master had suggested.  A few years had passed since then.

I had turned up my workout up a notch yesterday.  Summer is coming so I gotta look nice for the ladies.  When I went to bed, my body was desperate for much needed rest.  An hour goes by and I’m awake.  But a few minutes later Mr. Sandman was knocking on my door.  Not only was he knocking on my door, but the floor just outside my room creaked.

I listened.

Nothing.  House was settling.

I twisted and turned, found a comfortable spot, and began to let the bits of consciousness drip away.

Floorboards creaked.  Someone was walking around the hallway.

My sister went to sleep before I did, so I knew it wasn’t her.  Hallway light wasn’t on because it didn’t creep under my door.

I sat up and my bed squeaked.

The steps stopped.

I could feel my heart hitting my chest.

Floorboards creaked again, I heard shuffling outside, and it sounded as if someone was walking on the roof.  I was surrounded!

I jumped off my bed, grabbed a katana—Samurai sword—and waited for whomever to barge through my shut door.

C’mon, man.  My hand squeezed the hilt.  I could see the path of the sword.  C’mon!

No one came in.  The steps disappeared.

I turned on the light, opened my door.  No one stood outside.  I proceeded to check the whole house with sword in hand.  There were no signs anyone was in the house.  I eased back upstairs.

Here’s the funny part.

My Samurai sword is not real.  The blade is not tempered steel.  If there were a Samurai in my house, his katana would slice through mine like buttah.  But what are the chances a Samurai would show up in my house?

Second, my fake sword is so unbalanced that if I swung and missed, it’d take me a hundred years to recover.

Third, beyond swinging the sword like a bat, my skills with a katana is like my skills of levitation.  Non-existent.

All this because my sister listened to a Feng Shui master.  And I never found the source of the ruckus.

In my book children are a huge part of the story. They serve to move the plot forward, present obstacles to both the hero and supporting characters. Children represent innocence in many societies, and I’ve definitely made it that way in the world I’ve created. They are precious because they represent infinite potential and advancement in evolution, as a result, they’re the best of mothers and fathers.  And my hero believes this and loves his children to death.

I was taking a break from my mundane day job, walking down Market St. and enjoying the sun. Suddenly, a streetwalker accosted me—get your mind outtah the guttah. She asked me if I wanted a child.

“Whoa lady,” I said.

“What I’m talkin’ about is sponsoring a child,” she said.

She proceeded to tell me about www.children.org, how it’s a non-profit organization, most of the money goes to the children, and I can pick where my money goes. After an hour wrenching my arm, she was quite strong, I agreed.

Check out the child I’m sponsoring below, the letter she wrote me, go to my personal link, and if you feel like giving, then give. If not, then no plobrem

There’s a saying: It’s better to give than to receive.

Crap.

It is better to give, you may say.

Crap.

Let’s take a simple concept of giving money. To give money you must have money. To have money you must receive it. If I wanted to give twenty bucks, I have to have twenty bucks. However, if I only had ten bucks, then I can only give ten bucks.

The idea of giving is that you’ll receive.  We live in a world of dualities.  The Ying and Yang illustrates this perfectly.  You can’t have a front without a back, an up without a down, the good without the bad, giving without receiving, etc.  But beware. Don’t give because you want to receive. Give because you want to.  It will return to you in ways you’ve never imagined.

In my side story, the character, Noshee, was a cheater.  It’s part of his backstory.  If you’d like to read the side stories check them out here.

I’d talked to a friend about attraction.  In the context of marriage.  He’s been married for several years and loves his wife dearly.

One day he stood in a never ending line at Starbucks, totally submerged in his crackberry.  A woman bumped him from behind by accident and apologized.  My friend turned around, smiled, and said, “No problem.”

Her red lips widened, revealing her white teeth.  “Aren’t those addicting?”

“Ugh.  I can’t help but check my emails everytime my phone vibrates.”

The blond-haired lady took out her iPhone from her purse and waved it.  “Tell me about it.”

After receiving their coffees, they stood off to the side.  What happened next was a fury of non-sexual flirting.  My friend found himself cracking jokes.  She laughed and crinkled her nose.  He  listened to her personal stories of work life, egged her on with penetrating questions.   She noticeably became intrigued by him, not taking any notice of the morning sun glinting off his wedding band.

Interesting.

It wasn’t until he mentioned his wife did she withdraw and exclaimed she’d better not be late today.

Unlike my character, my friend didn’t follow through with his instincts.  But was he in the wrong for feeling attracted to the nice blond lady?  Most people would judge him in the wrong.  And for those who would dare judge him, he felt guilty.

Everybody gets up in morning, brushes their teeth, washes their face, fix their hair, applies makeup if you’re a woman, or a guy if you’re like that, puts on nice duds, maybe spritz some eau de toilette or parfum, and leave the house looking like a million bucks.  Lo and behold even married people do this.

Why?

“I wanna look nice.”

OK.  Why?

To look attractive.  What my friend did, by following his instincts to be attractive, to lure the woman in, is his way.  It’s always been  his way.  It’s how men through out our animal history have been.  We want to attract women.

Are women guilty of this?  Hell yeah!  Married or not, women love it when guys find them hot.  It makes them feel good.  It can help boost their confidence.  And I’d suggest they play along.  Have fun.  That’s why they have girls’ night out.  They want to be checked out in a protective environment among other hens, while the cocks, that’s roosters for you gutter-minded, prance around in heat.  Stalkers please keep out.

I told my friend not to feel guilty.  Guilt, something I explore at length in my book, is a victim emotion.  That is left for another post.  His instinct of  feeling attractive, to want to talk to other women, is an ingrained behavior.  That’s how his greatest of grandfathers, the Geico caveman, spread his genes.  The human side, the conscious side of our minds, shouldn’t follow through with an affair, like Noshee did.

In the end, my friend went home with a surprise bouquet of bright red tulips.  He realized through his guilt that he loved his wife, appreciated the home they’ve built and got it on.  Actually, I don’t know if he got it on.

In most martial arts schools, the punch is the staple of the strikes.  Whether you’re in MMA, karate, kung fu, and even tai kwan do, punches seem to lead the strikes as the favored weapon.

But there’s a problem.

If you’ve ever looked at an x-ray of a hand balled into a fist, it looks like a bag of bones.  Literally.  What happens when you throw that bag of bones into something hard like a skull?  Bones break, splinter, shatter.  Professional fighters like those seen in the UFC have hands broken all the time.  And they’re skilled fighters who not only practice the correct way to punch from different angles and situations, but they do this an average of six hours a day, five days a week.

Now, the traditional martial arts instructor is asking a person off the street, who practices maybe an hour a day, to strike with a bag of bones.  Common!

I’d talked to a true kung fu master, who practiced iron body training, used to specialize in breaking skulls with a single punch.  He said something really interesting.  He was instructing a student who was about five feet tall.  He told her that her striking range was inside her attacker’s striking range.  No four foot person is going to attack her.  The master taught to use slaps to work your way inside, then use elbows, knees, gouges, etc.

Slaps.

There was a scene in Tombstone where Kurt Russel’s character, Wyatt Earp, confronted a card dealer who made trouble for the saloon.  As the card dealer was threatening to do something, Kurt–we’re on a first name basis–slapped him.  It was one of the coolest scenes in a western.  Kurt slapped him again and again.

Slaps align the bones in your hand.  Because of this, breakage is unlikely.  And if you think a slap doesn’t hurt or is sissy, ask anyone to slap you hard and tell me if it just tickles.  Accuracy is still required, but not as much as a punch.  You want to be effective with a punch, you gotta be totally accurate.

Slaps also take little skill.  You can slap someone with bad form, and it’d still hurt.  Punch someone with bad form, and all you’ve done is push them.  Another strike that takes little skill.

In my book, my character have claws.  So I had to find creative and interesting ways of striking and fighting because the punch was taken out of the equation.  Ask any woman who has long nails make a fist and punch.

Let go.  This is a concept I’m working on in my life.  Letting go.

I wanted to win, badly.  I was bowling with a bunch of coworkers, and we were on the second game.  I stepped left of the middle arrow, aimed my ball just right of the middle pin.  My breath was filled with anxiety.  I wanted to win.  Steps were taken and I swung.  Seven pins went down.

Fine.

I can take down three.  On my second bowl, I forced the ball down the lane and missed the pin by an inch.  Three pins remained standing, mocking me.  Crap!  I sat down as my coworkers took their turns.  Suddenly, I said fuck it, and decided to just have fun.  Turn after turn, I got spares, strikes, and celebrated each small victory.  I wasn’t even paying attention to my score.  As a result of letting go, I’d bowled my best game.  Keep in mind that my average score is 100.  That day I bowled 186.

One day, as  a team building activity, my coworkers came up with a scavenger hunt that took us through an open mall.  There were about a dozen things we had to collect, and I wasn’t really looking forward to it.  However, I took the time to appreciate what I had–health, job, awareness, food, bank account, etc.

Once we started, I wanted to win.  So did everyone else.  My team of three left in a hurry and started to read the clues to scavenge the items needed.  We seemed to find things pretty quickly, as I’m the worst navigator.  My other team member, never having been at that mall, seemed know the mall like the back of her hand.  She stated she loved malls.  Good enough.  I hoped we were ahead, hoped the other teams were falling behind.

Then we crossed several teams, indicating they were all ahead of us.  I was bummed.  In that moment, I let go without knowing I let go.  I decided to just have fun.  To appreciate the day that my company was paying for us to run around like kids.

As we scavenged and collected, we neared the end of the list.  The very last clue urged us to go to the restaurant we were to eat lunch.  Our gait turned to a speed walk, turned to skipping, turned to a jog, then we stopped.  The restaurant came into view, and our managers were standing there waiting for us.  They were not allowed to participate, but to verify what we collected were correct.  And we were first.  How could this be when we were behind?  Several minutes passed, and the other teams dragged themselves to the final station.

I’d let go without knowing.

Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that when I tried to control the other team by hoping they’d do badly, I would do badly.  Only when I focused on what I was doing, caring about what I did, and, most importantly, had fun, I did well.  Not only that, but when I celebrated my minor successes, not showboating, my successes increased.

How do you let go?

Focus on what you’re doing, have fun, celebrate each success, learn from the failures that are disguised as lessons.

Many have asked why we are here, why were are born.

My personal philosophy is that the meaning of life is to be happy.  As children were happy.  We spit up, drool, pick our noses, crap, and we laugh about it.  Babies cry because they need something – changing, food, injury – but that’s not sadness.

A lot of people who teach personal growth/spirituality state that we all are born with a purpose.   And they also say we know our paths since childhood, and it isn’t until well intentioned adults impose their own view of what reality/practicality is that we veer off it.  Let’s assume that’s true.

So if you’re in a job and you aren’t doing well in it, despite how much and hard you try to do well, is it a sign that you need to change?

Or if you’re with someone and everything is going well, the connection is there, the core values are there, is this the person you’re meant to be with?

Your parents divorce, leaving you to play on your own because you don’t feel like making friends.  You spend your time pretending, fantasizing, making characters, and gain the skill of story telling.  Should you story tell?  (Robin Williams)

What about you go to Hollywood and you audition like crazy.  You love acting, love the arts, love the the city of angels.  People say you’re a great actress, but every single audition yields nothing.  When is enough enough?  Or is there a limit?

I do know signs are given to us.  I mean, if you’re at a job and don’t like it, ask yourself why?  If the reason is because you want something better, or the job holds no meaning, move on.  Right?

Or if you’re with someone and everything seems to be working, then you would continue to see them.  Yeah?

And what about reality/practicality versus dreams.  Failure happens, but isn’t it meant to help guide us like driving a car?  Veer too close to the curb, turn the wheel.  Hear your tire hit the middle road markers, adjust your wheel.  These things have lead me to become a writer.  Since I’ve made that decision and committed to completing a book, I’ve felt content.  I’ve even found myself not really wanting to buy things.  Not the way I used to anyways.

Tell me what you think?

The San Francisco Writer’s Conference was my first writer’s conference. I didn’t know how things worked, but the conference was held over three days full of lectures. The crappy thing about it was several lectures were going on within each hour session. So I had to make a decision on which lecture to attend. Because this was my first conference, I really wanted to focus on the business aspect of publishing.

Over the next week or so, I’m going to post a lecture for you to listen everyday. So come back and check on what I’ve uploaded. Each one is about 45 minutes long, giving the attendees enough time to go to the next lecture.

The first one I’m going to upload is a lecture by best selling suspense romance novelist Brenda Novak. Her trilogy, The Last Stand: Trust Me, Stop Me, Watch Me, has become New York Time Bestsellers. She talks about strategies she’s used to make her more visible and credible before her first book was published.

Please feel free to download these. I apologize for the quality of the audio, but there was a lot of ambient noise. The format of the file is .caf, but you should be able to play them using Windows Media Player or Quicktime. Tell me what you think, and come back as I will upload others.

brenda_novak-1

brenda_novak-2

What you can expect in future audio uploads from the conference:

Key Note speeches from best selling authors

Body Language

How to write plot summaries

Self-publishing

Branding tactics

Q&A with Agent panels for both fiction and non-fiction

Lecture from a top agent, Donal Maass

My first post in Writer’s Journey talked about where I got the idea for my hero of my book.  He’s single handedly inspired me to create the world he lives in.

In my bio, I talk about recurrences that happen.  A lot of self-help teachers call these inspirations, nuggets of gold, moments of genius.  Over the twenty or so years, bits and pieces of ideas have come and gone, all pertaining to this particular story.   Then someone in my imagination said, “This would be cool for your story.”  I might need to seek some help.

I’ve mentally collected different nuggets of gold and stored them  in my noggin.  When I got serious and decided to write this book, I bought a tiny notebook and wrote down every single nugget of inspiration.  To my surprise, I’ve used most of them.  About a quarter of the ideas I threw out.  That’s fine.  Better to have more than you need.

When I read or hear other artists talk about where they get their ideas, a lot of them use this method of collecting, writing them down.  JK Rowling did this.  I saw a special on her where she would write on napkins, cards, anything that would take ink.  I think if I tried to write this story early on in my life, I may not have had the opportunity to gather the ideas that I need.

Get a notebook.  For me ideas come when I do the most mundane things.  I’ll be walking and all of a sudden, pop.  An idea.

A word of caution.  These ideas are fleeting.  There have been a number of times when I’m taking a shower, I get an idea, I take a moment to remember it, and poof.  It’s gone.  Take the time to write these golden nuggets down.  It’s these gold pieces of ideas that may change your writing, project, life.

Happy gathering.