Good day, and Happy Sunday! And a Happy Super Bowl Sunday to those of your across the country and around the world who follow major sporting events. I hope everyone is doing well, and have lived a fulfilling and satisfying life since last we spoke. I have likewise done my best to do the same.

“WRITERS… WRITE. EVERY DAY”.

As a working professional, this is my mantra. Rare is the day that I truly do NOTHING at all writing or writing-related (writing-adjacent?). I can count on one hand the number of days in a calendar year I truly take a day off, even on “vacation”. This is how I’ve published three novels (working on a fourth), written 15 feature film screenplays, three of which got made into movies, landed major Hollywood representation, and won an international award for one novel (BLOOD RED MOON), hit the Amazon Bestseller List for New U.S. Horror Releases with another (JUST BEFORE DAWN, Oct 26, 2023), and won awards for two as yet unproduced screenplays (AMBUSH PREDATOR and ISOLATION).

I do not see my mantra as particularly controversial. I did not think others would find it so, either. Boy, was I ever wrong about that.

A recent post on a writers group to which I previously belonged asked for the best advice the more seasoned writers in the group could give the novices. I said, “Writers write. Every day. You have to develop your voice and build up a “Writer’s War Chest” of shorts, poems, articles, novels, screenplays, whatever it is you do, to submit to agents, editors, producers, publishers.”

I got fluffin’ body slammed from all sides for being “triggering”. People responded that they don’t write every day and don’t want to write every day. I asked if they saw themselves as amateurs, or professionals. A lot of them got offended again. Others didn’t know their own writing goals, or asked me, “what’s the difference?”.

I should have known then I was in deep shite.

I explained, “An amateur writes because they enjoy it. It pleases them, relaxes them, fulfills them. They have no professional ambitions.” I added, ” And that’s fine. If it’s a hobby, do it whenever the mood strikes. But if you plan to turn pro, then you BETTER do SOMETHING every day to get you closer to your goals. If you want this as a profession, approach it professionally.”

Since “Write every day” seemed to be the trigger, I explained: Writing does not necessarily mean creating new content. It’s building a web site, building/ expanding social media presence, engagement with writing groups, setting up business accounts, staying on top of your ad spend and your sales numbers/royalties, attending to legal matters like copyright or WGA registration (screenplays), taking classes/ webinars that expand your skillset to make you a better writer — anything that moves you along to where you want to be. It could even be some little five-minute thing. But get it done.

Some complained they couldn’t spare even 5 minutes in a day, that my “demands and expectations” were rigid, triggering, unrealistic, etc. And maybe for them that’s true. I am sorry for them, but if they can’t do more than that on a consistent basis, they will remain amateurs/ hobbyists. I hope they’re okay with that. Some of them may sell a few shorts or poems here and there, but no more. This business is FLOODED with so many talented people who ARE approaching it as a business, and outlets can only buy so many pieces for publication per month or per year.

Ugly truth: Nothing breeds success more than hard work.

I got lambasted as elitist, uncaring, non-supportive. Some questioned my “authority” to answer the question with such “terrible and cruel” advice. Therein lies the problem.

The only thing “terrible” or “cruel” was that I dared speak the truth, something they obviously didn’t want to hear. I provided links to my Amazon Author page, links to every novel, and links to my IMDb page that includes not only past movies I have written, but also a couple of upcoming microbudget movies in which I am being credited as a producer. I told them that whatever small success I have achieved, I achieved by following the same advice I had given them.

Now they said I was bragging. I replied that if you can do something or have achieved something and have incontrovertible proof of it, then saying you did it isn’t bragging; it’s stating a fact. I was then told (get this!) to “check my privilege” because I am male and white and heterosexual. This really pissed me the motherfluff off, because that is their way of dismissing everything I’ve done the last 52 years of my life that got me to where I am right now today.

Only small people do this. Working professionals encourage and lift each other up.

At no time in my adult working life, either in the my military career or as a writer, has anyone given me a break, given me a job, conferred a medal or promotion, published my work, bought a screenplay, made a movie, or cut me any kind of slack whatsoever when I fluffed up because of my ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. I’ve never been “given” anything I didn’t work my ass of to earn.

I have had agents, managers, and producers before that were LGBTQ+, were people of color, were women, etc, and that’s fine. Their personal lives are none of my business. Our relationships were (and continue to be) primarily business-oriented. They signed me because they thought they could sell my work. I signed because I thought they could boost my career. It’s always been about talent, competence, and hard work. I’ve had to break out of my own comfort zones, learn new writing and editing techniques (adding to the old “writer’s bag of tricks”) and fluffin’ CHURN to stretch myself and go beyond where I thought my limitations lay in order to achieve new heights.

It ain’t easy. It’s tough, it’s scary, and not everyone can do it. I also believe it’s the only way true artistic growth happens.

One writer in this group informed me she was neurodivergent (she did not explain) and that my advice had triggered her into a meltdown and a mental health crisis that lasted almost an entire day. She went on to tell me how even the thought of five minutes a day was enough to put her into a mental tailspin.

I might have felt sorry for her then, but she went on to call me “neuro normal”, and claimed that I had no idea what it was to try and write something when one has disabilities. “It must be wonderful to write whatever you want without having any disabilities”, she wrote.

Rather than tell her how her assumptions were wildly inaccurate, and rather than divulge my struggles both mentally (chemo brain, mental fog, chronic fatigue) and physically (Left Trigeminal Nerve Neuralgia) since my battle with Stage 4 Cancer, not to mention dealing with PTSD (less acute these days, but always lurking just beneath the surface), or the Degenerative Disc Disease in my neck that limits my “chair time” or my Degenerative Joint Disease (arthritis) in my left knee that makes me limp on bad days, I chose not to answer at all. She didn’t deserve to know anything personal about me. I left the group entirely that very day.

I zero patience for those who seek advice, then attack the advisor because they don’t like the advice given. If you don’t want to hear the truth as I see it, then don’t fluffin’ ask me.

I have my own shite to deal with. Just yesterday, Jan 10, 2024, I was completely overwhelmed with chemo-related fatigue (yes, that’s a thing) and yet another flare-up of my Trigeminal Nerve Neuralgia that made my entire left face and head feeling like it was on fire, with radiating pain across my entire head. It affected my balance (vertigo) and my vision. I never even made it out of my PJs. All I could do was take high-CBD cannabis tinctures (legal here in WA state) and opiates (prescribed by my Pain Specialist), curl up into a ball in my bed next to my wife and my cat, and sleep.

That was my Saturday.

I’m better today, and working on this blog entry. Tomorrow, it’s back to the rough draft of my next novel, ALPHA MALE, a sequel to BLOOD RED MOON, and the second in a planned trilogy of werewolf novels telling a larger, complete, and overarching story.

Bottom line is this: I do my damndest every single day to practice what I preach. I have little respect for people who talk the talk but do not walk the walk themselves. Like a lot of the so-called “screenwriting gurus” out there who write books about story structure, plot points, A stories, B stories, plot points, plot reversals, Act breaks, page count, etc., but have never actually sold a screenplay that got made into a movie. But that’s fodder for a different blog post.

Despite my limitations, I have managed to slowly build a career as a working writer over time. It didn’t happen overnight and I’m not making the kind of money where I’m lighting cigars with flaming $100 bills, but I’ve managed to find ways to work around the bad days, doctors’ appointments, annual surgeries to keep my throat from fusing shut with scar tissue (thank you, high-dose radiation therapy!) and helping a wife who has a her own limitations that I won’t expound upon here, but trust me: it’s tough to do. But I still fluffin’ do it, folks. Why? I’m a fluffin’ working writer. IT’S WHAT I FLUFFIN’ DO.

Working professionals write whether they “feel like it” or not. To paraphrase Stephen King, “Some writers wait for inspiration. The rest of us get up and GO TO WORK“. 

Yes, Mr. King. I concur. Writers… WRITE. Every. Single. Day.

It’s not my only writing advice to give, but it’s the best basic, ground-level advice I can give to anyone seeking to make a living as a working writer. And I have neither the time nor the temperament to constantly worry about whether or not I’m going to offend, depress, or trigger someone.

SORRY NOT SORRY.