Life, it has this weird way of catching up with you and reminding you of what really matters. Last year I got an important book from Bren, my wife. The title is The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. The moment I started reading this book, I felt this feeling that I hadn’t had in a long time. This book is important, this book is what you need, right now. Have you ever felt this when you opened a book and read the first few sentences?

Reading this book is one of the reasons I am writing this blog, right now. It reminded me that I should focus my attention on what I feel I was put on this Earth for. To make a change, however small. To make this world a better place than how I found it. It’s never too late, right? In all honesty, after I finished writing my science fantasy trilogy and getting it published, I felt very unhappy. The books didn’t bring me what I thought they would. Now I see that perhaps getting them out there wasn’t the problem. My expectations of what would happen after I birthed them were just plain wrong.

I am still very proud of what I wrote. The novels are what I wanted to read myself and I didn’t write them for anyone else but myself. My biggest flaw was thinking what the books would bring me once I had them all out there. As if writing them wasn’t reward in itself, when that is really what they are. Each novel I wrote, I knew I was honing a skill and each one was better. At least to myself, the person who matters most in this case.

What The Art of War really did for me, was put a mirror in front of me and show me the difference between amateurs and pros. What it actually means to become a pro. Not by expecting to get a huge bank account, fame, prestige or other shallow things. But instead finding solace in the art of writing itself, in the creation. What Steven Pressfield said really resonated with me on a deep, spiritual level. When I experienced true flow during writing, it was as if I was a reporter writing down the events that were transpiring in front of me. My characters and the world they inhabit, they felt real to me and I was just recording their histories. Witnessing their conversations and emotions. Journaling their successes and failures, their struggles and victories. It is a feeling that I just can’t put into words, because they feel so divine.

So, here I am, putting the last words into this brand new blog. I really missed just typing and putting my thoughts out there. But here I am, chipping away at it again. Back in the saddle. Or to use modern day language: We are so back!

Have a good one all!

Jeffrey