William G. Griffiths is Sharing His Lives with the World.

My childhood friend and a former dance partner who lives in New York Maria Bavyko has a unique talent of connecting people. I remember talking to her over the phone a few years ago while I was still living in Los Angeles when she casually mentioned her student who was a famous writer. She said he was writing another one of his real-life researched books and one of the characters in that book would be her. I do not know why but for some reason that conversation stuck in my head. Last year, driven by my personal inability to make logical decisions caused by my emotional inability to overcome my artistic sensitivities to real life challenges, I decided to move to Philadelphia where I strongly believed I would find my own "Rocky" journey, which I did but that would be discussed in my other written work. Due to an unpredictable nature of a small business where I got a job, I had a lot of free time on my hands and a lot of busy thoughts in my head. I hate wasting my time and thoughts so I decided to use these two elements as efficiently as possible and ended up writing an acting booklet. However, I was not really sure if my writing had anything new to offer to our world of abundance of writing and everything else. That's when my conversation with Maria punched me into my head. I reached out to her and asked if she could connect me with her student so I could get a professional opinion on my writing style. Maria did. Next thing you know, her student turned out to be William G. Griffiths himself! The Renegade Writer! The man who lives lives of his characters before he writes them. Literally.

I was extremely nervous so I spent a lot of time writing an amateurishly over the top official email to William G. Griffiths with my booklet attached to it. Next day, I got a phone call from a man who introduced himself as Bill who "read my booklet and loved it." Bill announced that he would come all the way from NY to Philly to share his notes regarding my booklet. I could not believe it! The man who wrote Malchus, The Renegade Writer and a bunch of other amazing books was coming all the way from NY to spend his time with me. Maria knows how to pick students.

We met at the Whole Foods and had some of the weirdest breakfasts with things on our plates that I can't even remember the names of right now. I was too excited so I just picked whatever I thought was cool. Actually, I almost copied Bill's choices hoping they would make me a better writer.

Afterwards, we went to the Rodin Museum and had an amazing conversation about life, art, dance, acting, film, and writing. We all know that everything in this life only as good as the quality of conversation it requires and inspires. That's why, the quality relationships are the ones that built on quality conversations. We took our time to converse. And that's what I learned about Bill's writing method during that conversation.

Bill writes only what he learns from his personal experiences. If his character needs to jump of the plane, Bill does it. If he writes a book about a Jewish slave Malchus who gets miraculously healed by Jesus, he goes to Jerusalem and researches all the details about the place, the people, and all other circumstances that his character was surrounded by during his life. I bet Jesus was closely following Bill on this journey as well.

Bill goes to Russia to meet with a scientist Svetlana Yashina so he can include into his book the fascinating story of how thousands years old flower seeds found in Siberia were brought back to life. Some of those seeds ended up in Los Angeles by a miracle that I am sure Jesus was a part of as well.

Bill also swims with sharks if that's something that his character needs to do.

Bill just does whatever needs to be done so his readers can feel his books as if they were walking through those old mysterious roads of Jerusalem or smelling those magical flowers from Siberia.

In our self-centered acting world, we call it a method acting and award actors with Oscars and nice paychecks but for Bill that's the only way he knows how to write. I hope he or at least a film based on one of his books will get an Oscar too.

The book that you see on Bill's and my picture is the one where Maria is one of the main characters now. The character's name is... Maria! Maria knows how to connect people.

For a young man who is currently carving his path in the artistic community, it was a powerful moment of inspiration. Bill's work and life showed me that an artist needs to be brave, simple, honest, and resilient enough to keep on creating and sharing his or her work with the world. Also, going to the gym and drinking kambucha apparently are the things that Bill does daily. He even has his own kambucha mushroom!

I, now too, have bottles of kambucha in my fridge and a kettle-bell in my car. I just need to start writing a book. I know that it's exactly what Bill will say after I send him this blog.

If you are hungry for your next adventure, grab one of his books and enjoy the thrill of being immersed into some of the most realistic fiction stories you can ever find. There is nothing like the thoughts of the writer who lived through many lives to bring the story of unique characters into your imagination.

And for those of you who are a little bit more skeptic, you will soon see Bill's adventures on your screens if certain Hollywood producers share the same amount of enthusiasm as everyone who knows Bill as a writer and/or human being does.

Till then, let us continue living our adventures and sharing them generously with love and kindness just the way Bill does it. Just the way they are meant to be.