Firedance March 30, 2024

Welcome.

Where is the sticks Tune. Welcome to the grand illusion. There we go. Comment. Hi. And stop the sound. And welcome to Fire Dance special Norwest Con Edition. I'm, I'm your host, Stephen Barnes. And because I forgot to tell them that I have this meeting at noon, you know, that is something that I will be more careful about in the future. Just letting everybody know that from 15 minutes before noon until 1:45 I am not available. You know, they can just consider that to be my lunchtime or whatever they want. But you guys are important to me. You're very important to me. I have, I hope I've made that really clear. And we have just wonderful people here. I am so grateful for each and every one of you who could shift the time and have a chance to be here. As you know, just kind of, there are a couple people here who haven't been here before. What we're doing here is talking about the same thing that we talk about on the Life Writing podcast, which is how to live a high energy creative life. And that means to be balanced to between physical health, career health and relationship health that anybody who is interested in living their life as an art form would be. This is perfect for them if you are an artist, Even better if you're a writer, even better if you're a science fiction writer or a horror writer, even better. Now if you happen to be a black science fiction horror writer, I mean that is like right at our wheelhouse. We could really help you. But the, the point is that all of these things are sufficiently universal. What it takes to achieve and be balanced and happy are sufficiently universal that anything that one person knows can help other people. And it's, it's very similar to the notion that once you have mastered anything in your life, you know how to master anything else. It's the no. 1 thing, no 10,000 things notion. It's the, you know, the. So if I can help you see areas in your life where you have already achieved mastery, all you have to do is extract the lessons from that and you can achieve mastery in any other area of your life where you're willing to pay a similar price, you know. And what is that price? That's what the magic formula is about. How do you put your feet on the road to mastery? And the level beyond mastery is magic. So what is that? M A G I C is what I want you to look at. Now before we get there for a second, I wanted to, to comment that the buy in for being able to understand what it is that I'M saying to a degree is breathing. Is that every hour, every one to three hours, you do 60 seconds of deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing. So I want you to put your hands on your tummies, and we're going to breathe together for just one minute. On the inhalation, your belly expands. On the exhalation, your belly contracts. Simple as that. So inhale, exhale. Just keep breathing. Just inhale, expand, Exhale, contract. Inhale, expand, Exhale, contract. Remember, it's your belly, not your chest. It's your belly that's expanding and contracting. Inhale, expand, Exhale, contract. Two more. Inhale, expand, exhale, contract. One more. Inhale, expand, Exhale, contract. Okay. Okay, Now I'd like you to unmute yourselves and everybody say hi. Get your energy up, because your comp. Your ability to accomplish things in life is going to be partially turned about the energy that you bring to it. So every day you should be looking specifically to cultivate and raise your energy. So let's hear you high fives. There you go. Excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent. That's fantastic. So in the last week, I don't want to talk about some. There's one thing that happened that's a little too on the nose. What I had been saying was that if the universe was giving me massive resistance to going to Manila, so I knew that that was an indication that there was something there for me. If my instinct was right and I needed to overcome the obstacles to go there no matter what, then that meant there was some part of me that felt that there was a reward that was commensurate with the effort. So I thought to myself, if. If it turns out that there is. If there's something unexpected happens, something magical happens, then I'm going to take real. I'm going to take the magic formula more seriously, and I'm going to do a book on it. So what you need to know is that that happened. I've talked about it, and I am going to do a book. It's going to be a relatively short one because I want to cut to the chase. I want to tell enough about my life to. To. So that people can understand what it was that. That happened here and what was created, what I did. But it's not about me. It's about the fact that if you take a look. And this is the second thing, the first thing is the breathing, which has a bunch of different. There are a bunch of different reasons why that's critical to this process. The magic formula is five ideas. M A G I C If you will apply these ideas to anything in your life, you will start making progress. The first one is the M. It's your map or model. If you. Let's say you want a job, you would talk to people who work there or who have hunted for jobs, and you develop a set of strategies. How am I going to organize myself to present myself to get a job? And there are lots of different ways you can do that, but there are. It's just. You don't just make it up. You find people who have already accomplished what it is you're trying to do, basically starting from as close to where you are as possible. So if I wanted to be a writer, I studied interviews with writers. What did they do? How did they. How did they do this? What did they. How did they send their stuff out? How did they deal with writer's block? How do they deal with fear? How do they do this? How do they do that? I was looking for those things. How they use their minds, how they use their hearts, how they use their bodies. In the martial arts. I saw a man moving the way I wanted to move, and I went to him, humbled myself, and said, teach me. You know, when it came to relationships, that was harder. There was. Because I did not have a father, My mother never remarried. So I made probably more mistakes in the relationship arena than I did in some of the other arenas. But I still managed to have a wonderful marriage that ran out of time. Dancing room, so we had to separate. But that opened my life to meeting the love of my life, the amazing and talented and beautiful Tananarive. Do so with that intro. Just say hi to us. And thanks for holding down the.

Hello. I was playing Beyonce while you were absent. Her new country Carter, or country.

What is it?

Carter Cowboy album. And good to see you, sweetie. Hope you're having a great time in. In Seattle.

Yeah, I just got finished doing an autographing and.

Great.

I'll be doing panels today and having a coffee clash with the people here. And then this evening, I'll have a chance to get together with Dr. Charles Johnson, who wrote Middle Passage and who's one of my favorite human beings in all the world and one of the people who I can really drop all my masks with and just kind of be myself. We're. We're very much on paths that are congruent enough in life that. Well, that.

That is great.

Yeah.

You sound like you have enough energy for the both of us, so I'm. Well, that you need to chill out today.

Yeah, I mean, I I don't, I don't have my full workout stuff here. But the first, you know, if I do five breaks during the day, the first break is joint mobility and a sun salutation. The second break is martial arts and the five Tibetans and maybe a little bit of fun. I've got, I've got my little rip stick here, which is really, it's a very interesting tool. The company that makes them was never going to go too far because you can't really, you can't really trademark the two sticks of the rubber band. The guy didn't create them himself, but I hope he's made a lot of money and I hope that he held onto it because this is, this is a fascinating little tool. It's very flexible, it can be done. It, the science behind why it works and how it works is fascinating. But I can do that. So it's, you know, sun salutation and then session two, it's five Tibetan, session three, five Tibetans, session four, five Tibetans doing seven reps each time. And then the last thing before I go to bed once again is joint mobility and sun salutation. And I have found that that takes pretty good care of me when I'm on the road and it keeps my energy high. The. It's always a matter of learning to find the waves of energy in your life and then you surf those waves. So what's critical is that you are doing things that are in alignment with your heart because then you, your motivation is always there. So, you know, let's go back to the magic form of the first step is map or model. The second step is constant action. So if you want to be a writer, for instance, what are the constant actions you have to take? And for instance, the life writing formula for writers, the six part formula that we teach all the time. And you can find something similar to this in anything that you want to do is the first thing is to write at least one sentence every day. One sentence per day minimum. Step two, finish one to four short stories every month. Step three, finish and submit at least one story per month. Number four, don't rewrite. Accept to editorial request. Once you have finished the story and you sent it out, don't go back and start endlessly revising it. That's just another form of writer's block. Get on to your next story. What you're interested in is not creating a perfect story, but in creating a perfect connection or the most perfect connection between, between your conscious and unconscious minds, between your waking self and your dreaming self. That, that if you do that, you will have an infinite supply of ideas. You do not need to hold on to anything during the. The phase where you're trying to get into the field. Do not keep working on one project as if that's going to get you all the way, you know, to the touchdown and win the big game. No, it will be a succession of projects. It will be the integrity of the work. So the daily action. What must you do every day? Critical step five is to read 10 times as much as you write, and step six is to repeat this pattern 100 times. So that's the daily action, the weekly action, the monthly action for writing in our program. If you can create something similar to that with whatever it is you're trying to do, you're in the game. But as long as you're taking some action. And it has been said that once you make a decision to accomplish something, never leave the sight of a decision without taking at least one action, even if it's you pick up the phone, you call your best friend and say, I've just decided to do it. Do something that makes it real. So that's the M and the A. The G is gratitude. And this is so critical. You need to live your life in an attitude of gratitude. You need to feel grateful for the blessings you already have. If you don't believe that you've had good things in your life up until this point, why in the world would you believe something good can happen tomorrow? You have to do it, and you have to do it deliberately. And you have to get into the pattern of finding bring your, make your heart happy that. That, you know, what have I had for every single day? I give thanks for having a strong, healthy body for the people who love me and trust me. Jason, Nikki, my beautiful, brilliant wife, Tananari. I literally say this out loud while I'm doing my Tai Chi. My sister Joyce, who deserves all good things in life. These are things I actually say and feel and allow myself to wash myself with positive emotions while I'm doing Tai Chi every day. So The Firedance Tai Chi.com is the program you can get into if you wanted to do that. Exactly. But any other kind of movement works too. That's the third step in the process, is to find a more ritual. So we'll go back to step two, which is, you know, just making sure that you have the magic formula applied to something that you care about. Step the. The I in magic formula is the intention, the goal. You need to have a clear goal. A goal is a Dream with a deadline. A goal could be a smart goal. S M A R T specific, meaningful, as if now realistic and time bound. Whatever it is you do, start developing the science of creating goals for yourself. Intentions, you know, you create them thousands of times a day, but you don't necessarily think about it that much. So I want you to bring this up to conscious competence, you know, up to conscious awareness, so that you can deliberately create goals and know whether or not your daily actions are taking you in that direction. To be able to take an action, see the result. Did that get me closer to it or further away? You know, and make your adjustments. That's how you do it. It's like a bat using echolocation as you move through the cave of your life. And then the last step of the magic formula, the C, is the trickiest one. It's character, it's conviction, it's courage. It is the belief that the expression of this story or writing, or being a martial artist, earning a black belt or developing a loving family, that these are externalizations of who you are. You're not trying to be somebody that you're not. You are expressing who you are. If you can feel. I am the writer. I am a writer, I am a martial artist, I am a warrior, I am a lover, I am a father, I am a friend, whatever it is, if you can't be something you are not. But what you can do is you can find the seed of the thing you want to be inside yourself and water that seed and nurture that seed. That's what you're doing. You're finding a part of you. And we all contain all potentialities. I've heard it said that success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. I've also heard that the universe, nature, God, however you want to put it, does not give you a desire that you can hold in your heart continuously over time unless you also have the resources necessary to bring into existence. If you don't, you will not be able to hold that goal. You will not be able to continue. That's a very interesting theory. I suggest I would invite you to test that theory. I don't know if it's true, but I can tell you that I have lived my life as if it is true and that has worked very well. What we do at this point, there's always a point where I throw an idea out and I talk about how this is going on in my life. In the last week, we were given an offer, or we, we may be given an offer that is transformative we will not talk about it right now, but if we you, you'll be the first people to hear about it if this actually happens. But I knew that something like that. I predicted something like that would happen as soon as the Star wars his book was out of my hands. Now, there's still some rewriting to do, but the the publication date has been pushed back two months because my editor does not know how many notes Lucasfilm is going to give us. And she wants to make sure that we have all the time we need to get it perfect. Because she says she believes that the Mace Windu novel the Glass Abyss could be one of the great Star wars novels.

One of the greats, she said.

And by the way, oh is my best shot. I did everything I could. I used some techniques that I don't ordinarily use in connection with it because I came back from Manila with COVID and I had brain fog. So I had to make sure that the brain fog did not interrupt my ability to do this. I will be sharing it had to do the There's a way to cheat. There are lots of ways to cheat. A lot of these models that I use for different things are just ways to cheat. They're ways to function as if you're smarter than you really are. So I used a technique like that that enabled me to to, even with fatigue and a little bit of brain fog and under pressure, enabled me to write as if I was smarter than I really am. And I will share that with you at some point.

But honey, is my mic on? Oh yeah. One of the things I noticed I was listening to our Last Life Writing podcast with Jonathan Jantz, the horror writer. You specifically said during that podcast you wish you had two or three more months to work on the book. I don't know if your editor was listening or not, but I thought that was pretty ironic.

It.

It's.

It's.

I believe, and this is my belief. If you it's M A G I C equals results. That was the original equation and it was multiplicative. Because if you give yourself a rate from 0 to 9 in each of those categories, if you have a 0 in any one of those categories, you the whole thing grinds to a halt. If you don't have a map, if you're not taking action, if you're not feeling joy and gratitude, if you don't have a goal and you don't believe that your goal is in alignment with who you are, if you have a zero in any one of those, you are dead in the water. But if you have at least a one in each category, you're in the game. And if you, and this is my theory, if you average a 5 in each of those categories, if you've got pretty damn good clear maps or models, and you're always studying that, if you're taking massive action, lots of action, if you are flooding yourself with joy and gratitude, if you. If your goal is crystal clear, you know just what you want to do and just when you're going to do it and why you want to do it. And you feel that the action, the daily action, whether or not you win is in alignment with who you are. It's like planning, getting the family in the car to go to Disney World. The real vacation is what happens along the way. It's not just what happens at Disney World. If your goal is to have a family experience, family, to spend precious time with your children, then no matter what happens along the way, it was a good decision. And it is my belief, and I would invite you to test this. I'm putting myself out here to say this. If you have at least a five in each of those categories, you will start getting lucky, bizarrely lucky. Things will start coming out of nowhere and give you support for what it is that you're doing. I invite you to test this for yourself and see if it's true. But this has been our experience. So what I like to do at this point is to ask comments, questions, requests that you can tell me a win that you're having in your life. You can tell me a problem that you're having. You can challenge me on any aspect of what I've just said, or in your case, I would like you to just introduce yourself and let us know what brings you here and how we can help you.

Hi. Can you all hear me?

Sure can.

Okay.

How you doing?

Love your hair. Thanks, man.

I appreciate it. So my name is Shim Saru Tankawur. I'm a student at Morgan State University. And My professor, Karen DeWitt, told me about you all in this group and she said that I need to come here and be here and be a part of it. And so I'm here.

Fantastic. How can we serve you?

I'm just trying to get structure for my writing.

Oh, so you're a writer?

Yeah, I'm a writer.

Okay, so great. So the, the somebody put the six steps of the, of the, of the life writing process in, in in chat for him. You know, I have it in my phone. Okay. Write at least $0.01 a day. Write one to four short stories a month. Finish at least one and submit it. Don't rewrite. Accept to editorial request. Read 10 times as much as you write and Repeat this process a 100 times if you will. Get on that path. No one who has followed our advice about this has made it past story 23 or 24. I forget which it is. Everybody gets published if they get. If they. If they keep it up. If you will get on that path, we can support you if you get on that path. And we have our paid program, LifeWriting Premium.com we suggest it to people. But that is not necessary for you to be here. What's necessary for you to be here is that you bring your heart and you support the other people in chat. If you want to get into the program, fantastic. We'd love to take your money. There's a lot of really, really great stuff there. But this is about the fact that life has blessed me and blessed Tananarive, that we were able to spend our lives together doing things that we love. And that the path of mastery is you're always learning, you're always doing, and you're always teaching. So this is part of my dharma. It is. It is. This is what I'm supposed to be doing is teaching every week. So we will teach you especially about your attitudes. In developing a writing practice that will support you, we will hold nothing back. You can ask us anything about our lives or how we use these principles. If you have a problem, you can ask us anything. And we will do our best to give you our honest answer from our perspective. You then will need to. We'll commit to trying it and see whether or not it works. If it doesn't work, you let us know. We brainstorm with you something else. That having a community within which you can talk about your fears and your hopes and your dreams and your methodologies and stuff like this is. Is more important. It is so important that you can't put a price on it. So I don't put a price on it. That's why this meeting is free, because this is just the world. Okay. If there you have any specific question you'd like to ask us. Otherwise, thank you for the introduction, but you know that you have. We charge $1,000 an hour for our coaching time. But the thing that's wrong with that is that means the people who need us most can't afford us. So I would prefer. I love to do this kind of thing where we can reach a lot of people at the same time. So whatever it Is you ask us will probably be something that other people are concerned about, too. So that means we get to touch a lot of people at the same time. So give me a really good question. Show me your creativity. Ask me a hard question.

That'S on the spot.

Yes, it is.

When you first began to write, what was the thing that inspired you from the deep bowels of your heart? Begin writing.

I did not see people who looked like me in the movies that I loved. I did not have a father in the home. So I had real questions about what it was to be a man. And in the books I read, you know, Conan the Barbarian and the Saint and James Bond and all that, Doc Savage, I was not there. And when people who looked like me showed up there, they were subhuman. They were not as smart, they were not as sexy, they were not as courageous. And it hurt all the way down to the core of my being. All the way down to the core. And I loved storytelling. And so I started telling stories. And telling stories saved me in lots of different ways, including one explicit one. Because I used to get beat up when I was in junior high school and I found out that the football team all hung out on. They all had lunch in the same place. So I would go hang out with them, and I used the Scheherazade technique. I would tell them half of a story every day, and I tell them the other half the next day. And it got to the point where if a bully was messing with me, one of the football team guys, leave the little brother alone. So it was survival. And then there was a point where I was writing. I was writing skits for the leadership class in high school. I was a member of the drama club. And they asked. They asked us if we would write skit. If there was anybody who'd write skits. And I said yes. They liked what I was doing, and they gave me a chance to appear on stage with them. For it was a trash assembly. And I went up there and I recited a poem like a character that was on the old Laugh in Comedy show, Henry Gibson. And the audience loved it. And, man, I mean, it's like I did it twice. There were two different. There were two sessions for this thing, and people were slapping me on the back and congratulating me. And the women were looking at me for the first time. And I said, hey, now, this is great. That performance and story and connecting with people, not only is saving my ass, it's not only healing my heart, but. But, you know, the women. Yeah, it's like, you know, you know, it's like this. This is good. This is good. This is working. I tried my mom. My father was a backup singer for Nat King Cole. And his music career did not take off. He. You could hear him singing background on Ramble and Rose. That was probably the. The height of his career. And she was afraid that if I followed that path, I would destroy myself, that I would have a very disappointing life. So she would, like, tear up my stories. And I tried to make her happy. I was trying to be a dutiful son. And when I went to college, Pepperdine University, I stopped writing, but I did everything. But I mean, I took English, I took composition, I took journalism, I took drama. I took radio. I did everything except not actually write fiction stories, right? So I was dancing all the way around it. Then one day they had a. Oh, God. What do they call the graduates who. Who donate money to the college?

Alumni.

Yes, alumni. There was an alumni meeting and there was a contest, a story writing contest. And the writers of the story writing contest, the winners of storywide contest would read their stories to the alumni. So I did a story and I won the contest. Of course I was gonna say that. And I read this story to the alumni. To the alumni. And I looked out at their faces and I had them in the palm of my hand. I had them in that story trance. It's like every one of them wanted to know what I was going to say next. They all saw me as the source of their pleasure. And I said, this is who I am. I would rather fail as a writer than succeed at anything else. And the instant I knew that, I knew my college education was over. Now, that was a mistake. I should have stayed in college and gotten my degree. That is 100. I'm not saying that to make anybody else happy. It's the truth. I should have. I did not trust myself. I thought that if I stayed there, I would pick up failure attitudes from my teachers who could not finish their own stories. But no, I am that bitch. I am this guy. I am a writer. I am Steve Barnes. I'm not somebody else. But I am this guy. And this guy I could have trusted to be a writer. I should have stayed in college, got my degree, but I left college and I started working in Hollywood. I just took any job I could find, working my way in towards there so that I could see what it took to be that. That's a lot more than you asked for. But you now know me. This is who I am. It's all it's all that I am, buddy. And I hope that who it is that I am can be of service to you. Fair enough.

Definitely. Yeah.

I'm.

I'm excited to be here. I'm in a lifetime premium, too, so.

Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Then that's. Then that's great. So, you know, start writing those stories, and we'll talk about it. You know, we'll talk about reading one of your stories and analyzing.

We critique stories here. So we'll look forward to you submitting a story for critique.

That's right. That's right. Do you have any questions for Tananarif?

No, I don't.

Because, you know, she. She's the best.

It would be pretty much the same question. Like, I didn't really know y' all until my met my professor and she told me about this.

I didn't.

I just never read y' all books. But now that I'm here, you know, I have the opportunity. So. For her, Tana Reeve, I think, for the same thing. It's nice to meet you. And then the question would be, what inspired you? Like, what was that gut feeling that you had that you said, this is what I'm going to do. I'm not going to do anything else, but this is what I'm going to do.

By the way, before she answers the question, I want to say something. That question is the kind of question that somebody who really wants to succeed asks. That is a good question. I really respect that question. I want you all to start coming up with questions that are that good Anyway, T. Go ahead.

There are probably three parts to that answer. The first is, I was so young. I don't remember, because I wrote my first little picture book, Baby Bobby, when I was 4. And on the back, I wrote Tananarib Dew. As an author, I mean, spelled wrong. Don't get me wrong. But still, the point is, I just knew. I feel like I came out of the womb knowing that I wanted to be a writer, but where it began to take on more significance in my life to the release of Roots and the roots miniseries in 1977, and my fascination with that history that had been so hidden, especially before he came to the United States. I kind of lost interest in the book after he landed because I'd already seen the miniseries. I was not a happy ending, but the chapters that took place in West Africa so captivated me in terms of the history I didn't know. And I began writing histories. I began writing about the Middle Passage. And then when I was 14, there was a police killing in Miami before there was a Black Lives Matter movement. That was my first Black Lives Matter moment. And I wrote a poem, a prose poem in reaction to that that my mother told me. You know, that's the. The. The power of being a writer. You can put your emotions down on paper. Other people get angry and frustrated and scared, and they go out and they set fires, you know, because there was an insurrection after that and a whole thing like with Rodney King, but in Miami. So I learned not only that writing was expressive. Writing could bring hidden history to life, which is something I've carried with me throughout my writing career. But also writing could save my life, is what it felt like when I was 14. And so those are my reasons.

Thank you for sharing. That was.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you remember Cotton Club, where Laurence Fishburne tells Gregory Hines that. That all he has is the underworld.

But Gregory Hunt, that is where I dance.

That's right. Where do you dance? Sandman. So that's what I ask each and every one of you, if you can find a way to use your emotions. See, he asked what emotion motivated us. Great. It's the what you want to accomplish is important, but the why you want to do it is even more important. And you get those two things together. And the how is easy. If you have enough whys to do something, you'll figure it out. Anytime somebody doesn't have any motivation, it's because they don't have enough wise. They ran out of wise. So you get you. You take a look at the price that people paid to succeed in something, and you ask yourself, am I willing to pay that price? So what he was doing was he was analyzing what. Where did they have to go inside themselves to find the stuff to get them up every day? How can Steve still be excited about this life that he's been in for four decades or whatever it is? How do you do that? How do you get up every day and get excited to honor him? How do you motivate yourself to keep going deeper and deeper into yourself to find the real stuff which you buy? Performatory.

I was right. I was about to jump in anyway because I've been so obsessed with trying to find the artist of this piece behind me. I got it at Elephant Stock, and I would have thought it would have been on my order, but no. The artists, of course, get screwed once again. But I come from joy is what I'm coming to. We just had a podcast with Jonathan where he talked about how he writes from love. We're horror writers, but we write from love, and I think that comes across in our writing, hopefully. And this. When I saw this art piece, it seemed like such a perfect embodiment of how I try to approach every day. I'm not that good about playing music every day, but I do play the piano. When I was younger, I played the.

You're dancing.

I'm getting. I get. I play the trumpet. You can't probably tell, but that's a scroll wrapped around her body. So writing is honored in this and also the body movement. So I do not that much yoga, but I do yoga usually once a week. And I've taken up dancing recently. And it's just feeling that joy in the body is a new expression of the same joy that I feel through music and then I feel through writing. And it captured it all perfectly in a painting. I was like, oh, my God, that's my life right now.

So that's.

That's what it is, is trying to. To stay in a state of joy. And writing helps me kind of wring out the toxic stuff that scares me, the things going on in the world that scare me. And I can put all that in my horror fiction so that what's left for me personally is hopefully a feeling of joy.

You get that now?

Yeah, definitely.

I want you to be. To. To decide that you want to be more than a published writer. I want you to decide that you want to be a master and that one day you will have your own students and you will have conversations like this with them. Will you do that?

Yeah, definitely.

Because if you will commit to that, we will commit to getting you to being a professional, because all we want to do is replicate ourselves. That's part of what life is. Survival, replication, building community. Okay. And if you're one of the people who can do that, and I have a sense that you might be. People don't find themselves here accidentally, and you certainly don't come back the second time accidentally, because we are not to every taste. We know that. I have. I have lost friends because I will not yield to depression. I will not believe that we cannot have our dreams. I simply will not. I could not let myself doubt that I could. I could have what I want because everybody in the world told me I couldn't. So somebody had to believe in me. And so I had to start with me. I believed in me. So what I'm saying is that we believe in you, too. If your heart tells you that you want to be a writer, then we are telling you you can be a writer. You have Expressed yourself. I put you on the spot. You expressed yourself in clear English. If you've got the heart to do it and you will follow advice, I will make you a deal. I mean, I'll promise if you get to story 25 and you haven't published, I'll pay you a hundred dollars. Fair enough. You take that bet?

Yeah, I take that bet.

Let's go.

That's one bet nobody wants to win.

All right, great. Great meeting you, and I'll see you another time. We have another person with their hand up. We have Otis Johnson. Oh, no.

Hello, sir. Yeah, I just. I just want to say to shim0.shim0. Am I saying your name correctly?

Yeah, Shim Saru.

That's.

Thank you.

Great name. I just wanted to say you. You found her spot. This is it.

It'll work.

I mean, I got. I just got on, like, less than, like, three months ago, and I got published. And now I can. I'm just writing like a fiend over here. And it.

It will happen.

Just follow it. It will happen. Absolutely. I mean, I can say. I mean, he could actually. I heard him make that bet. Like, I will give you a hundred dollars if you get past 25. And I was. I was thinking he can actually legitimately do that. This is your spot.

I can. Because if you don't have the ability to make it, you'll never make it to 25. It's as simple as that. It's a trick bet. The people who can make it to story 25 are willing to postpone their reward, and they're willing to look at the process, and it's the people willing to look at the process that have the emotions that power really good writing. And then all they need to do is to figure out the structure. You know, there's the skill and there's the art. The art is your emotion and expressing your emotion. The skill is learning structure of characterization, use of language and topic sentences, and, you know, the structure of the hero's journey, stuff like that. That's just technique. That's 20%. The 80% that's important is, who are you? Who are you? When. If somebody pushed you against the wall and said, you're not a writer, is there a part of you that said that would say, screw you? Yes, I am. I'll bite your throat out. Get off me. This is my life. If you can find that part of you, nothing can stop you, buddy. You understand me?

Yeah, I definitely understand that.

You hear me?

I wish somebody would try to say that. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Yeah, my lizard right there. Anyway, that's great. All right, so let's see. Otis. Yes. What's up?

Oh, nothing much. I'm just. I wanted to say that. I wanted to say again as a comment, I'm. I'm thankful for having y' all to come to every Saturday. If you might remember, I've been laid up since, like, December, you know, with just not walking. And I just finally got surgery, like, last week about the same time I was published. And this has kept me going. Like, this is like.

Like.

Like I said, I've been laid out. I'm not seeing anybody, but I'm seeing you guys, and that's. That's helping me.

Well, how's. How's. How's the little lady? How's the wife?

She's over here.

Yeah.

So put her on the screen for a second, baby. Okay. I would like you to tell us the truth about how it felt to you when Otis increased his sense of purpose and drive.

Oh, it was great. Oh, it was great. No, I knew he. I knew. I knew that when he sets his mind to something, he's gonna achieve it, because he's done that in the past. He already decided he wanted to become a dj. He was a dj, came DJ now, and I thought it was so exciting that he wanted to pursue something creative, like writing. And I could tell that it also made him feel better because instead of just sitting on the couch, he was writing.

He wasn't.

Right?

He's here. Yeah.

When he has purpose, he has purpose. That's tremendously attractive, isn't it?

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you, guys. Will you listen to that? You listen to that. If you want. One of the things the ladies want to know is, where are you going? What are you doing? What direction are you going in? If you're drifting, why should in the world should they drift with you? But if you've got a purpose, then they get to say, I think I'd like to be along for that ride. And that matches the ride I want to take. Tananarive was going in that direction. I was going in that direction. We saw each other, we said we could build an empire together. Let's do this together. It's as simple as that. Is there anything I can help you with today, Otis? Nah, that's it.

I just wanted to give a big round of thanks and, like. Like, I'm starting to recognize a lot of faces that I see all the time on my Facebook and stuff. And this is, like, a very good. I don't know, it's a very good group and very good brotherhood.

Yes. And I. I love the fact that we have a range of ages, genders, and races. I love that. This is my heart, this is my life. This is the way I see the world. And I'm very happy. And I'm very happy for you to be here. You take care, buddy. Okay. And we've got Maurice Barnes. Hey.

Hello, everyone. It's a joy here to see all the faces.

And one of the crack rat. Is that a crack rat back there?

That is a crack rat behind the wheel for the great Atlantic rat chase.

Ah, you're a wild man. Okay, go ahead.

Yes.

But I want to thank everyone who did read Crack Rat. I'm in the midst of getting a professional editor to look at it and help me. One of the issues that I have is using the one sentence a day is getting that continuity there. And I was doing the re edits, working on the continuity of that and to make it seem more sense. And I realized that when I did it, I had to realize I was writing for fun at this point and that everyone that who read my story out of fun enjoyed it.

They said, you know, that's an important thing if you write it out of fun. First of all, you're an absurdist. And all that matters with an absurdist is that you'd be able to maintain your tone. Even the internal integrity of the story is not as important as maintaining tone.

God bless you.

Thank you. So I say keep writing what you're.

Writing and a bit more serious.

So I don't even know if you need to be more serious. I think you can write. You know, Dr. Seuss wrote seriously. He had a serious intent in much of his work, but he was an absurdist. And make sure that you're reading people who have the kind of flow and impact that you want so that you can grow as an artist. But you have a voice and you have a vision. A person with a voice and a vision. All you have to do is get behind it and learn the skill necessary and to take your particular bizarre, screwed up view of the world and turn it into something where people can enter into it and say, this guy is as sick as I am. I love this. I mean, if the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles could spawn a billion dollar empire, why can't crack rats pay your rent?

Oh, exactly. Please pay my rent. Crack rats. I look at Douglas Adams. I mean, I read Hitchhiker Scott when I was in junior high school, so. And Monty Python, I was a big fan of that as well, as Benny Hill and I just have a weird life.

Yes. So. So you, you know the vineyard that you want to grow your wine grapes from, you know, that sense of the way the world is insane and we have to be a certain amount of insane not to notice that it's insane. Oh, yes. And you take your pain, your real pain, and you process it so that you can tell stories that are not about your pain directly, but indirectly. They can feel it as much as we could. In other words, Richard Pryor talked about real pain in life, relationships, race, drugs. But he didn't ask us to carry his cross for him. He asked us to laugh with him and in the process, open our eyes. If you can do that, if you're willing to study and become a scholar of the absurd, because all the people who you named, they were scholars. I guarantee you Benny Hill could, Could give a. Could have given a. A taught a university level class on comedians, the famous comedians who'd come before him in vaudeville and so forth and so on. All of these people have encyclopedic knowledge which enables them to forget their knowledge and just be who they are.

Right?

So when I say read 10 times as much as you write, the path is very clear. Are you willing to do the work? If you are, I say you're one of the people who could. You're. You're going to publish your stuff. The question is, how much of it will you sell? But if you're having fun, if the path that you are on is worth it for its own sake, if you would do this for nothing, now you deserve success. If you do it for nothing now you deserve success. And now it makes sense for you to study marketing and sales and be absolutely ruthless with yourself and your resources to get your name out there, because you know that you're telling honest stories that will entertain and also honestly express the way you see the world. You have the right to stand up in the marketplace and say, follow me. Okay, Proud of yourself. I want you to work your ass off. And remember, your son is watching you.

Yes, he is.

If you can focus yourself to do this, you're saving him as well as yourself, as well as a hundred other people you haven't even met yet.

Yeah, C.J. really enjoyed it. And he's been trying to draw the rat chase with his Sega inspired anime style, and he just was cracking up, just loving it. Thinking of rats on motorcycles, crashing into a horse carriage and overturning fruit carts.

Hysterical stuff. You just need to figure out. There is. There are writers who could Take that idea and turn it into a million dollars. You're not one of those writers yet. See? So if you think to yourself, I don't have the skill yet. Now you've opened the door to the question, what do I need to do? So every time you talk to a professional writer, especially if they're doing the kind of stuff you're talking about, you ask the kind of questions that allow you to find out what part of yourself do you need to connect with? And then educe. Educio, the. The root word for education. To educe, to. To bring forth from within. What part of yourself do you have to bring forth from within? Whatever obstacles you have faced in your life, if you embrace them with courage, the obstacles become the offer ring. You find your way to being happy and joyful. To use the magic formula, be joyful and people will wonder, how the hell do you look at the nightmare that is the world and smile? How do you do that?

Now, I love these illustrations.

That's the Krispy Kreme diversion that the protagonists use in downtown Atlanta. That was the rap crazy over and crashing the people and overturn a four strong carriage. Honeymooners.

You know, I think you. I think because you genuinely love this. Yes, I do. It's hilarious. You do, you know, and that's, you know, to use coarse language about something like that is to cut through the nonsense.

Yes.

You know, when I say I am, that that's just cutting through a lot of nonsense. I am a guy who could do this. Are we are. So in terms of this, you're going to take the pain of your life and spin it into gold. Be honest, be absurd. Because we're all asking, how do we. How do we look at the naked tragedy of life? We're born in. In blood and. And we die the same way. What the hell? Some people think that means that there is no meaning to life. Other people say, ain't it great? Be one of the people who can embrace that. And you will write this. And you will be shocked at the people who come up to you and say, man, I needed that.

Last word of inspiration. Too many.

Yes, ma'.

Am. What'd you say, sweetheart?

Maurice has a last word of inspiration. He wanted to get in there.

Oh, yeah.

I just wanted. I wanted to say that if you have not heard Beyonce's cover and reinterpretation of Jolene, it is the chain, it is fire, the way she turned it around. And that shows a true musician, as well as us as black folk, who, you know, brought the pentatonic Scale here from West Africa have ruled blues and country and rock and roll, but, you know, blues is the daddy. Blues is the father of rock and roll and all of that, but it's a daddy no one wants to talk about. I think Beyonce's Jolene really brings that into effect of what you can do when you talk about life experience and pain and making that into something beyond.

What I know is Dolly liked it.

Oh, yes.

That's all I need to know. So I'm gonna do.

I played it. The early birds got to hear me play it right here in this space.

Fantastic. Fantastic. You know, Mo, you're one of my tribe.

Thank you, sir.

You know, you're one of my spiritual children. However.

Hi, how are you?

Huh?

Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you? And American Indian. That's an old joke from the American Indian who did that a long time ago on Johnny Carson. I didn't just make that up.

Office. Okay, well, you just keep going where you're going.

Yes, sir.

And proud of you. All right, so let's see who else is out there? Is anything you want to talk about, T?

Not really. I'm still waking up for some reason, but I. I worked all last weekend grading, so I think I have a little bit of a rest deprivation that I'm catching up on, so I'm just gonna chill out today.

Yeah, I understand. That's really good. Well, let me. Let me kind of see, you know, if there's anything that any of you would like me to go into more deeply, any questions I can answer, anything like that.

Yeah, I have a question. If it's.

Yeah.

Okay. So when I was looking at submission stuff a couple of magazines like the Asimov magazine, and I didn't use AI When I was writing Crack Rats, but I did for the images. I was like, let me see if I get some images out of that. And I stay away from AI with writing. But they said if they detect that you use AI, they'll reject the story and reject you from any other submissions going forward. How do you feel as a writer as using AI because they say anything you do, if you ask for an idea or something from AI, we don't want it.

It will.

Is that fair, or is it a.

Tool that can be fair? I think it's fair. And I think that your task then is if you ask AI for an idea, you have the responsibility to rewrite that sucker until nobody would recognize it.

Yeah, it's fair, but it's unenforceable in terms of idea generation, because if you Ask an AI program for a prompt. And you know, I was trying to come up with an idea for a comic and I, I, you know, I was like, okay, Blackhawk. And it's like, if it says Vampire Hunter, I mean, okay, that's a very broad idea.

Yeah, it's unenforceable, but it's the right thing to do. And for you, the right, the right way to use the tool called AI is to use it as a jumping off place. I used to do research, you know, like in Legacy of Herod, if I wanted to have a character walking up a mountain of a particular type of foliage, I would go to National Geographic and I'd find an article about somebody hiking through that kind of foliage. And I would cut and paste the article into the book and then I would rewrite it until this is what I would say to myself. If the person who wrote that article read this sequence, they would not recognize their work. I would rewrite it that much until it was just mine. Until it was just research. What they want is you. Your heart. No AI can do that.

Right.

So. To take an idea or to use one of their ideas as a jumping off place for your own speculations, assume that the AI is capable of giving them very similar answers, that they will ask it very similar questions. And assume that you have to change everything until it's unrecognizable. And you can that. And you're still way ahead of the game. And I think you're using it in a responsible way. It's your responsibility what your writing, not your prompts. Okay, Understood. All right.

Do you have any comment on the Good Times animated series that's out.

Unbelievably poor taste. I think they're going to get absolutely savaged.

I know when the Morehouse of Spelman page, they're planning a boycott and national boycott, some people.

So, yeah, I mean, I, I'm, I don't boycott things, but I do spit on them occasionally. There are reasons why I think that that is actually, it's more than just poor. I believe it is offensive. Yeah. Because James and Florida were doing the best they could. And that was the late 60s. Okay.

Yeah, into the 70s. I mean, imagine 50 years ago, John Amos quit that show because JJ's character was too broad.

Yes.

So they, they made it.

Now it's like, what?

Well, not only that, the thing about it that I find most disturbing is that this, this story is about their grandchildren. That means that James and Florida never got their family out of the project. Not only that, but they Devolved. They didn't get any of them into college, they didn't get any of them into careers. Utter complete failure. I find that contemptible. Is that clear enough?

Yes, sir.

Thank you. All right.

Next. Yeah, and I was going to say. I wasn't going to say it, but Otis brought it up. There's. They're using dated imagery of like Cabrini Green style housing that doesn't even exist anymore in Chicago. And they had one image of like one side shooting at the other side, like a sight gag. So it's just so ignorant and regressive and frankly just racist. It looks like a Maga made animation as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, I. I could easily see Magas making that. You know, the one white character is basically telling them that he lives in a shithole. You know, I. I don't know who they expected to find that entertaining, but it was not me.

Who's it for?

It is inevitable that you get stuff like that in the same world where you have Academy Awards for Get out and American Fiction. It's inevitable that there would be a good times. But we. It's critical for us to let them know, and no uncertain terms that this is inappropriate. That's the only way evolution happens. That they will try a lot of different things, attach pain to the stuff we don't want to see again, and they will be forced to move in the right direction like any other worms. That's just. Just natural things. So I don't blame them for trying. That's just the way it is. But we can't let them get away with it. All right, so, Robin Burchette, I have not seen you here either in a long time or I'm not sure I've seen you here.

Yeah, I dropped in once a couple months ago and then I've been here sporadically since. But I.

How you doing, buddy?

I'm good. I'm good. On the whole last time we talked, I said I didn't have any goals for the future and you said, well, can you get some? And I did. So I thought I'd just tell you what I got here.

Next time, please raise your hand because I would have been delighted for you to raise your hand, but I had to call on you. Go ahead.

Okay. Thanks for body. I've started learning to the WIM HOF breathing and some other meditation techniques involving the intensive breathing. So I'm exploring that and I'm re establishing regular working out and body maintenance because I'm in pretty good shape for 56. I don't have any, any major problems, but I haven't really been maintaining the unit really consciously. Just been sort of doesn't take a.

Lot of time, but it does take consistency and consciousness.

And for mind, my wife and I have a plan to buy a retirement property up in Canada, where she's from. And so we have to figure out all the details of how do I live there, what are the residency and citizenship requirements and health care and all of that. And at 56, I'm looking at how many more years do I need to work at my regular job before I can stop that? And we have to there's a lot of parts and pieces because we own a business and have kids that we're putting through school. And so I'm hoping by the end of this year that we'll have that stuff nailed down. And I also just during this webinar here today, I wrote down write and submit one story per month, because that's something that I keep sort of sputtering with and getting back on and writing a bit and then letting it fall. So I just want, as I recall.

You'Re a good writer.

I am, damn it. And it's been, it's been too long since I've put it out there and really had it.

So we're willing to that. So that's your getting in touch with your kid part, the money stuff. And you're connected to your wife, so that's, you know, family and career. And then physically, so you've got all the basic aspects handled. That is, that is a set of goals that we can support you with. So I want you to take the one about retiring and run it through the magic formula. That means that you have a specific map or model of how you're going to raise, how you're going to create the money. You know, exactly. You know, you start getting clarity on what's necessary for you to do there. You know, what actions you can take every day or every week. Maybe it's one phone call every day or every week. And so you can actually map that. I would suggest that you that you have take some small action every day, five days a week. Flood yourself every day with gratitude that you're at this point in your life, you have your beautiful wife who you love and your family and, you know, your health and all this possible. Just really feel that, light yourself up with that positivity. Get a really clear goal. You want to retire, but bang, where, when, where do you want to move so that you're so that you have specificity so you can begin to get. Understand exactly what resources you're going to need to get there so you can take a look at your life and figure out how to do it. And not only that, but the reticular activating mechanism is set up so that when your goals are clear out of the billion pieces of data you get every day, you'll hear the one piece over here, the one piece over there that is connected to what it is that you want. And the last thing is you need to feel that you are that bitch, that you are the guy who could do this, and that it is a joyful, natural expression of who you are. Every day with your family, you are providing examples. You're showing the way, even if you. If something terrible happened, you need to live to move to Canada, that every single day, your efforts to do this are simply being who you are, who you promised your wife you are, who you told your kids you are, who you have felt in your heart that you are, you own the rest of your life. You have earned the right to stand up and say, I own my life. Let me hear you say it.

I own my life.

There you go. You're a good guy. I've never seen you be unkind to anyone in the time I've observed you. And I watch for, like that. You're a good guy. I want you to succeed, you know, and just show up here whenever you can. And, you know, we'll just. We're. We're happy to see you, buddy. All right.

Thank you, Steve.

You betcha. All right, so who else. Who else has anything that they would like to ask? Volunteer or you will be voluntold. We're only going to be a couple more because I'm going to get back to the convention. Author Millie Price. Millie Price, are you there?

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Hi.

You got a camera?

I guess I'll put on a video, but I'm not. I was not camera ready, so. That's okay, everyone.

That's okay. I just love. I just love seeing people, you know, Just. Just. I love that feeling that you and I are having a conversation.

How are you?

How are you, sweetheart?

I'm good. I'm. This is the first time I got to join. I finally caught it in time. I'm in Colorado, so the times always get me a little confused. So I'm having a good time. I. I'm 47. I've been writing for 20 years. I finally got a book, an agent, and a book on submission with the traditional publisher right Now. So I pretty much. Thank you. I pretty much joined this chat because I really like your talk about visualizations and positivity, something I didn't have a problem with until I got into the publishing field. So right now I'm just kind of trying to balance, stay balanced, use my meditation techniques, use my positive.

What is the. What is your greatest challenge? When you say stay balanced, what is your greatest challenge? Nail it down. Make it really crystal clear.

I write. I. I love writing. I absolutely adore it. It is my. It is where I go. It's. It is my home. It is my place of safety. And I'm a little bit wiggy on this whole making it a business thing.

Yes. Okay. So you know that our model is the child part of you. It's the child part of you that writes. It's the adult part of you that markets and takes care of business. So you are now mother of that little girl inside you. It's like this. You are just creating a safe space for her to do her thing while mom protects her. Now, Tananari had a mother lion as a mom, so I'm just going to turn this over to her.

Oh, in terms of the. Oh.

How do you balance. How do you take your heart and also balance, you know, take care of business? How do you do that?

You know, I'm getting over that shyness. I used to like everyone, and I still do at times feel shy about marketing, say, our writing products. Even though I believe in them deeply and I know they're effective, it's tough to ask people for money. I feel less so about that now with my art, because you have to fight tooth and nail for everything you get when you're trying to work in Hollywood, which I've been experimenting with for the past ten or so years. And I want my books to find their audience. You know, there's just too much feedback that people enjoy them or that they get nutrients from them. So it's kind of my responsibility to make sure that as many people as possible get exposed to those books for their formatory. I had a coach for the first time to help me learn how Internet marketing has changed and social media marketing has changed in the 10 years since the last time I had published a novel. And I think if you look at it as a public service and less about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, it helps you get over that hump.

That's really good advice. Thank you. Actually.

If.

If you don't see really clearly why I love this woman, it's like, yeah, I Mean, if you're given the best you've got, you are seeking to be as honest and useful and kind as you can be to come from love, to look at your pain, not ignore it. But don't be your pain if you can do that. So that a younger version of you would love to see that there was survival on the other side of that heartbreak, that there's a way through this, the way through the loss of a parent, there's a way through loss of love, there's way through disappointment. Your primary audience is a younger version of you, just as smart as you, just as good as you, doesn't know all the things. You know, you like that, that younger woman. What would you say to that younger woman about love, about life, about disappointment? If you could send a message in a bottle back to the younger you, you know, you would ream her out, but also love her up. She never. When you look at pictures of your younger self, don't you think, oh, my God, I was gorgeous. Why didn't I see it?

See, I definitely knew I was smarter than I that. Than I believed I was. So, yeah, I would definitely tell her that. You know, don't believe the hype.

You got it.

You got it.

Do it.

Here's the other thing. If you know that, you look back at yourself and think, why didn't I know how smart I was? Why didn't I know how pretty I was? Why didn't I know this? Ten years from now, you're going to be saying the same thing about yourself. Now, why the hell didn't I realize how much I had? Okay, so. So if you can play that game, then you can give yourself permission right now to be delighted with who you are. To be delighted with who you are. That little girl inside you has been dancing so hard and so strong and trying so hard to keep her. Her enthusiasm, love her, let her out, be her, be the mommy tiger that protects her space so that your little girl could just dance and you could look at her and say, ain't she cute? I mean, can't you tell that about me and Tanara?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yes.

I love the energy. The energy is innocent and pure joy. And I am just really. I love it. I absolutely adore it.

Pure joy. We are not lying to you about ourselves. We might be wrong about some of the things we're saying, but we're really trying to be as honest and direct as we can be. You if this. It's one of the reasons I made a promise to do this every Saturday is you can't keep up a lie that long. And then eventually people are going to look at that and say, damn, maybe he really is that way. This, you see, between me and Tananari, this is the way we are from the time we wake up in the morning until we go to bed at night. The only difference is we don't. We don't always put our pain out here for you. You know, we don't always talk about all the things we're insecure about or our struggles, whether we argue, you know.

But, you know, one time we have a podcast together, and I edit that podcast. And one week, I accidentally uploaded the unedited version of the podcast, and you could hear the talk before we were. We thought we were on the air, and the talk after we were on the air, and I panicked until I realized that the talk was so cute. It was like, oh, okay. I love you, baby. I'll see you soon. It was just like a peek behind. I mean, it ain't always like that. Don't get me wrong. Some days I definitely would have taken taking it down, but that particular week, it was just, yeah, that's who we are. And why shouldn't the audience get a.

Peek and did that? Tanana Reeve drives me crazy. And ain't it great? She is exactly who it is I prayed for in my life. She's a wonderful woman, and I give thanks literally every single day. You know, in my. In my morning ritual, I give thanks for my son, Jason. I give thanks for the people who love and trust me. My son Jason, my daughter Nikki, my beautiful, brilliant wife, Tanada Reeve. And I say that out loud to God in the universe every day, because that's how I feel. It's not that there aren't problems, because we're two separate human beings who have problems as individuals. So of course we have problems. We come together. But I would marry her again a thousand times in a heartbeat.

That's beautiful.

Without a moment's hesitation, without a look left or the right, up or down. She is who I. She is my soulmate. She is my baby. She is the lioness that I want to be a lion for. It's as simple as that. And if we energy into this space and we can show you how we use that energy to drive us to stay healthy physically, to drive our writing. You know, she's getting many opportunities in life right now, and my attitude is there's a part of me that says I wish that Hollywood was giving me all those opportunities, but the other part of me Says, what do I need to do to back her play? If she's got the football, how do I block for her so she can get that ball across the line? I contain multitudes. So does she. And all the things that I am love all the things that she is. Simple as that.

It's very, very nice that are. That there are people like you in the world. I'm just grateful for that.

Well, we're grateful.

Thank you for being here.

This grows largely because of what you guys are saying to each other in chat, you know, just, just helping each other and sharing resources and connect and in making, you know, connections and let's get together and will you read this? And I've got this resource, this. It's the community that does this. We cheerlead for you. We talk about our lives, we talk about them. But other than reminding you to breathe and use the magic formula, the rest is, so how's it going? You know what's going on? So you want to take your writing to the next level? Use the magic formula, Come to us and tell us how you're doing it. We will help you to refine it. You want a mapper model? Life writing will provide you with that. Or you can find another one. I want to know what daily actions you're taking. Weekly actions, monthly actions. I want you to fill your heart with joy and love. Because the disappointment is automatic. You have to. Entropy happens automatically. Life is anti entropic. Faith is anti entropic. The belief that tomorrow can be better than yesterday is your bulwark against disappointment. You believe. You never let anything stop believing because the little girl inside you need to know that mommy believes in her.

And also understand that our sentence a day technique, which is highly effective, is not an excuse for anyone to beat themselves up. It is not the intent that if you don't write a sentence a day, you're supposed to feel bad or a failure. Oh, no, I'm not cut out for this. It is motivational, not a punishment.

If, if you, if you can't do a sentence, then you know that whatever is happening is happening inside you. It's your software. You did not install your own software. Other people, you get to sort back through every level of your software until you find the what's causing you to crash. And if you can do that without judgment or with a certain amount of. Of joy, then you. You're not letting the pain stop you from. From evolving. You're not allowing the pain to stop you from growing. Everybody, we all have pain. We all have guilt. We all have regrets. We all need to forgive ourselves. We also need to forgive the people who hurt us because they were doing the best they could, too. And if you can forgive them, you know how to forgive yourself. And if you can forgive yourself, then you can walk forward with passion and power in your life and create all the wonderful things you want to create. You know, the meaning of life is to move away from pain, to embrace joy, and then to be of service to the world. That's the meaning of life.

Great.

I agree. You know, and if you can, the first thing we want to do is be sure that you're out of pain and that. That taking care of the pain in your life is just chop wood, carry water. It's what you do automatically. You work, you work out, you eat, you brush your teeth. That stuff is just automatic. You do all the things you need to do, including saying hi to the kitty back there. Django. Hello, Django the magic cat. You. You get all the things you need to do to take care of pain on automatic. Then you start looking for the ways to find more and more joy from the time you wake up in the morning to be able to connect, getting up and doing things you need to do to Joy. I get. I get to take care of my family. You know, I get to feed my kitty so that my kitty will. Will play with me. I get to. To. To look at my email, something exciting might happen today. I get to work on that story. I get to work out, thank God I've got a body that is responsive to exercise. And, you know, whatever it is, you have to do what I tell my son, if you are given a job, either get out of it or get into it. If you have to do it, why drag your feet? You know, if. If you're going to drag your feet, don't do it. If you have to do it, it's got to be because it's important to your life in some way, makes you money, or it helps to support your family. So why wouldn't you do that with Joy? I changed diapers with Joy. I've got a healthy baby. Yay. I did not want to Joy, you know, hey, my kiddies are alive. If you gotta do it, get into it. You're crazy. You know, that's okay. That's okay. Crazy is good. I like crazy.

Can I brag just a little bit? Just a little bit. So you're talking to. And I'm sorry, I can't even. I'm not even gonna try to pronounce his name. Because I'm really bad with names. But the young man that came in and you said he would, you wanted him to be a master. So that was four years ago. When I kids left the house, I got back into writing and that's what I did. I decided I wanted to be a master writer. So I started clocking in and out every day. I now work four days a week, eight hours plus a day. And I'm 36 hours away from 3900 hours of total writing time. So. And my goal is 10,000. And I just want, I just want to reach 10,000 whether I get published or not or ever sell anything. That's just my personal. I want to be a master writer.

When you take a look at the, at the path that we laid out, are you writing at least a sentence a day?

Heck yeah.

Oh, I, I, yeah, I write eight hours a day. I, I write more than a sentence a day. And then sometimes on the weekends.

Yes. So in the idea is, you know, eight hours a day, five, six days a week, you know, just, or rather one sentence a day is your minimum. That's the only work you do. One sentence a day is all the work you do. The rest is play. If you just go right ahead and play. But it's like the only work is that first sentence. One to four short stories a month is our path. Is our path. We recommend that deeply. Unless you're already, unless you have published a novel's worth of short stories, it's okay. But you're a grown ass woman. You will make your own decisions. And we respect and love and we'll support you no matter what. But we strongly advise you on this path because if you're on this path, we can guarantee you success. We can guarantee success. Nobody's made it story 25 without publishing. Not a single person. That allows us to promise you. And I'll make you the same bet I made him. Starting now, you follow our advice, you make it to story 25 without publishing, I'll give you $100.

All right, well, I'm already on three, so. Well, I got 22 more to go.

Fantastic. Fantastic. I would estimate you'll be published by the time you get to 15. Oh, may shoot.

Okay. Oh, I'll take that challenge. I love a challenge.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, you get out there and you let us coach you. You let us coach you. If you're in the life writing program. Fantastic. You, you know, that's the best coaching we've gotten. That's just being honest. But we will as you can see, we will give you coaching for free here.

Okay.

And so this is good. Anything else I can do for you today?

No, that was unexpected and fabulous. So that's great. Thank you.

So you were on.

You.

You are unexpected and fabulous, too. Well, thank you. All right, so, people, I gotta get to my panels and stuff like that. I am so grateful that you were willing to be flexible, you know, and let me. Let me change the time up. I will try to do that as little as possible because I love you guys genuinely. I think you know that. I'm not kidding about that right now. This is one of the high points of my week. There are such good things happening. The Star wars novel looks like I was able to really accomplish what I wanted. And I was in fear constantly. Tony will tell you that I let that book be a mess longer than I usually do because it was the only way that I could get it done in the time frame that I had at the level I wanted. It had to stay in the womb, you know, covered with. With fluids and just, you know, it's a mess. Newborn babies look like J. Edgar hoover dipped in 30 weight. They're beautiful because of their potential, not because of what they are. Books could be the same way. If I tried to make that book look good the whole time was working on, I never would have gone into my crazy imagination and done some of the things that I did in that book. And I went all the way there. That is a nutty ass Star wars novel. It is sexy and exciting and there's lightsabers and duels and this and that and aliens and robots and just, you know, Jedi juju. It was fun. But I had to let the little kid inside me make a mess because then I knew that I would be able to help him straighten that mess up. You guys are my heart. This is. This is the one place I can count on during the week, other than talking to my wife, where I can really just be myself about the things that matter most to me in life. There are three things that matter to me. My writing and things connected to that. The martial arts and things connected to that in my family and friends. That's it. You're all the way inside me, guys. And I am very appreciative that you're trusting me to give something of value to you that makes it worth it for you to invest an hour every week, 90 minutes every week to come here. I know you have other things to do. I do not take you for granted at all. If you want to get closer to this process. Firedance, tai chi.com lifewriting premium.com or just come here. Join our mailing list stephenbarnslist.com or to nonorelisk.com and let us party with you every week. So unmute yourselves and everybody say, you know, goodbye. Hey, goodbye, everybody. And I'm talking to you next week from Las Vegas. So, oh, my goodness. I'll see you guys later. And the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within each and every one of you. Namaste. Take care.

Thank you, Trevor.