Video I’m Contemplating
How to Live an Asymmetric Life, Graham Weaver. It’s a video of a speech to a graduating class at Stanford.
I’m in a very introspective season of my life. My parents are getting older, heck I’m getting older. My priorities are changing. Purpose seems more important than accumulation and generally, I’m finding that I want to spend more time on things that really matter.
This video is about purpose. It’s about finding that purpose, doing the hard things, doing your thing, doing it for a long time, and writing your own story. It’s about committing to the thing that is uniquely you and going all in.
I was meant to be a writer. My purpose is to write as many stories as I can and touch the lives of as many readers as possible, and I’ll do it til the day I die. I once received an email from a woman who read my books to her father while he was undergoing chemo for a cancer he soon died from. She was thankful they were able to share that time together.
I’d like to get to the point soon where I can go all in.
What I’m Reading
The Sympathizer: A Novel, by Viet Thanh Nguyn. 2016 Pulitzer Prize winner.
My father was in the Vietnam War, or as the Vietnamese call it, the American War. He flew C-130s while stationed at Tachikawa AFB just outside of Tokyo, where, incidentally, I was born. I’ve traveled to Vietnam and I found the country to be a wonderful oasis of friendly locals and scrumptious food.
The story is about a North Vietnamese mole in the South Vietnamese army at the end of the war who expatriates to the United States. I’m only 10% in, but already I’m captivated by the narrator, who is balancing his duty as aide-de-camp to a South Vietnamese general, a friend of an American CIA officer, and a friend to a South Vietnamese soldier.
I love stories where characters exist in shades of gray, where their decisions are not perfect, but they are swayed by emotions, and where their loyalties are on a spectrum. Just like real life.
Let me know if you give it a try and how you like it.
What I’m Working On
Cat & Mouse, a 2nd Edition re-write of the original novella, is awaiting my amazing proofreader’s availability. The rewritten story is almost all new with a different ending, so I think you’ll enjoy it. I’ll provide it free of charge to this group when it’s ready.
I am knee-deep in the editing process of my seventh novel, and as I work through it, I fall in love with it more and more. That’s either a good thing or a bad thing. I’m still not yet ready to reveal the new series name, or the lead character’s name, or announce the launch date, but stay tuned. There is a spoiler in the podcast interview I did with J Ryan and Kiera at The Write Note, so give that a listen if you haven’t already.
