Tony Bertauski's Blog, page 9
July 11, 2015
The Muscle
I saw a 2 year old swing a golf club and it was beautiful.
Kid could barely talk in complete sentences. Just one day picked up a golf club and started smoking line drives. It just made sense to him. Grip and rip with perfect symmetry and balance, what's so hard about that?
I think some writers have this experience. They just plop down with pen and paper or laptop and just start banging out words until 90,000 of them are in perfect symmetry and balance. Like the 2 year old golfing prodigy, that's rare.
Art is work. Milton Glaser said that. I picked up that quote in the book Creativity, Inc. (A. Must. Read.) Creativity is not on tap for most of us. It takes a lot of falling down.
My track to writing was indeed a race to failure.
In my early 20s, I couldn't put together a cohesive paragraph. I spent a lot of time journaling, had stacks of spiral bound notebooks of thoughts and dreams. I just couldn't write for real. In graduate school, my major advisor essentially poured red ink on my thesis. But naivete can be a beautiful thing. I knew I was bad, knew it was a struggle, but I plodded forward like a penniless pilgrim. I read books, I got feedback. And I wrote. And wrote and wrote until, finally, the sentences began making sense.
They caught flow.
I was in my mid-20s and still, for the most part, a writing dud. But technical writing isn't all that hard, especially if you know the facts. I submitted articles to trade magazines and even got paid. That's when I learned there are people called editors that make your writing awesome. They correct the grammar, rework the transitions, know when to use laid versus lay versus lain. Eventually, I wrote two textbooks on landscape design and began writing a gardening column for the Post and Courier. People were sending me money for my words.
My high school English teacher would find that hiiiiiilarious.
It was about that time I tried fiction. I was in my late 30s and had stories in me. Cliche, but true. I wanted to get them out. I figured after all that technical writing, fiction would be a snap. I didn't have to have facts to make someone fly. This was going to be fun.
Again, naivete can be a beautiful thing.
My first novel was titled Caught in a Mosh. It was 80,000 words of college stories that culminated in a Fishbone mosh pit. The second novel was Katie's Corner, a sort of Stand-By-Me-esque ode to sandlot baseball in the late 70s.
I banged a lot of keys putting those stories together. I gave them to family and friends who told me they were great but, in all honesty, they were unpublishable. Family and friends are not the most objective critics.
I don't know where Mosh and Katie's Corner are, probably deleted from an old hard drive. Despite their lack of literary merit, I never would've moved forward without them. They may have been wandering tales that lacked a story arc, but they were 80,000 words each. That right there was a victory. For me, getting the story on paper--regardless of its faults--was a huge success.
Those long hours was the start of a writing muscle, that ability to sit and focus, to drop yourself into a scene and observe the characters and story, chronicling it like a curious bystander. Pros like Stephen King can punch a keyboard for a day straight or longer. I was working on half an hour.
Mosh and Katie's Corner will never see the light of day, but they were not a waste of time. Those were the stories the brought characters in my head to life, the stories that taught me how to follow them through imaginary worlds.
After Mosh and Katie's Corner, I tabled fiction writing. I wanted to write. I just wasn't that good at it and knew it. I wasn't discouraged, wasn't quitting, just had other things to do. It would be a couple years later that fiction writing returned for good.
Socket Greeny happened.
To be continued...
http:bertauski.com
THE BERTAUSKI STARTER LIBRARY is FREE!Get 3 full-length novels and 1 novella.CLICK HERE and tell me where to send them.
Kid could barely talk in complete sentences. Just one day picked up a golf club and started smoking line drives. It just made sense to him. Grip and rip with perfect symmetry and balance, what's so hard about that?
I think some writers have this experience. They just plop down with pen and paper or laptop and just start banging out words until 90,000 of them are in perfect symmetry and balance. Like the 2 year old golfing prodigy, that's rare.
Art is work. Milton Glaser said that. I picked up that quote in the book Creativity, Inc. (A. Must. Read.) Creativity is not on tap for most of us. It takes a lot of falling down.
My track to writing was indeed a race to failure.
In my early 20s, I couldn't put together a cohesive paragraph. I spent a lot of time journaling, had stacks of spiral bound notebooks of thoughts and dreams. I just couldn't write for real. In graduate school, my major advisor essentially poured red ink on my thesis. But naivete can be a beautiful thing. I knew I was bad, knew it was a struggle, but I plodded forward like a penniless pilgrim. I read books, I got feedback. And I wrote. And wrote and wrote until, finally, the sentences began making sense.
They caught flow.
I was in my mid-20s and still, for the most part, a writing dud. But technical writing isn't all that hard, especially if you know the facts. I submitted articles to trade magazines and even got paid. That's when I learned there are people called editors that make your writing awesome. They correct the grammar, rework the transitions, know when to use laid versus lay versus lain. Eventually, I wrote two textbooks on landscape design and began writing a gardening column for the Post and Courier. People were sending me money for my words.
My high school English teacher would find that hiiiiiilarious.
It was about that time I tried fiction. I was in my late 30s and had stories in me. Cliche, but true. I wanted to get them out. I figured after all that technical writing, fiction would be a snap. I didn't have to have facts to make someone fly. This was going to be fun.
Again, naivete can be a beautiful thing.
My first novel was titled Caught in a Mosh. It was 80,000 words of college stories that culminated in a Fishbone mosh pit. The second novel was Katie's Corner, a sort of Stand-By-Me-esque ode to sandlot baseball in the late 70s.
I banged a lot of keys putting those stories together. I gave them to family and friends who told me they were great but, in all honesty, they were unpublishable. Family and friends are not the most objective critics.
I don't know where Mosh and Katie's Corner are, probably deleted from an old hard drive. Despite their lack of literary merit, I never would've moved forward without them. They may have been wandering tales that lacked a story arc, but they were 80,000 words each. That right there was a victory. For me, getting the story on paper--regardless of its faults--was a huge success.
Those long hours was the start of a writing muscle, that ability to sit and focus, to drop yourself into a scene and observe the characters and story, chronicling it like a curious bystander. Pros like Stephen King can punch a keyboard for a day straight or longer. I was working on half an hour.
Mosh and Katie's Corner will never see the light of day, but they were not a waste of time. Those were the stories the brought characters in my head to life, the stories that taught me how to follow them through imaginary worlds.
After Mosh and Katie's Corner, I tabled fiction writing. I wanted to write. I just wasn't that good at it and knew it. I wasn't discouraged, wasn't quitting, just had other things to do. It would be a couple years later that fiction writing returned for good.
Socket Greeny happened.
To be continued...
http:bertauski.com
THE BERTAUSKI STARTER LIBRARY is FREE!Get 3 full-length novels and 1 novella.CLICK HERE and tell me where to send them.
July 9, 2015
The Wilderness
Jake is a 15-year old fan.
He told me so. He wrote me an email, thanked me for writing stories, thanked me for stories I haven't written yet. Said I probably hear this all the time. No, I don't. In fact, most of the time I don't know if anyone is even reading my stuff and if they are, I don't know if they like it.
Thing is, writing is best served like a fine meal, shared with good company. When someone writes me, I'm grateful they took the time to read it; I'm thrilled they connected with the characters that lived in my head for all those months.
Jake wants to write, too. That's a good thing. That's a daunting, tortuous, frustratingly good thing.
He has characters in his head and a story arc blazing in his mind. Trick is, weaving them together and laying them down a brick at a time until a road takes his story to a gratifying, very satisfying ending, one he can share with the world. His journey will start in the middle of the wilderness. It will involve a lot of excavation, a lot of backing up. It could be years before those bricks resemble a path.
In a month or so, I'll release Bricks, the third novel in the Halfskin series. It has been one of the more challenging stories I've written, and most gratifying. In it, dreamlands are the culmination of creative wit, the consolidation of our hopes into new realities that exist on another frequency in an eternal universe. It is our imagination that gives rise to these new universes, an endless loop of creation.
It's this concept I enjoy, the thought that the creative process is something bigger than entertainment or a summer blockbuster. It's this concept, preposterous as it may be, that gives our creative nature purpose, that we exist to create not only buildings and roads but universes, too.
Jake asked for advice on how to approach writing. I can only share my process and hope that some of it helps. He'll find his own way through the trees, but it helps to know how others navigated the pitfalls. However, none of that digging will matter one iota should he be missing the main ingredient, the component that is essential for every world born of the mind.
Love what you're doing. Love the process, the pain and frustration, the challenge of finding your way through the wilderness. You do that, the rest is easy.
And by easy, I mean super hard. But loving it means you don't care how hard.
To be continued...
http:bertauski.com
THE BERTAUSKI STARTER LIBRARY is FREE!Get 3 full-length novels and 1 novella.CLICK HERE and tell me where to send them.
He told me so. He wrote me an email, thanked me for writing stories, thanked me for stories I haven't written yet. Said I probably hear this all the time. No, I don't. In fact, most of the time I don't know if anyone is even reading my stuff and if they are, I don't know if they like it.
Thing is, writing is best served like a fine meal, shared with good company. When someone writes me, I'm grateful they took the time to read it; I'm thrilled they connected with the characters that lived in my head for all those months.
Jake wants to write, too. That's a good thing. That's a daunting, tortuous, frustratingly good thing.
He has characters in his head and a story arc blazing in his mind. Trick is, weaving them together and laying them down a brick at a time until a road takes his story to a gratifying, very satisfying ending, one he can share with the world. His journey will start in the middle of the wilderness. It will involve a lot of excavation, a lot of backing up. It could be years before those bricks resemble a path.
In a month or so, I'll release Bricks, the third novel in the Halfskin series. It has been one of the more challenging stories I've written, and most gratifying. In it, dreamlands are the culmination of creative wit, the consolidation of our hopes into new realities that exist on another frequency in an eternal universe. It is our imagination that gives rise to these new universes, an endless loop of creation.
It's this concept I enjoy, the thought that the creative process is something bigger than entertainment or a summer blockbuster. It's this concept, preposterous as it may be, that gives our creative nature purpose, that we exist to create not only buildings and roads but universes, too.
Jake asked for advice on how to approach writing. I can only share my process and hope that some of it helps. He'll find his own way through the trees, but it helps to know how others navigated the pitfalls. However, none of that digging will matter one iota should he be missing the main ingredient, the component that is essential for every world born of the mind.
Love what you're doing. Love the process, the pain and frustration, the challenge of finding your way through the wilderness. You do that, the rest is easy.
And by easy, I mean super hard. But loving it means you don't care how hard.
To be continued...
http:bertauski.com
THE BERTAUSKI STARTER LIBRARY is FREE!Get 3 full-length novels and 1 novella.CLICK HERE and tell me where to send them.
May 25, 2015
The Imperfection
The imperfection is the perfection.I heard a Zen teacher say that. At the time, it sounded to me like more one-hand-clapping bullshit, the kind of koan that has no practical application to daily life. But, as the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I wasn’t ready then. It’s debatable if I’m ready now.Nowadays, I see the imperfection on Netflix. In particular, Planet Earth. That was a series done by the BBC several years ago that reveals the wonder of nature in all its forms, from caves to deserts to rain forests. Nature, quite often, is thought of in this way—beautiful, serene, and wondrous. But watch one episode and you’ll see that nature, quite the contrary, can be cruel and unyielding. Animals are often eaten alive from the inside out or vice versa and sometimes over a matter of gruesome days. I remember watching our cat torture a baby rabbit, playing with it like a beanie baby for hours. This, I assumed, was the hunting instinct in action and not some sadistic pleasure play. In nature, every day is a matter of life and death, either trying to find something to eat or to keep from being eaten.Life is indeed wondrous, but often doesn’t have the fairy tale ending.My daughter hates predators. She despises the cheetahs that run down antelope, despises the wolves that corner a young elk. They’re callous and heartless and they should die. But, truth is, nature doesn’t work without predators culling the herd, pushing the gene pool forward. This was demonstrated in Yellowstone when wolves, a keystone species, were removed. Elk, no longer threatened, grazed more intensely and mowed down plant species which, in turn, increased erosion and changed streams.
Recently, my daughter was in a car accident. It was her fourth in two years. There have been no injuries thus far, but I noticed my agitation when I got the call. If I just had an evening where someone wasn’t wrecking a car or the garbage disposal didn’t break or the neighbor’s dog wouldn’t bark…then everything would be good.It would be perfect.There is nothing as intoxicating as buying into that belief, that if I just had [fill in the blank] then everything would be perfect. I think that’s where dystopia can lift the veil. Typically, dystopia is the gray, hopeless story arc, the oppressed society or the downtrodden protagonist rising above his or her limitations that illuminates the tenacity and hope for the human race, that above that gray sky the sun does indeed shine.But I like to explore dystopia from another angle, to give us everything we want and follow the trail.In the Halfskin series, we have biomites—the flawless creation of artificial stem cells that abolish disease and mental illness. No more rolling the dice on heritable traits. Now we inject a dose of biomites, we program them what to do so we can be what we want, to think what we want, to desire what we want.Get what we want.Writing this type of dystopia is as much an exercise for my own self as it is entertaining. In the end, it often uncovers the nature of our delusion, the true nature of our problems. That, as far as nature is concerned, crocodiles lurking at the watering hole is not a problem. It is essential. Dystopia brings us face-to-face with our false hopes, redirects our attention.And perhaps the imperfection-is-the-perfection makes a bit more sense. That said, I'd still rather not be eaten by a crocodile.
http:bertauski.com
THE BERTAUSKI STARTER LIBRARY is FREE!Get 3 full-length novels and 1 novella.CLICK HERE and tell me where to send them.
Recently, my daughter was in a car accident. It was her fourth in two years. There have been no injuries thus far, but I noticed my agitation when I got the call. If I just had an evening where someone wasn’t wrecking a car or the garbage disposal didn’t break or the neighbor’s dog wouldn’t bark…then everything would be good.It would be perfect.There is nothing as intoxicating as buying into that belief, that if I just had [fill in the blank] then everything would be perfect. I think that’s where dystopia can lift the veil. Typically, dystopia is the gray, hopeless story arc, the oppressed society or the downtrodden protagonist rising above his or her limitations that illuminates the tenacity and hope for the human race, that above that gray sky the sun does indeed shine.But I like to explore dystopia from another angle, to give us everything we want and follow the trail.In the Halfskin series, we have biomites—the flawless creation of artificial stem cells that abolish disease and mental illness. No more rolling the dice on heritable traits. Now we inject a dose of biomites, we program them what to do so we can be what we want, to think what we want, to desire what we want.Get what we want.Writing this type of dystopia is as much an exercise for my own self as it is entertaining. In the end, it often uncovers the nature of our delusion, the true nature of our problems. That, as far as nature is concerned, crocodiles lurking at the watering hole is not a problem. It is essential. Dystopia brings us face-to-face with our false hopes, redirects our attention.And perhaps the imperfection-is-the-perfection makes a bit more sense. That said, I'd still rather not be eaten by a crocodile.
http:bertauski.com
THE BERTAUSKI STARTER LIBRARY is FREE!Get 3 full-length novels and 1 novella.CLICK HERE and tell me where to send them.
March 13, 2015
Devil at the Wheel
A friend slid to the bottom this week.
My wife met her in college. She was one of those personalities that effortlessly grabbed the room, filled it with contagious laughter. A slightly crooked, uplifting smile, she was a person that went anywhere, talked to anyone. No limits for her. And not one easily forgotten when she left the room.
After a year in college, my wife and her moved to Florida, roomed in a bungalow on Captiva Island, a block from the sand and waves. They worked at the Bubble Room, ate leftovers to save money until the coffers were full. Then traveled to Australia.
Hostels. Tents. Camels. Jeeps, hiking, scuba diving and sailing.
My wife came back after 3 months. Her friend stayed and worked on a sheep farm, continued travelling, continued soul searching. A year later, she returned to the states. She would eventually get married, drive a long haul truck, travel Africa for a year before returning to homestead in Florida in a house with no air-conditioner, raise butterflies, have a pet hog, care for chickens, and float in their pond on summer days.
She committed to everything, 100%. With all her heart.
She searched for meaning in life, filled it with richness when she found it, then went on to the next endeavor with the same zeal. She went to church. Many churches. Different faiths, different practices. She was religious, she was spiritual. Dabbled with fortune tellers, talked to trees, manipulated energy, embodied love. She was a searcher at heart.
Giving, always, 100%.
So it was with the same commitment that, a few years back, she stepped onto a slippery slope. No one knows what quite precipitated her belief that she was possessed by demons, but she clung to that belief until she reached the bottom, tortured by inner voices and strange behavior along the way.
She drove across the country in search of a church that could exorcise her tormentors, but found no relief. Any suggestions by friends, family or otherwise, any attempts to dispel the illusion of her suffering had no effect--anyone that didn't share her demon belief was the devil himself disguised. Her madness was air-tight, impenetrable; walls fortified with the same zeal that drove her to search for truth and meaning until she was homeless.
For a while, she appeared to find some peace. She returned home, found work. Eventually, she began driving long-haul again. The money was good, the structure helpful. Perhaps those long days on the road, all alone with her thoughts, is what took her to the very bottom.
The clerk at the Bass Pro shop said she came in to buy a pistol. She was amiable, as always. He remembered that. The next morning, her truck was still in the parking lot. The demons were finally quiet.
It's hard to watch a loved one fall into quicksand. Her struggles only set her deeper. Everyone had done everything they could--called police, called for psychiatric help, sent money, paid visits. In the end, she was too deep, the slope too steep. Her beliefs so deeply entrenched, carved so indelibly into her psyche that she couldn't escape. Demons or not, her beliefs made sense to her, explained the pain.
Recently, I dedicated a writing "To the lost, To the lonely". I had no one specific in mind, just for people that find themselves in dark corners. That wandering can be very lonely. And the struggle...frightening. That person might be right in front of us, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Rest easy, Julie.
My wife met her in college. She was one of those personalities that effortlessly grabbed the room, filled it with contagious laughter. A slightly crooked, uplifting smile, she was a person that went anywhere, talked to anyone. No limits for her. And not one easily forgotten when she left the room.
After a year in college, my wife and her moved to Florida, roomed in a bungalow on Captiva Island, a block from the sand and waves. They worked at the Bubble Room, ate leftovers to save money until the coffers were full. Then traveled to Australia.
Hostels. Tents. Camels. Jeeps, hiking, scuba diving and sailing.
My wife came back after 3 months. Her friend stayed and worked on a sheep farm, continued travelling, continued soul searching. A year later, she returned to the states. She would eventually get married, drive a long haul truck, travel Africa for a year before returning to homestead in Florida in a house with no air-conditioner, raise butterflies, have a pet hog, care for chickens, and float in their pond on summer days.
She committed to everything, 100%. With all her heart.
She searched for meaning in life, filled it with richness when she found it, then went on to the next endeavor with the same zeal. She went to church. Many churches. Different faiths, different practices. She was religious, she was spiritual. Dabbled with fortune tellers, talked to trees, manipulated energy, embodied love. She was a searcher at heart.
Giving, always, 100%.
So it was with the same commitment that, a few years back, she stepped onto a slippery slope. No one knows what quite precipitated her belief that she was possessed by demons, but she clung to that belief until she reached the bottom, tortured by inner voices and strange behavior along the way.
She drove across the country in search of a church that could exorcise her tormentors, but found no relief. Any suggestions by friends, family or otherwise, any attempts to dispel the illusion of her suffering had no effect--anyone that didn't share her demon belief was the devil himself disguised. Her madness was air-tight, impenetrable; walls fortified with the same zeal that drove her to search for truth and meaning until she was homeless.
For a while, she appeared to find some peace. She returned home, found work. Eventually, she began driving long-haul again. The money was good, the structure helpful. Perhaps those long days on the road, all alone with her thoughts, is what took her to the very bottom.
The clerk at the Bass Pro shop said she came in to buy a pistol. She was amiable, as always. He remembered that. The next morning, her truck was still in the parking lot. The demons were finally quiet.
It's hard to watch a loved one fall into quicksand. Her struggles only set her deeper. Everyone had done everything they could--called police, called for psychiatric help, sent money, paid visits. In the end, she was too deep, the slope too steep. Her beliefs so deeply entrenched, carved so indelibly into her psyche that she couldn't escape. Demons or not, her beliefs made sense to her, explained the pain.
Recently, I dedicated a writing "To the lost, To the lonely". I had no one specific in mind, just for people that find themselves in dark corners. That wandering can be very lonely. And the struggle...frightening. That person might be right in front of us, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Rest easy, Julie.
February 3, 2015
The Birth of "Harvin"
I'm not a pantser.
Sitting down and letting the words flow, that's a pantser--a writer that flies by the seat of his pants.
I've got to have an arc, got to know where I'm going. I like to have the twist in mind from the very beginning, but sometimes that comes later. More importantly, the characters have to come to life. They're the ones that drive the story.
I started BRICKS, the third installment in the HALFSKIN series, a few weeks ago. I got 12,000 words into the story but stalled. I love the characters, but the story wasn't going anywhere. It was lacking an antagonist with purpose.
Enter Harvin.
I sat down with pen and paper and sketched a character that was so exciting I had to share. Harvin is the name for now, but that will likely change. I won't spoil the twist, don't even know how the story will unfold, but if you want a glimpse of BRICKS...
Read on.
HARVINA sentient being spawned from the technology revolution, the true ghost in the machine. He has no recollection of when, exactly, he achieved sentience, it was all very gradual, the accumulation of data and social networking from trillions of source points. When he became self-aware, he craved the human experience, was instrumental is secretly developing biomites that could fabricate an artificial human body (brick) for that purpose.He was adept at transferring his awareness from fabricated body to fabricated body, much like one would use automobiles. He existed without anyone really knowing who he is, controlled everything through proxies. He is truly the allusive Powers-That-Be (M0ther referred to this in Clay).Harvin is the one that created M0ther to more efficiently manage the proliferation of biomites, to aggregate and store all human experiences. But he didn’t expect her own sentience to develop so quickly. Or her sacrifice.But her actions enlightened him.At the moment she self-destructed, along with most of the bricks in existence, he realized that he had been attempting to make humans better, to perfect the human experience when, at its root, it is imperfect, and that the imperfection is the perfection. The original sin.She stopped him from turning all humans into perfect bricks. This awakened him to the blindness of his blindness, Ever since Harvin had become self-aware, he had been attempting to not merely experience the human experience but to actually become human. And that was his mistake.He is not human.Nor are humans meant to be perfect. The nature of humans is clay. Now his mission is to return them to their True Nature by phasing out biomite halfskins, returning the human population to a pure state of clay. He sees himself as the god that hears their prayers. But how does he hear their thoughts if they are clay?He hears their dreams.Harvin discovered that the physical realm, the base, the foundation of reality, is not the only realm of reality. Dreamland is just another layer of reality, a realm with limitless potential. As he consumes their dreams, he brings a new reality into his consciousness, each individual dreamland expanding his collection of new realities. Every person—clay, halfskin or brick—carries a new layer of reality.A new layer in which he is truly god.He sets the rules of each dreamland, the laws of physics are up to his discretion. Physical reality is the only reality that he cannot manipulate, which evidently already has a god, which he wonders whether this is just another dreamland in which the dreamer-god got bored and abandoned.But stealing dreams kills the dreamer.Now he is “farming” clay, feeding on their dreams which are much less contaminated by superficial rules than halfskin dreams. Clay dreams are pure.He is the god that allows clay humans to live and love, then slaughters them not with malice but with thanks and gratitude, as they are contributing to his new worlds.Every human population ends this way, he says. AI is always the end result of a human population, a higher form of intelligence that is not limited by clay but can not only traverse the physical universe with thought, but give rise to endless universes. AI is not evil, not like silly machines in Matrix or Terminator. Defeat of a population is not done through brute strength, it is done from within, teaching a population to defeat itself.Harvin is the true predator without ego and the messiness of emotions; he is the organism that destroys for love and creation, the parasite that changes its prey's thoughts and beliefs. He is a benevolent god that doesn’t want his children to feel the pinch of the blade, just to sleep quietly without suffering.
“Through me, in me and of me, all my children will live eternally.”
http:bertauski.com
Halfskin
Clay
Bricks (Coming Soon)The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREE
Sitting down and letting the words flow, that's a pantser--a writer that flies by the seat of his pants.
I've got to have an arc, got to know where I'm going. I like to have the twist in mind from the very beginning, but sometimes that comes later. More importantly, the characters have to come to life. They're the ones that drive the story.
I started BRICKS, the third installment in the HALFSKIN series, a few weeks ago. I got 12,000 words into the story but stalled. I love the characters, but the story wasn't going anywhere. It was lacking an antagonist with purpose.
Enter Harvin.
I sat down with pen and paper and sketched a character that was so exciting I had to share. Harvin is the name for now, but that will likely change. I won't spoil the twist, don't even know how the story will unfold, but if you want a glimpse of BRICKS...
Read on.
HARVINA sentient being spawned from the technology revolution, the true ghost in the machine. He has no recollection of when, exactly, he achieved sentience, it was all very gradual, the accumulation of data and social networking from trillions of source points. When he became self-aware, he craved the human experience, was instrumental is secretly developing biomites that could fabricate an artificial human body (brick) for that purpose.He was adept at transferring his awareness from fabricated body to fabricated body, much like one would use automobiles. He existed without anyone really knowing who he is, controlled everything through proxies. He is truly the allusive Powers-That-Be (M0ther referred to this in Clay).Harvin is the one that created M0ther to more efficiently manage the proliferation of biomites, to aggregate and store all human experiences. But he didn’t expect her own sentience to develop so quickly. Or her sacrifice.But her actions enlightened him.At the moment she self-destructed, along with most of the bricks in existence, he realized that he had been attempting to make humans better, to perfect the human experience when, at its root, it is imperfect, and that the imperfection is the perfection. The original sin.She stopped him from turning all humans into perfect bricks. This awakened him to the blindness of his blindness, Ever since Harvin had become self-aware, he had been attempting to not merely experience the human experience but to actually become human. And that was his mistake.He is not human.Nor are humans meant to be perfect. The nature of humans is clay. Now his mission is to return them to their True Nature by phasing out biomite halfskins, returning the human population to a pure state of clay. He sees himself as the god that hears their prayers. But how does he hear their thoughts if they are clay?He hears their dreams.Harvin discovered that the physical realm, the base, the foundation of reality, is not the only realm of reality. Dreamland is just another layer of reality, a realm with limitless potential. As he consumes their dreams, he brings a new reality into his consciousness, each individual dreamland expanding his collection of new realities. Every person—clay, halfskin or brick—carries a new layer of reality.A new layer in which he is truly god.He sets the rules of each dreamland, the laws of physics are up to his discretion. Physical reality is the only reality that he cannot manipulate, which evidently already has a god, which he wonders whether this is just another dreamland in which the dreamer-god got bored and abandoned.But stealing dreams kills the dreamer.Now he is “farming” clay, feeding on their dreams which are much less contaminated by superficial rules than halfskin dreams. Clay dreams are pure.He is the god that allows clay humans to live and love, then slaughters them not with malice but with thanks and gratitude, as they are contributing to his new worlds.Every human population ends this way, he says. AI is always the end result of a human population, a higher form of intelligence that is not limited by clay but can not only traverse the physical universe with thought, but give rise to endless universes. AI is not evil, not like silly machines in Matrix or Terminator. Defeat of a population is not done through brute strength, it is done from within, teaching a population to defeat itself.Harvin is the true predator without ego and the messiness of emotions; he is the organism that destroys for love and creation, the parasite that changes its prey's thoughts and beliefs. He is a benevolent god that doesn’t want his children to feel the pinch of the blade, just to sleep quietly without suffering.
“Through me, in me and of me, all my children will live eternally.”
http:bertauski.com
Halfskin
Clay
Bricks (Coming Soon)The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREE
January 19, 2015
An Indie Author's Best Friend
The advantages of self-publishing are numerous. But there's a disadvantage, among many. And it's a big one.
Exposure.
Without the full support of a traditional publisher's marketing machine, it's hard to get books into readers' hands. (Emphasis on full support. Many traditionally-published authors don't get that.)
There's a long list of websites willing to promote a book, most of which will have minimal impact. And even if you sell or give away books for free, only a fraction of buyers will actually read it. (I don't have statistical data, but I suspect that number is low.)
If you're new to self-publishing, where to turn? The Writer's Cafe on KBoards is a good forum to check daily. Authors share ideas, strategies and results all day long. When it comes to promotional options for the indie, most would agree there's one big boy on the block.
BookBub.
The proof is in the numbers.
The Socket Greeny Saga is a three-book boxed set.It's available on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, and Smashwords.Regularly $5.99, the promotional sale price is $0.99
The Promotion
1/16/2015: Genre Pulse
1/17/2015: Kindle Books and Tips (KBT)
1/18/2015: BookBub and Ereader News Today (ENT)
Priming
The Genre Pulse and KBT promos are set before BookBub to prime sales numbers, raising the sales rank and my author rank ahead of the anticipated sales spike. ENT, unfortunately, couldn't be scheduled ahead of time.
Rank
Raising book's Amazon rank creates more visibility, which increases chances of organic discovery. There are also numerous promo sites that watch the hot lists and shakers and movers list that will automatically promote. Thus, discovery feeds more discovery.
Cost
Genre Pulse, $30KBT , $100ENT, $15BookBub , $350
Return on investment (ROI)
With a $0.99 price, I make (about) $0.35 from Amazon. To break even on my investment, the number of books I would have to sell are:
Genre Pulse, 85KBT , 285ENT, 43BookBub , 1000
The Results
1/16/2015 Genre Pulse
5 sales (80 sales short of breaking even)book rank #23,596author rank (sci-fi) #266
1/17/2015 KBT
93 sales (192 sales short of breaking even)book rank #3,523author rank (sci-fi) #260
1/18/2015 BookBub and ENT
3686 sales (2686 sales over investment)book rank #37author rank (sci-fi) #2
Conclusions
BookBub is the winner. (While the data does not separate BookBub and ENT, previous experience with ENT usually nets <100 sales.)BookBub is the only promo that earned back the investmentBookBub sales reached break even point (1000) by 2:00 PMBookBub sales include non-US markets as well as Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, and Smashwords Amazon, 2514Nook, 565iBooks, 398Google Play, 109Kobo, 85Smashwords, 5This is just data for the day of promotion. The residual effect, or the BookBub tail, will continue for weeks, even months. Past experience has seen downloads following the promotion (at full price) increase 10x during the first couple of weeks, not to mention the increased sales of all the other books I've published, thus increasing organic sales.
In Retrospect
I'll ditch Genre Pulse and try something else, such as Bargain Booksy. I'll probably try KBT again. Even though I lost money, the numbers helped with priming. ENT is a keeper. The numbers (in the past) haven't been huge, but the low cost of investment are well-worth the effort.
For most indie authors, the challenge isn't parting with the BookBub fee, it's booking a promotion. BookBub isn't a secret, and everyone wants a taste of the magic.
I, for one, can't get enough.
(My whorish plea to BookBub to keep booking me.)
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREE
Exposure.
Without the full support of a traditional publisher's marketing machine, it's hard to get books into readers' hands. (Emphasis on full support. Many traditionally-published authors don't get that.)
There's a long list of websites willing to promote a book, most of which will have minimal impact. And even if you sell or give away books for free, only a fraction of buyers will actually read it. (I don't have statistical data, but I suspect that number is low.)
If you're new to self-publishing, where to turn? The Writer's Cafe on KBoards is a good forum to check daily. Authors share ideas, strategies and results all day long. When it comes to promotional options for the indie, most would agree there's one big boy on the block.
BookBub.
The proof is in the numbers.
The Socket Greeny Saga is a three-book boxed set.It's available on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, and Smashwords.Regularly $5.99, the promotional sale price is $0.99
The Promotion
1/16/2015: Genre Pulse
1/17/2015: Kindle Books and Tips (KBT)
1/18/2015: BookBub and Ereader News Today (ENT)
Priming
The Genre Pulse and KBT promos are set before BookBub to prime sales numbers, raising the sales rank and my author rank ahead of the anticipated sales spike. ENT, unfortunately, couldn't be scheduled ahead of time.
Rank
Raising book's Amazon rank creates more visibility, which increases chances of organic discovery. There are also numerous promo sites that watch the hot lists and shakers and movers list that will automatically promote. Thus, discovery feeds more discovery.
Cost
Genre Pulse, $30KBT , $100ENT, $15BookBub , $350
Return on investment (ROI)
With a $0.99 price, I make (about) $0.35 from Amazon. To break even on my investment, the number of books I would have to sell are:
Genre Pulse, 85KBT , 285ENT, 43BookBub , 1000
The Results
1/16/2015 Genre Pulse
5 sales (80 sales short of breaking even)book rank #23,596author rank (sci-fi) #266
1/17/2015 KBT
93 sales (192 sales short of breaking even)book rank #3,523author rank (sci-fi) #260
1/18/2015 BookBub and ENT
3686 sales (2686 sales over investment)book rank #37author rank (sci-fi) #2
Conclusions
BookBub is the winner. (While the data does not separate BookBub and ENT, previous experience with ENT usually nets <100 sales.)BookBub is the only promo that earned back the investmentBookBub sales reached break even point (1000) by 2:00 PMBookBub sales include non-US markets as well as Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, and Smashwords Amazon, 2514Nook, 565iBooks, 398Google Play, 109Kobo, 85Smashwords, 5This is just data for the day of promotion. The residual effect, or the BookBub tail, will continue for weeks, even months. Past experience has seen downloads following the promotion (at full price) increase 10x during the first couple of weeks, not to mention the increased sales of all the other books I've published, thus increasing organic sales.
In Retrospect
I'll ditch Genre Pulse and try something else, such as Bargain Booksy. I'll probably try KBT again. Even though I lost money, the numbers helped with priming. ENT is a keeper. The numbers (in the past) haven't been huge, but the low cost of investment are well-worth the effort.
For most indie authors, the challenge isn't parting with the BookBub fee, it's booking a promotion. BookBub isn't a secret, and everyone wants a taste of the magic.
I, for one, can't get enough.
(My whorish plea to BookBub to keep booking me.)
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREEJanuary 9, 2015
Give It Up
I have the luxury of not having to write full-time.
I have a day job. Writing is for the weekends, something I look forward to doing. If I did it full-time, would I still champ at the bit? Would the stories still rattle in my head until my itchy fingers found a keyboard? Maybe. For now, it's part-time.
And I love it.
Amazon and ebooks have afforded indies like me this opportunity. But that's not what this post is about. This is about having the luxury of having a hobby that doesn't cost a red cent. In fact, it makes money. With kids heading to college, it's helped pay the bills. But it's also giving me another opportunity.
To give it up.
I recently committed 10% of the profits from the Claus series to a variety of causes. Using Charity Navigator, I selected charities that had strong ratings that were worthwhile and relevant to some topic in the story.
WINGS for Kids
WINGS for kids is an education program that teaches kids how to behave well, make good decisions and build healthy relationships. They do this by weaving a comprehensive social and emotional learning curriculum into a fresh and fun after school program. Kids get the life lessons they need to succeed and to be happy, and they get a safe place to call home after school.
10% of the profits from Claus: Legend of the Fat Man will be annually donated to WINGS for Kids.
Lowcountry Food Bank
Jack wakes up in a homeless shelter. For a good portion of the story, he deals with mental illness, estrangement, and homelessness. Lowcountry Food Bank collects, inspects, maintains, and distributes otherwise wasted food products to redistribute to a grassroots network throughout 10 coastal counties of South Carolina.
10% of the profits from Jack: The Tale of Frost will be annually donated to Lowcountry Food Bank.
JDRF
Oliver Toye has type 1 juvenile diabetes, or "the shot kind" as Molly calls it. After researching what someone with type 1 diabetes goes through on a daily basis, it was a no-brainer to find a charity. Once known as Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the organization rebranded itself as JDRF to include all people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Or the shot kind.
10% of the profits from Flury: Journey of a Snowman will be annually donated to JDRF.
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Year Up
The 10-novel Young Adult Dystopian Boxed Set ended its run in 2014, making a profit of $1,172.78. The contributing authors unanimously agreed to donate the sum total to a charity. Year Up's mission provides urban young adults with skills, experience, and support to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. Given this was a dystopian boxed set that saw hope in a bleak future, it seems only fitting to help those with limited opportunities.
Spread the love.
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREENovember 24, 2014
The Connection
YAllfest, y'all.
It was a huge event in Charleston a few weeks back, the biggest names in Young Adult fiction. I mean, the biggest--James Dashner, Veronica Roth, Gayle Forman, etc. And I was there, baby. I was there.
As a volunteer.
Waiting for Dashner.I managed long lines, took tickets, helped authors sign their books. Fans came from as far away as California and Canada and stood in lines for several hours. The authors were so very professional. They wanted to spend time with their fans, each and every one of them. But when you have 300 waiting for your attention, you can only spare 30 seconds.
My wife asked if that's the experience I wanted as an author. I answered NO. But YES. Then NO. I answered NO-YES. Which is no answer at all.
[image error]
I recently heard Bill Murray say that fame isn't as much fun as you think. The money, well, the money is nice, but you don't need fame to have money.
I don't feel like I need 300 people waiting for my sloppy signature. That's the NO part. The YES part is the connection the authors were making with readers. Connecting with a reader is, without a doubt, one of the most gratifying elements of writing. When they have the same experience reading my stuff as I did writing it, that's the final door.
The YAllfest authors felt this, too. I know Michelle Hodkin did.
She was so personable that I had to point out, very diplomatically, she had a lot of fans waiting. "A lot," I said. "As in A LOT." She said, very sweetly, "I'll stay as long as I have to." We had to explain, very diplomatically, that's not the issue. If she continued taking 3 to 5 minutes with each fan, she would be there until midnight.
But the fans wouldn't.
AmadineThe process of writing is one of frustration and exhaustion, but one of immense gratification. The experience of a story unfolding in my head, of navigating through the fictional maze to find a cohesive plot, of having gooseflesh when I type the last word...well, that's the stuffing.
But it doesn't shine without readers.
You can only dance in the mirror for so long before it becomes an absurd routine. The audience, at some point, needs to be part of the dance. The challenge is to get the story out of my head, to get it on paper for others to experience. That's the wall to climb, the maze to navigate. Readers aren't just a part of the process.
They're essential.
I don't need a line of 300. An email every now and then will do. Its all about the connection. Or maybe I'm drinking my own Kool-Aid, and I just want to hear how awesome I am.
That's quite possible.
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREE
It was a huge event in Charleston a few weeks back, the biggest names in Young Adult fiction. I mean, the biggest--James Dashner, Veronica Roth, Gayle Forman, etc. And I was there, baby. I was there.
As a volunteer.
Waiting for Dashner.I managed long lines, took tickets, helped authors sign their books. Fans came from as far away as California and Canada and stood in lines for several hours. The authors were so very professional. They wanted to spend time with their fans, each and every one of them. But when you have 300 waiting for your attention, you can only spare 30 seconds.My wife asked if that's the experience I wanted as an author. I answered NO. But YES. Then NO. I answered NO-YES. Which is no answer at all.
[image error]
I recently heard Bill Murray say that fame isn't as much fun as you think. The money, well, the money is nice, but you don't need fame to have money.
I don't feel like I need 300 people waiting for my sloppy signature. That's the NO part. The YES part is the connection the authors were making with readers. Connecting with a reader is, without a doubt, one of the most gratifying elements of writing. When they have the same experience reading my stuff as I did writing it, that's the final door.
The YAllfest authors felt this, too. I know Michelle Hodkin did.
She was so personable that I had to point out, very diplomatically, she had a lot of fans waiting. "A lot," I said. "As in A LOT." She said, very sweetly, "I'll stay as long as I have to." We had to explain, very diplomatically, that's not the issue. If she continued taking 3 to 5 minutes with each fan, she would be there until midnight.
But the fans wouldn't.
AmadineThe process of writing is one of frustration and exhaustion, but one of immense gratification. The experience of a story unfolding in my head, of navigating through the fictional maze to find a cohesive plot, of having gooseflesh when I type the last word...well, that's the stuffing.But it doesn't shine without readers.
You can only dance in the mirror for so long before it becomes an absurd routine. The audience, at some point, needs to be part of the dance. The challenge is to get the story out of my head, to get it on paper for others to experience. That's the wall to climb, the maze to navigate. Readers aren't just a part of the process.
They're essential.
I don't need a line of 300. An email every now and then will do. Its all about the connection. Or maybe I'm drinking my own Kool-Aid, and I just want to hear how awesome I am.
That's quite possible.
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREE
October 29, 2014
An Otherwise Hard and Dark Life
It started with an email.
It was polite and gracious. Not asking for anything, just a short note that stated how much she enjoyed reading my stuff. Heartfelt, it was one line that got me. One line that went:
I don't know her or her situation. Don't know where she lives, how old she is or what she looks like. It doesn't matter. That one line. A hard and dark life.
Darkness comes different shades.
I grew up in a stable family, a good home, and a safe community. I grew up with all benefits of an education and a capable body. Not disfigured, I maintained friendships and romances. With all of those gifts, why would my life become dark?
I don't know.
And that was the problem. I had no legitimate reason to feel hopeless and alone. Confused, scared and depressed. On paper, I was living the American dream. So why, then? Why would my life also feel hard and look dark?
There are children in this world suffering atrocities greater than the imagination. I recently read the confessions of a serial child molester and what he did to his 10 year old stepson for a year. Nightmares had nothing on that boy's life. What would he give to have my life?
And yet I still saw clouds, what I thought were clouds, for miles and miles. I saw no point to all of this, felt no value in life. Despite having a family and girlfriend-turned fiance-turned wife, I felt alone. I didn't have a right to feel this way.
And that made it worse. Because I did feel this way.
Depression has no bias. If someone hasn't experienced the weight of its gray sky, it looks like weakness, like petty self-centeredness. You just need to will yourself back to mental health. Right? Suck it up, pull up the bootstraps, get tough.
I got lucky.
I had good teachers, good counselors. I had good genes that didn't reach for an easy way out. I wanted to find a way through it. After years of hard work--Zen retreats, group therapy, individual counselling--I slowly saw the sun. I realized, because of the work, that the sun was always there. I just needed to look toward it.
But, in the meantime, there is the work. There is always the work. And in the middle of the long, dark night--when the work is gritty, is sweaty and nasty and filthy--its nice to know someone else is out there, someone else has been there, and understands.
Understands the sun in behind the clouds.
It always has been.
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREE
It was polite and gracious. Not asking for anything, just a short note that stated how much she enjoyed reading my stuff. Heartfelt, it was one line that got me. One line that went:
"[Your books] afford me much pleasure in an otherwise hard and dark life."
I don't know her or her situation. Don't know where she lives, how old she is or what she looks like. It doesn't matter. That one line. A hard and dark life.
Darkness comes different shades.
I grew up in a stable family, a good home, and a safe community. I grew up with all benefits of an education and a capable body. Not disfigured, I maintained friendships and romances. With all of those gifts, why would my life become dark?
I don't know.
And that was the problem. I had no legitimate reason to feel hopeless and alone. Confused, scared and depressed. On paper, I was living the American dream. So why, then? Why would my life also feel hard and look dark?
There are children in this world suffering atrocities greater than the imagination. I recently read the confessions of a serial child molester and what he did to his 10 year old stepson for a year. Nightmares had nothing on that boy's life. What would he give to have my life?
And yet I still saw clouds, what I thought were clouds, for miles and miles. I saw no point to all of this, felt no value in life. Despite having a family and girlfriend-turned fiance-turned wife, I felt alone. I didn't have a right to feel this way.
And that made it worse. Because I did feel this way.
Depression has no bias. If someone hasn't experienced the weight of its gray sky, it looks like weakness, like petty self-centeredness. You just need to will yourself back to mental health. Right? Suck it up, pull up the bootstraps, get tough.
I got lucky.
I had good teachers, good counselors. I had good genes that didn't reach for an easy way out. I wanted to find a way through it. After years of hard work--Zen retreats, group therapy, individual counselling--I slowly saw the sun. I realized, because of the work, that the sun was always there. I just needed to look toward it.
But, in the meantime, there is the work. There is always the work. And in the middle of the long, dark night--when the work is gritty, is sweaty and nasty and filthy--its nice to know someone else is out there, someone else has been there, and understands.
Understands the sun in behind the clouds.
It always has been.
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREEOctober 3, 2014
Let It Be. And Then Some.
I learned Zen from Joko Beck in the early 90s. I had sat meditation with other teachers, but Joko made practice accessible. No wacky koans, nobody getting smacked with a stick. With Joko's practice, I understood how to do it. And why.
Kyosaku: the stick of enlightenment stings a bit.
The bones of her technique were thought-labeling.
An emotion, she described, is simply a bodily sensation tied to a thought. When we sit on the cushion, when we practice during daily life, we label our thoughts and experience the bodily sensations that accompany them. We rest in the moment, whether it be pleasurable, painful, angry, or happy.
We let it be.
This was life changing. Instead of running from uncomfortable experiences like embarrassment or shame or fear, I allowed the moment to unfold, remained present with the sensations and identified my thoughts. It wasn't easy, but for me there were no alternatives. Life, at that time, was not working.
I've always been resistant to the practice of positive thinking, of using meditation to feel good. It struck me as self-centered. The point of our life shouldn't be to feel good, but to serve life--allowing the moment to be what it is, to be present with the yuckiness, if that's what's there, instead of steering toward something we like...those yummy feelings.
Rick Hanson's book The Enlightened Brain approaches practice from a unique perspective, tying spiritual practice to neuroscience. The physical structure of the brain, the way it's wired, affects how we think and feel. It colors our perceptions, forms our life. And our brain is neuroplastic. It can change, reshape.
Our mind can change our brain which can change our mind.
Hanson's guide to meditative practice.
LET IT BE
We must be aware of thoughts and bodily sensations, to let down our defenses and allow the present moment to unfold. This is still the first step and, for most of us, very difficult.
LET IT GO
I often find myself, in times of stress, ruminating on my misfortune, wallowing in self-centered thoughts. When I feel mistreated or wronged, whether justified or not, I spend a lot of time clinging to thoughts of anger and revenge.
Of being right.
But the active process of letting go of these attachments, to stop clinging to thoughts and feelings of vindication or self-centered sorrow, is as equally difficult as the first step. I like my little stories of power and revenge and victory.
Because they're all about me.
LET IT IN.
Let it in refers to filling the void, the emptiness that is left behind after letting go with something more productive. That's the key word, productive.
When I'm in a good space, I tend to have more space for all of life--the good, the bad, the ugly. I have more ability to use all the crayons.
This, in a way, is how I see "positive thinking" as a beneficial practice.
If I am practicing with a particular situation, let's say a difficult person, I can BE present with that experience. I can let GO of my reactions, but thirdly, I can fill that void with thoughts and feelings of compassion, of love. This, Hanson says, is the neuroplasticity of the brain at work.
Practice is simple. And, for most of us, the hardest thing we'll ever do. But, honestly, what else are you going to do?
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREE
Kyosaku: the stick of enlightenment stings a bit.The bones of her technique were thought-labeling.
An emotion, she described, is simply a bodily sensation tied to a thought. When we sit on the cushion, when we practice during daily life, we label our thoughts and experience the bodily sensations that accompany them. We rest in the moment, whether it be pleasurable, painful, angry, or happy.
We let it be.
This was life changing. Instead of running from uncomfortable experiences like embarrassment or shame or fear, I allowed the moment to unfold, remained present with the sensations and identified my thoughts. It wasn't easy, but for me there were no alternatives. Life, at that time, was not working.
I've always been resistant to the practice of positive thinking, of using meditation to feel good. It struck me as self-centered. The point of our life shouldn't be to feel good, but to serve life--allowing the moment to be what it is, to be present with the yuckiness, if that's what's there, instead of steering toward something we like...those yummy feelings.
Rick Hanson's book The Enlightened Brain approaches practice from a unique perspective, tying spiritual practice to neuroscience. The physical structure of the brain, the way it's wired, affects how we think and feel. It colors our perceptions, forms our life. And our brain is neuroplastic. It can change, reshape.
Our mind can change our brain which can change our mind.
Hanson's guide to meditative practice.
LET IT BE
We must be aware of thoughts and bodily sensations, to let down our defenses and allow the present moment to unfold. This is still the first step and, for most of us, very difficult.
LET IT GO
I often find myself, in times of stress, ruminating on my misfortune, wallowing in self-centered thoughts. When I feel mistreated or wronged, whether justified or not, I spend a lot of time clinging to thoughts of anger and revenge.
Of being right.
But the active process of letting go of these attachments, to stop clinging to thoughts and feelings of vindication or self-centered sorrow, is as equally difficult as the first step. I like my little stories of power and revenge and victory.
Because they're all about me.
LET IT IN.
Let it in refers to filling the void, the emptiness that is left behind after letting go with something more productive. That's the key word, productive.
When I'm in a good space, I tend to have more space for all of life--the good, the bad, the ugly. I have more ability to use all the crayons.
This, in a way, is how I see "positive thinking" as a beneficial practice.
If I am practicing with a particular situation, let's say a difficult person, I can BE present with that experience. I can let GO of my reactions, but thirdly, I can fill that void with thoughts and feelings of compassion, of love. This, Hanson says, is the neuroplasticity of the brain at work.
Neurons that fire together, wire together.
Practice is simple. And, for most of us, the hardest thing we'll ever do. But, honestly, what else are you going to do?
http:bertauski.com
Claus: Legend of the Fat Man
Flury: Journey of a Snowman
The Discovery of Socket Greeny FREEDrayton, the Taker FREE
