Chad R. Mitchell's Blog, page 2

Wanted: Honesty

How to ask for an honest response when all you receive are opinions?

Recently we (Jen doing most of the legwork) began researching editors for both a re-edit of Tales 1 and someone to help as Tales 2 gets further along. We put the request up for bid on a editorial site and started getting bids.

What we asked for was a sample edit to gauge the work that the editor would deliver. And to see if there was a consistent finding on the errors that I have been told the first book contains.

We received several replies, all very helpful, some more than others and with varying levels of professionalism and skill. It was very hard to gauge who was wanting the work and yet honest enough to tell the truth where the writing needed work. Some just claimed it was a great story and only had small amounts of errors, others were very detail oriented and stuck to the details… and then there was one… a hyper critical review that went above and beyond what was asked.

Suffice it to say that it was a beating to my pride, and a complete teardown of my entire first chapter. I tried to rise above it, to take the criticism and learn from it… but some of what she said seemed to be the opposite of every other editor I have worked with… And against the opinions of other writers/editors/readers had said about my writing.

I don’t claim to be the finest writer that has ever lived, but I do know how to weave a yarn, tell a tale, craft a story… I’ve critiqued, been criticized, sat in countless writer’s circles and have yet to hear the particular opinions expressed by this editor.

Now part of me thinks that maybe she is the only honest opinion I have received. That maybe the story is completely flawed, needs to be torn down, pulled offline and rewritten.

But part of me wonders if this is just an opinion. And that even though some of the tips may be good, it may also be more attributed to taste and style. A difference in what one likes, isn’t a reason to rewrite years worth of work…

But I do want my book to rise above where it currently stands. I want it to be as flawless and perfect as it can be… to be sure in my heart that any criticism is just a difference in taste, and not an obvious typo, misplaced comma, or confusing sentence structure.

So… I really would love any and all honest feedback. Give it to me straight. Tell me what I need to hear so I can make it better.

C

Write every day…

I really struggle with discipline. As you may have noticed from my last blog post yesterday… and the previous one several months before.

So today I am once again renewing/redoubling/re-energizing my efforts to get the content out. Thanks to those of you that responded and encouraged me to continue.

I’ve written a few paragraphs in book 2. It is actually much farther along than I remembered. I just have to keep it moving on, even if I only get down a paragraph, rather than a chapter or two. It’s all helpful to the end result.

And I am writing this. It feels like a spring cleaning, clearing out the cobwebs before attempting the remodel…

I had fun writing the the epilogue to Tales 2 yesterday. I have been wanting to write it for so long but wanted to wait until I had finished the rest first. But then I decided to play with it now… to tease out the ending and give myself something to look forward to… It’s a driving force to finish… and then start book 3.

I get ahead of myself though… I have to finish Book 2 first… But I am looking forward to book 3,4,5,6,7,8 and eventually 9. It’s all finished in my head… but to tell it to others I must have discipline.

So disciplined I will be, in my scatterbrained way…

A small piece for the few of you reading this… from book two… A moment of peace for the Princess.

“At first the heat was almost too much, and she could barely stand the pain, but as she grew more accustomed to it she relaxed and enjoyed the experience. She found soap on a small tray beside the tub and she scrubbed her hair and skin until she felt cleaner than she ever had before. She closed her eyes and felt the water envelop her like a blanket until it finally began to grow cold.”

 

 

Ambition, Anticipation, and the eventual letdown.

I am all drive.

I am ambition, desire, and dreams.

I dream when I wake up. I dream when I am talking, walking, driving, and living. I dream more than I do…

And when I do. When I fulfill my ambitions… Well… I am usually disappointed.

Dreams do come true, and they’ve come true for me so often… I am spoiled rotten by everything. I am given a lot and I constantly want more.

Selfishness. Maybe.

Greed. Perhaps.

But I think I just dream too big. I think of these scenarios that may never be reached. And if they do I probably wouldn’t be happy because by then I’d have new dreams.

First World Problems. I know.

But I have to express my discontent… My never ending desire for something else. For a dream that evolves, to constantly be met.

But first I really need to learn contentment. To appreciate the reality of dreams. To be thankful for the things that I receive. I really am taking a long time to learn this lesson. At first I thought I just needed to learn patience, but that isn’t the lesson I need to learn. I need to learn to temper my ambition with appreciation. I need to be glad for the good, while still striving for more… without giving up.

Because that is what I do when the dreams don’t fulfill. I rant and rave and throw my arms in the air and accept that I will never succeed. I throw temper tantrums like a child. An excellent example for my darling daughter.

Disappointment eats me alive. And I have to learn to accept it.

So this is a public confession. Just a broad apology and acceptance of my own shortcomings.

But this fire burns so hot inside of me… and I really can’t give up. I feel I may burn up… but giving up is not an option. I just have to temper it with cooling breezes. Fan the flames, but keep them from burning out of control.

This is not really a blog post. More of a venting, rambling, flow of thoughts. It is cathartic and I needed to write something.

Maybe if I can get this out, I can do something productive… Maybe work on those dreams.

Book 2. Can it be done?

Chad

Excuse me while I diss this guy…

The voice rang out in the air conditioned air.

“GRANDE!”

“Yes, grande coffee,” the other voice responded at a more appropriate level.

“GRANDE!” the hands indicated the size animatedly. “GRANDE! GRANDE DRIP… DRIP COFFEE”

“Okay, and your name.”

The accent was subtle and clean. This was Starbucks after all. They usually hire English speakers for the tourist clientele.

I mean to be honest, great coffee exists everywhere in Portugal. Get an espresso, or doble café for only 50 cents. Why bother with the familiar when you can have the real thing.

But then why was I here? Waiting to order behind the loud and obnoxious upturned collar wearing, flip flop causal dude with his brutal voice and North American accent.

Wasn’t I the same as he? Even if I wore my alternative clothes, had ink upon my skin, and attempted to muddle some Portugese on occasion.

“I SAID GRANDE!”

No this was not the same as me. He pushed his frame over the counter, smiling a self assured and condescending smile, assuring the lady behind the bar that he was the real deal. His cocky attitude must have worked on some other witless young lady. Another girl stood off to the side and admired his ordering skills. He triumphantly marched over to her with a saunter that she crooned for.

I visibly shook my head, and tsk-tsked in disgust. I was two behind the line and was so self aware. I treaded lightly while in foreign lands, I tried to do as the locals do, I hung out at hostels and drank cheap wine for goodness sake. Starbucks aside, it was a guilty pleasure.

I think the girl caught me shaking my head and muttered it in his ear. He looked back at me and smiled. It was surprisingly genuine and unencumbered. But that upturned collar, it got me every time.

I looked away in disgust and moved up to the counter. My righteous indignation to show that I was not the same visitor who knew no better.

“Grande, Grande Americano…” I muttered

 

C.

Judge not.

Fortune and Glory

 

So far this blog has been focused on Tales, writing experiences, author frustrations, and general rantings of the literary nature.

Today I have decided to write more frequently, about more subjects, and share my experiences as I experience them. The writing project is moving forward, book 2 by the end of summer is still the plan, and I am dabbling with “the novel” once again.

But I want more content, more writing exercises, and even more challenges than I already face.

So here I will lay myself bare and attempt to describe to you, dear reader, the thoughts of the road, the trials of the journey, and the passing whimsies of a man who hasn’t got it all quite sorted out yet.

So to jump right on in…

Today I am in Lisbon, Portugal. An old city, with old history, and old buildings. There are even old people here, you can feel it in their stares, even the young. Any culture is older than America, this is not a lie, and ever since first leaving those shores, many years ago, I have been humbled by the past, ever present, in these older cultures.

My home, the US of A, is really so very young. It is plainly evident that we know not what we say or do, that we are still just waiting for the ink to dry on the creation of 200 or so years. Sure the founding fathers based our current present on old history, legend, and lore. But they really were just starting something new, and grand though it may be, it is still but a babe in infancy compared to these old sages.

So the cobbled streets wear on my new shoes, and I try to relate in hostels, bars, and places to eat. But I am but a fumbling, bumbling, misspoken youth, who expects everyone to speak in a language I can understand.

I have lamented, once or twice, that the world is all explored, that the continents have been discovered, and the stars are the only frontier for the future. I have daydreamed of pasts long gone, where ships were made of wood, and the wind was the only power to move them fast along the sea. I have read of the great explorers, the Polos, Columbus’, and Cooks, of long gone years. The men who braved a never-returning journey across the deep blue, hoping for treasure, fortune, and glory…

But those times have passed and I see the detailed maps that I hold on my digital device. They pinpoint, in 3D, the buildings that stand in swarming cities, places that once were bare. I see the choices, to go where so many have gone before, and the familiar unfamiliarity of somewhere only a plane ride away.

But that’s not really what the problem is… It isn’t that the world is too connected, that it has all been done before, that there is no new territory… The problem is that I stay a tourist in a foreign land. The American in me says to go, eat, stay safe, follow my GPS route to the next corner, and avoid the common folk. I hover inside hostels, meet others just like me, and I lament the loss of the unvisited terrain.

This week the three of us got lost.

We had a map out in front of us, we knew exactly where we were going, and we followed the blue dot to somewhere else than we intended entirely. We perspired over a long walk, and argued about whether or not we were safe in the unfamiliar. We closed our eyes and tried to make it quickly past the ugly, the different, and the foreign. We ran as fast as we could to where the world was flat, and away from the dangerous edge. And then we stopped.

This was not the way for us.

Today and yesterday we walked, we did not drive, take a muni, metro, or bus… and we walked into a place where women covered their faces in what we are told is a fearsome attire. I saw the dark faces, the arabic writing on the wall, and we ordered food unfamiliar. And we enjoyed it, and we smiled, and we grew. And we did it again, got lost, on purpose, and randomly walked in a place where English was not heard, and we listened, and attempted to be heard in something that was not our tongue. These places were nearby, but we traveled. These places were not something in any guidebook, so we explored. These places are nameless, and exciting, and new and… truly foreign.

This is the way to truly see, and to explore, and to learn. For this young American has lots to learn, and to see, and listen to… The world is small, yet so big, and it only takes getting lost once in a while to see the adventure so close at hand.

C

“Fortune and Glory Kid, Fortune and Glory” Indiana Jones

A stranger returns… and Hemingway turns…

First off.

Go buy my book. Make it yours. Buy it HERE on Amazon.

It’s in print and in digital editions…

Okay. Good. Now that you’ve bought it and supported this starving artist please read it and then write a review. And then write me and tell me what you think. And then tell your friends to read…

Have I asked enough of you yet?

No? Good.

Now subscribe to the blog. And tell your friends as well.

Now, I’ll stop asking favors.

On a beach in Curacao

A few days ago we went to Hemingway’s bar. It was a little cafe on the side of a beach, next to a resort, and a decent spot of sorts. It had a little charm, too expensive eats, and drinks, but it served a purpose. Some, if not most, of the better beaches on this Dutch island charge entry for their spot of sand. But this one we finagled a free visit by buying a drink and a snack. The water was as cool and refreshing as it looked. Clear as crystal till it deepened to blue lagoon beautiful.

They say Hemingway was a traveling man. He used his journey’s to inspire his art. He turned his adventures into opportunities. He did it while traveling with a young babe and wife. One of his last, (if not his very last) works was “A Movable Feast.” I read it years ago while still planning on making the escape to foreign soil. He spoke of his daydreams, his ambitions, and his desire to be a great writer. He would toil in coffee shops, around artisans, poets, and creatures of the night. He would not write. He would dream of writing, and becoming famous, and would rub alongside those who were… But he didn’t write as much as he should, or as well as he could. He procrastinated and lived the scene. But he wasn’t the scene.

I find that inspiring, and humbling, and reassuring, and motivating. Here is the much younger man, pen in hand, and staring the stars. His daydreams and desires unfulfilled. Eventually he did write. But he had to fumble through the foolishness. He had to earn his way in…

At times, most often, I procrastinate far more than I actually write. A major part of the reason that we hit the road is to have more time to focus on the page. But yet I still waste time.

I argue with myself. “Writing is something that can’t be forced!” I mutter with an almost anger when pressed to focus on my art. “It’s been a long day…” “I have to focus on my work.” “It’s too hot.” “It’s too cold.” “I’m tired.” “I am too full of energy.” The excuses flow and if they were my work of art, then I would be very productive. And those times, that I actually do the deed… well, I post about it. I talk about how I wrote a page, or two, and that I am back in the seat. That I have the gusto and the muse and the dream.

And that is where I am at today. Part two of the Tales is moving forward. I edited even. I wrote a little bit more! Listen to me crow and take part in my great deeds…

But alas… That was two days ago, or was it three? And I am trumpeting my small piece as if I actually progressed. And I sit here. And think about the great writer that someday I will be… and I am not moving… But I think that I would like a bar named after me… Someday…

C.

From A Tale of Green Cities. (Book two in the Tales of Terrezial saga)

“A town of strangers where no one asked any questions, and no one gave anything away for free.”

The heat of the sun.

And it is done.

We are on the road. With luggage in tow. A child in hand. We have made the plunge to jump off of a ledge that most dream is never there.

But it is there. The chasm. The great and expanding distance from here to there. A divide, that exists between all cultures, countries, peoples…

But the divide is greatest between US and THEM. The U.S. and the Rest-Of-The-World.

The fear of what is out there keeps us Americans home. Well at least those of us without a gun and a flag and a desire to promote “Democracy.”

The travelers among us are given dirty looks, questioning phrases, and worst of all, a glazed and bored expression. They wonder why we want to explore those dangerous place, the dirty streets, and the backwards world. Maybe France they say… Or possibly England. There you can find a safe haven that is similar enough to enjoy…

But why off the beaten path? Why the less developed? Why the poor and the weak and the beggars that would seek to do us harm?

And there are moments I wonder why as well.

Since leaving the US of A, I have had many moments of fear and doubt. I have been plagued by uncertainty that what we were doing, what we had done before, was not doable any more. I almost believed that the fear of leaving, with a child this time, would be the fear that kept us there…

But stubbornness is a trait at times.

Despite the difficulties we now face: Kid got sick, planes cancelled, sleep depravation at an all time high… We power on. We face the fire. We taste the sun. And then it hits me…

This is The Road.

Hardships are to be expected. It is what it really is all about. To feel yourself walking through the fire. Being refined, being awakened, coming alive.

It is an adventure. An exciting ordeal. And I feel the fires burning. It does not come from the tropical sun. It comes from within, and without, from the great creator. And I feel my pen hand burning. Ready to write, to read, to travel, to live, to spend every moment until I burst, pursuing some unseen ideal.

C

 

The night fast approaches…

Or is it the dawn?

I write more at night. I am a night owl.

I love the daylight for doing, seeing, acting…

The night draws me inwards. I either waste it watching mediocre, mindless television, or I write.

The writing is far more productive.

This is my last week at work and I have begun saying my goodbyes. I genuinely enjoy the place I have been employed, and I love the company and what it stands for. This is a rather shocking fact. I have always fought against the idea of being “loyal” to a brand. Especially a place of work. But this has been different and I feel blessed to be part of something that is so very unique.

The most exciting thing about leaving, besides the opportunity to travel, and live, and spend time with my family, is that I will have more time to write.

I am feeling inspired.

Not that I have ever really had a “dry spell,” or “writer’s block.” No. I am not one to lack ideas. I have a million a minute. Far too many to write them all down. But usually I am lazy, and don’t stop long enough to finish the thought. Now that the adventure is at the door, and our bags are all but packed, I am ready to start writing again. I had to put it on hold, there was simply too much to be done. But now that our planning and preparations are reaching a finale I am finding the overwhelming urge to write unbearable.

I have this idea. To write the second Tales novel before the end of summer. Finish it while in Portugal.

Then I want to write the Novel. Take a small break from the Tales universe. Just long enough to get  ”A Tale of Green Cities” edited. I think I could finish this other story in a month, perhaps two, and then send it to be tidied up as well. It is a love story set against the backdrop of travel, and a memoir of sorts.

I also have another 3 part story. It would be a great graphic novel. I need to find an artist. But I want to get it down quick. I picture it as a series of novellas until then. Imagine cowboy western after death shadowlands type of thing… I hate to reveal too much…

There is another story, I can’t see it clearly quite yet. But something is percolating in the back of my head. I think it has to do with clockwork, and the future, and time, and the inevitable end. But there’s more. I haven’t seen it all yet.

In the meantime I continue to focus on travel writing, band bios, reviews, building a travel site. Jenny is growing as a writer and I am proud to be writing alongside her. Expect our travel site to be a faster moving project than this dusty old blog.

Two other things: Building my grammar skills has got to be a priority. Going to take online workshops to hone my craft. I am sorry you have to deal with my lack of good grammar.

And… Last but not least… Any advice on starting and running a bungalow resort in Thailand is helpful. Surely someone out there has great input?

Cheers,

C

I really need to write something longer than…

This short blog post.

I sold 6 copies of my book this week. Makes for a nice week. I even sold a couple Kindle versions… Makes me a tad bit encouraged. Every purchase is a step in the general direction of success.

Also I was invited to speak at a book club. They are reading my book. That makes me smile… out of nervousness and fear.

I am very excited to start focusing on my writing once again. I love the exercises in travel writing I have had… but I have some stories to tell… And I will tell them.

But first I have a life to live. To pursue the adventures that are soon to come as we set out around the world. Heading toward sight unseen, with a hope, and a dream.

Also I wrote a small review on a travel bag.

http://wp.me/p2YQJ8-8k

Keeping the wheel well tuned.

C

 

Take a trip

Sometimes I am a terrible writer.

As in I don’t write at all.

And other times, I manage to fulfill what I call myself. I don’t have much to write here. I exhausted the nightly expenditure. It’s about travel, family, and being away from the one’s you love.

http://andthreetogo.wordpress.com/201...

I promise to write a lot more soon. I am going to startle the world with what I do. I am going to write and write and write. Not all of it will be stunning, not all of it will be perfection. But it will continue to come.

READ.

 

C.