Trust your vision. Be authentic. Be honest. Do the damn thing.

I've been told that your first book is the hardest for a number of reasons.  I really really really hope this is the case.  While it was an amazing and enlightening process, it was also difficult in ways that are hard to put into words.  The best I can explain it, THE UNSEEN is me and I am the THE UNSEEN.  I'm not talking about soul transference or anything like that but I poured it all into this book, multiple times.  As I've written about before, this book has been DONE at least four times!  Do you know what it feels like to cycle up to that singular moment FOUR times?  It's awful!

I asked a lot of people to read this book at various times and in various forms, so I've asked for and received a ton of feedback.  I wanted this feedback so that it wasn't just my mom telling me how good I was (thanks Mom!), I wanted, no needed, other people to tell me what they thought.  I believed that the more people who gave feedback, the better off I'd be.

This was mostly an accurate statement.

The notes, thoughts and ideas that I got were unbelievably needed and helpful, I wouldn't have been able to finish it in the way that I did were I not surrounded by very patient and loving people.  Even when people I trusted gave me tough feedback (see-Get them the hell off the train!), I appreciated it.  When a family friend who's a published author told me (when I cranking out the first and second versions of this book) that she writes a book, then rewrites it again because she understands the characters, tone, setting, etc, I couldn't hear it.  But that's exactly what I've done, listen to wisdom friends! 

With that said, it's important to not write your book by committee.  You can have friends and family members who you love and trust not fully understand your vision...and that's ok!  I was talking to one of my students today who said that his friends were busting on the story he was writing because they didn't quite "get it".  My advice to him?  

Keep writing your story, not the story his friends think it should be.

If you don't love your story, who else will?  Trust your gut and get after it.  One of the most powerful things that I remind myself of every day is that there are so many people like me/you/us out there.  You may be on the other side of the world, you may have never met, you many never actually meet but your story is their story.  If you write with authenticity and honesty, you will find your people and they will find you.

Two minutes ago, I checked my Kindle reviews of the book.  In the last few hours a gentleman reviewed THE UNSEEN, giving it five stars.  The stars are amazing and I am beyond flattered and thankful, but there was something that he said that meant even more:

"This was a great, engaging read. I really enjoyed this world and the characters were refreshing. One of the characters even reminded me of my best friend. Does it get better than that? I hope there is a sequel (hint, hint) coming down the pipeline. I want to meet other Unseen!"

One of my characters reminds him of his best friend!  I'm actually desperate to know which one, then I want to meet his friend!  

When I'm teaching, I implore my students to be brave and ask questions.  I feel them rolling their eyes right now because they've heard me say the following so many times, "If you have a question at least two others have the same question!  Be brave, speak up!"  Through all the ups and downs, nerves, anxiety, dreaming, hope, failure and everything that came along over the last 4+ years, I'm happy.  My people are out there, the people who I'd be friends with and the people who Dan, Colman, Lily, Maeve and Ira would be friends with are waiting to find us.

To the journey.

Have a good night friends.

Teenagers, cryptids, and a helping of hope.

I was stuck in greater Los Angeles traffic yesterday and rather than let the creeping rage monster overwhelm my better nature, I went to my happy place...the world of THE UNSEEN.  I geek out on world building, I get way too excited about something that Maeve is going to do in a book that I haven't finished yet (#2) and I get goose bumps thinking about all the Big Damn Heroics in #2 and #3.  

After my talking car helpfully informed me, "TRAFFIC AHEAD, CHOOSE ALTERNATE ROUTE" (seriously, we are living in the future) for the 87th time, my mind wandered to why cryptids and YAs?  THE UNSEEN is relatively new on the scene for me, I've had the kernel of a hard(ish) sci-fi novel floating around in my brain since my mid-twenties, so why didn't I write that first?

Because equal parts cryptids and teenagers.

I've been lucky enough to spend almost all of my career (there was a year that I didn't see the sun while working for a bank) working with 13 to 21 year olds.  My first time teaching was in a community college, where I received a question that still haunts me to this day, "How are you qualified to teach this class?".  No idea what my answer was other than heavy sweating and desperately hoping that a black hole would appear, sucking me into another dimension whereby I could leave a complicated code to my former self in order to call in sick that day.  Outside of that particular moment, it's been pretty great.  There is so much potential, belief, excitement, nerves and hope in the teenage years.  They don't think they can change the world, they KNOW they can change the world.  The world is open and the possibilities are endless.  I've taught them, cried with them, advised them, coached them, laughed with them, been made fun of by them (this is a theme!), played with them, traveled with them and learned from them.  I've sat through the absolute best moments and the crushingly awful moments as well, but through it all, my job has been to help them see that their future, indeed our future, is still unwritten.  

How are teenagers connected to mythical beasts, legendary creatures and mythological animals around the world?  Well, anyone who works with teenagers will read that one way and laugh but more importantly, it's less so the creatures and more the people that they attract.  I love that there are large numbers of adults, all over the world, who spend their own time and money in the search for these creatures.  Their belief, their hope is the same that I see in my students.  They haven't been ground down to a nub of their younger selves, the world is still open and fresh with possibility.  It's beautiful really.

I'm excited to learn more about this community, connect with the people in it and hopefully go out on a few expeditions myself.

So if the Census would consider you an adult, take a moment and remember yourself at 15.  Who were you?  Who did you want to be?  Think and then take heart friends, it's never too late to become that person, to stand up and claim who you're supposed to be.  It might be scary, it might be difficult but your dreams are worth it.

Have a good day friends. 

"Get them the hell off the train!"-The day I became a writer.

Me?  A question?  Waaattttt?  I recently received my first question on Goodreads, "What advice do you have for aspiring writers?".  Frankly, I was floored by this because 1) I've been out here in the wilderness with my book for at most six-seven weeks and 2) I still see myself firmly in the camp of "aspiring writer".  However, my new friend from Turkey views me as a full fledged author already!  And you know what?

I am! 

The weight that was lifted off of my shoulders when I put THE UNSEEN up on Kindle was immense.  As I've said before, I feel a responsibility to both my characters and my family.  My characters because I see them as real people and their stories deserve to be told.  My family because they have been there, every step of the way, as I've tried to figure this whole thing out.  They were there the first three times I said with absolute iron clad certainty, "I'm done!".  They cheered me on, all the while thinking quietly to themselves, "No, you're not!"

The first eighty pages that I wrote in my initial draft were by far the most important for me.  I began to get a sense of who Colman and Maeve were.  They were funny, warm, unsure, wickedly smart and stood up for each other when they needed it the most.  Of those first eighty pages, do you know how many I kept?

Zero.

I remember the day that my father and sister called me up to have something of an intervention.  "Ben, we're proud of you and we love the kids.  There's some really good stuff in here but, well, uh..."

Me-"What? What's wrong?"

My combined father and sister loving me but talking to me like Tina Belcher does when she's the babysitter on Bob's Burgers- "Ben, you need to get them the hell off the train."

Note, did you know that the original first eighty pages took place on a train?  I'd done so much research on the Coast Starlight (Amtrak, runs from LA to Seattle, beautiful views) that I knew the specifications of the damn car they were sitting in during the day and how their room was set up in the sleeper car at night.  I knew what stop they got on and what stop they got off.  I knew what food was served on the way north to Washington State.  

They thought that this would absolutely destroy me but after mourning the loss of the ridiculous things the kids did and the first bad guy, Keith, I realized they were right.  "Get them the hell off the train!" has been my rallying cry since that moment.  When I'm feeling too comfortable or when they've been in the same place for too long, I tell myself to "Get them the hell off the train!".  

Looking back, I think that's the moment that I became a writer, when I had to let go of something that got me through some difficult times.  When I told myself that even though those eighty pages (my first eighty pages, to be clear) were the most important thing in my life at the moment, I wasn't doing right by proto-Maeve and proto-Colman to keep them trapped in that one place.  By creating my own world, not one that was confined by a real space, I was able to truly begin to let them be themselves.

It's amazing what a single question, from a single stranger, can clarify for you.

To proto-Colman and Tproto-Maeve.  May your hilarious yet train bound story be told one day!

Have a good night friends. 

For Mom.

"I envy you the journey."

These were the words that my mother said to me in the days before I left for college.  I've always thought about why she said that.  Obviously, she was proud of me, sad that I was leaving, happy about where my adventure might go, and nervous for her baby boy but there was something else mixed in there, something much deeper.

My mother grew up segregated in the south, and while it's not my story to tell, it's important to note that the opportunities afforded to me, were only there because my parents fought tooth and nail to make it my normal.  My older sister and my mother are the family historians and you don't have to go very far back to find amazing men and women who were quite literally, someone else's property. 

I bristle when someone tells me I cannot do something.  I've always thought this was because my parents raised us to be highly independent but looking back, I think I have some kind of generational chip on my shoulder as well.  My family, my blood, were told what they could and couldn't do.  In almost every aspect of their lives, they didn't have the choices that most of us take for granted today.  So when my mother offered me those words, she was also telling me that it was my responsibility to enjoy the myriad choices that I would have as I got older.  She didn't tell me to go to college so I could find a career, she wanted her only son to enjoy the journey of realizing who he was in the world.  

I do this for myself but I also do it for her.  My mother is selfless, she has time and again put almost everyone else in front of her own needs.  So when I make a decision in my life, one of my first quiet questions to myself is, am I following that advice?  What would my mother think?  What would my great-great-great-great grandparents think?  Am I doing right by them?  I'm always aware that I get to have the options I do, to have a great job, a wonderful family, the space to let my creatitivty out because of my mother's bravery.  Her strength, her wisdom, her fire, her humanity shapes me every day. 

I love you mom.

Have a good night friends.

Together

I've read, seen and heard a lot of difficult news in the last 48 hours.  In the end, all we have is each other.  In times of trouble, I know how important it was to talk to, hear from, feel and see a community around me.  I just need you to know one simple thing:  

We're with you.  

This was actually a main motivating factor for writing The Unseen.  It's for all of us, for that hurting and scared kid who hungers for home, connection and community.  That once you find your people, anything is possible.  

We are the heroes we've been waiting for.  

You are surrounded by people who love you.  Maybe you don't know them but they are there, waiting for you.  If you are scared, hurting, alone or something else, reach out.  Then reach out again if need be.  

We can do this together.

Hope, love and light.

Charging down the hill and the love of an old dog.

Blessed is the person who has earned the love of an old dog..-Sidney Jeanne Seward

I've been lucky enough to have the love of three old dogs in my time.  From before I was born through college, I grew up with them and they grew old with me.  Each was a member of our family and each of my pups taught me something powerful about life.

Ollie was a mutt through and through.  While not entirely sure of her humble beginnings, it quickly became clear that she was one of the more athletic beings the world had ever known.  Easily able to clear the highest of fences in a single bound, it was almost as if her gravity was turned to a different setting than the rest of us.  Rather than walk out the front gate of our home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she would casually leap over the fence with the ease of someone who was operating in about 5% of their normal gravity.  She was famously paired with her long time friend, Cat.  Cat was a cat, obviously.  My older sister attempted to name Cat, "Lucy" but in the ways that only cats can, Cat, ignored the shit out of that and responded only to Cat.  When my mother was pregnant with me, Ollie and Cat would flank her as she paced the house.  Because of Ollie and Cat, I'm a big fan of the cat/dog balance, think Sith/Jedi.  I'm not equating cats with the Sith but if I were (I kind of am) they would be necessary to bring balance to the force.  In her later years, our Ollie dog couldn't clear the fences in the same way but she still found ways to scrabble over them.  Have you ever seen a dog climb a fence? It's weird and amazing.  Ollie set the standard by which I judged all dogs (and most humans) and while she has been gone for some years now, she is immortalized in a nursery rhyme my parents sang to me and that I now sing to my babies.

  Kooler burst onto the scene when I was seven years old.  We'd moved out of the city, (way out!) to an old farmhouse in rural Western Massachusetts.  In order to help me with the transition, my parents surprised me with a puppy a few weeks after we moved.  They snuck him into the den while I was doing something else.  A few moments later I walked in, saw a floppy eared puppy, turned on my heel and sprinted back into the kitchen, "There's a dog in the den!" I exclaimed in equal parts panic and alarm.  I was a city kid after all and I just assumed that wild packs of roaming puppies would invade and set up shop in your home if you let them.  From that point, Kooler was an ever present component of my life.  Beginning of the day?  Kooler would sit patiently with my sister and I as we waited for the bus, he'd sense the bus coming far before we did.  He'd stretch it out in that glorious dog shuddering stretch and trot to the top of the hill next to our house, lord of all he surveyed.  End of the day?  Kooler would wait in the driveway for us to return, then he'd yip and yap his way to the front door as he told us about what he'd done that day.  Kooler is what I think the Mafia must be like with their families.  The family knows something is going on, Dad is away on "business" for most of the day, there are people who are always around, but you have no idea what anyone actually does.  There were brief glimpses of Kooler's alternate dog pack leader life.  A dog that no one had ever seen before would suddenly show up (we lived in the middle of a forest) and subserviently shuffle up to Kooler, he'd look at us, look back at the dog and almost imperceptibly nod his head in a direction.  Random dog would take the cue, put its tail down, and head off in the trees. 

If Ollie was the athletic, friend to all species Jedi and Kooler was the charismatic leader of free dogs everywhere, Blazer was...different. 

We aren't sure that Blazer was actually a dog.  I'm not sure that Blazer thought she was a dog either.  If aliens decided to beam down and take the shape of mankind's loyal friend in order to gather intelligence on us, Blazer was part of that initial spy operation.  She was unabashedly a Golden Retriever, sometimes playing the part of being a Golden Retriever so well in fact, that it was clear she had comprehensive data files on how to Golden Retriever most effectively.  Happy go lucky demeanor? Check.  Lolling tongue?  Check.  Friendly greeter to all who came to our door?  Check.  If Kooler had been Liam Neeson from Taken in his fierce and confident protectiveness of our family, Blazer was that really friendly Southern mother with feathered hair, that greets everyone with a booming and friendly, "How y'all doing? Would you like some pie?".  There were moments that Blazer would be licking something or the other and we'd make direct eye contact.  We'd stare at each other unblinking, two different species of Earthly cohabitants whose ancestors have worked together for countless millennia and a silent question would fill the void between us, "Am I dogging correctly right now?  Is this the appropriate level of dogness?".  Then a fly would zip by, or something on her butt would interest her more and that cross species connection would be broken until the next time.

Blazer in the wilderness was a wonder to watch in action.  As we grew up surrounded by the forest, and she was ostensibly the proud descendant of wolves, you'd think that she would move silently, almost cunningly, through the trees.  Well you'd be wrong to think that.  Blazer slammed through the underbrush, doing her best to catch every bramble and branch on the way.  Blazer's favorite activity was to find a wooded hill and charge down full speed, tongue streaming out of her mouth, tripping, rolling, somersaulting, bouncing off shrubs all while making as much noise as possible.  I'd come up to her as she did that dog roll/flip thing they do when they're trying to stand up and gather themselves, she'd look at me, smile her Blazer smile and crash off into the next obstacle.  When we walked with Kooler and Ollie, we'd often see deer, turkeys and other woodland creatures.  With Blazer the word was passed along all around us, "There's a dog-like being trying her best to dog right now, watch out friends!".

I say all this because recently my younger sister and I were trying to come up with the best idea/image/belief system to get(and keep) our creativity flowing.  How do you keep going?  What happens when you don't know what to do next?  What do you do when you're scared?  We both decided that we need to be the best version of Blazer possible.  We need to charge down that hill, stumbling, rumbling, crashing into obstacles, slamming through uncertainty, getting back up after the inevitable falls.  Those walks, expeditions, hikes and moments with my dogs growing up have taught me more than much of my formal education.  My dog/alien superspy was, and still is, my teacher.  I'll follow her lead, I'll follow her down the hill, through it all, because she taught me you can always get back up again.

Happy Friday friends. 

The visual blog/rudimentary self taught Ad design

A visual blog!  I don't always want to bore you all to tears!  Have a great night friends.

The First Directive-Protect the Unseen at any cost.

When in doubt, ask yourself a simple question, what would Ira do?

Fight back against the night.  Get to 359.

No matter what, Maeve always finds time for number three on her checklist.   

Tattoos, the power of words and Ratatouille

I have four tattoos, all of which are words.  I waited until I was thirty-four for my first one, initially it was a single line, "Do not go gentle".  I've now added to that and completed half of the last stanza from Dylan Thomas's poem "Do not go gentle into that good night".  

Initially, I got that first line for two reasons. First, it was for me, it was a reminder to not give up, to leave a mark, however small, in the world. It was also a reminder to be myself, to strive for the things that I wanted and the things I wanted to do, it was a reminder that I wanted to write. Second, it was for my father. It was a visual reminder of my connection to him and my love for him. If I can be a shadow of the person he is, I will have lived a full and good life.

My second tattoo came from "Ulysses" by Lord Alfred Tennyson. Initially I wanted "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.", and I still might get that (don't tell my wife, she thinks I have a problem...I might actually) but that was too much real estate.  I wanted to have them in places that I could see, but that could be hidden if needed. So I went with "of heroic hearts". 

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' 

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; 

One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

That resonated with me. I read that as our hearts, the core of what we are is still strong, anything we set our minds to we can do and that, our will, our humanity, can carry us forward. Now an English major would probably argue all of that, but that's what it meant to me, especially at the time I got it.

The next two were the continuation of my first one:

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I finished the end of the last stanza for personal reasons. Suffice to say, I read them multiple times each day as a reminder of fate, hope and the physical power of love.

Finally out of love of, respect for and connection to all those that came before me, I got the Farrell family motto, "Prodesse Non Nocere "(To do good, not to do evil) added as well.  

While these words mean so much to so many, they are also mine. They are daily(and sometimes moment to moment) reminders of who I am and who I strive to be. I got them tattooed on my body so I could keep them close, so they would forever be a visual connection to what's important to me.  

Why ratatouille you might ask? Well, in looking at the picture above, you'll see my one year old son, riding my shoulders, fistfuls of my hair in each of his tiny, yet incredibly Hulk like, hands. This is the only picture I have of all four tattoos at one time, so in a very tangential way, Johnny was controlling me to get this blog done.

Thanks buddy.

Have a good night friends.

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.