TO THOSE OF US NEVER TO BE PUBLISHED_EMILY DICKINSON, GHOST

{"Publication - is the auction of the Mind of Man."
~Emily Dickinson.}

That fabulous scamp of a gentlemen, Samuel Clemens, asked me to write in this "computer newspaper," as he calls it.

The dear somehow knew this date was important to me.

“Success is counted sweetest” was published anonymously in an anthology titled A Masque of Poets on this day in 1878,

the last of the handful of my poems published in my lifetime.

Though I remained firm in my decision that “My Barefoot-Rank is better,” this poem does reflect my continued mixed feelings about publishing:

Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host Who took the flag to-day Can tell the definition, So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumphBurst agonized and clear!
**
I wonder, struggling souls, what would it mean to you if you were never published?

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee.
***
How long would you continue to write should publication elude you? Are the words burning within you to find life on the page?

For me, I never stopped writing:

HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Will you stop writing if the years pass, leaving you unpublished? 

Why? 

And if you would continue, why? This tender spirit would like to know.

Just walk out into the sable night, look up into the listening stars, and whisper your answer to the wayfaring winds. I am a ghost. I shall hear.
***

ONE TRUE WORD for the Insecure Writers' Support Group

"All you have to do is write one true sentence.
Write the truest sentence you know."
- Ernest Hemingway

But how to do that?

Hemingway always worked until he had something done, and he always stopped when he knew what was going to happen next. That way he could be sure of going on the next day.

But how to write that true sentence?

A "true" sentence, according to Frank Barone:
shows instead of tells
uses sense words
uses active verbs
does not use the following forms of the verb "to be": is; are; was; were; has, have, had been.

But, of course, there is more :

"How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think than in all other time.

I'd like to be an old man to really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time."
— Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls)

More time.

But that is just it. None of us know how much time we have. How best to use what little we have.

What do we know? Is it true? How do we know for sure?

Evocative prose is no one's mother tongue. It has to be won through the trials of life and pen. And that takes the most precious of commodities : time.

Steve Job, who birthed APPLE and whose passing we still mourn, said this :

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Live your dream with everything you have. Submit that novel without fear. If it is rejected, you are no worse off than before. You have grown through the experience.

Friends write me worried that agents or editors will steal their ideas. A great writer does not have to worry, for he writes in a manner that no one can imitate. Take the plot, yes. But not the manner in which it unfolds.

Because his sentences are true sentences. They reflect his truth, his hopes, his dreams, his fears. And so the story is HIS in a way no other could write it.

If you had to write the truest sentence you know, what would it be?
***

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.
***

ONE TRUE WORD

"All you have to do is write one true sentence.
Write the truest sentence you know."
- Ernest Hemingway

But how to do that?

Hemingway always worked until he had something done, and he always stopped when he knew what was going to happen next. That way he could be sure of going on the next day.

But how to write that true sentence?

A "true" sentence, according to Frank Barone:
shows instead of tells
uses sense words
uses active verbs
does not use the following forms of the verb "to be": is; are; was; were; has, have, had been.

But, of course, there is more :

"How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think than in all other time.

I'd like to be an old man to really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time."
— Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls)

More time.

But that is just it. None of us know how much time we have. How best to use what little we have.

What do we know? Is it true? How do we know for sure?

Evocative prose is no one's mother tongue. It has to be won through the trials of life and pen. And that takes the most precious of commodities : time.

Steve Job, who birthed APPLE, said this :

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Live your dream with everything you have. Submit that novel without fear. If it is rejected, you are no worse off than before. You have grown through the experience.

Friends write me worried that agents or editors will steal their ideas. A great writer does not have to worry, for he writes in a manner that no one can imitate. Take the plot, yes. But not the manner in which it unfolds.

Because his sentences are true sentences. They reflect his truth, his hopes, his dreams, his fears. And so the story is HIS in a way no other could write it.

If you had to write the truest sentence you know, what would it be?
***

T'WIXT WING AND WIND

First, since some of you liked my haiku's. Here is one Samuel writes in ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM :

"Your eyes drink mine,

The sea drifts by,

Both the same green."

Meilori quotes a haiku when she believes Samuel dead in RITES OF PASSAGE :

"The moon kisses the night,

My lips are cold,

You are gone."

Now to the subject of this post : Dream.

Dream is the love affair t'wixt wing and wind, between longing and reality.

I had the most unusual dream last night. Don't groan. No revolving doors into my unconscious. At least I hope not.

It will probably appear in my Samuel McCord novel, AN ARIA FOR HITLER. Dream is often the ink my page has been needing. So when my muse whispers to me in my sleep, I listen.

As is the custom of dream, the story begins in full bloom. Samuel McCord, in a western-cut tuxedo, is dancing like the wind given life with Meilori in a long, flowing gown of scarlet. It glitters under a night club's lights as if woven with the blood of gods. It is Venice in the year 1926. Cole Porter is playing the piano. Alanis Morissette is singing, "Let's Do It." {Hey, in the land of dream, you're lucky it wasn't Kirsten Dunst (have you heard her sing?)}

Alongside Sam dances Father Renfield, so skinny you can almost smell his bones. He is dancing with his former wife, Sister Magda, a woman with the kind of face that has saints stealing from orphanages and pacifists starting wars. And beside them dance two women : the tiny bird of a woman, Ada Byron, who inherited her father's love of scandal, and tall, elegant Margaret Fuller, whose existential soul sneers at convention. At the tables bordering the dance floor, heads are bowed in outraged gossip. Sam is oblivious to them. His beaming face says it all. Meilori is in his arms and convention be damned.

Meilori, her shoulders the white of mountain peaks, her arms slender as birch branches, looks up at Sam and whispers, "Life is not a hunt, Samuel. It is a dance. And in some ballrooms, they turn out the lights. Come, let us close our eyes and dance, feeling our bodies move under each other's fingers."

Trusting to his memory of the floor, Sam smiles and closes his eyes. Meilori does not. The veil is lifted from her jade eyes, suddenly cruel and sparkling windows into her past. Eyes that smiled at the burning of Rome, that caressed the blossoms of extinct flowers in Babylon's Gardens, and that stonily regarded the screams of sacrifices under Aztec stars, now watches as Nazi revenants slip onto the dance floor from all four directions.

Renfield notices them at the same time Magda does. He spins on Meilori, "What have you done? Innocent by-standers will be hurt!"

"No flesh is innocent."

Sam opens his eyes, sees the revenants, and looks hurt. "Why?"

"These dogs task me, beloved. They task me. And death is a dance as well. Let us show them the steps."

And that is all I remember of the dream. I awakened with the memory that Cole Porter had served with the French Foreign Legion during World War I. What can I say? I have a hodgepodge of an unconscious.

But I scribbled the fragment onto a notebook I keep by my bed just for that purpose. You might think of doing that as well. If for nothing else than not losing a snippet of dialogue you would forget otherwise.

And so now I share that fragment with all of you. I have thought about it all day. Now, that I have finally written it down formally maybe it will give me some peace. Some dreams are whispers that the mind warehouses as shouts. Oh, well, it is a hope.

What would Samuel say? "He who lives in hope dances without music."

And no, I'm not as old as Samuel, but I like all sorts or music from all eras. If you might be wondering how Alanis Morissette sounds singing "Let's Do It," here is a music video of it. And, no, again, I don't look as old as the aged Cole Porter at the beginning of the video. I look just like Tom Selleck in his 40's. Ah, don't believe that, huh? Neither does my mirror. Anyway, I must have heard Alanis last night on http://www.pandora.com/ before I went to sleep without realizing it.

THE FABRIC OF DREAMS

The fabric of dream. It is interwoven throughout the tapestry of science fiction. Yes, and throughout the mural of fantasy as well. But if you walked the hills of DreamLand for very long, you would come upon the towering spires of Science Fiction. It is inspired by the question 'What if {fill in the blank with a list of wondrous possibilities.}' Science itself would not exist if rational observers of Nature did not ask "What if?" or "Why?"



So Science Fiction owes its existence to dreamers who stare up at the stars or gaze within themselves, asking "What if?" I asked what if evolution went micro instead of macro? What if red blood cells became intelligent? How would they feel about the madness we thrust them into? Then, I thought further. What if the earth were invaded, not by alien beings in saucers, but with alien blood pumped unknowingly into our veins on operating tables or in dentists' chairs? And that was how my story, BLOOD WILL TELL, came into being.



I will not bore you with snippets. Issac Asimov took us into the microverse of blood with FANTASTIC VOYAGE. We brought our science with us. But sadly, we also took the darkness of the human soul as well.



Why am I musing along these lines? Well, I am speaking at CON DU LAC, the Sci-Fi convention in Lake Charles, this upcoming June. And like last June where I gave two talks and appeared on one panel, I am going to give two new views into the world of science fiction and fantasy. Last year, I talked the first day on the impact and philosophy behind STAR TREK. The next day, I talked on the eternal questions and philosophies behind all science fiction, about its present, and about its possible futures. You can check out what this year's convention will entail at this website : http://www.condulac.net/website/.



Why do we dream? The answer is elusive and hard to pin down. Harder still to get philosphers to agree upon a common one. All I know is that when we cease to dream, we will cease to be human. I am listening to Concerto de Aranjuez Adaigo. I think some of you may enjoy listening to this as well :

Then, where there are dreams, there are nightmares :