Why WRITING IN THE CROSSHAIRS?

Why the title

WRITING IN THE CROSSHAIRS?

All writers I believe write in the crosshairs.

If you have beta readers and have submitted to agents/editors,

you know the feeling of being in the crosshairs of their evaluations.

Ouch. But no pain, no gain.

But I am thinking of the imagry of the hunter.

He fixes his aim at his target, looking through his scope.

The image is hardly crisp at the beginning. He must adjust the lens to achieve crisp clarity and the best chance of hitting his target.


Writers are like that hunter.
 

At first the image of our tale is blurry.

We tighten the focus with revealing dialogue, vibrant characters, engaging crises, and creative descriptions.

Pacing and plot tighten the image even more. Sometimes we get it with dead-on clarity. Most times we don't.

No one but Shakespeare is perfect. If you don't believe me, ask Harold Bloom or any university English professor.


It is a tricky endeavor writing in the crosshairs.


How do we focus quicksilver humans into concrete mental images?


Take flames. They look like objects but are really processes.

Humans are like that as well. No human actually is complete. He or she is in the process of becoming.


But becoming what? We answer that question with our choices.

But there is more to my title than that.


We all write the movie of our lives in the crosshairs.


That endeavor is more tricky. We don't get the luxury of time to reflect, muse, or ponder at leisure.

Life is a harsh mistress. As we struggle, she flashes us that "beauty-queen" smile:

all sharp teeth and no heart. And in her games of chance, the House ultimately wins.


Like Indiana Jones we must make it up as we go along.
 

We plan and prepare.

Life gleefully throws her monkey wrench into our preparations.

We must write our lives in the crosshairs of illness, accidents, dysfunctional humans, and our own inner demons.

We are all in Life's crosshairs, and none of us know when she will pull the trigger. We just know that she will.


This is what my blog is all about:


How to maintain a measure of grace and peace in the crosshairs of Life.

I haven't figured it out yet.

Let me know what helps with you.

I am currently listening to "Follow Me" from the anime Innocence.

The romance of my haunted, undead Texas Ranger, Samuel McCord, and his immortal love, Meilori Shinseen, seem to linger among those lyrics like the ghost traces of a moonbeam.

Here is a music video I think you may like:
***
***
Please consider pre-ordering my HIBBS THE CUB WITH NO CLUE:
http://www.amazon.com/HIBBS-CUB-CLUE-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B00MT8DNLY/

Chris Pratt showed up at Children's Hospital Los Angeles on Wednesday night in full Ravager garb.  Notice Hibbs in the painting behind Chris and the young boy!

PARIS ALONG THE NILE_WEP "Change" Entry

Don't miss Wendy Morrell's fabulous post on my
HIBBS, THE CUB WITH NO CLUE!

http://quillfeather-blog.blogspot.com/2014/08/hibbs-cub-with-no-clue-by-roland-yeomans.html

http://laussieswritingblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/writeeditpublish-flash-fiction-taking.html

Denise Covey has her WEP prompt this month as TAKING CHANCES.

 

My entry is from my WIP

Set in 1895 Egypt,

starring my undead hero, Samuel McCord

The snippet is entitled ...

PARIS ALONG THE NILE

          “One must have a mind of winter to behold the nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
- Wallace Stevens

Both Susy and Clara Clemens became little girls again as they gasped and pointed at the ornate buildings we soon passed on our way to the State Ball.  I wonder what their perspectives, their take on the world allowed them to see.  I saw … many things.

Cairo was a battleground.  First fought over by the French, now ruled pompously by the British.  It was even a retreat for former officers of the American Confederacy. 

The Cairo Susy and Clara wondered at was the city that Khedive Ismail built, with the help of his master builder and Minister of Public Works, Ali Mubarak … with the European money that would eventually steal the common Egyptian's freedom and give it to the great banking empires of the west.

The city’s buildings were built during this time when ruthless European powers vied for Egypt and won her from her people, but in the course of things, a grand city was laid out.

So while Susy and Clara saw a city of magic, I saw a city of foreign occupation, heartbreak, and harsh living for most of its peoples.  Stuffshirts like Lord Cromer thought he knew the Egyptian people. 

He only knew his prejudices.  He imposed them on the people here when he should have been deriving facts from them.  Life was induction not living out your prejudices on people too weak to fight back.

The people: merchant, farmer, beggar, child – they all lived in fear and anxiety.  If they offended the wrong tourist, failed to get out of the way in time, not have the increased taxes, birthed a beautiful daughter that those in power coveted, they were in danger of losing what little they had, including their lives. 

A lifetime of that kind of worry gnawed at their hearts, their sense of who they were.

It bred a seething anger – an anger they could not vent on the British who fueled it.  And the only thing they could do with all that anger was to vent it out on one another … usually over trivial things … because something had to matter in their lives.

If their lives were so impoverished that there were no things which were important, then things had to be assigned importance arbitrarily and defended at great risk. Because the risk validated the importance. 

Something, someone had to be important in their thread-bare lives – even if they had to blindly latch onto that something, that someone blindly and hopelessly.

Beside me, Meilori sighed, “Did ever any kingdom or state regain its liberty, when once it was invaded, without bloodshed? I cannot think of it without horror.”

Don't forget about

HIBBS, THE CUB WITH NO CLUE

Available for pre-order:

http://www.amazon.com/HIBBS-CUB-CLUE-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B00MT8DNLY/

FERGUSON AND A BEHEADING

Has the world gone a little crazy while I  was 
busy making a living?

Where are our leaders?  Sigh.

The next time the government asks you to trust them on a particular matter, just point to Ferguson and say, "What was that again?"

Sesame Street told us Mr. Policeman was our friend, 

but what Cookie Monster failed to add was that was only if the color of our faces matched the policeman's.

Remember that time Ferguson police beat an innocent suspect and then charged him with getting blood on their uniforms?

Where was the govenor?  

He was interested in a place on the 2016 national ticket on a visit to Iowa and a trip to Colorado to huddle with major Democratic donors.

Where was he on August 10th when local businesses were looted and burned to the ground? 

The Police Chief was silent as to who shot the unarmed 18 year old,

lending credence to the suspicion the Police were covering up something.  Sigh.

A little common sense, a bit of empathy (covering the body of the dead man), and lack of white wash would have made all the difference.

Did anyone think to tell the public that under riot conditions, the right to assembly vanishes?

The looters and burners of businesses hurt the protests of police excesses not helped them by creating riot conditions.

The First Amendment guarantees only the right “peaceably to assemble.”

Why do you think Rev. King's non-violent protests, despite police brutality, won the day?  He gave them no LEGAL excuse for their actions.

There was idiocy on both sides -

Demonstrators gather in front of the QuikTrip convenience store that was burned down during the first night of protesting and looting as if to say "See what we do at night if we're upset?"

At a press conference held by Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson, Missouri State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal asks if she would be gassed by Ferguson police again. He tells her he hopes not.

A Twitter account affiliated with the hacktivist collective Anonymous leaks the personal information of the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. 

The man identified is not even an officer with Ferguson or St. Louis County PD.

And Obama's lack luster speech?

It is the sad truth of politics that where a President leads his critics will less likely follow ... even if he is right and they know it.

The terrorists of the world must laugh at the footage of Ferguson being shown nightly.

Speaking of terrorists ...

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned what it called journalist James Foley's "barbaric murder by beheading" by the Islamic State,

which says his killing was retribution for recent U.S. airstrikes in Iraq.

Will anything be done by America?  Not enough.  And James Foley will still be dead.

Wash out your mind with little Hibbs, the Cub With No Clue:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MT8DNLY

HIBBS & AZURE, THE MAD UNICORN

 

 http://www.amazon.com/HIBBS-CUB-CLUE-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B00MT8DNLY/

 NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

Thanks to all of you for such nice comments and emails.  The heavy-duty pain meds are a thing of the past.  So now, I am smarting a mite.

Hibbs has decided to come to my rescue this post:

Here is a snippet from the chapter,

 

 HIBBS AND

AZURE, THE MAD UNICORN:

Hibbs, as was his nature, was exploring. That he was alone in the dreaded Valley of the Shadow did not bother him.  To him each day was a grand adventure. 
And when you are a bear cub whose head was empty of even a single clue, each day did, indeed, prove to be an adventure—whether that adventure was one worth having only occurred to Hibbs after the fact, if at all.

Hibbs was on the trail of a strange, fabled creature.  Its hoof prints were oddly cloven.  What wonderful sort of animal left such prints?  He almost danced with excitement as he ambled along.

He walked down a steep, grassy, rock-strewn hill.  How sure-footed it must be he thought.  Hibbs wondered what it looked like.

At times the trail faded or vanished entirely, only to be picked up again a few paces away by the keen-eyed bear cub.  He crossed a narrow gully and skipped up the opposite velvet-grassed slope.  As he reached its forested peak, Hibbs skittered back in surprise as a magnificent unicorn, its sharp tusk the color of a sea shell’s insides, reared in front of him.  Its black sharp hooves pawed the air like angry anvils.

With the screaming unicorn rearing as it was, Hibbs had a clear answer as to what sex it was.  Too clear.  Hibbs wrinkled his muzzle and motioned for the unicorn to come down on all fours.

“Every male has those, Mr. Unicorn, so you can just stop the bragging.”

“I am NOT bragging!” thundered the unicorn.  “I am threatening!”

Hibbs turned around in a start, fearing to see some monstrous nightmare creeping up from behind him.  Nothing.  He turned around with an exasperated snort and pointed a paw at the unicorn.

“Very funny, Mr. Unicorn.  There’s no danger back there.”

The unicorn whipped back its flowing mane and snorted, “The danger is in the front of you, Dolt!”

Hibbs cautiously peered around the huge unicorn and only saw the grove of cottonwoods not six paces away.  “Nope.  No danger there either.”

“Azure!” roared the unicorn.

Hibbs looked up at the bright background to the fluffy clouds.  “Ah, I’d say the sky looks more the color of a robin’s egg, Mr. Unicorn.”

“My name!” thundered the unicorn.

Hibbs slapped his tiny arms along both sides.  “How would I know that?  But my name is Hibbs, the cub with no clue.”

The unicorn groaned as he always did when he felt a headache coming on.  “That last is obvious.”

The rage swept over his headache.  “I meant MY name was Azure … the mad unicorn.”

Hibbs frowned, “What are you mad about?”

“Not that mad!” moaned Azure, feeling his headache worsening.

“Oh, that’s good.  I hate being very mad, don’t you?”

Azure hissed, “Yes!  And now, you have made me very, very mad … as well as insane!”

Azure lowered his razored horn, “So I am going to suck the very marrow from your bones!  What do you think of that?”

Hibbs was quite sure he wasn’t smart enough to answer that question.  In fact, the small bear didn’t think there even was a smart answer to it.  So he just said nothing – which is often a very smart thing to do.  But Hibbs was only smart by accident so he did not hurt his reputation.

How is little Hibbs going to get out of this one? 

 

The answer is in his new book,

HIBBS, THE CUB WITH NO CLUE.

 

 

To Hibbs, love is stronger than the sorrow it brings 

Hibbs thanks all of you for making his pre-order book
#23 in Kindle's Children's ebooks on fairy tales and myths!

ANOTHER CANCER SURGERY MONDAY

Wendy Morrell has a lovely video on her blog today, and I borrowed from it:
http://quillfeather-blog.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-man-dog-named-spirit-and-open-road.html

Do yourselves a favor and watch:

I have written a children's book,

HIBBS, THE CUB WITH NO CLUE

11 chapters, 10,000 words

It basically is Children to Middle Grade, but I have been told it is too long by several in the know. 

What do you think?

If things go well Monday,

should I publish it?

Think good thoughts,

cross your fingers,

and

say a prayer.

:-)

I have taken Wendy's
and Alex's advice.

 Hibbs
is NOW available for PRE-ORDER!

On sale August 30th!

IS THE FUTURE OF BOOKS IN YOUR EAR?

Print is bruised.  Audio seems to be flourishing.  You never know though.  

I asked my Magic 8 Ball, and all I got were its “Concentrate and ask again” shenanigans.

But things are getting exciting in audio.

 Audible has already churned out 20 original books written specifically for audio, including Metatropolis, a science fiction epic narrated by Star Trek alums, 

and The Chopin Manuscript, a serial thriller by 15 blockbuster authors including Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, and Lisa Scottoline. 

Audible has even commissioned Orson Scott Card to write a new dramatization of his sci-fi classic Ender’s Game with 28 actors! sound effects! music! SEX! (OK, no sex, sigh) 

that Card describes as “not a simple adaptation, it is a new telling of the same story” written in dialogue with ENTIRELY NEW MATERIAL.

How cool is that?

 

(Cover by the genius of Leonora Roy)

{Soon to come to Audio, a SAMPLER of most of my heroes}

 Other writers and publishers are getting into the act, too, producing books that skip print and go straight to audio. 

Take British author David Hewson, who’s written an audio novelization of Macbeth where the bloodthirsty monarch is more, you know, likeable -- sort of a Shakespearean Dexter, 

and an upcoming adaptation of Hamlet featuring a peppy Ophelia and a Hamlet who’s less of a buzzkill. 

 Audiobooks are now being considered “audio entertainment” 

that can hold their own as original works of art; splashy productions with full-cast dramatizations, music, and sound effects. 

Max Brooks, author of World War Z, says “it’s one of the few times in history that technology has reinvigorated an art form rather than crushing it. It opens the door for more creative storytelling.” 

And the audio edition of World War Z is held up as one of the best in the biz — an elaborate production with 40 cast members including Alan Alda, John Turturro, and Martin Scorsese.

Is this progress or going back to the times of Homer 

where the bard spoke his tale in the darkness by the campfire, or Shakespeare writing works of genius to have them played upon the theater floorboards?

There is a lot of commuting to work, pumping on exercise bikes, or jogging while listening to Ipads.

I believe audiobooks may be the wave of the future 

because they allow you to learn and increase your knowledge base without having to sit down and read a book. 

They let you learn while doing other things. And you never know, what you learn might just change your life forever.

 We become what we think about.

What do you think?

WHAT WILL CARRY YOU THROUGH

{Cover by the lovely Leonora Roy}

http://www.amazon.com/DEATH-HOUSE-LIFE-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B00HIU5O38/

 

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 
― Martin Luther King, Jr.

What will carry you through as a writer?
 

1. A Wild And Mad Daemon of a Muse:


If you want to survive, you’ve got to have an imagination that won’t lay down and die. 

Your cat has exploded?  Use it. 

Zombies are pounding on the door.  Ignore them.  Think of it as the pulse of your muse murmuring ideas to you.


2. Discipline:


No amount of imagination will help you unless you sit your tush in the chair, pound the keyboard, and put prose on the blank screen.

Need Motivation?

Come up with your own item of visual motivation. It might be inspirational words taped to your computer

(“You get what you dare, baby, and if you want big, you dare big”—author Leonard Bishop)


 The primary way writers keep discipline going is through the weekly quota. Most successful fiction writers make a word goal and stick to it.


Discipline is helped by a healthy body.


The imagination is housed in the brain. The brain is housed in the body. The body is the temple of the soul. Treat it as such.

Your productivity and creativity depend on it.  Take that brisk walk!  Both your body and muse need it. 


3. A Schizophrenic Frame of Mind:


You must be a triad:

Optimistic enough to believe your work will eventually be bought/

Realistic enough to know it will not be overnight/

Pessimistic enough to question the purity of human motives when you finally are handed a contract to sign.


4. Inner Strength:


You have to be able to pound nail after nail into board after board to build your Ark under a cloudless sky to the sound of derisive laughter behind you.

You must believe in yourself before anyone else will.

Face the Harsh Law:

What You Are Inside Only Matters Because of What It Makes You Do

You may believe your talent is one in a million, but it is what you do with it that counts.

Make it an inner contract to finish what you start,

to wring that final chapter out of your imagination, and to brave rejection and put it out there either by self-publication or submitting to agents/editors.


5. Curiosity:
 

"The important thing is not to stop questioning.

 Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.

It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."
- Albert Einstein

Most writers are curious by nature. We look at the world around us and wonder at it.

Who are these people? What are we all doing here?

Where are we heading? Why do we do the things we do? How will we achieve our goals?

Remember how curious you were as a child?

Everything you encountered spawned a series of questions

because you were trying to learn and understand the world around you.

Bring that childlike curiosity back, and you’ll never need to look far for now, inspiring writing ideas.

By fostering curiosity, we can create a fountain of ideas.

It doesn’t matter what form your writing takes or what genre you’re writing in.

By coming up with intriguing questions, you’ll soon find yourself overwhelmed with inspiration.

Take the basic questions and put a riveting spin to them:

Who?
Who does my main character trust? What does that say about them? About the trusted person?

What?
What motivates people to take drastic actions?

Where?
Where do these people want to be?

When?
When does a child become an adult?

Why?
Why does this story matter?

How?
How do you describe something that doesn’t really exist?

 

The tune for Victor Standish's first meeting

with the ghoul, Alice Wentworth, by Marie Laveau's crypt: