CATAGORY FOUR HURRICANE & IT'S HEADING STRAIGHT FOR ME!

Déjà vu may be the death of me.

15 years ago, my car and my body were in much better shape.

Hurricane Rita really did a 

number on us in

 Lake Charles back then.

I do not know when I will be back

 -- if ever --

here on my blog.

 

https://www.amazon.com/FRENCH-QUARTER-NOCTURNE/dp/B00DO912C4/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 https://www.amazon.com/End-of-Days/dp/B00E5IBML4/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 The above 2 audio books were

born from my Katrina and Rita

experiences.

The details of the destruction and pathos

are accurate

if the paranormal details are mostly not.

Their narrators did

a masterful job.

Say a prayer and wish me luck. 

HERE IT COMES!

12:45 P.M.

 

 

The VOICE That FAILED

There I was driving down a rainy rural road on a blood run, listening to my latest audio book ...

when to my horror, 

I heard that 26 MINUTES WERE MISSING 

from it!

From the Third Section

towards the end

BUT STILL!

I contacted ACX. 

Since it is a snag on their end, they promise to correct the problem within the week.

To those of you who have downloaded my book --

Once the problem is corrected,

all you will have to do is delete the old download

and upload the corrected one.

I think perhaps the actress/witch,

Irene Dupré, 

might be toying with me
and Scott.

(Listen to his mesmerizing
sample on our book's page) -
 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08G8VMMYD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=french+quarter+requiem+audio&qid=1597932635&sr=8-1

Did you know that Dupré means

"gathering wheat in Louisiana?"

Of course, 

the wheat Irene collects are

Souls.

Listen to the Voice of Madness and Horror

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08G8VMMYD/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=french+quarter+requiem+audio&qid

FRENCH QUARTER REQUIEM is finally out in audio with a stellar performance by Scott ODell --

You will be stunned by his eerie renditions of Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Ingrid Bergman.

Now, Scott is under the cross-hairs of a duo of dangers:

A hurricane heading his way.

And Covid-19 snatching away his health.

He did this with me on a Royalty Share basis so buying this audio book will send needed money his way. 


I know $17 is a lot to spend these days, but if you join Audible for the free month trial, it would be free.

Then, you could quit within days, and the audio book would still be yours.

Would you please consider it?

FRIENDS ARE ALWAYS PRESENT TENSE

I heard sobbing at work today.

Not crying. 

To me, crying is surface pain. 

Sobbing is heart-deep.

A dying friend.  No one at work seemingly understanding.  I understood.

I had been there.

"ALONE

Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.”

- Stephen King

What happens when we lose a close friend?

Sadly, this form of loss is not always acknowledged or understood. 

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.”

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Realize you've taken quite a hit.

Healing from it will take time.  Day by day the wound will close. 

Let yourself grieve. 

The emptiness will stay with you for awhile. 

Nights are long, but

THEY ARE NOT FOREVER.

Realize there are no

"7 Easy Steps To Healing"

You hurt. Period. How long? 

Each of us heals at a different rate.

Society just does not get it that the loss of a friend is like an invisible amputation. 

Many people suck and are so self-focused that your worth to them is what you can do FOR them .

Not the other way around.

Others may not acknowledge the depth of your relationship, 

but it is important you remember that you have every right to the grief and devastation you feel.

FRIENDS ARE ALWAYS

PRESENT TENSE

Remember that emptiness I talked about earlier? 

It slowly gets filled with memories of your friend, your friend's words, jokes, and advice.

Sometimes you will almost feel their presence by your side, chiding or talking with you.

It will get so that when you come upon a confounding situation,

you will hear your friend's advice or critique of it.



Close friends become

a part of you. 

You know how they felt about life. 

Their remembered laughter in the night will make it not so dark.

It will take a while to get there ... but you will.

I know.  I did.

WHY DO YOU WRITE?

We tumble from womb to tomb ...

    from one blackness towards another,

        remembering little of the one and 

            knowing nothing of the other,

              except through faith.

Life distracts us, with happiness or struggle, 

    from seeing the tides that are drawing us towards 

        those clusters of events called 

Crossroads.

More tragically 

for our being blind 

to them.

The star, the wheel, the butterfly ...

    all are in an unseen state of turmoil,

        waiting for some signal that 
               the time has come.

Then, the star explodes,

The wheel of Fate turns, 

making a poor man rich,

The butterfly mates and dies.

STORY can say all that is unsayable in the world ...

    How can we resist attempting that?

Life has a way of bruising us 

    until we long for some passage out of ourselves.

That's what STORY does ...

    for a few precious moments

        it takes us out of ourselves

            to become someone other than who we are.

Each of us is a myth within our minds.

    We make it up. 

    It is the STORY of ourselves 

         we steer our actions by.

        It is not the truth of our life.  

           We could not bear to look at that.

It is the illusion which helps us 

keep on going in life.

Man alone

    tells STORIES to understand his world.

I believe that there is one STORY 

in the all world, and only one,

 that has frightened and inspired us.

 Humans are caught,

in their lives, in their thoughts, 

in their hungers and ambitions,

 in their avarice and cruelty, 

and 
in their kindness and generosity

 in a net of good and evil. 

 Do they struggle towards the light 

or embrace the darkness?

There is no other STORY.

 A soul, 

having emerged 

from the cocoon of this life, 

will have left 

only the hard, clean questions: 

Did I make my time good or evil? 

Was my life worth

the pain of my birth?

WHAT IS THE PARTICULAR

MAGIC OF WRITING

THAT KEEPS YOU DOING IT?

TO FIND A PATH THRU THE DARKNESS THAT IS LOVE

 "I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. 

If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
 - Mary Shelly, Frankenstein


 "When dealing with the frightening, translucence is more effective than transparency, 

just as glow is more revealing than glare."
 - Alfred Hitchcock

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EUFRKKI

LET ME TELL YOU OF THE MECHANICS OF FEAR:

 All of us will have to write a suspenseful, scary scene no matter in what genre we write.

Films have great aids for creating scary scenes: 

music, weird camera angles, editing, music cues, performance, special visual and makeup effect.

 In prose all we have to work with are words, and our readers’ imaginations. 

The good news is that those are powerful tools.

 The ways you arrange words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs 

 can activate your readers’ psyches in ways you may not have thought possible.

 When you’re building suspense, evoking a feeling of impending doom or the terrifying fear of the unknown, 

get your reader to hold her breath. 

 Stop her from taking her next breath for longer than normal. 

And though it may seem impossible to do this with words on a page, 

be aware that we unconsciously breathe as though we’re reading aloud even when we aren’t.

EXAMPLE:

{McCord and the brilliant Lady Ada Byron Lovelace are visiting the imprisoned Vampiric Benjamin Franklin

 who is bound painfully to a bed of pure silver.

 McCord is telling Franklin that he believes the vampire might have been cured of the revenant curse.}

“I believe King Solomon's dagger severed DayStar’s and Abby’s hold on you.  In life, I’ve found it wise to believe in what works and leave theory to those safe behind ivory walls of universities.”

He laughed bitterly.  “How long can I go without … feeding?”

“Do you feel the thirst now?’

His face went blank, and he became as still as only the dead can be.  “No.  No, I cannot.  Am I free of the Thirst at long last then?”

“I believe you are.  I also believe that should you decide to … feed for the pleasure of it, you would become an animal … with no intelligence or humanity at all.  You may even go on all fours.”

Franklin had always prided himself on his intellect.  “No!  If I should feel myself weakening, I shall come to you.  If that ever occurs, sir, kill me on the spot.  On the very spot!  No hesitation.  I must never become that.  Never!  Promise me you will kill me.  Promise!”

“I promise,” I said softly.

Ada rasped, “As do I, Mr. Franklin.”

He stiffened.  “You call me mister.  A term of respect.  You feared what you would see within my cell.  Yet you entered.  You detest what I tried to do to your friend.  Yet, seeing my imprisonment, you declare to contend with that friend on my behalf.  You pledge to end me though I know that would cost you greatly.”

His eyes bled tears of blood.  “Lady Lovelace, you are a treasure for me to behold.  If I could but rise, I would kiss your hand.  As it is, I shall remember the lovely fragrance you are wearing during the long, dark hours after you leave.”

Ada’s face went leper pale.  “Th-That is a … wonderful compliment, Mr. Franklin.  America is the country it is due to your dedication and force of will.  Those two traits I am sure will see you through this dark season.”

“Will you return to visit me on occasion?”

Ada went still, and then smiled, “Certainly, I will.  Of course, Samuel will insist on coming.  He is such a stodgy traditionalist.”

Franklin nodded to me, his eyes unreadable, and turned back to Ada.  “I will look forward to those visits, Madame.”

Ada was silent until we were some distance down the dark passageway leading away from Franklin’s cell.  She stopped suddenly and began to shiver.  She gripped my arm tightly.

“Oh, Samuel.  I am wearing no perfume, none at all.  He was smelling my blood.  My blood!”

 ***

McCord finds himself married to an alien capable of horrific acts.  Can he find a path through the darkness that is his love?