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A Video About My Upcoming E-Book

Here’s an interview of me by Lisa Delay regarding an E-Book I’m working on about making a living as a writer. I’m especially excited about this book because of all of the awesome contributing writers who have agreed to take part. To get updates on this project, and for chances to win your own free copy, subscribe to my monthly e-letter (simply put your email address in the field to the right and click “Subscribe”):

The list of contributors I mention in the video is not the full list because a few more have agreed to join in since this was filmed. Stay tuned in the next week or two and I’ll let you know the final list of wonderful folks who are contributing to this book.

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One of the things I’m most looking forward to about our upcoming trip is hanging out with other writers. If you had the opportunity to sit down with writers all around the country, what is something you would ask them? What are some of the more pressing/interesting topics regarding writing that you’d want to discuss?

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The Girl Who Cannot Speak

Every Thursday night the woman leaves her house and drives over soft hills to the home of an Amish family. She walks up to the door, and they let her in with smiles and the typical Amish greeting of a handshake, a nod, a kind word. They walk her to the bedroom of one of their daughters.

The woman walks in and holds the girl. Perhaps she reads to her from time to time – I’m not sure. The girl does not respond, or at least not in an obvious way. She was shot in the head years ago, and she has never recovered completely. Continue reading “The Girl Who Cannot Speak”

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Bobby McFerrin, Broccoli, and a Question Jesus Asked

Stop smoking. Start exercising. Stop eating fast food. Start eating broccoli. Stop crossing without looking both ways. Start walking instead of driving. Stop adding salt. Start adding vitamins. Stop drinking alcohol. Start drinking red wine.

The list of advice regarding how to live a longer life is endless and often contradictory. Yet we absorb these recommendations and then regurgitate them with amazing confidence, certain that whatever tidbit heard last is the surefire guarantor of a long life.

But adding a day, or a month, or a year, or even a decade…is that the point? Is that really all that we’re concerned with? Continue reading “Bobby McFerrin, Broccoli, and a Question Jesus Asked”

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Pictures of the Vehicle in Which We Plan to Travel the Country

My family’s epic adventure begins in 23 days.

So on Saturday we took The Bus for a test drive. Here she is:

I can’t wait to hit the road.

Check out our itinerary HERE. I’m hoping to connect with as many writers as possible, so if we’re traveling close to you and you wouldn’t mind getting a group of writers together, I’d love to hang out and hear about your writing lives. We could meet in a library, coffee shop, someone’s house, or on our bus. Email me at shawnsmucker@yahoo.com if you’d like to talk more about this.

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Four Bands You Should Have Told Me About Sooner

So enough about stealing music. Here are four videos from the Youtube or Facebook pages of some of my favorite bands that I’ve found in the last year: Walk Off the Earth, Pomplamoose, The Civil Wars, and The National. It’s Friday! Take a moment to indulge in some awesome tunes, and then let me know in the comments about your favorite, recent, musical discoveries.

Somebody That I Used to Know – Walk off the Earth (Gotye – Cover)

Pomplamoose – If You Think You Need Some Lovin

The Civil Wars // Tour Diary // 08

About Today (live) by THE NATIONAL

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The Forgotten Commandment

It’s so easy for us Christians to go on and on about the same old things. The sanctity of marriage. The unique importance of unborn life. The evils of evolution.

We like to remain rooted in the big picture issues because, for most of us, they have little impact on our day-to-day lives. Our lists of dos and do nots conveniently line up with the natural trajectory of our own lives, requiring little in the way of personal change. We can comfortably spend the day fighting “the issues,” then go back to homes where those things will leave most of us alone. Continue reading “The Forgotten Commandment”