WHEW!

 

After one of the worst work weekends I can remember ...

And that includes 2 hurricanes one right after another, a flood, a freeze, and a tornado!

Exhausted, I wrote the first 770 revised words for

NO RESHOOTS FOR DEATH.

So few words to feel such pride right?

It is 1947,

A cursed train ride from Zurich to Vienna,

A resurrected spy reunited with her lost heart,

their love feeling like a fuse burning towards dynamite.

Here is the tune that ran through my head

while writing it.

MOON KNIGHT

 

Have you ever hoped a new TV series would do well, for it echoed one of your novels?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NRJT9CC

Newly awakened ancient Egyptian gods, 

Mark Twain,

Oscar Wilde, grave robbers, Nikola Tesla, 

grey aliens

 ... oh, my!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NRKWZTZ

An ancient mummy child re-animated and 

filled with a world-threatening pestilence, 

warring vampire empires,

a world weary Texas ranger - his alien empress wife:

What could go wrong?

Don't ask Mark Twain for he will tell you!

ENGLISH is Not Her First Language

After all these months of accusations, Joss Whedon finally responded to Gal Gadot saying he threatened to ruin her career 

unless she did what he demanded in a scene she found to be in poor taste and demeaning.

Joss Whedon insisted that the “Wonder Woman” star had simply misunderstood him due to a communication barrier.

He said, “English is not her first language."

REALLY?

What Do You Think?

WE'LL TAKE A CUP OF KINDNESS YET

 What do you think Dr. King would think of what all races have done with his sacrifice?

I see a lot of clenched fists, 

few open hands.

Hate does not heal;

Hate wounds.

Dr. King lived by the wisdom of Gandhi.

Perhaps it is time for us to do so again.

Just saying is all.

George Carlin Had A Point

 What do you think?

Do You Think This Applies to Today?

 DARTH MIDNIGHT thinks so

THE ZEN OF WRITING_IWSG Post

 

A New York Times essay recently stated that modern fiction has lost its faith ...

that Christian belief figures into literary fiction in our place and time as something 

between a dead language and a hangover.

I believe it is worse than that:  

many books seem to have lost touch with the soul, the wonder, and the magic 

without which our prose tales are shallow pursuits of sensory titillation.  

WE HAVE LOST THE MAGIC

There is a land not too far from where you sit right now.

Its velvet grasses miss the press of your feet.

The billowing clouds strain to see your body walk slowly up the rising hill.

The fragrant winds blow through the lonely tree branches, 

whispering your name as they seek some trace of you.

It is where the magic lives.

That realm is lonely, wondering where you have been.

And where have you and I been?

We have been caught up in the drudgery that writing has become. 

Burdened by life's duties and our own doubts,

Battered by the fears of the plague at our doors,

we have lost our way.

We have lost the magic.

Did we lose it straining for that first perfect sentence in our new novel?

Looking at the blank, impatient computer monitor 

did we forget the simple wonder of just writing the first simple sentence that occurred to us?

That creative power which bubbles so tingly at the beginning of our book quiets down after a time. 

The journey becomes slower and slower, the inertia of doubt steadily dragging our steps.

Do we continue doggedly on or do we stop to refresh ourselves?

The answer to that question determines whether we find our way back to the magic or not.

How do we refresh ourselves?

How do we refresh ourselves on a long wilderness walk? We stop by a stream and drink.

Drink of those poets and writers who sparked that love of the written word spoken in the lonely heart of the reader.

As a hiker takes shade under the canopy of a huge oak, 

listen to the music of those artists who stirred you to imagine images that you just had to write and make live in your own way.

Then, you shall write as a child writes ... 

not thinking of a result but thinking in terms of discovery as if you were hiking once again where the magic lives.

It is the Zen of writing: 

the creation takes place between your fingers and the keyboard, 

not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting.

The magic is there waiting for you. It will come if you but get out of its way and let it in.

Start the NEW YEAR Right

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PHJXX23?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

(In Hardback for only $14.99)

Resolutions suck the Joy 

right out of the start of the New Year, 

don't they?

Your Life is a book you write day by day.

Strive to make each day filled 

with more smiles and kindness

than you may feel like giving.

Each of us is a cave painting

which we create one 

brushstroke of action at a time.

How we behave, how we speak

are the gifts we are presenting 

to those in our lives.

Being the best versions of ourselves

will have us being good gifts.

Would you start my New Year off 

by buying my hardback?

The latest reviewer wrote that 

if Tolkien had come to America, 

he would have written like me.

Nice, right?