THERE WAS A TIME I LOST HOPE_Insecure Writer's Support

Hope is an ethereal yet essential thing.

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.” ― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Beautiful words.  But sometimes the world becomes ashes in your hands, and what do you have left?

When hope dies, life has a weird way of giving you its form of C.P.R. or hitting you with those electric paddles. 

You see, in a strange way there is neither happiness nor misery in the world.

There is only the comparison of one state with another.

He who has been plunged into the deepest grief later comes to see what beauty he foolishly took for granted before.    

That which he was blind to prior becomes to him a healing scene of rare wonder.

Perhaps wisdom can be distilled into two words:

Wait and Hope.

I had a silly dream, born of the wonder my friends in The League of Five had in the thrill of continued adventures in linked books:

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/11/leauge-of-five.html

To be able to weave a linked world of different heroes fighting in a cosmic war that few even realized was ongoing from one novel to another and have them read and loved was my dream.

Know how many copies of HIBBS, THE CUB WITH NO CLUE I have sold?   Two.  And I bought one of those for my own Kindle!  Ouch!

Some months back it hit me that I was never going to sell many of my books, much less be popular.

The Father murmured, “There are worse fates.” 

And I contracted cancer like my mother before me.

  Stunned and fearful, I said, “Yeah, you right.”

{By the way, for all you males out there – those are the 3 magic words for your angry wives or lovers:

YEAH, YOU RIGHT. 

They will at least not make matters worse!}

After a very unsettling time, the Father granted me a reprieve. 

A reprieve is all any of us get. 

Our promissory note on life always come due, and the Postman in Black turns up at our doorstep … and he has the key to every one of our doors.

Sandra, my best friend, is dying of cancer. 

When she emails me (which now is seldom for she is focusing on her family and her own fears),

she demands to know how I am doing in work, how my health is, and how my prose dream is doing.

It seems trite in the extreme to whine about the Lab Tech who has been actively trying for years to get me fired. 

(It is a puzzlement to all who know of it and me.  But sometimes you work with mentally unstable people … sadly this one has clout.)

Sandra insists she wants to know of my books. 

She says in this age of reality programming and Twitter, no one wants to think while they read. 

If I enjoy the act of writing, then write.  If 5 people find pleasure in my prose, then my dream has not been in vain

Life is short and fragile as both Sandra and I know. 

We must be mindful of the beauty and love that pushes through the cracks of the concrete of a world seemingly intent on crushing us.

If you want to give me some good news to write Sandra, buy a copy of

THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N758R96  {$2.99}

or

HIBBS, THE CUB WITH NO CLUE  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MT8DNLY    {.99}

If not, that’s all right, too. 

I have learned the importance of each breath treasured for its own sake. 

A  good friend gone far away just reminded me on Facebook of my own words on my Author Page:

“The great thing about being a writer is that you CAN BE a princess, an astronaut, or a dinosaur.

Samuel Clemens was never taken seriously as a writer ... until he was famous.  He wrote ‘You are a crank ... until you succeed.’

People will take you as seriously as you take yourself.

We must be whole within ourselves -- no matter what inane nonsense folks think of us. 

That is why writers are lonely, for a dream is a private thing since no one's dream is dear to someone looking from the outside.

Every pioneer goes it alone, but writers are lucky: they get to take their characters along with them inside their heads!”

It is good to have good friends like Robert to remind us of who we are.

Have a lovely week, my friends.