QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

"The drums move away, the Distance shows,

Cloud-hid craigs peek through parting snows,

Horizons haze as the blue incense of clouds gather,

'Peace, Peace' pleads the fearful heart,

Only silence answers."
                                              - Samuel McCord


Twice now I have asked if you trust the media.  It is not enough just to be wary.  We must question.

But what questions should we ask?

1. Type: What kind of content is this?

Recognize first what kind of content you’re looking at.

Is it a news story? Or is it an opinion piece?

Is it an ad or what some people call native advertising produced by a company?

Is it a reaction to someone else’s content?

Part of knowing what you’re looking at involves knowing who produced the content.

Is it a news organization? Or is it a publication that is sponsored by a think tank, or a political group or a corporation?

Another thing to know is where the organization gets its money.

If it’s a non-profit or an advocacy group, where did that money come from?

If that isn’t clear, that’s a problem.

Does the content have an obvious political slant?

Knowing what you are looking at is the first step to figuring out what you can believe.

2. Source: Who and what are the sources cited and why should I believe them?

News content usually cites sources for the information provided.

These are the people quoted, or the documents or reports or data being referred to.

As you read, listen or watch a piece of content, note who is being cited. If it’s text, print it out and circle the sources.

Is it a police official? A politician? What party?

If it’s research, what organization produced it and what background if any is offered about them?

A major part of understanding sources is recognizing the level of knowledge that someone might have—

or how close it is to being first hand. There are lots of different kinds of sources.

The key question is, how do they know? If it’s not clear, you should be more skeptical.

3. Evidence: What’s the evidence and how was it vetted?

Evidence is closely related to but slightly different than source.

Evidence is the proof that the sources offer for what they know. It overlaps with how close someone is to an event.

 But even highly credentialed sources may begin to speculate sometimes. They may be guessing.

So, first, identify the evidence that any source is offering. Circle it. Write it down. Do it as an exercise a couple times. It becomes easy to recognize.

Look for signs of a method–a method of verification.

If you can see how the author or reporter checked or corroborated the evidence–

if the method is explicit–that is a sign of more credible work.

4. Interpretation: Is the main point of the piece proven by the evidence?

Most media content offers a thesis, or main point, of some kind.

The one exception might be a straightforward account of a breaking news event.

Most other stories, however, are built around an idea, a trend, or even some angle on a news event.

Even content that isn’t narrative usually has a thesis or a point.

For instance, most charts point you to a conclusion —

like the number of people with jobs in America is going down or actors' salaries are going up.

So the fourth step in knowing whether something is reliable is to ask whether this main point makes sense,

and whether the conclusions are supported by the evidence offered.

5. Completeness: What’s missing?

Most content should lead to more questions.

An important step in being a critical, questioning consumer is to ask yourself what you don’t understand about a subject.

Look back at the piece. Did you miss something? Or was it not there?

If there was important information missing from the story, that is a problem.

If something was explained so poorly that it wasn’t clear, that’s also a problem.

If something was missing and the story explained why:

this couldn’t be answered yet—that is a good thing.

{Also called HOW YOU FIND THE WAY}

THE MOST IMPORTANT POST YOU WILL EVER READ

You read my title and said,

"Get real."

Exactly.

Get real. Or never get picked up by an agent.

As a writer of urban fantasy,

I have to convince my readers that Samuel McCord, Victor & Alice and their enemies are real,

or they will never buy my fantastical setting and plot as "real."

No matter what you write, you must do the same. Or the readers will never become absorbed into your novel.

How do you do that?

By remembering ...

1) "God and Country" ain't what it used to be.

Duty and honor were once valid motivations. But Shakespeare is dead.

This is the "Me" generation. Even if you're writing about women in the 1700's, you are not writing FOR them.

Abigail Adams sacrificed much for her husband and family. But her letters showed a woman who insisted on owning her own property and money

(very much NOT the custom of the time.)

All of us have had to deal with a situation, not because it was honorable, but because it was heaved into our laps.

Abigail comes across as real because her letters showed she resented her husband's ambition that took him from his children and her so often and for so long.

She fumed at his inability to get along with others.

Ambition, vanity, irritability -- she saw his warts. But they were warts on a face she loved. We can "buy" a woman who sees clearly but loves deeply.

2) Ah, Love ...

"Put the rat cage on her. On her!"

In 1984, Winston is tortured by the Thought Police until he finally breaks and screams for his tormenter to put the rat cage on Julia, the woman he "loves."

Sex is a primal motivator not love.

Man will sacrifice much for love but generally there must be a good chance of success, or your average reader will feel your novel is cliche not real.

Your hero may be different and sacrifice all for love, but that extremism must apply to all facets of his life or your reader will not "buy" your hero.

3.) Curiosity killed the cat ... and the bad novel.

Without curiosity, fire and most of Man's discoveries would never have been made. But as with love, there is a limit to how much we will sacrifice for curiosity.

When a mother's children are threatened by her curiosity, she will generally grudgingly back off.

Up the punishment enough, and all of us curious types will say, "I'm outta here!"

But by the time that moment comes, realistically, it is too late. And that leads us to the next point :

4) Self-preservation or
"I'll miss you terribly, but that last life preserver is mine!"

We like to think the world is a nice place. But try being an ill, frail woman on a crowded bus and see how selfless most people are.

To continue when threats to his life are enormous, your main character must have more than self-preservation to keep on --

perhaps he/she cannot depend on the promises or threats of the adversary to keep his/her children and spouse safe.

Or as so often in life, the hero simply has no choice but to go on. The bee hive has been toppled -- and it's simply run or be stung to death.

5) Greed or

"Excuse me. Is that my hand in your pocket?"

Greed is good -- as Michael Douglas once said. But only up to a point.

For one thing, greed is not something which endears our hero to the reader. Another, shoot at most greedy folks, and they will head for more hospitable hills.

5) Revenge consumes ... the individual and the reader's patience.

Revenge is understandable but not heroic.

In historical or Western novels, where justice was bought or simply non-existent, revenge is a valid motivation ...

often justified under the rationalization, justice.

Revenge in our civilized times must occur when lapses in order happen.

Say when civilization died with the power in New Orleans during and after Katrina.

Revenge on your adversary's part must be understandable, or your plot will become cliche. Revenge must be supplemented with other aspects of the character.

Say a priest, defending his flock of homeless during Katrina, must choke off his desire for revenge for a raped little girl

to stay by his remaining flock to protect them. Playing the desire for revenge against love for helpless family can lend depth to your novel --

making it real.

For who of us has not burned for revenge against a tresspass against us but had to bite back the darkness within?

6) We want to believe ...

Despite all the harsh things I've said of love (and by inference, friendship), the reader wants to believe ...

A) that when the moment comes, we can reach within ourselves and find the hero hiding there.

B) that love can survive dark, hard times if we but simply refuse to let go of it.

C) that humor and wit can overcome the larger, stronger predator -- that we can become Ulysses challenging the gods -- and winning.

7) Give your readers a semblance of reality while still giving them the three things that they want to believe of themselves and of life --

and your novel will be a bestseller.
{Victor & Alice drawn by the incomparable Leonora Roy}
***
{Thea's song for Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS}

THE KINDNESS PROJECT: Your Life

Carolina Valdez Miller has designated every 2nd Wednesday as THE KINDNESS PROJECT time to write about the worth of kindness:

http://www.carolinavaldezmiller.com/

On this day in 1965 Shirley Jackson (THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE) died of heart failure, at the age of forty-eight.

For twenty years and from various angles Jackson had built a reputation for quietly ripping the lid off life in Pleasantville:

"The Lottery" and other stories; her two family chronicles, Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons; her horror novel, The Haunting of Hill House.

By 1962 her physical and mental health had deteriorated to the point that she could not face venturing into, let alone fictionalizing, her Bennington, Vermont hometown.

Any number of descriptions and causes were offered:

her mother, agoraphobia, years of drug abuse (amphetamines and tranquilizers), years of overeating and overdrinking, etc.

In the end, we craft our prisons, our palaces, our lives

by each decision that eventually become patterns of behavior which in turn become the rudder which takes us to pleasant or dark harbors.

Sandra says I sometimes remind her of Elwood P. Dowd (Jimmy Stewart) in Harvey. There are worse people to be likened to.

Listen to Elwood:

"Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it."

"Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, 'In this world, Elwood, you must be' - she always called me Elwood - 'In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.' Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."

"Myrtle Mae, you have a lot to learn, and I hope you never learn it."

"I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whomever I'm with."

"Harvey and I sit in the bars... have a drink or two... play the juke box. And soon the faces of all the other people they turn toward mine and they smile.

And they're saying, "We don't know your name, mister, but you're a very nice fella."

Harvey and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments. We've entered as strangers - soon we have friends.

And they come over... and they sit with us... and they drink with us... and they talk to us.

They tell about the big terrible things they've done and the big wonderful things they'll do. Their hopes, and their regrets, and their loves, and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar."

That last quote says it all:

No one's dreams, hurts, or losses are small. Puppy love is real to the puppy. The tears we dare not shed burn the worst.

What did Mark Twain write?

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.

Which leads to my cardinal rule:
Always treat people as kindly as you can, for everyone is having a harder time than they appear.

It is the way of Man to be cruel to those who are weak and without power. Let us be the exception to the rule. Here is a tune of a poor girl who was treated as the world usually treats those who need but a bit of understanding.

SEASONS OF SHAPING, ANGUISH THE SCALPEL

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."
***

ATTACK OF THE PROLOGUE

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.

EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT LIFE, I CAUGHT HELL LEARNING!

I'm a writer. I have the business cards to prove it and everything.

Which means I'm about as popular at work as an Amway or Avon salesman!

Once a well-meaning soul asked, "What are you writing about?"

I know my eyes must have lit up like a sadist at a masochist convention.

"Oh! It's about a street kid in haunted New Orleans right before Hurricane Katrina!"

Her eyes glazed over. Her face took on a "Call 911! Call 911!" expression. She even backed up.

It reminded me of an important lesson. Not taught ... because haven't you noticed that you only need to be reminded of most facts of life?

Long ago, I learned that 99% of the people I meet will not care about my $2000 blog contest or my latest book.

No. They want to know if anybody in this stressed-out world gives a damn about them.

You see, most people are having a harder time than it appears. And for the most part, their wounds are invisible - and more painful because of that fact.

So I keep quiet about me and ask about what is drawing blood in my co-workers' lives. And in today's world something is always wounding those around you.

No sympathy for my dreams. But like I've said - those around me (and you) have larger wounds needing tending to than my quixotic quests for publication.

So those of you reading this -- don't worry.

Yes, I am a writer, but you will read no hype about my books.

My trailers at the top of this blog will give you an idea if you're curious. Wendy Tyler Ryan crafted them into works of art. Tyler and Ryan are the names of her two sons.

What's her last name? I don't know.

My code is that of the Old West. I don't pry. Need someone to listen, to give a damn? I'm your man.

You want privacy? I'm still your man. I will give your invisible wounds breathing room.

What did Wyatt Earp say? "Never crowd a fellow unless you got a first class reason."

So what's the point of this little post?

That life is easier for those around us when we take time to listen -- really listen -- not crouch impatiently for a pause in the breath of the speaker to leap in with something important ... something about US.

But you see,

we all have our dreams. Mine's being a self-supporting writer. You have yours. Your neighbors and co-workers have theirs.

More important,

we all have invisible wounds and silent sorrows.

If we are tolerant of the dreams of others and healing in our words and actions to their wounds --

then the pursuit of our dreams will not be a lonely one nor will it be in vain --

even if the end of the rainbow forever eludes us.

We will have journeyed towards it with friends.
***

BY DEGREES WE DIE; BY OURSELVES WE MOURN

As Tropical Storm Lee bears down upon my community, I paused to reflect --

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."

And so I leave you with yet another song by Thea Gilmore, accompanied by Joan Baez :

NEIL GAIMAN, SAM McCORD, & THEA GILMORE and TO WHAT INNER MUSIC DO YOU WRITE?

NEIL GAIMAN

He wrote AMERICAN GODS and is somewhat of a literary demigod himself ...

at least to me. And I owe him two debts :

1.) THEA GILMORE :
His blog introduced me to her and her, at that time, latest album, LIEJACKER, with her incomparable song, THE ICARUS WIND.

2.) FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE :
By the time of AMERICAN GODS, I had already written RITES OF PASSAGE and ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

But his AMERICAN GODS with its Gothic horror, dark fantasy, age-old legend, ancient mythology, and biblical allegory in modern-day settings gave me hope that there was room for my mixing ancient myth with the Old West of Louis Lamour.

Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS has been hailed as a myth for the modern world, exploring with sophistication, complexity, and evocative prose the meaning of what it means to be human in an often inhuman world.

SAM McCORD :
As I wandered in enforced exile from my home during Hurrricanes Rita and Katrina, Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS sparked the thought

of how my undead Texas Ranger, Sam McCord, of the 1850's would fare in the New Orleans of Katrina.

And it made me wonder how the supernatural world he had come to know would have changed with the times.

All of this made me think to ask all of you, my blog friends, what music inspires you as you write? What author(s) sparked you into writing a novel or into writing as a means of creation? I'd like to know.
***
Here's Thea doing a tribute to AMERICAN GODS in her EVEN GODS DO :

THEA GILMORE_ALICE WENTWORTH'S theme singer

THEA GILMORE --

the best singer you never heard of. Alice Wentworth has, of course. Thea sings her song of her feelings when she first met Victor Standish, THIS TOWN.

Thea Gilmore's 70th birthday tribute to Bob Dylan takes the form of re-recording her favourite Dylan album in its entirety,

triggered by her acclaimed 2002 cover of "I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine", which sustains its solemnity despite the inclusion of congas.

Elsewhere, piano, dobro and mandolin lend natural illumination to "Dear Landlord",

while Gilmore's take on "All Along the Watchtower" is pitched midway between Dylan's and Hendrix's, as a relaxed strummer with delicate guitar highlights.

The man himself will probably be tickled by her faithfulness to the original's sense of solitude; reflectiveness is something Gilmore does well, in a voice that becomes more beautifully burnished by the year.

There are some triumphs: accompanied by finger-picked guitar on I Am a Lonesome Hobo, she's a lost soul;

the autumnal weariness of Dear Landlord is equally affecting.

Captain Samuel McCord and I are great fans of her JOHN WESLEY HARDING, that noted Robin Hood of Old West outlaws.

***
Alice's theme for Victor that first night they met : THIS TOWN -

THE ICARUS WIND AT MIDNIGHT

I am preparing to go down lonely, dark rural roads to bring very rare blood to a struggling baby.And a tune is haunting me.

The Icarus Wind.

It's a lovely song by the equally lovely {and evocative} Thea Gilmore.

The Icarus Wind is also the spirit which sweeps us up and hurls us into the misty clouds where our dreams live.


It is a dangerous realm. There is no promise of success. And there is no safety net to catch us should we fall.



The post of yesterday brought back memories of my bookstore and my customers.

Yes, I owned a bookstore for a time. I needed an understanding boss who would allow me to accompany my mother on her distant trips for chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

I figured I could be pretty darn understanding.



So I emptied my savings, and with the added financial help of two good friends, I started my bookstore. I had not thought of sales as a way to make a living. But luckily, the people coming in pretty much knew what they wanted.



After coming in for awhile, they knew I wasn't going to hard-sell them anything. I got to know them and pointed out things I thought they'd like. I was usually right.



And it's come to me that once again, as with my bookstore, I am back in sales ... in a sense. But only in a sense. Like in my bookstore, I have to get to know my customer {potential agent.} I have to learn her likes and dislikes.



But unlike my bookstore, the agent hasn't gotten to know the wonderfulness of myself. No. I'm coming in cold.



In another sense, I'm also coming in hot :



no time to build up trust or to ratchet-up the tension. Like a space shuttle without fuel, I'm flying like a razor through the cyber-void. I have seconds, ten seconds if conventional wisdom is correct, to win the agent's interested attention.



That's not much time to hit a home run.



To follow the trajectory of the baseball analogy, I have to quickly present a winning ...



Pitch.


Line Drive.


Home Run.



Think : Speed. Focus. And ... out of the ball park!




My target agent is eye-weary, computer numb, and conditioned by thousands of terrible queries to expect yet another boring turkey.

I have to flash a surprise crack of the bat and get her attention. I'll use my 90,000 word urban fantasy, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE, for an example {Yeah, what a surprise, right?} :




PITCH :
A man who no longer believes in God must fight a being who believes himself the Devil.



LINE DRIVE :
Doubt. Faith. Death. All three collide in Post-Katrina New Orleans where the dying of the lights bring out the predators from both sides of the darkness.




HOME RUN :
In post-Katrina New Orleans, an undead Texas Ranger battles inept politicians, Russian mobsters, and DayStar, a being with god-like powers.

Helped by a vampire priest, the Ranger faces mounting opposition from all corners of the supernatural realm, all eager to take advantage of the chaos following the hurricane. And in the wings watching the Ranger get weaker and weaker, DayStar sets his last trap for his hated enemy into motion.
*******
Post Script :


Many times we writers don't even get the opportunity to audition for the agent. We get the intern.


Imagine getting your X-ray read. As you hand it in to the desk, you ask, "The doctor will read this, right?"



"No, the intern will."




"She's trained in reading X-Rays?"


"No education. No salary even. But she's optimistic and hopeful."



"Yeah, well that makes one of us."


"Oh, it's always been this way. That's just the way the system works."


"Yeah, they told Lincoln the same thing about slavery."


"Oh, so the intern's been complaining about having to re-arrange the agent's bookshelf, has she?"


"No, I haven't talked to her. So she has to re-arrange the agent's books, too? Where does she find the time to grovel?"


"Oh, there's always time to grovel."


"Words to live by," I smile and walk out the door.


***********
Post script II :


The really great news?

You know what the success ratio for a super-star agent is? 50%.

Ouch. Or not so ouch.

It takes the pressure off. It is what it is. We try our best and enjoy the journey.
*********************
Here's the music video of Thea singing "The Icarus Wind."

DARE TO BE BAD

Don't forget to vote for my entry in Tessa's OUTSIDE THE BOX blogfest :

http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com/


That's right. Dare to be bad.

1.) Ernest Hemingway said it :

All first drafts are shit.

He was a genius. And if his first draft was bad, ours will most likely be less than sterling, too.

Which is a relief.

It takes the pressure off us to write that masterpiece right out of the chute.

We know what we write will be bad. Then, with the rough foundation laid, we can get down to the fixes.

2.) The Zen of Writing :

Write in the moment.

Have your goal for the chapter you're creating up on the chalkboard of your mind. See it as a mini-three act play :

One : build-up with tension and foreshadowing

Two : the dominoes fall into place, sometimes flowing into an unexpected pattern.

Three : the bottom falls out of someone's expectations or plans.

With that mini-three act play in your mind write the first things that occur to you.

Flow with the internal logic of your words, set your sail with the mood of the winds of your muse and travel across your fictive world.

3.) Finish Your Vegetables :

Complete your chapter -- hopefully with a cliffhanger.

(You do not want to give the agent a convenient stop point. Make her want to turn the page and keep on reading into the wee hours of the morning.

If she can't stop reading, she will feel that the publisher and reader will not be able to stop either.)

4.) Bad prose is just a problem to be solved.

Every prose problem has a solution. Perhaps not a perfect one but an improvement of your earlier prose.

Look at your finished chapter. Correct what mistakes you see on the computer monitor. Print out the chapter.

Read it silently, correcting as you go. Read it aloud.

Slash through clunky sentence, writing the improved version above it. Read it aloud, listening to the flow of the words. Is there lyrical magic to them?

No? Read them again, slashing as you go. Try to see if you can make the mental images clear and vivid in your mind. It can be done. Sometimes simple prose is best.

Write the simplest version of the trouble sentence you can.

Write the first words that come to mind. Like the first answer to a difficult test question, it will more than likely be the right choice.

5.) Every prose pothole you stumble across can be fixed.

You don't have to be a genius. You don't have to be Pulitzer Prize material.

You just have to care ...

about writing at your highest level.

about how people interact and how they hurt and heal one another ... sometimes one act right after the other.

You're a writer.

You've observed people around you. You've reflected upon your own words and actions on the job, at play, and at home.

Use those observations to lend depth to the interactions in your novel.

6.) Put Tab A into Slot B :

A frequent agent complaint is that your story doesn't hold together.

What does that mean any way?

It means the individual parts don't fit.

At the start of writing your novel, write what you believe will be your last chapter. Tie up all the loose ends you plan to dangle along the course of your narrative.

Present your protagonist, having learned all the hard lessons he picked up in the heat of the crucible. Have him admit to his failings of the past. Have him stand proud and laughing or silent, strong, and humbled by his hard-won wisdom.

Then, using this chapter as a guide, write your first chapter. Show the flaws in your protagonist that have been mended in the climax. Spotlight the areas where growth is needed, especially the ones to which your hero is blind.

Introduce the theme of your novel : Love makes lust seem pale and unsatisfying. Life is more than success. True friends are your real wealth. Family is the yin and yang of life, both pain and healing.

As you write the meat of your novel, keep your creative eye on both of these chapters to time your pacing, tension, laughter, foreshadowing, and ultimate victory.

*) If you dare to be bad, your novel will be very, very good.
***

THE ICARUS WIND

The Icarus Wind.

It's a lovely song by the equally lovely {and evocative} Thea Gilmore.

The Icarus Wind is also the spirit which sweeps us up

and hurls us into the misty clouds where our dreams live.

It is a dangerous realm. There is no promise of success.

And there is no safety net to catch us should we fall.

Yesterday's post conjured images of absent friends. Many of those friends were customers of my bookstore.

Yes, I owned a bookstore for a time.

I needed an understanding boss who would allow me to accompany my mother on her distant trips for chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

For myself, I figured I could be pretty damn understanding.

So I emptied my savings, and with the added financial help of two good friends, I started my bookstore.

I had not thought of sales as a way to make a living. But luckily, the people coming in pretty much knew what they wanted.

After coming in for awhile, they knew I wasn't going to hard-sell them anything. I got to know them and pointed out things I thought they'd like. I was usually right.

And it's come to me that once again, as with my bookstore, I am back in sales ... in a sense. But only in a sense. Like in my bookstore, I have to get to know my customer {potential agent.} I have to learn her likes and dislikes.

But unlike my bookstore, the agent hasn't gotten to know the wonderfulness of myself. No. I'm coming in cold.

In another sense, I'm also coming in hot : no time to build up trust or to ratchet-up the tension.

Like a space shuttle without fuel, I'm flying like a razor through the cyber-void. I have seconds, ten seconds if conventional wisdom is correct, to win the agent's interested attention.

That's not much time to hit a home run.

To follow the trajectory of the baseball analogy, I have to quickly present a winning ...

Pitch.

Line Drive.

Home Run.

Think : Speed. Focus. And ... out of the ball park!

My target agent is eye-weary, computer numb, and conditioned by thousands of terrible queries to expect yet another boring turkey.

I have to flash a surprise crack of the bat and get her attention. I'll use my 90,000 word urban fantasy, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE, for an example {Yeah, what a surprise, right?} :

PITCH :

A man who no longer believes in God must fight a being who believes himself the Devil.

LINE DRIVE :

Doubt. Faith. Death. All three collide in Post-Katrina New Orleans where the dying of the lights bring out the predators from both sides of the darkness.

HOME RUN :

In post-Katrina New Orleans, an undead Texas Ranger battles inept politicians, Russian mobsters, and DayStar, a being with god-like powers.

Helped by his best friend, a vampire priest, the Ranger faces mounting opposition from all corners of the supernatural realm, all eager to take advantage of the chaos following the hurricane.

And in the wings watching the Ranger get weaker and weaker, DayStar sets his last trap for his hated enemy into motion.

*******

Post Script :

Many times we writers don't even get the opportunity to audition for the agent. We get the intern.

Imagine getting your X-ray read. As you hand it in to the desk, you ask, "The doctor will read this, right?"

"No, the intern will."

"She's trained in reading X-Rays?"

"No education. No salary even. But she's optimistic and hopeful."

"Yeah, well that makes one of us."

"Oh, it's always been this way. That's just the way the system works."

"Yeah, they told Lincoln the same thing about slavery."

"Oh, so the intern's been complaining about having to re-arrange the agent's bookshelf, has she?"

"No, I haven't talked to her. So she has to re-arrange the agent's books, too? Where does she find the time to grovel?"

"Oh, there's always time to grovel."

"Words to live by," I smile and walk out the door.

****

Post script II :

The really great news? You know what the success ratio for a super-star agent is? 50%.

Ouch.

Or not so ouch. It takes the pressure off. It is what it is.

We try our best and enjoy the journey. Our destination will be what it will be.

*********************

Here's the music video of Thea singing "The Icarus Wind."

HOW TO GET AN AGENT TO SAY "YES"

How to get an agent to say "Yes."

Not that I have gotten one to say "Yes," mind you.

But like you, I have wondered at the answer to that question

My best friend, Sandra, jokingly suggests at gunpoint.

I remind her gently that I want to be published not imprisoned.

How do you get an agent to say "Yes?"

You do it by asking yourself a similar question I ask myself with these posts :

"What would I like to read"

"What does an agent want to read in your query?"

How do you get a "yes" from an agent?


Accept that the publishing world is what it is with its own facts of life :

FACT OF LIFE #1 :
The agent wants to make a good living.

If she was satisfied with minimum wage, she'd be flipping burgers. This current controversy over hourly rates and reading fees underscores this fact of life.

FACT OF LIFE #2 :
In retail, you make money by selling high to lots of customers.

To do that, you must have a hot product. Right now, supernatural romances are sizzling.

Trends fade you say. True. But basic needs stay the same. Appeal to them, and you have the interest of your readers.

FACT OF LIFE #3 :
Customers (agents and readers) want the same thing ... only different.

How do you do that? Appeal to a basic need in a novel way. Think oxymoron.

A comedy on death row. A drama in clown school. A ghost afraid of people forced to haunt a bustling Las Vegas casino.

Stephanie Meyers saw the basic need of teenage girls :

romance with a bad boy (who usually wants sex not romance.) Her answer : a love-smitten vampire who can't get close lest he bite the love of his unlife.

FACT OF LIFE #4 :
Pavlov was right. Woof.

Think weary, jaded agent.

If 499 out of every 500 queries she gets are garbage, guess what she'll smell when she opens yours?

It's the Pavlov effect.

Now if you get a great agent, you'll also get the blessing of the Halo effect.

If every one of the agent's offerings to a particular editor has had solid sales, he'll see "winner" when he sees your name.

But back to the dreaded Pavlov effect which leads us to :

FACT OF LIFE #5 :
What you expect to see, you usually see.

Give an idiot a hammer, and everything begins to look like a nail. How do you fight it?

FACT OF LIFE #6 :
A right hook will get them every time. But how do you do that?

As with a right hook in a fist fight, it has to be fast and surprising. Which means for you : the title.

Think : SNAKES ON A PLANE. Admit it. You were tempted to see the movie just because of the title.

Think : WEREWOLF ON A PLANE.

{A young werewolf girl is following the bad boy of her dreams on a plane in the dark of the moon. She's safe, right?

Wrong. Unknown to her, for werewolves to be high in the sky no matter the moon phase is to turn at nightfall. Oops.}

Tagline : On this flight, first class is murder.

The twist : up high in the sky, she can be killed by the one she loves and who loves her. Lump in the throat ending :

mortally wounded boy kills girl-wolf, both becoming ghosts destined to fly the haunted skies forever.

Yes, this is an over-the-top example for laughs. But you see my point.


FACT OF LIFE #7 :
Follow through is everything in winning fights ... and in winning agents.

The tagline followed by a short O Henry flip of expectations in a paragraph summation will win or lose you the agent.

LEFT HAND OF GOD : The life of a jaded atheist depends upon him convincing a small church in war-torn China that he is a priest. {A classic Humphrey Bogart movie.}

FACT OF LIFE #8 :
Artists starve. Craftsmen order steak.

You have to decide if you want to be published or you want to write what you want to write.

Emily Dickinson chose the later : she had three poems published in her lifetime. You know the sound of one hand clapping? That was the applause she got for them.

I have made the Emily Dickinson decision. I will probably never be published. My decision.

I, however, would like to see you get your dreams fulfilled.

Write the way you know will sell.

Patrick Stewart was a spear-carrier on the Shakespearian stage in his early career. After STAR TREK and the stellar (pun intended) name recognition, Mr. Stewart can play in any major Shakespearean theater company he wishes.

Robert B. Parker loved Westerns.

He could't give any away. He became the new Raymond Chandler, and his Westerns were snapped up, becoming best sellers. One book was even made into a top-grossing movie. That is a miracle in today's Hollywood.

FACT OF LIFE #9 :
Earning your spurs isn't just for roosters.

Refer to the stories of Patrick Stewart and Robert B. Parker.

You must prove your worth to the agent in getting her desired high commissions and to the publishers, wanting to garner a high return for their investment in you.



If you want to get "yes" from an agent, use these suggestions ... or Sandra's gun. My way is safer. Good luck.
*****************
I am currently editing my YA urban fantasy, THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH. And my theme song for him (in my mind) is this melody :

BY DEGREES WE DIE; BY OURSELVES WE MOURN

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."
***
And so I leave you with yet another song by Thea Gilmore, accompanied by Joan Baez :

CHAPTER NINE : DARK CHEST OF WONDERS

{"Do not cry, Liebling.





It is not such a bad thing to die for one you love ...

when you can so easily die for nothing."

- Marlene Dietrich.}

From out of a billowing wave of black fog charged five bald almost-men, wearing robes darker than the mist from which they emerged. On their foreheads glowed fiery pentagrams. Their hissing snarls exposed their filed teeth.

"I refuse to be the meal of the day, boys," snapped Mark Twain, dropping the first two with his borrowed automatic.

"PieceFull!," shouted a Texas drawl. "Get 'em, boy. They're all yours."

A hellhound the size of Minnesota leaped from behind me, over my head, and smack into the other three Sons of Dagon. A figure hurried beside me.

His Stetson all a'kilter, Samuel McCord frowned, "Damn, Roland. You created this place. Didn't you know to stay the hell out of the back?"

Toya rushed up beside him. "I - I told him to come back here, Sam."

He pulled up short. "What on earth for? It was a suicide move, girl."

She didn't a chance to answer. A screaming figure in robes, half-male/half-female, rushed Sam. He spun and fired point-blank at the Split slashing at him with a jagged dagger. It jerked but kept on coming.

Toya swept out her bloody cutlass in a slashing attack with all her strength. The creature's melded head was nearly cut off. Nearly. PieceFull finished the job as he leapt over the thing.

Sam said, "Toya is good people. She was just mistaken is all."

Marlene tumbled like a gymnast as a scrambling spider the size of a pit bull made a snatch for her with one jointed leg. She flipped to a stop, aiming her luger. With a grimace of disgust, Marlene emptied her gun into the grasping maw in the center of long, scissoring pinchers.

She popped to her feet and clubbed a dwarf in a Nazi uniform who was slashing at her with a knife. "Are you insane? Can you not see Toya has her own agenda?"

All hell broke loose. Bast laughed as we struggled. Other things and humans kept rushing us.

A small redheaded girl in a dress, matching her hair, lunged for Mark Twain. "Hold on there, gal. I got no truck with you."

She hissed, spit flying from her mouth full of needle teeth, her eyes more frightening due to their being pure white. Mark emptied his automatic point-blank between those eyes. She lurched backwards to fall limp on the misty tiles.

Mark Twain kicked her still body . "That for trying to chomp on your elders."

He kicked her once more. "And I never liked your comic strip either!"

Toya side-stepped a rush of a creature half-Viking, half antlered biped. He twisted about to come at her again but found her cutlass already sticking through his chest. He looked down at it with a strange "What is that?" expression to his face.

It was replaced with a horrified "Not me?" look, then fell mewing strangely on the carpet. Toya wrenched her bloody cutlass from its twitiching body and turned to face another spider but this one had a screaming head instead of a body.

A shimmering caught my eye past a coolly watching Bast. The ghostly figure of the jazz vocalist, Amanda Carr, wavered into being beside a bubbling fountain of dark blood that had suddenly seemed to come out of nowhere.

She seemed to think this was some sort of stage show as I saw no concern at all on her pretty face. Or maybe Amanda had just played in some damn rough places. She had appeared in the middle of the song, "Rags And Bones."

"Now it's the fist through the window; it's the wine you brought,

It's a far cry from the shakles of cognitive thought,

It's the lines on the fridge door, just see how they've grown,

Up from little junk creatures made from rags and bones."

A were-goat lunged for Marlene. Instinctively, she fired her empty luger. It clicked uselessly twice. The monster bleated in husky bloodlust.

She went for her saber. The saber I held. The creature was right on top of her. She was going to be killed. Marlene pulled herself up straight and tall with the strangest sad smile to her lips.

No!

I leapt with everything I had to place myself between those slashing claws and Marlene. I cried out in surprise as I moved faster than I thought possible. I got between her and the attacking creature quick enough to spin and slash at it with the saber.

The monster wisped away like a clot of some diseased demon's nightmare. I was stunned. What had happened just then?

Now surrounded by three friendly Hellhounds, Sam looked over to me. “It wasn’t the sword, son. It was your love that would have had you sacrificing yourself for Marlene there.”

Marlene went pale. “H-His love?”

Mark Twain grunted as he held a Soyoko in a headlock, scrambling to keep from being ripped apart by flailing claws. “Like you once told me, Valkyrie :

Do not cry, Liebling, it is not such a bad thing to die for love when so many die for nothing.”

Marlene snatched up the jagged dagger by the dead body of the Split and flipped like an Olympic gymnast to where he struggled, slashing across the evolved raptor’s throat with the jagged blade.

“I never called you Liebling!”

Mark Twain winked at me. "Why, Missy, it was implied by that sweet voice of yours."

She glared at him, then stormed up to me. "I am a ghost! You would have died needlessly."

I reached out and pinched her shapely rear. She yelped, jerked, then raised a hand to slap me.

"You felt that, right? Here in Meilori's, you can be touched ... you can be killed."

Sam fired the Colt in his right hand straight at me. The bullet whizzed past by my left ear so close I flinched. I spun about. Another were-goat lay dead at my feet. Sam called out.

“Roland, fuss later. Fight now!”

Toya glared at me. “Writer boy, you want to kill Sam? You will if you make him watch your back as well as his!”

The three Hellhounds at his side, savagely tearing at our attackers, Sam calmly shot at the on-rushing attackers with a Colt in each hand.

The sound of the revolvers was deafening. My head would ring for weeks. If I survived this fight, that is.

A Knight Templar thrust his broadsword at me. I flicked it away barely in time. Mark Twain was suddenly at my side. He had holstered his empty .45.

He rushed up behind the man, taking the knight's helmeted head in both hands, and twisted sharp. I heard the loud snap like a breaking tree branch.

"I used to cut wood as a little boy. Still got the muscles from it."

Amanda kept on singing,

"Through the iron winter to the fires of June,

Through the five o'clock skyline to the dead-locked moon,

There's a flickering figure dancing alone,

Making her junk creatures out of rags and bones."

I stiffened. Amanda actually saw what was going on. She had just played in some rough places before and could keep her head.

And she knew a bit about the supernatural side of things. I blew Amanda a kiss. Bless her. She had been trying to tell me what I'd been missing.

I spun around, bent down, and placed the edge of Marlene's saber against Bast's throat. "Stop it! Stop attacking us right now."

"Do you really think that toothpick is a threat to me?"

Despite her words, every last creature slowly faded away.

"Well, it might smart some when I spank you with the flat of it."

Her eyebrow arched, and she almost smiled. "I begin to see what Gypsy sees in you."

The smile died as if it had never been on her lips, and she looked up coolly. "Took you long enough to piece it together. You'll need sharper wits than this to escape the next trap, Lakota."

I frowned. "Next trap?"

Toya tossed me something. I caught it with my left hand. Ouch. It was dry-ice cold.

Toya smirked, "You forgot your dark chest of wonders back there, writer-boy."

She quickly opened the door in the wall to my right. "I hope you can speak French."

"What?"

Toya shoved me into the passageway, slamming the door behind me. I reached for the door knob. It wasn't there. In fact, the door itself was disappearing.

I heard the cry of Sam faintly as if from a dream. "Toya! Have you gone crazy?"

Toya's laugh was even fainter. "Now, you're free, Sam. Free from his writing your days, forcing you to do things. Free to live your own life."

Light dawned. In more ways than one. Toya had always been my enemy. And I was far from Meilori's. I stepped backwards and fell over something. I turned about on the grass.

Grass? Where was I? The dying man sprawled beside me groaned.

"Save my little girl. Please."

Save his little girl? Who was going to save me?
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And here is the lovely Amanda Carr :