This Saturday Daytona Beach EXPLODES in BBQ sauce!!

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Ya gotta love it when you've got a lot of good stuff on your plate!


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Anyone within driving distance of Daytona Beach, there's a festival going on tomorrow at 6:00. They're closing off Beach Street for the Beach Street BBQ Festival. Several of my friends have already said they'll make it, and since it's right after my FWA Writer's group meeting at the City Island Library and our after-party at Stavro's (on Beach street, walking distance from the library), I figure it's a great time and place to meet a bunch of new friends and enjoy the company of current ones.


Anyone who wants to come, come on! Meet up, see what it's like to hang out with a bunch of local celebrities, get an autograph or three;these are all public events, and we're all open to making friends of our fans. No snotty, unapproachable Hollywood-types propounding their Cult of Fear allowed; we believe in getting ahead by helping others get ahead.

I'll be at the library from noon to 3, at Stavro's from 3 to 5, popping into the Arena Sports Grill around 6 to 7, and out and about on Beach Street from 5 'til whenever. (Times approximate.) I may also be at the Flea Market by the interstate before noon, but no promises. If you wanna go, gimme a call.


* Pay no attention to bubbles on the map, I just linked it to show you the whereabouts of where we'll be.

Last night I had a conversation with some really incredible people. I really opened up and got them to open up, and I was stunned at the resources that I had at my disposal without really being aware of it. I've been telling people for a while now how big of a shift my life has been going through - just a year ago I felt like I'd be lucky just to be able to hold onto a job I liked with an employer I didn't, and in the past 12 months I've now had about 30 different opportunities come up and it's been hard to try to choose in what order to focus on them - and it just keeps going up! I've mentioned a death-spiral elsewhere for some people who I was helping, how surrounding yourself with negativity only leads to negative expectations and negative outcomes and it leads to a death-spiral in which you eventually give up all hope and die. There's an opposite spiral, an upward spiral, that lifts you up and keeps you up, and I feel like, as a result of some of what I learned yesterday, I'm on that upward spiral for good.

I'm not saying everything is perfect for me, or that I have no obstacles to overcome. What I'm saying is, things I thought I couldn't beat, I've learned this year that I could. Things I thought were going to be damn-hard to beat, I've learned they're actually pretty easy. It's all a matter of seeing what's happening in the light of day, with the right perspective.

When you first learned to drive a car, you were nervous, right? You had to do all those things, all at the right time, AND you had other people on the road with you too. It seemed like it was impossible at times, but because you really WANTED to know how to drive, because you were afraid to be seen as some kind of loser if you didn't learn, you devoted yourself to get the job done. You wanted the reward, you feared the consequences.

Nowadays, it's hard to get yourself motivated, right? You've started lots of things and never get them completed. You've wanted to do things and just never got around to them. Maybe someone kicked you a few times and ruined your chances.

Malarky.


What if I could tell you that you could have anything you wanted? And what if I told you that you could have all the time you needed to enjoy it? And what if I told you I'd give you that information for a price you could afford, no matter how little time or money you have? Would you be interested? Would you do something with it?

Since the time you excitedly learned to drive, learned to walk, learned to talk, you've learned how to cut your losses. You've learned how to evaluate things instantly and judge whether they're worth your time and effort. Except, you learned the wrong way. Your value-detector is broken. You've learned how to be comfortable with your station and don't want to risk anything to come out of it. When you were younger, you had nothing to lose except the respect of everyone around you if you failed. Now you have nothing to gain except the ridicule of your friends if you fail... or so you think.


If you were in a burning building, you'd be afraid to stay in it because you might get burned or suffocated. There is an imminent threat to your continued existence. You have to change something about yourself if you want to survive, right? You have to change your location. You also have to realize that you're in a dangerous situation, so that at some point you WILL put forth the effort to get out of the building.

What if you didn't believe the building was on fire? What if you mistakenly believed the fire department would get there before the fire killed you? Your refusal to change would mean you'd die. By staying the same person you are - disbelieving the fire - the consequences would be catastrophic.

That's the key to change when change seems hard. You have to find the reason why you MUST change. When you learned to drive, you HAD TO do it because otherwise you'd be a loser. Now that you're surrounded by losers and feel like you're a loser, it seems safer to believe that remaining calm and letting the firemen get there to rescue you will keep you from looking panicky. But the firemen can't reach you. You have to help them save you. You have to understand that you're in a burning building and the only way out is to take action. The firemen will see what you're doing and help you, but if you never do anything, they don't know you're there and can't help you.

And that's not even the coolest thing I learned yesterday.

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