by Peter Leavell, @PeterLeavell

As an instructor, writer, and dad, I’m using my stern, reprimanding voice with you. I’m not happy. There’s a select few who need a lecture from a father figure. 

There can be one person always on your side. You. And yet, your negative self-talk continues incessantly until no one counters the pessimism falling from your lips and you begin to believe your own lies. 

“I’m not good enough” is a thought I never want to hear from you again. Never again. There is not a single reason to ever utter those words. If I hear you say “can’t” I don’t want to see you in this writing game. Just get out. I’m serious. Turn in your writer card. Telling yourself you’re not worth it or that you can’t measure up ends today. You belong here. You’re a writer. 

You have a God who sees your faults more clearly than anyone else and still believes in you. Why don’t you believe in yourself?

Look at me when I’m talking to you. Stop undermining what little resolve you have to finish your manuscripts. Life is hard enough, with companies using propaganda to demoralize your confidence so you’ll buy their products, sickness and death, chore lists and demands on your time make this life ridiculously difficult. The self-talk tearing yourself down has no place in your life.

You’re a writer. To tell yourself otherwise means you let fear win. 

Sometimes your faith is shaken and belief in God and self has never been lower. Those hard times you’ve been through are brutal. You’ve managed to stay afloat. That’s incredible. You’ve taken on the world and survived, one way or another. How dare you say that you’re not amazing. Life is out to kill you, and you’re still breathing. Your experiences belong in a novel.

The less you believe in yourself, the more you need to be writing. But you must tell yourself you deserve to be a writer. Because you do. You belong here.

You have something to write about, and if I hear one more peep out of you that you don’t belong here, I’m going to be very angry, because sometimes there’s no logic or ethics. It’s pure emotion. And this emotion is about believing in yourself, no matter what. The end. 

Now, go get a hug from someone you love, let them squeeze you tight, and go write. I believe in you. God believes in you. So should you.

West for the Black Hills

Philip Anderson keeps his past close to the vest. Haunted by the murder of his parents as they traveled West in their covered wagon, his many unanswered questions about that night still torment him.

His only desire is to live quietly on his homestead and raise horses. He meets Anna, a beautiful young woman with secrets of her own. Falling in love was not part of his plan. Can Philip tell her how he feels before it’s too late?

With Anna a pawn in the corrupt schemes brewing in the nearby Dakota town, Philip is forced to become a reluctant gunslinger. Will Philip’s uncannily trained horses and unsurpassed sharpshooting skills help him free Anna and find out what really happened to his family in the wilderness?