Frank M. Anderson's Writing

Tag: love

  • FROM THE ARCHIVE #1 — The Lonely White Walker (2012)

    FROM THE ARCHIVE #1 — The Lonely White Walker (2012)

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    Going through old folders tonight, I found The Lonely White Walker—a Walking Dead fanfic I wrote back in 2012—and I was honestly stunned to realize people had reviewed it. Not just clicked on it… actually read it, followed it chapter to chapter, left thoughtful comments, waited for updates. I had forgotten that entirely. And honestly,…

  • Why Are We So Negative These Days?

    Why Are We So Negative These Days?

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    One thing I’ve been realizing lately is that a lot of negativity starts much smaller than we think. A person encounters something unfamiliar, emotionally uncomfortable, strange, or simply outside their normal frame of reference… and their first reaction is: “I don’t understand this.” But instead of stopping there, that feeling often mutates into:“This is stupid.”“This…

  • How Grief, Greenville, and a Search for Meaning Slowly Turned Into a Civic Philosophy Project

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    My brother died in 2023. Around the same time, I was already dealing with cancer, mental health struggles, questions about survival, and the growing realization that the life I thought I understood no longer entirely made sense to me. So I started writing. At first, that writing became The Cancer Diet, a memoir about illness,…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville- Pleasant Roast: A Case Study

    Seen / Unseen Greenville- Pleasant Roast: A Case Study

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    What happens when a city says no—and what replaces it? I still drive past that lot sometimes. Most people probably don’t notice it. It’s just another piece of land sitting beside a road already carrying more traffic than it was designed for. Cars pass it every day without thinking. Another in-between space in a city…

  • The Fulcrum and Axis: The Seen and Unseen- A Diatribe on Trying to Figure Out Life, the Universe, and Everything

    The Fulcrum and Axis: The Seen and Unseen- A Diatribe on Trying to Figure Out Life, the Universe, and Everything

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    Today we are going way up our own butts. I just want to establish that immediately so nobody thinks this is about to become a grounded and practical discussion about taxes or lawn care or whatever emotionally healthy people spend their Sundays doing. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about threshold moments in stories. Those…

  • Seen / Unseen Greenville: What Do We Want These Buildings to Be?

    Seen / Unseen Greenville: What Do We Want These Buildings to Be?

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    Lately, as I drive around Greenville and through other parts of South Carolina, I keep returning to a question that became much more personal after my own attempt to open a coffee shop: What do we actually want these empty places to become? That question sounds simple until you try to build something yourself. From…

  • What’s Going On Here (And Who I Am)

    What’s Going On Here (And Who I Am)

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    If you’re a regular reader here—or just stopping by—I wanted to take a moment to explain what exactly this blog is, what I’m trying to do with it, and who the person behind it actually is. Because like most things in life, the answer is both simple and complicated. What’s Going On Here? Honestly, I’m…

  • Politics, Morality, and the Cost of Tuning Out

    Politics, Morality, and the Cost of Tuning Out

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    Why the Issues That Divide Us May Be Hiding the Ones That Matter Most I’ve been thinking a lot about why politics feels so exhausting right now. Not just frustrating—but draining in a way that makes you want to step away from it completely. The kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from caring too much,…

  • Roundup Post: What I’ve Been Writing Lately (And Why)

    Roundup Post: What I’ve Been Writing Lately (And Why)

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    I’ve been writing a lot lately. Not in a structured, “this is the plan” kind of way, but more in a way where one idea leads into another, and before I realize it, there’s a thread running through everything. I didn’t fully see it at first, but looking back over the last few posts, it’s…

  • Tales of a Midlife Drifter

    Tales of a Midlife Drifter

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    I watched a video recently where a guy described himself as a 35-year-old loser. His message was simple: don’t end up like me. Start now. Build skills. Take action. Stop wasting time. And I get it. There’s truth in that. Drifting too long, avoiding responsibility, never committing to anything—that catches up with you. Time does…

  • 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…

  • Why We Accept the World As It Is

    Why We Accept the World As It Is

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    I want to start with something simple. A small game I’ve been playing lately. I call it watch the problem spread. Next time you’re stopped at a red light, don’t reach for your phone. Just look around for a second. Watch the cars. Watch the people. Most—if not all—will drop their heads almost immediately. The…

  • Life Feeds on Life: The Cost of Being Alive

    Life Feeds on Life: The Cost of Being Alive

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    I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of human existence lately. It feels like the path—if there is one—is something like this: First, know yourself.Then, learn to love and accept other people.Then, maybe, you can begin to understand and love God. I don’t think you can skip steps. I don’t think you can jump…

  • What I Couldn’t Say To My Son

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    The other day my son told me he might want to join the military. Or maybe become a police officer. My heart dropped. I didn’t react the way he probably expected. I didn’t argue. I didn’t lecture. I didn’t tell him he was wrong. But inside, something in me tightened immediately. Because I value having…

  • 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…

  • Why I’m a Southern Leftist

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    The more I look at things, the more I realize that communication is our number one problem and our biggest benefit. We’re losing the ability to talk to each other — really talk — across lines of difference. We speak in rehearsed slogans, defend our tribes, and mistake volume for conviction. But if I could…

  • 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…

  • Radical Honesty—Women and Love

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    I am trying to live by applying the concept of radical honesty to my life. Here is the first of those- https://fulcrumandaxis.com/2025/08/13/radical-honesty-porn/ Love has always been hard for me.I’ve always wanted it—especially with a kind, loving woman—but I’ve just as often felt like it was unattainable. Kept at arm’s length. Not meant for me in…

  • The Spectrum and the Space Between

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    At the table, I laugh at the right moments. I tell stories that are just risky enough to make me seem open, but never so revealing that they could get me labeled. The conversation turns to dating, to attraction, to “type.” I edit myself in real time — trimming pronouns, rearranging sentences, steering away from…

  • Love in the Vortex: A Response to Zen Prem and the Collapse of Dating Culture

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    Zen Prem’s “Modern Love (Part 4): The Uprising of ‘Rather Be Alone Than in Another Relatingshit’” hit my feed recently, and it landed hard. Some men are angry. Others are brushing it off.I flinched too—at first.But when I sat with it, the uncomfortable truth came into focus: He’s not just right about some men. He’s…

  • Life in the Friend Zone 3: The Ones We Let Hurt Us

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    I met her on Facebook.(It’s becoming a pattern—I know.) She showed up in a comment thread. One of those dark little zingers that hits harder than it should. I don’t remember the post, but I remember the feeling—that flash of, “Oh. She gets it.” Bleak humor. Dry. The kind that cuts right to the bone.…

  • Life in the Friend Zone 2: When It Was Never a Zone, Just a One-Way Street

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    We talk about the “friend zone” like it’s some external place we’re shoved into—like someone else stuck us there because we were too kind, too honest, too whatever. But the more I live, the more I realize that the so-called friend zone isn’t a punishment—it’s a perception. And it’s ours. Because when you truly care…

  • Life in the Friend Zone

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    There’s a specific kind of loneliness that comes with being the “safe guy.”The one women say they trust, admire, open up to, call “kind,” “sweet,” and “safe.”The guy they tell everything to—except that they love him. I’ve lived there. I still do, sometimes.And I won’t lie: it messes with your head. It’s not that I…

  • The Fulcrum and the Axis

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    I’ve been using the imprint “Fulcrum & Axis Press” for my books, blog, and projects, but I haven’t taken time to explain what it actually means. A fulcrum is the point on which something pivots—the place where leverage happens.An axis is the quiet center around which everything turns. These words matter to me because I’ve…

  • Life, Death, and a Slightly Sarcastic Survival Guide: The Cancer Diet Excerpt

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    A sample of the beginning of my memoir, ‘The Cancer Diet’ – Coming July 16th The Cancer Diet launches in less than a month—and that still feels surreal to say out loud. This book started the day I found out I had cancer. A few hours later, I learned my brother had died. What followed…

  • The Cancer Diet — Chapter 13: A Ghost in My Own City

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    June 18, 2025 The release of The Cancer Diet is less than a month away, and I want to give you a glimpse of what’s inside. Today, I’m sharing Chapter 13: A Ghost in My Own City. I’m offering this one without much context—because I think it speaks for itself. It stands alone. And it…

  • The Empathy War: Why Stories Are the Battleground

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    I don’t know exactly when empathy became controversial—but I know I felt it. First as a writer. Then as a teacher. And now as a father watching entire shelves of books disappear from schools. It’s strange to have grown up with stories that taught me to love the outsider—mutants, rebels, misfits, prophets—and now see those…

  • Kevin Bacon, Cancel Culture, and the Death of Slow Art.

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    There was a time—not that long ago—when culture felt shared. When MTV didn’t just show music videos; it shaped the moment. We all tuned in. We all talked about it the next day. It didn’t matter if it was weird, slick, political, or raw—it meant something because we experienced it together. Now we scroll past…

  • Frank and AI Fix the Universe (Sort Of)

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    An experiment in honesty, outrage, and the quiet human need underneath it all. This started as a game. Just something light. I asked the AI to throw me a few of the world’s big problems and I’d tell it how I’d fix them. It would tell me if I was crazy. That was the bit.…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • The Cancer Diet: An Autobiography About Love, Loss, and the Path to Personal Growth 

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    By Frank M. Anderson  This is an early look at my memoir. It is being edited now, so this is not a perfect script. Introduction  Welcome to The Cancer Diet, an autobiography that unfolds in the middle of the action, much like life itself. This story doesn’t begin with tidy explanations or carefully planned structure;…