Travis Thrasher's Blog, page 24

Exclusive Deleted Chapter From HURT

Narrow Is the Way

            I hear the dog barking wildly like it’s some kind of recording put on high speed that resembles Alvin and the Chimpmunks. I sit up in my bed and reach the foot to just check on Midnight. Because I just woke up, I’m thinking I’m too groggy to find Midnight. But a few minutes of looking around the room tells me that I’m not.             She got outside.             It’s two in the morning and it’s freezing outside. I haven’t seen the zoo come back to visit us on our deck, but I never know when I might again.             She’d make a nice little treat for a big, bad wolf.             The barking goes again. They’re little yelps that sound almost funny if I didn’t know they were coming from Midnight.             I grab my shoes and a jacket and tear outside down the stairs. When I reach the pitch black night, I realize I need a flashlight.             Sometimes I really don’t feel equipped for this whole adventurer thing.             It takes me a few minutes to find the light in my room. When I go back outside, I don’t hear anything.             But I know she’s out here because Midnight’s not in the cabin.             I call out her name but it just seems to bounce back off the trees. Maybe if Midnight has children, we’ll call them Darkness and Shadows and Spooky.             I point the flashlight down the driveway. Then on the street below. I can hear the creek down below. But not much of anything else.             “Midnight!”            There’s no way I’m going back in the house without finding her.             What if someone took her?             Then I’ll find whoever took her because they must be close.             What if they disappeared in the tunnels below the cabin?             I’ve tried my best to avoid thinking or going back down in those. I still don’t know what those are all about. But part of me doesn’t want to know.             Maybe they want you to be the new guardian of the tunnels, Chris!             My mind shouldn’t be running in circles after having been dead asleep on minutes earlier.             Don’t say dead asleep.             “Midnight!”            Then I hear her.             A little bark. Then a yelp, a kind that I’ve only heard once when I shut the closet door on her tail.             Coming from down below me.             I aim the light on the street.             No, below that. Further down.             I sprint down there in my usual run-first-think-later mode.             Ten minutes later, I’m standing there below the street on the sharp edge of the hill looking at the opened door that’s heading into the ground below. It’s so steep here that there’s no ladder inside the hole. The ground goes straight inside the earth.             Go on say it say it Chris! It’s tunnel time!             Yet standing here outside with a flashlight looking into this hole in the side of the hill, I get a feeling that this is different. The tunnel going below my cabin—just like the one in that other tiny cabin above ours—seem narrow and dug into the ground for a purpose. While this opening is in the side of the mountain, it doesn’t look the same.             But why?             The ground itself is stone. Or brick or something hard. So are the walls. And it seems to spread out and get wider the farther it goes. I can only see about ten feet or so until it opens up on the right hand side.             The really weird thing is the writing all over the place. On the ground and the walls. In black mostly, in different shades and different kinds of handwriting. Like a classroom full of kids all took black chalk to the walls and the floor. One word really close up appears to say HELP. Another looks like DEATH.             Another in tiny writing that is very close to the entrance is a sentence that repeats itself all the way down like a kid with fancy cursive having to write on the chalkboard after class:             Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.            For a moment, I hesitate to go inside. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s dark and creepy and it looks like somewhere people were held prisoner.             Wait a minute.             I examine the door that’s opened and lying on the ground next to the hole. At first I didn’t realize that the door isn’t a regular door but rather a grated off door like you might see in a prison.             This is some kind of cell.             “Midnight?”                         My voice comes out like a kitten purring. My entire body is numb.             Tunnels in our basement and a holding cell just below our street. Wonderful.             “Midnight.”            My voice is stronger and louder.             I remember the first time Jocelyn brought me to that barn to show me Midnight.             There’s no way I’m going to let whoever take her in the middle of this hole to hide out.             I start walking into the opening when something nips at my foot.             I jump and stumble back and then have to brace myself not to fall down the sloping hill. I lean over and see Midnight panting and wagging her tail at my feet. I pick her up with one hand and then kiss her forehead, asking if she’s okay and checking her out. When she starts kissing me on the nose, I figure she must be okay.             As I climb back up the hill quickly to get away from this secret hideaway I found, I think back to the moment when I started to walk inside.             The sound.             It resembled something big and heavy starting to move, like an old, squeaky door starting to shut.             Was the door going to slam behind me?             Like many of the wonderful places I’ve had the misfortune to visit in Solitary, this is one site that I don’t think I’ll come back to anytime soon.             At least not alone.
(HURT is the fourth and final book in The Solitary Tales. It releases January 1, 2013)

Paddling

            Sometimes it’s a lot easier to just turn back. To see no sign of shore and to know the safest thing is to just turn back toward steady ground.             It’s safer in numbers.             It’s easier on dry land.             But there’s something about you that others don’t get. They think they know but they don’t really, truly get it. They like watching and wondering and talking and critiquing. But they never get in the boat because they’re too afraid. They’ll simply watch and wonder while you go on your merry little way.             It’s a long way to the other side.             The sun above you might beat down. The journey might be absolutely and positively pointless. But something inside you needs to drift out and drive toward that other beach. You see the destination but also know you might not get there. The sky above might suddenly turn purple and the clear space might fill with puffy clouds.             A hundred different things might happen while you’re in this boat.             But you paddle and keep paddling and you wipe the sweat from your brow.             You might discover some hidden treasure in this deep, dark lake.             You might encounter someone you can pull up out of the water to come alongside of you for a while.             Or maybe, a big giant whale might swallow you whole and turn into a modern-day Jonah.             Nobody said it’d be easy and nobody told you to get inside this canoe.             Nobody made you start paddling and nobody urged you to try and make it to the other shore.             In fact, sometimes, on some days, you’re in this narrow, cramped boat wondering what in the world you’re doing. But you only wonder for a little while. Because every single time you put your oar into the water, you feel alive. Every time you begin to propel the boat ahead, you feel a purpose. It’s work and it’s a struggle and so many don’t get it, but you know this is the thing you’re supposed to do.             The sun or the storms can beat against your brow.             The strangers can stare without reaction without emotion without any single thing.             The shore in the distance can seem so far away.             Yet you keep paddling, and you keep hoping, and you keep believing there is a reason you were meant to be here. Right here. Right here in this boat doing the same thing over and over and over again.             Yeah. It’s a good place to be.             A place they’ll never understand. 
(I wrote this blog after being encouraged to check out this blog post here. What I loved is that it says to not think but just write, and that's exactly what I did. That's what I've been doing for the past 25 years! Thanks, Rebecca Dickson for your great suggestion!) 

Looking Ahead

It seems like I've blogged a lot less this year. I haven't sent out too many author newsletters either. I've only had one book release. So what have I been up to lately? 

A lot. A whole heckuva a lot. 

After ten months of 2012, I can easily say this has probably been one of the toughest years of my life. Yet at the same time, things have never looked so promising in terms of my writing career. There are some really cool things scheduled to come out and in the works. 

So I'll share as much as I can and get you up to speed, especially if the last book you read by me was 2004's Gun Lake. 

After having its release date bumped around a couple of times, the last book in my teen series called The Solitary Tales releases January. It's called HURT and I love it. I wrote a YA series the way I wanted to without having to compromise anything. It's as dark and preachy and John Hughes-esque and Depeche Mode-loving and melancholy as I wanted it to be. If you're a fan of mine and haven't read these books, please, please, please let me get you to read them right away. 

A couple of months after HURT comes out, HOME RUN will be released in March. This is the novelization I did for the movie that releases on APRIL 19, 2013. I urge you to go see the film. It's really a great movie. I've received lots of praise for the book already and am proud to be a part of the HOME RUN team. I've met so many remarkable people because of it. I think the movie and the book will help a lot of hurting people in this world. 

This summer comes another collaboration that I've written and am nearly finished with edits on. It's a really sweet story that's going to gain me a lot of new readers simply because of who I'm working with. It stands right up there with all of my favorite novels of mine--it really is an authentic and heartfelt story. Can't wait to share the concept and cover with all of you guys. 

Right now I'm currently working on two projects that I can share a little about. Both are projects that I'm confident will see light of day simply because of who I'm working with. 

The first is a memoir about a remarkable couple I met through having worked with HOME RUN and Celebrate Recovery (a ministry that plays a key role in the film/book). I heard this couple give their testimony and told them "You guys HAVE to write a book." Something they've heard a hundred times before. And while I always come up with a book idea on a daily basis for myself, I wasn't thinking I'd be involved. But God worked it out to put us together and I really feel like it's going to be an incredible book. Their story is unbelievable when you put all the pieces together. It's such a story of God's ability to mend the broken pieces of our lives. They're living proof of it. 

I'm also working on a proposal with a bestselling author for a trilogy of novels. Again, it's providential how I got together with this author, and we're a great match. I don't question whether a publisher will want to do this. I can picture several publishers seeing the huge sales potential for it. 

All I will say about this trilogy is that it involves a highly dysfunctional family, a trio of different siblings, and will have quite a bit of humor throughout it. Many who know me have wondered when I'd write something funny. I always tell people there's a big difference between acting goofy and writing humor. But this author I'm pairing with gets humor and knows how to put it into stories. 

Finally, I still have not given up on my LOST meets The Stand series idea. It's more epic than ever, and I have a new plan (which changes on a weekly basis) for release. As long as I stay in this boat of writing fulltime, I'm going to be working on this series. Right now I'm looking at the months of 2014 very, very closely. 

So I've been busier than ever and remain more hopeful than I ever have before. I really do think great things are coming for those of you who are my fans. My goal isn't to earn enough money to take a year off. All I want to do is pay my bills on time by doing something I dearly and truly love to do. And grow in the process. 

God's continuing to allow me to do just that, though I do wish He'd make it a tad bit easier for our family. But He knows what I need. I gotta trust and believe that. 

Thanks for continuing to read my stuff. Happy November to you and your loved ones! 

Advice For The Price Of Lunch

            My advice? Write. And keep writing.             Look, I’m halfway great and a quarter awful. But you show someone more persistent than me and I’ll give you a hundred bucks. Since ninth grade when I got it in this dense skull that I wanted to write, I’ve been writing. Writing. And writing more.             I’m honing my voice and my skills and my “talents”. But that last word is such a strange word. Some might call me brilliant and some might call me brash. I just know that I’m learning and still trying and still striving and still writing.             One secret? Write.             Look—Journey said it best when they said “Don’t stop believin’.” That’s my motto. Everyday I’m reminded of someone hitting it big while doing so little. They write one book and boom. SUCCCESSSSSSSS. YESSSS. So easy. So simple. But talent and story and skill and drive and timing and luck and stamina are not easy and simple. They are out of your control.             But you can still do one thing. You can still write.             Man, I’ve been writing. I mean WRITING. People email me saying “I know you’re busy” and I want to just bust a gut laughing. They have no idea. They have no clue. But look—I’m lucky. I’m blessed. I’m fortunate to be able to pick up one of these books and see my name on it. Kinda rhymes with flasher. Makes me think of trasher. Yeah, that name. Yeah, it’s my real name. Yeah, I’m a different brand in 50 states.             I won’t stop believing. Not because I read my stuff and get goosebumps. And not because I read fan emails and get wide-eyes and a big head. I’m continuing to believe because God keeps opening doors.             I want THRASHER in the bright lights but usually the light bulbs burn out before they can illuminate the night sky. I want those numbers and figures but the equations always let me down. The longer time goes by, the more I see it’s not about me and never will be.             But I still believe. Oh, do I believe.             I’m looking at ten different pieces of the puzzle and they can sure move fast. They can whip and whir and blind by and they can produce when necessary. Ten fingers typing away like there’s no tomorrow because sometimes I wonder if there really will be. I’d rather type then hand out Arby’s sauce along with curly fries. Don’t get me wrong—I love Arby’s. But I love my job even more.             There is a secret and that secret is to write. There’s no magical formula. There’s no hidden secret, no mysterious recipe. You have to write and keep writing. Then maybe you’ll learn. Maybe the awful will become merely bad. Maybe you’ll get to halfway decent. Maybe you’ll get lucky.             And yeah, sure—maybe your writing is glorious and beautiful and transcendent but if that’s the case, I’m not sure why you’re reading this to begin with. Win the Pulitzer and start speaking to large crowds and stop reading blogs.              As for me, I’m going to keep writing. I’m going to keep learning. I’m going to keep going. I’m going to keep these words as my allies and my colleagues. I’m going to remain in awe of the form and the format and keep trying. Keeping trying and failing.             I’m not J.K. Rowling so you don’t have to listen to me, but a 100 million in sales wouldn’t change my mind in urging anybody who wants to be published to write. You learn by writing. And being rejected. And writing. And reading. And being rejected more. And writing more.             There you go. That’s my writing lesson.             You now owe me an Arby’s roast beef sandwich. 

On Writing The Solitary Tales

            Sometimes writing is really all about letting go. And I’ve spent a lot of time these past five years as a fulltime novelist saying goodbye.             Now that the dust has settled and the death count has risen and my four-book teen series entitled The Solitary Tales is finished, I can stare at it from afar with a bit of perspective. The fourth and final book, Hurt, isn’t out yet, so I don’t know what readers will think of it. I only know what I’ve done. And now that it’s been almost a whole year since I finished Hurt, I can try to evaluate some things about this series.             One of the things I know is that this really is my ode to my teenage years. That doesn’t mean I won’t do another teen series in the future. Doesn’t mean I won’t dissect some of those days during one of the four different high schools I went to.             But in a weird way, The Solitary Tales are my way of saying goodbye to that kid I knew. The lonely and sometimes awkward kid. The rebellious guy. The angst-filled soul. The romantic and poet. The lover of John Hughes films and Depeche Mode (okay—that guy isn’t going away anytime soon). The teen who grew up fast yet refused to be boxed-in and labeled.             Don’t worry—The Solitary Tales are far more interesting than I am. But they still have big chunks of me throughout them. I can’t help it. Every novelist does that in some way. I think I found a cool balance between storytelling and soultapping.             I knew if I didn’t write something like The Solitary Tales, I’d eventually forget. I wouldn’t remember being a teenager because I might have them walking around my house, being awkward and rebellious and full of angst. I might actually forget what it’s like.             The Solitary Tales are my way of remembering.             They are also my way of saying goodbye.             It’s the best—and only—way I know how. 

Starting Points

I need a song to cement me in the story. I need an image to drive me forward.I need an emotion to try to weave around these figures. I need a resolution to stitch onto their hearts. I can still see them so long afterwards. In the cabin, on a plane, by a bedside, on a city street, by a lake, on a campus, in a terminal, holding a child . . .I can go on. The characters and their destinies usually are the same. Once messy and broken, still searching and hoping but finally finding some bit of peace. Still messy and broken, but changed. The characters all have their theme songs. The stories all have their signposts. Sometimes the roads are a bit too rocky. Sometimes they weave around a bit too much. Sometimes they’re not the easiest to travel on. Nor the most enjoyable. But the destination . . . that’s the most important thing. That’s always been the most important thing to me. Not sugar-coated sweetness though that can come too. Not fully-solved and fully-resolved. Not neat and tidy. But eyes looking upward and a spirit and soul mending. That final destination is usually smothered with silence. Which is ironic because the journey always begins with a song. But that’s just me. 

10 Things I've Learned About Publishing In The Last Five Years

I recently celebrated my five-year-anniversary of writing full-time. Here's a talk I gave last night at our local library about ten things that I've learned about publishing in those five years. 


1. Life is not fair and neither is publishing. Some doors open and some stay shut. Keep knocking.
2. Think long term. Nobody else is going to think long term if you don’t. What kind of writer would you like to be? Keep that image in mind even if you don’t tell anybody else.
3. Being published, being paid to write, and especially being read is a privilege. It’s too easy to feel entitled. Don’t act like you deserve to be published.
4. Publishing can either make you cynical and bitter or optimistic and hopeful. I used to be bitter. Now I choose hope.
5. Even if you work twice as hard and twice as fast, publishing still takes A VERY, VERY LONG TIME. Be patient.
6. Writing is like running a marathon. You have to train. And you train by running a lot. But when you’re finally in that race, you might surprise yourself by what you can do. Write and keep writing to build up stamina for whatever’s next.
7. If you’re going to write full-time, make SURE you have about ten fallback plans. Plus about a million dollars in the bank. Think long and hard about writing full-time.  
8. Even if you think you’re well-connected, get out there and build relationships. Not Facebook friends but face-to-face. In 2009, going to a convention landed me a couple of jobs. Personal connections matter. Network in every way possible. 
9. So many things in publishing are out of your control. Do everything you can that’s in your control. For me, that’s thinking of new storylines, talking to possible collaborators, working on future books, marketing. Be urgent when nobody else is.
10. Occasionally remind yourself why you are interested in writing. Re-read that book you love. Re-watch that movie that moves you. The joy comes in creating, not signing a contract or holding your book. Don’t ever forget to love what you’re doing. 

Five Year Anniversary Of Writing Full-Time

All these stories and the songs to accompany them.All these dreams and the reality that disrupts them.The faces and the places and the people and the pressure. Wrapped around with a red weave of wonder. Tied tight with a seal of adventure and promise.Blink and it feels like yesterday. But yesterday was a blur while today is crystal clear.There are beaches you have made imprints on. There are mountains you have slid down in a landslide. There are the spaces and the scenes and the sequences that fill your mind morning and noon and night.This is the way God made you. For some reason. For some purpose.For so long, you’ve made it about you. No one but you. But finally, while cast away on that lone island, looking like some kind of crazy monk searching for purpose, you found a glimmer of hope and a sense of calm. The ocean tides no longer tried to wreck your soul. Instead, they remained calm enough to sail on. You’re still sailing, still hoping, still dreaming, knowing this thing isn’t about you and never has been.In your head are broken and bruised characters all searching for some kind of hope. All hoping to arrive to their destination. All trying to find this little thing called hope. A little thing like a key to a magic kingdom.The doors you’ve spent so long knocking on belong to another house. You find yourself on a hilltop glancing at opened doors to log cabins. You’re wondering why they’re inviting you in, but you’re willing and able to step through.You’ve learned that tomorrow isn’t promised. You’ve accepted that today isn’t yours to dictate. You’ve realized that yesterday doesn’t have to define you.With a backpack strapped to you full of promise, you keep hiking up the mountain. The only difference is the reason why. The only change is inside of your heart and soul.For every pinprick of regret, you know there are wounds full of woe out there. There are unimaginable tales that are true and that need to be told. There is darkness but there is light woven throughout it.The last five years have torn down much and built things in its place. The ground is different. The landscape has changed. Yet the thing that has remained the same is the sun that rises and sets on each day. It rises with hope and departs with a promise.Whatever the words will amount to, and whatever these past five years will result in, so be it. There are much more important things than these words and these tales. There are lives—beautiful, precious lives—that can be impacted. There are souls that can be woken up. There are hearts that can be moved.Time is a strange thing. You no longer try to run from it. You’ve made peace with it and hope that peace ends up working its way into those words and those stories and maybe, possibly, through God’s help, some lives.It’s a cool thing to celebrate anniversaries. But it’s even cooler when there’s something more besides yourself to celebrate. 

Why I'm A Writer

           I started to try and make sense. To talk to someone in an empty room. To search for answers from the closed doors surrounding me. To try and capture a bit of the curiosity filling my soul. I could feel God but I couldn’t make sense of anything else. I wasn’t a troubled teen. I just lived in a troubled world and I was a curious kid.             I filled notebooks with songs and poems and little pieces of my heart. They weren’t for anyone. Well, usually they weren’t. They were just things on my chest that needed to be said. And since I didn’t know who to speak them to, I wrote them down. My melancholy, misguided, and often moronic mind needed to be set at ease. Writing would do this. Writing was an outlet.             I never stopped.             Yet writing in journals and writing for yourself is far different than writing for story. I should’ve read more. I should’ve studied more. When I started writing fiction, I couldn’t help taking the melancholy and putting it front and center. It’s a habit that I still can’t break. People meet me and think I’m funny but then surely read these sad and sappy tales and probably wonder who wrote them. The outside shell is the comedian. The inner soul is the tortured poet. Neither really is accurate because I’m both of those and more. I’m more just like everybody is more than a simple, square postcard people like to put you in.             I wrote my first novel in pencil on paper. I still have that. Each year, I can see the writing fade just a little more. The story isn’t the important thing. It’s what that finished novel represented. A ninth grader desperately trying to cling on to ONE thing in his life that he could control. One thing that he could make his own. Somehow, in some messy way, he managed to finish that novel.             He’s finished a few more, too.             I still find myself writing to make sense of the life around me. The older I see, the more I find I don’t understand. Yet the more I discover God’s grace and love. They are real and not simple emotions I feel while listening to Thomas Newman and writing. They are real and they are powerful.             I look at my flaws and then I take out the literary paintbrush and start painting. I look at my brokenness and then I begin to try and patch the pieces together. These paintings and pieces fit into stories in various ways. Yeah, it’s still about me, just like it was when I was a teenager. But bit by bit I’m learning how to tell some cool stories and how to convey some of these themes in an entertaining and unique way.             This week is my five-year-anniversary as a full-time writer. I’m gonna celebrate by writing a little more and sharing some thoughts on my blog. I still have so far to go, but I’m grateful how far I’ve come.             I’d love to see that ninth-grader again and pick his brain. I wonder how different it would seem to the one that fills my thoughts on a daily basis.             I think we’d still have a lot in common. A lot. 

Buy One Get One Free

This month I'll celebrate my five-year-anniversary as a fulltime novelist. To celebrate, I thought I'd do some fun things like my BOGO sale I do every few months. 

For the rest of September, you will receive a free book for any book you buy off my website. For your free book, simply let me know which one you'd like (you can choose any except a hardcover book). There's a message box on the ordering page, or you can let me know through sending me a message through my website. 

As always, all the books ordered off my website are personally autographed. This increases their value ten times over.