What Happens After Sex, Drugs & Rock-n-Roll?

For those of you not familiar with Everclear ( a band from the 90's) and it's lead singer, Art Alexakis, you just might want to check him/them out. Art Alexakis' writing was what started me on my own writing career. In fact, my first short stories were based off of his music.

Over the years, I've learned two things from him:

1) Writing comes from you. While it doesn't have to be autobiographical, it does need to bleed a piece of you on the pages. My most successful works are the ones that I connect to my readers, and the way to do that, is to share with the reader, to develop an honest relationship with them and with yourself.

Art's songs are sometimes very personal, others aren't. Each are great. Why they work are that the listener believes both to be true.

2) The road to success in music and in publishing is hard, long, and will kill you if you let it. So don't let it. There are ups and downs in your career, but if you love what you do, if you love sitting down at the computer and writing a story, then you have already made it. Don't let others measure your success. Don't let others tear you down because you sell publish or because you didn't sell ten thousand copies. You draw the line. You choose what makes you a success.

Art has had a long, twisting career. He was at the top of his game, opening for Nirvana in the 90's, selling out stadiums, and then he wasn't, and his band broke up. Many thought it was over for Everclear. But Art wasn't done making music yet. While Everclear doesn't sell out stadiums anymore, they still make honest and great music. Everclear's new album is called Invisible Stars, to be released on June 26th. Give it a listen, and you'll see exactly what I mean about connecting to your audience.

Thank you, Art, for lighting the writerly spark in me.

Writing with a Gun to Your Head

Writing with a Gun to Your Head - June 5th

With Mario Acevedo, Jason Heller, and Julie Kazimer.

How do you balance creativity against the relentless push of deadline? What’s it like to slave at the word count, only to leave your work-in-progress to address a fresh round of revisions from another manuscript? And then the copy edits from another book fall on top of you. Plus you’re expected to blanket social media with promotions for yet another book. Meanwhile, readers demand that whatever you write can’t be anything less than genius. Come listen to why we crazy writers are willing to put that gun to our head.

Food/drinks at 7:30 PM, salon begins at 8:00 PM. Lighthouse Grotto - Grotto (lower level) 1515 Race Street, Denver, CO 80206, Cost: $20.

What's in a Number?

Big news on the CURSES! front. Amazon picked CURSES to be one of their 100 kindle books under for $3.99 and under for the month of May. By the second of May, CURSES had hit number 500 on the amazon sales ranking. Currently it stands at #234. I'm so thankful and happy to see it selling well.

But what's in a number? What does this actual mean?

As an author, I'm going to drive myself crazy searching for meaning in the amazon sales rank. I could do a happy dance or shoot myself in the head based on the ranking. I could watch every hour for the latest results. But what does it tell me really? Does anyone know?