Writing In The Crosshairs

DO YOU KNOW YOUR HERO?

2012-01-28T00:00:00.002-06:00

Under what conditions does a person continue to be a person?

Under what conditions does he or she stop being a person?

As a young man, Hitler dreamed of being an artist.

There are private collections of his artwork kept all across the world by different individuals ...

for whatever reasons prompt such people to collect those paintings.

Do they look at those works of art, trying to picture the mind of the man who put brush to canvas? To see if they can spot any indication of the monster he later became?

Rene Descares maxim : I think therefore I am.

Does what we think determine the person who we are? Do our actions dictate that? Or is it a meld of the two?

A zombie. Could we call that a person? It is hunger with a mouth and two legs (usually).

Yet, haven't you met people consumed by the hunger for fame, wealth, social status to the extent that they will sacrifice their wives, their children, their health to obtain them?

Do they quality as a type of zombie, emotional hunger driven with little thought for others?

What tells you more about a person? The way his body works or how his mind works?

I would suggest that language is where our being lives. There is the language of words, but there is also the language of action.

I say "I love you" but I forget your birthday, I humiliate you in public, and slap you in private. The language of action is more persuasive than that of words.

Novels are the only medium that portray the mind well.

Only novels expose the secret life of character.

Do you know your hero/heroine well enough to portray his/her character with a few deft eye lifts or sighs or the finality of a signing of a divorce decree?

The best novels show a mind in conflict with itself, dark urges contesting over the feeble protests of decent urges.

You, as a reader, will find the deepest connection with the character when his or her deepest thoughts are explored.

But they must resonate with truth -- the truth of what it means to be human. What are your character's deepest thoughts?

They will be about his worries, fears, and hopes.

If you can write a short , genuine-feeling paragraph of the worries, fears, and hopes of each of your characters,

they will come across as real in your novel.

And those paragraphs will help give you a sense of self for each character -- and how each one of those characters interact, mesh, or strike sparks off the others in your novel.

How do you write a genuine summation of your character's worries, fears, and hopes?

Once in New York City, a rat was filmed by a news crew caught in the middle of a busy street. It tried to dart from one side to the other, only to nearly be run over.

As by-standers watched, again and again, it frantically scrambled to the safety of the curb, only to miss death by millimeters.

Finally a whizzing tire caught the rat, sending it spinning and tumbling.

It stayed in one spot cowering.

A man with folded newspaper in hand ran from the sidewalk, scooped up the fearful rat, and tumbled it into the dark safety of the sewer grate.

The man smiled big, got on his bike, taking off. The camera crew called after him. "Why did you do that?"

He smiled embarrassed. "I've been scared like that, too."

If you can get your reader to think "I've felt like that, too," your character's worries, fears, and hopes will feel real to him and her.

Hope this helps your writing in some small way, Roland
***

DANSE MARDI GRAS_Friday's Romantic Challenge

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-06:00

DANSE MARDI GRAS

I had never seen Captain Sam so happy. Meilori was back in his arms though it meant a target on my back. Mardi Gras was a thing of laughter within his haunted jazz club once again.

I felt like baying like a happy hound myself. Alice was flowing towards me in a black sleek dress whose long skirt was slit for the tango.

Her porcelain shoulders bare, long blonde hair a living waterfall upon them, long black gloves up past her elbows.

She leaned against me to the tempo of Grace Jones singing “Strange, I’ve Seen That Face Before.”

“What is this tune?,” she whispered in my ear.

“The Libertango,” I smiled.

“I do feel liberated,” she husked, running her toe up, then down my right leg.

“Me, too,” spoke Meilori as she slipped between Alice and me, whipping the two of us away.

Jade eyes which had watched Aztec sacrifices scream for mercy that never came stabbed into me.

“So you are the son I could never give Samuel?”

“We don’t have to be enemies,” I whispered, seeing a concerned Captain Sam taking up a frantic Alice in his arms to continue the tango towards us.

Meilori laughed a thing from nightmares.

“Oh, do not worry, Standish. Once I kill you, I will forget all about you.”

She gazed mockingly at Alice as she rubbed her body against mine, and I sighed, “You can destroy me as an enemy in another way.”

“Really?”

“You can make a friend of me.”

A Harlequin spun me from Meilori’s arms, shaking off her belled hat, long silk black hair tumbling down on colorful shoulders.

Maija. I wondered when she’d show.

Meilori gasped, “But you are dead!”

“Your savage of a husband only managed to kill my followers. DayStar saved me.”

I shook my head as Maija spun me in the female’s role of the tango and snorted, “DayStar doesn’t save. He damns.”

“To revenge myself against my sister, McCord, and you, I welcome damnation.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam sweep Meilori in his arms as she whispered hurriedly to him. Marshall Hickok took up Alice and danced the tango awkwardly towards us.

Maija swept me down in a sudden dip, wrenched me up against her breasts (Aw, jeez, she didn’t believe in underwear), and hissed into my ear.

“Tonight I will pay you back for that ‘Menage a Trois’ lie you spread about you, your ghoul, and myself in 1834!”

I snapped her out, then back into my arms as the tango heated up. “Hey, I happened to ruin my reputation while improving yours with that!”

“I will kill you slowly for those words.”

“Take a number. It’s a long line.”

Another woman, this time dressed as Marie Antoinette, tugged me out of Maija’s arms. Despite the white wig, I recognized the insane cobalt blue eyes. Empress Theodora, ruler of the European Revenant Empire.

“Royalty first, Ningyo swine!”

My dance card was getting too damn full. Theodora laughed throaty.

“Ah, my subjects are whispering that I am renewing our tawdry love affair. Another lie you have sown about your betters!”

Father Renfield and Sister Magda were twirling effortlessly towards us, their faces grim. So was Sam with Meilori and Alice with Hickok. I smiled grimly.

Lady Lovelace and Margaret Fuller were scandalizing the crowd by dancing together my way. They were too far away to get here in time.

Theodora’s steel fingers squeezed my upper arms tight. She was about to pull apart my arms and make a wish.

I smiled sad. “You’re all alone.”

“My subjects are mixed all through this crowd within Meilori’s.”

“And still alone.”

I dipped her suddenly. Jeez, didn’t any of my enemies believe in underwear? I got a terrible mental image of Major Strasser. If I survived this tango, I was going to have to take a bath in Listerine.

“You are surrounded by toadies who are too terrified to say anything but yes to you.”

Theodora snapped up, pressing me close to her, running her own toe up and down my right leg. “And that is bad?”

“One day, your worshipfulness, you’re going to be at a terrible crossroads, not knowing which way to take. And those toadies’ words won’t help worth shit.”

I smiled wide, taking precise quick, flowing steps between her fast moving high-heeled feet as we moved fluid over the dance floor.

“Then, you’ll think of me, too stupid to lie – even to an enemy.”

Theodora studied me. “You would save my life? Why?”

“Because we’re both street gypsies. You’re just a clever daughter of a bear trainer who slept her way to the top. Me? I’m gutter trash. We’re alike and both alone in ways no one but we will ever understand.”

Theodora flicked flat eyes to Alice, and I shook my head.

“She was raised to be a Victorian lady. Like you, I was raised to survive in a world that didn’t want me to.”

“Alike and alone,” Theodora husked.

Her cobalt eyes deepened, became wet. Before I could react Theodora crushed her cold lips into mine.

“Hey, no tongue on a first date!”

Alice was suddenly by my side. Theodora laughed oddly, linking her arm with an uneasy Hickok. “Standish, you live … for tonight. You have given me much to think over.”

Alice’s pale face became all eyes. “What was that kiss about? What did you do, Victor?”

Sam and Meilori danced to a halt in front of me. I looked into the disturbed eyes of Meilori, sighing, “Followed my own advise.”

{Excerpt from Victor's sixth book, DANSE MARDI GRAS. The 4th & 5th? THREE SPIRIT NIGHT and DEATH AT CHRISTMAS.}

For other entries : http://romanticfridaywriters.blogspot.com/

***

***
(steamy in the middle and towards the end)

***
[MY FAVORITE TANGO SCENE}

WHERE DO YOU END YOUR NOVEL?

2012-01-26T00:00:00.001-06:00

One of the criticisms of the last LORD OF THE RING movie was that it appeared Peter Jackson couldn't decide where to end the movie

and tricked the audience into thinking they were watching the end, only to be moved to yet another false ending.

By the time the movie did end, many were grumbling about the whole experience.

Are we authors like that?

Do we linger too long, milking the afterglow of the story. Or do we end too abruptly once the crisis is averted or overcome?

Many teachers of creative writing stress not to begin writing until you have the ending clearly in mind

so that you can head to it with skillful foreshadowing and firm precision, not meandering until the end just comes to you.

I think that approach also helps you to know when to begin.

If you know the ending with its transformation of the main character, then you know where to start your story ...

and you get a sense of how to bring your protagonist to his destination.

What mood do you want the reader to leave your novel holding in his heart?

Hope. Despair. Laughter. Resolve in the face of dissolution.

Or a mix of all of the above?
***

SEASONS OF SHAPING, ANGUISH THE SCALPEL

2012-01-25T00:00:00.001-06:00

Yesterday as we went about our daily lives :

An innocent man was lynched in a country whose name most of us can't spell.

An impressionable baby was born to a hateful mother.

Three young men were killed by sniper fire.

A hungry old woman opened a can of dog food to eat for her one meal of the day.

And we passed a lonely, hopeless soul, looking for one pair of eyes that gave a damn.

There is empty ground in most souls we pass. Sometimes that leeched soil is within our own soul. We cannot save the world. Often it is beyond us to even save ourselves.

That which we can do, we must do, or else we help the darkness grow thicker. Even one feeble candle can show the way for the next step. And what does this have to do with writing you ask.

Everything.

We cast out our words into the darkness of the cyber-void. We do not know who stops by our blogs, weary of spirit, drained of hope. We do know that tragedy and heartbreak is an everyday event. We know how to write.

Let us build up not tear down. Write to support, to strengthen, to lessen the load of the unknown reader in the shadows. Maybe even to make lips that had forgotten how to smile break into a laugh, weak but the more needed because of that.

There is war. There is pestilence. There is famine. But none of them prepare you for someone moaning over trifles.

Yet, on the other hand, no one enjoys having their mountain made into a mole hill by a spectator safe on the sidelines.

What did Mark Twain write?

"Nothing that grieves us can be called little. By the eternal law of proportion, a child's loss of a beloved doll and a king's loss of his crown are events of the same size."

Billy Graham once wrote : "Puppy love is real to the puppy."

Compassion. Understanding. Laughter. I try to make them my three writing companions.

And when we write our novels, we need to always keep in mind the living person who will read our words.

Is our story one that touches the heart? Is it real? Even in fantasy, our characters can seem real if their pain is common to our own : alienation, loneliness, yearning for love.

And keep in mind to always include laughter.

After seriously commenting on his strict requirements for perspective hosts, Mark Twain added with a twinkle in his writer's eye :

"When I am ill-natured, which is rare for the paragon of virtue that I am, I so enjoy the freedom of a hotel -

where I can ring up a domestic and give him a quarter. And then commense to break furniture over him. Whereupon I go to bed calmed and sleep as peacefully as a child."

And it is comforting that even a genius like Mark Twain was once thrown out of the office of a publisher.

"I got into his office by mistake. He thought I wanted to purchase one of his books, not the other way around. His lips contracted so fast his teeth fell out. And he threw me out."

Twenty-five years later that publisher met Twain on the street and profusely apologized : "I stand without competitor as the prize ass of the 19th century."

Mark Twain remembers the event this way :

"It was a most handsome apology, and I told him so. I then confided that several times each year since that time I mused over that incident and had in fancy taken his life, always in new and in increasingly cruel, inhuman ways --

but henceforth, I would hold him my true and valued friend -- and I promised never to kill him again -- in fancy or in fact."

Mark Twain had his own take on publishers from his long association with them :

"All publishers are Columbuses. The successful author is their America. The truth that they --

like Columbus --

didn't discover what they expected to discover, didn't discover what they set out to discover, doesn't trouble them in the least."
***

THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON AND MYTH

2012-01-24T00:00:00.001-06:00

WELCOME YEAR OF THE DRAGON 2012!

Your arrival is most welcome.

People and businesses around the world have had difficult times over the last few years, so the good luck you bring is timely and needed.

The Dragon is in fact the major symbol of good fortune in Chinese Astrology.

The Dragon constellation is accorded the honor of being the guardian of the Eastern sky. According to tradition the Dragon brings in the Four Blessings of the East:

wealth, virtue, harmony and longevity.

Indeed, of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac the Dragon is the most special,

as it is a mystical being rather than an earthly animal.

It is sometimes called a karmic sign. In this context that means we can expect grand things this year. Bigger than life is very much a Dragon thing.

Speaking of bigger than life and DRAGONS, here is an appropriate excerpt from THE PATH BACK TO DAWN,

http://www.amazon.com/PATH-BACK-DAWN-ebook/dp/B005EA029U/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1327382361&sr=1-1

where Blake Adamson sails the cursed junk, THE BLADELESS SAMURAI, through the Sea of Fate with the mysterious Ningyo, Kirika Amaratsu :

I glanced at the strange water surging along the sides of our ship. But water wasn't quite what it was. The color of India ink, it held entire constellations of shimmering stars in its depths.

Swirling arms of slowly rotating galaxies spun lazily deep beneath the waves like cosmic jellyfish searching for prey. The waters smelled of lightning strikes and acid. And where I had expected to see a storm brewing, there wasn't a cloud in sight. Maybe the Sea of Fate just naturally had blustery winds.

Wisping mists flailed up from the waters. The color of honey, they dipped and danced, taking the forms of writhing men and women, some in togas, some in armor, some in Oriental robes.

One took the form of a wild, lean valkyrie on a black, winged stallion. It soared high, then banked right to me, telling me I was number one with the wrong finger. I smiled bitter. That happened to me a lot. If I weren't already sure most people wanted me dead, I might start to get a complex.

Kirika tugged on my shirt sleeve. "Beloved, look, the Moon of Zhang-O."

"Wow," I gasped.

Not exactly something worthy of Shakespeare, but it was all I could get out of a throat that seemed to have suddenly turned into marble. Taking up nearly a third of the neon purple sky, the skull white moon with its craters and mountains seemed to leer down on us.

Its details were blurred by the distance. Yet the dusky blue rings, three of them, were clear enough. I watched them in awe as they circled the moon slowly at different rates of speed, making for an eerie effect.

Kirika squeezed my arm hard. "Can you not hear her weep, my Blake?"

I listened and shivered. Jeez, it did seem as if I could hear the soft sobbing of a woman with her heart crushed. Kirika began to shiver, too.

I reached out and hugged her with my right arm. I flicked my eyes back to where I had landed and breathed a sigh of relief. The Spear of Destiny still lay where I had dropped it upon hitting the deck.

Kirika blinked back tears. "Zhang-O is crying for her Yi, her lost love. Lost to her forever, never to be held in her arms again."

I smiled sad. "Never is a long time. You can't always tell what the future holds."

"You can if your love is dead," she husked.

"Dead isn't what you think it is," I sighed.

Her face went hard. "As if you know."

I nodded. "I've died already, remember?"

Her eyes became slits. "And came back for your two loves."

I looked her straight in the eye. "The heart has two sides. Each one doing different things. But it still is one heart."

Her head moved back slightly at that. "S-Sometimes, you are wiser than your years."

She jumped. Alright, we both jumped as a loud, mournful bellow thundered to our left. Even Hone jerked. All of us turned.

There, high on the black, rocky cliffs above us arched a huge emerald dragon. It was breathing a long, billowing column of eye-aching red fire. It was mewing something terrible, as if its very heart were being torn out.

"What in the world?," I gasped.

Kirika touched my cheek with slightly trembling fingers. "This must be the cliffs of Love's End, where dragons come to mourn their lost mates."

The dragon more mewed than bellowed as he continued to cry out grief and flames. It hurt me to see such a majestic creature in so much pain. Kirika reached out and turned my head to look at her.

"All loves die, my Blake. Some quickly, some slowly, but they all die ugly deaths."

I shook my head firm and whispered to the neon skies, "Not this one. Father, please, give him back his love."

Kirika sighed, "You are such a chi --"

Hone squeezed my shoulder so hard I cried out. Or maybe I would have cried out anyway, for out of the column of flames a figure began to form.

The grieving dragon bleated in shock and stopped breathing fire. But the figure of flames still grew and grew, slowly taking the shape of a slender gold and scarlet dragon.

The male dragon reared on his hind legs, rasping a cry of question and disbelief. The dragon of fire flared out her long wings, spoke but one word.

And thanks to Solomon, I understood it : "Beloved."

Then, she slowly settled down beside her mate, wrapping her wings of flame around him. They entwined their long necks, sobbing great cries of greeting and weaving in a graceful dance of love .

The green dragon wrapped his huge wings around his fiery mate. I went sick. He shimmered, glowed, then erupted into jade fires, until he, too, was a creature of flames.

Though together they made an awesome inferno, still, they were distinct beings. They suddenly laughed and, together, they soared high into the strange skies, straight toward the moon of Zhang-O.

The three of us watched silently as they grew smaller and smaller and smaller until they disappeared in their flight towards the moon of lost love.

My chest gone all hollow, I whispered, "I didn't want --"

Hone sighed, "A hard lesson, little wanderer. Not all prayers are answered in the way you expect."

Kirika lightly kissed my cheek. "I was right, long ago, my Blake. You are legend."

She squeezed my right hand tight. "My legend."

"Some legend," I muttered. "I keep screwing up."

She patted my cheek. "You think you have failed. But you have done something wondrous. You do not understand now."

Her eyes grew haunted. "But ... one day you will. One cruel day, you will."
***

GHOST WRITERS IN THE SKY

2012-01-23T00:00:00.002-06:00

The majority of writing manuals get it all wrong.

Writing well is not a matter of inserting bits of prose into some magic equation.

Most creative writing texts are for most people wastes of time.

Why?

They focus only on the surface techniques of writing, not the root problems of the writer :

the heart, the mind, the soul of the one doing the writing.

The writer cannot seem to get started. Once started, she/he gets lost or loses heart. She writes well sometimes, badly most of the time.

So the root problems are matters of confidence, self-respect, and freedom.

The writer’s muse rattles impotently the bars cemented in her unconscious mind.

And what do all creative writing texts proclaim in their first chapter? Genius cannot be taught. Really? Everybody has a reservoir of it, mostly untapped due to being taught it does not exist at all.

Every nightmare (and even dogs have them) shows the secret reserve of imaginative power contained within the human mind.

The writer needs to know what habits of thought and action impede progress, what unnoticed aspects of living undermine writing well.

There are keys to unlocking the potential within every struggling writer. Those keys were held by the famous writers of the past who managed to write bestsellers in the most challenging circumstances.

Come. The ghosts of those masters are standing upon the last edge of reality. Listen to their fading voices. They wait with the last vestiges of their souls to teach you.

Now, before it is too late. Read GHOST WRITERS IN THE SKY.
***

NEW DREAM AWAKENING

2012-01-22T00:00:00.003-06:00

This is but a preliminary cover done by the incomparable Leonora Roy

for the new Victor Standish novel, THE RIVAL,

whose rough draft is just now awakening across my keyboard.

Victor Standish discovers to his dismay that the key to saving the future of New Orleans lies in its past.

The year 1834 to be exact.

The year he barely survived when DayStar threw Victor and Alice back there the first time.

{In the last chapters of UNDER A VOODOO MOON :
http://www.amazon.com/LEGEND-VICTOR-STANDISH-VOODOO-ebook/dp/B0064CKPJ4/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_2 }

Now, he and Alice are back. Undead enemies they first met in 2005 are meeting the star-crossed lovers for the first time :

Abigail Adams, Empress Theodora, and the dreaded DayStar, he whom many believe is Lucifer himself.

And two startling new enemies join their ranks :

President Andrew Jackson, recklessly pursuing plans to allow his revenant wife, Rachel, to turn him into one of the living dead so as to be with his beloved forever.

Meilori Shinseen, (that's right - the namesake of the haunted French Quarter jazz club)

18 years before she is destined to meet Captain Samuel McCord aboard the cursed Demeter.

Their allies only make things worse :

SERGEANT Samuel McCord

and the recently dismissed cadet from West Point,

the dashing Edgar Allan Poe, who falls in love with the surprised Alice,

calling her his Annabel Lee (which is the title of the last completed poem by the artist).

How will Victor keep this younger version of his mentor from meeting Meilori before she becomes the kind of woman McCord can love?

And just as maddening, how can he keep Alice from succumbing to the charm, gallantry, and poetry of Poe?

As Alice tries to unsuccessfully calm Victor’s unfounded fears, one of her own appears :

a warm-blooded, living girl from Victor’s past, flashing long lashes and legs at the teen who is her whole world.

What is an undead ghoul to do against such competition?

And how did an orphan girl born in the Detroit of the late 20th Century end up in the New Orleans of 1834?

Some mysterious Entity is playing with both Victor and Alice.

Suddenly, the dangers of 2005 don’t appear quite so deadly to the star-crossed pair.

(LOOK FOR IT SUMMER OF 2012!)
***

WHY DO WE GO ON?

2012-01-21T00:00:00.002-06:00

"Why do we go on?"

As Gypsy, my ghost cat, lapped from my tumbler of ice tea, I sighed,

"There is no certain promise of success. Often we are mocked by those in our world.

Worse, sometimes we are endured or "forgiven our obsession" by those close to us."

Hemingway looked at me from across the table at Meilori's.

"Backbone," he rumbled.

"What?"

He downed the remainder of his rum. "Backbone, son. In yourself. In your work. That is the key to surviving this 'obsession' of ours."

He set his glass with a thump on the oak table. "Your backbone is between you and your self-respect. I can't help you there."

He lit a cigar. "But with the backbone of your story or novel ...

The spine of your novel is what you follow on your character’s evolution from what he was to what he becomes. And the change must be big. Why would we follow a bump on a bumpkin’s life?

All good books have one thing in common. They are truer than real life. Why? In good books, anything that doesn’t contribute to the hero’s transformation is edited away.

So find your backbone. What big picture are you painting? Any brushstroke that doesn’t add to that picture, remove.

Ask 5 questions to find your backbone.

1) Who is your hero?

You’d be surprised how many bad novels wobble about in that department, not giving the reader a sure idea of who to root for.

2) What is the problem?

It has to be clear. It has to be primal. And it has to appear insurmountable.

3) How does the story begin and end?

There has to be a “before” and “after” feel to them. The end must be a ringing bell within the heart of the reader.

4) What is the spiritual problem of the hero?

The physical problem must symbolize the spiritual struggle within your hero.

5) What is your novel about?

What is your story’s theme. A young boy learns that true magic lies within. A man discovers lies only make problems; they do not solve them. You get the picture.

What are you waiting for? You want me to lead you to the computer and type the story for you? Writers write. Dreamers dream and die with their dreams."
***

TO THOSE OF US NEVER TO BE PUBLISHED_EMILY DICKINSON, GHOST, HERE

2012-01-20T00:00:00.001-06:00

{"Publication - is the auction of the Mind of Man."
~Emily Dickinson.}

That fabulous scamp of a gentlemen, Samuel Clemens, asked me to write in this "computer newspaper," as he calls it.

The dear somehow knew this date was important to me.

“Success is counted sweetest” was published anonymously in an anthology titled A Masque of Poets on this day in 1878,

the last of the handful of my poems published in my lifetime.

Though I remained firm in my decision that “My Barefoot-Rank is better,” this poem does reflect my continued mixed feelings about publishing:

Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition, So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,On whose forbidden earThe distant strains of triumphBurst agonized and clear!
**
I wonder, struggling souls, what would it mean to you if you were never published?

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee.***
How long would you continue to write should publication elude you? Are the words burning within you to find life on the page?

For me, I never stopped writing :

HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Will you stop writing if the years pass, leaving you unpublished? Why? And if you would continue, why? This tender spirit would like to know.

Just walk out into the sable night, look up into the listening stars, and whisper your answer to the wayfaring winds. I am a ghost. I shall hear.
***

WHY DO YOU WRITE? Ghost H L Mencken here

2012-01-19T00:00:00.001-06:00

{"For every difficult problem there’s a solution that’s simple, neat and wrong."
- H. L. Mencken.}

I never expected to be a ghost. But then, I never expected to be aware of surprise or anything else after death.

Life had been an endless source of surprises. I should have expected the same thing of death.

Samuel Clemens has asked me to step in for Roland on his blog.

I was delighted. A blog is much like a newspaper column but without the scant pay and worse deadlines.

Better I get to ask questions of my readers. Such as why did you start to write? What keeps you at writing? What shore are you heading your prose craft to?
To be fair I will tell you of my feelings towards writing :

1.) "Words are veils."
It is hard enough to put into them what one thinks. It is a sheer impossibility to put into them what one feels.
Such skepticism, however, never keeps me from trying.

2.) Writing is a lonely profession.
Chandler was right. But don't tell the sourpuss that. He's hard enough to "live" with as it is.

The writing profession is reeking with this loneliness.
All our lives we spend in discoursing with ourselves. . . . The loneliest people in the world we writers are.

Except that, while we are conversing and laughing with ourselves, we manage to shed our loneliness . . . to scatter it as we go along.

That is the express reason why your blogs are so important. They are a chain of linked spirits holding on to one another through the darkness of the cyber-void.

3.) Persistence in writing is dedication for me. Vanity for you.

I jest of course. It is how we ghosts keep from going totally mad.
Why, then, do rational men and women engage in so barbarous and exhausting a vocation?

What keeps them from deserting it for trades that are less onerous, and, in the public eye, more respectable?

The answer, it seems to me, is as plain as mud.

An author is simply one in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in.

His overpowering impulse is to dance before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting his defiant yells. It appeals to the little child in all of us creative beings.

This being forbidden by the Polizei of all civilized countries, we take it out by putting our yells on paper or on the computer screen.

Such is the thing called self-expression. Such is the genesis of blogs.

4.) The Worth of Blogs : Education.

Education in the truest sense --
education directed toward awakening a capacity to differentiate between fact and appearance --

always will be a more or less furtive and illicit thing, for its chief purpose is the controversion and destruction of the very ideas that the majority of men --

and particularly the majority of official and powerful men --

regard as incontrovertibly true. To the extent that I am genuinely educated.
I am suspicious of all the things that the average politician believes and the average pedagogue teaches.

Progress consists precisely in attacking and disposing of these ordinary beliefs.

5.) Why I "ghost"-wrote for an unpublished writer at the request of Samuel Clemens :
How could I not?

what a man Mark Twain is!

How he stood above and apart from the world, like Rabelais come to life again, observing the human comedy, chuckling over the fraudulence of man!

He regards all men as humbugs, but as humbugs to be dealt with gently,
as humbugs too often taken in and swindled by their own humbuggery.

Clemens is in a dark mood that Chandler's past writing upset some. I tried to comfort him with the fact

that any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

I reminded him that the great artists of the world are never Puritans,
and seldom respectable.

No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense -

has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading.

*) Feel free to disagree with me. I am but a ghost.

I am often wrong. My prejudices are innumerable, and often idiotic.
My aim is not to determine facts, but to function freely and pleasantly -

as Nietzsche used to say, to dance with arms and legs.

Let me know why you write, why you continue to write despite rejections from agent or publisher, and what is your ultimate goal for your novels.

I'm truly interested. Just walk out into the moonlight and whisper. I am a ghost I will hear.
***

SILENTLY WE KNELL IN THE MOUTH OF DEATH

2012-01-18T00:00:00.001-06:00

You, and the rest of mankind, are quite sure what is possible and what is impossible.

In the daylight.

When the night descends, the stride of your thoughts is not quite so confident.

Not so Roland.

He is much like an animal. I do not mean that as an insult.

He takes what comes at face value, not forcing it to fit into any preconceived notions Man teaches as Science.

He deals with what comes without protesting that it cannot be, only seeing what is and adapting.

Perhaps that is why we ghosts are drawn to him. In him is that quality that Stubbs expressed in MOBY DICK :

“I know not what all may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

Not that he is overly optimistic about the world around him. For being part Lakota Sioux, he still reads the Bible by his bedside. He often quotes :

“They sleep not, except that they have done mischief;
And their sleep is taken away unless they cause
Some to fall.

For they eat the bread of wickedness
And drink the wine of violence.”

That is Proverbs 4:16-17 for those of you interested in such things.
In life I was not.

I thought the love of God was like the light burning from the stars :

cold and distant.

Now, that I am a ghost …. but no.

There are secrets the dead may not share with the living.

But the secrets on how to write well … they I can share with you.

Oh, you are wondering who I am.

Don’t be embarrassed. In life I wondered the same thing.

I am Roger Zelazny.

I made somewhat of a splash in Science Fiction in the sixties, endured and evolved in the seventies and eighties. I went the way of all flesh mid-way through the nineties in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And Roland mourned me as a distant older brother gone over the crest of the hill before him, leaving him cold and alone.

Oh, and I inspired him to take up the pen and follow my steps into weaving tales in the genre I call Science Fantasy.

That I sparked the idea in him to be a writer drew me to him.

It was his gentle, quiet, amused nature that has made me stay. He looks on all the awkwardness of life with a sly smile that says, “You expected water to run uphill?”

Another more important question :

What makes one tale live, vibrant and riveting, and another merely flat, lifeless words on paper?

Not that any of us have a sure idea, although Hemingway is glaring at me. But we had a close enough glimpse of the answer to make a living at what we loved to do :

write.

What is the answer?

A joyous cry : “Come see what I found!”

If you can bring anew the childlike sense of wonder and awe to your readers that the poisons of living have drained from them, you will have a loyal following that will not quit.

What words will do that?

Certainly not the same sing-song repeat and rinse of someone else’s bestseller.
The words must tilt the reader’s expectations on its ear. Did you notice I said reader?

Not readers.

You are talking to only one at the campfire of their imagination and curiosity. If you think of your audience as readers, you will talk AT them not TO them.

The author/reader relationship is intimate : friend to friend. “Look at this, man!”

One friend sharing with another something fantastic and wondrous :

The meaning of life in the skating sparks of the sun along the uneven facets of a piece of rock candy …

or striking fire down the razored spirals of a unicorn’s tusk.

If you are drawn to write, you do not need to be told the basics. You already have absorbed them from the masters :

Stirring plots, memorable characters, and absorbing ideas.

You must tap the humanity of the situations, of the people struggling against the tide of events.

Remember this is the Microwave Culture.

Your prose must be lean and spare, yet sing with the poetry of mystery and suspense. How do you do that?

Mind your surroundings.

Nothing is ever wasted to a real writer. Circumstances suggest. Events coalesce. The story will begin to flow like a shadow along the floor of your unconscious.

Once you have seen their shapes, the stories will exist as ghosts for you until you have pinned them to the paper. Perhaps that is why there are so many ghosts of writers in the Shadowlands.

We made our living from ghosts, so reciprocity demands its due.

Sometimes you will have to post a Help Wanted Ad in your unconscious to apply for positions in the story and events that have called out to you.

Do not worry. Within the hour, your unconscious mind will have them lining up for you to consider.

Read your work aloud.

Hear the clumsy prose misstep that jars your ears? A sentence is too long? Make them two. A word unneeded? Remove it. Sand your prose as a sculptor would his carving.

Give your characters life by giving them a new take on what it means to be human, to be fully alive. Most people you pass on the streets are sleepwalking from long years of debt and unfulfilled passion.

Give them hope that there is more out there, that each corner could reveal the start of an adventure that might shorten their lives but awaken their souls.

Do that and you will become more than a writer. You will become an author.
***

IS YOUR NOVEL SEXUALLY ACTIVE?

2012-01-17T00:00:00.001-06:00

Robert E. Howard, ghost writing ...

Yes, though I am a ghost I keep up with the evolution of words and phrases.

After all, during the Great Depression

my stories earned me an income that surpassed the local banker's in my small Texas town of Cross Plains.

So again I ask you ... is your novel sexually active?

Or does it just lay there on the page?

Homer, Shakespeare, Poe, Twain -- the immortals of fiction knew it was the key to fiction :

The heart draws the eyes --

if you want your novel read, it must have love and action.

Characterization is great,

but Edgar Rice Burroughs (the father of all cardboard heroes) was the most translated author of the 1900's. He took exotic locales, a man of action, and love in jeopardy, mixing them in a stew millions and millions bought.

Those of you who know only my characters but have never read my stories, you may think of cold steel, hot blood, and sensual women. Yes, they were in my stories. And no, they weren't. The heart was there and mystery.

J K Rowling? Where's the love there? What heart doesn't go out to a mistreated boy? Oliver Twist. Wart, young Arthur. Harry Potter is a meld of those two icons.

The heart draws the eyes. The action, tension, and danger keeps the pages turning.

Your dream is to be a professional.

Yet, only the big name authors can keep to their genre of choice.

The rest of us must be adaptable enough to go from genre to genre, depending upon the demands of the market.

To sell as many stories as I did, I had to go from one genre to another : Westerns, Sea Stories, science fiction, horror, fantasy, even war stories.

If we are professionals, we can cross genres because we know the core skeleton of a good story :

The heart draws the eyes. Action and dread turns the pages.

We all know the core plot :

The underdog hero/heroine is pulled into a problem beyond his/her capacity to handle.

He attempts to solve it to only to find himself plunged into deeper dangers that grow logically out of his actions and the actions of his adversaries.

All appears lost : the dream is crushed, his friends are gone, and hope has died.

In this midnight of the soul, he learns a Truth about himself, about Life that re-shapes his thinking. He struggles, renewed and reborn.

He triumphs or loses magnificently ... or a little bit of both.

Some turn up their lips at the thought of formula --

but from HAMLET to THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA if you look closely enough, you will see the core skeleton of every good story.

Love in jeopardy draws the reader in. The tension of what waits around the corner keeps the reader turning the pages. And flashes of action, like lightning bolts, spur the reader on.

Like cooking a stew, you must sift the proper balance of ingredients. A likeable hero. A dream/love just out of reach. Danger. Tension. A hope of success. Series of cruel failures. And the last triumphant struggle.

Remember :

The reader wants to be kept in perpetual anticipation,

to not be able to put the book down,

to laugh, to cringe with sympathy at cruel blows, and to cheer at the end.

Last thought : sizzle sells the steak.

Suspense is better than action. (And you can stretch it over more pages.)

The fear of the unknown is always stronger than the grabbling with the monster unmasked. Action taken against a barely seen adversary is always to be preferred.

Happy NEW Year writing.
***

TO WRITE YOU MUST BLEED THE WORDS_GHOST OF MARLENE DIETRICH

2012-01-16T00:00:00.001-06:00

The ever-entertaining Henry Mazel wrote a provocative post, THE SECRET LIFE OF MARLENE DIETRICH (Her ghost pointed it out to me) :

http://www.ahro-at.blogspot.com/

Henry has also written a thrilling book : THE PLOT AGAINST MARLENE DIETRICH :
http://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-Marlene-Dietrich-ebook/dp/B00588T5NW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1309534786&sr=1-2

Now, on to my ghostly midnight visitation --

The sound of a book hitting the floor hard awakened me. I pried open protesting, heavy eyes. They flew wide when I saw her.

Marlene Dietrich. Or her ghost, actually.

In a frilly black night wrap and not much else. She rose like the spirit she was, picked up the book and threw it down once more. Harder.

"Deine mutter hurt in der stadt!"

"Ah, do I want to know what that means?"

"No!"

She spun her ghost chair around, sitting with easy grace upon it so she leaned upon its high back, and looked hotly down at me. "HOW TO SELL A MILLION eBOOKS! Its author ... oh, there are no good English words. Dorf trottel!"

Marlene smiled wickedly. "And no, you do not want to know the meaning of that either."

She shook her head. "It is like listening to a good joke told badly. Much build-up for little pay-off."

Haunted eyes stabbed into me. "Liebling, the end of the rainbow is just another lonely place where hopes and dreams slowly fade away."

Her long blonde hair slid to half cover her face as she leaned forward and down to my air mattress. "Do you want that single moment they call fame ... or do you want to touch the heart?"

"You have to ask?"

Her smile illuminated her lovely face, showing the lonely soul within. "Ah, Ich liebe dich."

"Do I want to know the meaning of that?"

Her smile rivaled Mona Lisa's. "No, but later, if you are lucky, I will show you anyway."

She suddenly frowned. Not bending to pick up the book, she merely pounded a pretty foot on it.

"He wants that moment ...

and the money that writing bestsellers will give him. Ha. He promised secrets to success and gave endless pages of self-praise and using people as means not ends. Bah."

She jabbed a long, slender finger at me. "You want to touch the heart, to write a story that others will come back to again and again?"

"Certainly."

"Then, you must give them dreams, danger, mystery ... and most importantly, you must give them love."

She sat up, running those long fingers through her wavy tangle of hair.

"And you must not make it easy, liebling. There must be two problems : one inside the hero -- one outside him."

She looked intently at me, her eyes sparkling like knife points.

"Your hero must be his own greatest enemy not some Nazi. Nazi's. Ha! They give him something to hit when all she wants to hit is her - I mean - himself."

Marlene sighed, her eyes looking into places that seemed to break her heart.

"If we have the wit, we can conquer those who would bind us. But against ourselves ...."

She bowed her head, slowly raising it.
"Against ourselves, we need help. We need love. The fire burning from one good heart will draw us out of the darkness of ourselves and onto the road leading to healing, to the light. Perhaps not triumph but ...."

She hugged herself. "Ah, but to die in the arms of one you love and who loves you ... that is a victory no Nazi can take away."

Marlene tapped the laptop by my air mattress. "Here is the stuff dreams are made of, liebling."

Her eyes looked beyond me.

"Set your stage quickly. Bring all the players on stage in the first three chapters. Be honest with the audience : let them know who the hero is so that they can attach their hearts to him or her -- tell them the theme :

does money equal success, does fame, or does the trust of one good man mean your life has not been in vain?"

She blinked back sudden tears.

"Let the readers have fun with your heroes. Toss everything in the air. Snatch happiness and safety from their heroes. Give the hero one slim chance to get it all back. Take that all away."

Marlene smiled bitterly.

"Life is quite good at that. But fiction, unlike life, must end well if you would have publishers buy your tale. Give them that happy ending. Oh, after much darkness, storm, and strife, of course."

Her smile was brittle. "Bring everything down to a single, seemingly impossible showdown. Make the enemy unbeatable."

Marlene leaned down, and her lips brushed my ear. "And unlike life, let the hero win and come away wiser, better, stronger."

"Marlene?"

"Yes, liebling?"

"You did walk away a winner : stronger, wiser, and better."

Marlene cocked her head, letting her hair become a wavy waterfall.
"Dass Liebe, die aus Trümmern auferstand,
Reicher als einst an Größe ist und Kraft."

In a husk, Marlene translated,
"And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater."

"Shakespeare," I said.

"Truth," Marlene smiled sadly.
*********************************************

NEW WINNER!! ANN BEST!

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000-06:00

My best friend, Sandra (You toucha these entries; I breaka you fingers) Thrasher

has drawn the name of ANN BEST to win the ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. AUTOGRAPHED MINI-POSTER OF IRON MAN!

(Ann earned 10 entries by posting a review on AMAZON & posting one on her blog.)

Ann, send me your mailing address so that I can send you that poster.

Just 4 more reviews need to be posted on AMAZON before Sandra draws for the

1967 LIFE MAGAZINE COVER AUTOGRAPHED BY CHARLES SCHULTZ or

the winner can choose to received a movie program AUTOGRAPHED BY CLINT EASTWOOD.

How cool is that?

Just TEN copies of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH need to be bought before Sandra draws for ...

THE CHRISTIAN BALE AUTOGRAPHED POSTER OF BATMAN BEGINS!

Is my VICTOR STANDISH CONTEST neat or what?

***

Something for Alex Cavanaugh and other movie lovers :
Joss Whedon: 'The Avengers' Will Be Told From The Eyes Of Captain America

While the superhero-packed film "The Avengers" has every comic book lover's heart aflutter, a concern lingers on just how the coming blockbuster will rangle a story with so many characters and backstories.

"The Avengers" has the awesome and difficult task of combining Marvel's VIPs --

Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow --

into a single story line.

Tough, but movie vet (and clandestine Shakespearean daredevil) Joss Whedon has found a way around this too-many-cooks-spoil-the-pot thing.

“I set out with a very simple problem," Whedon said in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly.

"There is no reason for these people to be in the same movie. So that’s what my movie has to be about.

So much of the movie takes place from Steve Rogers’ (Chris Evans) perspective, since he’s the guy who just woke up and sees this weird ass world. Everyone else has been living in it.”

Clever, very clever! The film also boasts some of Hollywood's biggest names: Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, and Samuel L. Jackson.

"The Avengers" opens in 3D on May 4th. Alex and I can hardly wait.

DID YOUR GENRE PICK YOU?_H. P. LOVECRAFT, GHOST

2012-01-14T00:01:00.001-06:00

{"Men of broader intellect know
that there is no sharp distinction
betwixt the real and the unreal."

- H. P. Lovecraft.}

Ah, you say. The ghost of H. P. Lovecraft.
Now, he will tell us if what he wrote was true.

Short-sighted mortals. I dare not say. I can not say.

I will but put forth this : my imagination was too stunted,

my words too feeble to paint what lies beyond.

Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life,

and that our vain presence on this terraqueous globe is itself

the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.

Then, what brings me to Roland's blog?

I was wandering Thalarion, the City of a Thousand Wonders,
where many have passed but none returned,

where walk only daemons and mad things that are no longer men,

and the streets are white with the unburied bones of those
who have looked upon the eidolon Lathi, that reigns over the city.

Abruptly, the ghosts of Clemens, Raymond Chandler, Will Rogers, and Ernest Hemingway (all heavily armed) made their cautious way to me.

And well they should have been careful, for I am no longer altogether ... human.

I watched them from the shadows with some amusement. They stepped warily around shards of marble that thrust up from the misty ground.

The shards gave the illusion of ancient bones of some grotesque corpse protruding from an ill-made grave.

The ruins projected a diseased aura as if the very stones were cursed.

Clemens approached me. "You can roll around in your horrors like they were catnip for all I care, Lovecraft. But you owe Roland."

"Indeed I do. What would you suggest?"

"Write a piece for his ... computer newspaper."

"How quaint. On what exactly, Clemens?"

"Why the blue blazes you chose to write what you did."

"It chose me, Clemens."

"Then, write that. And try to remember what it meant to be human while you're doing it."

I fought down the gibbering darkness. "You are lucky I owe Roland, ghost."
***
So I am here. Why did I come? I came because of my lost childhood :

There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth;

For when as children we learn and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts,

and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.

But some of us awake in the night

with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens,

of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas,

of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone,

and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests;

and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates

into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy.

Enough of me. I ask : Did your genre pick you?

I know mine did.

My reason for writing stories

is to give myself the satisfaction of visualising more clearly the

fragmentary impressions of wonder which are conveyed to me by certain
ideas and images encountered in art and literature.

I choose weird stories because they suit my inclination best -

one of my strongest and most persistent wishes being to achieve the
illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the galling limitations

of time, space, and natural law which forever
imprison us

and frustrate our curiosity about the infinite cosmic spaces
beyond the radius of our sight and analysis.

These stories frequently emphasise the element of horror because fear is our deepest and strongest emotion,

and the one which best lends itself to the creation of Nature-defying illusions.

Horror and the unknown or the strange are always closely connected,

so that it is hard to create a convincing picture of shattered natural law
or cosmic alienage or "outsideness"

without laying stress on the emotion of fear.

As to how I write a story - there is no one way. The following set of rules might be deduced from my average procedure :

1.) Prepare a chronological order of events.

2.) Prepare the narrative order of those events if you are beginning in the middle or the end.

3.) Write out the story - rapidly, fluently, and not too critically.

4.) Revise the entire text, paying attention to vocabulary, syntax, rhythm of prose, proportioning of parts, niceties, and convincingness of transitions.

5.) One last note : Prime emphasis should be given to subtle suggestion.

Imperceptible hints and touches of selective associative detail

which express shadings of moods and build up a vague illusion
of the strange reality of the unreal.

Avoid bald catalogues of incredible happenings which can have no substance or meaning

apart from a sustaining cloud of colour and symbolism.

**And so now I ask you again :

Did you pick your genre, or did it pick you?

Why has this genre captured you?

Do have a blueprint you follow when you write your story or novel? Let me know. The remnant of humanity still clinging to me is interested.

And remember :

"Pleasure is wonder —

the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability.

To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral;

the past in the present; the infinite in the finite;

these are to me the springs of delight and beauty."
***

THE OLD YEAR WAS DYING_Friday's Romantic Challenge

2012-01-13T00:00:00.003-06:00

The old year was dying, the tolling bells ringing out its dirge in the night.

Alice squeezed my hand tight,

her death-cold fingers reminding me that I had someone to be strong for.

Shadows were heavy in the LaPrete Mansion's upper dining room.

Of the places I wanted to spend New Year's Eve with the ghoul of my dreams -- this was the very last.

Cezar Prodanescu, wheezing the prelude to his death rattle, spoke from the oak chair at the head of the dining table.

"Victor Standish, you and your ghoul cost me. That building was going to be my last project."

I shook my head. "The thousands of new Katrina orphans needed that place."

"You made the buyers think it was haunted!"

"What can I tell you? My mother's good at making ghosts."

Cezar's son scowled at me. "Because of you we have been made to endure this tedious Romanian ritual."

His wife, sitting beside him, patted his hand. "Andrei, remember your blood pressure."

Cezar snorted, "All you care about, Andreea, is that bearer bond right beside that New Year's Eve Mask."

Her daughter whined, "Grandpapa, must I wear this mask, too?"

He flashed a dying wolf's smile at her. "If you want your own bearer bond, Doina, yes. Besides, I made yours a faerie princess. And you only have to wear the mask until the bells stop."

Her brother glowered at the mask on the table before him. It bore an uncanny resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman. "Look at what he wants me to wear!"

Cezar snorted, "Then, don't wear it, Gavril. But you will receive nothing!"

Reluctantly, Gavril put it on. Andreea looked with disgust at her own mask in the shape of a wrinkled old shrew. She fondled the bearer bond. She put on the mask.

Andrei flicked dead eyes to the pig mask and barked an insult of a laugh. "You have made me wear so many masks, Father. What is one more?"

He put it on. Cezar pointed to the braying donkey mask in front of me. "Wear it and I will call off my lawyers from delaying that orphanage."

I shook my head. "The deal was you would do it if I showed up."

His smile reminded me of a snake's - but without as much humanity. "The deal has changed."

I shook my head. "My word hasn't. I've showed up. No jumping through hoops."

Alice lightly touched her mask on the table top done up like a snake's face. "Victor, the orphans."

Cezar turned to her. "Don the mask, and I will still call off my lawyers."

She took her hand from mine. She picked up the mask, slowly bringing it to her face.

I went cold.

Something was brewing, but I knew Alice. If I told her not to, she would do it out of spite.

Cezar looked nothing so much as a vulture as he watched her, then turned to me. "Tell her not to, boy. You want to."

"I - I love Alice too much to take away her right to choose."

Alice's eyes rimmed in black tears. "So I choose ... you."

She placed the mask down.

Cezar scowled and put his skull mask on.

He slid Alice's mask to Doina. "Wear it, and you will receive ten bearer bonds."

"T-Ten?" She tore off the faerie mask, putting on the snake one.

The tolling bells were reaching the end of their countdown. The Prodanescu clan glared at their patriarch. Alice smiled softly and took up my hand again.

The tolling died away. Andreea wrenched her mask off. Doina screamed wetly. I felt like screaming myself. The mother's face was an exact copy of her mask. Andrei ripped his mask off.

A wet pig's snout quivered at me. Doina sprang from her chair, sending it to the carpet. She raced to the ornate mirror. A snake's face stared slit-eyed back at her. She started screaming in peals I knew would never stop until her last breath.

Gavril just sat shivering in his chair. Alice slowly, slowly reached out to Cezar's mask. As soon as her fingers touched the mask, the rubber band crumbled to ash.

Cezar's skull mask dropped.

Andreea began to titter in gibbering madness.

Though dead, Cezar looked merely asleep.

I turned to Alice. "Next New Year's Eve? No parties."
***

VICTOR STANDISH AS INDIANA JONES

2012-01-12T00:00:00.006-06:00

Elliot Grace has just "graced" Victor Standish with a great shout-out,

plus announcing a few other interesting items :

such as his SOUTH OF CHARM Kindle edition is now ONLY $2.99. How cool is that?

Buy a copy for a gift to a friend. I know I am.

http://elliot-grace.blogspot.com/

Braine at TALK SUPE has done a marvelous review of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH :

http://talksupe.blogspot.com/2012/01/legend-of-victor-standish.html

The Legend of Victor Standish is like a talent show of sorts in the sense that there is a smorgasboard of [in]famous characters that joined the action from Abigail Adams to Harry Houdini among others.

I'm assuming that these characters are Roland's favorites and/or have fascinated him at some point. Reading his interpretation of these departed historical figures sure was fun.

It's non-stop action, no dull moments and Victor is a perfect hero.

He's alone, almost an orphan, melleable but at the same time resilient. I found it funny that Victor unexpectedly fell inlove with Alice Wentworth, a ghoul, on their first meeting in Marie Laveau's crypt.

I was telling myself "this is madness!' the entire time the scene was unfolding. Their love story is far from the depressing YA-inlove-with-the-undead-read.

I found myself LOL at their adventures together and Alice being a Victorian lady, delivered the drama if you're into that stuff.

The story is fresh and it's fun to read a story from a guy's perspective.

It doesn't have the melodramatic stamp that seems to be a standard on most books written by female authors and that certainly worked on Mr. Yeomans favor.

Read her other excellent review of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH on Amazon :

http://www.amazon.com/LEGEND-VICTOR-STANDISH-ebook/product-reviews/B005NCUTAG/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R32ESUC3ASAJHU

ANN BEST and ANGELA BROWN_ My heroes!

2012-01-11T14:32:00.003-06:00

ANN BEST of ANN CARBINE'S BEST BLOG :

http://annbestblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/getting-back-to-blogging-and-promoting-bloggers-books-applause-for-roland-yeomans/#comment-1133

has done a lyrical "non-review" review of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH. Her words leave me stunned with their grasp of my world.

I tried to layer Victor's perceptions of his world in layers that repeated readings would bring new enjoyment and new revelations. I tried to reach out and touch the reader's heart and bring my heroes to life.

Ann's words let me know I succeeded with her. As writers you know how deeply grateful that makes us when it happens.

Especially so since Ann's world is crowded with demands and writing dreams of her own. Please visit her post and tell her thanks for me!!

We, as struggling writers, all stagger sometimes under the loads of life. Please give her a pat on the back and words of supportive encouragement.

ANGELA BROWN of

IN A PURSUIT OF PUBLISHNESS

http://publishness.blogspot.com/

has taken time out of her own struggles to find realization of her dreams of becoming published -- which includes writing, editing, queries, and enduring the rejections that seem to be like cuts of a razor

to write a spotlight of bashful moi and my latest mythic fantasy, LAST EXIT TO BABYLON.

She even mentions this blog and posts my book trailer for the trilogy that leads up to LAST EXIT TO BABYLON : the LOVE LIKE DEATH trilogy!

After a long night of driving 500 miles through blinding rains interspersed with dense fog that frankly terrified me, this day has been a truly needed balm!

Thank you, special ladies -- ANN BEST and ANGELA BROWN!

You're my heroes, Roland

ROLAND HAS LEFT

2012-01-11T00:00:00.004-06:00

Roland has left.

Ghost of Samuel Clemens here. I can't rightly be the ghost of Mark Twain,

seeing as how pen names are kind of like ghosts in their own right of the true artist.

And who ever heard of a ghost of a ghost?

Oh, you want to know about Roland leaving, do you?

Of course you do.

Roland has left ... for the fascinating blog of ANGELA BROWN :

IN A PURSUIT OF PUBLICATION --

http://publishness.blogspot.com/

Angela is taking a close look-see at LAST EXIT TO BABYLON and the 3 books that led up to it.

And looking a bit at Roland himself a bit. I, of course, could tell you tales that would make you shiver ...

but you contrary folks want the boring truth, sad to say!

Angela's article will be up and running round about six in the morning. The time this scoundrel of a ghost is just turning in!

Don't miss it. I love the humor to Angela's little computer newspaper.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing.

The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

Like the rest of you friends of Roland -- she wants to make her love of writing her means of financial support. And you gentle people all have my best wishes.

***

WANT FOLLOWERS? BE SEDUCTIVE_MARK TWAIN'S GHOST HERE

2012-01-10T00:00:00.000-06:00

{"Sometimes I wonder

whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on

or by imbeciles who really mean it."

- Mark Twain.}

Ghost of Samuel Clemens here. While Roland is off running rare blood to all Creation, I've read his article on how to have a 1000 Followers.

I've even wandered over to his friends' blogs ---

who in tarnation named them that? Sounds like I'm going to sink in tar like one of those dinosaurs when I visit one.

Anyway, being the beloved literary genius that I am, I noticed a lot of you, like that Alex Cavanaugh fella, have been writing on how to get folks to like you,

to hang after you,

and to put their faces on your "wanted poster" as it were.

Easy.

Be easy.

Be seductive, don't you know.

1.) What you learn by picking up a cat by the tail, you can learn in no other way.

In other words, learn by doing. Experiment. Gals do it all the time. That dress doesn't draw any whistles? Put on another.

Try something in your blog new and different. If no one comments, drop it faster than a politician does morals upon election.

2.) Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.

I mean, make your visitors laugh. Your blog is your home. Folks go where they feel comfortable, accepted, where they leave feeling better than when they came.

3.) Your blog is your Mini_Me novel. (And yes, even ghosts watch movies.)

And like in your novel, You need not expect to get your blog right the first time.

Write your post like you'd write a page in your novel.

Go to work and revamp or rewrite it.

God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives.

You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.

The time to begin writing your post is when you have finished it to your satisfaction.

By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.

4.) You can tell German wine from vinegar by the label.

By which, children, I mean to not have your visitors leave your blog with their mental faces all screwed up in distaste.

A.) No bragging. Not even if it's true.

B.) No slandering others not there. Not even if it's true. Don't make your guests squirm.

C.) Do help.

You know some of those literary potholes you twisted an ankle on? Point those out to those who follow after you. Make the road you walk easier for the next fella after you.

5.) It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

The same for your post. Your blog is the only YOU most folks will ever see. Make sure a first time visitor gets the best YOU that you can offer.

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement.

To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...

Anybody can have ideas --

the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

And that's all the wisdom I can presently conjure. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind :

it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. Don't be a stranger, hear? You don't want to miss my next brilliant gem of a post.
***

THIS LAST MEETING WITH THEE

2012-01-08T15:40:00.000-06:00

LAST EXIT TO BABYLON :

{100% of the royalties for this book are going to The Salvation Army.}

Ernest Hemingway said the secret to great writing

was to transform poetry into prose while preserving its essence.

In LAST EXIT TO BABYLON, at the dawn of the End of All Things, there is no hope ... but love.

Blake Adamson wanders lost through the Mists of Oblivion when he hears one of the two strange women he loves, Kirika Amaratsu,

who chose death for herself to spare Blake. She is singing :

“My black hair tangled,
As my own tangled thoughts,
I lie here alone,
Dreaming of one who has gone,
Who stroked my hair til it shone.”

She is dissolving into the River Lethe, her fingers melting into the rippling currents as she continues to sob more than sing,

“If we could meet but once more,
Thy soul with mine.
Softly, I would whisper in thy ear
These words to thee :
I am dying, love, dying for thee.”

Blake startles her into pulling back her hand from the draining river, saving her life, and Kirika husks,

"Soon I shall cease to be.
When I am beyond this world,
And I have forgotten it,
Let me remember only this :
This last meeting with thee."

A bit of poetry to hopefully make better your day, following Mr. Hemingway's advise in my own way.
***
There IS magic out there. But sometimes magic KILLS :

WILLIAM FAULKNER'S GHOST_WHERE WE RUN INTO TROUBLE_

2012-01-08T00:00:00.001-06:00

{"Read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it.

Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master.

Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window and start again wiser."

-William Faulkner.}

William Faulkner, ghost, here :

I am deeply touched by the response my last guest post received.

It has been a long time since anything I have written has been appreciated.

I asked Roland if I could thank you all with another post.

He, being my friend, said : "Of course."

But what to write? What did I know that would assist you?

Know. The word mocked me. Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.

What to give you in return for what your comments gave me?

I decided to give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire of the struggle to be published...

I give it to you not that you may remember time,

but that you might forget it now and then for a moment

and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.

Because no battle is ever won. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics.

The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.

I remember what Samuel McCord told me in the New Orleans of the Roaring Twenties :

"I think how words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless, and how terribly passion goes along the earth, clinging to it,

so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other;

and that sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words.”

Angela Brown commented on how odd "soul" sounded to her mind in this modern, remorseless world. Soul.

It is just a word. Soul, we call it. But I have been used to words for a long time now.

I know that that word is merely like the others:

just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time comes,

you won't need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear. When your prose fills that lack in the reader's chest, "Soul" will take on a life of its own.

But let us talk of what it takes to be an author :

Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing :

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

And to work well you must write with the embers of truth stinging your eyes.

You can have 13 people looking at a black bird and none of them will get it right. No one individual can look at truth.

Even simple truth. Look deep enough, and the simplicity disappears in the murky depths.

Truth blinds you. It is too much for one set of perceptions to take in. To a man with rose-tinted glasses, the whole world is rose.

And so it is with the writer looking at Man.

We call ourselves Homo Sapien, the reasoning animal. But Man is not made of reason.

A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired, but then time is its own misfortune as well.

And so all human behavior is unpredictable. Considering Man's fragility and the ramshackle universe he functions in, how could it be otherwise?

So how does that affect you as a writer?

1) The writer must not set himself up as judge :

He must focus on action, the character's behavior. Maybe your protagonist, like so many people, has no concept of morality,

only an integrity to hold always to what he believes to be facts and truths of the human condition.

2) The character does what his nature dictates.

He acts not as the writer would, not as a man should do, but what he will do -- maybe what he can't help but do. Which leads me to my greatest fear :

3) I fear that Man is losing his individualism, his sense of self, in doing what the herd does in order to stay safe.

Which is why I do not belong to anything besides the Human Race, and I try to be a first rate member of that.

4) You are first rate as a human being and a writer if :

you do the best you can with what talents you have to make something positive that wasn't there yesterday.

How do you do that you ask :

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. And he makes his home of the stones of his efforts.

How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home until I realized that home to a writer is where his mind, his heart is.

5) Most men are a little better than their circumstances give them a chance to be. Strive to thrive where you are. "How?" you ask again. And I will tell you :

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything good.

You have to have courage. Courage is not so hard to have in writing if you remember that :

All of us have failed to match our dream of perfection.

6) I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. If I could write all my work again, I'm convinced I could do it better.

This is the healthiest condition for an artist. That's why he keeps working, trying again: he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off.

Of course he won't. Which leads us to the next point.

7) The phenomenon of writing is its hermaphroditism:

the principles of victory and of defeat inhabit the same body

and the necessary opponent, the blank page, is merely the bed he self-exhausts on.

8) You can learn writing, but you cannot teach it. A paradox but true despite that.

And what have I learned from my novels?

I learned how to approach language, words:

not with seriousness so much as an essayist does,

but with a kind of alert respect, as you approach dynamite;

even with joy, as you approach women: perhaps with the same secretly unscrupulous intentions.

Are you a writer? Really? Then, what are you doing about it? Go, write. And remember :

Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.

And that's why a dream is not a very safe thing to be near...

I know; I had one once.

It's like a loaded pistol with a hair trigger: if it stays alive long enough,

somebody is going to be hurt. But if it's a good dream, it's worth it.
***
A little humor icing on this literary cake :

ANOTHER WINNER! MICHAEL DI GESU.

2012-01-07T00:00:00.002-06:00

"As you get older it is harder to have heroes,

but it is sort of necessary."
- Ernest Hemingway.

I quote Hemingway because Michael Di Gesu is one of my heroes. He toured the world as a model, gaining wisdom and perspective.

When the winds of fortune blew against his career, he defiantly re-set his sail, using the ill wind and his knowledge picked up along the years to become an interior designer.

When the tides of that venture slowed, he ventured forth into new waters : that of becoming a published writer. His never-ceasing good humor, determination, and talent will see him succeed in this I am sure.

Michael lives another Hemingway quote :

"But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are stronger at the broken places."

Michael is such a stronger person.

So that was why I was so happy when, after THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH sold the necessary copies, I drew Michael's name to win the AUTOGRAPHED MICHAEL WHELAN LITHOGRAPH of SUNRUNNER.

He gained 20 entries when he posted a review of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH on AMAZON, SMASHSWORDS, GOODREADS, and finally on his own blog, IN TIME :

http://writing-art-and-design.blogspot.com/

Check his blog out why don't you? And if you're not already, become a Follower, too.

Now, when I sell only 10 more copies of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH, I will draw from the names of the reviewers of it on Amazon for AN AUTOGRAPHED ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. IRON MAN POSTER. How cool is that?

If you are a current reviewer of LEGEND, now is the time to give it away as a gift (100% of the profits this January go to The Salvation Army). If you haven't reviewed it ...

Now is the time to do it before the 10 copies are bought!

When only SIX more reviews are posted on Amazon,

I will draw from the 15 names for AN AUTOGRAPHED CHARLES SCHULTZ 1967 LIFE MAGAZINE. {Or if you wish, A CLINT EASTWOOD AUTOGRAPH.}

This could be an early Christmas for you.
***
If you want to see who could play Samuel McCord and his mystic love, Meilori, watch this trailer :

WILLIAM FAULKNER_WHAT MAKES YOUR PROSE WORTH READING

2012-01-06T00:00:00.001-06:00

William Faulkner, ghost, here.

I dropped in to chat with my young friend, Roland.

He is always happy to see me even though I am a ghost.

He was lying on his back, a sock, of all things, over his eyes.

He was being murdered by a migraine he groaned.

He asked if I would write to the young writer of today in his place.

I looked at the keyboard.

To write again. And to write of the art of prose.

I felt renewed.

But how to fill the vacuum of the blank monitor screen?

Vacuum. That was the key.

Despite the deluge from the media and this new technology, the internet,

today's young writer is oddly forced to function in a vacuum of the human race.

The irony of your main character is not that he or she is not tough enough or brave enough or deserving enough to be accepted into humanity.

No, there simply is no human race there.

Just a mass of frustrated urges, fears of terrorism, and nightmares of economic insecurity and rampant crime,

unredeemed by hope or education or self-awareness.

All your characters can do is buzz inside the upside-down tumbler of conventions and customs that have replaced humanity.

People all around us are being de-souled like stallions being gelded.

As a writer, your basest crime is to ignore the human soul.

I stroll unseen down the aisles of the bookstores of today's cities.

It seems to me that the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself ...

which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

In your imagination have no room for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart,

the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -

love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.

Until he does so, the writer labors under a curse.

He writes not of love but of lust,

of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion.

His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars.

He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

He writes of the end of all that makes Man more than an animal.

I decline to accept the end of man. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.

He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice,

but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things.

It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart,

by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.

The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man,

it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

You writers out there reading this, you have a sacred duty.

Entertain, yes.

But touch the heart, the soul. Mankind needs you to do this. And deep down, you know you need to do this, too.
***

INSECURE WRITER SUPPORT PART II _ GET DROVES OF FOLLOWERS_RIDE THE AURORA BOREALIS!

2012-01-05T00:00:00.009-06:00

A FELLOW BLOGGER FRIEND,

A MOTHER,

AND A WONDERFUL SPIRIT, CANDACE GANGER NEEDS HELP.

LET'S BE HEROES.

YOU WILL STAND TALLER WHEN YOU THINK BACK THAT WHEN THE CALL FOR HEROES WENT OUT, YOU WERE THERE.

HELP WITH WHAT YOU CAN. A PAYPAL BUTTON IS ON HER SITE :

http://themisadventuresincandyland.blogspot.com/2012/01/lower-than-rappers-pants.html

{"Even if you're on the right track,

you'll still get run over if you just sit there."
- Will Rogers.}

Ghost of Will Rogers here.

So there I was perched atop a bucking aurora borealis,

trying to loop my lariet over a shooting star, when the ghost of Samuel Clemens ambled by.

"Need a favor, Will."

"I'm kinda in the middle of something, Sam."

"It's about Roland."

"Why didn't you say so in the first place? He needs help?"

"More than we can give. But his friends could use some, Will."

"How so?"

"They seem all fired up about getting droves of followers."

"Well, Sam, they could rob a bank. It worked for Dillinger."

"Yeah, that worked out real well for him, didn't it? No, you dumb Okie. Followers on that bog thing-a-ma-gadget."

I slipped off the bucking aurora borealis and nudged back my Stetson.

"Blog, Sam. On the internet. I read the papers. Wrote 4,000 daily columns in my time."

"That's what I'm talking about, Will! You know how to write.
You know how to perform. Why Zigfield trusted you with his fillies on stage."

"Old Zig didn't trust himself, much less anyone else.
But I get your drift, Sam. I'll write a column on how to snag followers."
***
And so here I am. Don't let anyone fool you. There are no rules for success. But that won't stop me from giving them to you :

1.) An onion can make people cry but there's never been a vegetable that can make people laugh.

Folks just naturally have more grief in their lives than they let on. They need an outlet.

You be that outlet. Make 'em laugh. You do that, and you'll have 'em coming back for more.

Or do you want to be a vegetable?

2.) Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.

How do you do that, you say. Easy. Blow theirs.

You find a gal or a fella who writes what you like, quote 'em on your blog. Add them to your blog list.

Be neighborly. You're leaving a comment on someone else's blog and spot a comment from them, say "Hi" to them in yours.

Agree with them (especially if you do) in your comment. Make a party line of it. Friendliness is catching.

3.) Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

You have to experiment to get anything outstanding done. Look at me and Wiley Post. We flew over darn near the whole world.

My daily news columns put momentum in the science of aircraft design and public support. And yes, we died in a crash.

But both of us died with a friend. Not a bad way to go.

4.) Know your audience and give 'em what they want by speaking to their hurts.

I went and read some of the blogs of Roland's friends. You folks are dreamers. We need dreamers today. Too many folks nay-say on the dreams of others.

You support those dreams in your blogs. Talk about what fears you have and how you fight them. It'll make the other gal in the cyber-trenches not feel quite so alone.

How can you know your audience?

You know you, don't you? You know what you'd like to know about publishing. Research it. And then post what you found out -- with the links you went to.

Synposis. Sounds like one of those ancient Greek philosophers. And most of you would rather kiss an ancient Greek than write a synopsis.

Well, research that subject. You find anything that makes the thing less painful, you publish it. And I guarantee you that folks will flock to your blog.

Remember fellas, there are more women bloggers out there than men. Be polite when talking about ladies in general.

Speaking of which, I'm taking my Stetson off to Laila Knight. Forgive those hairy-legged gents, Ernest and Sam. They're just men. They don't know no better.

5.) Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back in.

They call it the World Wide Web for a reason, folks. Think before you write. No "how many ______ does it take to change a tire?" Thing is, there are a lot of ______ out there no matter what _______ you're talking about.

An agent rejected you? Smarted some didn't it? I'd hold back on venting rage and spite on your blog. You jab in a knife, and you may pull it out, but the wound remains.

And remember a little thing called Google Alert. You rail about an agent, an editor, a fellow blogger --- that little gizmo will alert them. And there're a lot more of them than you.

So let's be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

*** So that's a little of what I know. I'm only a wandering cowpoke ghost. I mean, I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the places they now do.

And I've tried to be diplomatic. But I'm an Okie : to me being diplomatic is saying "Nice Doggie" until I can find a big enough rock.

One last thing : have, what is that phrase they use nowadays? Oh, yes, it comes to me now.

Have the back of each gal and fella you meet in your blog travels. Who knows? They may do the same for you.
***

INSECURE WRITER SUPPORT_WE GUESS WITH OUR FEARS

2012-01-04T00:00:00.004-06:00

"Dear Author :

Thank you for thinking of us. Unfortunately, this is not quite right for us. Better luck with it elsewhere.

Your day will come. You can watch it from heaven.

Your lucky numbers are : 9 - 12 - 21- 35 - 42 -54."

Form rejections.

You hate them. I hate them. We all get them.

Basically, it's silence from the agent's end.

And when you receive only silence from someone important, you're left to guess why. And we guess with our fears.

And I've usually noticed from other areas of my life, what I fear usually isn't even in the same galaxy with the truth of the situation.

I would wager that is true with the silence of form rejections. But a wager is just a fancy word for a guess. And we've come full circle.

We've heard the truth before : it isn't personal. And it truly isn't.

You're not paying the agent a cent. She is under no obligation to teach you how to write a letter or a novel. We're job applicants. Period.

Play turnabout.

What would you want in a query if you had to read hundreds a week?

No brainer. Short ones. All right, then. We have our first requirement : make that sucker short.

Short means no fluff. No Hamlet introduction. Just straight to the point.

What would you want next if hundreds of queries surged in a rush of cyber-diarrhea into your inbox?

Something different. Something catchy. Written by someone who didn't have a chip on her/his shoulder. And the tone?

Not misleading. Not written in a funny vein if the novel is a tragedy.

O.K. Write the query short, with a hook up front, and in the tone of the novel you're submitting. We've getting a better idea now on how to write our next query.

What else would you want in those thousands of emails a month? Short paragraphs. Well-written ones without errors that grate like nails on the blackboard.

Ones easy to reject in a second :

Ones that are illiterate. Ones that query for genres you don't handle. Ones that query for carbon copies of hit sellers. Ones that whine.

All right. Now, we have an idea of what NOT to do.

What do we do next?

Look at your query. Does it do your novel justice? Would it make a total stranger want to read your novel with

"Wow, that sounds neat! I gotta read this."

Is there building tension in your summation?

Are the stakes primal : threat to survival, sex, or family?

Is your hero likeable, clever, funny? He/she better be.

Even a detailed letter of why your query was rejected would still leave you wondering, without a true direction to follow.

One agent's take is not gospel. Trust your instincts.

You are a reader. Try reading your query as an agent would. Try reading your novel as a stranger would. Then, as my friend, Heather, suggests :

read it aloud. You'll hear flaws you never would find otherwise.

And now a word from Neil Gaiman {courtesy of http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/1065561 }

"By now you're probably ready to give up.

You're past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You're not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end. You're in the middle, a little past the half-way point.

The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing. You don't know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you're pretty sure that even if you finish it it won't have been worth the time or energy.

Welcome to the club.

That's how novels get written.

You write. That's the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Writing is a continual search for the word that will fit in the text, in your mind, on the page. Plot and character and metaphor and style, all these become secondary to the words.

The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.

The last novel I wrote (it was ANANSI BOYS, in case you were wondering) when I got three-quarters of the way through I called my agent.

I told her how stupid I felt writing something no-one would ever want to read, how thin the characters were, how pointless the plot. I strongly suggested that I was ready to abandon this book and write something else instead, or perhaps I could abandon the book and take up a new life as a landscape gardener, bank-robber, short-order cook or marine biologist.

And instead of sympathising or agreeing with me, or blasting me forward with a wave of enthusiasm---or even arguing with me---she simply said, suspiciously cheerfully, "Oh, you're at that part of the book, are you?"

I was shocked. "You mean I've done this before?"

"You don't remember?"

"Not really."

"Oh yes," she said. "You do this every time you write a novel. But so do all my other clients."

I didn't even get to feel unique in my despair.

So I put down the phone and drove down to the coffee house in which I was writing the book, filled my pen and carried on writing.

One word after another.

That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it's the only way to do it.

So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.

Pretty soon you'll be on the downward slide, and it's not impossible that soon you'll be at the end. Good luck..."

- Neil Gaiman

Here is Stephen King on writing :

HOW TO HAVE A 1000 FOLLOWERS!

2012-01-02T16:27:00.007-06:00

Don't ask me.

I don't even know why fools fall in love!

But Alex Cavanaugh has written a great post on how to do it :

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2012/01/you-cant-reach-1000-followers-by-being.html

He has pointed out 4 bloggers who are very close :

Nicole :
http://nicolezoltack.blogspot.com/

Matthew :
http://theqqqe.blogspot.com/

Jesse :
http://jesseacohen.blogspot.com/

The fourth? Shy, bashful me.

Visit the three above and tell them Roland & Alex sent you. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

WELCOME to the INDIE BOOK FAIR!!

2012-01-02T00:00:00.002-06:00

An early next Christmas gift to my fellow indie authors!

Did you find a new
Kindle, Nook, or iPad under the Christmas tree? Browse the Indie Book Fair and find a new ebook to break in that reader!

These great new books
were released Nov 2011-Feb 2012 by Indie authors, priced right so that taking a

chance on a new author doesn’t have to break your wallet. (Check out the previous Internet Book Fair for other great Indie finds.)

[Indie = self-published
or small-publisher, for the purposes of this post, because no matter how we’re published, we’re all in this together, trying to get the word out about our books]

Note: Links are given
for Amazon, but most authors publish across all e-book formats. Click
on the author’s name for additional purchasing options, including
paper copies.

For Your Browsing Pleasure

Contemporary (Adult)

Build a Man by Talli Roland (Chick Lit)

Slave

to the rich, rude and deluded, cosmetic surgery receptionist Serenity Holland

longs for the day she's a high-flying tabloid reporter. Unfortunately, every

pitch she sends out disappears like her clients' liposuctioned fat, never to be

seen again. Then she meets Jeremy Ritchie -- the hang-dog man determined to be

Britain's Most Eligible Bachelor by making himself over from head to toe and

everything in between -- giving Serenity a story no editor could

resist. With London's biggest tabloid on board and her very own column

tracking Jeremy's progress from dud to dude, Serenity is determined to be a

success, even going undercover to gain intimate access to Jeremy's life. But

when Jeremy's surgery goes drastically wrong and Serenity is ordered to cover

all the car-crash goriness, she must decide how far she really will go for her

dream job. $0.99

on Amazon

The

Golden Sky by Elisa

Hirsch (Memoir)

The night I met Cade I never would’ve thought that two years later, after we

were homeless street musicians in Hawaii, we would have a little girl and

another baby on the way. Our son was born with the type of birth

defects that make televangelists cringe. The “death home” gave him a really

nice funeral, the kind I’d never wished to attend. We lost it after that,

totally cemented in our grief. Cade got into drugs, joined a rock

and roll band, and I kicked him out of the house. That was how I met: Earl

(an old man and unlikely best friend), the “big sag” (a middle aged woman

who still flashed folks), Todda (the stripper next door), and Chris

(a cowboy who fell in love with me). It wasn’t until I killed a rogue

skunk, and my daughter nearly choked on a fry, that I gave my husband

another chance. But could our marriage recover from the death of our

son? $2.99 onAmazon

Someone

Else’s Fairytale by E.M. Tippetts (Contemporary Romance)

Jason Vanderholt is the hottest actor under thirty with legions of screaming fans.

Chloe Winters is a college student who hasn't gotten around to watching most of

his movies. When they meet by chance, he is smitten, but it just

isn't her fairytale. In fact, it could be her worst nightmare as her past,

attracted by the bright lights of the media, comes back to haunt her. $0.99 on Amazon

Historical Romance

(Adult)

The Duke’s Divorce by Anne Gallagher Available late January 2012

A simple trip to the Scottish Highlands finds the Duke of Cantin with a bride he

does not want. With her impeccable beauty and fiery disposition, Fiona

takes Society by storm. As their prearranged divorce proceedings draw

near, can Fiona change his mind? Check author's website.

Literary Fiction

String Bridge by Jessica Bell

Greek cuisine, smog and

domestic drudgery was not the life Australian musician, Melody, was expecting

when she married a Greek music promoter and settled in Athens, Greece. Keen to

play in her new shoes, though, Melody trades her guitar for a 'proper' career

and her music for motherhood. That is, until she can bear it no longer and

plots a return to the stage—and the person she used to be. However, the

obstacles she faces along the way are nothing compared to the tragedy that

awaits ... $6.99

on Amazon ALSO: Music Sample!

Mystery

Sherwood Ltd. by Anne R. Allen

Sherwood.. $2.99

on Amazon

Short Stories and

Anthologies

The Initiate (Cloud

Prophet Trilogy) by Megg Jensen (YA Fantasy)

Over

a thousand years ago, the gods left Eloh's people and took their magic with

them. To win back their favor, her people sacrifice ten female initiates every

ten years. No has ever survived. There has never been a Chosen One. Forced into

becoming an initiate, Eloh will try to find a way to beat the odds, stay with

her boyfriend, and survive the fires that threaten to consume her. But will her

lack of faith in the gods and her disbelief in their magic doom her to a

painful death? $0.99 on Amazon

Eight by Karly Kirkpatrick (YA Paranormal Short Story Collection)

Prepare

to be thrilled and chilled by Kirkpatrick's eight short tales in EIGHT. These

eight stories, while short, pack a big punch. There are demon spirits, zombies,

and even some human baddies. Each story comes complete with author's

commentary. It also includes the previously unreleased short Grenades. $0.99

on Amazon

{CoverComingSoon} In His Eyes by The Indelibles (YA Anthology) - Available February 14th

Just in time for Valentines Day, The Indelibles bring you a one-of-a-kind young

adult anthology! Twenty original short stories, all from the point of view of

our favorite male characters - some are old flames from our novels and some

were dreamed up especially for this anthology. Let these imminently crushable,

swoon-worthy guys show you what romance looks like – in his eyes. Add to Goodreads

TBR

The contributors to IN HIS EYES include

award winners, frequent “Top 100” placers, and hot 2011 debut authors: S.R. Wells, C.K.

Bryant, Elle Strauss, Susan Kaye Quinn, Jessie Harrell, Magan Vernon, Lisa

Nowak, Heather McCorkle, RaShelle Workman, Ali Cross, Karen Amanda Hooper, Cory

Putman Oakes, Laura Pauling, Stacey Wallace Benefiel, Sarra Cannon, Katie Klein,

Cheri Lasota

Transcendent: Tales of

the Paranormal by

Lani Woodland, Melonie Piper, Rita Webb, Wendy Swore, Melanie Marks, Heather McCubbin and Evan Joseph (YA Anthology)

Discover the secrets of a siren, fly with a hawk girl over the mountains of Montana, and flee supernatural party-crashers as the

décor comes to life in this magical journey through paranormal stories. Along

the way, watch for ghosts in a haunted house, or ride through the moonlight

with a stranger. Save a comatose boy who has lost his soul, and don’t forget to

bring your garlic and wolfsbane—you never know when the shadows will snag you. Transcendent

includes eight stories of magic, love, death, and choice by some of the newestnames in young adult fiction. $0.99

on Amazon

Young Adult

Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn (Paranormal/Science Fiction)

When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep. Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone

who can’t read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can’t be

trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best

friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf’s mind and nearly

kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and

an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she’s dragged

deep into a hidden world of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone

she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her. $2.99 on Amazon

Bound by C.K. Bryant (Paranormal Romance)

When a photo shoot ends in tragedy, Kira discovers her best friend, Lydia,has been keeping a secret.

Knowing the truth, and accepting it, will change Kira’s life forever and thrust

her into a world of ancient curses, magical objects, and savage enemies. What

happens next will challenge everything Kira knows about her world, herself and

the shape-shifting warrior she’s falling in love with. No longer the timid

mouse her mother accused her of being, but a woman who finds the mental and

physical strength to endure and survive. $3.99 on Amazon

Become by Ali Cross (YA Urban Fantasy)

Sixteen-year old Desolation Black wants nothing more than to stay in Hell where it’s cold and

lonely and totally predictable. Instead, she’s sent back to Earth where she

Becomes the evil she despises and the good she always feared. When Desi is

forced to embrace her inner demon, she assumes her Choice has been made—that

she has no hope of being anything other than what her father, Lucifer, has

created her to be. What she doesn’t count on, is a reason to want to

change—something she’s never had before—a friend. $3.99

on Amazon

Exiled by RaShelle Workman (YA SF Romance)

Worlds

divided them. Chance brought them together. Only love will save them.

An alien princess exiled to Earth. An arrogant boy. One week to get back to her

planet or she'll die. And, her only chance for survival? She must help the boy

find his soul mate.

Piece of cake! $0.99

on Kindle

The Secret of Spruce

Knoll by Heather McCorkle (Urban Fantasy)

Following the tragic death of her parents, Eren Donovan moves to Spruce Knoll

to live with an aunt she’s never met. Little does Eren know the entire

town of Spruce Knoll is filled with “channelers”—a magical group of

people who immigrated to the small Colorado town when they

were driven out of their own lands. Channelers are tied to the fate

of the world. As the world slowly dies, so do they—and they alone

have the power to stop the destruction of Earth. Soon, Eren learns

she not only lives among them, but she is one. When she meets local boy Aiden,

his charm convinces her that being a channeler may not be all bad though. $4.99 on

Amazon

Destined by Jessie Harrell (Retelling)

When Psyche receives a prophecy gone horribly wrong, she learns that even the most

beautiful girl in Greece can have a hideous future. Her fate? Fall in love with

the one creature even the gods fear. As she feels herself slipping closer into

the arms of the prophecy, Psyche must choose between the terrifyingly tender

touch she feels almost powerless to resist and the one constant she's come to

expect out of life: you cannot escape what is destined. $0.99 on Amazon

Darkspell by Elizabeth Mueller (Paranormal Romance)

Winter Sky believes she

is everything ordinary . . . until she is kissed by Alex Stormhold. As

seer of Stormhold Coven, Alex is sworn to be Winter’s protector against the

darkness that hunts her. Violently thrust into a magickal realm she

always thought impossible, she stumbles upon a disturbing secret of her own.

Will love prove thicker than magick?
$3.99 on Amazon

Untraceable by S. R. Johannes (Thriller)

Grace has lived in the

Smokies all her life, patrolling with her forest ranger father who taught her

about wildlife, tracking, and wilderness survival. When her dad goes missing on a routine

patrol, Grace refuses to believe he’s dead and fights the town authorities,

tribal officials, and nature to find him. One day, while out tracking clues,

Grace is rescued from danger by Mo, a hot guy with an intoxicating accent and a

secret. As her feelings between him and her ex-boyfriend get muddled, Grace

travels deep into the wilderness to escape and find her father. Along the way, Grace learns terrible secrets that sever relationships and

lives. Soon she’s enmeshed in a web of conspiracy, deception, and murder. And

it’s going to take a lot more than a compass and a motorcycle (named Lucifer)

for this kick-butting heroine to save everything she loves. $2.99

on Amazon

Rival Demons (Book 5 of

the Peachville High Demons Series) by Sarra Cannon (Paranormal Romance) Available January 20th

After narrowly escaping death at

the hands of the Order of Shadows, Harper finds herself thrust into the strange

and beautiful world of the shadow demons. But crossing through the portal

doesn't mean she is safe. The Order of Shadows is determined to bring her home

and transfer the Prima line to the Harris family. They send their most vicious

hunters after Harper. Hunters who will not stop until they have found their

prey. Determined to keep her safe, Jackson takes her deep into an underground

world filled with dangers of its own. Here, Harper will begin a journey that

will teach her more about herself and her own path than she ever imagined

possible. Add

to Goodreads TBR

The Legend of Victor Standish: Under a Voodoo Moon by Roland D. Yeomans (Urban Fantasy/Romance)

Can love kill? Yes

... if you love a ghoul who hungers for your flesh only slightly less than she

does your heart. Yet to the lonely street orphan Victor Standish, who has

risked his life for a meal, to find love (even for one magical French Quarter

night) is worth dying in the morning. $2.99 on Amazon All profits go to the Salvation Army.

Getting Sideways (Book 2 in the Full Throttle Series) by Lisa Nowak (Contemporary)

Getting shipped off to live with his

uncle Race was the best thing that ever happened to fifteen-year-old Cody. Then

a wreck at the speedway nearly ruined everything. Cody’s making every effort to

get his life back on track—writing for the school paper, searching for the

perfect girlfriend, and counting the days until he gets his drivers’

license—but there’s no escaping the nightmares that haunt him. A

chance to build his own car seems like the perfect distraction. Until Cody

realizes he’ll have to live up to Race’s legendary status. But that’s the least

of his worries, considering he doesn’t have his dad’s permission. All he has to

do is the impossible: keep Race from discovering his lie until he can convince his dad that racing’s safe. Yeah, sure. That’ll

be easy. $3.99

on Amazon

Tangled Tides by Karen Hooper (Sea Monster Memoirs)

Yara Jones doesn’t believe in sea monsters—until she becomes one. When a hurricane

hits her island home and she wakes up with fins, Yara finds herself tangled up

in an underwater world of mysterious merfolk and secretive selkies. Both sides

believe Yara can save them by fulfilling a broken promise and opening the

sealed gateway to their realm, but they are battling over how it should be

done. The selkies want to take her life. The merfolk want something far more

precious. Treygan, the stormy-eyed merman who turned Yara mer, will stop at

nothing and sacrifice everything to protect his people—until he falls for Yara.

The tides turn as Yara fights to save herself, hundreds of sea creatures, and

the merman who has her heart. She could lose her soul in the process—or she

might open the gateway to a love that’s deeper than the oceans. $4.99

on Amazon

Here by Denise Grover Swank (SF Romance)

Sixteen year old Julia Phillips buries herself in guilt after killing her best friend

Monica in a car accident. Julia awoke in the hospital with a broken leg, a new

talent for drawing and false memories of the accident, in which she dies and

Monica lives. The doctors attribute this to her head injury, but no one can

explain how a bracelet engraved with her name ended up at the scene of the

accident. A bracelet no one has ever seen before. Classmate Evan Whittaker paid

Julia no attention before the accident, let alone after. Now suddenly he’s

volunteering to tutor her and offering to drive her home. She can't ignore that

his new obsession started after his two-day disappearance last week and that he

wears a pendant she’s been drawing for months. When the police show up one

night looking for Evan, he begs Julia to run with him, convincing her that

Monica is still alive. Julia agrees to go, never guessing where he’s really

from. $2.99 on Amazon

The Veil by Cory

Putman Oakes (Paranormal Romance)

Seventeen-year-old Addison Russell is in for a shock when she discovers that she can see the

invisible world of the Annorasi. Suddenly, nothing is as it appears to

be—the house she lives in, the woman who raised her, even the most beautiful

boy in town all turn out to be more than what they seem. And when this

strange new world forces Addy to answer for a crime that was committed long

ago, by parents she has never known, she has no choice but to trust Luc, the

mysterious Annorasi who has been sent to protect her. Or so he says . . .

$7.99

on Amazon

Embrace by Cherie Colyer (Paranormal Romance)

Madison

is familiar enough with change, and she hates everything about it. Change took

her long-term boyfriend away from her. It caused one of her friends to suddenly

hate her. It’s responsible for the death of a local along with a host of other

mysterious happenings. But when Madison meets a hot new guy, she thinks her

luck is about to improve. Madison is instantly drawn to the handsome and

intriguing Isaac Addington. She quickly realizes he’s a guy harboring a secret,

but she’s willing to risk the unknown to be with him. Nothing can prepare her for what

she is about to discover. $6.99

on Amazon

Onyx Talisman by Brenda Pandos (Paranormal Romance)

Unrest stirs deep in Scotts Valley. Filled with uncertainty, Julia anxiously awaits Nicholas’ return. Phil, holds the pieces of

Julia’s fragile psyche together, secretly hoping Nicholas stays away forever.

But Alora secretly conspires to reclaim her talisman and strip Julia of

everything she holds dear. Little

do they know, a war is coming and more than one vampire would like to see the

Prince of Vampires overthrown. Can Julia bargain with fate? Find out how it all

ends in this explosive grand finale of The Talisman Trilogy. $3.99 on Amazon

How

to Date an Alien by Magan Vernon (Science Fiction)

High school senior Alex Bianchi's estranged father gets her an internship at Circe

Operations Center to pad her college applications. But Circe isn't your typical

military base. It's an alien-run operation center and not all of the aliens are

friendly, especially the one that tries to kill Alex on her first day. When

Ace, a dark-eyed Caltian, enters and saves the day, she can't help but be drawn

to him. Can these star-crossed lovers survive when they're on the brink of

intergalactic war? $2.99

on Amazon

Fireseed

One by Catherine Stine (Science Fiction/Thriller)

Fireseed One is a

journey into a tricked-out near-future earth where 18 year-old Varik has

inherited a vast ocean farm, following the suspicious drowning of his Marine

biologist father. When Marisa, a beautiful and devious terrorist, destroys the

world's food source, Varik is forced to travel to a lethal hotzone, teeming

with dangerous nomads and a strange cult to search for a magical hybrid plant

that may not even exist. The catch? He must take Marisa along, the only person

who seems to know way, way too much key information. $2.99 on Amazon

The Missing by M.A. Leslie (Paranormal)

Eight-year-old, Ethan Doyle is just a normal kid whose biggest problem in life was to fight for the attention of his busy parents from his older twin siblings. But, after his aunt and uncle tragically die, his family takes in his teenage cousin, Kelsey, and moves to a spooky old, manor house in a new town. At first, everything seems fine, but when he begins to see and speak to a spirit named Lucas, his biggest problem becomes, just staying alive. Lucas was ten years old when the spirits of the house came to him and asked him for help setting their spirits free. Unfortunately, he never made the deadline and as a result the spirits took him and made him a part of the house as well. As he soon finds out, the only way he can save his own soul is to save the souls of the missing boys in the house. With his own deadline in place, Ethan enlists the help of his cousin Kelsey to solve the twenty-year-old mystery of THE MISSING. $0.99 on Amazon

Princess Kandake by Stephanie Jefferson (Fantasy) Available February 1, 2012

In Nubia a woman can be whatever she chooses. At 14,

Kandake knows exactly what she chooses...Prime Warrior of Nubia. But her

grandmother has said that she will follow her father on the throne. Refusing to

abandon her warrior dreams she continues to train. When her brother is kidnapped,

Kandake learns she must be both queen and warrior to win his release! See Author's Website

Middle Grade

Blink of a Dragon by Eisley Jacobs (Fantasy)

Discovering she’s connected to dragons is one

thing, but when another dragon is caught hanging out in the fifth grade, Meia thinks

things couldn’t get any worse. Is she ever wrong! Trouble is brewing in the

cosmos and Deglan believes this new dragon holds the answers, but his hopes are

crushed when the leader of the exiled dark dragons ambushes them. The fate of

the dragons and possibly the whole world falls to Deglan and Meia as they

search for the only creature powerful enough to send the dark dragons back into the

abyss. What they encounter along the way makes the adventure worth fighting

for. $6.99

Paperback preorder

DUH!_THAT QUIET VOICE THAT ASKS YOU, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

Humans aren't the only ones who suffer from sagging middles.

Novels do, too.

It's accompanied by that leaden feeling that weighs you down with the mocking question :

"What were you thinking of when you thought you could write a book?"

When you hear that voice, I want you to answer, "DUH!"

D ..... DISASTERS

U ..... UNDERLYING

H ..... HEROES

DISASTERS :

I.) Disaster. When your novel's middle sags, you certainly know that word. It's what you feel you are writing!

II.) Escalating Disasters ...

A.) are what make up the backbone of the best novels.

B.) without them, you're just writing a news snippet for CNN.

C.) Each disaster must lead logically from the last one to make a coherent whole.

D.) But to interest an agent, then the publisher, and finally the reader ...
you must have a destination in mind for your hero from the very beginning.

III.) If your novel's middle is sagging then ...

A.) Like with humans, the discipline of exercise is missing.

B.) The disciplined exercise of steadily working towards a pre-conceived ending, step by logical step.

C.) Without that compass to guide you, your novel will meander all over the place, subject to the whims of your imagination.

UNDERLYING :

I.) The trouble with a novel that its very structure invites sagging in the middle.

II.) Your novel's middle will more than likely take up fully half of your pages.

A.) After that many pages, things start to look alike.

B.) The fix : underlying that middle with a tremendous disaster, rocking your hero and his world to its foundations.

C.) Shaking things up like that will awaken your readers from the sameness doze they may have fallen into :

Think Obi wan Kenobi sacrificing himself so that Luke may escape. To all appearances, Darth Vader looks unbeatable.

D.) This enormous disaster shores up your novel's middle, firming it up and preventing sagging.

HEROES :

I.) A memorable character that leaps off the page and into your reader's imagination is the keystone to the success of your novel.

A.) Think Hannibal Lector.

What? Hannibal a hero? Of sorts. He chose his victims quite carefully. Don't agree? Think Dexter. Same principle. We pull for Dexter, for he has chosen an acceptable outlet for his murderous impulses.

B.) UNDERLYING comes into play again with your hero :

Your hero was not born yesterday. He/she has a past. It will determine his or her actions. You had better know your hero's backstory.

C.) In fact, your hero's backstory may very well provide the world-shaking disasters that braces your novel's middle.

D.) You see how DISASTER - UNDERLYING - HEROES all interweave with one another? It is a support device that wraps around your novel's middle, keeping it firm.

E.) A fully developed hero with a past, flaws, hopes, failures will make him seem real, sucking your reader into identifying with him, rooting for him, and thrilling with him when he succeeds.

F.) Without a backstory, your reader will not understand your hero -- and more than likely, neither will you. And that slippery slope ends with a sagging middle and confused muddle of an ending.

G.) Backstory is an iceberg ;

1.) The part that is important to you as a writer is the 9/10 of it that the reader cannot see.

2.) The part you must tell your reader is the tiny 1/10 above the water line.

3.) Sensory and data overload is one of the hallmarks of a sagging middle.

H.) What determines the backstory you reveal to your reader?

1.) Core truths.

2.) They determine your hero's motivations, acting as a rudder in the flow of events in your novel.

3.) They often conflict.

You know why Miss America wants "World Peace?" She wants to impress those fuddy-duddy judges and win the war of the beauty pageant!
Stated values often clash with the real ones, motivating your hero.

II.) A dynamic hero, like say Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of Tony Stark, shored up those times when he he wasn't in that armor -- those moments could very well have sagged -- but because of his impish, rogue attitude, those moments were some of the best of the film, IRON MAN.

*) I hope you've found something of value in this little post. Happy New Year, Roland!
***

BEFORE THE MONSTER RETURNS

2011-12-31T00:00:00.001-06:00

{FOR CLARIFICATION} :

Abigail Adams is leader of America's revenants {vampires}

because she is a revenant herself,

hence her ability to become mist in the bedroom of her dying husband.

I keep forgetting most of you don't read all my posts. Abigail as vampire can be seen in these two posts :

(1826) Quincy, Mass. -- In John Adams' bedroom the night before his death. {A FAREWELL TO LOVE}

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/09/farewell-to-love.html

(2005) New Orleans, La. In the home of the undead daughter of Lord Byron {DEATH WEARS 3 FACES} :

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/09/death-wears-three-faces.html

Little Lucy Wentworth can be seen in : THE DEVIL'S WIND --
http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/10/devils-windbad-news-blogfest.html

{It is the year 1857 in the port city of Mumbai, India.

"The Devils Wind" is the name the sepoys gave to the mutiny of Moslems against British rule,

a barbaric, uncontrollable fury that swept across the hot plains of India as if blown by the Devil.

To keep his word to a dying British Major, Samuel McCord has fought his way across all of India to save the man's tiny granddaughter,

Lucy Wentworth -- who is cousin to Alice Wentworth by the way.

Just within sight of the ship that could take Lucy to safety, Sam and Lucy are stopped by Abigail Adams herself with her best killers.}

Abigail Adams hadn't improved with age.

Her beauty had crystalized into cold porcelain flesh. Her wisdom had brittled into cleverness. And her hate for me had bittered like over-steeped tea.

Small Lucy Wentworth clung to my left leg, looking fearfully at the revenants who ringed us on the Mumbai dock. I studied them coldly. The ship that offered freedom was only a dozen feet away.

It might as well have been moored in the dust of the moon.

India hadn't been kind to me. But then, she was harsh even to her own children.

Though there wasn't a part of me that wasn't hurting or bleeding, I could still take the revenants. Abigail, being both genius and revenant, was another matter.

Abigail whispered, "I have traveled half the world to have you at my mercy."

Lucy chirped in her proper British accent. "Then, you have traveled a long way just to die."

Abigail flicked cold eyes to Lucy then back to me. "You are weak, wounded, and unarmed."

Lucy laughed with the confidence of innocence. "And still, Captain Sam shall kill you and your bullies."

"Madripoor," I said softly, and Lucy ducked down and hugged her knees as she had in that death-trap.

I slipped into the fighting stance taught me by the Shaolin priests, and Abigail regarded me with cool, appraising eyes.

She spoke low. "Yes, even after fighting your way across all of India, I do believe you would be unstoppable ... in defense of a child."

"I-If Abigail Adams were still alive and here, you'd be sorry," quavered Lucy, her beloved pith helmet dinged and battered.

The revenants around us jerked at Lucy's words and looked to Abigail. Lucy laughed.

"See? Even your killers know the name of Abigail Adams."

And death was on the night winds like the smell of ashes as the woman named murmured, "And where did you hear that name, child?"

Lucy raised her chin in defiance. "All through these many frightful nights Captain Sam would tell me stories of her ... of how she and her husband gave birth to America ... of how strong she was, of how smart she was, of how brave she was ... of how much she sacrificed for love."

Abigail husked, "Sacrificed for love."

"Yes, for love. Oh, I can see how you scare these leeches all around us. No doubt you are strong, brave, and perhaps even smart."

Lucy hugged my leg as if it were my chest. "But you will never be loved."

Abigail's eyes sank deep in her perfect face. "No. I shall never be loved ... again."

Lucy raised her chin in defiance. "Captain Sam said I could do no better than to model myself after Abigail Adams, that if she saw any Thuggee trying to kill me, she would box their ears for them."

Lucy giggled, "I would have quite liked to have seen that."

Lucy pulled out five dirty pages, folded neat in her torn jacket pocket. "I've copied some things Abigail said to memorize and live by."

The little girl closed her eyes and repeated by rote, "To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words."

Lucy glared at Abigail. "But to a monster like you I would wager those words mean nothing."

Abigail spoke thickly. "You would lose that wager, Lucy Wentworth."

She looked at me with eyes suddenly wet. "I was mist in the darkness, Samuel, when you promised my husband you would save me if you could."

Lucy frowned, "Your husband?"

Abigail rasped, "Yes, my beloved friend and husband ... President John Adams."

Lucy looked up stunned at me. "Captain Sam? Th-This is Abigail Adams?"

I nodded, "This is what has become of a hero who made choices she thought were right ... and was mistakened."

Lucy gave a look of horror at Abigail. "B-But you are a monster."

Abigail shook her head. "Not at the moment, child. Go to the ship, Lucy. Go now. Quicky. Before the monster returns."

The circle of revenants reluctantly opened for us.

I took Lucy up in my arms and limped fast to the ship and safety. Lucy looked wistfully and sad over my shoulder at the shrinking figure of Abigail Adams in the deepening mists.

Lucy gave a forlorn, childish wave to the tall, tormented leader of America's revenants. For a short moment my enemy was gone.

And the beloved Abigail of John Adams returned the same wave.

I know it was just a trick of my mind. But for a moment I thought I felt a hand squeeze my shoulder.

And I heard President John Adams whisper in my ear, "Thank you."
***

A FAREWELL TO LOVE_Friday's Romantic Challenge

2011-12-29T13:00:00.000-06:00

It is July 3rd in the year of our Lord, 1826.

And I am dying.

The question is "Do I wish to be re-born?"

At my bedroom door, the young man, wide-brimmed hat in gloved hands, has the answer.

But I fear I already know it.

The young man is a conundrum.

He looks at me with the eyes of a sad poet. Yet, he is a walking arsenal : two shoulder-harnesses of pistols, another pistol on his hip, still another in a strange stomach rigging.

"Come in, Sergeant McCord," I speak in a once strong voice now grown frail.

"An honor, President Adams."

"Former President, young man."

He flashes a smile much like a wolf's. "Like with Texas Rangers, sir, once a president, always a president."

He sits down in the plush leather chair close to my bedside, and I frown. "Odd. Your face is perhaps 25. Yet your hair is moon-white."

His lean face goes somber. "There was a time when my hair was darker, my heart lighter."

My voice thickens. "As with myself, McCord. As with myself."

I pat his arm and frown again at how my hand shakes. "I met your father at my Alma Mater. He was a great patriot."

McCord nods sadly. "Father said history bleeds on every page because of patriots. But he liked teaching at Harvard, and he liked you."

"And my wife?"

The light dies in his eyes. "He thought of her as a wise and good friend ... once."

"Before she became a ...."

I find it difficult to say the word, "... revenant."

"Yes, sir."

"I need to ask a favor of you, young man."

His lips shape an uneasy smile. "I'm not going to kill Mr. Jefferson for you, sir, if that's the question."

I slap his arm at his rough jest. "Time will soon have her way with us both I'm afraid."

I tap his buckskin-covered knee. "No. I need to ask you ... w-what do you think of revenants."

McCord sucks in his upper lip, then says low, "Mighty broad question, sir. Might as well ask me what I think of humanity."

"Then, you believe revenants are no longer human?"

He rubs his face with a hand strangely gloved in this heat. "With each passing year, they lose more and more of their humanity, sir, until they forget what it means to be human."

He leans forward. "Surely, sir, you have noticed that in your ... wife."

I clutch his arm feebly. "Yes. Yes, I have."

I close my eyes. "And now, she demands I allow her to ... to ...."

I find I cannot put it into words, and McCord just pats my hand. "You would gain immortal youth at the cost of your humanity, sir."

I look at this strange man with the saddest eyes I have ever seen in a youth. "I know you are aware she rules a confederacy of shadow states all across this country."

I manage to make my lips speak the words. "Abigail says that together, we could do much good for this country."

His face twitches, then he speaks softly. "On a cattle ranch, the ranchers live mighty fine. The same cannot be said for the cattle."

I nod gravely and sigh, "I had come to a similar thought, McCord."

The decision I always knew I would make settles firm within my heart. "I -- I will refuse. Abigail will take this badly."

McCord smiles as if it were a wound. "Even so, sir, you have made a hard but wise decision."

"And in doing so, I have doomed you."

"How so?"

My mind fills with mocking echoes of shared laughter with Abigail, and I sigh, "She knows of this meeting. Once there was a wellspring of forgiveness in Abigail's heart ...."

I could not meet McCord's eyes. "Now, she will believe, despite my protests, that it was you that has robbed her of my being at her side. She will not rest until her revenge is complete against you, sir."

McCord smiles sadly. "That's all right, Mr. President. It'll mean one less monster in this sorry old world."

My blood chills, for I see he wants to die. No. I will not be the cause of the death of my friend's son. But how can I save him from the grave, from himself?

I look up at the portrait of my wife when she was still my Abigail. A plan comes to me. I whisper to McCord.

"When you think 'beautiful but diseased,' what city comes to mind, McCord? Quick. No moment for reflection. What city?"

He laughs like a wolf. "Don't need any time to reflect, sir. New Orleans is the prettiest city with the blackest heart I've ever seen."

"Then, New Orleans is the city I, as former President, charge you to save from the revenants."

"What?"

"I cannot ask you the impossible task of saving my nation from the evil that has consumed my wife. But one city, McCord, one city. Pledge to save it from the curse of the revenants, and I will die at peace."

"But, sir, I took an oath to Texas."

"Do not speak to me of oaths, young man. I, Jefferson, Washington, even your father bled for this nation. If not for me, save New Orleans for them ... for your father."

I was fighting unfairly I knew. But my friend, his father, would have me do no less to save his son from self-destruction.

McCord runs gloved fingers through his silver hair and sighs, "All right, Mr. President. You have my word."

His poet eyes flick to the portrait of my wife, and he murmurs, "Beautiful but diseased is it?"

He turns to me. "Another pledge, sir. Strange as it sounds, sometimes enemies become as close as lovers. If I can, I will save your Abigail, too."

"You are a romantic, McCord. It will be the death of you."

"Something will. Might as well be that."

When he leaves, and the shadows of the night and death grow closer and closer, it is his second pledge that comforts me.
***

KINDLE FIRE NEWS

2011-12-29T00:00:00.001-06:00

Many are still asking which they should buy: the Kindle Fire or the Nook Tablet?

One of the great advantages of the Kindle Fire over the Nook Tablet is that Amazon is a bookseller and a newsstand and has both music and full-length movies and television shows,

while Barnes & Noble is just a bookseller and newsstand, without the library of movies or music.

The Kindle Fire has direct access to that online Amazon store of TV shows, movies and music that can be bought straight from and downloaded straight to the tablet;

with the Nook Tablet, you have to connect your device to your computer via USB cord, download movies and music elsewhere, and then drag those files from your Downloads folder to your Nook folder to put them on your device.

Amazon has been building its Appstore more vigorously than Barnes and Noble, boasting over 10,000 apps.

The Nook Tablet's product page says it can access "thousands" of apps, which, reading around the marketing speak, means decidedly less than 10,000. Both are to be commended for getting essentials like Netflix on board before launch,

since that adds a lot of value, but we found several basic apps on the Nook Tablet to cost $3 when other app stores offer free versions.

1.) Installing Nook's App on the Kindle Fire has been confirmed to work!

SO BASICALLY, YOU HAVE NOOK FUNCTIONS AND THE KINDLE FIRE IN ONE DEVISE.

2.) The latest version of Android can be ported to Kindle Fire with the help of a cyber-savy friend.

3.) Kindle Fire makes its way to Number 2 on the tablet market.

4.) Sonos adds Slacker streaming and Kindle Fire Apps support.

5.)You can write a review of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH and win your very own KINDLE FIRE!!

THIS JUST IN :

SeekDroid app. ($2.99, lets you locate and remotely wipe your device in the event of theft).

Good news if you own a Kindle Fire:

Amazon has issued a software update for the device. It'll take a bit of time to download and install, but it's worth it thanks to a pile of performance and bug fixes.

According to Amazon, you can either grab the update manually or directly over-the-air.

No matter which option you choose though, make sure your device is fully charged before going through the update process. (Oh, and don't forget about making sure you're connected to Wi-Fi if updating over-the-air, of course.)

If you prefer to grab the software update — which is version 6.2.1, by the way —

over-the-air, you just need to reach for your Kindle Fire, tap the "Quick Settings" icon in the upper right corner, press "Sync" and wait.

The update will be automatically downloaded in the background and installed afterwards (while the device is asleep).

The manual approach to the update is a bit messier, but Amazon's got detailed instructions to get you through the process.

All you're basically doing is downloading the new software to your computer and then transferring it to your device. (

Keep in mind that the micro-USB cable you'll need to do this is sold separately from the Kindle Fire, but is conveniently the same cable that comes with most non-iPhones these days.)

Once you're done updating your device —

whether manually or over-the-air —

you should be left with enhanced fluidity and performance, improved touch navigation responsiveness, the option to choose which items are displayed on your Kindle Fire's carousel, and the ability to add a password lock on Wi-Fi access.
***

WHY DO YOU WRITE?

2011-12-28T00:00:00.003-06:00

We write.

We strive.

We bleed the ink the page before us has been needing.

And for what?

That answer determines the manner in which we write :

hurried to meet some self-set goal

or

focused like light through the prism of our soul to cast the light of our dreams

onto an imagined page some unknown reader will read, becoming lost in our imagined worlds :

"To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement.

To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence,

is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...

Anybody can have ideas--

the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph."

- Mark Twain in a letter to Emeline Beach, 10 Feb 1868.

Will we be understood?

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in a review of Emily Dickinson’s poetry published anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly, January, 1892 :

"But the incoherence and formlessness of her —

I don't know how to designate them — versicles are fatal….

An eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village (or anywhere else) cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar."

Whose name is familiar to you : the poet's or the reviewer's?

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

- Emily Dickinson

Have you noticed that much of the fiction out there has become more and more stylised, more and more cut off from ordinary feeling?

Is it that so many have come to regard everything in the world around us as fiction.... All the structures in it, flyovers and motorways, office blocks and factories, are all part of this enormous novel.

And since all those around us are mere backdrop in the fiction of our lives, they cease to become living, hurting, feeling individuals.

Ernest Hemingway wrote :

"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.

Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing.

He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates.

For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

You know that fiction is possibly the roughest trade of all in writing.

You do not have the reference, the old important reference.

You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true.

You have to take what is not palpable and make it completely palpable and also have it seem normal and so that it can become a part of experience of the person who reads it."

Why do you write?

To touch one human heart?

To impress someone who may not even be alive, or if alive, does not see you as your dreams and soul truly are?

To make the bestseller lists?

To become wealthy and famous? To support yourself comfortably?

To tell the stories that burn to come out and sigh in relief as you type them into being?

Why we write determines how we write and how much pleasure we derive from it/

What do you think?
***

NEW KINDLE OWNERS_I envy you

2011-12-26T13:41:00.010-06:00

I truly envy the six million of you new Kindle owners.

A whole new world of reading pleasure is beckoning for you to travel its open seas.

You are going to discover that with the ease of the Kindle, you will be finding yourself reading more.

I'm sure you've already downloaded some of your favorite authors. You've probably already found one of their books can cost you anywhere from ten dollars to fifteen each.

Ouch!

So you're thinking of trying one of the 800,000 more affordable ones Kindle offers. But where to start?

14 authors have sold more than a million ebooks. Why not punch in their names in the Amazon Search box to see if any tickle both your fancy and your pocket book at the same time. John Locke is #8 and charges only 99 cents. Give one of these 14 a shot :

1. Stieg Larsson

2. James Patterson

3. Nora Roberts

4. Charlaine Harris

5. Lee Child

6. Suzanne Collins

7. Michael Connelly

8. John Locke

9. Janet Evanovich

10. Kathryn Stockett

11. George R.R. Martin

12. David Baldacci

13. Amanda Hocking

14. Stephenie Meyer

I guarantee you that you will begin to love your Kindle before this year ends. You will read a review of a book, say in THE NEW YORK TIMES, and be able to sample for free the first few pages. How cool is that?

If Christmas shopping and purchasing the above authors leaves you with a free dollar, why not check out one of my books?

To get to this post, you saw a few trailers of my books. Watch one to see if it interests you.

The good news with my books is that through January, 100% of the profits go to the Salvation Army. And if you find yourself absorbed in an entertaining story on top of helping a worthy organization, you'll be a double winner.

My two most popular books are :

THE LAST SHAMAN -

http://www.amazon.com/THE-LAST-SHAMAN-ebook/dp/B00534OEL4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324929927&sr=1-1

THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH -

http://www.amazon.com/LEGEND-VICTOR-STANDISH-ebook/dp/B005NCUTAG/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_2

You are going to love your new Kindle. It is your passport to a broader horizon of reading pleasure. May it be only the first of a long string of happy surprises for you this upcoming New Year!

WHY CHRISTMAS?

2011-12-24T00:00:00.002-06:00

WHY CHRISTMAS?

In a world that treats God or Jesus with all the relevancy

of the Tooth Fairy or The Big Pumpkin,

WHY CHRISTMAS?

No guru am I. Still, I have some reflections ...

1.) We want to believe.

Like Fox Mulder, we want to believe ...

that SomeOne is, not just watching from Up Above, but that He is invisibly walking beside us, having once walked in the flesh beside a ragtag group of common men.

We want to believe Magic and Miracles are still possible.

Ask any mother holding her first-born in her arms for the first time, marveling that this tiny, cooing life had come from within her,

if Magic and Miracles are possible.

You know what answer you will get.

Most sneer about the possibility of Miracles in our modern age. But Christmas gives us permission to be be children and believe for a season again.

Which leads me to speculate ...

2.) WE WANT TO BE AS CHILDREN AGAIN.

CHRISTMAS allows us to redeem our childhood innocence for an all too-short season.

As VR Barkowski wrote in a comment not too long ago, the best stories have redemption at their heart. And the tales of Christmas passed down through the centuries is a great story.

And why not? It affords us a chance to look at each moment of life with a child-like sense of wonder, awe, and surprise.

Children haven't yet grown jaded. They meet no ordinary people in their lives.

All is new and fresh. And seeing their wonder at such things as elaborate Christmas lights, festive ornamented pine trees, and carols sung to neighbors for the first time --

we live our childhood and theirs at the same time.

We look out the window and just for a moment under the moonlight, we are a child again, and we see Sugar Plum Faeries skating across the frozen bird bath.

3.) GIFTS.

Business men the world over want to keep Christmas,

even though some of them replace Christ with an X to save precious space on store front windows and not to offend other religions.

But I am talking about us giving gifts. Some have made it a burden by trying to play Santa to too many people.

Still Christmas is not type specific like birthdays, anniversaries, Mother's and Father's Days. The whole world gets in on the act.

We can give to anyone -- and anyone can give to us.

C. S. Lewis said, “Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours.”

Like love.

Which leads to the greatest gift of all :

4.) PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TO MAN.

What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

And at Christmas time, most of us try to become a little better than we have been.

As World War I's Christmas Truce proved :

Christmas truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires that took place along the Western Front around Christmas of 1914, during the First World War.

Through the week leading up to Christmas, parties of German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings and songs between their trenches;

on occasion, the tension was reduced to the point that individuals would walk across to talk to their opposite numbers bearing gifts.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, many soldiers from both sides – as well as, to a lesser degree, from French units – independently ventured into "No man's land",

where they mingled, exchanging food and souvenirs. As well as joint burial ceremonies, several meetings ended in carol-singing.

Troops from both sides had also been so friendly as to play games of football with one another.

Though there was no official truce, about 100,000 British and German troops were involved in unofficial cessations of fighting along the length of the Western Front.

The first truce started on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1914, when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium.

The Germans began by placing candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols.

The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across No Man's Land,

where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco and alcohol, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats.

The artillery in the region fell silent that night.

The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently fallen soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Joint services were held.

The truce is seen as a symbolic moment of peace and humanity amidst one of the most violent events of modern history.

So WHY CHRISTMAS?

Farmers give a section of land rest to go fallow and revitalize. Sleep puts healing brackets between even the harshest of days. Somehow the cut of a terrible day is blunted by a night's sleep.

So The Father gave this yearly holiday to heal and become the loving, kinder soul we could be year round.

Let the cynics say what they will. A man can no more diminish the truth by saying it does not exist than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY FRIENDS! ROLAND, sometimes called DreamSinger.
***

MAGIC AT CHRISTMAS EVE

2011-12-23T00:00:00.006-06:00

There is a magic to Christmas Eve

that transforms even the grumpiest into children again.

The cold night winds seem to carry the faint chiming of bells as reindeer fly high in the black sky.

So it is not too surprising that the magical couple, the Victorian ghoul, Alice Wentworth, and the street gypsy, Victor Standish

have more than their share of Christmas adventures.

Some of my new friends may not know of the history of Victor and his ghoul friend, Alice.

Here is the link to their first meeting, told from both of their perspectives :

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/11/i-am-hungrymy-entry-for-blogfest-retold.html

Here is a re-telling of one of their Christmas adventures that I have fallen in love with. I hope, that like viewing again THE CHRISTMAS CAROL, this tale will make you smile once or twice :

Alice and I stumbled through the mirror. Elu, that Apache Trickster, had surprised us both by grabbing and pulling us into his mirror world.

His Christmas present he laughed.

We came out in the middle of a roaring fireplace. We jumped right out of that blasted inferno. Lucky for us it was big enough to roast a buffalo.

"Oh, my!," gasped Alice as she looked all around.

"What you said, " I whispered.

We were in a humongous great hall. Three gleaming tables ran down the length of it. Twelve giant Christmas trees lined the stone walls.

And it was snowing.

Snowing! Snowing inside this enormous hall. Each flake seemed to be singing. And glowing with a tiny gleam of winter laughter.

I looked up, and my mouth dropped down.

Dozens upon dozens of tall candles were floating high above us, right below a vaulted ceiling painted to look like a night's sky.

I went a little cold. The fluffy clouds were moving. One slowly covered the spectral full moon.

Alice gasped, "Oh my, where are we?"

I smiled crooked, "We're not in Kansas any more, Toto."

"You are so not funny!"

An old man's voice rumbled behind us. "And you are in so much trouble."

I sighed, "Oh, crap -- ah, merde."

The man laughed. "It still means the same thing."

I turned around slowly. "Yeah, but when you're in the company of a beautiful .... Oh, wow."

The man was tall, thin and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt.

He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak which swept the ground and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles.

And his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice.

"Merlin?," I croaked.

He smiled like Santa Claus and said, "Albus Dumbledore. And you?"

I smiled back. "I'm Victor Standish, and this is ..."

His smile turned impish, "Your ... ghoul friend, Alice Wentworth."

Alice looked like she was about to kick a shin, but he chuckled so good-naturedly that she relaxed smooth as you please. I just had to learn how to chuckle like that.

Alice looked shocked. "Y-You do not mind that I am a ghoul?"

He reached out and gently patted her head. "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. And your choices have always come from a good heart."

Alice's neon-blue eyes widened. "How do you know that?"

Dumbledore laughed softly. "Because I am quite possibly the most powerful wizard of my time."

"And humble, too," I snorted.

Alice slapped my left arm. "Hush! We are uninvited guests. Show some manners."

I grinned sheepish. "We didn't mean to barge into ...."

"Hogwarts."

I frantically searched my face with flying fingers. "Where?"

He smiled amused and sad all at once. "Where you're standing."

I leapt back, looking at the spot I just left. "I don't see anything."

Alice rolled her eyes. "He means the place we are standing, this great hall, genius."

"Oh, I knew tha ...."

I suddenly heard a whispery, dirty-silk voice inside my head. "Kill. Kill. Kill!"

Dumbledore saw my look and tapped my arm. "You heard the basilisk?"

I brightened up considerably. I could pay my way here. Perhaps even get one of those roast turkeys on the tables.

Maybe they would be magic, and Alice could actually eat it without getting sick. Now, that would be a great Christmas present.

"Hey, I'm no Perseus, mind you, but I could fight that monster for you."

Alice frowned, "That is the Medusa you are thinking about!"

Dumbledore smiled like a forgiving grandfather. "You meant well. But this challenge is for someone else's growth."

I heard a thunder of footfalls, and three voices arguing like good friends will at the other end of this enormous hall.

"Speaking of which," Dumbledore said. "Here he comes now with his two friends of legend."

"Legend?," I asked.

Dumbledore nodded with such a sad look to his wise face. "Yes, but the legend will come at great price."

I nodded back. "Yeah, that's the sucky, ah, bad thing about being a legend : the price tag that goes with it."

Dumbledore gestured, and a silver platter filled to overflowing with a roasted bird appeared in his hands. He gave it to a stunned Alice.

"It is roasted goose."

His blue eyes twinkled as he nodded to me. "I saw you already had your Christmas turkey."

"But, sir," gasped Alice, "I am a ... ghoul. I cannot eat this without becoming ill."

He mussed my hair. "You were right, Victor, it is magic. Your Alice can eat her full of this."

He turned to her seriously. "But only on Christmas Night."

Alice look troubled. "Oh, tell me that I can share."

Dumbledore's eyes sparkled with eyes both happy and sad. "Alice, that is the real truth of Christmas. There is no joy unless you share."

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Dumbledore."

He smiled at some private joke it seemed, and shook his head. "Your champion thought of it as payment for slaying the basilisk."

"But I didn't kill it," I protested.

He sighed, "Just this once I wanted intent to be worthy of merit. But I cannot let you be seen by my approaching three young legends. Off with you!"

The world exploded in stars. A ghostly music filled the air. I heard Dumbledore's whisper in my ear, though all I saw was a rainbow showering all around me.

"Tell Elu to shepherd his own legends."

I felt my hair mussed again. "And tell him thank you for giving me the opportunity to share joy."

Then, Alice and I were back in the real world. Or as real as it ever got for me.
***

IS THIS THE LAST CHRISTMAS?

2011-12-21T22:33:00.007-06:00

DECEMBER 21, 2012 :

Some scientists theorize that the poles will shift just at the moment that a black hole allignment, occuring only every 26,000 years, takes place.

Albert Einstein first talked of it in 1955.

The earth will slip on it axis causing many continents to move hundreds of miles in virtually a second. Many plates will fall, some thousands of feet while yet others will rise.

I see no viable way to even begin to calculate where would be a safe place to head too, given the event were to occur.

Common sense would tell me that Denver Colorado and the surrounding area (if you are in the US) would offer your best chances of survival, should you even want to face what would follow.

Know any good friends in Denver?

Pole shifts are cyclic occurrences on the Earth and the cycles are natural.

This is something that happens to the Earth naturally through cosmic cycles that happen like clockwork when looked at from the perspective of celestial events. Spiritual texts in some traditions suggest that these pole reversals happen every 26,000 years and that the north and south pole have switched before more than once.

In Hindu texts these cycles are called Yugas. Even the Bible says in Isaiah 24:1, "Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty, and makes it waste, and turns it upside down."

The Mayans also have records and legends of such occurrences. Somewhere in humanity's innate knowledge, this information is within and is recorded in a way that could be taken quite literally in light of today's challenges with the possible 2012 polar shift coming soon.

Scientific proof and evidence shows that there have been pole reversals before on Earth as well.

It is a natural cycle when Earth goes above and below the galactic equator every 26,000 years.

It takes 26,000 years for this solar system to make one full orbit around the galactic center. Each time it does this it goes through the galactic equator and the Earth's poles reverse. This happens back and forth every 26,000 years.

Go to Australia. The water swirls down the drain in the opposite direction of where it does above the equator. What other principles we take for granted will be reversed when our solar system crosses the galatic equator?

If a pole shift does take place, it is said that the axis and magnetism of Earth will be changed, the poles will flip and reverse so that the south pole will have a positive magnetic charge instead of a negative magnetic charge,

and the north pole will have a negative magnetic charge instead of the positive magnetic charge it now has.

When this happens, it is believed that the Earth's rotation will change as well. The Earth's rotation will completely reverse and will literally spin in the opposite direction.

Now no one knows this for sure, but scientists at NASA are presuming the reversal would take place. The science of magnetism depicts that if the poles reverse then Earth's rotation will also reverse.

The cataclysmic effects would be that the bodies of water would actually move just the way the water in a glass would slosh if the direction the glass is moving is changed.

All the people who live in the "slosh zone" would be subject to tsunamis and flooding in 2012 if 2012 is when it happens. This is the scientific premise in the 2012: We Were Warned movie and the movie asks "what if the Earth's spin changed, the poles flip, and the water moves?"

Of course this question gives way to another "end of the world" cataclysmic movie, which Hollywood seems to love putting out, and of course the public supports this by buying tickets! It seems that everyone loves a good special effects "end of the world" disaster movie.

But I, for one, do not want to LIVE one!

The other thing that would happen according to scientists is that the Earth would not be stable during such a drastic change in its magnetic field.

Tectonic plates would shift and move, earthquakes would happen, volcanic activity would be triggered, and incredible storms with wind and water would happen on the surface of the Earth while the weather patterns readjust.

This of course would not support human habitation. If the 2012 polar shift is this drastic, yes, everyone would have serious challenges in surviving it.

NASA has verified that there is now positive magnetism energy appearing in the south pole, which is normally supposed to be in the north pole only.

The South pole is supposed to only have a negative magnetic charge.

In the past 150 years, there has been a migration between the north and south poles and their respective magnetic charges of positive and negative magnetic reversal.

Another thing that NASA has observed is that the sun literally reverses its poles every 11 years at the peak of each sunspot cycle. The solar pole shift will happen again in 2012 exactly.

The good news?

According to a recent study by an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara, the date may also be inaccurate and at least 60 days off.

So we will have one more Christmas at least.

Or you could buy my THE LAST SHAMAN and see the Lakota Sioux take on 2012 (in Part II : TWILIGHT'S CHILDREN) for only 99 cents :

http://www.amazon.com/THE-LAST-SHAMAN-ebook/dp/B00534OEL4

***

***
DESTINY FINDS US WHETHER WE WANT TO BE FOUND OR NOT :

A DOWN HOME CHRISTMAS

2011-12-20T22:33:00.013-06:00

So many different kinds of death hunted us this Christmas Eve all through the French Quarter,

I would’ve gotten a headache trying to count them all –

If I already hadn’t had one – to go along with the broken ribs, fingers, and nose.

I looked over at Alice, my ghoul friend,

whose ability to turn to mist had been ripped from her by DayStar.

She sobbed softly, “Victor, our first Christmas together is our last.”

I had taken as many blows for her as I could.

Wasn’t that was Love did? Sacrifice themselves for the one they loved?

Alice had buried the statue of the Madonna and took its shawl. As I had done with the statue of Joseph, taking its robe and hood.

We kneeled beside the wooden manger in the St. Louis Cathedral’s courtyard Nativity Scene.

Right in plain sight of the slowly sniffing and scouting horrors prowling for us.

I didn’t even know some of the monsters hunting us. I knew enough to know Alice and I were goners.

Winged Gahe. Starved Amal. Scaled Soyoko.

And the ghosts, given flesh, fangs, and claws by DayStar, of all the people Alice had eaten over the decades.

Who would have guessed a wisp of a girl like Alice had such an appetite?

I stiffened at the tolling in the distance. I heard the bells, ringing their familiar, mocking refrain :

PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

Peace. Good Will.

In despair, I bowed my head.

‘There is no peace on earth!,' I said to myself.

'For hate is strong and mocks the song. The innocent die. The helpless cry out. Does anybody hear them?’

The night winds became soft words : ‘You kneel on holy ground and dare to ask that?’

I looked up. I recognized the stern ghost of a priest, a book of prayers or some such in his hands. Alice went as pale as I had ever seen her.

“Pere Antoine!”

He spoke in razored whispers. “For my sins in the Inquisition I am bound to this plane. So Friar Antonio de Sedella is now who I am.”

I saw the self-hate in his eyes. I saw the same look in Alice's.

I looked to the horrors so near. To speak would be to bring them to us.

But I was going to die anyway. Why not die, letting Pere Antoine hear that I believed in him even when he no longer could?

I shook my head and whispered back. “No, before Katrina, you helped me. You’ve helped others before and since.”

The winged Gahe spun at my words, and I blurted out, “With my last words, I say you don’t deserve to be bound here. You are Pere Antoine! You are a ghost of God!”

So many horrors rushed us that I got sick to my stomach. This was going to hurt so bad. Pere Antoine’s head cocked as if he were hearing words spoken into his very mind, and his ghost eyes grew wet.

He gestured, speaking loud :

“Dark Spawns, this is Holy Ground!”

The Shadowlanders must’ve forgotten that in their lust for our deaths. It bought them their own.

Pere Antoine, the prayer book tumbling to the grass, slapped both hands on the shoulders of Alice and me.

A warm tingle cascaded through me. Reality smeared in spirals of fiery, golden stardust as if God were wiping clean a chalkboard.

Sand, not grass, was suddenly beneath our knees. Cutting through me was a cold wind that can only be birthed in the desert.

My mouth got drier than the winds. The manger scene was now real. A young man and a younger woman were looking sheer love at the cooing baby. Outside the stable, high in the night sky, rippled haunting sounds that only angels could sing.

Pere Antoine kneeled beside me.

“God is not dead, nor does He sleep. No matter how dark, He always sees you. You are a special part of His heart, and you are never alone. Due to their very natures, the wrong shall fail. And those who trust prevail.”

The baby locked eyes with mine, His eyes clear and echoing with strange wisdom and delight.

Pere Antoine whispered,

“He wanted you and Alice to have a 'down home' Christmas.”

The baby laughed long and light.

Alice reached over and squeezed my hand. “I was wrong, Victor. Our first Christmas together is THE first Christmas.”

And impossible though it was, the French Quarter bells rang all around us :

PEACE ON EARTH. GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.

***

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

This is a version I think of as Victor Standish's version : not the tempo, tune, or words you expect. Give it a listen for me. Roland

THE GHOST OF ALBERT EINSTEIN THREW UP HIS HANDS.

2011-12-19T18:25:00.002-06:00

Why?

I asked him to explain Amazon's Sales Ranking.

Let me explain how AMS can help both you and Victor in his contest :

YOU ENTER BY FIRST POSTING A REVIEW OF VICTOR'S BOOKS ON AMAZON.

{Why my concern with reviews?

Many readers will not buy an Amazon eBook without seeing 10 positive reviews.)

Say 10 of you review LEGEND or VOODOO. They know each other and decide among themselves to send a copy as a gift to a friend within hours of each other.

What happens?

THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH which is at 60,000 ASR goes to 7,000 ASR.

Great for me, you say. Actually since all profits go the Salvation Army, great for them.

I have tied my prizes to the ASR, so great for those 10 reviewers. Since :

** 1 of those 10 will receive the MICHAEL WHALEN AUTOGRAPHED DRAGON LITHOGRAPH right off the bat.

AND ... one of those same ten will win the following :

1.) An 8 X 10 AUTOGRAPHED BY ALEXANDER SKARSGARD! (ERIC NORTHMAN OF TRUE BLOOD) {at the 40,000 mark)

2.) A 16 X 20 limited, numbered fine art print, MOONDANCE, AUTOGRAPHED by the stunning artist (in two ways), OLIVIA DE BERADINAS (#1650 of 4000!) {at the 30,000 ASR mark.}

3.) An 8 X 10 photo of Tony Stark AUTOGRAPHED BY ROBERT DOWNEY, JR {at the 20,000 ASR mark!}

4.) THE GOLDEN COMPASS movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by

DANIEL CRAIG

NICOLE KIDMAN

SAM ELLIOT! {at the 15,000 ASR mark.}

5.) THE COLOR PURPLE movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by

STEPHEN SPIELBERG (director, producer),

QUINCY JONES (composer, producer)

KATHLEEN KENNEDY (producer) and FRANK MARSHALL (producer!) {at the 10,000 ASR mark}

6.) The British movie poster of THE BOURNE IDENTITY AUTOGRAPHED BY

MATT DAMON! {at 7,000 ASR mark}

THAT'S APPROXIMATELY $1000 IN PRIZES because 10 reviewers decided to buy a friend a $3 gift (that goes to the Salvation Army) within hours of each other.

WHY AM I DOING THIS?

I am hoping to start a ripple effect and get to 100 in ASR.

Once that happens, Amazon puts Victor on several other of their lists :

100 BEST DEBUT TITLES

100 BEST YOUNG ADULT TITLES

100 BEST FANTASY/SCIENCE FICTION TITLES

100 BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCES

Perhaps even one of the three Featured KDP Books on their monthly newsletter!

***
There will many Kindles given this Christmas, I want Victor to come to the attention of those who want something to read that won't cost them an arm and a leg.
***
Even after all those prizes are given away, there are many more.

7.) At 5,000 ASR!

RESIDENT EVIL : EXTINCTION movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by

MILLA

ALI LARTER

and THE OTHER CAST MEMBERS!

8.) At 1,000 ASR!

AVATAR movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by

JAMES CAMERON

SIGOURNEY WEAVER

SAM WORTHINGTON

ZOE SALDANA

STEPHEN LANG {Listen up, marines. Pandora will eat you up and shit you out like little ju-ju beans!}

9.) At 999 ASR (Just for laughs - It is 666 upside down and Bruce would get a chuckle over it! And it's easier to get than the #600 I was giving it away at.)

{For fanboys everywhere!}

BRUCE CAMPBELL AUTOGRAPHED EVIL DEAD 2 special Book of the Dead edition DVD!

10.) At 700 ASR! {For Fan Boys everywhere!}

Double-sided SERENITY movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by :

JOSH WHEDON (who is now directing THE AVENGERS!)

SUMMER GLAU

NATHAN FILLION

RON GLASS

ADAM BALDWIN

JEWEL STRAITE

ALAN TUDYK {of TUCKER & DALE versus EVIL fame}!

11.) At 500 ASR!

THE ROCK movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by :

SEAN CONNERY

NICK CAGE

ED HARRIS!

12.) When Victor hits #300 in ASR :

ENYA AUTOGRAPHED POSTER!

13.) When VICTOR hits #200 in ASR!
FROM DUSK TO DAWN movie poster AUTOGRAPHED by :

QUENTIN TARANTINO

GEORGE CLOONEY

The beautiful SALMA HAYEK

HARVEY KEITEL

CHEECH MARIN

JULIETTE LEWIS and the most of the rest of the cast!

14.) When THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH hits 150 ASR!
STEPHEN KING AUTOGRAPHED copy of ROSE MADDER!

**** At 100 :

AN AMAZON KINDLE FIRE!!

I will give the profits of ALL MY BOOKS THROUGH JANUARY to THE SALVATION ARMY whose donations plummet in that month.

If you want to give a little present to yourself, POST A REVIEW of either Victor book.

If you want to give a little present to yourself AND a friend AFTER THAT, GIVE YOUR FRIEND A COPY OF THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH.

THE SALVATION ARMY WILL THANK YOU and I will feel that my writing dreams are helping more than just me.
***
For chuckles and the extended footage :

CALL ME TOMBS

2011-12-18T18:58:00.004-06:00

100% of this book's profits go to the Salvation Army.

Voodoo in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania?

A mystic travel trailer that has a life of its own and takes its name too seriously?

A deadly, unbeatable worker of dark magic out to unravel the fabric of reality?

A Hellhound named Puppy?

All in a normal day for the last Lakota Heyoka, Toomey Starks.

Accompanied by Puppy and a fiery, homicidal gypsy,

the Lakota Trickster snatches magic from the air and love from the shadows to

discover his destiny,

save the world,

and survive the "help" of the Spirit of the Earth --

Like I said : just a normal day for the last Heyoka.

It's only 99 cents and the profits go to The Salvation Army. Give it a try why don't you?
***

A GHOST ADRIFT

2011-12-18T00:00:00.001-06:00

Come. Sit with me at McCord's table. He will arrive eventually.

Who am I? Once that question would have disturbed me.

But since my friendship with McCord, I understand that the artist should have a different ambition than to be remembered.

It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history,

leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books.

I wish I had enough sense to see ahead thirty years ago,

and like some of the Elizabethans, not signed them.

It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too,

shall be them both: He made the books and he died.

Who am I?

I am William Faulkner,

and much of my perceptions were shaped here in McCord's legendary jazz club, Meilori's.

Meilori’s :

the center, the focus, the hub; sitting looming in the center of the French Quarter’s circumference

like a single cloud in its ring of horizon,

laying its vast shadow to the uttermost rim of horizon; musing, brooding, symbolic and imponderable,

tall as clouds, solid as rock, dominating all: protector of the weak, judge and curb of the passions and lusts, repository and guardian of the aspirations and hopes of the helpless.

Here, McCord and I would talk about everything :

How words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless,

and how terribly living goes along the earth, clinging to it,

so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other.

That sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they have forgotten the words.

The world in minuscule would be scoured by our words. The shadows themselves seemed to gather around our table to listen to us where glass and bottle clinked.

The three potted palms around us hissed like dry sand in the dark moving air.

I can hear him still :

“All life asks is to look at it and listen to it and understand it if you can. Only the understanding it isn’t really important.

The important thing is to believe in life even if you don’t understand it.”

I can hear him laugh.

“Not that you’ll ever get it quite right. But that’s all right. Because tomorrow

Life is going to be something different, something more and new to watch and listen to and try to understand …

and even if you can’t understand, believe.”

Believe.

Know.

I thought I knew what I believed in about life. Until that night when McCord asked me to his table to talk of a mysterious 75th year anniversary.

He talked of impossible things in such a way that I believed. He held his tale fixed yet vibrant so that seventy-five years later, when I, a stranger looked at it, it moved again since truth is living.

If you would be caught up in his narrative as I was caught up, read ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

If you would gaze upon the timeless beauty of Meilori, alas, you cannot. But one mortal woman comes close ...

HOW TO ENTER VICTOR'S CONTEST - HOW TO HELP VICTOR REACH HIS GOALS

2011-12-17T19:09:00.005-06:00

FIRST MANDATORY STEP :

POST A REVIEW OF THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH or UNDER A VOODOO MOON on Amazon.

This gets you 5 entries.

MORE WAYS :
WRITE A POST ON YOUR BLOG ABOUT VICTOR OR HIS CONTEST (5 MORE ENTRIES)

GIVE LEGEND or UNDER A VOODOO MOON to a friend, sending me an email of a copy of the receipt.

(This gets you another entry and helps Victor's sales ranking on Amazon. The closer to #100 he gets, the more prizes I give away.)

Right now, there are only 7 reviews on LEGEND, hence only 7 people are entered.

WHEN I REACH 16 REVIEWS ...

I DRAW FOR A CLINT EASTWOOD OR CHARLES SCHULTZ AUTOGRAPH. THE WINNER CHOOSES WHICH ONE SHE WANTS. 1 IN 16 ODDS. HOW GREAT IS THAT?

WHEN I SELL JUST SIX MORE COPIES OF THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH, I AM DRAWING FOR THE MICHAEL WHELAN AUTOGRAPHED LITHOGRAPH PICTURED ABOVE.

Post a review now to get a chance to win it!

***

KINDLE FIRE - VICTIM OF SMEAR JOB!

2011-12-17T00:00:00.003-06:00

Remember the first two DIE HARD's?

The red-headed reporter who couldn't be bothered with silly things like facts?

Apparently the KINDLE FIRE has taken the place of Bruce Willis :

A widely circulated story in Sunday's New York Times questioned

whether or not Amazon's Kindle Fire would become, as the article's URL had it, "the Edsel of tablets."

Well, NEW YORK TIMES ... Yippie Ki Yay, Mo ... Ouch! Alice just kicked me.

Sorry. I get carried away when newspapers get carried away FROM THE FACTS.

The Kindle Fire is neither a bomb nor a failure precisely because there is no data -- as the article painfully demonstrates --

to suggest that either sales of the Kindle Fire have been disappointing or that Americans who have so far bought a Kindle Fire have, in fact,

regretted or been meaningfully frustrated with their purchase in significant or aberrational numbers.

From the Times:

A few of [users'] many complaints:
there is no external volume control.
The off switch is easy to hit by accident.
Web pages take a long time to load.
There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing.
The touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky.

Oh, you want to nit-pick TIMES?

Here are some complaints for the iPad 2, which almost everyone agrees is the best tablet on the market:

There are no HDMI, USB or SD Card slots.
It is impossible to view your content on a television screen unless you also buy an Apple TV or special cord.
The cameras are mediocre, as is battery life with iOS 5
(which is also plagued by an unimpressive Notifications Center).
Many users have complained about patchy Wi-Fi connectivity.
Also, the most disgruntled users are packing the device up
and firing it back to the retailer.

This from THE TIMES :
All this would be enough to send some products directly to the graveyard where the Apple Newton, the Edsel, New Coke and McDonald's Arch Deluxe languish.

Really?
The Edsel sold a dismally low 84,000 models in its THREE YEARS on car lots in the late 1950s;

one estimate has Apple investing $1 billion in the Newton and recouping about $250 million in sales.

Meanwhile, the Kindle Fire is on track to sell between three and FIVE MILLION units in its first THREE MONTHS (per the Times, which would easily make it the second best-selling tablet of all time!!

Given that non-iPad tablet sales combined in the U.S. from January to October were 1.2 million).

So YIPPIE KI YAY that, Times!

One analyst even has projected that Amazon will sell six million Fires, which, as John Paczkowski of All Things Digital notes, would "surpass the iPad's domestic sales in its first December quarter in 2010!"

So why bring up the Arch Deluxe or the Apple Newton or the Edsel --

since none are apt comparisons -- if not just to smear the Kindle Fire by associating it with notable failures?

The modern Press saddens me. How about you?

{Many thanks to Jason Gilbert for the facts :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-gilbert/kindle-fire-not-a-bust_b_1147438.html
***

LOVE'S LIGHT IS A PYRE_Sparkles Friday Romantic Post

2011-12-16T00:00:00.002-06:00

CONTEST UPDATE :

DINA HOWELL just won ALEXANDER SKARSGARD (ERIC NORTHMAN)'S AUTOGRAPH!

DONNA HOLE just won a photograph AUTOGRAPHED by ANGELINA JOLIE!

REVIEW THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH and enter now to get in on all the other prizes yet to be given!

The icy mists flow like lost love's seeking echoes across the bayou bordering my apartment.

SPARKLES is the prompt for this Friday Romantic Challenge.

Sometimes the magic seems to slip away in the rush of plucking fingers of Christmas obligations and demands.

Fallen, the last fae,

she of the woodfire heart and storm lightning thoughts,

whispers,

"Souls move slowly to their journey's end;

destinations are where we begin again.

Like ships sailing far across endless seas,

trust in starlight to lead the way."

So here is my SPARKLES post from BLACK ROSES IN AVALON

http://www.amazon.com/BLACK-ROSES-IN-AVALON-ebook/dp/B005GQN03C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323803244&sr=1-1

where Blake Adamson and Fallen, the last fae, find themselves deep in a dangerous, mystic forest deep within fabled Avalon :

Fallen reached out and grabbed my hand. "Somehow, I feel as if not all the powers of Darkness can separate us now."

I caught Epona, Queen of Unicorns, sharing a haunted look with her mate. Fallen hadn't noticed. And I was glad. She looked so happy that I wanted it to last as long for her as possible.

Something like a premonition, but more certain, swept over me.

And deep down, I knew that this was our first, our last, night. Something terrible was about to happen. So terrible that it would shake the Sidhe nation to its core.

So terrible that it would permanently scar Fallen ... and be the end of me. The Darkness was falling, and I would never see the light again.

I looked up into the twinkling stars peering down on us from between the branches of the ancient oaks above us. 'Oh, Father, may you light the way for Fallen when I can't be there for her, please.'

I waited for an answer of some kind but only got aching silence. I sighed. Maybe that was a kind of answer in itself.

I jerked as Fallen, caught up in her happiness, started to sing. It was ethereal, haunting, yet filled with love and passion and hope. I looked back up into the endless depths of the stars.

Maybe this was the only real answer, to cling to love while it was ours and let the future stay in the wings until it came shambling out onto the stage to reach out for us.

"All time and space are one to hearts in love," sang Fallen, her eyes locked on me.

"Death, pain, darkness but phantoms to be overcome," she trilled, reaching out and squeezing my hand gently as if reading my mind.

Her voice rose, twirled, and caressed me. As her words went from Sidhe to Angelus to some tongue so old that even Solomon's gift didn't translate it.

Then, I realized the tune had changed to the melody Fallen had identified as the lullaby sung to her by her unknown mother.

And the breath caught in my throat as I saw long, delicate wings of ethereal energy fluttering from between her shoulder blades.

Epona's eyes widened as she spotted them at the same time that I did. Azure shivered between my legs as he, too, saw Fallen's sparkling wings of fae magic tremble and beat to the rhythm of her song.

And for a moment, the unicorns slowed their movement to stare at my love just as bewitched as I was by the haunting beauty of her singing. It seemed that the four of us had walked into a medieval tapestry or painting :

A faerie princess, her mortal lover, riding the King and Queen of all unicorns ensnared by the cascading notes sung by Love which cannot truly die.
***

ATTACK OF THE PROLOGUE

2011-12-15T00:00:00.002-06:00

So there I was, long ago, minding my own business.

Ah, all right, I was dozing in my chair before my laptop. There. Happy? Hey, I'm a weary blood courier.

And I dreamed. Of William Faulkner. I know. I wanted Megan Fox or Marlene Dietrich.

But I got a grizzled William Faulkner in search of the innocence of his lost youth in New Orleans.

New Orleans. Yes, you've already guessed it. In my dreams strolled that lean wolf of an undead Texas Ranger, Samuel McCord.

And there in misty scenes unfolded a prologue to my RITES OF PASSAGE set in 1853.

http://www.amazon.com/RITES-OF-PASSAGE-ebook/dp/B004XQVPYM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323818833&sr=1-1

It was eerie, haunting, and full of yearning regret. I awoke slowly, my mind reluctant to let those words and images go.

Marlene Dietrich then appeared in the ghost chair next to mine. "Use it, Liebling."

"What? Everybody skips prologues."

She tapped my nose with her empty cigarette holder. "And everybody is usually wrong, liebling, and you know that."

She gazed half-lidded at me. "You have a good mind, Schatzi . Use it and tell me why a prologue could be good."

"Well, I guess a prologue could spotlight a time not covered in the novel."

"As does yours. Think, silly. Your novel happens in the far past. Starting with a more modern scene would help slip your readers more easily into your story."

"You seem to have a pretty good grasp of story telling."

She smirked like an evil cat. "The best screen writers and directors of Hollywood often had a pretty good grasp of this ..."

She gestured to her body now leaning against mine. "I learned to tell a good script from a bad one. My career depended on it."

"I don't know. Bad prologues can kill a novel."

Her eyebrow arched. "I do not sit on the lap of bad writers."

"Well, now I have incentive."

She mussed my hair with ghost fingers, thumping on the top of my head as if it were a door. "You have more than that. You have a brain. And talent."

She whispered in my ear. "And in your prologue, you have your protagonist shown in the future, haunted and sad for his lost love. Everyone loves a sad love story."

She stretched in her chair like a lazy cat, letting the slit in her long gown show her long legs. "These legs are not so beautiful. I just know what to do with them. As you must know what to do with your words."

She stroked my cheek. "Without tenderness a man is uninteresting. Your prologue shows McCord's tender side. And it shows it from another's perspective. It adds a touch of the real to your undead Ranger."

She fluffed her long blonde hair. "I never dressed for myself, for fashion, for women. No, I dressed for the image. And you must write this prologue for the impression it will make on the reader."

"You might be right."

"Of course I am right. Glamour, allure, mystery, these are my stock in trade."

She tweaked my nose. "Think of me as your make-up artist. And the relationship between the make-up man and the performer is that of accomplices in crime."

Her lips curved in a way that would have made Mona Lisa jealous. "You make me feel dangerous again."

I figured having a ghost look at me like that could be dangerous in itself. "Ah, I guess I could make it a mini short story with a hook of its own to draw the reader in."

Her head cocked. "You remind me of Jimmy Stewart. You and he are the only ones who could blush without blushing."

She suddenly smiled wide. "Do you know how I know your prologue is right for your novel?"

"No. How?"

"It is not necessary for the main story. If it were, then you would need to re-write the first chapter. Your prologue lends perspective and depth, like the beginning of DUEL IN THE SUN."

She looked past me into the shadows. "Affection, companionship are the most necessary food for the soul. More important than the living realize or want to realize."

She gazed deep into my eyes. "Your McCord makes his family with the hurting, the lost, and the defenseless. Your prologue shows this."

She sighed, and it was more open wound than sound. "Write your prologue. I will be watching from the shadows."

And with that she was gone. Her perfume lingered ... as did her haunting eyes. I straightened with a jerk. I had a ghost to make smile again. I set to typing.

Above me I heard her murmur, "Ah, a knight errant. A species that sadly is all but extinct. And remember when you write your prologue : the best measure of your love is sacrifice."

And here is what I typed :

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.
- William Faulkner

One day during the time while McCord and I walked and talked in New Orleans – or I talked and he listened - I found him sitting on a bench in Jackson Square, laughing to himself. I got the impression that he had been there like that for some time, just sitting alone on the bench laughing to himself.

This was not our usual meeting place. We had none. He lived in his French Quarter night club, Meilori's. And without any special prearrangement, we would meet somewhere between his club and the Square after I had something to eat at noon.

I would walk in the direction of his club. And if I did not meet him already strolling or sitting in the Square, I would simply sit down on a bench where I could see his doorway and wait until he came out. I can see him still –

A ramrod straight man in his late forties, clad entirely in black : black broadcloth jacket, shirt, tie, and slacks. His boots were black, as well, and polished so that the sun struck fire from them. Even his Stetson was black.

All of which made the silver star on his jacket stand out like a campfire in the night. It was said he had once been a Texas Ranger. He never talked to me of those days - at least not before that afternoon.

This time he was already sitting on the bench, laughing. I sat down beside him and asked what was so funny. He looked at me for a long moment.

"I am," he said.

And that was the great tragedy of his character, for he meant it. He expected people to mock and ridicule him. He expected people nowhere near his equal in stature or accomplishment or wit or anything else, to hold him in scorn and derision.

Until the Darkness came for them. Then, they scurried to his club, praying that the rumors were true : that he, indeed, was an undead champion for those who could not fight for themselves.

Perhaps that was why he worked so earnestly and hard at helping each wounded soul he met. It was as if he said to himself : 'They will not hurt as I have hurt. I will show them that they matter because their pain matters to me.'

"Why do you speak of yourself like that?," I asked.

"Today marks the seventy-five year anniversary," he said.

"Of what?"

"Drop by my table at the club this evening, and I will tell you."

And that evening I did just that. We sat, with a bottle now, and we talked. At first he did not mention the anniversary. It was as if he was slowly working himself up to something long avoided.

We talked of everything it seemed. How a mule would work ten years for you willingly and patiently just for the privilege of kicking you once. How clocks kill time, that only when the clocks stop does time come to life. And how given a choice between grief and nothing, he would choose grief.

When he had said those last words, McCord met my eyes with his own deep ones and said, "Let me tell you a story."

And I listened.

It hit me as McCord talked that Man would not merely endure as he had not merely endured. No, like McCord, Man would prevail. Man is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice. But because he has a soul, a spirit capable of endurance, love, and sacrifice.

And so now I give you McCord's words as he gave them to me. Make of them what you will. For myself, I never know what I think about something until after I've read what I've written on it. So read along with me, and we both will come to our own conclusions.
- William Faulkner, August 1923.
*************************************
And so that is my prologue. It follows my three personal rules for prologues. 1) It should be compelling. 2) It should be short. 3) And it should be removed from the body of the novel by time or space.
******************************************
Next is another music video by Thea Gilmore. Whenever I've heard this song, I've seen the image of Sam McCord on the decks of the Demeter, a Colt in each hand, facing overwhelming odds in his last great battle.

WHAT DO OUR EYES TEACH US?

2011-12-13T13:27:00.006-06:00

Autonomy.

A "headache word" I used to call it whenever my mother used it as she took me out on our walks through the park near our basement apartment.

In the same manner her Lakota grandmother taught her, she taught me -- with common sights.

The lesson of the rooster weathervane. "Poor Mr. Rooster," she would cluck her tongue, "slave to whatever winds blow, never able to stand his ground.

"Wise Mrs. Willow Tree who sinks her roots deep in good soil, standing her ground, yet bending with the wind and not snapping in two like proud and foolish Mr. Pine."

She would ruffle my hair and say, "From the willow tree you must learn autonomy." I pressed my lips together hard.

I couldn't even say that "headache word," much less know what it meant. But if you wanted an untweaked nose, there were just some things better left unsaid.

We writers many times are like mimes playing to a world of the blind. Not that we are in any way better because we see beneath the surface and many others do not.

We were taught to do so, by mentors or by example. But the fate of the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind is usually not a happy one.

The wiser of us know that going in. The more foolish of us learn it eventually. The fate is the same.

Yet, it is the journey we must savor as artists.

Enjoy telling the tale for the thrill of reaching even one soul with our efforts. Push back the darkness, if only for the moment. Touch that one hurting heart.

As in that Zen teaching tale :

should we find ourselves clinging to a cliff face, bandits above shooting arrows at us, a hungry tiger waiting to feast on us should we fall,

take in the crisp Spring breeze. Watch the grace of a swooping eagle in the bright blue sky.

And should there be a strawberry bush growing on that cliff face, reach out and taste a strawberry, savoring its flavor with our last breaths.

I wrote THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS in tribute to my mother's stories.

http://www.amazon.com/BEAR-TWO-SHADOWS-ebook/dp/B004MDLWD0/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1

Tales told me as I lay coughing in our basement apartment without power during that terrible winter blackout that lasted for days.

In it is a story of Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, when he was but a cub. And it relates to what I've been saying :

It was the "Warming Season When The Geese Returns" in the Valley of the Shadow. Sometimes Estanatlehi would walk beside him, sometimes not.

Even as a young bear, Hibbs had known that The Turquoise Woman ranged the whole wide world. But in this season of her second coming, she always returned in the flesh.

It was something that Hibbs had thought would last forever. Such was the foolishness of young bears.

One morning, he had emerged from his comfortable den and wandered to the edge of the Snaking River. Sitting by its edge, he had looked down into its sparkling blue surface. He hushed in a breath.

A face appeared below him. A look of shock was on its furry face. He frowned. It frowned back.

He snarled at being mocked. It snarled back.

He sat back on his haunches and laughed.

The face was but a reflection of his own. He laughed again and looked down. His river-face laughed back. He stuck out a tongue. And a tongue snaked out from his reflected face. Hibbs amused himself with this game all morning.

Hibbs had finally wandered off for more exploring. But the next morning found him at the river's edge again.

The wind of an approaching storm ruffled the image of himself so that he could not see it clear. His mood darkened along with the skies, and Hibbs had been in a foul mood the rest of the day.

The weather of the third morning was still bruised and dark from the storm of the day before. Hibbs' mood was equally sour. It worsened when he found his reflection was merely a shadow.

The day had been ruined, along with the young cub's spirits.

The fourth day found dark clouds over Hibbs' head, but they were no darker than the cub's mood. The river-face below him was dim and angry. In a fit of temper, Hibbs hit the offending reflection with his open paw. Cold water splashed him back in the face. It was the last straw.

"Oooh, River-Face," he growled. "You're going to get yours!"

Like a rippling brook given life, icy laughter sounded behind the young cub, "Oh, Little One, you are a walking parable."

Hibbs turned around so swiftly, the water was slung from the fur of his face in a tiny rain. "GrandMother!"

The happy discovery of Estanatlehi's return masked her words from his understanding. The meaning of her words arrived a moment later, like thunder rolling after the flash of lightning.

Or rather their almost-meaning. Hibbs frowned. He scratched his head.

"A walking what?"

Estanatlehi's face suddenly saddened. "A way of teaching, Hibbs."

"D-Did I just make you sad?"

Hair of living lightning became a shaking display of Northern Lights. "No, Little One. The race called Whyte did that long, long ago when they killed one who meant much to me. He loved to use parables."

"GrandMother, I - I don't understand."

Estanatlehi ruffled the soft hair atop his head gently. "You will. All too soon, you will."

She forced a smile. "But for now ... these different reflections of you that are such a torment ...."

She hesitated, and Hibbs whispered, "Yes?"

Turquoise eyes peered into his questioning brown ones, and a ripple of true happiness swam beneath the pain.

"They are only different because of the wind, the rain, and the storm clouds. They are only fluff, mere changes in the external. The internal is eternal."

"I - I do not understand."

She tweaked his wrinkling nose. "You must try very, very hard to do so."

Hibbs earnestly nodded his head like a bobbing apple. "I will try. I promise."

At the sight, Estanatlehi sniffed back her tears and hugged him. "I know you will. I will help."

She stepped back, caressing his left cheek. "Reflections are but that. Reflections."

Hibbs had nodded as if he understood, which, of course, he did not. "Reflections. Yes."

Estanatlehi looked as if her heart were breaking. "Little One, did you feel pain when you slapped your river-face?"

"N-No."

"That is because it was not you, merely a reflection. And reflections of you will change as you meet one being after another. Reflections that change because of their surface, not your core self."

"Core?"

A smile born of pain and love murmured the words, "As apples have cores, so do Two-Leggeds, the seeds of who they truly are."

"S-So I have a core?"

His wrinkling nose was tweaked again.

"Yes, Little One. You have a core. And if you know who you are, you will know your core. But if you do not, you will know only the reflection of yourself that others will give you. And as they change swiftly from one to the other, you will feel all the frustration and anger you just felt at your river-faces."

"So if I know who I am, I can laugh at all the not-core reflections others reflect to me, right?"

Estanatlehi's face looked near to tears as she hugged Hibbs' tiny head. "It always comes back to laughter with you, doesn't it, Little One?"

"It has to come back to something, doesn't it, GrandMother? Why not laughter?"

Estanatlehi wet eyes squinted as if she were looking far into the distance as she murmured, "I do not have the heart to answer, Little One."
**********************
I am giving 100% of the profits for ALL MY BOOKS to the SALVATION ARMY :

Why WRITING IN THE CROSSHAIRS?

2011-12-12T14:32:00.002-06:00

Why the title

WRITING IN THE CROSSHAIRS?

All writers I believe write in the crosshairs.

If you have beta readers and have submitted to agents/editors, you know the feeling of being in the crosshairs of their evaluations.

Ouch. But no pain, no gain.

But I am thinking of the imagry of the hunter.

He fixes his aim at his target, looking through his scope.

The image is hardly crisp at the beginning. He must adjust the lens to achieve crisp clarity and the best chance of hitting his target.

Writers are like that hunter.

At first the image of our tale is blurry. We tighten the focus with revealing dialogue, vibrant characters, engaging crises, and creative descriptions. Pacing and plot tighten the image even more. Sometimes we get it with dead-on clarity. Most times we don't.

No one but Shakespeare is perfect. If you don't believe me, ask Harold Bloom or any university English professor.

It is a tricky endeavor writing in the crosshairs.

How do we focus quicksilver humans into concrete mental images?

Take flames. They look like objects but are really processes.

Humans are like that as well. No human actually is complete. He or she is in the process of becoming.

But becoming what? We answer that question with our choices.

But there is more to my title than that.

We all write the movie of our lives in the crosshairs.

That endeavor is more tricky. We don't get the luxury of time to reflect, muse, or ponder at leisure. Life is a harsh mistress.

As we struggle, she flashes us that "beauty-queen" smile : all sharp teeth and no heart. And in her games of chance, the House ultimately wins.

Like Indiana Jones we must make it up as we go along.

We plan and prepare. Life gleefully throws her monkey wrench into our preparations. We must write our lives in the crosshairs of illness, accidents, dysfunctional humans, and our own inner demons.

We are all in Life's crosshairs, and none of us know when she will pull the trigger. We just know that she will.

This is what my blog is all about :

how to maintain a measure of grace and peace in the crosshairs of Life. I haven't figured it out yet. Let me know what helps with you.

I am currently listening to "Mourning Tree" by Leaves' End.

The romance of my haunted, undead Texas Ranger, Samuel McCord, and his immortal love, Meilori Shinseen, has echoes to it of the tragic love of Arwen and Aragorn.

Here is a music video I think you may like :
***

CAN LOVE KILL?

2011-12-12T00:00:00.001-06:00

Can love kill?

Yes ...

if you happen to love a ghoul who hungers for your flesh only slightly less than she does your heart.

Yet to the street orphan, Victor Standish, who has repeatedly risked his life for food and shelter,

to chance death for the love he has never had

(even if for only one magical French Quarter night)

is worth dying in the morning.

And we, who throw our lives away for much less, can we fault him?

Buy THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH and WRITE A REVIEW

http://www.amazon.com/LEGEND-VICTOR-STANDISH-ebook/dp/B005NCUTAG/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1

(where 100% of the profits go to the SALVATION ARMY)

and get FIVE entries to my contest where you could win

1.) A KINDLE FIRE

2.) AUTOGRAPHS OF

JK ROWLING, STEPHEN KING, CHARLES SCHULZ (2 of these being offered) ANGELINA JOLIE

3.) AUTOGRAPHED MOVIE POSTERS OF

AVATAR, BATMAN BEGINS, THE BOURNE IDENTITY, THE COLOR PURPLE, FROM DUSK TO DAWN,

HARRY POTTER & THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, THE ROCK (and many others.)
***

JOHN LOCKE … fake or sincere?

2011-12-11T14:14:00.004-06:00

I walked up to Captain Sam’s table where Alice, my ghoul friend, was lost in a book.

I asked, “What’re you reading?”

Alice looked up absently, “This system by John Locke to sell millions of Kindle books. I want to discern if there is any merit to it so as to help Roland.”

{http://www.amazon.com/How-Sold-Million-eBooks-Months/dp/1935670913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1309895373&sr=1-1 }

Her British accent sent tingles through me, but I was Victor Standish, and I don’t let girls know they’re getting to me. But her Mona Lisa smile said I was only fooling myself.

And talking about fooling, I said, “Oh, I read that last night for the same reason. Boy, Old John must have pretty broad shoulders.”

Alice frowned, “Why do you say that?”

“From the way the guy kept patting himself on the back all the time. ‘I have made 3 separate fortunes. My posts are timeless, forever relevant. I write 7,000 words a day when I write a novel. I have the system guaranteed to make you a success. My snake oil will make you live forever.”

Alice frowned like an angry librarian. “He wrote no such thing.”

“Yeah, but he probably will next week.”

Alice sighed as if at a dim-wit (and no snide comments from you guys out there!)

She sighed, “I have read where this Amanda Hocking, herself a Kindle wonder, said that it is more likely a Kindle author will only sell less than a 100 copies of their eBooks – not anywhere close to a 100,000.”

I sat down beside Alice. “Yeah, but she’s not hawking a “How To” book for $10 a pop either. I mean, look – he’s made $20 just from the two of us.”

Alice puckered her pretty lips. “But he’s sold so many books.”

“Yeah, but have you looked at the covers? Sex sells. Even if they’re only sexy legs.”

Alice glared at me. “And just how do you know what the covers look like, Mr. Standish?”

“Hey, he’s got them plastered at the top of his blog.{http://donovancreed.com/}

That guy sure knows how to manipulate :

soft-soaping poor people on Twitter to be his shills;

writing only what he thinks will sell, not what’s in his heart;

singing the praises of sport and sick Hollywood greats, then twittering those legends’ fans with a link to his blog.”

Alice looked troubled. “You are not a mind-reader, Victor. Mr. Locke may be sincere.”

“Yeah, maybe. But I’ve lived on the streets all my life and had to fend off panhandlers that whole time. When a deal sounds too good to be true, it ain’t.”

“Isn’t,” chuckled Captain Sam as he sat down beside me.

“I’ve read his book for the same reason you two did. So that makes $30 he’s made just from this table. Still, he did have a sound idea or three. Maybe lightning just struck as it sometimes does. Or his system does works. Time reveals the truth eventually.”

Alice cocked her head, blonde waves becoming a waterfall. “But what of all the people who will follow Mr. Locke’s system in the mean time?”

Captain Sam smiled sad. “Sometimes faith will heal you even if the pill you swallow is sugar.”
***

THE WORLD IS ROUND ...

2011-12-10T14:13:00.003-06:00

And the place which may seem like the end
may also be the beginning.
***

NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS!

2011-12-10T00:00:00.003-06:00

The odds are against us. Worse. Look at the headlines of suicide bombers, drive-by shootings, and rape.

We are against us.

There is no director to yell "Cut!" No stunt double to take our place. And no new movie to star in when death swallows our person.

We must be our own hero. Wear our own spandex.

And, if Kate Beckinsale of UNDERWORLD is to be believed, spandex pinches. And so it should.

Pinches remind us that pain befalls us all, to be kinder to someone whose pinched face shows us that the spandex of his/her life is less than comfortable.

The picture of this post comes from Cassandra.

She is a hero, a woman who could have surrendered to bitterness and defeat. But instead she has chosen to choose life, healing others, and going forward.

Though she would deny the heroism of her new life, I consider her a hero. Her trauma is hers to tell. I am just tipping my hat to her heroism.

And in a fashion, all we authors struggling to be published have to be our own heroes.

The odds are against us in this harsh market.

It seems that the motto of agents we approach is : "If I don't want your autograph, I don't want your manuscript."

Even if we self-publish, how do we get our novels to the eye of the average reader? No easy answers there.

But giving up can become an addiction, a way of life. Never surrender. Never yield to despair.

Stumble, yes. Fall, of course. But gather your strength, your wits and get up. You can do it. Others have before you.

Fling the blood and sweat from your eyes and smile wide. You can use those acid feelings searing your will and heart in your writing, becoming a deeper, more perceptive writer.

And more importantly :

if you refuse to give in to bitter hopelessness, you will become a deeper, more compassionate human being.

When you succeed, and you will succeed, you'll be able to thrust out a helping hand and word to someone, down and hurting, who needs a boost back onto the path.

You'll remember how galling the conceited bragging sounded from those who had let their success go to their heads.

If we do make it, the very least we can do is offer hope to those still in the grim trenches.

You'll be able to give them a pat on the back to lend strength to their steps. The pats lower leave to the agents and publishers.
***
And my favorite scene of all the STAR WARS films highlights my thinking {sorry about the foreign subtitles} :

GOOD GUYS ARE BAD NEWS ... for your novel

2011-12-09T00:00:00.003-06:00

{ I had to start my post with a photo of a bad girl to counterbalance the good guy subject matter.

Ah, not buying that? Didn't think so. It was worth a try.}

"Good guys are boring?," I said earlier tonight.

Nickie, my co-worker, nodded sagely. "Yep. Boooooring."

We'd been talking my disenchantment with Sookie in the TRUE BLOOD novels.

Bill, her first lover, had suffered near death twice for her, but she is attracked to sociopath vampire, Eric.

"Vampire Bill is boring while Eric is just bad and sexy."

"Uh, he tore apart a guy who was just trying to escape being chained in a cellar. And then, he got upset when the man's blood ruined his hair's highlighting."

Nickie giggled, "That was so cute."

"What if the guy had been your kid brother? Still cute?"

"Oh that guy was a jerk. He had it coming."

"And the two little children Eric looked down as munchies toward the end of season two? Did they have it coming?"

"Oh, you're as boring as vampire Bill." And Nickie hurried off to read the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel.

Our conversation got me thinking on how difficult it is to write a non-boring hero or heroine.

But being good boring? Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, once wrote : "Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for."

I don't know about you, but that's pretty much how it's been for me.

So Niki and actors who moan that good guys are boring don't really mean boring in the obvious sense.

As writers we have to look at heroes through the reader's eyes. And what do they want of their heroes?

To live vicariously through them.

And who wants to suffer through routine living second-hand? We get enough of that up close and personal. Our failure with heroes is that we make them routine.

What do the readers want from the hero of the novel they're reading?

To live dangerously and to have fun through them by :

Dialogue :

How often have you been stung in a situation, only to come up with the perfect comeback HOURS after the fact?

Think CON-AIR when

Cameron Poe says to agent Larkin : "Sorry boss, but there's only two men I trust. One of them's me. The other's not you."

Or with Robert B. Parker when Spenser says :

"...You have any suggestions, make them. I'm in charge but humble. No need to salute when you see me."
Fraser said, "Mind if we snicker every once in a while behind your back?"
"Hell, no," I said. "Everyone else does."
— Robert B. Parker (The Widening Gyre)

Or when Spenser walks into a TV station's boardroom to see three lawyers sitting on a couch beside one another.

"Which one of you speaks no evil?," I asked. (A Savage Place)

{Side-bar} :

University professor turned writer, Robert B. Parker, had thought-provoking things to say about writers, literature, and life :

“It was not just that Ross Macdonald taught us how to write; he did something much more, he taught us how to read, and how to think about life, and maybe, in some small, but mattering way, how to live.”

"Being a professor and working are not the same thing. The academic community is composed largely of nitwits. If I may generalize. People who don't know very much about what matters very much, who view life through literature rather than the other way around.”

“The advantage of writing a series is that it probably replicates, for lack of a better word, real life more than most fiction because most people have a history and know people and come and go and you have a chance to play with the characters and not just the protagonist.

It gives you the opportunity to develop--lapsing back into academe for a moment--a whole fictive world. Gee, I love saying that now, just keeping my hand in. Fictive world!.”

"I sit down every day and write five pages on my computer. At some point I found that not outlining worked better than outlining. The outline had become something of a limitation more than it was a support.

When I did the Raymond Chandler book, Poodle Springs, which was in the late eighties, I was trying to do it as Chandler did it, and since Chandler didn't outline then I thought I won't outline.

If you read Chandler closely you can see that he didn't outline. What the hell happened to that chauffeur? I would recommend to the beginning writer that they should outline because they probably don't have enough self-confidence yet.

But I've been writing now since 1971 and I know that I can think it up. I know it will come."

"It's tempting to say the Ph.D. didn't have an effect, but it's not so. I think whatever resonance I may be able to achieve is in part simply from the amount of reading and learning that I acquired along the way."

But I digress ...

What, besides saying snappy dialogue, do readers want to do through their heroes?

To do the extraordinary.

Even if it is in ordinary circumstances. Spit in the eye of the bully. Tweak the nose of a snobbish boss.

Take this scenario :

A tired stone mason sits at a bar run by one of his few friends. Another man sits down beside him. He never looks at our hero, but he pushes a thick manila envelope over to him.

He whispers, "Ten thousand now. Ten thousand after she's dead."

He gets up and slowly walks away. Our hero hurriedly opens the envelope. Sure enough there is the money. And a blown-up photo of a woman from her driver's license.

Our hero gets up to follow the man to see if he can get the license plate number of his car to give to the police. The man is already outside -- getting into a police car.

What does our hero do? What would you do? And so starts the Dean Koontz novel, THE GOOD GUY. (Hey, I couldn't resist.)

There is a hero inside all of us ...

if we only know where to look. There is a magentism to your hero of your novel ... if you know where to look.

And where is that?

In your heart, my friend. In your heart.
*******************************************

***

WOW_WHEN YOU HIT A STONE WALL_Insecure Writer's Support Post

2011-12-07T18:45:00.002-06:00

It happens to us all.

We're writing along in our C.A.R. (conflict, action, resolution) when WAM!

We run into a brick wall. Our muse deserts us. And we find ourselves mired in the middle of a chapter with no ideas as to how to get out.

Now, most of us will think a colorful metaphor or two at this time.

I want you to instead think _WOW!

W ..... Want

O ..... Obstacle

W ..... Way

WANT :

I. First WANT

No, not your want. Not even the want of your main character. The WANT of your reader ... which is ...

A POWERFUL EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE.

A.) Emotion is the life's blood of all fiction : romance, thriller, mystery, horror, and science fiction.

B.) But it doesn't come from reading about the other guy having a terrible, challenging time. No, it doesn't.

C.) It comes from the reader BECOMING THAT CHARACTER to ...

find love, face that horrendous terror, fight that unbeatable foe, solve that baffling mystery ... to win.

D.) The reader becomes your main character when ...

1.) You lure them into the mind and heart of your MC.

2.) By speaking of the common angst we all have :
loneliness, alienation, yearning for love, desire for esteem in the eyes of significant others.

3.) Make them laugh, even if there are tears. The reader will return to your books again and again if you can do that.

4.) What is the worst prison punishment short of execution?
Solitary confinement.
We all need to connect. Bereft of that link to another human soul we wither inside.

5.) Your main character must seem real to the reader, must reflect some spark or lack within the reader herself.

Her wounds must bleed real blood. Their pain must echo throughout the remaining pages. Her triumph over them will be all the more uplifting to the reader.

II. Second Want :

A.) The WANT of your MC.

B.) If you're mired down in a chapter, see if you can find the WANT of the MC or her adversary in it.

C.) If you can't or if it is not immediate and primal ... there's your problem.

OBSTACLE :

I. Obstacle is related to WANT

A.) How do you make someone want something?
Say they can't have it.
See a "Don't Touch. Wet Paint" sign, and what do you do?
You touch the blasted wall, don't you? Sure you do.

B.) Your OBSTACLE is directly tied in to your MC's WANT. If you've done your craft right __ the WANT's basic nature carries within it, its own obstacle.

C.) And that nature is CHANGE
Getting the WANT will change your MC's life drastically.
Not getting it will change it for the worse.

II.) Look at your trouble chapter :
If the OBSTACLE is not primal, immediately threatening, and nearly overwhelming ... there's your problem.

A.) Most readers would love to change their lives ...

B.) to add more excitement
to add a sensual, seductive love interest to their days
to finally achieve control and mastery over their jobs or problems.

WAY :

A.) This is not just another way to say action ...
though it always involves action.

B.) WAY springs from the manner your MC goes about tackling the OBSTACLE.
It must ring true to your MC's basic nature :

1.) Each person has their own style that manifests itself in how she sees and solves her OBSTACLE.

2.) In A TALE OF TWO CITIES, Sydney Carton loves another man's wife. He sacrifices himself to save him so that the woman he loves is not shattered.

3.) In real life, 28 year old D.H. Lawrence loves 32 year old Frieda Weekley, unhappy wife and mother of three children. He runs off to Europe with her, making violent love, writing poems that shake up the literary world,

There are only two things now,
The great black night scooped out
And this fire-glow.

This fire-glow, the core,
And we the two ripe pips
That are held in store.

Listen, the darkness rings
As it circulates round our fire.
Take off your things.

Your shoulders, your bruised throat!
Your breasts, your nakedness!
This fiery coat!

As the darkness flickers and dips,
As the firelight falls and leaps
From your feet to your lips!

and, alas, sees her "share her abundance with acquaintances" along their European trek.

4.) Both WAYS sprang from the basic nature of the man involved. Both were true. Both WAYS stir strong emotion when you read them, don't they?

C.) WAY must spring from the three act nature of any novel :

Act I.
The stage is set, the conflict painted, and the characters have fun.

Act II.
The rug is pulled out from under the MC, the adversary draws blood, all seems lost.

Act III.
The stakes are raised, the MC rises from the ashes, a last ditch duel to the finish comes to a resounding climax, where the adversary is defeated but with great cost.

1.) If you are mired in a chapter, check to see where you are in your novel, the beginning, the middle, or towards the end.

2.) If you cannot see the fun in the beginning, then THERE'S your problem.

If it's in the middle, and the rug's not being pulled out in some devastating way, BINGO.

And if your MC and adversary are blowing kisses at each towards the end, you have found the bedrock of your problem -- and you're one sick puppy.

*) Happy Christmas Season, Everyone!
I hope this post helped you in some small way to make it out of the next pothole you fall into. Roland
***
Christmas makes me think of New Year's Eve for some reason :