The Adventures of LitBoy: Bill Brent's Blog

Bye for Now

Hey there, readers --

Just a quick note to let you know that the Typepad version of this blog is probably going away soon, since my annual re-up is this week.

Now, while I have certainly enjoyed posting to this blog at times, assembling most of my posts here takes a great deal of work -- probably more formatting, uploading, and so forth than they appear to. Let's just say that Typepad out-of-the-box is not nearly as great in the design department as Bill Brent on-the-stick.

Plus, to be blunt, I'm not getting enough love or money to keep up this project, AND to pay Typepad for the privilege. (Although honestly, I do believe that they provide good value for the money.)

Furthermore, life has gotten busier for me lately with paying work. So now I need to stop being such a generous poor person, in order to focus more steadfastly on achieving my goals.

BOTTOM LINE, thirty months of paying Typepad is enough, already. I have written Typepad to ask what becomes of financially delinquent blogs, as mine is about to be, and I am sure I will get some kind of polite party-line response shortly. In any case, if you want to stay in touch, or know what I'm up to next, here are a couple of options for you:

Email Me Here

Otherwise, I'm on Facebook and Twitter nowadays -- to find me, just put my first name and my last name together into a single word, and there you go.

So thanks for reading, and if there is something you really enjoy about this blog, then by all means drop me a line and let me know what it is! Maybe we can put the best stuff together someplace else for free.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2009.05.05, 10:30 a.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is the brainchild of writer Bill Brent. If you enjoy this blog, please consider a donation in support of my work. You can either (1) send money via PayPal to info [!at] litboy [!dot] com, or better still, (2) use Revolution Money Exchange. Unlike PayPal, RME pays 100% of your donation. It's quick and easy!


Here's the button for that:

kick-a** blog recommendation

Greetings, friends and browsers of this blog --

This young man comes up with more good content than most ten bloggers combined. This excellent meditation on PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT is, IMHO, one of his best to date.

-- Despite public appearance, I am a very private person, and so I'm only going to say this once: IT WORKED FOR ME. I stumbled upon the basic principle Glen describes in this post by myself, by mistake, and through a great deal of trial and error. If you are one of the attentive few who truly knew me when I was 19, then 29, then 39, you know that I am not making this up.

-- I also believe that some of us genuinely evolve throughout our lives, whereas most of us merely achieve some fairly superficial levels of change, and never really experience what I would call a deep, integrated growth process.

To put it more bluntly, talk about personal transformation is cheap.

And very lucrative.

-- You may not agree with me on this point, and I will concede: IMPRINTING can happen at any point throughout our lives. While it is never too late, the earlier you start, the better your odds of lasting progress ... toward becoming the person you want to be, rather than the one you are told you should be. Growth and integration oriented change do NOT happen by remaining steadfastly in our comfort zones, however charming and appealing they may be.

That's all I'm sayin'.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2009.04.23, 3:05 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is the brainchild of writer Bill Brent. If you enjoy this blog, please consider a donation in support of my work. You can either (1) send money via PayPal to info [!at] litboy [!dot] com, or better still, (2) use Revolution Money Exchange. Unlike PayPal, RME pays 100% of your donation. It's quick and easy!


Here's the button for that:

Thoughts on Creative Process

I just realized something about the creative process. Mine, at least.

I tend to get inspired from experiencing the art or vision of other creative types. It doesn't have to be in the same field of discipline as mine. And it truly doesn't have to be art per se. Sometimes it can be as simple as my own analysis of what I like or dislike about their particular vision, or my observation of how that vision plays out in the larger world.

Let me see if I can explain this.

It's as if the other creative type and I are sheets of paper or cloth, and if the other is "on fire," and brushes up against me, that tends to set me on fire as well. Then we've got two creative types on fire, each with his own "print" or tapestry to expose to the world. My tapestry is not a copy of theirs, but I need to catch a glimpse of theirs in order to set mine free — to unravel it, if you will. Or to "see" my own design and make a print of the image that is forming in my brain.

Hunh.

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Thanks to M.P., M.M., and D.S. for their recent contributions
in support of this blog.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.09.24, 12:12 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

80.99 / $199.90 (40.5%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.

Memoirville.com features an excerpt from my ENTANGLED LIVES memoir

Smithmag's memoirville.com is running a feature on my new anthology, ENTANGLED LIVES, beginning today. You can read the interview with me and the other contributors HERE.

Memoirville's editor selected an excerpt from my memoir to feature on the site, which you can read HERE. [Note to family and friends: this features sexually explicit content from my direct experience, so you are hereby advised to skip it if you don't want to view it.]

You can buy a copy of ENTANGLED LIVES via Amazon, HERE, and I get a 10% commission on the sale. If you do read the book and want to review it at Amazon.com, please do so. It would really help.

In related news, I have finished the first draft of my "right-brain novel" and am hard at work on revisions with my writing coach, TONI AMATO.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.08.28, 3:40 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

53.06 / $199.90 (26.5%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.

NOVEL WRITING LOG: Novelist, interrupted (36 days and counting)

Left-brain is in control today. I got a ton of mail and some of it needed attention. Consequently, I spent about an hour updating my budget and otherwise dealing with finances.

Most of my literary output today, however, was a right-brain sex scene. It had to be written, but I wasn't into writing it. So I typed it with one hand (accurately!) while I jacked off with the other. See, right-brain, left-brain, in perfect harmony ... but was it work or pleasure, heh-heh? It doesn't matter. It's a darned good scene, and that's what counts.

Today I re-read Greta Christina's honest and insightful article about her writing process, which is a good reminder to go easy on myself sometimes.

Last night (before the cat escaped outdoors and spent the night dodging raindrops), I started reading this under-acknowledged classic, which I've been looking forward to: In Praise of Folly and Other Writings: A New Translation With Critical Commentary (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback)

Several versions of Erasmus' timeless satiric essay are available, but I highly recommend this edition, the Robert M. Adams translation. It's very easy to read, with extensive and helpful footnotes, so you get the best of both worlds.

So, anyway, here's today's tally:

Bill's Left-Brain Novel,
as of June 11, 2007:

62,541 / 90,000 (69.5%)

Bill's Right-Brain Novel,
as of June 11, 2007:

14,668 / 50,000 (29.3%)

I drank more coffee than I intended to but stopped myself by giving away most of that second cup.

I watched a female cardinal do a tightrope dance along my clothesline. This is an older picture, but I'm pretty sure it's the same bird:

And here's one of a male, so no one feels left out:

Financial House of Surprises, Good News Dep't.:

(1) 2 unexpected single-book orders via Amazon Marketplace. It took away from writing time to fill them, but I am now about $30 richer. Speaking of which, want to support my cause? Browse my bookstore on Amazon and buy something!

(2) A check reimbursing me for some of last year's co-payments for my prescription medications. Who knew? This nearly covers the auto insurance bill that just arrived with the check. Whoopee!

It wasn't a bad day.

OK, you can probably read today's sex scene in the novel someday (what was he wanking off to?), but meanwhile, here is intimate info about me that you never knew (and didn't really want to):

My weirdest fetish is, arguably, cleaning my ear canal with a Q-Tip ... then sniffing the earwax. Woo-hoo! Why? I have no idea, but I note that it activates four of the five senses. Not tasting. Ugh. Now that would be kinky.

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Wishing you a beautiful day,

Bill Brent

[this page last updated: 2007.06.11, 4:45 p.m. Hawaii time]

LitBoy.com is a professional blog. Keeping it online costs me $200 per year. That's before paying me for my writing, photography, or anything else I do here. If you enjoy this blog, please use the Tip Jar at the top of this page. Your two-dollar minimum donation helps keep this banner-free site alive. It's quick and easy!

43.55 / $199.90 (21.8%)

This meter displays this year's contributions to date in U.S. dollars (after the funds processor takes its cut). Make a donation, watch the meter rise! Usually I post your contribution on my next blog post.

All original materials here on LitBoy.com (writing, photos, drawings, graphics, etc.) belong to Bill Brent. If you want to re-use something here, please ask. Higher resolution images are available.