Friday, February 27, 2015

The Countdown To Sunday Begins

On Sunday, the new I Wrote This For You And Only You book will be made available, both as an eBook and in paperback. I'll be doing some live readings, some giveaways of signed copies, and numerous other crazy things to celebrate the launch of this, the third book. Follow along on facebook, twitter and tumblr to find out how you could win one of those things.

I Wrote This For You And Only You is a collection of the best entries, both photography and prose, from 2011 to 2015.


It looks like this and you can click here to preorder it, right now.

A note: The print edition available right now is a special limited edition that uses a special, more expensive printing process to create better and brighter pictures in the books. The differences are subtle and it costs more so if that's not your thing, wait a little while and the other edition will show up on Amazon shortly. The limited edition is only available during the launch of the book because we wanted to make sure readers have a choice. 

Just to clarify because some people seem to have been confused, this is technically the sequel to the first book, I Wrote This For You, which looks like this and contains all the best entries, prose and photography, from 2007 to 2011.


You can click here to buy it, although I know most of you already have, and I can never thank you enough for that. 

The confusion comes in with this book, I Wrote This For You: Just The Words. 


A few years ago, we were worried about how expensive the books were because they contained full colour photography and an entire book of full colour photography is always going to be expensive. 

So, we decided that for those who just wanted to buy the prose, and didn't mind not having the photography, we'd make a different book (you can buy it here). So this book has 400 (the original book has 200) entries, a lot of exclusive entries that don't appear on the blog or anywhere else and no photography, and it costs less. 

I'm sorry for the confusion but perhaps I'm better at writing prose than I am at naming books. 

Forgive the long post but I wanted to explain which book had what in it and make sure no one felt ripped off about what they were buying. 

Besides a few exclusive entries in each book, we release everything we do for free. This is for those who can afford to and want to hold a physical copy (or a complete collection on a kindle or iPad) of something that I have been assured so often, means a lot to them (and that means more to me that I can ever truly express with words). 

I look forward to talking more to you over the next 48 hours and longer. Please, share this with your friends, tell your neighbours and your family because you're the reason we do this and you're the reason we're here. 

Forever onwards,

-Me

Thursday, February 26, 2015

The Life And Death Of Most Of Us


Most of us will settle for fine.

Most of us will stream mp3s instead of asking a friend to play the guitar.

Most of us will run on a treadmill at the gym instead of going to the park.

Most of us will watch 10 second videos on a computer instead of going to a play.

Most of us will eat something we can throw in the microwave instead of learning to cook.

Most of us will aspire to being known, to being famous for just a little while.

Most of us will be willing to be embarrassed, to hurt ourselves, if it means being known.

Most of us will be more concerned with that, with being known, than being remembered by anyone special.

Most of us will decide that it's too soon or too late in life to go after what we really want.

Most of us will never actually sit down and think about what we really want.

Most of us will spend more time reading status updates than we spend reading books.

Most of us will take more pictures of ourselves than actually looking at the world around us.

Most of us will take the one unique and precious life we've been given and spend it being, just ok.

Most of us will make do.

And you will meet most of us and when you do, remember this.

Be the few.

Be the few.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The Price Of Anything Is Only What It Costs

Of all the things you can buy with your heart, love can cost the most. Yet it is a bargain for what it brings.

So I hope you have a big heart. I hope your heart is rich.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Page 21

You can pre-order the eBook right now by clicking here and enter to win your own copy by cliking here.

The printed edition will be available on Amazon from 1 March.

Monday, February 23, 2015

The Years Slip Through Our Fingers


I wanted to say, "I am sorry if we haven't spoken in a while," but we had not spoken in a while, and you cannot say such a thing to someone you haven't spoken to in a while.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Friday, February 20, 2015

The New Book Is Out At The End Of Feb

Here's one of my favourite entries.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

The Cutting Edge Of A Paintbrush

If someone tells you that pain is an art, don't let them turn your heart into a masterpiece.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Somewhere, A Clock Is Ticking




Dear You, 

Please forgive my absence. We've been working quite diligently on the new I Wrote This For You And Only You book. If you didn't know, it's a follow up to our original book, I Wrote This For You. The first book has the best entries from 2007-2011, this new book is the same, from 2011-2015. 

It looks great and contains beautiful full colour photography and, I believe, 200 entries in total. 

It's always very strange to go through a collection like this because it forces me to look at what was happening during that time of my life. While I've always said that I don't want to turn this into an 'emotional reality tv show', because that wouldn't be fair to the people who are close to me, there's always a part of me that comes through. 

I keep a notebook and a big, epic google document which is where I write ideas for things and the start of things, and I slowly put parts of myself into that as I go about my day, sentences that stick in my head and so on, then Jon sends me a picture, and I say, "Well, of course, that picture was meant for this." 

That's not always true, sometimes Jon sends me a picture and it suggests the words. It's all always been chaotic and organic.    

But when it's all put together, when it's collected, I can always see something, a shape , like the poems are all pixels in a bigger picture. 

That's when my father died. That's when my wife's mother died. That's when we got married. That's when I was on top of the world. That's when I was below it. That's something else. That's nothing else. And so on. 

I know you'll see something else when you look at it, and I'm glad for that. I've never wanted to beat somebody over the head with a piece of writing and go, "Understand me! This is about this!" because once you've written something down, you no longer own it. The person who reads it owns it and they, hopefully, will own something different to what you wrote, the things that fill in the space between the valleys and the peaks of the words on the page. 

This is when your child got sick. This is when your grandfather died. This is when you fell in love. This is when you fell apart. This is when you were somewhere else. 

Whatever you find, and whatever you own, I hope that the act of finding it makes you feel less alone. 

Being found, has always made me feel less alone. 

I can never thank you enough for that. 

- pleasefindthis/Me 
 
__

P.S. 

I'm also desperately trying to finish a book that I've owed someone for quite a while, called "How To Be Happy." 

To be honest, I don't even know if I know what it's about anymore. I had this idea that because I've dealt with depression quite a bit in my life, that maybe I could write a book about dealing with it, but the book has ended up being something else. I keep writing it, deleting it, writing it, deleting it and I rinse and repeat. Anyway, the clock is ticking on that and it's getting pretty serious. I am way, way past the deadline. 

There's also ten other things going on in the background. I know most of them will fail but I also know that if I do ten things, at least one of them will work. So I do a lot because the one that works, is always worth it. 

And I must get back to it.