Victorian era homes (late 1800’s) hold a special place in my heart, along with a few shotgun houses from the 1920’s and 30’s that were repurposed into my homes growing up.
There’s a house in Pine Bluff called the Knox House. It looks like a dollhouse, painted pink and sculpted arches, a turret and a second story porch that runs the length of the house.
It’s falling apart now despite being on the National Register of Historic Places.
It’s on 6th street, next to a liquor store, a dilapidated commercial building built out of concrete blocks and across from a warehouse.
At some point in the past (70’s), 6th Avenue was bordered by homes.
They’re all gone now, replaced by well meaning business owners thinking of progress, thinking of cheap land and bring business back to the area.
It’s happening again today.
A hedge fund manager from Boston found Pine Bluff when he was looking for a place to build cheap fuel pellets made from Pine trees.
The city also has Opportunity Zones, which means capital gains made from one investment can be reinvested for tax purposes into it and hedge funds can make or keep more money.
He found another mansion on the country club side of town and bought it to minimize his tax gains.
It just moves the focus from one side of the railroad tracks to another, shifting money and investing away from areas with blight to places where the houses are older, but still nice.
I thought about this as I drove through a neighborhood on Saturday.
It was another long day of playing Santa’s little helper, and we hit a section of Sherwood that used to be a forest ridge.
Developers had come in and clear cut the forest, scraped out roads and were working on a hundred and something brand new homes that looked just like each other.
The sign at the entrance showed each lot was sold, marked with little red letters.
People moving out of Little Rock to get away from high crime areas and blight.
I bet this story plays out across the country, town after little town.
The numbers show it’s happening. Rural towns are dying slow deaths, and suburbs are expanding.
I can’t remember it not happening.
It makes me sad to think of some of the grand old houses that could be restored to glory, but the cost is high.
Or the empty weed covered lots that could use an influx of new homes.
I don’t really blame developers, though they are an easy target. It’s a cost measure. It’s cheaper to clear cut and build tract homes than it is to do infill homes.
I blame politicians and city councils. They make dumb decisions because they have no sense of the past.
And I see it play out on the truck I’m on.
The driver complains, makes a suggestion on how to improve his route, how to be more efficient, and the supervisor chalks it up to just bitching.
The City Council can brush off citizen complaints about blight and infill as just bitching, even though the problem is real.
Real in that neighborhood, and not necessarily where the politician lives.
How much do we brush off as just complaints when it could be an actual viable suggestion?
She likes to get up every couple of hours and roam the house.
Ten weeks old and she’s mostly potty trained.
Except when she’s not.
Zoe.
Changed from Cookie, though Dot and Poppy were in consideration.
I didn’t get to pick the name.
It’s not my dog.
Les got it for #10.
I just get to watch it on the overnight shift, when I’m not spending my 3- 12’s over the weekend.
I get to babysit. I get to walk, and feed and go on poop patrol.
I am the Cockapoo’s maid.
BUT
On the bright side, at least the dog likes me.
Wags her tail every time I walk into a room and she catches sight of me from whatever distracted her.
AND
Staying up late means I get to binge on some television.
I watched DEXTER’s new season. Caught up on BILLIONS. Plan to visit YELLOWJACKETS and see what Lord of the Flies looks like with an all female cast.
I read the new JD KIRK COME HELL OR HIGH WATER over the weekend.
And now the New Year approaches.
It’s got me thinking about changes and resolutions and all the things in my control.
I wrote a Master Plan for 2022. Goals. Wishes. Plans.
I broke the Master Plan down even further by month.
Because I think the warehouse work is just six weeks of overnights.
Thirty days before I can apply for a day shift, if they have one open.
Oh yeah, and 30 days to get all my credentials uploaded in the talent system, and maybe they realize I’m better suited for something different.
But there is a plan beyond it.
The author biz plan, which uses paycheck money to grow.
The author revenue which gets reinvested into the biz, plus expansion.
Twelve books next year. A new one or two in each series, at least, plus a new series I’ve been sitting on.
Twelve audiobooks next year.
A new video each week on Youtube. A new blog post every week. A new article every week.
And hiring people to do stuff while I sleep. 1099’s are going to save my life this year.
There are personal goals too.
Running more. Spending more time in nature. Hiking trails. Biking single track. Tent camping in once wild places on a hunt for silent spaces.
Things I’ve gotten used to remembering to forget.
If I was woke, I would call it healing, or self care.
I forget which one taking care of yourself is considered.
Lose weight. Eat a little better. Move more. Sit in a sauna and sweat for an hour or more three times per week.
It’s called heat training and it’s amazing for bloodwork, and fast recovery from running damage. It also works well for meditation, and just sitting, thinking.
It’s a good plan for 1Q at least, though I know I’m going to be tired.
Sleepy.
6 pm – 6 am on Thursdays, Friday’s and Saturday nights.
The new puppy and the kid won’t let me sleep much on Sunday’s, BUT it leaves 4 days a week to focus on writing and running and recovering.
I’ve always been a fan of the phrase, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Which means, with the right attitude, you can endure almost anything.
My 30 day plan might turn to 60, but it’s just a short amount of time.
Time to build the author biz back up with some alien invasion and zombie stories.
Time to turn ads back on because there is money to invest in promotions and advertising.
Time to hustle, and hope other avenues of revenue pan out.
And time to take the puppy for a walk.
Because puppers are always curious, always exploring, always watching the world around them so they can learn.
Probably the reason for a lot of health problems in America.
I’m not going to yell about it.
I drink it in my coffee via creamer.
Why would I holler at you about something I do?
You wouldn’t listen anyway, because it’s yelling.
And yelling never works. Unless it’s the aforementioned safe word.
He’s a runner. Runs a ton of marathon’s and half marathon’s.
He says it’s dumb to run ultra marathons.
He was a lawyer in his career. Can you tell he’s opinionated?
Why is it folks like to share their opinion so much, even when it’s wrong?
I find myself doing it.
Everyone else is a bad driver, except me.
When I drive bad, it’s just a mistake.
Or politics. Or religion. Or beer and soft drinks.
Just about everything is an opinion. Even gravity if you believe Richard Bach, though that’s one I won’t try to argue with.
Or taxes either. Get that opinion wrong and Uncle Sam will toss you in jail just to make a point.
Everything else is fair game. I got a couple of reviews this week. One said I sucked. One said I was their favorite writer.
Which one should I believe? I have an opinion though!
Today, I think I’ll try to be more open to other people. Not their wrong opinions, but their right to have them.
I had a soldier friend tell me once he didn’t believe in a lot of what people took a stand for, but he would fight like hell for them to have that right.
Damn, I respected the hell out of that opinion.
I’m going to try to listen better. Try to not stress so much about right versus wrong.
Even when someone is screaming at me.
They may not be right, but they aren’t wrong.
Except about beer. I’m going to have to drink on that, I think.
One of my favorite things to do is sit and drink a few cups of joe while the sun comes up.
It gives me time to think and time to plan my day, or just time for this mind of mine to go off on tangents.
This morning I thought about the dog.
The dog who hopped in the bed at 10:45 last night, and then preceded to hop down to go out 7 freaking times by midnight.
Sometimes we have nocturnal visitors and he needs to go defend the castle.
There is an outside cat of the neighbors who likes to sit on the fence and torture him at night.
An occasional possum shows up to steal the cat’s food.
Trash pandas sit on the lake side of the fence and chitter at him through the boards.
And he likes the cooler weather.
Lazy mutt sleeps all day, no wonder he can stay up all night.
I think he should get a job, but he would argue that he’s doing his job keeping us all safe at night.
I say he’s keeping me up all night.
“But did you die?” he would bark.
Sigh. How do you argue with logic last night.
It’s like when people ask about what I do for a living.
I tell them I keep Americans safe from alien invasion.
They say, “There’s no such thing.” Or “How’s that working out?”
“Have you seen any aliens?”
“No.”
“You’re welcome.”
Speaking of alien invasions, have you read BEACHHEAD?
I told you about SNAFU out next week, and I may have mentioned UNASS, the prequel to the Situation Normal series, part of the Invasion Earth books.
UNASS is out today and I saved a copy for you. This is a fast read and don’t forget to check out the author’s note at the end. Let me know if it’s confusing.
I’m also in a promotion HERE and HERE to add to your TBR pile.
Check ‘em out with a cup of coffee.
Cheers,
Chris
PS.
“Will you sign this for me?”
My shields went up.
“Are you a cop?” I joked.
Mostly joked.
I added a smile to make sure she knew it was a joke.
She took a step back.
Sometimes I forget my smile and snarl look almost alike.
“I saw you on tv,” she said and held out a book.
One of mine.
“I got it on Amazon,” she explained. “I wanted your autograph.”
My autograph?!?
I barely kept from looking around to see if she was talking to someone more famous behind me.
I saw this happen before.
Not to me, of course.
A lifetime ago, when I worked in LA, I hung out with Mark Wahlberg’s crew for a bit, which meant lunch with the artist formerly known as Markie Mark a couple of times.
Women would ask for his autograph all the time.
That made sense.
He was famous. Not as much as he is now, but back then, he had a couple of movies under his belt and a hit or two.
Plus they saw his Calvin’s.
I didn’t even have Calvin’s. I lived more in the Jimmy Buffet school for undergarments.
So being asked for a signed copy of anything was new to me.
“To Who?” I asked.
“To Whom,” she corrected.
“Bitch, thanks for the grammar lesson,” I wrote.
Just joking. I wouldn’t say that out loud or scribble it in a copy of a book.
I like to test and learn and grow. If I learn one thing new every day then I think I’m doing okay.
It’s when I stop learning that I get scared.
My grandfather knew a lot. He had an opinion about everything, and if you had done something, he had done it too, and somehow it was “more” than yours.
Not really a know it all, but close.
I had a nephew like that too.
I would make a joke, an obvious whopper, and he would say, “Actually…”
Anytime I hear the word “Actually-,” I stop listening because I know someone didn’t get my humor.
Usually I’m just kidding.
And since I read a lot, I try not to tell people “Actually-.”
Sometimes I forget. I don’t mean to be a know it all, but I like to share stories and when someone tells me something, if it sparks a memory, I want to tell them something too.
A fair exchange, right?
Unless it comes off as trying to one up them. Which I don’t mean to do, but the constant experimenting and learning means I have a lot to share.
It happened this weekend.
A dad at the ballgame talked about breaking his arm. He asked if I had ever broken a bone.
I have.
I broke my leg in three spots.
He fell off his bike.
I did mine jumping out of an airplane.
It was at a race I really wanted to do, and there was so much adrenaline in my system, I didn’t feel it.
I told them to duct tape my ankle and I could just run on it.
They did. I took a step and fell over.
That’s when they took me to the hospital.
My experiment didn’t work out so well for me that day.
But telling him that story felt like trying to one up him. Which I didn’t want to do.
So I downplayed it.
Which made me feel bad, because why should I shine less or be less awesome just because someone isn’t doing what I’m doing?
I think it’s an awesome story to skydive, break a leg and try to run a race still.
I think it’s even better that two weeks out of a cast, I ran a trail race and broke 3 titanium screws in my ankle from blunt impact running.
And two weeks after the surgery to remove the screws, I completed a 100 mile race in thirty one hours in Key West. To me, that’s awesome.
It’s grit. It’s tenacity.
It’s stupidity. Sure, my leg and ankle hurt every time it gets below forty degrees, but who wants to go to the grave whole?
I’d rather keep experimenting and playing, and striving and learning.
What did you learn yesterday? What new thing have you tried recently?
I’m trying to write on different platforms, moving some books from Amazon exclusive to Kobo and Barnes and Noble.
I’m trying to get different stories done. I’m trying to be better at time management and expanding the business side of writing which means more learning.
I’m trying to grow.
It’s an experiment, because the technological platforms we use for marketing change and evolve.
Which means I’m trying to focus on craft and telling fun stories too.
I promise to keep trying.
I hope you try too. Something new. Something experimental. Something fun.
The only thing standing between you and what you want is you.
Have you ever heard of the goal setting expression quote gun to your head unquote moment?
It means how would you reach your goal and the shortest amount of time possible if you had a gun to your head. It is an exercise designed to make you think out of the box and come up with solutions you might not normally think of.
Often small business owners use it as a way to think about revenue or growth or how to reach a monetary goal.
But what if I told you the secret was discipline.
This secret formula is proven over and over again and if you took him on it and think about it and reflect you would discovered that discipline is the key to anything.
Let’s say you want to lose 20 lb. You could wish it away. The law of attraction States if you focus on your goal hard enough the universe and God will reward you by giving you that gold. Do it right now. Wish on a start to lose 20 lb.
Did it happen?
If it did, that is amazing. Bottle that up and sell it. Start wishing for world Peace right away. Literally no more Warren the world. End famine. And poverty. Turn your powerful wish magic on for the good of the world.
But chances are your simple wish to lose 20 lb didn’t happen in and instant.
What the universe wants from you is discipline.
That’s go back to your 20 LB magic gold.
If you think about it all of the time and have it at the four front of your mind then you may make better decisions to contribute to losing your 20 LB.
You may skip a bag of chips. You may skip dessert. You may drink more water. You may walk one mile. You may do a push-up or 10.
If you are constantly thinking about losing weight then you’re actions might lead you to lose weight.
Notice how I said might.
Might is not discipline. But discipline will make you mighty.
Let’s look at those actions. If you set a goal to lose 20 lb and discipline yourself to eliminate empty calories such as a bag of chips and dessert, and you make it a practice of not eating those things. The lack of calories and contribute to you losing 20 LB.
Water is a great weight loss tool that is under utilize. If you said a goal to lose 20 lb and drink 1 oz of water per pound of body weight per day and follow it on a consistent schedule for a defined period of time, it will contribute to you losing weight.
Same thing with walking a mile. If you use discipline to walk 1 mile every single day in a define period of time, you will lose weight. That simple caloric expenditure or using more calories than you eat.
A push-up will build lean muscle tissue in your upper body. Rather more than one push-up will bills Hurley muscle tissue in your upper body, but if you do push-ups every single day for a defined. It can contribute to you losing the 20 LB.
Come by and all of those disciplined together and done as a daily ritual then you can compress the time frame to reach your goal.
It seems like we’re focused on weight loss but discipline can apply to any gold you set in your life.
For example my side business is being an offer. My main businesses owning a publishing company. In my side business I make money when I write book and market them. Those are two separate activities, eat requiring a specific goal or goals that need discipline to reach.
I want to write a new series in a new genre. The average book in that series is 50000 words long and to reach the monetary goal I think I can for this particular genre I need to have nine book in the series.
I know that if I limit distractions and block off time I can write 12000 words per day.
I know I have 3 days per week that I have on interrupted blocks of six hour times.
I can use discipline to write in that time frame to reach my $12,000 goal for the day and literally complete a book in first draft form in 4 days.
I can run that book through spell check and grammar check and send it off to and editor and proof reader while I use the next 3 days in my block off schedule to write the next book.
Practice. Rent. Repeat. Discipline is the key to getting it done.
I have to sit down at the keyboard every single day during my blocked off time..
Book writing is just one example of a gold that requires consistent discipline.
But you can literally use discipline to reach any gold. Or do anything.
Several years ago I wanted to run a marathon. I made the decision and begin running everyday. At first, I was 20 to 30 lb overweight working 14 15 hour days and my evening meal consisted of whatever I picked up on the way home from work plus up beer or two sitting in front of the couch and watching Netflix.
I decided those have it and that way of living we’re not contributing to me reaching my marathon goal.
So I change them. I stop by and take out on the way home from work and instead bought 5 bag of salad and 5 cans of tuna at the grocery store.
Then when I came home from work the first thing I did was change into running clothes and go for a run.
At first I couldn’t run 1 mile.
So I marked off a half mile point from my house and I ran as fast as I could to that one to that half mile point. The first day I probably didn’t make it 100 yards. But I kept walking to the half mile point and turned around and walked back.
The next day I ran 105 yards. Maybe. But I walked to the halfway point turned around and walked back
And I did this everyday running further each day until I could run a half a mile and turn around and run a half mile back.
All this while I was eating a very convenient dinner of salad and tuna.
When I was able to run the distance of one mile without stopping, I marked appoint that was one and a half miles from my home.
And then I repeated the process.
Noticed that my game wasn’t double from one mile to to miles. It what from one mile to 3 mi.
And even though it felt like starting over because I could run 1 mile out but further than that was tougher. I had to walk back.
I use discipline until I could run the distance.
By the time I was able to run the complete 3 miles, my ability to run longer distances had increased exponential. I was able to move from a 5k distance which is 3.1 miles in a row grace to 1/2 marathon distance which is 13.1 miles.
Discipline allowed for more than double growth.
So far we talked about how you can use discipline to change your body, or help you reach a goal like riding a book. Or in my case 52 books on Amazon which you can grab right now from a list of the back.
The same principal of discipline applies to Revenue Grove.
Now if you work a customer service job you might not be in a position to grow your income due to company and corporate infrastructure. I have a friend who works at the hospital who will never get more than a 2.5% raise in 1/8 you will..
In an annual. Time frame.
However she was able to move from one position in the hospital to a different position in the hospital with more upside growth in the pay range giving her an option to move up even further even if it only stuck at 2.5% for year.
But she wanted more.
So she use the principle of discipline to allocate her time and take on more responsibility for her director, which led to her director relying on her, and singing her praises to the VP and higher ups.
Her diligence and discipline Led two more work responsibility, which literally created a new roll for her in the company.
So much so that her old position was phase doubt and requirements for the new position where created.
The great thing for her was she been doing the job for a year at her lateral pay range movement and when it came time for evaluation and moving up on the pay scale because she had worked with her director to create a new roll within the company, it allowed her to get a 15% rates. A literally move her from the 50s range up to the 60000 Range.
She was satisfied with that move with the potential upside to keep growing for the next several years while she plots and plant her next move.
I have no doubt she has the discipline it take to reach whatever go she sets for herself.
We have talked about discipline as a body changing measure, as a goal reaching measure, is a way to do anything you want to do.
Want to fly a plane? Take flight lessons.
Can’t afford flight lessons? Get a side job to save up for flight listens.
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