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Order early. Order often.

In two short days, Billy Coffey’s second novel will be released. Thanks to everyone who helped get the word out about Paper Angels. Hopefully, those of you who have already received a copy of the book have had a chance to at least read the first couple of chapters.

As many of you know, not only do I consider Billy a friend, I also am, for lack of a better term, his virtual personal assistant. As I mentioned to my friend Brian on Twitter the other day, I liken myself to Chloe to his Jack Bauer. He takes care of the important stuff–the writing–and I do my best to take care of all the other stuff that comes with being a published author and maintaining an author platform. It is a job I enjoy immensely, and despite the fact that he probably wants to yell, “DAMMIT, KATDISH!” on a fairly regular basis, he rarely does. The thing about Billy Coffey is that he really is as humble and unassuming as he appears to be. When talking about the main character in Paper Angels, Billy mentions Andy Sommerville is a better version of himself. But I disagree. Andy’s circumstances may be different from Billy’s, but they are both great, honorable and humble characters. It’s just that the latter is a real person.

Billy has a dream. A dream which many writers have but very few ever realize–he would like to write full time. To sell enough books to be able to quit his day job. I would like nothing more than for him to realize that dream. I don’t think any of us deserve much in this life, but if hard work, sacrifice and dedication to the craft garner any favor (not to mention an incredible gift), I think Billy is due for a dream come true.

I won’t be giving away a copy of Paper Angels today, but if you head over to my friend Maureen’s blog, Writing without Paper, not only will you read a wonderful interview with Billy, you will also have another opportunity to win a copy of his book. Look for more interviews, reviews and book giveaways in the days and weeks to come.

A very special thank you to the members of what my friend Mike Ellis affectionately refers to as The Billy Coffey Mafia, whose unwavering support and encouragement have helped move Billy a little closer to realizing his dream. Y’all are the best.

Congratulations to this week’s winner Kely Braswell aka @kelybreez.

Look for some more giveaways here in the weeks to come. Better yet, go order yourself one from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or some other fine online bookstore or support your local economy by heading to your nearest bookstore. Rumor has it some store already have them in stock.

And thanks again for helping to get the word out about Paper Angels.

It’s week seven of The Best of Billy Coffey! If you’re new here, in Week 1, I shared a snippet of Billy’s second novel Paper Angels along with a few ways you can enter to win a copy of Paper Angels. As promised, I’m still choosing a winner each week. You may enter as often as you like, and there are several ways to enter:

• Leave a comment here or on subsequent “Best of Billy Coffey” posts each Monday indicating you would like to be entered into the drawing.
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to this post and/or subsequent posts. (Please be sure to let me know you’re doing so by adding @katdish to the end of your tweet or sharing the Facebook link with me.)
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to the Paper Angels Amazon page letting people know it is available for pre-order.
• Ditto Barnes & Noble
• Ditto Books-a-Million
• Ditto Indie-Bound

Each of the aforementioned actions will constitute one entry into the drawing. If you don’t win this week, each of your entries will go back into the drawing. Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced the following Monday. Enter early, enter often, and check back here each week for new opportunities to win.

Thanks in advance for helping get the word out about Paper Angels. If you’re not big into contests, I still encourage you to head over to Amazon or another online retailer and pre-order a copy. I know once you read it you will recommend it to a friends and family, and word of mouth advertising is the very best kind.

The winner of Week Six is Amy Nabors. Congrats, Amy! I’ll post next week’s winner next Monday.

Now on to another one of my favorite posts from Billy. And since it’s Halloween, of course I’m going to share a ghost story with you:

A Specter of Love

photo courtesty of photobucket.com

The thing about Virginia is that it’s old. There is history here, more than in most places, and that history isn’t confined to places like Williamsburg and Jamestown. It spreads westward too, over the piedmont and the mountains, right to my proverbial backyard.

Some say that our history is still alive in one way or another. I guess the story Jeff Jackson told me a few weeks ago could be classified as “another.”

Jeff and his father, Larry, are hunters. Big time hunters. The sort of Virginia boys who elevate it from sport to near religion.

Always looking for an edge as to where the best game is, Larry heard through the redneck grapevine there was a section of the mountains full of the biggest bucks anyone had ever seen. There was, however, one small problem—those woods were haunted.

Superstitions run deep in the mountains here. Larry and Jeff knew that. They also knew many of those superstitions were tales spun by moonshiners to keep prying eyes away from their stills. Besides, both of them had been in those woods before, and both had never seen anything other than squirrels, snakes, and the decaying foundation of an ancient cabin.

So they went. Hiked in one Saturday morning just before sunup. Jeff left his father under a stout oak on top of a ridge and then made his way another mile down the mountain. Walkie-talkies would keep them in contact, the woods would keep them at peace, and the prospect of a trophy buck would keep them watchful.

Larry sipped coffee while the mountain threw off its dark blanket and began the morning. The rising sun brought the woods to life slow and easy. Birds sang and critters scurried for breakfast. The cool wind was enough to keep him alert but not cold.

And then it all stopped. Everything. The birds, the critters, the wind. Life one moment, not-life the next.

Larry exchanged his thermos for his rifle, thinking that maybe the sudden stop in activity meant a bear or mountain lion was making its way through the area. But he heard and saw nothing.

Then from the corner of his eye Larry saw movement through the trees. He peeked from behind the oak and fingered the trigger.

Then he went numb.

There, no more than twenty yards away, was a woman. Not a big deal, usually. Plenty of women hiked the mountains. But two things set this particular woman apart from the rest. One was that she was wearing a wedding dress. The other was that there was empty space from her waist down.

Larry couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk, couldn’t shoot, couldn’t breathe. All he could do was stare as the legless bride floated past him and disappeared into the woods.

The silence remained behind like a whoosh of air after a car has passed. Then a cardinal sang from far away, a signal that all was safe. Other birds joined in. Critters went back to scurrying. The breeze returned.

And Larry discovered he could talk again.

“GIT UP HERE BOY NOW!!” he screamed into the radio.

Jeff, one mile down the ridge, had been oblivious to everything that had happened. All he knew was that his father was screaming for help, which to him meant Larry had either been shot or was in the process of being eaten.

“What’s wrong?!” he said through the radio. “DAD? WHAT’S WRO—”

“—Git. HERE. NOW!!”

Jeff ran.

He found Larry still peering from behind that oak tree. All his father would say was, “We gotta get the heck outta here, boy.”

A year has passed. Larry’s spent the majority of that time obsessed with what he saw. He’s researched and read, spoken with writers and professors. All to find some sense of what happened. He thinks he has.

According to Larry, the decaying foundation he and Jeff found was once the home of the Walker family in the late 1700s. Father, mother, son, and a daughter named Abigail, who just so happened to be hopelessly in love and engaged. But war came to the colonies. Abigail’s love joined Washington’s army. He never returned.

Larry’s convinced it was Abigail he saw that day, destined to forever roam the mountains in search of the man she lost and to be dressed for a wedding she’ll never have. There are some who snicker when he says that. And there are more than some who think that rather than stumbling upon a ghost, Larry stumbled upon a still and got sauced.

Me, I’m not so sure. I think Larry just might be telling the truth. Because there is ecstasy in finding true love, and there is torment in losing it.

It’s week six of The Best of Billy Coffey! If you’re new here, in Week 1, I shared a snippet of Billy’s second novel Paper Angels along with a few ways you can enter to win a copy of Paper Angels. As promised, I’m still choosing a winner each week. You may enter as often as you like, and there are several ways to enter:

• Leave a comment here or on subsequent “Best of Billy Coffey” posts each Monday indicating you would like to be entered into the drawing.
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to this post and/or subsequent posts. (Please be sure to let me know you’re doing so by adding @katdish to the end of your tweet or sharing the Facebook link with me.)
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to the Paper Angels Amazon page letting people know it is available for pre-order.
• Ditto Barnes & Noble
• Ditto Books-a-Million
• Ditto Indie-Bound

Each of the aforementioned actions will constitute one entry into the drawing. If you don’t win this week, each of your entries will go back into the drawing. Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced the following Monday. Enter early, enter often, and check back here each week for new opportunities to win.

Thanks in advance for helping get the word out about Paper Angels. If you’re not big into contests, I still encourage you to head over to Amazon or another online retailer and pre-order a copy. I know once you read it you will recommend it to a friends and family, and word of mouth advertising is the very best kind.

The winner of Week Five is James Williams. Congrats, James! Your persistence has paid off! I’ll post next week’s winner next Monday.

Now on to another one of my favorite posts from Billy. Billy is quick to point out when asked that he is more concerned with Truth (big T) than truth (small t) in the stories he writes. And while he takes some liberties with what he writes for you, I happen to know that the one you’re about to read (or re-read) pretty much happened the way he wrote it. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent–or the guilty, depending on your perspective. Enjoy.

Loving thy Neighbor

image courtesy of photobucket.com

My friend Pete loves everybody. It’s a matter of pride to him, I think. He’ll tell you that he loves you the first time you meet him. Doesn’t matter who are or what you look like, either. “I’ve never met anybody I didn’t love,” he’ll say, “’Cause I love Jesus and Jesus loves me. So I gotta love you, too.” Then he’ll grab you in his gargantuan arms and lift you off the ground, shaking your bones like a pair of dice.

That’s Pete.

Pete is also as traditional as they come. Church every Sunday and Wednesday, and not a morning goes by without scripture and prayer. The combination of the two has infused in him and his family a bedrock of faith that for years refused to be shaken by anything life could throw at him.

Until the other day. Until my phone rang and he said in his breathless, forty-four-year-old voice, “You gotta get over here. Now.”

Pete was on his front porch when I got there, rocking back and forth in a lawn chair that was not made for rocking, looking thoroughly displeased. He offered me our usual snack—a Coke and a bag of peanuts. I proceeded to dump the latter into the former and take a sip of the salty sweetness.

“What’s up?” I asked him.

“Don’t believe it,” he said. “Don’t believe it, don’t believe it, dontbelieveit.”

“Don’t believe what?” I asked. Another sip.

“Johnson house sold there, across the street,” he said, pointing.

I turned around and followed his finger. Sure enough, the FOR SALE sign on the house across from his had been topped with another that said SOLD. The Johnsons had moved three weeks ago, and everyone figured that the house would be empty for a long while given the economy.

“Great,” I said, facing him again. “You have new neighbors. What’s the problem?”

“Dontbelieveit dontbelieveit dontbelieveit.”

“Pete, you swallow something you weren’t supposed to?” I asked. “You been in the moonshine?”

“Lookie!” he almost shouted, pointing again. “Lookie there and see what the cat done dragged in. Dontbelieveit!”

I turned again. Standing on the front porch of the Johnson house were Pete’s new neighbors. Older lady, slightly younger gal. They were attempting to arrange an assortment of rocking chairs and tables just so and not quite getting it. An aggravating situation for some, though they seemed in bright enough spirits.

“Pete, I don’t—”

“—LOOKIE!”

The older woman, now utterly confused by the configurations of her new porch, simply gave one of the rockers a hard shove into the younger lady. The act of frustration was met with laughter from both, who then proceeded to fall into one another’s arms and share a very long, very deep…kiss.

“Dontbelieveit,” I said.

Pete buried his head in his hands. “Lawd,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he was praying or merely dumbfounded. “Lawd Jesus God help me.”

Praying.

“Lawd, why’d You do this to me?” he moaned. “Thissa sort of thing that happens out in Hellywood, Lawd. Not ’cross the street.”

I shook my head in amazement, and the sheer irony of it all made me laugh. Pete, God-and-mama-and-apple-pie Pete, I-love-everybody Pete, had gotten a gay couple for neighbors.

“Huh,” I said. “Ain’t that something.”

“Somethin’?” he retorted, raising his head to look at me. “Don’t you know this ain’t good? Ain’t you read your Bible, boy?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Well, there then,” he answered, as if that explained things.

“You a little homophobic, Pete?” I asked, with a sip of my Coke and a smile.

“Homophobic?” he said. “Homophobic? Boy, I gotta eat a corndog with a knife and fork.”

I snorted out my drink and bent over, wiping it from my mouth and blue jeans.

Pete stared at me, unsure of what had just transpired that would cause me to make such a mess of myself. “What am I gonna do?” he asked. “What. Am. I. Gonna. Do?”

I thought about that. What was Pete going to do? Fume and pout, I supposed. For a little while, anyway. But then Jesus would come calling. The Jesus Pete loved and Who loved him more, Who said that hate was never really any good for anything other than eating up your own insides. He would come calling and tell Peter that it’s easy to love those who are like you, that everyone does that. But that love Jesus wanted from Peter was the hard love, the kind that’s not easy.

It’s okay to not like what they do, Jesus would say, because He didn’t like what many of us do. But Jesus also loved those two women, and He wanted Pete to do the same. Because Pete had faith, and because that faith just might be the closest thing to Jesus those two women ever see.

“Just wait,” I told him. “It’ll come to you.”

We stared across the street. The two women resumed their rocking chair arranging, then stared at us.

They waved.

We waved back.

It’s week five of The Best of Billy Coffey! If you’re new here, in Week 1, I shared a snippet of Billy’s second novel Paper Angels along with a few ways you can enter to win a copy of Paper Angels. As promised, I’m still choosing a winner each week. You may enter as often as you like, and there are several ways to enter:

• Leave a comment here or on subsequent “Best of Billy Coffey” posts each Monday indicating you would like to be entered into the drawing.
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to this post and/or subsequent posts. (Please be sure to let me know you’re doing so by adding @katdish to the end of your tweet or sharing the Facebook link with me.)
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to the Paper Angels Amazon page letting people know it is available for pre-order.
• Ditto Barnes & Noble
• Ditto Books-a-Million
• Ditto Indie-Bound

Each of the aforementioned actions will constitute one entry into the drawing. If you don’t win this week, each of your entries will go back into the drawing. Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced the following Monday. Enter early, enter often, and check back here each week for new opportunities to win.

Thanks in advance for helping get the word out about Paper Angels. If you’re not big into contests, I still encourage you to head over to Amazon or another online retailer and pre-order a copy. I know once you read it you will recommend it to a friends and family, and word of mouth advertising is the very best kind.

The winner of Week Four is Deborah. Congrats, Deborah! I’ll post next week’s winner next Monday.

For this week’s edition of the Best of Billy Coffey, I decided to include the introduction he provided on his own blog. The last time I checked, the Old Man had not paid Billy a visit in a very long time. I have my own theory as to who this unwanted visitor was and why he no longer haunts Billy’s dreams, but some things I’d just as soon keep to myself. I’m mysterious like that. Here’s Billy:

There is truth and there is Truth, and the big T usually trumps the little one. At least it does in my writing. The tiny details in my life are often sacrificed in favor of the big ideas within them. I like this. If there’s one thing I want to share with people, it’s that every life is filled with holiness; all we have to do in order to see it is slow down and take a deep breath.

Most of my posts have very little to do with me and instead tend to focus upon the people around me, folks who are a lot more interesting than I am. My life and what’s going on with me is not nearly as entertaining as the neighbor down the road or the guy who picks up my trash.

Usually, anyway. But not always. Sometimes something you’ve kept secret needs to be told, because sometimes what haunts you does so because you’re too afraid to talk about it.

For the past nineteen years I’ve known an old man in a bowler hat. He’s never given me his name, never offered. And frankly, asking him is the furthest thing from my mind.

I’ll invite you over to Katdish’s blog to read the story. It’s a good one, and one that’s offered me a good deal of liberation in writing. But since we’re tight, you and I, I’ll also give you a little warning. This isn’t my normal sort of post. There is upbeat, aw-shucks Billy, and there is the Billy who broods. Katdish let me brood today. For that, she has my thanks…

Fighting the Old Man

To me, he is simply known as the Old Man. I don’t know his name, and I don’t think I care to. Old Man is enough.

I’ve known him for nineteen years now, and he knows me. Knows me well. When and where we meet always seems to be his prerogative. He is always dressed the same—dapper pinstriped suit with a red handkerchief, black bowler hat, immaculately shined shoes, and a cane. And I am always wearing the same expression: horror.

The Old Man is my nightmare.

He arrived one night shortly after my near suicide, sitting on a park bench in my dream. He motioned me over to sit down, gently patting the section of wood beside him. I did. He offered me a deal: come with him, and all would be well. Don’t, and…well, he said, “The consequences will be unfortunate.”

I was convinced of that when he turned to face me and a worm fell out of his left eye. It wriggled onto my hand and then in, slowly crawling up my arm and into my chest, boring its way into my heart.

I woke up screaming.

He arrived again two weeks later wanting my answer: stay or go? I stayed. By the time he was finished with me, I wished I had chosen otherwise.

And that’s the way it’s been since. Not every night, sometimes not even every month. But for nineteen years now he has come for me at his whim in his pinstriped suit and bowler hat and cane, each time asking me different variations of the same theme:

Ready to go yet?

I thought at first he was the product of an overactive mind. Or too many Stephen King books. But when I wake up screaming and incoherent and then force myself to stay awake for days because I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep and never wake up, I’m not sure neither my imagination nor Stephen King’s is at fault. I’m not sure at all.

He’s tenacious, the Old Man. Smart. Knows just what to do to hurt me the most and has no qualms about doing it.

I suppose whether he’s a demon or a psychological manifestation of my vast emotional baggage depends upon whether you ascribe to God or Freud. I’ll leave that to you.

Me, I know this: there is an unseen war waged daily around us between light and dark, life and death. The world of the spirit may be hidden from human eyes, but we are all laid naked before it. I once gave this little thought. Denied it, even. But no more. Now I know better.

I’ve always suspected that the devil gets too much credit for the terrors of this world. It’s always easier to blame his wickedness than our own. Make no mistake, though—there is evil beyond this world. Darkness. I’ve seen it.

That’s why there will be nights of endless coffee. Why the upstairs light of my workout room will be on at three in the morning because I’m doing pull ups. Why I can quote movies like Grease 2, films so horrible they are banished to the wee hours.

Because I must stay awake. Because if I close my eyes he may be there. Waiting, smiling, asking if I’m ready to go yet.

My fear? That one day I’ll say yes. That soon I’ll tire of the fighting and the beating and the temptation, and I’ll walk away with him. You become willing to do most anything to find rest, even if it’s rest in shadows.

Ready to go yet?

That’s what he wants to know.

Ready to surrender? To lay down faith and hope? Are you ready to quit wanting to stand and fight, to rid yourself of the notion that you must keep going when you just don’t have to? Are you ready to stop seeking the light and instead enjoy the darkness?

Are you ready to go yet?

So far, that answer has been no. I’m not ready to go. There are people and things in my life worth the fight, worth the beatings.

I stand and fight and keep going not because I want to, but because I must. Because the darkness in my life makes the light in it shine brighter.

So today, I ask you this: Anchor your faith in the deep harbor. Set your eyes on truth. Seek God. Love. Laugh. Believe. And always, always hope.

Because in some ways, the Old Man is after us all.

“My true desire is to relieve others of their pain though I myself may fall into hell.”
–Bassui

It’s week four of The Best of Billy Coffey! If you’re new here, in Week 1, I shared a snippet of Billy’s second novel Paper Angels along with a few ways you can enter to win a copy of Paper Angels. As promised, I’m still choosing a winner each week. You may enter as often as you like, and there are several ways to enter:

• Leave a comment here or on subsequent “Best of Billy Coffey” posts each Monday indicating you would like to be entered into the drawing.
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to this post and/or subsequent posts. (Please be sure to let me know you’re doing so by adding @katdish to the end of your tweet or sharing the Facebook link with me.)
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to the Paper Angels Amazon page letting people know it is available for pre-order.
• Ditto Barnes & Noble
• Ditto Books-a-Million
• Ditto Indie-Bound

Each of the aforementioned actions will constitute one entry into the drawing. If you don’t win this week, each of your entries will go back into the drawing. Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced the following Monday. Enter early, enter often, and check back here each week for new opportunities to win.

Thanks in advance for helping get the word out about Paper Angels. If you’re not big into contests, I still encourage you to head over to Amazon or another online retailer and pre-order a copy. I know once you read it you will recommend it to a friends and family, and word of mouth advertising is the very best kind.

The winner of Week Three is Karolyne S. Congrats, Karolyne! I’ll post next week’s winner next Monday.

And now, another one of my favorites. Actually, If you held a gun to my head and made me pick my very favorite, this would be it:

How to Take a Punch:

Four years ago…

It started the way most good stories do, over lunch with a friend. This particular friend was named Charlie, an iron-fisted brawler disguised as a nerdy engineer who worked in the building next to mine.

“You should stop by tonight,” he said. “Great workout. It’ll make a man out of you.”

“I’m already a man,” I answered.

Charlie nodded and said, “Maybe. You ever been punched?”

“No.”

He put his fork down, looked me in the eye, and said, “A man never knows what he’s made of until he gets punched.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded philosophical enough to get my attention. “I’ll be there,” I told him.

All true boxing gyms are located in much the same place—the nearest poor neighborhood of the nearest city (you’ve seen Rocky III, right?). Which made getting there from the quiet confines of the country an adventure in itself. Charlie had warned me that the gym was much more old school than new, and he was right. There was no heat, no air, and no bathroom. There was merely a ring, several punching bags, dirty mirrors for shadowboxing, and a bucket to throw up in when the trainers pushed you that far. Written in bright red letters above the ring were the words JESUS SAVES.

It was, in a word, perfect.

I met with Charlie, the fighters who were warming up, and the trainers. “Gotta hand it to you,” the head trainer said. “Takes stones to show up the first time on sparring night.”

“Sparring night?” I asked. I looked at Charlie, who had looked away. I could see the smile on his face, though.

“You’re getting’ in the ring, right?” the trainer asked me.

Gettin’ in the ring? No, I was not gettin’ in the ring. I was not stupid.

“Yeah, I’m gettin’ in,” I said. Because macho manliness trumps stupidity every day of the week and twice on Thursday.

“Good,” the trainer said. “You can get in with me, then.”

Charlie looked at me with a look that was part humor and part Oh, boy.

“What?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

I stared at him.

“He won Tough Man last year,” he confessed. “But don’t worry.”

Don’t worry. Famous last words of rednecks everywhere. On par with Hey ya’ll, watch this!

So. Into the ring.

Charlie adjusted my headgear and said, “Move. Don’t forget that.”

I nodded.

“And keep your hands up. Block and punch. Make your defense offense.”

I nodded again.

He checked my gloves and wiped them against his T shirt. “And for the love of God Almighty, keep your chin down. You expose that chin, and you’re a goner.”

“I ain’t goin’ down,” I said, and smiled to prove it. “So what is this, sparring or more?”

Charlie looked across the ring, paused, and said, “He’ll let you know. And wipe that smirk off your face. This will not be fun for you.”

“What makes you think—”

And that’s all I managed to say. I was silenced by Charlie shoving my mouthpiece in and yelling “Time!”

We met in the center of the ring (“Hands up,” Charlie shouted. “Move…move!”), touched gloves, and nodded to one another.

I’d taken plenty of martial arts, and sparring in a dojo was very controlled and normally done at half-speed. But this wasn’t a dojo, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.

“So,” I said to the trainer, circling him, “what am I—”

SMACK!!

He threw a jab that managed to sneak between my headgear and connect with my nose. And it was not at half-speed. It was so fast I didn’t see his hand until he was pulling it away from my face.

“Move!” Charlie shouted.

SMACK-SMACK-SMACK!

Jab-jab-cross.

“Don’t stand there, do something!”

Boxing is controlled violence. It is technique. It is the mastery of punches and angles that are honed to precision by countless hours of training. Anger won’t get you through ten rounds in the ring.

It will, however, get you through one. Because when that right cross snuck through my headgear and cut my eye, I got mad. Very.

He threw another jab, but I slipped it to the left and threw a hook into his side and another to the side of his head. His eyes widened a bit, and Charlie yelled, “Yes! Stick and move! Thirty seconds!”

I learned that night that thirty seconds in a boxing ring is a lot longer than thirty seconds outside of one. Because it felt like we stood in the middle of that ring pounding on each other for an eternity.

“Time!” Charlie shouted. Finally.

We stood there in the middle of the ring, smiling. “Awesome,” the trainer said.

Awesome indeed.

That gym was my home away from home for a while, but in the end family and a lack of time forced me to quit. But there’s still a heavy bag in our exercise room, and I still go a few rounds on it every night.

Because Charlie was right. You don’t know what you’re made of until you get punched. And whether that punch comes by standing in the middle of a boxing ring or the middle of a life, you survive the same way. You keep your chin down, you keep moving, and you never stop swinging.

We’re all going to get hit sooner or later. It’s a given in this world. But I know this. I can take a punch. I’ve taken many.

But I can give one, too.

It’s week three of The Best of Billy Coffey! If you’re new here, in Week 1, I shared a snippet of Billy’s second novel Paper Angels along with a few ways you can enter to win a copy of Paper Angels, Week 2 was Billy’s Come to Jesus Moment. As promised, I’m still choosing a winner each week. You may enter as often as you like, and there are several ways to enter:

• Leave a comment here or on subsequent “Best of Billy Coffey” posts each Monday indicating you would like to be entered into the drawing.
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to this post and/or subsequent posts. (Please be sure to let me know you’re doing so by adding @katdish to the end of your tweet or sharing the Facebook link with me.)
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to the Paper Angels Amazon page letting people know it is available for pre-order.
• Ditto Barnes & Noble
• Ditto Books-a-Million
• Ditto Indie-Bound

Each of the aforementioned actions will constitute one entry into the drawing. If you don’t win this week, each of your entries will go back into the drawing. Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced the following Monday. Enter early, enter often, and check back here each week for new opportunities to win.

Thanks in advance for helping get the word out about Paper Angels. If you’re not big into contests, I still encourage you to head over to Amazon or another online retailer and pre-order a copy. I know once you read it you will recommend it to a friends and family, and word of mouth advertising is the very best kind.

The winner of Week Two is Annie McMahon. Congrats, Annie! I’ll post next week’s winner next Monday.

And now, another one of my favorites. Billy shares some great writing advice in his unique Coffey-esque style:

Writing Naked

image courtesy of photobucket.com

I took exactly one class in writing. It was about fifteen years ago at the community college and was taught by a real published author whose name I cannot recall. But she was published, and as far as I was concerned that was all the credentials she needed.

The first class turned out to be the most useful. That’s not to say the instruction given in the proceeding eleven weeks of the course wasn’t useful. It was. But that first night alone was worth the money.

The twenty or so people in the class formed a semi-circle around the professor, who stood in behind a wooden podium that was much more intimidating than she. We sat at attention, notebooks ready, eager to have our heads filled with the hidden secrets of literary success.

“Tell me,” she said, “what does one need to write?”

The more outgoing among the class were quick with suggestions:

“Time.”

“Perseverance.”

“Skill.”

“Connections.” (That one was met with a nervous chuckle from the rest of the class.)

“Practice.”

Each was met with an approving nod and so was written down by everyone, myself included. But that really wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“Those are good suggestions,” she said, “but you’re leaving the most important aspect out. Anyone?”

No one.

“Courage,” she said.

I didn’t really understand that and snickered under my breath. Courage? Soldiers needed courage. Cops needed courage. EMTs and stunt men and bullfighters. But writers? Sitting on your butt and typing on a keyboard did not take courage.

“There are some who might disagree with that,” she said—and to this day I swear she looked at me when she said it—“and I understand. You disagree because you’re writing with your clothes on. By the time you leave here, you’ll be writing naked.”

I’ll admit I almost walked out then. I’d heard about kooky writing classes given by kooky professors who did some pretty strange things in the name of “art.” I was afraid if I stuck around I’d end up dressed in a blue tracksuit with a cup of Kool-Aid in my hand because a comet was passing by to take me to heaven.

I stayed in my seat on the whim she was speaking metaphorically.

“There is no greater fear than to face a blank page,” she said. “It mocks and threatens. It challenges you. Give it power, and it will eat you alive. Face it clothed, and you will fail. The only way to beat the blank page is to attack it naked.”

Twelve of the twenty students raised their hands.

“Wait, wait,” she said, moving her hands in a downward motion. “No, I’m not speaking literally. But I’m not joking, either. Let me ask you something else. Why do people write?”

More hands in the air, which she chose to ignore.

“People write because they must. Because there is a story inside them that is meant to be shared with the world. But having that story inside you doesn’t make you a writer. How you tell that story does. And you tell it through honesty.”

She told us to put our pens down and just listen.

“Writers fail because they come to the page fully clothed. They adorn themselves with fanciful plots and layer themselves with complicated character development. They use flowery prose and words you have to look up in the dictionary. They do this not to impress their readers, but to keep their readers at arm’s length. They’re afraid. Afraid to bare their souls and inject themselves into their work. For that they are cowards.

“Don’t simply tell me that faith saves you, tell me how it almost failed you, too. Don’t tell me about love, speak of your passion. Don’t tell me you’re hurt, let me see your heart breaking. I don’t want to see your talent on the page, I want to see your blood. Dare to be naked before your readers. Because that is writing, and everything else is worthless crap.”

I’ll always remember that. In fact, written on an index card taped to my lamp are these two words—Be Naked. Because she was right, that’s what writing is all about. Fiction or non, poetry or devotional, funny or serious, it doesn’t matter. Our calling is still the same:

To bare ourselves so we may be the mirror the world holds to itself.

Last Monday I introduced the Best of Billy Coffey series. In case you missed it, I shared a snippet of Billy’s second novel Paper Angels along with a few ways you can enter to win a copy of Paper Angels. I’ll choose one winner each week. The winner may choose either a hardcover copy or an ebook version (kindle or nook). You may enter as often as you like, and there are several ways to enter:

• Leave a comment here or on subsequent “Best of Billy Coffey” posts each Monday indicating you would like to be entered into the drawing.
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to this post and/or subsequent posts. (Please be sure to let me know you’re doing so by adding @katdish to the end of your tweet or sharing the Facebook link with me.)
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to the Paper Angels Amazon page letting people know it is available for pre-order.
• Ditto Barnes & Noble
• Ditto Books-a-Million
• Ditto Indie-Bound

Each of the aforementioned actions will constitute one entry into the drawing. If you don’t win this week, each of your entries will go back into the drawing. Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced the following Monday. Enter early, enter often, and check back here each week for new opportunities to win.

Thanks in advance for helping get the word out about Paper Angels. If you’re not big into contests, I still encourage you to head over to Amazon or another online retailer and pre-order a copy. I know once you read it you will recommend it to a friends and family, and word of mouth advertising is the very best kind.

The winner of Week One is Leann aka @mabeswife. Congrats, Leann! I’ll post next week’s winner next Monday.

And now, as promised last week, one of my personal faves from Billy.

My Come to Jesus Moment:

You do stupid things when you’re seventeen. Things that maybe don’t make much sense later, but certainly do at the moment. It’s a scary age. You stand right on the pivot point of your life, teetering and tottering between the child you were and the adult you want to become. You try to find your balance, but more often just stumble and fall.

At seventeen, I stumbled and fell.

I referenced Allison in one of my posts this week and the events surrounding her then-anonymous letter to me, and I alluded to what I considered at the time to be a one-way trip into the mountains above my town. At the time, I wrote only what I had to in order to put the rest of the story in perspective. But since so many of you wanted to know how I came to Christ, I’m going to do that right now.

Here’s the part I didn’t tell.

The sad thing about high school is that everyone from teachers to guidance counselors expects you to be able to plan the rest of your life. That’s just not possible. Being a senior in high school is all about living in the moment. The now. It’s enjoying what you have because you’ve realized you won’t have it much longer.

Me, I enjoyed my senior year for that very reason. I was leaving. Headed for either college or some major league farm system. So while my classmates crammed and studied and stressed over SATs, me and my motley crew of friends partied, fought, and chased girls. Looking back, I was being stupid. But at the time? Oh, it was magical.

But it’s usually when we manage to convince ourselves that we have the world on a string that the string breaks. Mine broke during the sixth inning of a baseball game. Not slowly, mind you. I didn’t hear it tighten, didn’t hear it strain. There was just one clean, violent snap.

My future was there, then it was not.

Then there was nothing.

Men define themselves by what they do. It’s one of the first questions we’ll ask when meeting another man for the first time. “What do you do for a living?” we’ll ask. Me, I was always going to answer “Ballplayer” to that question. That was all I had. All I was.

I was an awkward teenager. Never confident, never truly happy. But when I stepped between those lines I was both. It was the one thing in my life that brought me joy.

Also the one thing God took away.

In a matter of weeks I had spiraled downward into the blackest hole I had ever known. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat…couldn’t feel. I was dead inside. Seventeen and dead already.

Those classmates I had been secretly mocking all year I now secretly loathed. They had their entire lives in front of them. Years of happiness. All I had were years of regret and Coulda Been. And I just couldn’t live with that. I just couldn’t live at all.

What I needed, what I craved, was rest. I had shrunk myself down to a gaunt 120 pounds and developed a pack a day Marlboro habit. I couldn’t sleep because of recurring nightmares and couldn’t eat without getting sick. I was killing myself slowly. So why not just get the whole thing over with?

People decide to kill themselves for the simple reason that doing so no longer prolongs the inevitable. Suicide seems like the most rational thing in the world, which is why at that moment you are as insane as you will ever be. I was never going to find rest in this world. The last shred of hope I had said that maybe I would find it in the next.

One thing was for sure. I was going to do it right. My end had to come in the mountains, of course, which was where so much of my life had been lived. And it would come with the obligatory teenage angst, too. I had the music picked out (Cinderella) and the alcohol already stolen (a bottle of Night Train from the local 7-11, snatched after I had sweet-talked the cashier into going into the back to get me a cold Coke. I was always a charmer). I was going to smoke a few cigarettes, down the bottle of three-dollar wine, and jump. For rest. And there would be a smile on my face the whole way down.

There, on that ledge, was when God first spoke to me. “You’re not afraid of dying,” He said, “You’re afraid of living.”

That was true. It didn’t take God to make me realize that. But it didn’t matter. Like I said, my world was black. There were no shining parts, no points of light.

“What if there’s one?” He said. “One point of light. Would you leave?”

I took a long sip of wine and tossed a spent cigarette into the bushes. “How’m I supposed to see a light in all this darkness?” I mumbled.

I looked down over the valley below, quiet and peaceful. And in the middle of all that blackness, I saw one tiny speck of light.

That’s when I left.

I drove home with no music and no alcohol. The cigarettes, of course, were still with me. I decided to take a dirt road home to avoid the police, not considering the potholes that would accompany it. I managed to dodge most of them, but the one I did hit sent my Marlboro light flying out of my mouth and onto the floorboard.

I pulled over at a small church so I could find the cigarette before I managed to either ruin the floor mat or explode my truck. I parked under the light post so I could find it. I did. As I tossed it to the side of the road, my eyes wandered to what had been put on the sign in front of the church:

OUR REST IS IN CHRIST ALONE.

I stared at that sign for a long while. Coincidence? Maybe, I thought. There were a lot of churches around with a lot of things on their front signs. But then I realized this was the only sign I would be able to see this time of night because this was the only church with a light post.

I looked back up the mountain to where I had been, and shuddered as I realized two things. One was that it was not a coincidence at all. The other was that the light post I was under was the speck of light I had seen that convinced me to live.

If you’ve been reading this blog or following me on Twitter for awhile, you already know I’m a big fan and supporter of author/blogger Billy Coffey. Many of you read his blog and read his first novel, Snow Day.

Billy’s second novel Paper Angels will be released November 9. Here’s a sneak peek from the back cover:

Not all angels look like cherubs. Andy Sommerville’s personal angel looks like an old man, and “Old Man” is just what Andy calls him. Ever since Andy was ten years old, the Old Man has been appearing to him–cautioning him, advising him, always trying to set him on the right path. And, over the years, the Old Man has encouraged Andy to collect mementoes of the people who have been important to him and to keep them hidden inside an old wooden box.

Now, things have suddenly gone very wrong for Andy: The victim of a shocking and senseless crime committed at his gas station, he awakes in the hospital to find that he’s been badly burned. Even worse, the Old Man–his lifelong friend–visits one last time to let Andy know that he won’t be seeing him again. But Andy isn’t alone. Beside him in the hospital room sits a woman, Elizabeth, whom Andy takes to be a counselor. With Elizabeth’s gentle guidance, he goes through all the objects in his box, explaining–and reliving–the critical moments of his life. In the process, he discovers the wondrous meaning for which his seemingly ordinary existence has been preparing him.

In order to help spread the word about his new book and introduce some of my new readers to Billy’s writing, for the next several weeks I will be reposting some of my favorite stories from him each Monday. You may recall that Mr. Coffey used to have a regular gig here each Monday, but between a full time job, full time family life and writing books, blogging three times a weeks just got to be too much. He still posts twice a week over at What I Learned Today, but I let him off the hook from writing for me because, as I’ve told Billy many times, he’s no good to me dead.

Beginning today, not only will you be able to read (or re-read) some of my favorites from Billy each Monday, you will also have an opportunity to win a copy of Paper Angels. I’ll choose one winner each week. The winner may choose either a hardcover copy or an ebook version (kindle or nook). You may enter as often as you like, and there are several ways to enter:

• Leave a comment here or on subsequent “Best of Billy Coffey” posts each Monday indicating you would like to be entered into the drawing.
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to this post and/or subsequent posts. (Please be sure to let me know you’re doing so by adding @katdish to the end of your tweet or sharing the Facebook link with me.)
• Tweet or post to Facebook a link to the Paper Angels Amazon page letting people know it is available for pre-order.
• Ditto Barnes & Noble
• Ditto Books-a-Million
• Ditto Indie-Bound

Each of the aforementioned actions will constitute one entry into the drawing. If you don’t win this week, each of your entries will go back into the drawing. Winners will be chosen at random and will be announced the following Monday. Enter early, enter often, and check back here each week for new opportunities to win.

Thanks in advance for helping get the word out about Paper Angels. If you’re not big into contests, I still encourage you to head over to Amazon or another online retailer and pre-order a copy. I know once you read it you will recommend it to a friends and family, and word of mouth advertising is the very best kind.

Since I’ve already taken up a few minutes of your time with the contest rules and whatnot, I’ll save my “Best of Billy Coffey” post for next Monday.

Thanks again friends,

Kat

It’s been a very busy week in the non-virtual world for me with no time for writing. Here’s a post Billy Coffey wrote for me back in 2009. It’s a good ‘un:

image courtesy of photobucket.com

There are better things to be called than “an inbred hick,” and I had been called worse by many, but I had to admire the originality. And I wasn’t mad. The phrase was uttered with a sense of good-natured mockery common among friends in general and mine specifically. Especially the one who was not only a liberal, but also a Red Sox fan. I never said my friends were perfect.

This friend’s name? Dan. A truly brilliant man despite the fact I would never admit it to his face. Chair of the Asian Studies department at the college. Prolific author and lecturer. World traveler. Highbrow. All of which paints a pretty stark contrast to me. My only chair is the one in the living room, I am prolific only at spitting and shooting a bow, most of my travels are on dirt roads, and I am the very definition of lowbrow.

We have our differences, to be sure. And whenever we happen to bump into each other, we spend most of our time arguing over whose differences are right.

Like yesterday, for instance.

Dan brought me a souvenir from his latest trip to Japan—a fan with “Hanshin Tigers” printed on the front, along with a pretty ferocious looking cat.

“You should go with me one time,” he said after recapping his adventures. “Japanese baseball is great, and the Tigers have a good team this year. You need to see the world. You’re stuck here in this valley missing everything.”

“You’re only stuck if you can’t move,” I said, “I just don’t want to. And I’m not missing much. The world’s a crazy place. At least around here the crazy’s familiar.”

“There’s nothing here,” he said. “It’s all out there. The world’s passing you by. Your family’s been here how long?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think we came with the Valley.”

“Exactly. Generations. As long as people can remember.”

“And that’s bad how?”

“You’re the product of centuries of people who refused to better themselves. Your life is no different than your great-grandfather’s and his great-grandfather’s.”

“So?” I asked.

“So you’re just an inbred hick. You could make yourself into a lot better person.”

The thought of making myself into a better person had never really crossed my mind, mostly because I’d always been pretty content with who I was. Then again, I’d never considered myself an inbred hick.

But my family has occupied this valley and the mountains surrounding it for centuries. Staying put in one place for so long tends to give you a sense of belonging. Of home. And though I would trade my mountains for the ocean any day, this place would always be home. There are a lot of my kin buried here in the Blue Ridge. I could wander away from those bones, but not for very long and not for very far.

So the inbred thing? True.

As for the “hick” part of that little insult, I’d have to say that was something Dan and his fellow urbanites just couldn’t understand. They’d never lived in the sticks, never spent much time with country folk, and so allowed their stereotypes to rule them.

Then again, all stereotypes are grounded in some semblance of truth.

It’s true, for instance, that one of my best Christmas presents last year was a bag of deer jerky and a jar of peach moonshine. And yes, some country folk live in trailers. By and large, “dressing up” means trading our faded jeans for dark ones. We are not generally well-educated. We do hunt and fish and ride four-wheelers. We live vicariously through Ric Flair and consider “Freebird” the real national anthem.

True. All true.

But there is more beneath the surface to life in the country. A lot.

Because to us, a trailer full of love is better than a castle full of discord.

And we’re not nearly as impressed with the clothes a person wears as we are with the person wearing the clothes.

We might not be able to split the atom, but we know what means much in life and what doesn’t.

We hunt and fish and grow our own groceries because food straight out of the dirt and the woods, sweetened with sweat and labor, tastes a lot better than what you can get at the store.

Our churches aren’t big, but they’re full. Our words are few, but they’re meaningful. We don’t want more of this world. We want less.

We are plain and simple people. People who will go hungry before letting our neighbors starve, drop whatever we’re doing to help a friend, and roam among the wild places to get a better glimpse of God.

The best people. My people.

Inbred hicks? Absolutely. Who could possibly want to be more?

To read more from inbred hick and writer extraordinaire Billy Coffey, visit him at BillyCoffey.com

I spent over fifteen years trying to get published and doing all those things an aspiring writer was supposed to do, so I pretty much knew what to expect when my first novel finally hit the shelves. I knew, for instance, that not everyone would enjoy my writing. I knew that there would be a sudden whirlwind of things to do and say and keep up with. And I knew enough to keep writing every day with the goal of always staying a book ahead of where I was supposed to be.

What I didn’t expect is how difficult it would all be in conjunction with raising a family and working a fulltime job. Strange as it may sound, my children were much more concerned with my participation in kickball games and coloring than book sales and blog posts. And the students at the college where I work could care less about me working on my platform. All they wanted was their mail from home.

Both were understandable. All of this left me in the position that the vast majority of writers find themselves—trying to squeeze in a thousand words a day on a manuscript, writing three posts a week, and trying to maintain a social media presence. Writing itself is a fulltime job for anyone committed to the craft, one that for many like myself must be relegated to the wee hours of the night and the early hours of the morning. And at some point between Christmas and the New Year, I suddenly found myself thinking:

Dang, I’m beat.

Which is why I’ve decided to cut back on blog posts. Instead of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll now be moving to Tuesday and Thursday. Kathy has been kind enough to turn me loose from the Monday spot here on her website so I can concentrate on books and a bit of freelancing, and the extra time will allow me to reconnect with many of you on your own blogs. Win/win, I say.

I’d like to thank Kathy for allowing me to borrow a bit of her real estate every Monday for over a year, and for those of you who have taken the time to visit me here.

It’s good for every writer to push harder and work more. It’s not a career for the lazy or the timid. But I think there’s a wisdom in knowing when to push and work, and when to understand you can produce better work by stepping back. I think that’s where I am right now.

Best,

Billy Coffey

****

For those of you who may be wondering what losing Billy’s Monday post means to me, I’ll tell you. First and foremost, it means the obvious–no more Coffey time posts here at my blog. When I first asked Billy to guest post for me, it was for the purpose of what folks in the publishing business like to call “expanding his author platform”. I think we’ve done that very well. As an added bonus, both Billy and I have picked up readers that neither of us would have had without his guest posts here, and within that group of readers we have been blessed to have “met” many wonderful folks online. Mission accomplished and then some.

I will continue as Billy’s website administrator and helping him manage many of the administrative and non-writerly tasks that go along with being a professional writer. My role hasn’t changed since I agreed to help him back in 2009. As anyone who has read his writing can attest to, Billy has a gift. My role continues to be to help him share that gift with as many folks as possible, and it is a role I enjoy immensely.

As for me, I’m still trying to figure out a schedule here. For now I’m just going to play it by ear and see how things work out. Thanks to Billy for all the wonderful words of wisdom shared here and to all of you who have stopped by to read them. I’ll see you over at his place and hopefully back her as well. I’m looking forward to a great year.

Gratefully yours,

katdish

P.S. – Speaking of guest posts, In celebration of him turning 40, I’m guest posting over at my friend Jason Wert’s blog today and doing what I do best: Giving unsolicited advice. Hope to see y’all over there!