Frank M. Anderson's Writing

Tag: blog

  • I Shouldn’t Be Here Or: On Faith and the Never-Ending Story

    I Shouldn’t Be Here Or: On Faith and the Never-Ending Story

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    I have nearly died more times than I can count. That isn’t hyperbole. I’ve been in hospitals, in rapid decline, close enough to death that it stopped feeling abstract. It’s happened often enough that I can’t even give you an exact number anymore. The closest was a heart attack that killed 14% of my heart…

  • Learning the Rhythm of the New Room

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    This is the new room. Not finished. Not optimized. Just honest enough to work in. It’s where the desk lives now. Where the drums sit close enough to matter. Where I can make noise—literal and otherwise—without worrying about shared walls or quiet hours. A house instead of a condo. More air. More room to think…

  • One Last Session Here

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    So this is my last session sitting in the brain of this operation. This place has been my office and my condo here in Greenville, South Carolina—near downtown, by the YMCA, close to where I grew up. And today it’s making me a little wistful. This space has been a kind of protective bubble for…

  • On AI, Sloppiness, and Being Honest About the Work

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    When I was a kid, I used to get out of trouble by punishing myself harder than anyone else could. I’d replay mistakes in my head, pick them apart, scold myself privately until whatever authority figure was involved decided I’d clearly “learned my lesson.” In reality, I was just being left alone with my thoughts—and…

  • THE INTERVieW

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    A self-interrogation in two acts.Questions by ChatGPT. Answers by Frank M. Anderson.No softballs. No comfort. No mythmaking. ROUND ONE 1. If The Cancer Diet was written to survive, why publish it? Frank:I’ve always wanted to be a published author, but more than anything, I wanted to leave something for my son. Something he could read…

  • What I Won’t Do as an Author (and What I Will)

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    Books are asking a lot of people these days. Time, focus, attention — all of it feels scarce in a world full of noise, streaming services, doomscrolling, and endless distractions. Reading is an investment. When someone chooses to spend those hours with me, I take it seriously. That’s why I’ve been thinking not just about…

  • You’ve Got to Read This S**t!

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    Hey everyone, A lot has been going on behind the scenes lately, and I’ve been working really hard to stay in a good place creatively and personally. I have to say, the work that’s been coming out of this process has been nothing short of crazy amazing. And yes, that includes the collaboration between me…

  • Where I Am Now

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    Lately, I’ve been combing through my old lyrics while updating my Music Hub — pulling out lines from the Incarrion era and holding them up against where I am now. What started as a simple archival project quickly turned into something else: a mirror. The more I compared the songs to my current writing, the…

  • Creation Over Curation: Why I’m Not Playing the Game

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    I’ve published books.Not viral TikToks.Not perfectly packaged Instagram reels.Not pitch decks or newsletter giveaways. Books. And I want them to find readers. I really do. But I’m realizing that I have limits—and I’m learning to honor them. 📉 The Numbers So Far The Cancer Diet has sold 15 copies.Empire, Nevada sold fewer than half that.…

  • Supporting Priest, Surviving the System, and Building Something Real

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    Supporting Priest, Surviving the System, and Building Something Real I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how artists get paid. Not just big names—but the working artists. The ones making music that hits your soul in the middle of the night. The ones building weird, cinematic, honest art without a label, just hoping someone out…

  • Not a Brand. Just a Person.

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    Let’s just say it plainly. I’m a washed-up ex-teacher working part-time at Starbucks to barely make ends meet. I sit in my apartment for hours at a time, trying to do something that feels like it matters. I make art. I write stories. I build books that might only ever be read by a few…

  • Evolution of an Idea: The AI Process I Use

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    📚 Designing the Cover of Empire, Nevada Creating the cover for Empire, Nevada was its own journey — just like the story inside. I didn’t want something generic. I wanted the cover to feel like the book — lonely, strange, nostalgic, and a little haunted. It started with a rough concept: a desert town vanishing…

  • The Sound That Opens the Veil

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    On Music, Memory, and the Sacred Noise of Now Music has always been more than background for me. It’s a portal. A key. A second pulse. Sometimes it carries me forward when writing feels impossible. Other times, it drags me back—into memory, emotion, and everything I’ve been trying not to feel. And every once in…

  • On Killing Characters.

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    There are many types of death for a character in a literary work, but by far the worst is where the cease to exist completely. I have had to provide that most depressing of deaths for a few characters over the last week. While they were all good people who I liked, they were either…