My early-mid twenties was the middle school of my adult life and the blinking cursor of fear/awesomeness.

There's a scene from a story that I've been wanting to write since I was in my twenties that has looped on repeat for years now. At some point I screwed up the courage and wrote it down. It was actually the first creative writing that I'd done since a creative writing course in college.

Almost every time I think about it, it brings me to tears.

Let's be clear, I'm not saying that the prose is so arrestingly beautiful that it moves me to tears. I'm not even saying the writing itself is so remarkable that it moves me to tears. It's just that scene connects all the dots for me.  There's hope, fear, righteous anger, looming sacrifice, duty, honor and the call of a home that most had never known.

As I kicked around in my twenties, trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do, writing would flit in and flit out but I never gave it my full focus. I think part of me felt foolish to dare presume that I could write. With the certainty that someone else could write it (whatever I was thinking about) better and my struggles with disordered learning in college, it was never something that I let crack the bubble of possibility.

There is a significant amount of cognitive dissonance that this produces for me because I essentially see the world as a story. Some part of my brain is looking at what's happening around me and ordering it through the lens of a novel. This was why jogging on the streets of New York City after 9:00 pm was so vital and amazing for me in grad school, there was just so much happening at once. Anyway, that dissonance was rooted in literally seeing the world in a certain way, then another part of your brain telling you, "Sorry bud, that's not for you."   

It wasn't until I was thirty-three that I started THE UNSEEN. I wrote it during a difficult and nearly overwhelming moment in my life but it was in that place that I allowed myself to throw my self created caution to the wind. Once I let myself believe that I had the right to write (English ftw!) I held myself accountable and just did the damn thing. Of course "doing the damn thing" took far longer than I initially anticipated. If THE UNSEEN ever takes off, I have about 80,000+ words that got cut, so although it's only one finished novel, their world is already much larger.

If I could go back to that twenty something kid, I would tell him that you gotta grind, everyday you have to fight for it. You will fuck up, often repeatedly. Your writing will take you places that don't end up anywhere other then knowing your characters better. Staring at a blinking cursor on an empty page is equal parts terrifying and breathtakingly incredible.  

There is no big bow at the end, there is only the journey. The marvelous, awful, beautiful journey.

Have a great weekend friends.

My little sister, diversifying across platforms and deep self loathing

Let's get right to it tonight friends.  In my family my little sister is regarded as an almost mythical hero.  She might not believe it or understand it, but she is.  She is braver then I'll ever be, stronger then I've ever been and waaayyyyy smarter then me.  From the moment she graduated college she pursued her dream with a level of determination and grit that she shares with Gandalf (Grey and White), Luke Skywalker(trench run) and Calvin (during Calvinball).

I get it now.  In a way that I never understood because I wasn't brave enough yet, I get it.

Being creative is some lonely shit yo.

When you're done with the lonely part, you're sharing your art and baring your soul to the entire freaking universe!  Whether your audience is one or a billion, it's exhausting in a way that even the empath in me didn't fully appreciate it.

I've been out in the wide world of the internet for a month, she's been singing, recording songs, putting albums together, playing shows for twelve years. 

I think we all have that spark inside us, that dream, that hope for the one thing you want to do and that allows you to make a living as well.  For some of us those two things coincide, for others they don't, and for people like my sister, she brushes it all off and keeps singing.  She just does the damn thing.

This brings me to plot point two and three.  We were laughing today because she said in a extraordinarily nerdy voice, "You must diversify across platforms!"  It was funny if you were there, promise.  In this new alien, almost too bright world of creative writer Ben, she's right.  You don't want to have the same image or story up on all your social media platforms (I'm actually rolling my eyes at myself right now, so you don't have to).  However, I think I might today based off the most timely meme that was shared on my Facebook page about an hour ago.

A gentlemen that I went to elementary, middle and high school with tagged me in the picture you see above.  He was always one of the smartest guys in our class, seemingly devouring all new material at a rate that would have made a large Chtorr (reference anyone?) proud.  For instance, he and one of his best friends actually learned Elvish from LOTR, as in they passed notes to each other, that the other understood (!) in Elvish.  They were actually the basis for Maeve to understand, read and speak Klingon in my book.  Anyway, out of nowhere he tags me in the post from above and what he can't know, what most people who aren't in the shit as it were, was how far in my head I was today!  This was coming off a really great night last night (I'll get into insanity tomorrow) but I was stuck way in my dome today.  Nothing was good enough, I wasn't good enough, my plan to get the book out wasn't good enough, I smelled and someone stole my lunch money.

But out of nowhere, David, who I haven't had a conversation with since graduating high school comes riding over the hill with the Knights of the God Damn Vale and saves the day.  So for all those reading this, HOLD FAST!  There are people around you, watching, waiting, protecting, lifting you up in ways large and small.

We can do this.

You CAN do this.

Good night friends. 

The cool kids and the Librarian

Look at the picture associated with this, seriously, take a second.  Look at those two, these are the people I wrote THE UNSEEN for.  It just so happens that this is a picture of me at seven attempting to round house my little sister back into pre-school. (nice camera work Mom and Dad)  We both had our noses buried in books growing up, all the time.  In fact out greatest joint nemesis, was the local librarian.  This wasn't his fault of course, because the Farrell kids might not have been "great" at returning our library books on time.  Inevitably this would lead to getting to the library and praying that he wasn't there.  I'm not going to use names because I'm still fairly certain that he knows where I live and is coming for me.  

I wrote my book for all the kids out there who just want to hide in the quiet stacks of their local library and get lost.  I loved getting to library and getting transported somewhere, my mom and dad had to PULL us out.  Safety might be too strong a word but there was a sense of belonging that I felt while at the library.  That somehow someone had created a space for kids like my sister and I come to, grow and meet others like us.  With that said, we were just anti-social enough that we didn't really make any new friends but hey, there was safety in numbers, right?

Anyway, if you read my book, please know that you are welcome, you are safe and you are a part of something larger than youself.  We're all in this together and know that if called my seven year old roundhouse will be there to support you.

Have a good night friends.