Old Rockers Rocking, Trust Issues, and Carrie Still Gets Hit On Somehow

As you heard in our random thought, this week we went to see some early 1990s bands in concert. They were – well, they were old. The concert hall wasn’t even half full.

That sounds depressing, right?

It wasn’t. One of the lead singers has had cancer three times. His wife has had it once. They were both on the stage giving it everything they had.

And the lead singer?

He was smiling the entire damn time.

The Alarm at Portland's Aura

Here’s the thing. In life and in story, we have to face crap, deal with it, and sometimes we are lucky enough to survive. And sometimes we are lucky enough to choose to survive joyously.

A story is no good if there’s no conflict, no obstacles to overcome. It’s hard to root for the characters or care for the characters if nothing happens. You don’t want to turn the page.

Obstacles make us stronger.

Overcoming obstacles gives us courage.

Courage and strength gives us freedom.

It’s not enough in our lives or in our stories to be incensed, to shake our fists at the sky, to rage about circumstance, we have to do the next step – action.

Without the action, we are just shouting for no reason, inciting without purpose.

Don’t be afraid to go to that next step in your life or in your story and if you can? Do it with joy and with kindness.

In the random thought, we talk about trust (Should you? How we establish it) and connections and how people kept introducing themselves to Carrie whenever Shaun left during the concert.

Those links are here:

Writing Tip of the Pod

Obstacles make the story worth it. Actions keep the story moving. We want to root for someone. Make someone for us to root for.

Dog Tip for Life

Joy. Embrace it. Wag your tail for everyone to see. Don’t be ashamed of it.

SHOUT OUT

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.

WRITING NEWS IN THE WOODS – READ AN EXCERPT, ORDER NOW!

My new book, IN THE WOODS, is out!

Gasp!

It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!

You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?

In the Woods