When Dreams Come True.

[Scott7022]

So what do you do when dreams come true and you get everything you wanted from the first idea shared between you and the ice cubes in your drink? Well, you have achieved a goal. You are at the place you wanted to in fact be at.

Ok, so what happens when you don't like it? You move on. You change you or you change the goal! 

BUT I CAN'T CHANGE!!! 

BUT YOU CAN'T RUN AN AIR CONDITIONER OFF A BATTERY!!!

Both of these statements are bullshit. 


Dreams and goals are as fleeting as the weather for most people. They have an idea or a plan and tomorrow brings the realities of life and they lose the goal or dream to the realities of getting up and earning a dollar for bread. A great line from a favorite band of mine. "...you took my dreams from me... No, I didn't my love I put them in a box right next to my own..." A person doesn't have to love music to see the truth and tragedy in that line. If you are lucky you get a few of your little dreams.
If you're really unlucky and work like a bastard, you get a few of the big ones. 

I am going to write this about me. But, not to brag or boast about me. I write this as a mirror. Look at the words, read them for how they touch you, and make you reflect. Take from that reflection what you like, but please share in the spirit of love and compassion that pushed me to write it. 

My Grandfather was a soldier in WW1 and my Father in WW2 (Navy intelligence). So, I wanted to be as well. It was a dream and a goal. I was an extroverted, type A personality person and I reached that goal. 

 I returned to civilian life still and extroverted person but one that had difficulty controlling aspects of their personality. Crowds bothered me, and loud sounds caused flinch reactions. They call it hyper vigilance and it is a pretty good indication you have PTSD. Because of my unique psychological make up the usual tools used to treat PTSD were not going to be effective. I was lucky enough to be referred to one of the best and ground breaking psychologist on the subject. I was lucky he went with an alternative approach rather than the big pharma medicate and forget. After reaching that goal I had another. To work in Law enforcement. 

I enjoyed that goal for many years, and managed to come to terms with how my PTSD effected me and limit how it affected others in my life. It was a ton of hard work. Alternative fixes are slow but more permanent than traditional cures. It also gave me a unique insight into the day to day interactions I had with the rather unusual rouges gallery my career brought me in touch with. It made it easy to be part of the YARC here on the forum. Then I wanted to write a book. 

I took writing in school to fill out a full time semester and never thought I would use it past report writing. It took me two years of writing four hours a day to finish the manuscript and then another year of editing. Unfortunately the help available for writers is not like the help we have here. Or at least it wasn't when I finished Grey Redemption. It got accepted and I was overjoyed and then it got demands for changes and I worked at those with a company editor. Then I was asked to change US Navy to African Navy and that got into a political drama that resulted in a book going to press that I wasn't proud of. Regardless, it became popular with a segment of society, and ended up in the various sandboxes in the world. I got a following and was amazed when my Twitter followers numbered over 35 thousand. I was invited to the London Book Fair and asked to speak. I was no longer Scott. I had achieved my goal and I was the Scott D. Covey writer who left the naughty sexy bits in a military/espionage thriller. I flew to London, stayed at the Savoy, received death threats for disclosing secrets in the secret world of private armies. I sat and signed books longer than I had ever found myself sitting in a classroom. I was popular and people wanted moments of my time and I hated it. It wasn't who I was. I was Scott. The only THE in my family was my cat The Piker. I didn't like the book, I wasn't proud of it. It had far too many errors in spelling and grammar. I had been screwed by my first publisher and dumped into a cue with another house best known for taking advantage of their clients. But like the Rocky Horror Picture Show it became liked despite being what it was. People didn't care, they just wanted to hear me talk about it, the process, the idea, why I broke the no sex rule... It was my goal and dream and I never thought about what came next. I never saw the stress this monster would grow into and create. 

I went to parties in New York City and drank a little too much as I had a handler (they called him an assistant) to whisper the names of the people that approached.  I was featured in the NYC Book Fair as well. My goal was complete I had arrived, and I was miserable. 

So I changed, I got people to do the things that created the most stress. I like control and I hate trusting others with things that represent me. But I knew I couldn't become the person that this success needed me to be. Control is an illusion I told myself, over and over, to try and believe it. I changed just enough to survive and not look like a flake. No one believes you when you say you don't like the attention. You make money off the attention, it drives sales. A friend once said a business that is too busy is led by an idiot. But, "I was Scott and not a business," I replied. "Yup, see run by an idiot!"

I wanted to run away and an opportunity presented itself, allowing just that. I jumped too quickly at it. Buddha teaches to never make a decision when you are Happy, Angry, or Depressed. I failed to listen. I also had websites, and blogs to keep up and while others did the day to day I had to do the content. The person that handles my FB author page thought a poll would be good to see if fans wanted a prequel or a sequel. The numbers of followers had dropped and he wanted, it was his job, to get them back up. Not that I did. No control remember? Well, the poll came back with a sequel. I hadn't asked the question, a person doing his job had and now I had to write a second book. I wrote Redemption's Bullet priced it in the basement and published it myself. To say thanks for looking past the mistakes in the first one and finished the series in my mind. I was, and am, proud of that book. I think it tells a great story from a different angle, and the writting is tight. Just so this doesn't get construed as a sales pitch and not an attempt to help someone suffering from success, it is available on torrent sites and I promise I won't sue you, and it is too small for Amazon to notice. Read it for free.  Some still want more, but I think my days of writing are done. It just simply became more of a monster than I could handle. Not enough of a monster to pay people to handle it for me and I couldn't adapt to become that person.

So there is your mirror, Sir. I have reached out today as you did years ago. Different situations, different people but with the same emotion, Love.

 

[Cammalu]

Always a pleasure to read anything you write Scott. Thanks again


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[lenny flank]

It has often been said that freelance writing is "10% inspiration and 90% perspiration". That is not so: it's really "10% inspiration, 10% perspiration, and 80% self-promotion".

Alas, the publishing industry is, like Hollywood, a place that lives by chewing people up and spitting them out, taking advantage of their idealism and their starry-eyed illusions.

Back when I was writing books for the Simon and Schuster Empire, I hated it. Eventually I stopped and settled for a tiny little publishing company instead. And I am much happier for it.

 

[Scott7022]

Thanks Lenny, so very true. My friend and mentor Robert (Bob) MCcammon did the same thing. Got tired of being compared to King, his friend, and changing words like Leviathan (because people wouldn't know what it was. "call it a sea monster") Small press now and happy for it. But he was listed as a best seller a few times by New York. I never got close to that level.

 

[bullfrog]

Unfortunately most times it seems to me most of what I wanted was not what I needed!

 

[Queen]

Thanks Lenny, so very true. My friend and mentor Robert (Bob) MCcammon did the same thing. Got tired of being compared to King, his friend, and changing words like Leviathan (because people wouldn't know what it was. "call it a sea monster")  Small press now and happy for it. But he was listed as a best seller a few times by New York. I never got close to that level.

Good lord, they seriously do that?  Makes sense then, my brother has said to me "I only understand about half of the words you use", I always thought it was because he didn't do a lot of reading... now I see it's because the reading he does doesn't challenge him at all.  That is sad.

 

[Gary68]

the follies of success,i learned about it young

most obvious with the rv/van utubers today,it goes something like this

the very few people that say"you suck" they are wrong,well unless you do suck in which some people do
and most important those people that say "you are awesome" well they are wrong also,no exclusion here
critics are not trolls and should be embraced,by listening to them you will better yourself

i find it interesting that those with the talent usually want nothing to do with the spotlight and are most likely bored with their talent but those that do not,crave it more than anything

 

[Scott7022]

While I published this about myself, and publishing, the thread really isn't about the industry, or me. It was for one member struggling.

That being said we can go off topic and perhaps draw attention. LOL!

When Fifty Shades and that third "book" in the series about sparkly vampires can get published I find it hard to feel sorry for all the publishing houses being absorbed or going out of biz. When you hear hallway conversations like; "It is a great work of literature, but really a limited audience, because of the subject. It doesn't have a movie hook potential either so we are going to pass." (They most certainly were not talking about my book.) No literature here these aren't the paperbacks you're looking for! LOL!

 

[lenny flank]

Good lord, they seriously do that?  Makes sense then, my brother has said to me "I only understand about half of the words you use", I always thought it was because he didn't do a lot of reading... now I see it's because the reading he does doesn't challenge him at all.  That is sad.

Alas, most Americans read at a 6th grade level or less.  We are a nation of uninformed functional illiterates who know next to nothing about the world around them. (That is why 1 in 8 of American adults cannot find the United States of America on a world map.)

 

[Queen]

Alas, most Americans read at a 6th grade level or less.  We are a nation of uninformed functional illiterates who know next to nothing about the world around them. (That is why 1 in 8 of American adults cannot find the United States of America on a world map.)

We also seem to be a nation that revels in it's lack of education. We celebrate poor behavior and hold in the highest esteem, people who lack basic communication skills.

When I'm asked "why don't you just talk like a normal person", I take it as a compliment, and it's not as though my vocabulary is so far above mark, it's just broader than average.  I love how language gives us the ability to express ourselves in so many different ways, it's like painting with words.

 

[Gary68]

Alas, most Americans read at a 6th grade level or less.  We are a nation of uninformed functional illiterates who know next to nothing about the world around them. (That is why 1 in 8 of American adults cannot find the United States of America on a world map.)

i resemble this remark,but hey,somebody has to dig the holes
i'm dyslexic so you can use my handwriting as a top secret code that only i might be able to decipher
do we really need the letter c? and damn those e's and i's,they are bipolar letters that dont know where they want to be

 

[Scott7022]

I am Dyslexic as well and have adapted my typing style to allow for it. Hand position. My right will actually get frustrated with the left and push it off to the left side of the keyboard. It is weird like it has a mind of its own. One of the reasons book signings are stressful my penmanship is horrible.

 

[AbuelaLoca]

Interesting thread, glad I clicked on it! I've edited and proofread several books now, by a few different authors, and the one who has succeeded the most as far as books sold wrote what I call mommy porn. The writing was somewhat like 50 shades (which I haven't read) and pretty hard to edit. She grew tremendously as a writer and has published many since then. Her beta readers did not care at all about the spelling, grammar or even continuity... I was sorely disappointed as I want to be a freelance editor, but who really needs me now?

 

[MrNoodly]

I was raised in a cult-like religion that was all about goals. They said achieving the goals would make me a better person. The trouble was, they were someone else's goals for me, goals that served the church and the leaders. They weren't MY goals. I didn't really know what my own goals were. I wasn't given the time and mental/emotional space to figure it out. But I was certain I wasn't interested in the church's goals.

Work had more goals imposed upon me, but at least it was a straightforward business transaction without pie-in-the-sky bullshit wrapped around it. Achieve these goals for the company and you'll be paid more. Quid pro quo. Simple.

During a hard time in my life I told my therapist I felt like I was trapped on a rock in the middle of a raging river and all I could do was try to dodge the debris coming at me and occasionally grab something useful. He asked, "What would you do if you could get off that rock?" I didn't know. It seemed like the best I could do was to jump in the river, ride it out, and hope I got washed ashore before drowning.

I eventually figured out my goals, though. The book "The Tao of Pooh" was a big help, and it validated the idea that we each have our own path and that following someone else's path leads to unhappiness.

A friend posted a supposedly inspirational meme on Facebook today about a double amputee climbing Everest. It asked, "What's your excuse?" My initial answer was that climbing Everest isn't one of my goals. But then I realized the meme could mean, "What's keeping you from attaining YOUR goals." Okay, fair question. Well, what I discovered is that working on my goals doesn't feel like working on my goals. It just feels like doing what I enjoy, because I'm on the right path for me. I look back from the metaphorical summit and think, "That was fun," not, "That was a lot of hard work and I'm glad it's over so I can stop beating myself up over progress toward the goal, so I can get other people off my back, so I can avoid being a loser, so I can get respect and praise."

Following your own path can be lonely, because society has no use for your goals unless they serve society's needs.

 

[TrainChaser]

A friend of mine (educated) has lived here in WA for at least 20 years. A few years ago, she went back to the East Coast to visit her brother. After she had been there for a few days, he said that when she spoke, she used the same 100-word vocabulary, and why was she doing that, because she used to have a good vocabulary. She thought about it, and realized that she had dumbed-down her speech so the local yokels here could understand her.

I realized that I had been doing the same thing. I had the same problem at the places I've worked here, having to stop and mentally search for a (preferred) one-syllable word to replace what I just said. I got stuck on 'expedient'. I just couldn't come up with a one-syllable or otherwise simple word to replace it.

So I made a point of going back to my regular language. Criteria, expedient, accoutrements, irrespective, ephemeral, conceit, tyranny, backlash, audacity, quadrupled, paradox, effervescent, serendipity, plethora, panache, lilt, labyrinth.

Other English-speaking countries laugh at our ignorance, at our speech. Tribal people in Africa speak better English than the majority of Americans. We have the most expensive, yet least effective, educational system of all industrialized nations. It's a pity, but this once-great country seems to be well on its way to turning into a Third World country.

 

[Queen]

^^^ Opposite for me, working in a university for many years I had the glorious opportunity to let my speech flow, it was wonderful. We moved to Florida and I ran into exactly what you're describing.

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

I've accomplished most the goals I set for myself since leaving High School. Now i'm approaching the later part of my 30's I often find myself contemplating what's next? Most friends and close cousins have started families and are in their own doldrums of life. I'm single, no kids, self employed, no debt, not 100% decided against either, but for the most part don't plan on or see kids and/or marriage in my future. So what's next, where do I go from here? Sitting in this house for the next 30 years seems pointless, traveling seems like the best viable option.

My Dad's best friend asked me when I was about 25 if I ever planned on getting married or having kids. (He never married or had kids) I said I don't think that style of life is for me. He forewarned me that life would get a little weird and/or lonely in my mid 30's when everyone I knew would be dropping out to start theirs. Then assured me 10-15 years later divorces and kids growing older would slowly bring everyone back around. So, he seems to have hit the nail on the head as that's right where I feel i'm at.

 

[lenny flank]

 Tribal people in Africa speak better English than the majority of Americans.  

The tribal Africans I met in Johannesburg were all multi-lingual--they spoke Zulu, English, and Afrikaans.

 

[lenny flank]

^^^  Opposite for me, working in a university for many years I had the glorious opportunity to let my speech flow, it was wonderful.  We moved to Florida and I ran into exactly what you're describing.

That's why they call us "Flori-duhhh".

 

[rvpopeye]

As a kid I was into electronics , music and woodworking.
When I got out of school I installed kitchens and saved for my wood shop
Got it and it was awesome !
Eventually I ended up building speaker enclosures (the right way).

One day in 1982 a regional sound company owner showed up , said he had heard about my speakers and I was hoping for a big contract !!
Then he shook my world......."How would you like to come out on the road and mix monitors for me?"
Yeah Baby ! I did !

One thing led to another and I was on the road at 27 doing my DREAM JOB !
Out in the middle of hundreds to thousands of people in control of truck loads of gear doing everything I could to make it the best it could be.

Skip all the details and fast forward to 2003 I already had a class A motor home and I decided I wanted to start traveling off the dreaded itinerary and give workamping a shot to support it all ................
Dream Job #2!
Going wherever I wanted and stop whenever I saw something cool.....

Now I'm back home keeping mom out of trouble and thinking my next dream is as a National Park Tour Guide Ranger.

BUT I still find myself behind an occasional mix console "putting perfume on some pigs" (old sound slang for DREAM JOB!)

There were a few jobs where I actually had to "work" but hey , ya gotta eat , right?

"No Regrets Coyote"