Shinybass Journal Entry 10/20/2025

Clarity

I am not sure how many of you know this, but I am a writer. No, not 20 years of website blogging, PR releases, feature articles in magazines, product reviews, or hard-folded notebook-sheet notes in 8th grade that fall short on wit and direction. I am a ghostwriter, which means I help people get their stories out to the world. 

Just like with every part of my life, ghostwriting has been an opportunity for me to learn. Everyone has a story. Everyone. That’s the cool part about ghostwriting. I am putting on paper a series of 60-85,000 words that will hopefully inspire and entertain, and also I am privileged to information before it is out in the universe. 

When I decided to come off the road a few years ago, the decision itself was easy, but the process was hard. The reason I walked away? My family. I looked at my son’s soccer schedule and saw that I was going to miss 8 of his 10 games in the fall season. My wife looked at me and said ‘Well, you better do something about it’. I did. I left. I walked without (too) much fanfare, and without much of a ‘plan’ in place. 

OK, truth be told, I had a small plan. I was going to be a ghostwriter. I wasn’t exactly sure how this was going to work, and like anything, the process is not overnight. One does not fly into flying. I landed some solid writing work, but after a while our family decided to pivot, and around that same time I was called to get back on the bus.

After talking with the kids and making sure touring again was OK, I ventured out to the familiar sights and sounds I left a couple years earlier. I played 5 shows before my wife’s cancer diagnosis came in and life changed. Her income was now on hold, mine was on hold, but somehow I need to figure this out. 

In the metaphorical world, this would be low tide. The lowest. The part where I can’t launch a ship, I feel helpless, I feel like nothing will be happening. With what was going on in the family, the weight was crushing. Still is in some respects, to be honest. Everyone hits a point like this, I feel. Something tips us into a low point – job, marriage, grief – and we feel like we can’t make a move in any direction.

Being a creative, this happens to me a LOT. Honestly, I have felt this my entire ‘career’; like nothing is going right, nothing is going to happen. Just ask my family who have heard about how frustrating life can be (and then I hear ‘Well, maybe you should get a real job…’) Want to see a creative sink even further in the mud?

So now I write books. My current ghostwriting client is full of insight and wisdom. It is refreshing to speak with him, and I look forward to speaking with him as we get his story together. Recently we spoke, and he said something that struck a chord with me. To paraphrase, he said that a person’s down time is his most productive. Wait, what? 

When we are working, we have a task or series of tasks. We finish the task. Hooray! Gold star! You did it. Put it on the fridge. Now what? More of the same tasks. Then again and again. If you are making records or painting or filing reports, same thing, different work. You have work. Great. Some would call that security.  

What if you are in low tide and have no work? No prospects? Guess what? Low tide has benefits. Low tides reveal a lot. Low tides show you where to walk safely. Low tides stir up nutrients and smaller fish necessary to cast for bigger fish. Low tide shows what is really underneath; rocks, sandbars, debris that needs cleared, avoided, or fished in. Low tide shows us new places to cast, new places to be productive. 

Your current tasks or situation may not be the best. Is this a low tide? Is this time to rethink? If it is, where will this low tide show you? Are you casting the same places with the same, horizontal movement? Where is your pivot, where is your creative spark, what new and exciting adventure will you share years from now (hopefully with me ghostwriting with you?) 

Low times in our lives can give us more clarity than we thought remotely possible. Change is inevitable, low points are certain, and recovery is possible as well. I don’t pretend to know all the answers, and I will certainly find myself on the shore during low tide again. What I choose to do with that information, that clarity, will decide how quickly I sail again. I hope your low tides give you some form of clarity as well.