Show up and do the work

Want to be a great guitar player? Get a guitar and play. Want to be a world-class writer? Write. Want to be a legendary filmmaker? Start making films.

How to build something so people will come

If you've never seen the film Field of Dreams, do yourself a favor: Skip this post until after you've corrected that error. Everyone else, please keep reading. Thanks!
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Uncle Warren's Cyber Monday Blowout

Here's your chance to have the books, the music and other odds and ends for Cyber Monday.

Know the lines

In the dream I was performing in a stage revival of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and three of us were rehearsing. I'd been doing fine when I had the words in front of me, reading the script, but now we were on the stage and I had no idea what to say.

'An endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary'

Where is H.L. Mencken when we need him?

Janis, Bobby McGee and freedom

 A golden oldie from my days as B.W. Richardson, and adapted as part of the Refuse to be Afraid book:

Day of thanks

I am thankful to be living in a place where, ostensibly at least, my rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are considered inalienable.

Unplugged and loving it

[Found in notebook, written April 20, 2011]

In his influential book Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money (I describe it as influential because it has influenced me so deeply), Rabbi Daniel Lapin encourages his readers to make goals and delve into their life’s purposes but not before spending two or three days avoiding all electronic screens. Those brightly colored images have a mesmerizing effect, much like a deer confronted by headlights, Lapin said. Better to clear the mind before focusing on weighty matters.

A ride on the time machine

We had a substitute teacher that day. She was older than our regular fifth-grade teacher at Elementary School No. 1 in Little Falls, N.J.

W.B.’s Book Report: Letters of a Self-Made Failure

Here is a timely relic from nearly 100 years ago. Maurice Switzer wrote a series of 10 letters, ostensibly from a man who took a circuitous route to contentment and addressed to his younger brother, who is newly embarked on this adventure we call adulthood.

W.B. at the Movies: Atlas Shrugged, Part 1

Tinseltown has wanted to make Ayn Rand’s dystopian epic for a long time. The proposals included and all-star love story in the 1970s, with Faye Dunaway as Dagny Taggart, Robert Redford as John Galt, and Clint Eastwood as Hank Rearden. Most famously in recent years, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie wanted a crack at the story of an overbearing government and its corrupt corporate co-conspirators living parasitically off the creativity and labors of the true innovators and entrepreneurs among us.

Occupy your life

I am not one of the 99 percent – and neither are you.

I am not one of the 1 percent – and neither are you.

The masses are an invention. There are no “masses.”

The scrap of dialogue that defines the lead character of my novel in progress

“But they’ll kill you! You’ll die!”

“I’m going to die anyway, someday,” replied Raymond Douglas Kaliber. “So I may as well do the right thing until then.”

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What it all means

Of late I’ve been using the blogosphere to write about more apolitical themes than I did in previous iterations - things like confronting the fear in your heart and living in the here and now - things like “we become what we think about” and “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

So what’s the point? Why am I writing about stuff like this? (Besides the obvious point that I’d love for you to buy the corresponding books and read what I’m saying in more detail.)

First line of a novel - or an entire philosophy

I will know whether heaven is what they say it is if my dog is there waiting for me.

Take a stand

In a memorable scene from one of my favorite movies, Serenity, a dying character grabs the hero and says, “I don’t care what you believe in, just believe.” The film in many ways is about the power of belief, the energy that comes when you invest yourself in a decision to take a stand.

What’s with all the anger?

Everyone’s so angry in the glowing box and in the talking box and in the boxes on the political pages and websites. Why are they all so angry?