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“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today 2 get through this thing called life.” –Prince (“Let’s Go Crazy”)

 

 

I once saw a video of a pre-show sound check. I’m not sure where it was, and initially, it wasn’t clear who was preparing for a concert. As the band launched into a song, the camera panned across the empty arena, and in the distance was a small man, flamboyantly dressed, strutting toward the stage with an ornamental walking cane. It didn’t take long to realize that this couldn’t be anyone other than Prince.

As he stepped onto the stage, the band still playing, Prince was greeted by a man in an expensive-looking suit who slung a guitar around his dainty neck. He launched into a guitar solo that was as good as anything I’ve heard before or since. He stood in one place, not expending any energy except through the guitar, and then after two or three minutes, satisfied with the sound, he took the guitar from around his neck and tossed it through the air to the man in the suit. Prince then grabbed his cane, and like a peacock, flounced off the stage.

The video was mesmerizing. It captured the magnetic nature of Prince, and showed why he was one of the greatest performers in the world. And keep in mind, this was just the sound check. It paled in comparison to Prince in concert.

I can’t claim to be a huge Prince fan. I liked his early stuff, but really didn’t follow him too closely. He recorded thirty-seven albums (an incredibly prodigious number) in his too short life, but I only owned two, 1999 and Purple Rain. Even so, I had great admiration for his incredible innovation and creativity.  In a lot of ways, Prince was a pioneer, and he was an inspiration and an influence to a great number of musicians over the past thirty-five years.

To really see the genius of Prince—and make no mistake, he was a genius—you had to see him in concert. He was a performance savant, able to draw the audience into his performance with a mix of talent and passion that separated him from this contemporaries. His talent was his calling card, but it was his passion that held the audience in his sensuous embrace, leaving them exhausted and satiated when he released them from his grip.

This video from 1983 will give you a feel for the passion that Prince brought to a live performance (and I dare you not to get chocked up):

Then there’s this live performance in Milan in 2010:

NOTE: I was afraid these videos would be removed. Trust me, they were great.

Perhaps the best tribute I’ve read about Prince was written by Bomani Jones. I was worried that I was making too much out of Prince’s prodigious talent and outsize reputation, then I read this from Jones’ article:

There is no fear of hyperbole when remembering Prince. He was the best recording artist of his time, the most versatile, more influential to a broader array of artists and genres than anyone. As long as it’s not a horn, he might have been the best at playing any basic pop instrument. He was a singular tour de force, using each of his albums to defy silly record-store categories. He could be as energetic and defiant as James Brown, as traditionally masculine as Teddy Pendergrass, as unbounded as David Bowie, as vulnerable as Marvin Gaye, as insightful as Paul Simon and as electric as Michael Jackson. At the same damn time.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have worried. As Jones points out, Prince wasn’t just the best parts of so many of our greatest music superstars, he was also admired, respected and appreciated by many of these stars. Even among rock music royalty, Prince was held in high regard. A reporter once asked Eric Clapton what is was like to be the world’s greatest guitarist. Clapton replied, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Prince.” High praise indeed.

At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2004, several prominent musicians, including Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, and Dhani Harrison (George’s son) played “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as a tribute to the late George Harrison. Also on stage that night was Prince, nattily attired as always.

As you watch this video, notice how a little more than half way through, Prince takes over. But it’s not a Divo move (although Prince was certainly a Divo). The other musicians give him room and encourage him. His guitar solo is fantastic.

In 2007, Prince was scheduled to play the NFL Super Bowl half-time show in Miami. Plans were made for an elaborate open air (i.e. no roof) stage in the shape of “The Love Symbol,” the shape that he changed his name to as part of a contractual dispute with his record label, Warner Brothers. That dispute was long over when Super Bowl XLI rolled around, but the symbol was still closely associated with Prince.

On the day of the game, Miami experienced sever weather, including hard rains, and the promoters of the half-time show feared that Prince wouldn’t be able (or willing) to perform. Instead of balking, when asked if he would be able to go on with the show in the rain, his response was, “Can you make it rain harder.”

As you watch this full, uncut version of Prince’s incredible performance, notice all of the electrical equipment out in the rain. Although it’s not clear in the video, Prince used four different guitars during the show, unplugging and plugging them in as the rain fell. Also notice the dancers around Prince early in the video. They’re dancing in extremely high heels on a wet surface, and making it look easy.

Last year, Saturday Night Live celebrated their 40^th anniversary with a huge show broadcast in prime time. At the after party, several musicians got up to give impromptu performances, including big names like Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, and Elvis Costello. But in this video from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where Jimmy talks about the after party performances, notice how he, his band, and the crowd react when he talks about Prince coming up on stage. It just shows that even those in the entertainment industry, many of them jaded by their experiences, understood the special brand of artistry Prince possessed.

Whenever I’d hear the mention of Prince’s name, my mind would conjure up a diminutive imp of a man clothed in a purple ruffled top (similar to the Seinfeld puffy shirt), skin tight black leather pants, heels tall enough to raise his height all the way to 5′ 6″, and a hat of one sort or another that defied description and added to his androgynous fashion style. He was small in stature, but a giant in personality, who was always the coolest, smoothest, most self-assured dude in the room. And he always played by his own ever-changing rules, providing testament to the fact that if you are true to yourself, no matter how different you may be, the world will open it’s arms to embrace you.

Prince Rogers Nelson was a rare breed of entertainer who combined boatloads of passion, artistry, integrity, innovation, and genius. To be sure, he could be difficult, eccentric, aloof, and mysterious, but all the great artists possess some amount of all of these ingredients. Prince just possessed them to a larger degree than most. He was a tremendous talent, and he will be greatly missed.

Rest in Peace (and Purple), Prince (1957-2016).

 

 

Elsewhere on this blog, I have discussed my affinity and appreciation for researcher/storyteller (her term), Brene Brown. I discovered Brene by accident. I picked up her book, Daring Greatly, by mistake. I thought it was about risk-taking and building a great, significant life. Instead, Brene’s book turned out to be about vulnerability, shame, and building strong, trusting relationships. As it turned out, Daring Greatly was exactly the book I needed to read at that time in my life.

The two videos I included below are good examples of Brene’s research and philosophy on building and strengthening relationships. If you’ve not heard her talk before, I’d encourage you to put a little time aside, grab a glass of wine, and get to know Brene Brown. If you already know and like her, I don’t need to convince you to watch.

I admit it. I’m nervous.

Today is the official opening day of the baseball season (There were three games yesterday, but for some reason, that wasn’t opening day), and for the first time in my life, the Chicago Cubs are the prohibitive favorites to win the World Series. Why does that make me nervous?

First, this is unfamiliar territory. For as long as I can remember, the Cubs were baseball’s lovable losers. Nobody ever expected much out of the team. After all, the Cubs have only had eighteen winning seasons since they were last in the World Series in 1945. For those of you who are math challenged, that’s eighteen winning seasons in seventy years, or about one winning season every four years.  In case you don’t follow baseball, that’s not very good.

Second, I’m uncomfortable with the impact these suddenly high expectations are having on some Cubs fans. These fans—primarily those too young to fully understand the soul-crushing nature of Cubs fandom—are talking trash, as if the Cubs have actually accomplished something already. As skipper Joe Maddon so eloquently put it, the Cubs are a defending third-place team. Why all the unbridled optimism?

Listen, my hopes are high for the 2016 edition of the Chicago Cubs, but I’ve been around long enough to have my hopes dashed on the rocks of defeat, disappointment, and despair by the Cubs over and over again. Now, my hopes are tempered with memories of the September swoon of 1969, the unprecedented loss of three straight games to San Diego in the 1984 playoffs, and the Bartman game (It wasn’t Bartman’s fault) of 2003. I was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2003, and the Cubs collapse against the Marlins in the NLCS was still the worst thing that happened to me that year.

All I’m saying is, there’s no harm in being hopeful, but let’s not celebrate quite yet. The baseball season is very long, and a lot of things can happen. Be excited and enthusiastic. Cheer on the team every chance you get. But don’t make plans for the Cubs’ World Series party in ink. Maybe just pencil it into the calendar for now.

With those words of restraint borne of decades of disappointment, here’s how I expect the MLB standings to look at the end of the season:

American League East

1. New York Yankees
2. Toronto Blue Jays (1^st Wild Card)
3. Boston Red Sox
4. Tampa Bay Rays
5. Baltimore Orioles

American League Central

1. Detroit Tigers
2. Kansas City Royals
3. Cleveland Indians
4. Chicago White Sox
5. Minnesota Twins

American League West

1. Texas Rangers
2. Houston Astros (2^nd Wild Card)
3. Seattle Mariners
4. Los Angeles Angels
5. Oakland Athletics

National League East

1. Washington Nationals
2. New York Mets (1^st Wild Card)
3. Miami Marlins
4. Atlanta Braves
5. Philadelphia Phillies

National League Central

1. Chicago Cubs
2. St. Louis Cardinals
3. Pittsburgh Pirates
4. Cincinnati Reds
5. Milwaukee Brewers

National League West

1. San Francisco Giants
2. Arizona Diamondbacks (2^nd Wild Card)
3. Los Angeles Dodgers
4. San Diego Padres
5. Colorado Rockies

Go Cubs!

I have a disease. It causes me to develop an intense, almost instantaneous interest in every business opportunity that comes my way. Flipping houses? I’m interested. Amazon FBA? Tell me more. An Internet business? Hey, I could do that. I even sometimes think about returning to a 50-60 hour per week corporate job. Sure, I’d lose all of my writing time and freedom, but I could make a lot more money. And isn’t money the way we keep score?

That last sentence is the problem. At some point in my life, I bought into the belief that the amount of money I made was the way my success was measured. The more money I made, the more successful I was. And I always wanted to be more successful, so I always needed to make more money. But even more than that, I began to equate my value as a person with the amount of money I was making. Deep down, I think I knew this was wrong, but I believed it anyway.

I also bought into the myth that money equals happiness. Again, I instinctively knew that this belief was wrong–or at least incomplete–but everyone around me had bought into it, so why shouldn’t I?

In recent years, I’ve been in remission from this economically-motivated disease, but every once in a while I have a flare up, and I need a reminder to resist the urge to chase the almighty dollar. This blog post from author and experiential researcher, Tim Ferriss, does a good job of explaining my struggle, and the reason anyone whose main goal is happiness should fight the compulsion to chase the money.

 

“You’re nobody here at $10 million,” said Gary Kremen, the 43-year old founder of Match.com, of Silicon Valley.

In the August 5th New York Times article titled, “In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich,” he and others in the nation’s wealthiest 1/2 of 1 percent admitted to feeling compelled to work 60-80-hour work weeks just to keep up. Hal Steger, who’s banked more than $2 million and has a net worth of $3.5 million, echoes the sentiments of these “working-class millionaires” when he says, “…a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million bucks meant ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore…

C’mon now.

I live in a nice part of Silicon Valley, and I do whatever I want for less than $5,000 per month. There are more metrics to consider. More important, I’m “happy” by all conventional measurements. But I’ll be the first to admit… it hasn’t been this way for long. Only in the last three years have I really come to understand the concepts of time as currency and positional economics. Before I explain how you can use both to exit the rat race and dramatically upgrade your Lifestyle Quotient, let’s look at some numbers… According to polls on this blog:

46.88% of Americans say they would need to make more than $200K a year to be happy

63.41% of Americans, assuming prices remained the same, would rather earn $50K in a world of $25K earners than earn $100K in a world of $200K earners

74.64% of Americans would rather get Fridays off vs. a 20% raise

Would you be happier if you were richer? A recent study published in Science by a group including Princeton professors Alan Krueger and Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize for his work in behavioral economics, indicates that annual income is less important than anyone could have guessed. In fact, it gets less important as the per-capita average continues to grow. Here are a few highlights that foreshadow where we’re headed:

-The ways in which people with high incomes spend their time tend to make them more tense and stressed than their less-affluent counterparts.

-If personal wealth does not necessarily lead to personal happiness, then how well does gross national income reflect a nation’s well-being? Not well at all.

-Economists can add another dimension to their measurements by examining an alternative currency: time, “the coin of life,” as poet Carl Sandburg called it. The study of income and happiness featured in the Science paper suggests that time-use — how one uses one’s time — plays an important role in personal well-being, so national measures of time-use might aid our understanding of well-being on a national scale.

In the study itself, they move into positional economics and answer the question: why does income have such a weak effect on subjective well-being?…Basically, even permanent increases in income have little effect on perceived happiness, as we compare ourselves to those above us, no matter how much progress we make. Material goods give us a short-lived happiness sugar high, and we seem committed to making ourselves miserable. That sucks.

What to do? There are a few ways to use the currency of time, and awareness of positional economics, to your advantage to beat the Joneses on new terms:

1. Focus on “relative income” — defined as hourly income — instead of “absolute income,” misleading annual income that doesn’t factor in time. If you assume a 40-hour work week and 2 weeks of vacation per year, estimate per-hour income by cutting off the last three zeros and dividing in half. Thus: $50,000 per year –> $50 divided by 2 = $25 per hour. Relative income can be increased by increasing total income for the same hours, getting the same income for fewer hours, or some combination thereof. More options with more life.

2. Determine your precise Target Monthly Income (TMI) for your ideal lifestyle — the goal of most rat-race income competition — and focus on structuring mini-retirements to redistribute retirement throughout life. There’s an excellent Excel spreadsheet here for calculations.

3. Determine your “where” of happiness. It’s not necessary to permanently move to a country with depressed currency, but even temporary relocation to a domestic (check out Forbes’ publisher Rich Karlgaard’s Life 2.0) or international location with a lower cost-of-living resets your peer group and positional economics barometer. Being perceived as rich often translates into perceiving yourself as rich. Neat trick and a hell of a lot of fun. Two of my top picks for positional resets are Argentina (see“How to Live Like a Rock Star (or Tango Star) in Buenos Aires”) and Thailand.

4. Develop appreciation in tandem with achievement. Subjective happiness depends on appreciating what you get as much as getting what you want. The first step to true appreciation is perception: cultivating present-awareness. I recommend experimenting with lucid dreaming as tested at Stanford University, in particular the “reality check” exercises of Dr. Stephen Laberge.

5. Develop competitive social groups outside of work. Participate in games outside of income mongering. Train or compete in a sport where income is a non-factor. That dude makes $1,000,000 a day as a hedge fund manager? I don’t care–his golf swing sucks and he has love handles. Here, it counts for nothing. Oh, and her? I know she just got promoted to national manager for IBM, but so what? I just scored 5 goals on her. In this world, I rule.

Don’t let rat racing be the only game you play against the Joneses. There is always someone willing to sacrifice it all to earn more, so let them. Just remember: it is entirely possible — in fact, common — to be a success in business and a failure in life. Take the red pill and think different.

There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results. – Kenneth Blanchard (also attributed to Art Turock)

 

Question: In a bacon-and-egg breakfast, what’s the difference between the Chicken and the Pig?

Answer: The Chicken is involved, but the Pig is committed!

 

This video has nothing to do with writing or with my books, but I thought it was really well done. It’s amazing what a huge difference a relatively small amount of time can have on our lives. Take a look at the video, and then go out for a walk.

Want to be happy and successful? Who doesn’t? Author and University of Houston Professor Brene Brown has seven suggestions to help you (and me) live a happier and more successful life:

Note: These suggestion are from Brene’s Ted Talks, and were compiled in an article in Inc. Magazine.

 

1. Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect.
2. What would you be glad you did, even if you failed?
3. To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly.
4. What we know matters, but who we are matters even more.
5. We risk missing out on joy when we get busy chasing down the extraordinary.
6. Connection is why we’re here; it is what gives meaning and purpose to our lives.
7. Authenticity is a collection of choices we have to make every day.

Here’s one of Brene Brown’s most popular Ted Talks:

 

The following quotes are from Do The Work, the great and inspirational book from author Steven Pressfield:

 

“In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.Resistance cannot be seen, heard, touched or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential.”

 

“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form, if that’s what it takes to deceive you. Resistance will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man.Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get.”

 

“Don’t think. Act. Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop.”

 

“Our mightiest ally (our indispensable ally) is belief in something we cannot see, hear, touch, taste or feel.
Resistance wants to rattle that faith. Resistance wants to destroy it.”

 

“Picasso painted with passion, Mozart composed with it. A child plays with it all day long.
You may think you’ve lost your passion, or you can’t identify it, or that you have so much of it, it threatens to overwhelm you. None of these is true.
Fear saps passion.
When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.
When art and inspiration and success and fame and money have come and gone, who still loves us—and whom do we love?”

 

“If you and I want to do great stuff, we can’t let ourselves work small. A home run swing that results in a strikeout is better than a successful bunt or even a line-drive single.”

 

“Start playing from power. We can always dial it back later. If we don’t swing for the seats from the start, we’ll never be able to drive a fastball into the upper deck.”

 

“Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?
Get your idea down on paper. We can always tweak it later.”

 

“Don’t worry about quality. Act, don’t reflect. Momentum is everything.
Get to THE END as if the devil himself were breathing down your neck and poking you in the butt with his pitchfork. Believe me, he is.”

 

“Our job is not to control our idea; our job is to figure out what our idea is (and wants to be)—and then bring it into being.”

 

“Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being, to convert dreams into reality.
I ask myself, again, of the project: ‘What is this damn thing about?'”

 

“What comes first is the idea, the passion, the dream of the work we are so excited to create that it scares the hell out of us.”

 

“The opposite of fear is love—love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.
The dream is your project, your vision, your symphony, your startup. The love is the passion and enthusiasm that fills your heart when you envision its completion.”

 

“Regrets? I had a few, but then again, too few to mention.”

— “My Way” as sung by Frank Sinatra

Although this blog is designed to be a place where I can talk about my writing, I occasionally want to post other things that I have on my mind. I read an article recently about what people most regret at the end of their lives. This made me wonder if I was living a life of few regrets, or, if like the people in the article, I would have a bunch of regrets at the end of my life.

The article itself was prompted by a query posted on the website Quora.com. That post is itself an interesting read, but the article that sprang from the query concentrated on the five biggest regrets. Here they are in order, along with some of my own thoughts:

1.Trying too hard to please others

This regret was also the top regret listed in a popular article from 2012 written by a hospice nurse. In that article, the author quoted one of the respondents as saying “I wish I’d had the courage to live true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” Author and investor James Altucher added, “Nobody is more worthy of love in the entire universe than you. I wish I had reminded myself of that more. I could’ve saved all of that time where I was trying to please someone else.”

While I completely understand this regret, I also think that human relationships (especially romantic relationships) require that we do things for others, not just for ourselves. I’m a pretty selfish guy when it comes to meeting my life goals, but even I understand that we all have to compromise and sacrifice from time to time. As my mother used to say: “The world doesn’t revolve around you.” The desires of other people have to occasionally supplant our own.

Having said that, each of us has the responsibility to achieve our own dreams. If something is standing in the way of you getting what you want, it’s up to you to find a way around that obstacle, even if that obstacle is another person. Failing to do what is in your own best interest leads to resentment and regret. You can’t be egocentric all of the time, but pursuing your dreams and passions some of the time can lead to fewer regrets at the end of your life.

2. Too much pointless worry

According to Professor Karl Pillemer, “In our research at Cornell University, I asked hundreds of the oldest Americans that question (about regret). I had expected big-ticket items: an affair, a shady business deal, addictions—that kind of thing. I was therefore unprepared for the answer they often gave: I wish I hadn’t spent so much of my life worrying.”

I’m as prone to worry as anyone else, but it’s always struck me as odd that we often allow the fear created by worry to rule our lives. I like what the Dalia Lama says about worry: “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there’s no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”

Mark Twain said it a little differently: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

Want to have fewer regrets? Worry a lot less.

3. Focusing too much on acquiring stuff

I really struggle with this one. I have been fortunate in my life to own nice houses and fancy cars. But the one thing I noticed whenever I got a new house or car was that it didn’t change anything. I wasn’t any happier. And in fact, I often realized that I could have been just as happy with a less expensive house or car. I was grateful for what I had, but it didn’t change my life for the better. Even so, I still find myself desiring material possessions that I’m convinced will make my life better. Sometimes they do. More often they don’t.

I try to follow Altucher’s advice when he suggests buying experiences rather than stuff. I think there’s a lot of truth in this recommendation. You almost never get buyer’s remorse when it comes to spending money on experiences, unlike when you buy a big ticket item like a television, car or new home.

Researcher Amit Kumar says something similar, but with bigger words: “The anticipatory period [for experiential purchases] tends to be more pleasant…less tinged with impatience relative to future material purchases we’re planning on making. Those waiting for an experience tended to be in a better mood and better behaved than those waiting for a material good.” [Editor’s note: “Better behaved?”]

4. Not taking care of your physical health

I’m (hopefully) not at the end of my life, but I already regret this one. During my first thirty years, I was fortune to have had great health, despite living a relatively unhealthy lifestyle. I drank too much, followed a horrible diet, and burned the candle at both ends. I was definitely a “work hard, play hard” kind of guy. And yet, I stayed physically fit and in good health. Thank God for youth and good genes.

In more recent years, things haven’t been so easy. I have to work like crazy to stay in shape (a battle I’m still fighting) and always have to consider my health when making food, drink, and activity decisions. I’m certainly not alone in this experience. It’s all part of getting old.

I wish I had made better health decisions when I was younger, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. The best I can do is make better decisions today. If I’m consistent in these decisions, I should stay healthy into the future, and have fewer regrets when the end finally comes (in about 100 years).

5. Not traveling enough

“Travel more when you’re young rather than wait until the children are grown or you’re retired,” Professor Pillemer says. “Travel is so rewarding that it should take precedence over other things younger people spend money on.”

I have a split personality when it comes to travel. On the one hand, I think it’s crazy that people don’t travel more. Any American can go just about anywhere in the world quickly, safely, and relatively cheaply. Never before in history has it been this easy to see the world.

On the other hand, there are only a few places I’d really like to see. I’d like to go to Ireland, Spain, Italy, Panama, Brazil, and the Caribbean islands. I’d also like to travel more around the United States and Canada. But the truth is, travel isn’t at the top of my list of priorities. In theory, I like the idea of wandering the globe, but I’m not hell-bent to drop everything and see the world.

Sadly, if things don’t change in the coming years, this may be a regret I have at the end of my life. I hope not. Since travel isn’t a priority to me now, maybe it won’t be that important to me on my death bed. Just to be safe, I’ll be doing a little traveling in the coming years.

I’m a big believer that our lives are the sum of the choices we make. If we want to reach the end of (hopefully) long and productive lives, we have to make good decisions today. It’s not a guarantee, but I do think it helps us to live lives of gratitude and satisfaction, rather than spending our final days living with regret.

Happy New Year!

I woke up this morning to frozen pipes in my house, and I’m waiting for the local water company to come fix the problem (God, I hate the cold!). Not being able to take a shower first thing in the morning tends to throw off my whole day. Since I haven’t posted anything yet this month, I thought I’d give you a quick update. It will make me feel like I’m accomplishing something, when in fact I’m mostly just running in place.

I’m currently working with a graphic artist on the cover for my next book, Back on the Road. I hope to have that done by the middle of next week. Final edits took much longer than anticipated, which is why the process is running a week or two behind. Barring catastrophe, I still plan on having the book published by the end of the month.

I’m also working on putting together Road Stories, a collection of my first three novellas. The collection will be available in both print and digital formats, and soon will be available as an audiobook. Road Stories will be available in February, with the audiobook soon to follow.

For both Back on the Road and Road Stories, the remaining work involves formatting, cover design, recording, etc. The writing is all done for both books. That means it’s almost time to turn my writing efforts to A Good Life, a novella due out in April, and Driven, a novel that is scheduled for publication in June. I’ve done quit a bit of work on both already, but I’ve put them aside to work on getting Back on the Road and Road Stories ready for publication. I’m looking forward to once again having big chunks of time available to write.

Time to get back to work. Hopefully, my water pipes will thaw soon.