Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Becoming a successful writer

The best piece of advice I have ever heard about becoming a successful writer: "If anything can stop you from becoming a writer, let it. If nothing can stop you, do it and you'll make it."


Don't let anything, fear, fame or fortune stop you. The ultimate secret of becoming a successful author is making a total lifetime commitment.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Scariest Moment

Okay first time writing something that has nothing to do with writing. Last night at my youth group (I being a leader) I was asked “What was the scariest thing you ever did?” Anyone who knows me knows there isn’t much that scares me (beyond grasshoppers and cockroaches, okay there I said it,) so I couldn’t come up with any good answer. On the way home however I found my answer. I was wreck diving in Florida, the waters were extremely turbulent and I was having equipment malfunctions. I knew with all my training (I'm a Dive Master)I should have aborted the dive as soon as I reached the bottom, but my stubbornness overpowered my common sense and I continued the dive. Once I reached the other side of the ship at ninety-six feet I found I was almost out of air and didn’t have enough to get back. The ocean was entirely too turbulent to surface so I had no choice I had to try and get back to the safety line. I looked for my dive buddy (my brother) he was to far away to signal but another diver was close by and asked (with hand signal) if I was okay. I signaled I was almost out of air. He looked at my gage, grabbed my hand and the two of us swam as fast as we could back to the safety line. Once we reached the line I ran out of air completely and we buddy breathed all the way back up including our safety stop.


That guy was my hero, turns out he was a Jag officer, very cool under pressure.

Moral to my story: often our scariest moments are because of bad decisions and bad judgment calls.