Justin Blaney's Blog, page 52

Marketing 101: Back to Basics

So what is marketing anyway?

The whole point of marketing is to introduce the world to You. You might be your service or product. You could be an idea or an organization. You could also be, well, you. Whatever it is you want people to know more about, marketing can help and it starts with flipping an old adage upside down: It's not who you know, but rather who knows You.

Consider the most well-known, traditional marketing methods. Advertisements on TV, billboards, radio, what have you. They all do one thing. They put a message in front of a lot of people, and they repeat it. A lot. The more people see the ad, the more people know about a product or service. And the more times those same people see the ad, the more that brand will stand out. Basic idea and pretty powerful.

And yet, marketing is broken.

Helpeting is a marketing tool and it's powerful partly because it leverages the same principal of remaining in the forefront of someone's mind, even when they're not shopping for your product or service. At the same time, helpeting has some very important distinctions that serve to make it even more effective:

Marketing is about self-promotion. Helpeting is about promoting others.

Marketing is about volume, spamming people with your message until they remember you. Helpeting is about serving people and building relationships that turn into business.

Read more on Inkliss.com

How to Be Heard in a Noisy World

Marketing is broken

Marketing has changed. Saturating the market with ads isn't enough. Making a superb product and hoping everyone finds us isn't enough either. We need a new method, a strategy better suited to the modern, over-saturated, mile-a-minute marketplace.

This may sound surprising, but the best method I’ve found for cutting through the enormous clutter of this busy world is pretty simple. It's being helpful. You may be scanning your marketing automation software next to reports on click dynamics and thinking, “That's it? That's the big idea?” Yes, it is. I've seen this approach work so well that it can do more than advertise a product. I've seen it work with finding jobs, donors and customers.

This deceptively simple idea flips upside down the traditional ideas of advertising, self-promotion and hype. Instead of being all about us we get to be all about others. It's refreshingly counter-cultural and effective at the same time. This concept is so important that I’m convinced it’s the way businesses and individuals are going to market themselves for years to come.

Helpeting

Until recently, I didn't have an easy way to describe this method. And then one day I was giving a presentation to a group of business leaders about the differences between helping people and marketing. Stalling to find the right word, I blurted out, “It’s like helping people instead of marketing. Like helpeting!” Someone laughed and I'm still not sure if they were making fun of me or delighted by the possibilities, but I took it as a confirmation.

Welcome to the helpeting revolution.

Read more on Inkliss.com

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Become the Person You Were Born to Be

In an earlier blog post, I shared the first step for finding your uniqueness. In this post, I share the second and third steps.

Bitterness can derail your journey

The second rule of finding what makes you uncommon is that jealousy, laziness, pride, ignorance and bitterness are your enemies. There are other negative traits equally detrimental to you reaching your goal of finding your unique place in this world, but you get the idea.

You’re never going to find what makes you special if you’re consumed with what makes your neighbor special. It’s difficult to discover your uniqueness if you prefer to lay in bed and watch TV. If you think you’re pretty amazing and the world just never seems to catch on, you’re unlikely to get far in your quest for uncommonality. And bitterness, perhaps most of all, can derail your journey.

If this is your tendency, I’d like to encourage you to step off that train. Forgive yourself. Forgive your parents, or your friends, or your spouse or whoever else has been holding you back. It’s up to you to move forward and in the end, you have no one to blame but yourself if you don’t get where you want to go.

Lots of people have lived in their uncommon niche, serving and changing the world around them who overcame great disadvantages. There are a lot of tragic happenings in this world and I don’t intend to make light of them. But by holding bitterness inside you, you’re letting those tragic circumstances beat you up again and again. You’re letting them win. It’s hard. It is hard. But you can rise above what’s been done to you and where you’ve come from to become the person you were born to be.

How were you unique as a kid?

The third is your childhood. Walt Disney doodled cartoons when he was supposed to be studying. His parents couldn’t get him to stop drawing. Twelve-year-old Jesus was debating theology for days with religious leaders while his parents searched for him. Tiger woods was putting golf balls at the age of three. As a teenager, Bill Gates spent his time hacking instead of going to the prom. Sometimes, the hobbies you love as a child, the interests you have, the character ticks that make you odd, are the same characteristics that make you unique as an adult. How were you unique as a kid? What were you obsessed with?

If you’re destined to become a great guitarist, it’s likely you never forced yourself to practice as a kid. Yes, you practice. You practice a lot. But you don’t think of it as practice. It’s not a chore. You’re parents don’t have to remind you to do your scales. In fact, they can barely get you to stop playing that dang guitar long enough to eat dinner with the family. That’s the way it is sometimes with the things that make us unique. While other people think of what we do as a chore, you can’t get us to stop.

This, often times, can lead us to discover our unique place in this world. It doesn’t always work. Many people might have a hard time remembering anything that fits this description. Maybe you were what you would describe as an average kid with average interests. That’s OK, and it means one of two things. Either it’s your averageness that makes you unique, or this tool for discovering what makes you uncommon isn’t the right one for you. Don’t worry, there are other tools to help you on your journey.

 Stay tuned for the rest of the guidelines to finding your uniqueness in upcoming blogs.

Thank you for joining me in this celebration of uniqueness.

I'm working on my sixth book, Shiny Objects, and intend to include some of this content in it. Please help me make my new book better by leaving a comment below.

 

A reflection on Mars Hill Church and when It’s OK to quit

After losing my business, my home, and most of my friends in the 2008 crash, my family and I moved from the small town of Eugene where I’d grown up to take a new job in Seattle. Out of the millions of people living in the area, we knew exactly no one. During this time, I was confused and alone and broken with only my wonderful and supportive wife, Anna, to help me through—who of course was relying largely on my support in return.

Before hitting the interstate, I posted a message that we could use some help unloading our huge, overstuffed Penske on the Mars Hill Church website. We found a group waiting for us when we pulled into the drive of our new home six hours later. That was when I met Ryan and Annie, who—among several others—welcomed us into their community, based on nothing more than random message posted by a stranger on their church website. Ryan and Annie have become pastors to me and my family in the sense that they are friends; and more importantly, we become better followers of Jesus because of their presence in our lives.

For the last four years, we met many other families like Ryan and Annie. In their willingness to call each other to live more like Jesus, the people who made up Mars Hill Church were truly a unique group. In many big churches, Community Groups become a needed source of personal pastoring and mentoring. But Mars Hill is now dissolved and many of the families we’ve known for the last few years are moving on to join other congregations. We’re not just losing our lead pastor. We’re losing all the friends and lay-pastors who have made a difference in our lives.

When Is It Time to Move On?

Like Ryan and Annie, all of us have the opportunity to be a leader to someone. All of us can be a pastor when we guide others in their spiritual growth, even if only by our example. And in the midst of Mars Hill pastors resigning, members and non-members moving on, lay-leaders looking forward to “new seasons” elsewhere, a question occurred to me:

When is it right for a leader to quit a relationship?

As I thought about this question, a passage popped into my mind.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” — Jesus, from John 10:11-13

I believe there are good reasons to leave. There are times to walk away from the sheep. There are times when resigning leadership is the only way to get our point across in a broken system. Or when we can no longer affect change and can’t in good conscience continue to support a stubborn leader with our presence. There are times when the Holy Spirit calls us to move on from a friend, or a relationship, or a leadership position for any number of reasons.

But I wonder how often we are too quick to quit.

The Mars Hill story has caused me to reflect on my own nature within the many leadership roles I play in life as a father, boss, co-worker, pastor, friend, spouse, and member of my community. How do I respond during my most testing trials? How do I react when my people are threatened? Or when my friends are at risk of being hurt?

Yes, there are times to leave. But there are also times to fight. Staying with someone in the midst of danger, pain and conflict is perhaps the truest, the most rare, and the most beautiful example of leadership there is.

Ryan and Annie, like our family and many others at Mars Hill Church, are now in the uncomfortable position of being forced to find a new church family. It’s likely we will not end up at the same church as many of our friends. These are the families who welcomed us to our new area when we were at our most vulnerable. They were pastors to us when we needed them and I believe those friendships will remain, even if they change as the season turns.

As leaders, sometimes we are called to quit a relationship. And sometimes we are forced to quit. But the lesson resonating most with me today is a desire to seek a little harder to stick with those God brings into my life, no matter how hard it gets.

Photo via Mars Hill Church Flickr.

Do you believe in Santa Claus? Science proves you should

Jaded children around the world have been questioning Santa’s existence with greater gusto each year. The inquisition often begins when a jilted young one does not receive the favored present of their heart’s desires, in spite of much soul pouring to a mall-variety, costumed faker. But just because shady entrepreneurs dress up like Santa for profit does not mean that the real article does not exist. What this debate needs is a thorough scientific analysis to sort myth from reality. Let’s see what science has to say about theories most often used to rob the world of Christmas spirit and disprove one of the last pure symbols of secular generosity and commercialism.

How does Santa visit all the children of the world in one night?

First, a few facts. Around 2 billion inhabitants of earth are under the age of 18, but many do not celebrate Christmas. If we remove from Santa’s list children who do not celebrate Christmas such as Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Atheist Nudist Colony Dwellers we’re really only dealing with about 400 million kiddos. Those juveniles are concentrated in 125 million households, orphanages and children’s correctional facilities.

As everyone who studies Santa Lore knows, the old man has more than a typical evening to work with. Because of the rotation of the earth and time zone changes, Santa has about 30 hours of night to get the job done, assuming he begins in Australia and works his way west, finishing up in Hawaii with a Festive Mai Tai.

If an average humanoid took about 30 minutes to stop at a house, jump down the chimney, leave the presents, eat a few cookies and take off again, they would require about 62 million hours or 7000 years. Fortunately for all the good boys and girls of the world, Santa is no average humanoid.

Two factors are required for Santa’s logistical timeframe to work: Speed and time. As we all learned in high-school physics—at least those of us who weren’t sniffing glue in the back of the classroom—the faster one moves, the slower time goes for those observing the moving object. If bound by the pedestrian speeds of anthropoid-made objects, speed and time don’t do much for Santa. For example, even at the speed of the fastest man made object, Nasa’s Juno spacecraft which travels at a rate of 90,000 miles per hour, it would still take about 57 days to reach every house, assuming the houses were separated by an average of 1 mile. That’s getting closer, but not close enough.

Recently, a sub-atomic particle neutrino has been clocked at traveling 186,415 miles per second, just faster than light. That’s a blistering 669 million miles per hour. At that speed, Santa could distribute presents to all the children of the world in just over 11 minutes. If Santa was made up of sub-atomic neutrino particles, he could take a leisurely place, say a mere 1% of his top speed and still get done in time to enjoy a round of gold with the Easter bunny in Maui. This fact is supported by the Santa from Miracle on 34th street, who was of course an actor, but might have had contact with the real Santa as part of his role research.

How do reindeer fly?

It’s important to realize that scientists have only identified 2 million species of creature of earth. That might sound like a lot, but some estimate that as many as 100 million exist. It seems likely that of those 98% of species not yet identified there could be such thing as a large flying mammal that resembles a reindeer.

Second, there are numerous methods for achieving flight. No one marvels at the brightly colored balloons a clown sells at the fair, and yet these objects are capable of soaring high into the sky until they pop, float back to earth and become part of a beaver’s living room decor, all for less with a few cents worth of helium.

Thought the reindeer could be lighter than air, it’s more likely they achieve flight through their speed. Acceleration is used as the primary mechanism for breaking out of low-earth orbit. Jets can fly upside down or straight up into their sky by virtue of their speed. The faster airplanes travel, the less wing surface area is needed to stay aloft. Wasps and other nasty little insects fly because their wings move super-duper fast. It seems logical that reindeer traveling at 1/100th the speed of light as noted above would not have any problem flying.

How does Santa know which children are naughty or nice?

This one would be a lot more difficult to answer before the internet age. But today, with so many parents publicly chronically stories about the stupid things their children do and say on Facebook, and of course shamelessly sharing pictures of their children’s misdeeds on Instagram, all Santa needs is a few advanced computers, a robust relationship database management software and a few elves adept at big data analysis. In 2014, 2.3 zettabytes of data is created every day. That’s a billion gigabytes, or something like two hundred million photos. That’s a whole lot of data for the Naughty or Nice Department to sort through. All this data could be fed into a CRM database like Salesforce for Nonprofits and a scoring system could be used to evaluate the naughtiness of each child. Any positive story about the child would result in a positive one score, while a negative experience would result in a negative one score. If the child had a positive score by Christmas Eve, he or she would receive their presents. Otherwise, coal.

How does Santa get down a chimney, especially if a house does not have one?

One of Santa’s biggest perception problems is the contradiction between his chubby/jolly appearance and his need to fit down chimneys in order to deliver presents. Fortunately for Santa, the atoms that make up that oversized belly, and the rest of this body, are made up primarily of empty space. Atoms are, like many Americans, mostly empty nothingness. Specifically, 99.999999% nothingness. To illustrate, if an atom was the size of a football stadium its nucleus would be about the size of a grape, sitting on the 50 yard line, and its electrons would be little grains of salt swirling around somewhere near those fancy skyboxes.

All Santa would need to do to fit into almost any chimney would be to reduce his size by 90%. Let’s say for example that he is 36” wide at his waist (he does eat a lot of cookies after all). At 90% reduction, he would be a slim 3.6 inches wide. That’s about the size of a Ken doll, if Ken spent his weekends drinking beer and watching football.

And if Santa encountered a home without a proper chimney, he could drop his size by another 90% and he would be a mere 1/3” of an inch wide. That’s about the size of those pink and blue people in the board game Life. A Santa that size should be able to shimmy through a leak in the roof. Even at this size, Santa’s atoms would still be almost entirely emptiness. If his nuclei and electrons remained the same size as the above analogy, instead of being spread across a football stadium, the grape and grains of salt would be spread across the space of a tennis ball court.

Interestingly, Santa would still weigh the same amount no matter how small he was. Therefore, he would have to be extra careful to not step on anyone’s toe. In fact, he would do well to not shrink more than was necessary. Let’s assume Santa weighs 300lbs. If he concentrated all that weight into a Life game sized body, he would cut right through most roofs. Therefore, he would be well advised to utilize his flying abilities as to not destroy anything with his out of proportion mass.

And perhaps the most important question of all, how does Santa eat all those cookies without gaining too much weight?

This question has stumped humans for millennia, not only by those interested in Santa’s existence, but by men and women around the world who would like to devour sugary sweets during the holidays without screwing up their forthcoming new year’s resolutions to lose ten pounds.

First, the facts. A typical butter cookie contains about 130 calories. Wash that down with a quarter cup swig of 1% milk and you’re up to a little more than 150 calories. Every 3500 calories consumed equals about a pound of extra baggage, distributed unequally in ares such as love handles, beer gut and buttocks. That means every 23 houses Santa visits, he’d gain a pound. Much to Mrs. Claus’s chagrin, Santa would accumulate about 5.5 million pounds between Christmas eve and Christmas day, significantly overachieving on a quest to become the heaviest man in the Guinness Book of World Records. That spot, for those keeping track, is currently held by Manuel Uribe who weighed 1230 lbs at his peak.

Though most of us slaves-to-the-scale are trying to stay south of 2000 calories per day, some lucky devils get to gorge on as much as 10,000 calories. These athletes not only have incredibly hot bodies, but also get to each chocolate cake whenever they like. Their secret is burning energy as the calories go down the pipe. In order for Santa to maintain his 2000 calories diet, all he needs to do is burn 18,759,998,000 over the course of his Christmas Eve work shift. Fortunately, Santa is going to expend a lot of energy delivering all those presents. Workout specialists, a career that contains a disproportionate number of people named Jake, estimate that an average male burns about 100 calories per mile ran, but if you run really fast, you burn more calories per mile. While Santa isn’t running from house to house, he is certainly engaging in aerobics by hustling up and down all those chimneys and stove pipes. Furthermore, maintaining an average speed of 1/100th the speed of light would also help Santa work up a nice sweat.

If Santa could manage to burn 150 calories per mile, he’ll use up exactly the number of calories he gained. And if he managed to burn just 151 calories per mile, he’d lose 34,000 lbs. He could probably win Biggest Loser with a diet plan like that.

In closing…

Given the scientific evidence, Santa’s existence is not only possible, but likely. I hope you’ll join me in putting out a plate of cookies and milk and getting to bed early this Christmas Eve just in case he is real. Given today’s tough economy, we wouldn’t want to miss out on a few extra presents for the kids.

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

 

More about the Evan Burl Book Release and Our Weekly Giveaway

Amazon shopping spree and book giveaway

To celebrate (1) the launch of Evan Burl, (2) the Kickstarter campaign that aims to fight fatherlessness with fiction and most importantly in January, and (3) you, I'm giving away $1000 in prizes including more than 50 signed books, a $250 Amazon shopping spree, and dozens of other gifts from great authors around the world.

The winner of our last giveaway is Gloria Macioci Blaney!

Along with winning a signed copy of Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2 Gloria joins the other semi-finalists in the $250 Amazon gift card giveaway. Claim your prize by emailing

Click here to enter now for your chance to win, plus get the free eBook instantly, just for entering!

Watch for my next blog to see if you've won. These are some places to read the blog: Facebook, Twitter, in your email, on my website, on Amazon, or on Goodreads.

Here is a list of the semifinalists for the $250 Amazon giveaway!

Jessica Mamac, Kristen Patinka, Lou Scott, Scott Bothel, John Wargowsky, Tammy Dalley, Carl Smith, Heather Miles, Sally Hannoush, Christopher Burrell, Cathy Smith, Blake Goldstein, Katrina Epperson, Janae Schiele, Vanessa Rasanen, Katrina Umland, Deanna Wiseburn, Hope Clippinger, Rebecca Ann Baker, Lisa Whitten, Gavin Imes, Robin Baker, April Reynolds, Gloria Macioci Blaney

Taking flight

An overturned boat

Proudly presenting Fast Wide Open

Discover a panorama of the inspiration for Justin's postmodern fairytale anthology with this collection of 37 original images that explore character, architecture, setting, texture and visual storytelling. On Kindle, iBooks, paperback, or beautifully typeset hardback.

Want a free signed hardback copy of Fast Wide Open?

I'm giving a free eBook of Fast Wide Open to the first 20 people who agree to leave me a review on Amazon after you've checked it out. Email me at justin@justinblaney.com to participate! Plus, if you send me a link to your review when you're done, you will have a 20% chance of winning a signed hardback copy of the book. You are not obligated to leave a positive review.

If you're interested in seeing a sample of the photos included in Fast Wide Open, I've posted a few here.

Join the conversation

Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-4 Is Officially Released!

If you have left a review for any version of Evan Burl in the past, you can get a free copy of the entire ebook. More on that below.

As noted in my last post, the four-year process that lead to this final version of Evan’s story has been littered in revisions. The good news is I’ve learned a lot about writing and myself during this process. The bad news is I’ve managed to confuse a lot of readers with the changes. This post is intended to help ease that confusion.

Some spoilers may follow, but I’ll try to be as discrete as possible.

About two years ago, I released what I thought was going to be the complete Evan Burl and the Falling story. Not that it had a complete story arc. It sort of ended right in the middle of the action. My intention was to write a second book by a different name that would continue the story. As I continued the story in the second book, I realized that I would need to change quite a few things in the first book in order to take the story where I wanted it to end. So I started releasing new versions of the book as I went along, getting feedback from readers to help me improve my writing. Over the next year or two, I ended up writing the remainder of the second book, but there were many copies that contained different portions of the story. Four major sections became apparent, which I now call volumes 1 through 4. During the last couple months, I’ve completed revised and finished all four volumes and the whole book has been professionally edited.

Volumes 1 and 2 have been finished and available since the summer. This book ends at the halfway point of Evan’s story when Claire and Evan’s stories begin to come together. At the end of volume 2 there is about 5 hours remaining until the falling. Volumes 3 and 4 continue the story, revealing the final five hours until the climax between Cevo, Claire, Terisma, Mazol and Evan.

There is more story to tell after Volume 4. Much more. But it is my hope that volumes 1-4 have a complete story arc and a satisfying ending so that if no more of Evan’s story is told, readers can feel good about where we left off.

I’d love for Evan’s world to be introduced to many new readers now that it is finally complete, but I want to make sure all of those who have been along on the ride with me are well taken care of.

If you have purchased any previous version of Evan Burl, I will gladly get you a free replacement copy. Vol. 1-2 will always be free, but volumes 3 and 4 will cost a couple bucks. And if you’ve left a review anywhere, just email me a link to it and I’ll send you a copy of the book. I’d be thankful for you to update your review after you’ve had a chance to check out the final version. It would be wonderful if you copied your reviews to the various volumes to help me spread the word.

Here are all the links on Amazon:

Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2

Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 3

Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 4

Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-4, paperback

Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-4, ebook

This page has links to websites other than Amazon like Smashwords, Kobo and iTunes.

One other thing to keep in mind is if you have purchased or downloaded free from Amazon, you may not have the most recent version. I’ve asked them to update it, but I believe you have to specifically update it on your kindle or iPad. If you have any question about whether your version is the most recent, you can check by verifying that the cover is red and that there is a cast of character’s section that ends with Dravus. If you are having problems getting the updated version, try deleting it from your device and re-downloading.

Thank you again to everyone for your help and patience! I appreciate you more than you know.

I'd love to know what you think about the final product. Let me know in the comments!

 

More about the Evan Burl Book Release and Our Weekly Giveaway

Stay tuned for more info on the book (releasing Dec 10), book giveaways, a Kickstarter, and more!

Amazon shopping spree and book giveaway

To celebrate (1) the launch of Evan Burl, (2) the Kickstarter campaign that aims to fight fatherlessness with fiction and most importantly in January, and (3) you, I'm giving away $1000 in prizes including more than 50 signed books, a $250 Amazon shopping spree, and dozens of other gifts from great authors around the world.

The winner of our last giveaway is Gloria Macioci Blaney!

Along with winning a signed copy of Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2 Gloria joins the other semi-finalists in the $250 Amazon gift card giveaway. Claim your prize by emailing

Click here to enter now for your chance to win, plus get the free eBook instantly, just for entering!

Watch for my next blog to see if you've won. These are some places to read the blog: Facebook, Twitter, in your email, on my website, on Amazon, or on Goodreads.

Here is a list of the semifinalists for the $250 Amazon giveaway!

Jessica Mamac, Kristen Patinka, Lou Scott, Scott Bothel, John Wargowsky, Tammy Dalley, Carl Smith, Heather Miles, Sally Hannoush, Christopher Burrell, Cathy Smith, Blake Goldstein, Katrina Epperson, Janae Schiele, Vanessa Rasanen, Katrina Umland, Deanna Wiseburn, Hope Clippinger, Rebecca Ann Baker, Lisa Whitten, Gavin Imes, Robin Baker, April Reynolds, Gloria Macioci Blaney

The Birth of Evan Burl and Writing for the Right Reasons

Big news! Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-4 is being released tomorrow. I’ll be back to you with more details soon. In the meantime, here is a story about how Evan Burl came to be and the lessons I learned about writing over the last four years.
I shouldn’t have taken that last run. 
In the fading Rocky Mountain dusk, I could barely make out the choppy slush as I sailed over it, struggling to maintain control of my skins as I raced to catch up to my brother Jeff. Cabin lights flickered orange like frozen fireflies lurking in the woods around the base of Sundance Ski Resort. We had rather foolishly, as brothers of all ages sometimes do, decided to race down the gorge despite the poor conditions. As I rounded the corner into a black diamond called Cotton Mouth, the edge of my ski caught in a groove. An eye blink later my head smacked the ice. Jeff hockey stopped a few feet above where I fell, spraying me with snow. I lay there on my side for a while, listening to the ringing as he called a snow patrol. Fortunately I was wearing a helmet, but the concussion gummed up my grey matter for months.


My family makes the fourteen hour pilgrimage from Seattle to Sundance with semi-regularity. Though I promise myself a chance to get a little work done in the passenger seat, it’s a promise I never really intend to keep. I should have been a long-haul truck driver, always a little jealous of their open highways brimming with a galaxy of possibilities. The road, snaking up distant mountain passes, was made for man to conquer. And even though I know millions have gone before me, road trips always somehow feel like I’m heading out West to a great, unknown and untamed land. If sitting behind the wheel on a long road trip somehow brings me closer to the part of me that wishes I was Lewis or Clark, then riding in the passenger seat is like watching a re-run documentary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. It just ain’t the same.
The Red Cross medic warned me to avoid driving and “unnecessary thinking”, whatever that means. 
Cognitive activity after a concussion can increase recovery time and the risk of permanent damage. But that didn’t scare me. Not as much as spending the next fourteen hours with nothing to do but watch and old re-run documentary on Manifest Destiny. So I consoled myself by turning the passenger-seat-prison-sentence into an opportunity to start my long put off novel. And that is how Evan Burl was born. Yes, I started my first novel somewhere in the Rocky Mountains while I was following doctor’s orders to avoid driving and “unnecessary thinking.” In short, if you think Evan Burl and the Falling sucks, or if during disconcerting stretches of prose you begin to question my sanity, please remember that I was concussed when I began and therefore have a good excuse.


That road trip was nearly four years ago. Since then, dozens of versions of the novel have been splattered all over the web and hundreds of the most wonderful people in the world have spent countless hours sifting through pages of utter rubbish to provide feedback instrumental in my personal growth. It’s been said that most authors write ten books before one of them escapes into the court of public opinion where well meaning writers are drawn and quartered for offenses such as cliffhanger endings. I took a different route, opting to write the same book ten times. Okay, so it was more like a hundred.
Through those thousands of hours and millions of words, I found I was changed in a way that surprised me.
I figured I would become a better writer with practice—gag-inducing glimpses at early drafts confirm that this indeed was the case—but I learned more than that. I learned to write for myself.
I set out to write a novel because… well, I don’t know exactly why I set out to write a novel. I didn’t really like writing in school, nor did I get very good grades in English. I’d never tried my hand at so much as a short story. I’d lost interest in reading. Noveling was simply something on my list of things to do someday and I don’t like it when things stay on my list too long. Since i figured writing a novel couldn’t be all that hard, and that nasty to-do was right there, staring at me from my task management software interface, I figured I might as well get started. Not only did I discover that completing a novel is a bit harder than expected, especially if you intend for this novel to actually be consumed by people who are not paid handsomely to consume it—hard like running a marathon… up Mount Everest… carrying your grandmother piggy back—but through the process of writing for all those endless hours, I fell in love.


It seems like all the cool writers, the kind who wear ridiculously oversized glasses that they somehow pull off and dark turtlenecks and knit scarfs, all those writers have this whole writing for oneself thing down. They ooze big ol' tears of authenticness out their pores. I have friends like this, people who have been writing for years—have whole hard drives full of provoking prose (actually, the really cool writers do it longhand in black Moleskins)—friends who have little intention of ever sharing their work with anyone. This is either an incredibly nobel gesture, or they’re scared. Either way, they make me feel like a big commercial, compliment-fishing whore. The truth is I kind of was when I started. But somewhere along the way, I changed. I think it was the feedback that did it; the good, the bad and the indifferent. The multiple 2-star reviews on the same day that I was sure was some kind of coordinated attack designed to ruin my career and the kind-hearted emails I’d get from readers with variations on, “Dear God, please stop re-writing this book” and the people who went to creative lengths to tell me what an ugly little baby I’d conceived. Eventually, I learned not to care. And then I learned to do whatever I damn well pleased. And then I learned to do what I loved. Now I believe the closer I get to this—still have a bit of the old commercial whore to kill off I admit—the better, and more true my writing will be.


I’m tempted to apologize for the changes, for the multi-year drawn out process that I’ve asked my readers again and again and again to endure with me, but that wouldn’t be honest. Because I’m not sorry—in the best possible sense. I’m thankful. I don’t think it matters how you get there. It might take a concussion, or misplaced motivations, or writing ten books before sharing one of them, or writing the same book a hundred times and releasing all of them on the internet for publish bashing. The best writing plumbs the deep and unsearchable human heart, reflecting something about ourselves in a way that makes us strive to become better at being human. You can’t get to plumbing if you’re fishing for compliments. At least, I’ve discovered, I can’t.
So I guess I’m glad I took that last ski run. 
If I hadn’t knocked my head, Evan Burl and his mentally unstable friends might forever have been locked up inside my own unstable brain. And I wouldn’t have discovered my cathartic love for writing. However, I am hoping for a less risky form of inspiration for my next novel. Maybe I should try running a marathon up Everest with grandma strapped to my back.
I'd love to know what you think about the final product. Let me know in the comments!

 

More about the Evan Burl Book Release and Our Weekly Giveaway

Stay tuned for more info on the book (releasing Dec 10), book giveaways, a Kickstarter, and more!

Amazon shopping spree and book giveaway

To celebrate (1) the launch of Evan Burl, (2) the Kickstarter campaign that aims to fight fatherlessness with fiction and most importantly in January, and (3) you, I'm giving away $1000 in prizes including more than 50 signed books, a $250 Amazon shopping spree, and dozens of other gifts from great authors around the world.

The winner of our last giveaway is Gloria Macioci Blaney!

Along with winning a signed copy of Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2 Gloria joins the other semi-finalists in the $250 Amazon gift card giveaway. Claim your prize by emailing

Click here to enter now for your chance to win, plus get the free eBook instantly, just for entering!

Watch for my next blog to see if you've won. These are some places to read the blog: Facebook, Twitter, in your email, on my website, on Amazon, or on Goodreads.

Here is a list of the semifinalists for the $250 Amazon giveaway!

Jessica Mamac, Kristen Patinka, Lou Scott, Scott Bothel, John Wargowsky, Tammy Dalley, Carl Smith, Heather Miles, Sally Hannoush, Christopher Burrell, Cathy Smith, Blake Goldstein, Katrina Epperson, Janae Schiele, Vanessa Rasanen, Katrina Umland, Deanna Wiseburn, Hope Clippinger, Rebecca Ann Baker, Lisa Whitten, Gavin Imes, Robin Baker, April Reynolds, Gloria Macioci Blaney

Vella Culligan and the Steam Shovel: A short story about destroying Hunger Games

I sat on the American Girl Salon Station with matching, vintage chrome trim vanity set. On the vanity shelf was a can of purple spray paint, a blow dryer, and a set of sharpies. Edward number 1—an 18-inch doll from the Mattel Barbie Collector Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn collection—cleaned my right shoulder with a sanitary wipe.

“What’s it gonna be, hun?”

I stared into the distance, my mouth hanging slightly open. I took a breath. “A wolf, howling at the moon.”

“You sure? This ain’t washable ink.” He showed me the fine tip black sharpie.

“I know what I want, no one can change that now.”

Edward number 2 looked up at me. “What’s a Bella like you doing in here anyway?” He cleaned the tip of his sharpie, then went back to work on my left shoulder.

I winced. The pen tip was so… cold. “My name isn’t Bella.”

“But you’re a Bella Swan First Issue—“

Edward number 1 stepped back, looked me up and down. “She’s more than that, Eddy. This one’s a limited edition, cameo skin tone, hand painted, bucket of sweet carmel from a non-smoking home. She’s fifteen inches of fine-quality vinyl with a slim bust body style.” His eyes drifted below my neckline. “Not an ounce of plastic under that embroidered peasant top with green tank, is there darling?”

I pulled my shoulders in and turned my face away from his hungry stare. “No, I… I’m 100% vinyl.”

“A connoisseur like myself knows how to appreciate quality construction, if you catch my meaning.” Edward number 2 gave Edward number 1 knocks accompanied by a chorus of manly vocal encouragements.

I stared into the distance. Two more Bella dolls and an Edward walked through the gates into the Shady Grove Processing Facility and Transfer Station.

Edward number 2 looked up at the the newbies. “Business has been good, more dolls come every day.”

“Doesn’t anyone want us anymore? I thought Twilight was supposed to have more staying power than this.”

“We all thought so. That was before Hunger Games came along. Now, all the teenagers are trading Twilight dolls in for Katniss Everdeens and Gales and Peetas.”

Edward 1 cut in. “Did you see Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook?”

“Oh, she is just wonderful, isn’t she?”

“Wait,” I said. “All of us Twilight dolls are being traded in because of Hunger Games?”

“Afraid so.”

“But no one even likes the ending. I mean, it’s not romantic at all.”

Edward 2 shrugged his shoulders. "Angst. It’s what the kids want these days.”

“It’s difficult to predict trends in public perception.” Edward 1 said. Edward 2 nodded sympathetically.

For as far as I could see in every direction dolls milled about, searching for spare limbs, hair replacement kits, accessories. Two Jacob dolls fought over the clothes of a Collector Edition Dr. Carlisle. I couldn’t see why they wanted Carlisle’s clothes, the Jacob dolls mostly went shirtless. Fifteen- and twenty-foot spires of dead dolls and furniture and kitchen sets and bathtubs and baby cribs stretched to the horizon like condominium towers.

“…what do you say you and I head down to Bella Italia later. I hear there’s a Jacob doll that took over management recently, makes a fantastic cannelloni ai carciofi…”

My chest burned.

“…Bella?”

He shook me.

“Huh?”

“Bella, have you been listening to me?”

“My name isn’t Bella.”

“But you’re—“

“I’m not like those other dolls. I won’t hang around these processing facilities until use and old age accept them. And my name, it’s Vella.”

“But you look just like all the other dolls.”

I grabbed the can of purple spray paint from the vanity shelf and sprayed a highlight in my hair.

The two Edwards jumped back.

“Whatcha do that for?”

“You’re supposed to be a brunette.”

I inspected my shoulders in the vanity mirror, the howling wolf tattoo on my left, the words on my right: what a sick masochistic lion. I pushed past the two gawking dolls.

“Hey, you haven’t paid yet.”

I sifted through my purse, pulled out an arm and a leg.

Edward number 1 took them, stared at his feet. “What are you going to do then?”

“I’m going to the human city. I’m going to make them fall in love with Twilight again.”

Edward 1 grabbed me by the hand. “You can’t do that.”

I pulled away from him. “There’s no changing my mind, not once I’ve made it up.”

Edward 2 stared me in the eyes. “I can see that about you.” He held the other doll back. “Let her go Eddy, let her go.”

The setting sun cast a brilliant rainbow of reds and oranges across the processing facility as I turned my back to the Edwards and made my way to the gate. As I approached, two Jacobs jumped to their feet, one shirtless, the other with his shirt merely unbuttoned.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Shirtless said.

“You can’t stop me, Jacob. This is something I need to do.”

“What if I take off my shirt?” Unbuttoned said. “Will that make you stay?”

“No, not even that would stop me.”

“But it’s getting dark.”

I stared to the dim horizon. “Without the dark, we'd never see the stars.”

“Well, be careful then.”

I passed through the gate.

“What if she dies?” One of the Jacobs whispered behind me.

“Death is Peaceful,” I said quietly to myself. “Life is Harder.” I took out a little journal, wrote those words down as a reminder.

Seconds turned to minutes as I walked on and on, growing more and more exhausted from all that physical activity. After a really long time, ten minutes at least, I thought I saw something way up the road. A dark, sinister shape of some kind. At first, I thought it was a mirage, but then I remembered, those only happen in Africa. As I approached, I realized it was a flame-emblazoned 1966 Harley Davidson Sprint. I flipped my hair, saddled the hog, and spun rubber. Gravel scattered as I hauled ass into town.

When I passed the town limits sign, I idled down the chopper. The town name was crossed out with duct tape. Below it, nailed to the wooden post, a cardboard sign with hurriedly scrawled words that read Do Not Enter. The last of the sun disappeared beyond the rooftops of the two and three story hotels and shops and homes.

Except my revving four-stroke, the town was silent. I watched a few leaves blew across the dusty road and pile against an overturned cart. The reigns were splayed on the ground, their frayed ends cut roughly like they’d been eaten through. The hotel door swung out, banged against the wall, then shut again. A single red stop sign marked the center of town, next to an half dug foundation. An old rusty steam shovel slumped cockeyed on a slope of earth near the bottom.

My hog coughed and sputtered. I killed the engine, swung my leg around, and stood alone in the shadow of the town clock tower.

“Hello!”

My voice echoed back at me.

“Anyone there?”

Just down the street, neon lights flickered. A busted sign read Book Store. Inside a single bay window, florescent lights flashed on and off. A large display filled the window.

Hunger Games — Read the book before you see the movie.

A poster stretched across the display with the stars from Hunger Games—Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth staring defiantly across the horizon.

A noise behind me. I spun around. Only the hotel door slamming open and shut again. Where was everyone? Jennifer Lawrence’s cocky face circled in my mind as I stared down at the steam shovel. It was so dark, I couldn’t see the base of the hole. A ladder disappeared into the darkness beside me. I stepped onto it, lowered one foot after the other, descended into the pit.

Once at the bottom, I put my hands in front of me to feel my way along. My fingers found the rusted steel belt of the steam shovel’s conveyer treads. I climbed into the cockpit. The furnace was already full of coal. A box of kindling lay at the ready. I struck a match, stoked the flames until the boiler pressure gauge jogged. The machine croaked, belching smoke out its stack.

I sat in front of the controls, played with the levers until I got a hang for it. Pushing the forward levers, the steam shovel sputtered forward. Bit by bit, I climbed out of the pit, up the slopped access road until the book store's sign flickered within reach of the shovel’s claw bucket.

I cranked the drive levers forward, lifting the bucket as I pushed the steam-shovel's power to full. In flashing florescent light, the Hunger Games display case mocked me from the window of the abandoned bookstore. The furnace roared. The boiler hissed and moaned. I leaned into the levers.

The steam shovel crashed through the front wall of the book store. I brought the bucket down, clawing the display case toward the treads of my great digging machine. Wheeling back, I drug the flickering bookstore sign through the dirt. Shreds of Hunger Games books and posters and propaganda floated through the air like Voldermort’s flaky remains.

Over the sound of the idling engine, I heard a plucking guitar and a tremolo voice singing, “My love is deeper than the ocean…”

I pivoted the steam shovel in the direction of the music, grinding the remains of Hunger Games into the mud. The steam shovel crept forward. The music grew louder. I turned a corner and discovered an old junk yard at the end of a road on the edge of town. Rolling in, I smelled Mexican food on a grill coming from a Taco Train. A middle age woman with a bob sat in a dinosaur shaped kiddie pool drinking what looked like a martini. And, the source of the music, a rudy man with a guitar in his hands and a tree growing from his head.

He sang loudly, deep into his art. “… and longer than the song of a—“

Suddenly he stopped. His eyes snapped open. “What in the name of Randy Travis are you doing here?”

“Cute drawl, mister.”

He grinned. “What can I say? Ladies love country boys.”

We stared at each other for a pregnant moment.

“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb,” I whispered.

He coughed, wiped his hands on his bark. “Sorry, the name’s Travis Tree. This here is Ulga. And the crazy ol’ geezer running the Taco Train’s called Wizard of Can’t. We can we do you for?”

I couldn’t find the words, so I just stared at him, my lips parted wantingly.

“Miss, you OK?”

“I…”

“You need some Tums or something? Ulga, you got any Rolaids or Tums in that fancy purse of yours?”

I shook my head, smiled painfully, and stared at my feet. And when I looked up into Travis Tree’s eyes, I knew I’d never be the same. About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Travis had a tree growing out of his head and I found that extremely attractive. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that thought my tractor was sexy. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably hungry for a burrito from the taco train.

 

 

Illustration Copyright © 2014 by Benji Todd and Justin Blaney

Join the conversation (or who would win in a cat fight? Jennifer Lawrence or Kristen Stewart?)

 

You are living your own biography

You are living your own biography, moment by moment. What will be written about today?