Putting yourself out there...

"How bad could it be?" I asked myself, as I decided to write my first novel.

Little did I know how bad failing could be, especially with a world wide audience. I recently looked up the "worst" books sold by Amazon. The Shadow God by Aaron Rayburn is one that has become notoriously famous with 20 single star reviews and each of the five star reviews dripping with the most cruel sarcasm I could imagine. As I read through the reviews I couldn't help but feel for poor Aaron Rayburn, who dared to dream far bigger than he was capable of flying and fell flat on his face for all the world to laugh at. And while C. Dennis Moore's books have done slightly better, nothing he's done has received as much acclaim and notice as his crucifixion of Mr. Rayburn.

On the other hand there is also Essentials of the Internet which is currently ranked #9,867,298 on Amazon, which is as far as the numbers go currently, I think.

It's a cruel world out there. It's difficult to gather enough courage to possibly be mocked by 75,000,000 people like Rebecca Black for her Friday song. (Perhaps not all of those people think of her song as a fun way to torture others, but a lot of the reviews suggested that might be case.)

I can now understand a little better why most people don't publish books, write songs, paint, or publish their own creative works, whatever they may be.

I recently heard a quote about faith. It compared faith to that courage of a baby bird who jumps from the safety of the nest not knowing beforehand how to fly.

I love and admire the courage of those people who dare not only to dream big but to chase those dreams that are far bigger than they have the ability to reach.

I'm glad that my friends haven't tried too hard to save me from myself (as Mr. Moore might have been trying to do for Mr. Rayburn). I haven't hit the ground yet, though I may have hit a couple of the branches on the way down. I don't know if I'd have the courage or strength to climb back up the tree to try again if I ever got to that point. As it is, it's easy to start doubting. It's easier to be done and say, "I've given it a go, and now I can move on." But I want to help champion those dreamers, who against all odds still tried. I want to carry that torch, daring the world to laugh at how reckless and foolish I am.

Maybe it's good that I have an extra thick ego, or naivety, to help protect me from "reality." Because someday I'd like to grow up to be more like Robby Novak, who might not have as many views as Rebecca Black, but who in spite of having brittle bone disease still knows how to dance and help others to smile.

May we all learn how to dream a little bigger and accomplish a little more.

The Love Conspiracy

You knew I would eventually get to this, it's too big a conspiracy to pass up, and with it being Valentine's Day....

I know that in true Illuminati and conspiracy fashion I should start by pointing to archaic history of the word to help motivate you to realize the magnitude of this conspiracy, but I think this conspiracy has touched everyone so deeply that no introductory words are necessary. Though you may wonder which of all of the myriad of love conspiracies I have chosen to talk about.

As a still aspiring author, with one book published, I think it important to start by pointing out how frequently ill-defined the word "love" is: "an intense feeling of deep affection," "a quality or feeling of strong or constant affection for...," "warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion," etc. Most definitions focus on a bio-chemical reaction stimulated by glands in the body that generate a feeling of pleasure. I'm pretty sure that there are drugs out there that you could find that would simulate even the most intense of these types of euphoria, though I wouldn’t prescribe them.

I don't mean to discount that elation of looking into someone's eyes and seeing an eternity of beauty, grace, and perfection. After years of living together, raising children, and sharing dreams with all of the inevitable arguments that have come and gone, it is amazing to still be able to hold that one companion who has remained undaunted through it all and still see all the reasons I'd go through every bit of it again just to spend that time together.

And the pride that swells in my heart as I look at my teenage son, as he finishes high school and prepares to go out into the world, fills me with such gratitude to have been a small part of his accomplishments. The cascade of neuro-feedback proves that I was genetically programmed to live for these kinds of successes in life. It's understandable that love might be described in terms of deep emotion.

With the younger children it's even easier to be filled with excitement and joy just seeing them have fun and laugh. So why would I focus on the error in terminology when I clearly feel the tremendous pull of sentiment just thinking about each of my family members?

It's because I've a failed, more than I'd like to admit. I'm fairly good with failure and try to learn as much as I can from it. I'm even sometimes good at learning from other peoples failures and successes. But the terminology currently used for love makes it too easy to shift the blame.

Now for the esoteric references. Joseph Smith once talked about how one can become great, he said, "Elevate, benefit, and bless others first.  If you will elevate others, the very work itself will exalt you.  Upon no other plan can a man justly and permanently aggrandize himself."

This means that any efforts I take to make something of myself that aren't focused on how I can help others ends up as foolishness. Or put more poetically, "Love is the only true success."

When one further looks at one of his successor's words, these given by Pres. David O. McKay, "No Other Success Can Compensate for Failure in the Home." One can see how love is clearly the key, but only when one has the correct understanding of what that love is.

I might feel an bio-chemical high because of the success I see at work or some place. And that feeling of elation might, according to popular consensus, be defined as "love." But if I don't have a correct understanding of love I might end up putting more time and energy where I feel like I'm getting more in return, and miss out on so much more. It is amazing the kinds of rewards that come from families, but most of these come with their fair share of pain as well.

There have been too many times that I've failed as a husband or father. Love, in the context mentioned above, isn't always convenient and sometimes not even pleasant. There is a good reason that it is frequently connected to sacrifice. Sleepless nights, arguments over rules, worries about finances and futures..., I wish I was better at always looking first for ways that I could help. I know how painful it is growing up, even as a dad. And sometimes I've wanted something in return for all of that effort. But I've come to realize now that with love, if I'm looking for something in return, or it's diminished because of unmet expectations, then I'm not doing it right.

I'm sorry for all of the times I've gotten upset over a bad grade or what ever perceived failure I saw in one family member or another. I can see now how much better it would have been to have been more supportive and understanding. I wish I had done more to help them rise above the disappointment than feel the extra burden of discouragement.

I'm sorry for all of the times that I gave up on trying to encourage something different because I got tired of the resistance I felt. I wish I hadn't been so selfish with my time that I justified my actions by focusing on my own personal improvement, just hoping that they would see what I was trying to suggest.

I'm sorry for being lazy, or rude, or for not listening more attentively.

I'm sorry that during those times when I was trying to become better at exercise, or learning, or such that I missed opportunities to become better at love.

There may be other conspiracies (of which YouTube might play a role) that are currently keep us apart (and do I love my day job), but I look forward to the day when I can spend more time together again with my family (and even live in the same state). And one of these days I hope I can become an expert of this, the most important trait of all -- love.

Be Awesome.

In my next book in the series I have one of my characters telling Sarah something like, "Of course the whole universe is conspired against you, it was designed to test you to the core to see what you are made of. While others may try to hide from this testing, you must embrace it and let it stretch you in ways you didn't know you could grow."

It certainly feels like whole universe is conspired against me at times, or at least the English language. I tried to think of a conspiracy between Noah Webster and Mark Twain that would explain why English is so complicated for me, but Webster studied 26 languages in an effort to make American English more uniform and straight forward. That was a lot of effort to try to better teach American children how to read and write.

However, with my novel and the roughly 650,000 symbols (letters, numbers, punctuation, etc.) needed, even if I got 99.9% of all of those symbols correct that would still leave 650 errors. I now understand much better why so many books still contain errors even when the publishers have a team of editors to help clean them up, let alone indi' authors who are doing it all on their own. It only makes maters worse that when I try and read through and correct mistakes that my brain is able to easily compensate for me and make it look as if those mistakes weren't there. It takes a great deal of attention to details to find all of the errors, and with a lot of creating you have to ignore most of the details in order even get started (otherwise you get too bogged down with all of the minutia) so it's hard to do both.

The universe is definitely causing me to stretch in ways I didn't know I'd grow and, in fact, in ways I didn't actually want to grow. But I am grateful for the growth.

I'm also grateful to Kenda, who recently provided me with a number of edits that I think will clean up most of my errors. I feel like I'm perhaps 99.999% of the way there (unfortunately that might still leave about 6 errors). I think that this might be more comparable to a traditionally published book. I'm not satisfied, I'd like to have it perfect, but I am happy that it is getting closer. And I think that the more people that I can get to read it, the better it can become.

This means that there might be a number of "collector's editions" that are printed along the way. As more people buy my book, I'm hoping to be able to buy back as many of those collector's editions as I can and burn them. Mostly because every time I see all of the mistakes that I've made, I'd much rather hide them than be reminded that they're out there. Unfortunately for me this may increase their value, as hopefully they become more and more rare. So I am hoping that with your help we can make their value skyrocket.

While I do like my day job a great deal, I did have fun making these videos in order to help promote my book (Help reunite me with my family! and Keep it secret). They seemed like they would have a "youtube" sharable nature to them. But they are definitely promotional videos, and I'd much rather be awesome like the Kid President, Robby Novak, than just go viral.

Unfortunately Amazon is also conspired against me in that, if you already have my book on Kindle it's hard to get the updates so that you can see if it's good enough now to share. The only way I know how to do it is with Amazon's "contact us," by selecting Kindle eBook and asking them to send the updates. But hopefully if you're able to do that you'll see that not only have I cleaned it up a good deal more, the links to the chapters are also fixed.

I know it's a bit of a pain, and I wish I was just perfect the first time so you wouldn't need to go through the extra work. But I do thank you for all of your help. And if you'd rather not go to all that trouble, to help me be awesome, that's ok. I might need a lot of help. I'll still consider you awesome either way.