MARDI GRAS, FRIENDSHIP, AND MY BLOG TOUR

Happy Mardi Gras Eve

Mardi Gras is a fantastic series of celebrations.

I want to celebrate ... friendship.

Michael de Gesu of IN TIME. He has been with me from the beginning of my ePublication of THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS.

He has been the cornerstone of the blog tour for it. As has Denise (L'Aussie). WordsCrafter. N.A. Williams. Donna Hole.

D'Artagnan had only three musketeers to accompany him into legend. I have five. I doff my plumed hat to you all.

My blog tour will be fun, mysterious, and legendary. There are books autographed by Dean Koontz, Neil Gaiman, and Jim Butcher to win. There are maidens to save, monsters to slay, and Gypsy to feed.

Oh, sorry that last was just for me. For you, here is the initial schedule :

1. Michael @ In Time ... March 8th ... The man behind the prose. Part One


2. Michael @ In Time ... March 9th ... The man behind the prose. Part Two


3. Words Crafter @ Rainy Day Wanderer March 10th ... My personal reactions to the publication of THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS


4. Words Crafter @ Rainy Day Wanderer March 11th ... Her personal take on the publication of THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS


5. Denise @ L'Aussie March 12th ... Part I. of the genesis of my writing style


6. Denise @ L'Aussie March 13th ... Part II. The influences which shaped the style of my writing in THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS.


7. NR Williams March 16th ... Myth and world myth melding in THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS


8. Me here doing a Hibbs and St. Patrick's Day post March 17th


9. NR Williams March 18th ... Part II. How the Dreaming runs through THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS.

10. Donna Hole March 21st The spiritual Native American message and reflections in THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS.

11. There will be more blog hosts to join in and become fellow musketeers, storming the Bastille of the Publication World.

Oh, I mentioned Mardi Gras didn't I?

We in Louisiana think we know about Mardi Gras. But it has been around for thousands of years. Certain historians think that ancient fertility rituals performed by some tribes were the roots of Mardi Gras. These rituals welcomed spring's arrival.

Parts of the customs from the old festivals are also found in Lupercalia, a Roman circus-like festival taking place annually in mid-February. The Catholic Church wanted to shift people's attention from pagan festivals so they instituted the festival of Carnival, derived from the Latin word carnelevamen { farewell to flesh.} Or Hello to Lent so to speak.

Mardi Gras came to North America in 1699 when the French-Canadian Pierre le Monye, Sieur de Iberville was exploring the Mississippi River. He and his men camped on a bend of the river sixty miles south of New Orleans on March 3.

Pierre knew that Mardi Gras was being celebrated back in France so he decided to name that spot Pointe du Mardi Gras. And the rest is infamy, ah, I mean history

***

In honor of my blog tour for THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS, here is the legendary Lakota artist, John Two Eagle, with Tarja and Nightwish :

WITH HELL AT MY HEELS_my RACE TO 200 BLOG CONTEST entry

Join the excitement! Enter J.C. Martin's RACE TO 200 BLOG CONTEST :

http://jc-martin.com/fighterwriter/2011/02/08/announcing-the-race-to-200-blogfes/

My entry is an excerpt from VICTOR'S NOT JUST MY NAME that springs from this former post :
http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2011/01/death-speaks-every-tongue.html

{The Soyoko, evolved raptors, thought to amuse themselves by placing a stolen baby in the arms of the starving ghoul, Alice, to see just how long she could hold out against her hunger before consuming the baby.

They made two mistakes : they hurt the girl Victor loved, and they didn't kill him before they did it.

Victor, tapping the power of his mother's blood, has transported Alice, the baby, and himself to the dark streets of the French Quarter. He is still learning his powers, however, and has brought along most of the Soyoko, too.}


Alice held the crying baby close to her. Her determined eyes said she would keep the baby safe no matter what.

In her odd British accent, Alice husked, “We are dead.”

“No. I’m dead. You get the baby to Meilori’s.”

“What?”

“Tell Captain Sam I’m coming in hot. And I’m coming in with hell at my heels.”

“No!,” screamed Alice.

Too late.

I was already running towards the narrow alleyway. As I passed a raptor, blinking its eyes at its change in surroundings, I slapped it on the scaled cheek.

“Wake up, Sunshine! You guys want me? You’re gonna have to catch me!”

I was the best there was at parkour, free running.

I darted into the alleyway. The trick was to kick into the wall, not try to climb it. Angeline Jolie had guide-wires. All I had were tough toes.

I wall-ran up both walls on either side of me. One foot pushing me up a few inches at a time. The raptors screamed in anger and disbelief. I laughed over my shoulders as I hit the top of the tallest building with a palm spin.

“You never heard of fast food?”

Cowards. I knew what to expect. A raptor was waiting for me on the roof closest to Meilori’s.

I spun on my palms, kicking the nose of the waiting raptor and sending me onto the roof farthest from the jazz club.

I raced across it, not slowing a bit as I reached the edge. My legs were strong. I could do Olympic-quality jumps.

I did one to the top of the building caddy-corner to mine. Hiking my knees up for momentum, I hit the roof in a roll and kept on racing.

Movement all around me. I was surrounded by hissing, grasping raptors. I ran to the brick wall to my right. I wall-spun it, flipping up and over and behind the pack of Soyoko.

I spun, taking off in the other direction. A raptor leapt right at me. I bent, grabbed my right ankle and swept right through his legs, bowling him over.

I laughed. They howled. I was so dead. And I’d never felt more alive.

From building to building I bounded as they scrambled after me. Laughing, I leapt from the roof’s edge to the graveled one below. I hit with a fluid roll, picking up bloodied stone and throwing it directly behind me.

It hit the raptor inches from me in the eyes. It screamed. I laughed again. They hurt Alice. I damn well would rub their noses in that mistake.

I leapt off to the building far below me. Shit. It was a long-ass fall. I hit hard with a roll. I smiled as I heard splintering bones of idiot raptors who had tried to follow.

There. Right below me. More idiots. Human ones. Stripping a car.

I konged like a gorilla over the wall’s railing right onto the vandalized car.

“What the fuck?”

I laughed, “Great last words.”

The raptors were on them. And I was down the street still laughing. That storefront.

Was this Orleans Street? That tree ahead of me. I charged it. I felt the hot breath of the raptor on my neck.

I wall ran up the tree, spinning up and over behind the lunging raptor. I landed easy, kicking it in the butt to slam its head hard into the trunk.

Movement to my right.

Jean Lafitte and his brother, Pierre. They might have been ghosts, but their swords looked sharp.

“Run, Little Man. Pierre and I have told these brutes : Pirate Alley is ours!”

Raptors screamed as they were run through. I smiled wide. Sometimes it helped to have friends in ghoulish places.

Or not.

A knife slashed towards my eyes. I ducked down, doing the Parkour roll right between legs in a frilly hoop skirt.

Delphine LaLaurie.

The French Quarter’s Jill the Ripper. Her knife bloody from the tortured bodies of her slaves, she looked at me with insane eyes.

“I worship blood and screams.”

I jerked my thumb over my shoulder to the sound of clawed feet on pavement. “Get ready for a religious experience!”

I raced down the dark street, at whose end was St. Louis Cathedral and the spotlighted courtyard statue of Jesus, casting long shadows of waiting arms for me.

To welcome me to death …

or to safety?

I laughed. What matter? I was Victor Standish, and the only sure thing was that I would not quit. Ever.
***
Below are some of the parkour moves Victor Standish uses in evading the Soyoko.

Fast forward to midway to see a street athelete scaling up two walls in an alleyway as Victor did.

***
Some of you have emailed me, asking just who is this BOND group? So here is the answer, along with the tune, EXPLOSIVE, that could be used for the soundtrack of this entry, too :

THE WHISPERING WINDS IN THE LISTENING SKY

Here is the article on establishing mood through description that I promised Shannon yesterday.

Look around you.

Hearts have grown cold,

ears dull,

minds impatient.

And this affects you as a writer just how?

Each page of your novel could be the reader's last ...

unless ...

unless you make your novel alive and alluring.

People pick up a book in a store, thumb through it, and read a page at random.

That is your only shot at snaring him/her into buying what cost you years of sweat and effort.

Make each page count. Make each paragraph breathe. Make each moment live in the mind of the reader.

Each of the senses should be touched by your words. And one of the ways you do that is to paint your locale with such brushstrokes of prose, the reader "sees" and "feels" and "smells" the unique flavors of your locale.

New Orleans :

Hollow-eyed mothers hugging hungry children within a block of spacious mansions, framed by lush bushes and gleaming iron lacework fences.

Decaying public schools slowly devolving into raucous social jungles and tribal warfare over gang colors and drug territory.

A hardened, jaded police department that in some seasons can be scarier than the city's criminals. Official corruption at every level. Murder rates ever soaring. And hot, steamy air you can wear 7 months out of the year.

And it is a wonderful place to live :

The morning mists parting as the St. Charles streetcar happily clatters through the shimmering fog under the avenue's great oak trees.

The second-line parade of trumpet blowers high-stepping intricate steps in honor of some event or another.

The mellow, haunting notes of Ellis Marsalis playing piano as you sit at Snug Harbor, sipping a drink light on alcohol, heavy on taste.

You must paint your reader into your locale with words that touch the taste buds, stroke their cheeks, and tug on their heartstrings.

Only then, with the setting so real that they hear the sound of throaty laughter and fine jazz, will the Stetson wearing, doomed hero, Samuel McCord, feel like an actual person to them.

Remember :

Each city whispers in its own voice. Your city. My city.

You know streets that whisper to stay away at night.

You know what scandal has stained some avenue beyond repair. You know what person's name is spoken in hushed tones long after he or she has died and been buried in your city.

Each city has its own personality. Like a human's, it changes with trauma, years of abuse, and moments of historic impact.

Lifting the veil from the distinctive features of the setting of your novel makes your whole narrative come alive for your reader.

But how do you do that verbal sleight of hand?


Details.
Some obvious to tourists. Some that you have to ferret out by research in the library, on the internet, or by listening to a local visitor to your setting.

Feelings.
How does your hero/heroine feel about those details? How have they affected the protagonist and those important to him or her?

Weave those details and emotions into a rich tapestry of irony and longing.

What shadowed corner of your setting is especially dangerous or emotion-laden to your central characters? Why?

Paint a passage where that tapestry flutters in the shadows, not quite completely seen but more evocative because of that.

Time.
What era is it in your setting? Has your protagonist lived through more than one era of time in it?

How has the passing seasons shaped his/her mind, opinions, and outlook for the present? For the future? How does your protagonist view his and the setting's past?

Master these points, and your novel will live for your reader.
***

FRENCH QUARTER CROSSROADS_entry for Alison's SUPER-SNOOPER blogfest

This has been the kind of day for me that usually ends up with obituaries being written,

but I wanted to participate in Alison's intriguing SUPER SNOOPER BLOGFEST :

http://alisonstevens.blogspot.com/

As it had for the past century and a half, the setting sun took its last look on St. Peter’s street as it transformed to Rue La Mort.

The flooded street sparkled with flakes of burning silver. Beneath the muddy water, spirits swam restlessly, looking nothing so much as seeping blood under the sea.

Though I had seen the transformation a thousand times, tonight’s still hollowed out my chest. My vision blurred. My head became light.

Reality stretched like taffy pulled by some demented demon-child.

The world looked as if I were viewing it from the wrong end of a telescope. My head felt full of helium. I half-expected it to float off my shoulders.

The evening fog became blood mists billowing over the flooded street. The mists became figures out of nightmare. I stood my ground. There were dazed innocents behind me.

The ghost demons fell back to the tried and true, murmuring hollow promises in my ear. I felt off-balanced as if I would fall into madness.

I still stood my ground. Hissing in anger, they drifted off down the flooded Rue La Mort in search of more gullible souls.

A shadow loomed over me. I held onto my Stetson and craned my neck, looking up. There it was in all its hellish glory.

Meilori’s, the Crossroads of Worlds.

Meilori's stood towering over me. Torch-lit iron lacework balconies stretched up high into the foggy night. I couldn't make out the building's top.

The smell of cedar, oak, ash, and lightning strikes filled the air. Screams sounded low in the distant night. Moans of warning murmured as if whispered right next to my ears.

Leathery wings sounded up high in the thick fog that masked the remaining balconies. I heard the thud of a heavy body, the ear-aching screech of talons against steel, and a husky laugh of hunger about to be fed.

It suddenly noticed me and glared my way for a long moment as if pondering its chances, then abruptly flew back the way it came.

I turned and saw the weathered sign hanging above my door :

HERE BE MONSTERS.

Wasn’t that the damned truth?

I saw the gleaming window in front of me.

In strange, flowing script was the one word : Meilori's.

The letters were rippling and flowing into different fonts and colors, some for which science had no names. And that was fitting, for science had no name to describe its owner either.

***
A new favorite song of mine :

WILLIAM FAULKNER'S GHOST_ONLY THE DEAD SEE CLEARLY

Don't forget to vote for Roland's GateKeeper entry (THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH) :

http://www.wattpad.com/1073509-the-legend-of-victor-standish#comments


William Faulkner, ghost, here :

Roland is sleeping, his head settled on his folded arms as he sprawls in front of his electronic journal ... laptop he calls it.

I wanted to check in on him. We ghosts have a fondness for him. He listens.

You'd be surprised how few undead or living do that. Most spirits and living souls just wait impatiently for you to take in a breath so they can jump in with their concerns.

Samuel Clemens couldn't wait to inform me how Roland had gone wrong with his "mud or stars" post. Old Sam seemed sure he knew how he'd gone wrong.

And as usual that old talespinner was both right and wrong.

Like Roland, I taught creative writing in a university. I had been so sure I had a firm grasp of reality and how to portray it. Death showed me that only the dead see clearly.

So I do know where Roland went wrong, where so many of us writers go wrong :

People do not read to see what you think or to learn about you. No.

They read to learn about themselves, to come into contact with who they truly are.

They read that which speaks of their own hopes, their own dreams, and their own fears.

If a tale resonates with the haunting music of their unhealed wounds and silent insecurities, they will be drawn to it as if to a magnet. Only that story which tells of a heart in conflict with itself is truly literature.

That is why you must read, my friends. 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.

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) I learned in the university as did Roland : 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.
***
Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, should have looked at this before entering the Land of Fae and Sidhe.

GHOST OF MARK TWAIN_LIFE TIPS I LEARNED FROM THOSE DANGED HORROR FILMS

{"You do not how right you have things

until you handle them all wrong."

- Mark Twain.}

Just a heartbeat ago, I eased into Roland's apartment to swap tall tales when I came upon him dozing in front of his electronic newspaper,

blog he calls it. Sounds like one of those tar pits in California those poor dinosaurs critters got stuck in.

I leaned over his shoulder and read what he wrote.

Why, what was wrong with the boy? His post depressed the beejesus out of me, and I'm dead.

What he needed was a little help from his good friend, the beloved, yet humble, genius of literature ... me

What was needed here was ... I stroked my chin. Of course, what was needed here was ... me.

I would save Roland from his depressing folly.

I started to ruminate on all of life's follies when it came to me how much help those terrible horror movies Roland watches truly are.

Why there are some golden lessons to be found in those flickering frames,

especially for you folks not blessed to be ghosts like myself :

1) When it appears that you have killed the monster, ALWAYS get the loud-mouthed neighbor to check to see if it's really dead.

The bliss of silence in the neighborhood will be your reward.

2) Even if it seems to be the funniest thing in all creation, never read a book of demon summoning aloud. Your mother-in-law is demon enough, thank you.

3) When the power goes out, gals in flimsy undies will ALWAYS take a fancy to search the basement -- and they NEVER change their flashlight batteries.

4) If your young 'uns suddenly start to speak to you in Latin or any other language which they should not know, shoot them immediately.

It will save you a lot of grief in the long run. For such eventualities,

ALWAYS buy automatic handguns, since it will probably take several rounds to kill them.

A loving parent is a sure-kill parent.

This also applies to any tiny waifs who suddenly start to speak as if they have been gargling with lye.

They are either possessed or have been raiding Father's liquor cabinet.

Either way they deserve what they get.

5) As a general rule of thumb, don't solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.

6) If appliances start operating by themselves, send your spouse to check for short-circuits, then get the hell out of the house.

Ignore the subsequent screaming -- or enjoy it, depending upon just how "sweet" your bitter half has been to you lately.

7) If you are offered a "steal of a deal" on a house that has been

a) built on the site of an Injun massacre,

b) the home of a family whose members had taken to dismembering one another, or

c) been an asylum whose inmates took to munching on the help --

take the real estate agent lovingly, kindly and gently by the arm --

and shove her into the basement, locking it behind you. Unnatural beasties get hungry. And better they make human jerky out of her than you.

Don't mind about the body. It won't be there when the police arrive. The police won't be around long either -- if they stay.
***

THE MUD OR THE STARS?

“Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.”
- Frederick Langbridge

There are epic events in each person's life. What we make of them determines what we make of our lives.

Shelley F. Blatt

http://voicesofawriter.blogspot.com/

has awarded me THE STYLISH BLOGGER award where I have to reveal 7 things about myself.

Sigh. Considering how long-winded I get, this may not be easy. Let me do it like Jeopardy, couching my response in the form of questions.

Question One : WHERE WAS I FIVE YEARS AGO?

Five years ago, Hurricane Rita was a category 5 hurricane. I spent the morning running rare blood to scrambling hospitals.

I drove back home to wolf down a hurried lunch. A mandatory evacuation was issued. I went downstairs.

Someone had siphoned the gas from my car. All the gas stations were shut down. I was stranded in the path of a killer hurricane.

Alone.

Or not so alone.

Freddie, my supervisor, called checking in on me. He offered me a ride in his car as he drove beside his wife's car containing his two children.

So with the clothes on my back, my laptop on my lap, and Gypsy in a carrier, I rode with my friend into the darkness.

The highways were shut down. We drove the back roads, the cypress trees bending down over us in the blackness as if listening to our whispered voices. Freddie's eyes were hollow.

As we passed his wife's car, I saw she was frantic, on the verge of panic.

I winked at the pale faces of Freddie's two children, Allison and Abigail, pulled Gypsy out of the carrier, and picked up her front paw as if she were waving at the two girls.

They giggled. And the grip of panic on their mother seemed to break.

She waved back and gave a valiant smile with a thumb's up salute.

Freddie studied me for a moment and said, "Dude, you're like Job."

"How so?"

"I mean you got your gas siphoned out of your car just when you needed it most."

"I bet a lot of people did."

"Yeah, but if Rita hits Lake Charles, this will be the second time you'll have lost everything.

You lost it all when your home burned. And before that you closed your business. Your mother died before that. And before that your fiancee died. And your childhood best friend died before Kathy. Damn, it's like you're Job."

I nodded, smiling sadly, "As I recall Job ended up pretty well."

"You've got a strange way at looking at life, dude."

"You're not the first to say that."

We made it to Baton Rouge where I worked delivering rare blood to all the hospitals reeling under the impact of Katrina.

I drove to the hospital of Metairie, the first suburb of New Orleans. (It is a French term for a tenant farm.)

I saw people who had only thought they knew what having nothing meant. I smelled the stench of decaying human flesh on the breath of a too silent city.

I saw young boys in uniform trying to be men under impossible conditions.

Late at night I typed the first draft of FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE, alone in the spacious suite afforded me by the blood center for which I worked.

It had been leased for the board of directors to oversee the new center in Baton Rouge.

So for two months I slept in a prince's suite. Gypsy was, for once, satisfied with her accommodations, she being a princess and all.

I barely saw the suite. I was always driving it seemed --

down long, unfamiliar roads to strange hospitals protected by hollow-eyed young boys with automatic weapons and dry mouths.

Finally, the blood couriers were allowed back to our devastated city.

It was like something from a post-apocalyptic movie. But these ruined streets and gutted homes I knew. Our city has never truly recovered. But my friends are a hardy bunch.

Me? I just fake it.

And there you have at least 7 things you didn't know about me. And I've answered only one question. Like Freddie says, I tend to talk a lot.

But he smiles good-naturedly when he says it.


Oh, and that time in Baton Rouge was the first time I saw my soon-to-be Viking friend, Eric.

There is a tune by Muse that fits with Fallen in Tara's HOT KISS BLOGFEST :