Matthew Holmes's Blog

During the course of the past several months, I've encountered a number of struggles here in Prague - with work, moving, and the ever-present issue of residency visa extension. In brief, it's been a challenging time in my recent existence and I've done a lot of quiet reflection during my long walks around the city. Mostly, I've been trying to understand why I feel so anxious about the entire situation...I mean, in the overall view of things, losing my residency visa here wouldn't be the most disruptive thing in my life (since I have moved all over the US and Europe during the past 15 years without really ever 'anchoring' anywhere) and I'm no stranger to issues/stress with work. So what gives? Why am I so out of sorts now?

Then, as I was strolling along the edge of a park that borders a fairly industrial area of the city - not exactly a 'pretty' place - I came to the realization that I was somehow happier looking at the crappy railroad tracks and run down buildings in front of me that I might have been in any other place I've lived before. I realized I was 'happy' here, and by extension, happy with my life exactly as it is. I'm not a terribly demanding person when it comes to happiness, but I can honestly say that living here in Prague is the first time that I've every experienced the general equilibrium of true happiness. So, there's that...

But then, after I had put my finger on the root of my angst, I was left with a nagging question - was I truly 'satisfied' with my life? I stopped and thought about it for a while and, as I watched people walk by with the company of their dogs, or their children, or maybe just their headphones blaring some crappy pop music, I decided that I wasn't satisfied - at least not in any permanent sense. If you think about it, you can be satisfied with the purchase of a new television, or a meal, or maybe even with a business transaction. But in all these situations, 'satisfaction' references whether something "meets or exceeds your expectations" - as when you receive a 'customer satisfaction' questionnaire that asks you a number of questions to which the optimal answer could be that whatever you bought performed 'better than expected' or 'completely met your needs'....but, when in the history of the world has anyone honestly thought that everything their entire life was optimal and that NOTHING in their life could be even slightly improved in any way? I sure haven't.

I then realized that I don't think I could ever feel truly satisfied in anything more than a transient sense - it would be the death of dreams and hopes and wishes and all the things that motivate me to get out of bed. In this sense, satisfaction would be the root of a spiral into depression and death for me. I can't even begin to imagine the boredom and frustration I would feel if there was no challenge in life laying ahead of me and that it had all been done. As I thought this, I smiled to myself and felt even happier with my present life - in spite of its challenges, I always feel like there is something to do and that I can somehow move forward.

I enjoy the personal peace that I find in my general happiness here in Prague. I thrive on learning the culture and language and forming great relationships here. I look forward to future challenges such as moving to Paris or Berlin in the future and starting over again.

But I hope that I NEVER feel satisfied...

During the course of the past several months, I've encountered a number of struggles here in Prague - with work, moving, and the ever-present issue of residency visa extension.  In brief, it's been a challenging time in my recent existence and I've done a lot of quiet reflection during my long walks around the city.  Mostly, I've been trying to understand why I feel so anxious about the entire situation...I mean, in the overall view of things, losing my residency visa here wouldn't be the most disruptive thing in my life (since I have moved all over the US and Europe during the past 15 years without really ever 'anchoring' anywhere) and I'm no stranger to issues/stress with work.  So what gives?  Why am I so out of sorts now?  

Then, as I was strolling along the edge of a park that borders a fairly industrial area of the city - not exactly a 'pretty' place - I came to the realization that I was somehow happier looking at the crappy railroad tracks and run down buildings in front of me that I might have been in any other place I've lived before.  I realized I was 'happy' here, and by extension, happy with my life exactly as it is.  I'm not a terribly demanding person when it comes to happiness, but I can honestly say that living here in Prague is the first time that I've every experienced the general equilibrium of true happiness. So, there's that...

But then, after I had put my finger on the root of my angst, I was left with a nagging question - was I truly 'satisfied' with my life?  I stopped and thought about it for a while and, as I watched people walk by with the company of their dogs, or their children, or maybe just their headphones blaring some crappy pop music, I decided that I wasn't satisfied - at least not in any permanent sense.  If you think about it, you can be satisfied with the purchase of a new television, or a meal, or maybe even with a business transaction.  But in all these situations, 'satisfaction' references whether something "meets or exceeds your expectations" - as when you receive a 'customer satisfaction' questionnaire that asks you a number of questions to which the optimal answer could be that whatever you bought performed 'better than expected' or 'completely met your needs'....but, when in the history of the world has anyone honestly thought that everything their entire life was optimal and that NOTHING in their life could be even slightly improved in any way?  I sure haven't.  

I then realized that I don't think I could ever feel truly satisfied in anything more than a transient sense - it would be the death of dreams and hopes and wishes and all the things that motivate me to get out of bed.  In this sense, satisfaction would be the root of a spiral into depression and death for me.  I can't even begin to imagine the boredom and frustration I would feel if there was no challenge in life laying ahead of me and that it had all been done.  As I thought this, I smiled to myself and felt even happier with my present life - in spite of its challenges, I always feel like there is something to do and that I can somehow move forward.  

I enjoy the personal peace that I find in my general happiness here in Prague.  I thrive on learning the culture and language and forming great relationships here.  I look forward to future challenges such as moving to Paris or Berlin in the future and starting over again.

But I hope that I NEVER feel satisfied...

I didn’t exactly realize this until the other night, after several glasses of wine, when I was trying to console one of my students who had become stressed with work. In brief, she was focused on all the frustrating things in her life and was generally avoiding taking account of all the good ‘stuff’ that was going on. So, like a good ‘big brother’, I reminded her that some large percentage of people in the world have significantly worse problems than she did - there are people who are blind, missing limbs, homeless, persecuted and imprisoned, uneducated, hungry, at war, etc. The World we live in isn’t actually a very pretty picture when you think about it - and certainly not a painting. But still, I got on my soapbox and unabashedly reminded her of how lucky she is to be able to 'only' have work-stress as a ‘problem’ in life just now. I went on to remind her that I’m 20 years older than she is and that I’ve seen many worse things in life and, if she would just put everything in perspective, work-stress is probably, actually, a ‘good’ thing....I mean, after all, if you have no other concerns to distract you from the stress you feel with work, then you are probably largely safe, secure and healthy - right?

She smiled and nodded and graciously accepted my ‘I’m older than you lecture’ but I realized that I wasn’t making my point very well or very clearly so I thought about how to better frame my argument to her. I reflected that, in a way, I was actually mildly jealous of how well her life was going at such a young age in comparison to how rocky my younger career and educational life had been. Then I again thought about perspective...and paintings....and how life is not at all like some beautiful painting. But it is a painting of sorts - at least in the way that we should look at it. What I mean is that when you look at a great painting (a Picasso, a Rembrandt, a Chagall, or whatever your particular preference), you don’t stand six inches away from the picture and stare at a tiny section of it....you step far back so that you can take it all in and absorb the way the artist captured his/her ideas on canvas. The imperfections in the surface and the sharp variations in color blend together at a distance to become something beautiful and engaging. But - when we look at our troubles in life, we are looking from 6 inches away because we are so intimate with the daily realities of our own existence; we only see the tiny patch of imperfection in our life’s painting.

I explained the ‘life as a painting’ analogy to her and what I was trying to say seemed to suddenly gel in her mind - and in mine, as well. While I was talking, I had the revelation that I spend so much time wrapped up in my life that, even though I am a keen watcher of the world around me, I somehow manage to miss looking at my life in perspective....its seems to be a perfect explanation of how and why the grass always seems to be greener on the other side of the fence; because when we look at others’ lives, we can see all of the beauty and harmony that they miss as they are focused on the tiny squares of imperfection that are troubling them. Hmmmm.

Well, anyway, it was an epiphany of sorts for me and maybe for my student also - so I just figured I’d share it...not because we haven’t all thought that we should focus less on the negative but maybe because we haven’t considered how and why we do it. And if we each just take a step back and appreciated the entire painting of our respective lives, then maybe we’d all be just a little bit happier each day. So, at the risk of sounding all 'Forrest-Gumpy', life is a painting.

There’s gotta be some kind of a story in there... :-)

I didn’t exactly realize this until the other night, after several glasses of wine, when I was trying to console one of my students who had become stressed with work.  In brief, she was focused on all the frustrating things in her life and was generally avoiding taking account of all the good ‘stuff’ that was going on.  So, like a good ‘big brother’, I reminded her that some large percentage of people in the world have significantly worse problems than she did - there are people who are blind, missing limbs, homeless, persecuted and imprisoned, uneducated, hungry, at war, etc.  The World we live in isn’t actually a very pretty picture when you think about it - and certainly not a painting.  But still, I got on my soapbox and unabashedly reminded her of how lucky she is to be able to 'only' have work-stress as a ‘problem’ in life just now.  I went on to remind her that I’m 20 years older than she is and that I’ve seen many worse things in life and, if she would just put everything in perspective, work-stress is probably, actually, a ‘good’ thing....I mean, after all, if you have no other concerns to distract you from the stress you feel with work, then you are probably largely safe, secure and healthy - right?

She smiled and nodded and graciously accepted my ‘I’m older than you lecture’ but I realized that I wasn’t making my point very well or very clearly so I thought about how to better frame my argument to her.   I reflected that, in a way, I was actually mildly jealous of how well her life was going at such a young age in comparison to how rocky my younger career and educational life had been.  Then I again thought about perspective...and paintings....and how life is not at all like some beautiful painting.  But it is a painting of sorts - at least in the way that we should look at it.  What I mean is that when you look at a great painting (a Picasso, a Rembrandt, a Chagall, or whatever your particular preference), you don’t stand six inches away from the picture and stare at a tiny section of it....you step far back so that you can take it all in and absorb the way the artist captured his/her ideas on canvas.   The imperfections in the surface and the sharp variations in color blend together at a distance to become something beautiful and engaging.  But  - when we look at our troubles in life, we are looking from 6 inches away because we are so intimate with the daily realities of our own existence; we only see the tiny patch of imperfection in our life’s painting.

I explained the ‘life as a painting’ analogy to her and what I was trying to say seemed to suddenly gel in her mind - and in mine, as well.  While I was talking, I had the revelation that I spend so much time wrapped up in my life that, even though I am a keen watcher of the world around me, I somehow manage to miss looking at my life in perspective....its seems to be a perfect explanation of how and why the grass always seems to be greener on the other side of the fence; because when we look at others’ lives, we can see all of the beauty and harmony that they miss as they are focused on the tiny squares of imperfection that are troubling them.  Hmmmm. 

Well, anyway, it was an epiphany of sorts for me and maybe for my student also - so I just figured I’d share it...not because we haven’t all thought that we should focus less on the negative but maybe because we haven’t considered how and why we do it.  And if we each just take a step back and appreciated the entire painting of our respective lives, then maybe we’d all be just a little bit happier each day.   So, at the risk of sounding all 'Forrest-Gumpy', life is a painting.

There’s gotta be some kind of a story in there...  :-)

I awoke at 4:45am today and my head was full of thoughts - some of them were about character lines in my current book or potential future short stories, but mostly my brain was furiously attacking the issue of my current and protracted battle with the Czech government to renew my visa.  Apparently, I don’t have enough documented income to survive here for a variety of ‘technical’ reasons that I find amusing and stupid.  I survive just fine here.  I pay my bills and have a good and happy life.  Whatever, the battle rages on...but everything in life is fodder for a writer and my personal residency struggle got me thinking about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. 

Remember that pyramid your teacher probably first showed you in Science or Social Studies class when you were in eighth grade?  It summarizes the component layers of ‘need’ in human existence, starting at the bottom with basics such as ‘food, clothing & shelter’ and moving to “I’m the King of the World” style self-actualization at the top level.  Rah.  I’ve included a sample image here - take a moment to look it over and particularly enjoy that the author of this chart as inserted ‘sex’ as a basic need, hee hee.  But let’s not get sidetracked...this chart seems to say that once we have basics (such as sex - sorry, I just couldn’t resist), we require/pursue security , then love & belonging , then self-esteem , then self-actualization .  In essence, we cannot be happy people unless we have all the building blocks to allow us to find ‘meaning’ in life.  Uh, yeah.  I laughed to myself as I lay in bed, half-awake, thinking about this...don’t judge - I am a writer, which means I regularly lie in bed, half-conscious, laughing to myself as I think about stuff.

Anyway, I realized that I don’t know where I am on this chart and I’m completely happy with my life (with the exception of the visa thing, which I think falls under food/shelter or security).  But I think I’m a bit different from other people, often finding myself jumping from the airplane and yelling Jeronimo before I check to make sure I’m wearing a parachute. 

So what does Maslow offer for ‘normal’ people in life?  Think about this for a moment: if everyone were stuck at the food/shelter level, would there be wars, abuse of power, persecution of minorities, etc.?  Maybe you say ‘hell yeah - there were wars between cavemen, wars in the middle ages, and ruthless leaders all throughout history and before’.  But wait - the root of all conflict has always centered around leadership of some sort.  If everybody were solely focused on shelter and sex (let’s not forget sex!) then maybe there wouldn’t be so much gratuitous violence and persecution in the world. 

It seems like Maslow’s hierarchy is just a different way of identifying social inequity than common benchmarks such as financial or political power?  I mean, how many times have you seen a homeless guy in a subway preaching about the need to enforce democracy and equal rights in the Middle East or about whether Russia and Ukraine should be united?  You haven’t!  Because the homeless guy in the subway is only worried about his next meal and a safe place to sleep.  While I’m not saying that’s a favorable means of living, I quietly wonder if all the global powerbrokers had to live this way for a bit, whether they’d care less about subordinating populations and ‘establishing a legacy’?  For a little dark humor, just think about this - imagine Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and whoever is currently leading ISIS (the radical Islamic sect trying to kill its way to power in Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc) all panhandling for lunch money on a city street and then having to snuggle together at night in a cold subway station to keep warm. 

It’d be a different world, eh?

But forget all that for now and imagine that the majority of the world falls somewhere in the ‘middle’ of Maslow’s hierarcy - searching for love and belonging - which is how leaders get the power to foment unrest in the first place.   So, maybe we should all just a look in the mirror and start being happier with who we are...if you’re reading this, you probably aren’t homeless so you’ve got basic shelter.  And in my honest opinion, if you and the people you care about are all reasonably healthy then you are basically doing ‘okay’ in life...and that’s good enough to make me happy every day.

What about you?

...when you've 'Made it' in life?  I've been thinking about this for many years and I'm no closer to the answer now than when I first realized, as a child, that one day I would grow up and venture out into the big wide world on my own.  Okay, full disclosure - I'm not quite sure that I'm all grown up yet, even at almost forty...but I'm still trying to figure out what 'Making it' in life really means?

When I was a kid, I was cock-sure that all I had to do in life was go to college, get an MBA, join a consultancy, travel the world, marry a pretty girl, have 2.4 kids, 1.8 cars, 2 dogs, a cat, and a house in the suburbs...then I would have it all, right?  Er...I'm not so sure.  I got the MBA, I traveled around Europe, I married the pretty girl, I got 1 dog I and a good job and lived in the suburbs...and WHAP!  Before I even made it to the kids or the second dog, it all started to sort of unravel.  Work was taking more from me than it was giving, my wife and I separated, our dog died, we got divorced, I had a bad car accident (someone ran a stop sign and t-boned me), I left the job, had back surgery, spent six months in physical rehab...and then I looked in the mirror and couldn't figure out who I was or what I was living for anymore.  So I changed the game.

I sold and/or gave away all my stuff, moved to LA with my best friend and still...nope - just wasn't feeling it.  Life wasn't exactly inspiring me to leap from bed every morning.  Then while working in a furniture shop out there, I almost completely severed my right thumb on a table saw.  OUCH.  By the grace of God, it was quickly reattached and healed without infection but it was the final straw for me.  I bought a ticket to Czech Republic, signed up for a TEFL (English Teaching Certification) class and headed overseas.  And life was...weird.  But being completely alone in a country where I didn't speak the language gave me time to think...if I could just translate the thinking to writing then I'd crank out a book in no time, I thought.   FYI - books take time.  

Eventually, after a year, I managed to complete/edit and publish my first book.  About halfway through the second currently and finally starting to feel like I'm doing what I want in life.  I'm pretty sure I'll never get 'rich' being an author, but it is enjoyable brain exercise and I hope that in time that it'll at least 'pay some of the bills' :-)  In the meantime, in retrospect, I'm thankful for all the crap that made me run away to Prague...it helped me to find who I was all along but somehow missed out on while I was trying to 'Make it' in life.

But one think still nags me - when I go check on thepiratebay or other piracy sites, I still don't see any copies of my 7200 Days ebook there?  If nobody is pirating my stuff yet, have I really 'Made it' in life?  I guess time will tell :-P

10. You’re often drawn into deep conversations about life and the root of happiness...with yourself

9. The voices in your head are often more interesting than the voices of people around you

8.  You are constantly eavesdropping in search of plotlines or characters for a story

7.  When packing, you sacrifice ‘essentials’ (such as socks & underwear?!) to fit a journal in your bag

6.  Your friends are all secretly jealous of your freedom...and equally frightened you’ll die penniless

5.  The clerk at the discount store knows you as ‘the guy/girl who lives on canned vegetables’

4.  You feverishly check your ‘junk’ email daily hoping there’ll be a reply from a query letter you sent

3.  You find yourself constantly wanting to correct grammar and spelling on others’ Facebook posts

2.  Unless you’ve got plans, your ‘uniform’ is sweatpants, fluffy socks, slippers and a bulky sweater

1.  Your parents introduce you using whatever college degree you’ve earned in place of a profession

     If you find yourself displaying any, or indeed all, of the above signs consistently, either get medical help or start writing :-P   

     But this is just my list...what’s yours?

I woke up this morning and scanned the world news on my iPhone while I was laying in bed waiting for my body to be ready to move - it’s a bit of a ritual for me once the weather turns cold since I have a titanium plate in my spine and, somehow, my back always takes a few extra minutes to ‘wake up’ between the months of October and March...  Anyway, I generally get little news from the US since I live in the Czech Republic, and I was surprised to read about the death of a terminally-ill woman who had taken her life under a ‘right to die’ law in Washington State.  You can link to the article here , but in essence she made the decision to take her own life based upon the inevitability of a horrible and debilitating death from an aggressive brain cancer.  Before she died, she spent the waning months of her life traveling, exploring and being with her family and close friends in order to squeeze every last moment of quality from her remaining time. 

I felt conflicted on several counts as I read the article - not about her or her actions so much as about the general state of society: the fact that a terminally ill woman has to seek legal protection in order to secure the right to die before her body decays around her is disturbing in itself.  But, I suppose that I was even more struck by the idea that the vast majority of the militantly ‘pro life’ people out there who attempt to assert the views/beliefs and regulations on others aren’t actually living their own lives.  What I mean to say is that if you are so dedicated to a cause (any cause) that it becomes the focal point of your existence, then are you really living your life?  I don’t think that life is just about leaving a mark on the world - it’s got to be about understanding and appreciating and soaking in the people and moments that comprise your world.  If you think about the people who are most revered in history, I believe that very few of them set out with the explicit goal of changing the world (okay, Roman emperors and sociopathic WWII German politicians aside); rather that many of them were simply living life as they saw it and that greatness ‘occurred’ around them.

But, forget politics and ‘changing the world’ stuff for a moment and let’s go back to the story of this woman - just think about the fact that she spent her last days on earth trying to spend every moment as quality time with the people she was close to, learning and doing new things in spite of the futility of her experiences and knowledge amounting to anything long-term.  Now think about your life.  While I was sitting and writing, while you were watching TV or reading, while your kids were playing and people were lying homeless in the subways and wars were being waged in the Middle and Near East, she was taking her life.  I don’t mean it as any kind of statement - just that death is only a seminal event for those who are doing the dying... the same as life.  So, instead of focusing on what you have to do to live, just live - don’t spend all your time making plans, because life isn’t a staged event.  Life is unpredictable and every moment is a lifetime in itself that we can either allow to pass us by or fully experience and revel in...

Sad and bad things happen everyday - sometimes to each of us.  But todays difficulties can never erase the joys of a life well lived.  For me, the only true sadness would come in having nothing to miss when the end draws near...

I often read and hear the phrase ‘the world outside’ in reference to people who are staid and settled in their behaviors and modes of thinking and need to ‘explore’ a little bit - to have new experiences and stretch the boundaries of their comfort zone, so to speak.  And it sounds great, really, but why is it that givers of advice seem to believe that the only way to experience wonderful new (and occasionally frightening) things is outside, in the world at large?  Why not ‘think’ about the outside world instead and explore the world as it exists inside our minds?

Okay, okay - maybe I sound a bit of a hypocrite here since I find most of my writing inspiration by walking around in the world and soaking up the accumulated micro-realities I see as I wander about.  But really, I’m actually ‘lost inside my thoughts’ most of the time that I’m ‘lost on a walk’, so in essence I guess I am probably thinking more than walking...which is probably why I so often get disoriented and/or stumble into random people and objects, I suppose.  But I digress, so back to thinking...

Just yesterday, I had a thought that was at once inspiring and horrifying - the world is really nothing more than an amalgam of the lives and experiences of everybody; kind of like a huge ‘picture frame’ that holds a living masterpiece.  And, if this is true, then every individual is the sole owner of a small personal ‘picture frame’ through which they view the world.  But what if there was a way to distill all occurrences into a personal picture frame, and if this sum of all life events was either a net positive or a net negative, imagine the following:

(+) If the frame captured only the unbridled positivism of life - the first kiss, receiving a perfect exam score, high school graduation, Olympic triumph, Presidential victory, etc - then the beholder would perpetually exist in the ether of euphoria where everything is a positive and anything is possible.

(-) If, on the other hand, the frame contained a diorama of life’s disappointments and sorrows - events such as being fired, getting dumped, being cheated in business, plane crashes, wars and the deaths of loved ones - then the world would be a consolidation of misery and dispair that was so frightful as to make one wish for the respite of death.

These are pretty awe-inspiring thoughts, if I do say so myself.  And now, consider the fact that all of this is real - that each of us has a personal ‘picture frame’ and that it, as our private window on the world, it contains exactly what we think it should in the balance that we decide.  In short, our minds tell us what we see in the world outside, don’t they?

Back to thinking about the world though - and as I walked and considered, I suddenly understood the blind faith success that some people have and, equally, the burdensome utter hopelessness that drives others to suicide.  At this point in walk, I stopped.  I had to stop and swallow hard as it dawned on me that the world outside is really nothing more than the world inside my mind; as it is for everyone...I just hope that I can always maintain a ‘net positive’ balance in my mental world :-)

So, the next time you hear someone say ‘go explore the world outside’ you can turn to them and say ‘perhaps you should explore the world inside’ and then smile quizzically.

What do you think?

I recently completed a super-short story/character sketch [SS/CS] entitled The Lie (download link here ) and while these SS/CS writing is just an exercise that lets me create and explore a character over 1 or 2 pages, it got me thinking...

One of my biggest pet peeves in life is people who lie for no reason.  I’m not talking about politicians; let’s face it - lying is their lives vocation.  And I’m not talking about people in bad relationships who lie about seeing someone else so they can have a little piece of happiness while they try to work out the details of their lives - been there, done that, and I can empathize.  And nope, I’m not even talking about parents - who habitually lie to children as a means of ‘protecting them’ from the realities of the world around: 

“What?!”  Johnny wails on the eve of his High School graduation “You mean you guys have been lying to me all the time and Santa Claus isn’t real?!”  He stomps his feet on the ground and continues, “what are you gonna tell me next - that the Easter Bunny doesn’t exist either?!”

Okay - so the scene was a little dramatic...but, yeah, I knew a handful of these kids in elementary and middle school...and I don’t think mom and dad’s fibs were doing them any favors.  But back to my original point - I particularly despise the pointless and stupid little lies that people tell each other everyday, and you know just what I’m talking about.  As when you’re out with a friend and he/she tells you that you cannot post on FB, Twitter, etc (or for that matter even take any pictures of the fun things you are doing) because they’ve told another ‘friend’ that they are out of town since they “didn’t know how to explain they didn’t want to hang out with them today.”  Here’s how to explain it: “Hey, dude, I don’t feel like hanging out with you today.”  Simple, right?  Apparently not. 

Other shades of mistruth that I find particularly aggravating include the ‘passive lie’ - as when I say to someone - “You’re gonna be there tonight at 7pm with the rest of us, right?”  And they simply respond something like “yeah, sure” instead of actually clarifying that they have no intention of coming tonight. Then they go into ‘radio silence’ mode, where it seems as though they have fallen off the earth and we fear that we may need to send the army out looking for them as we all stand around waiting for them as 7pm edges toward 7:30pm before we finally give up and set out for the night.  AGGRAVATING.

And finally, there’s the old ‘make you feel good lie’ which just sort of makes me laugh at its irony.  The fact that someone will make an overt effort to tell you something completely untrue simply for the sake of improving your mood...while completely forgetting that when you eventually discover the lie, you will probably be twice as unhappy as you are now.  Hmmmm.  A case in point is that many friends and strangers alike have bought my most recent book, 7200 Days .  However, I still get messages from people I know claiming they are ‘just about to purchase’ a copy or ‘haven’t had the time yet, but they are so excited to read it’...but I can see who purchases and they are still not among them.  Ha!  To be honest, writing a book isn’t exactly like selling Girl Scout Cookies or candy for the school soccer team and I have no intention of shaking down all the people I know to by mine - if they don’t want to, they shouldn’t feel the need to...and they definitely shouldn’t feel the need to tell me they will if they have no real plan to.  

Okay, that’s it - I’m off my soapbox again :-)   Time to get back to some real writing/editing on my current work in progress, entitled The Greatest Pursuit.  Sample chapters are available for download here, so feel free to download, read and provide feedback for my editing process as a ‘beta reader’.  And remember: I don’t have a gun to your head, so don’t feel they need to say you’re going to do it unless you really are :-)  

What do you think?