Rows of beds like rows of graves.
I am working on a full-length novel closely based on my own life story. I will be uploading short previews, one to two pages in length, about once a month until the novel is completely finished. These previews will be drafts and don’t follow on in any order. Please bear in mind that the finished book version of these pages will most likely be a lot different. I hope, in uploading these drafts, I gain more of a following for my work and people will give feedback that I can use to improve the novel.
Why I’m Writing This Book
…
What makes our lives special?
Between five and seven million years ago our ancestors were taking their first steps away from the rest of the animal kingdom. One of our earliest achievements was the mastery of fire, yet it wasn’t mere flame that lit the way to our evolution. As human beings evolved we created tools, language, culture, and art, and we accomplished feats that far exceed the abilities of other creatures:
We discovered how to freeze time and capture moments in history through photography and videography. We learned how to create structures that scrape the sky. We have the…
These letters black, these pages white
These pages hold my mind tonight
Of stories bleak and stories strong
And stories short and much too long
And I am filled with this desire
To know their people, rough and mild
To sail their seas and find their land
And when its found, to start again
***
Through letters black and pages white
I travel through these pains and blight
In some we die, in some we live
Another page, our best to give
That every ink on letter laid
May never be found made in waste
But hold our worth, record…
As a culture and for the culture.
Not long ago, the word hustler tended to have a negative connotation attached to it. The first definition I recall assigning to the word myself was a person who conned, swindled, or schemed others out of valuables or assets. Those are the images the word subconsciously brought to mind when I was young, anyway.
The 1961 classic film ‘The Hustler’ starring Paul Newman may have played a part in how we as a society perceived and defined who and what a hustler was. Newman plays a small-time pool shark who uses his talent to target unsuspecting strangers out of money…
I knew you didn’t care less really.
by William Seavey
Life is truly amazing — from the smallest microbes and viruses to the most wildly intelligent (even genius-level ) full bodied human beings.
One reason why I don’t really think God is responsible for individual life forms is because all the variations that exist are “ethically neutral.” A coronaviris isn’t intrinsically evil any more than a rapacious corporate mogul is. (I admit, that’s quite a range in creation!)
And if somehow God has been a prime mover in establishing all life forms and even judges behaviors, well, evolution has likely long since taken over by now.
All…
My first foray into a new world. How everything went wrong.
To celebrate my graduation from high school I embarked on a trip to Costa Rica. This would be a big leap for me. Not once in my life had I traveled further than the Midwestern states of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. Yet this was the reason I wanted to go to Central America: it would mark a significant turning-point in my life, my first journey into a world of new experiences.
It would be my first time on an airplane, for one. …
And that’s for having the audacity to refer to myself as even one of the three, as of late.
I just reread the last thing I published and wondered at what point, I thought the world or anyone in it would find it even remotely unique or intriguing?
I literally didn’t make it through the entire re-read — and I wrote it. I lived through it. My reality created it. The same reality I wake up to each and every God-Forsaken, pandemic-dampened day.
So forgive me for not wanting to once again glance it all over, via a mediocre piece of writing. One I literally have no recollection of writing, nonetheless.
But you see, this piece of writing is…
Mediocrity is contagious
One of the first managers I ever had in my career was actually one of the best managers I’ve ever had. Betina was super demanding and a stickler for detail. She was the client lead on my accounts at this digital marketing agency, and she was responsible for the quality of work that went out from our team. So she made sure that every piece of work we ever delivered to a client was something we could be proud of.
And at the time I thought she was a proper pain in the £$%.
You don’t get to choose when to be excellent
Don’t get me wrong- I’ve never…
