Travis Thrasher's Blog, page 27

Rabbit Hole

I just listened to this amazing track by a band I just discovered called The Temper Trap. The song is called "Rabbit Hole" and while listening to it, I felt inspired to write a chapter in Hurt which I'm currently revising. 


The novel is finished so this chapter might not even get in. This is very rough but that's okay. For those of you interested, here you go. I do this sort of thing all the time. This is fun for me. More than fun, I should say it's a part of me that comes from feeling moved by a song and an idea. I've done this many, many times while writing The Solitary Tales. 


Chapter ???: Rabbit Hole 


Maybe this is what my story is all about. A guy being the hero. A guy finding his fate. A kid suddenly growing up and finding something about life. 


Something awful. Something terrible. 


I want to run away but I’m forced to be here. I want to bury myself but I’m forced to wait. 


To tick off the time and to shackle my heart and soul.


Inside here. 


Inside this hole. 

To only see what I can’t see. 


And to feel what I don’t want to feel. 


I don’t want to go there. 


I don’t want to go near there. 


I don’t want to go underground. 


I don’t want to see the black anymore. 


I don’t want to see the black or the grays or the haze or the blurry mess. 


I can feel my heart beating and waiting and wondering. 


Wondering what will happen and who will make it out alive and who will die. I know death is inevitable for us and I know that it’s coming and I can feel it’s breath against the back of my neck like some horror movie. Like the horror movie that’s been playing out for the past 20 months. 

20 months of this nonsense. 


20 months of this insanity. 


I will finally figure it out won’t I? To see if the girl stays with me or ends up as another sacrifice. To see if my family stays intact or if it splinters in the ashes. To finally see. I have waited long enough. 


I’m tired. 


I want answers. Every which way I agree. I will be hunted and I know I will be found. 


I just wonder if the world will listen and if they will even care what’s happening in this sweet little tranquil town called Solitary. Where the blood flows and the water pours and the endless madness never ever stops. 


I want to run away but I can’t. 


I have to stay here and I have to fight. 


There’s the hole I need to go down and I need to finally suck it up and start descending. 


Right now. 


Right this instant. 


This teen is about to turn into a man and this might be the first and last glimpse of what he finally could and should be. 

Epic

Wisdom isn’t knowing more about life but appreciating life more. Appreciating all we’ve been given and all we’re getting. Appreciating every breath and every connection and every blessed thing we have.
These days, I feel like a wise old man.
Another birthday approaches and I view it with a big fat yawn. 40 seemed so big and epic but now it’s just a big epic eye roll. The number doesn’t mean a thing. The miles that have been traveled mean something. They mean a lot.

There are reasons I took things for granted. The foolish now of being a 20-something. The busyness that a new job and marriage and life brought. The feeling that I had things figured out finally.
So many years later, I feel daily like I’m starting at square one in terms of trying to figure out this life.

It’s a daily battle.

Yet every single day, I find joy and I find amazement.

I see people who have come in my life and helped shape me. Helped correct me. Simply helped me.

The me who sits down here typing these rambling words is a me because of all of these people. Past and present.

Walking on a sidewalk watching the fading sun, we usually only think of ourselves and our little lives. We don’t see them as epic journeys or mythical battles.

It’s so easy to fall into the here and now and not see the bigger picture.

I’d love to invite all those people who have changed and impacted me to a big party just to thank them. I’m doing my thing with writing just like they’re doing their thing. Each person living their life and fighting the battle. Everybody has to fight to find faith in this messed up world. Everybody is a hero in their own journey.
I want to invite all these heroes for an epic feast.

Yet so often, we don’t thank them. We don’t have time or energy. We lose the connection or the reason. All we focus on is that familiar sidewalk and we see the familiar sun setting in the familiar place.

Another view is beautiful. Another perception is blessed.

Tonight, I’m trying to think of all those others. I’d like to thank each of them for helping me out in whatever way they did.

The days are long but the years are short. A mother of multiples said this to me and it’s one of the most brilliant quotes I’ve ever heard.

Long days and short years.

One moment you’re sixteen and you’re wondering when the heck you’re finally going to have freedom to do your own thing. The next moment you’re forty and you’re wondering when the heck you’re finally going to have freedom to do your own thing.

Is that the circle of life? I don’t know.

All I know is the morning sunset is a blessed thing. The morning alarm sounds with twins greeting each other and playing out through a baby monitor. Work is a world full of worlds, the way I always dreamt life could be. The way I always wanted life to be. There are many little smiles by little girls to help combat their crankiness and their irritable moods. There are the eyes of three little ladies who love me in their own way. There’s the knowing glance of their mommy who understands the journey we’re both currently in.
Long ago, I couldn’t and wouldn’t have imagined it to be this way. I wouldn’t have understood the immaculate highs and the dark lows. I could have tried to imagine them but I simply wouldn’t get it.

Time allows me to slowly and surely get it.

Just like all those people who have meant something. Just like my appreciation for them. And just like another year passing where I’m thankful for all the things I’ve been given.

Happy days. It’s all how you look at them. Tonight, I’m choosing to see the sinking sun and all its glory.

Broken In The Making

Sometimes you want to pull the emergency brake but can't find it anywhere.
Sometimes you know you won the lottery but somehow you misplaced the winning ticket.

Sometimes the train you're on doesn't have any stops, yet you keep seeing town after town pass you by.

The night knows far better than you. The dawn grins without you knowing it. The sky watches from afar. The clouds gather above and contemplate.

Meanwhile you're running trying to catch your breath but you realize you've already outrun it.

This season you're in has become your life. You no longer settle for anything because you know you'll never settle down to decide.

All those things you once said. All those things you once stated. All those things you now see front and center. Reminders. Blessings. Opportunities.

God has this way of making you remember. Not so you can regret but so you can move on.

He also has a wonderful sense of humor.

We all live in bubbles that float around. We all hope they never burst. But sometimes we start floating and realize the bubble burst long ago. Now we're bouncing around trying to find other bubbles to soften the fall.

All the options and choices and clicks and changes. Bouncing from day to day to day. Every beat and every bump and every brick wall you come across on this road means something now. Every day and night, you're given another chance.
Those brake lights aren't gonna shine and those shaking squeals aren't gonna sound. This train is still gonna go day after night after day.
Now's not the time to pull any brake.

This isn't about winning a fortune and this isn't about taking a break. This is about stopping and breathing in and letting it influence.

Every town is worth stopping at. Every suburb is worth checking out.

The beautiful and brilliant turmoil influences and humors and you still go out and get them.
Run rabbit run. Find the white one and run down the narrow hole.

This all will take you somewhere, though you don't know where and when.

But you do know why.

This is no exit but a starting point to something brilliant and beautiful and always—always—broken in the making.

The Solitary Tales Reader

These are the people I'm writing The Solitary Tales for.

Some teenager somewhere who feels isolated and alone, regardless of who and where they are.

The guy who wakes up on a beach in Ibiza wondering what happened the night before.

The quiet girl who never says much and wonders what the world is like beyond her small town.

Some 40-something who remembers John Hughes with the same sort of fondness that I do.

Some 40-something. Any 40-something.

Those who like Twilight and The Hunger Games and are looking for something that's not Twilight and not The Hunger Games.
Someone who totally believes there is no God and wants to debate about it.

Someone who loves Jesus and knows we're all broken.

A fan of The Smiths or The Cure or New Order or especially Depeche Mode.

A fan of Pretty In Pink.
A fan of Twin Peaks.

A reader who doesn't like the same old typical sort of storytelling.
I want someone willing to take a chance on a series not because it's the next big thing but because it's virtually unknown by a writer who seems all over the board.

I like people who take chances and I want people to take a chance with this series.

This is what I told my publicist today. A lot of people didn't like how Twilight ended, right? A lot of people voiced their displeasure about the last Hunger Games book. And a whole lot of people echoed their frustration at the end of Lost.
Endings matter, right? But Stephanie Meyer and Suzanne Collins and the creators of Lost all didn't know their series would become part of pop culture and the fabric of our times.
I went into this series acting as if it would even if I knew it probably wouldn't. I didn't want to fail the way some series have (hello wandering storylines of Twin Peaks).
Temptation is out in stores. It's only book three. It might be my favorite of the four Solitary Tales books. I don't know. But the most important is book four. Hurt. Coming out January, 2013.
So all of this is a moot point, I guess.

Who I want the audience to be and why I want it read.

All nice thoughts.

A gazillion YA series out there. Right?

You can call The Solitary Tales a lot of things but you can't call it a copycat or derivative. It's a shotgun blast of inspirations on the author. But it's very much me. And I'm proud of it.
Spread the word.

One day, who knows. Maybe we won't have to.

Right now I know it's the very best thing I've written, and the thing I'm the most proud of. Beyond every other wonderful and blessed project, The Solitary Tales is the most like Travis Thrasher.
God help us all.

Cool Things For Solitary Tales

For the next week, SOLITARY is free for all eReaders. Please download it and spread the word! I'd love to see this break into the top 100 or even top 10!
SOLITARY for Kindle
SOLITARY for Nook
SOLITARY is also free on iBooks for those of you who have it!
Also, please join the Facebook page for THE SOLITARY TALES before April 1. Anybody who joins will automatically be entered to win a free Kindle fire.
All this is gearing up for the release of TEMPTATION on April 1!

The Things I Should Blog About

Sometimes it seems like those melancholy midnight thoughts are easy to share and get rid of, yet those precious reflections on life and love are sometimes too precious to share.

Like the thrill of uncontrollable laughter between our five-year-old daughter, Kylie, and me.

Like the determination of Mackenzie, one of our 18-month-old twins. A determined soul with such a tender heart.

Or like the joy that's the middle name of Brianna, the other twin. A born performer and comedian that's often in a world of her own.

I live in this weird and wonderful world of my own making. I'm a teenager stuck in an evil town called Solitary wondering when I'm going to get my own iPhone. Or I'm a baseball player living in a motel room who can't stop emptying out the booze in his mini-fridge. Or I'm any other cast of colorful characters I'm currently writing about.

Yet I'm also Daddy. And often times, Daddy doesn't have much left inside to truly come to life. Yet Daddy tries. Thankfully, those little ladies don't seem to know I'm only half there.

I know some of the reasons I love those melancholy posts, and why they seem to come easier. I should blog about those three little girls and how I see God's face shining through each of them every day. I should share about how I've suddenly become the most emotional guy who can tear up at anything. I should share about all the blessings coming my way.

But the drama and the angst and the ongoing saga of a fulltime writer—well, that's the journey, isn't it? Those posts come more naturally.

Surrounding me are three constant smiles, hanging off the sun and the moon and the stars. I try hard to be a content person and usually I fail. Usually I'm freaking about something or other. But those little faces put me in my place, morning noon and night.

I was reminded the other day as I blogged about surviving the storms on the sea that Jesus told his disciples the following: "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

Sometimes it seems like I hear that every day. I'm forty years old and I'm still taking baby steps. Sometimes I really don't have much faith. And yes, I can hear someone saying well maybe that's what God's trying to teach you.
Look—it took me just a few paragraphs to go all melancholy again.

All I have to do is look up from my computer and see three portraits of those little ladies smiling down at me. They're good reminders. And good things to write about.

The Lonely Sailboat

Sometimes you keep navigating your boat but wonder if you're really just going in circles.

The ocean is endless and it can beat you down. Sometimes there is nothing but the sun and the silence of the tranquil sea. Sometimes the storms thrash you into submission.

The toughest part is wondering where to steer toward. Waiting for wind in your patched-up sails. Wondering and praying to see dry land.
You feel like a pirate looking for buried treasure. Yet sometimes there are no boats to plunder. Sometimes there are no islands to match your treasure maps.

Sometimes it's just you and the infinite whispering doubts and fears and frustrations.
Yet always, always, it seems you come upon a glorious treasure. It's not because you're such a good seaman, or because you're as stubborn as an old sailor at looking for it. It's not because of anything you do, if you are to be honest.
It's what God allows to happen. You're in the boat at the right place and right time.
Time and time again this happens. Yet time and time again, you find yourself back out on those stormy waters, fearing for your life. Or you find yourself in the open silence of the dead sea, wondering how you'll go on.
One of these days, you might learn what so many have learned before you.
These journeys and this grand voyage is not about getting out of the boat to find the hidden treasure. It's not about staying down below to ride out the next storm. The treasure is staying on board and staying in these waters and THEN finding the next hidden gem or nugget of gold.

They always come.

The Petals On The Water

I always thought and always believed that a song could inspire a story.

The simple chords and melodies. The short lyrics and rhymes and lullabies.

But I now I know. A hundred songs have inspired a hundred stories. Unwritten and unread.

But slowly and surely it's come about in the strangest of ways.

And this strange sort of obsession that I find myself loving with millions of others finally sees the light of day.

A minor chord. A middle eight. A trailing segway.

A profound statement. A poignant verse. A fun lyric.

Mixed with a set of characters moving in their worlds. It makes sense to me. In my mind.

That distant sound—what could it be?

The far-off melody—what could it see?

The poet and the singer are the same.

Here in the confines of a stretched-out story.

An epic mini-dramatization.

Love horror thriller sweet.

Emotion doesn't need a box. A story doesn't need a base. Love and light don't need brackets.

I'm rambling like I do in most of these blogs I never even share.

Songs are stories.

Songs are histories.

Songs are backdrops.

Song are memories.

Songs linger like love like the soft and sweet petals broken and floating on the placid surface of some dark sea.

These songs are stories and they've finally found me.

My Season Of Collaborations

I'm currently working on rewrites for two novelizations. As I got to my office this morning, I deviated from my schedule and wrote a tiny bit on one of those future ideas I'd love to do down the road. Nothing out of the ordinary. But as I spent a few moments on this, it dawned on me that I was working on one of my personal projects verses one of the collaborations. After thinking it through, I realized I felt the same way about all the projects.
This has been my season for collaborations. I'm grateful for the projects that have come my way and I hope more continue to come. I wrote Letters From War with Mark Schultz and Paper Angels with Jimmy Wayne. I'm ghostwriting a novelization of a film coming out soon, and writing the novelization of Home Run scheduled to release this fall. I am also one of seven authors on a project called 7 Hours.
Along with all of those projects that have been greenlit, I've worked on other projects that might come to fruition. We'll see.
None of these projects are ones that I view differently than my own personal novels I've worked on. Sure, the stories don't start with me, and the process is different. Especially with writing a novelization. But I've tried to put as much of me in each project that I can. I've worked as hard on every collaboration as I've worked on any of my own novels.
These collaborations are an opportunity to introduce my writing to a bigger or different audience. Paper Angels certainly proved that since many Jimmy Wayne fans became Travis Thrasher fans too. It's been fun and validating. There have been various challenges throughout the process, but it's that way for anything.
So what about my own personal stories and ideas? I'm still working on them when I can. Some ideas I've shelved for the time being. Others are just waiting to be started. I continue to hone my craft while hopefully introducing myself to new readers.
As I went over several chapters of Home Run today, I found myself enjoying what I'd written, the same way I might have enjoyed something out of The Solitary Tales. Sure, the stories are dramatically different, but I'm the same writer on both of them.
Every project I work on, whether it's a collaboration or not, has this wonderful thing called potential. The potential to introduce my writing to new readers. I love all the possibilities with every story I tell and I'm very grateful every time I'm able to do it.

The New Arrival

Yesterday I received copies of my 19th published work of fiction. It's the 20th book I've had published if you count the Promise Remains/The Watermark repackage. Temptation looks great.
I'll quote something Jerry Jenkins used to say when I was fortunate to be able to present him the very latest book in his Left Behind series: "It never gets old." And Jerry was right. It never gets old holding your new book in your hands.
I especially love The Solitary Tales and their packages. There are little things that go above and beyond in the printing. The photo on the back cover. The funny high school shot in the back of the book. The actual smooth feel of the book itself.
Thank you, David C. Cook, for another job well done.
There are differences, however, between receiving my latest book verses the time I received my very first novel. I think when I first held The Promise Remains, I kept looking at it as if it might start talking. As if it glowed. I read the words and wondered if I had actually written them. They weren't that good, but this was my first baby. It was beautiful. I couldn't stop looking at it and holding it.
I was holding a dream come true.
When dreams become reality, and when living the dream resembles running a never-ending-marathon where paydays feel like someone finally being merciful and giving you a cup of water, I guess a published book feels a little different. I am getting used to them. After all the hard work put in, I realize that it's just a book.
I also know that by now, my family and friends are over the excitement of me being an author. Some still love my books and can't wait to read them. But it's not like the first time when everybody showed their enthusiasm. It just works out that way. I know there are people who love me yet secretly roll their eyes when I say "my new book just came in!!" It's just life. I can accept that.
Another reality is sales. Especially when you have a series. When you know that this series hasn't become the next Twilight or Hunger Games, it's a bit ridiculous when you say "This could be the next Twilight or Hunger Games." You have to face reality.
Those chunks of reality--the busyness of being a writer and not being able to enjoy the moment--the fact that not everybody is necessarily enamored by your profession--the reality that your book might not be breaking sales records--well, all of those can dampen the mood if you let it.
But I don't let it.
Last night I held Temptation in my hands before I went to bed. I thumbed through it and remembered the story and why I wrote it. I thought of Lily and Brick. I thought of Chris and his journey. I could hear Adele singing as I worked on the story. Like every single one of those nineteen works I've had published, there was a reason I wrote this story. There are pieces of me inside it. And I'm proud of being able to display my brokenness on a regular basis.
Yeah, I'm busy, but I can still stop and soak in the moment.
Yeah, I'm a writer and I love being called a writer.
And yeah, I still believe The Solitary Tales can be the next Twilight or Hunger Games. It just might take a little longer.