BILL WATTERSON INTERVIEWED BY THE GHOST OF MARK TWAIN

Ghost of Mark Twain here.  What to say of Meilori's?

I will tell only of the lone jazz club in the darkest of the French Quarters alleys;

the feared tomb of many a New Orleans visitor.  It is an old and whispered-about haunt whom none remembers ever not being where it is tonight. 

I cleared my throat as old Bill warily eyed the ghostly clientel milling through Meilori's. 

"I admire you, Bill.  You had an idea, executed it, then moved on. And you ignored the clamor for more. Why is it so hard for readers to let go?"

He took a sip of his iced tea ( he told me Meilori's did not encourage one not to be at his sharpest). 

"You can’t really blame people for preferring more of what they already know and like. The trade-off, of course, is that predictability is boring. Repetition is the death of magic."

I tapped his drawing of Calvin and Hobbes as Groot and Rocket.  "Thanks for drawing this for me, Bill."

Bill made a face.  "How could I not?  You're one of the greats ... and you threatened to have the ghost of H.P. Lovecraft keep reading me bedtime stories until I did!"

"Speaking of movies, Bill, you spoke well of Pixar awhile ago.  Would you consider letting them animate your strip?"

" I have zero interest in animating Calvin and Hobbes. If you’ve ever compared a film to a novel it’s based on, you know the novel gets bludgeoned.

It’s inevitable, because different media have different strengths and needs, and when you make a movie, the movie’s needs get served. As a comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes works exactly the way I intended it to. There’s no upside for me in adapting it."

I scratched my moustache.  "I’m assuming you’ve gotten wind of people animating your strip for YouTube?"

Bill nodded, "Every artist learns through imitation, but I rather doubt the aim of these things is artistic development.

I assume they’re either homages or satiric riffs, and are not intended to be taken too seriously as works in their own right. Otherwise I should be talking to a copyright lawyer."

"Talking about lawyers, your fight over protecting Calvin and Hobbes from licensing deals, and your battle to increase the real estate for your Sunday page comic, are legend."

Bill sighed, "Just to be clear, I did not have incredible autonomy until afterward. I had signed most of my rights away in order to get syndicated, so I had no control over what happened to my own work, and I had no legal position to argue anything.

I could not take the strip with me if I quit, or even prevent the syndicate from replacing me, so I was truly scared I was going to lose everything I cared about either way.

I made a lot of impassioned arguments for why a work of art should reflect the ideas and beliefs of its creator, but the simple fact was that my contract made that issue irrelevant."

I cackled a laugh, "One story that made the rounds was that a plush toy manufacturer once delivered a box of Hobbes dolls to you unsolicited, which you promptly set ablaze.

For people like me who share your low opinion of merchandising, this is a fairly delightful story. Did it actually happen?"

"Not exactly. It was only my head that burst into flames."

I cocked my head at Bill.  "Is Calvin autobiographical?"

"Not really.

Hobbes might be a little closer to me in terms of personality, with Calvin being more energetic, brash, always looking for life on the edge.

He lives entirely in the present, and whatever he can do to make that moment more exciting he'll just let fly...and I'm really not like that at all."

I lit my cigar.  "Would it be the accurate to call Charles Schulz the major influence on you?"  

Bill nodded, "Oh yeah. As a child, especially, Peanuts and Pogo were my two biggest influences.  Schulz, in Peanuts, changed the entire face of comic strips.

Things that we now take for granted--reading the thoughts of an animal for example--there's not a cartoonist who's done anything since 1960 who doesn't owe Schulz a tremendous debt."

"You took up painting after the strip ended. Why don’t you exhibit the work, Bill?"

"My first problem is that I don’t paint ambitiously. It’s all catch and release—just tiny fish that aren’t really worth the trouble to clean and cook.

But like with Harper Lee, my second problem is that Calvin and Hobbes created a level of attention and expectation that I don't know how to process."

I grinned crooked, "Have you ever peeled one of those stupid Calvin stickers off of a pickup truck?"

Bill sipped his tea and smiled wide. "I figure that, long after the strip is forgotten, those decals will be my ticket to immortality."

I started to fade from my chair, and Bill yelped, "Hey!  Don't go!  Who's going to get me safely out of this nightmare?"

I just chuckled and faded clean away, leaving Bill yelling, "This is NOT funny!!  Mark!  Maaaark!"

* "Rocket and Groot" by Adi Fitri
* Based in part on Mental Floss Interview with Bill Waterson:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53216/mental-floss-exclusive-our-interview-bill-watterson

What Thea Gilmore was singing in the background at Meilori's:

A GOOD IDEA AIN'T GOOD ENOUGH_ghost of MARK TWAIN

 "A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere."

-Mark Twain.

Samuel Clemens, ghost here, to help Roland out a mite.

Seems that old blood center has changed up the rules a mite, and he is gonna have a fine time of it this weekend, trying to out solo Han Solo!

And I think my little cyber-column might help out you pilrims a mite, too.

After all, I was a newspaper man a'fore I became the great literary genius the world knows and loves.

Now, on to my gem of a post:

My quote next to my picture seems a bit self-evident, don't it?

Well, just read THE PASSAGE by that Justin Cronin fella or THE TONGUES OF SERPENTS.
Both meander worse than a sluggish Mississippi at ebb tide.

But they got published you wail. I was wailing, too ... after I read them.

Sure they got published ... after a string of good writing by said authors.

But Cronin pushed his readers at a distance with page after page after page of narrative summary.

Leave the lecturing for the classroom, Justin.

Now, you want to see how a new twist on vampires is done right?

Check out THE STRAIN by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan:
http://www.amazon.com/Strain-Trilogy-Book-ebook/dp/B002BD2V38/

Brrr.  I'm a ghost, and I simply refuse to fish with wiggling worms after reading that there book!

Old del Toro will keep you up nights with that book and the two that follow it!

Naomi Novak, poor girl, just seemed to lose her fire, having no danger, no crisis breathing down the neck of her heroes.

She managed the impossible:

she made a book about dragons boring.

I struggled like you pilgrims to get published. I learned my craft in the newspapers at which I worked one after another clear across this nation.

And in Virginia City, most of my critics toted six guns!

And I learned a few rules. I'll even share a few with you:

1.) The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

Ever hear two people tell the same joke? Both tell it differently. One always tells it better.

One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. Talk to the heart of your listener, and you will never go wrong.

2.) Told or unfold?

Histories belong in the classroom. Novels are the place for scenes.

A scene takes place before the reader's eyes.

He sees the mysterious stranger being feared, not being told what a hoodoo he is. Your hero runs down the alley, ducking zinging bullets.

The reader sees it happen. He isn't told about it after the fact.

3.) What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.

I've read a good bit of what passes for novels these days. They're leaner and meaner. No more Norman Rockwell, exact details down to the slightest freckle.

Novels today are impressionistic like the paintings or a film by that Hitchcock fellow.

Why, the most horrific story I ever heard centered on a monster only hinted at, never seen clear ... and the more fearsome because of that.

4.) Less is more when it comes to writing.

 If you hit the poor reader over the head with your point, you'll blunt your point and won't do much for the reader either.

5.) The best words are actions.


What did that Anton Chekhov fellow write?

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
Actions pulls your reader into the flow of the story.

Preambling just shoves him back to being a distant observer, not a participant.
Give the reader the taste of the wind, the feel of the grit in the badly cooked food, and the ache of a broken heart.

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of the battle.

No second-hand prose.

Draw the reader into the sound and feel of the actions. He will forget he is reading. He will become a part of the world you have created.


6.) The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.



Franklin D. Roosevelt originally wrote in his famous speech of December 8, 1941 "a date that will live in history." Later the President scratched out "history" and instead wrote "infamy."
And that line still rings down the corridors of time.

The amateur writer draws attention to himself ...
why, isn't that a beautiful description I've just pounded you over the head with for five pages?

The professional author knows that to draw the reader's attention to himself with mechanics is to draw it away from the story.

You want the reader to be so absorbed in your world that they're not even aware you, the writer, exists.


7.) Writing, I think, is not apart from living.


In fact, writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice.

Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind our memories.

***

GHOST OF MARK TWAIN HERE_ IWSG POST FOR July

"I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them."
- Mark Twain

Ghost of Mark Twain here:

I try not to criticize that Stephanie Meyer gal to Roland, but her books madden me so that I cannot conceal my frenzy from him.

I have to stop every time I begin.

Every time I read any of those Twilight/Good Night books, I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

Then, I realize that gal ain't dead yet.  Maybe I can convince the ghost of Lovecraft to fix that for me, don't you know?

I just flat couldn't finish any of those DEAD books by that filly Charlaine Harris.  If she would listen, I would tell her that a successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.


Not that any woman no how ever listened to me when I was talking sense.


That her books sell don't necessarily make them good.

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail.

The trouble with most fiction of today is that you want them all to land in hell together, as quickly as possible.

I know you friends of Roland are more open to listening than those two fillies, so I have a few hints at how to write yourselves a good novel --

1.) Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

2.) And while we are on the topic of editing --  NEVER POLISH THE FIRST CHAPTER UNTIL THE LAST ONE IS WRITTEN.

3.) A novel is like a young'un -- it grows in ways you never planned.  Just type it out chapter by chapter, letting the growing pains take you where they will.

4.) A novel is like life -- things happen, new ideas suggest themselves, and intriguing possiblities arise.  Throw them into the soil of your novel, you will be surprised at what the harvest will be.

5.) A novel to be novel must be novel.  Don't have the dog wag his tail.  Have his tail wag him.

6.) A novel is a dog house --

     So is your house going to hold a small, a medium, a lagre dog -- or just for the husband when he is thrown out by his wife?

     The size of the "dog" will dictate how you go about structuring your "house" (novel).

7.) Plots are limited.  Characters are limitless.  So always begin with the characters.

     Your novel will shine, not by what you have going on in it, but by the breath you breathe into your characters.

8.) The characters you develop depend on who you are.  Hemingway was Hemingway.  Shakespeare was everybody else.

Remember:

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

THE ANGEL-FISH CLUB OF MARK TWAIN_For Mr. Fowler's 8th grade class_

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain.  

He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel."

Twain passed through a period of deep depression that began in 1896 when his daughter Susy died of meningitis. 

Twain formed a club in 1906 for girls he viewed as surrogate granddaughters, the Angel Fish and Aquarium Club.

The dozen or so members ranged in age from 10 to 16. Twain exchanged letters with his "Angel Fish" girls and invited them to concerts and the theatre and to play games.

Twain wrote in 1908 that the club was his "life's chief delight."

 In 1907 Twain met Dorothy Quick (then aged 11) on a transatlantic crossing, beginning "a friendship that was to last until the very day of his death".

 

Why, hello, Missy.  What are you doing lurking in the shadows of this haunted French Quarter club?

What?  Some bully forced you in here to get chewed up?  Alice, my dear, would you go out and see if that bully has any taste at all ... only a finger or two.  Now, don't pout, Alice.  You have to watch that figure.

Come, Missy, sit at my table.  I won't bite.  That's Alice's quaint behavior. 

I hate sitting at a table alone.  What is a table without a child to brighten it?  That's better.  Here, let me stick this angel fish pin on your pretty blouse.

Could you ask me a question or two for your report?  Why, surely, you can.


What is this pin for?


Well, I suppose we are all collectors...

As for me, I collect pets: young girls -- don't giggle there, Missy --

girls from ten to sixteen years old; girls who are pretty and sweet and naive and innocent -- dear young creatures to whom life is a perfect joy and to whom it has brought no wounds, no bitterness, and few tears.

Their parents were always near so they were safe from nasty gosssip.



Is that all, you ask.



I lost my dear daughter, Susy, in 1896.  It near ended me.  After my wife's death on June 5, 1904, I experienced a terrible storm of unrest and loneliness.

Clara and Jean. my remaining daughters, were busy with their studies and their labors    

and I was washing about on a forlorn sea of banquets and speechmaking in high and holy causes...

I had reached the grandpapa stage of life; and what I lacked and what I needed was grandchildren.



Why, yes, Missy, I guess you are my newest grandchild.  Now, that laugh was deserved.  I'll call you my latest angel-fish.


What is an angel-fish you ask?


 The Bermudian angel-fish, with its splendid blue decorations, is easily the most beautiful fish that swims ...

I call my collection of young grandgirls The Aquarium.  The club's badge is the angel-fish's splendors reproduced in enamels and mounted for service as a lapel-pin --

 at least that is where the girls wear it. I get these little pins in Bermuda; they are made in Norway.


Have I ever been to Norway?


Why, Missy, the closest I got was the Black Forest in Germany.



Did I ever meet a ghost before I became one?


Missy, I have ransacked the Sandwich Islands until I could not walk for the saddle sores.  I have surf-bathed til I nearly drowned.  I have ridden by moonlight through a ghostly plain of sand strewn with human bones and contested with the shades of slain warriors there. 

 

What are the Sandwich Islands?



Why, you folks call them Hawaii now I reckon. 

For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surf is in my ear; I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore,

its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud-rack; I can feel the spirit of its woody solitudes, I hear the plashing of the brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished 160 years ago.


Did my stories have wit or humor?


Why, isn't that an insightful little question with big implications. 

Wit and Humor—if any difference it is in duration—lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, brief, and can do damage—the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.

Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing, after all. The minute it crops up all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.



Who is that handsome young man approaching us?


Why, that is Victor Standish, Alice's boyfriend.  Ah, he just winked at you.  Uh, oh, Alice is storming our way.

Scoot!  I will not have a granddaughter eaten at my table.

 Why, that gal really knows how to run.  Aw, she left her notes.

I wonder who Michael Jackson is?

 

IRENE GERKEN

(Member of Angel-Fish Club)
circa 1896 - May 19, 1969

This photo of Irene Gerken and Clemens appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 19, 1908.
Gerken was not identified in the TIMES photo.

KINDLE FIRE 2 ABOUT TO BE RELEASED?

CJM CHRONICLES:
http://paper.li/CJMBooks/1328387965

has me as a reporter of sorts. The ghost of Mark Twain is chuckling, seeing as how he started out as one himself.

"But, son, when I was one I knew about it! You sorta backed into it."

I merely reported on what others said first:

That Amazon may very well release their Kindle Fire 2 this upcoming week. Why do others say that?

Both Gizmodo and Good E-Reader have especially convincing posts yesterday

about the very real possibility that Amazon’s long-awaited iPad alternative will be available to consumers very soon–perhaps as early as this coming week.

From the Gizmodo post:

“If you want to know if Amazon’s new Kindles are coming out—and what they’ll be—don’t listen to analysts or supply chains or, yes, even blogs.

One trip to Amazon today will tell you nearly everything you need to know about when, and what, Amazon’s about to unleash on the world.

When bargain hounds opened their Amazon Deal of the Day email yesterday morning, they were met with a bargain basement Kindle DX. Amazon's black sheep 10-inch e-ink tablet is $110 off today, a 29% discount.

It's the kind of deal you offer when you want to clear out inventory, fast."

Want to buy a Kindle Touch today?

Sorry, you're out of luck. There's an 8-9 day shipping wait on the model with speci.

al offers, and you can only get the $140 ad-free version through third party vendors. A Kindle Touch 3G, then? Sorry, that's currently unavailable.

Amazon's done making the previous generation of Kindle Touch. Plain and simple.

Amazon has a track record of drastically reducing the price on expensive stock to clear the way for new product.

What will happen this week with Kindle Fire 2? Don't ask me. I don't even know why fools fall in love.

Thanks to CJM CHRONICLES for looping me into my 10 seconds of fame.

"MAY I SIT DOWN" SAID JUNG.

*

Without playing with fantasy, no creative work has ever yet come to birth.
The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.
-C.G. Jung

Meilori's was much wider, higher, and deeper than seemed possible from how it looked on the outside. Inside the haunted jazz club, I could see no walls, much less any torches that hung from them. Only an endless array of tables whose candles pushed back the darkness only a little.

In this dark cavern of a saloon, things vast, blind, and monstrous took shape in the bronze-hued mists that billowed all through the place.

They lumbered without notice of me. They became almost solid, fuzzed, then drifted apart only to re-form feet from where they had been.

I sat at my table and tried to remember all Victor had told me of his latest adventure, attempting to put it down just as he said it on my laptop.

A dance macabre formed in the mists to my far left. Up high and almost lost in the billowing fog, sprites of dark ice spun on one leg, twirling slowly, their angular faces lost in some delirium of madness. They began to sing.

It was an invocation.

Abysses loathsome and endless yawned hungrily in the mists before me. I caught flashes, glimpses of alien voids and unholy dimensions beyond all human experience.

"May I sit down, young man?" said a deep voice.

I looked up. Carl Jung. "Of course, sir."

He smiled and sat down opposite me. "I wrote about the need for finding and living our myth, our story."

He sighed, "As I grew older, I wrote my most important works and found my own unique ways to play."

He peered deep into my eyes. "Young man, we need new stories that weave playfulness, gratitude, and compassion for self and others. Re-writing your myth or story can help you understand more fully your core values."

He smiled sadly. "Your story reflects your uniqueness and the many gifts you have to offer others. You might ask your computer friends that if they fully expressed their values, how would others see them? Would it change their life in some way?"

Jung gazed into the bronze mists and murmured, "I had sick bed images, terrible and beautiful both at once."

His chin sunk to his chest, "I felt as though I were floating in space, as though I were safe in the womb of the universe---in a tremendous void, but filled with the highest possible feeling of happiness. Everything around me seemed enchanted.... Night after night I floated in a state of purest bliss, thronged round with images of all creation."

Mark Twain thumped into the seat beside me and laughed, "I had me some of those same dreams, there, Young. But soon as I gave up radishes, they cleared out."

Jung glared at Mark. "Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart not your stomach. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

Mark smiled crooked, "Wasn't you the pilgrim who said everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Jung's scowl could have curdled vinegar. "I also said I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. Must you be a jack daw, Clemens?”

Mark Twain smiled wide, "You spout on about the secrets of life. I will tell you the secret to Life: “Life is short, Break the Rules. Forgive quickly, Kiss SLOWLY.
Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret ANYTHING that makes you smile.”

Jung huffed, “The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”

Twain snorted, "Maybe. Maybe not. When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”

Jung rumbled, "“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong. It is clear your mind has become mired in nonsense.”

Twain chuckled, "T'weren't you the gent who said 'As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.'”

Jung shook his head, “It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

Mark looked at me. "Suddenly, son, I'm afraid. I actually understood that."

***

What would say is your own personal myth? Are your core values reflected in what you write? In the last thing you wrote what would a stranger say are your core values, what you hold to be true about life?

*
These images (or other media files) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.
This applies to Australia, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years.

JULY 4TH'S Insecure Writer's Support

IMPORTANT NOTE: MY CONTEST HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO JULY 15TH FOR THOSE JUST LEARNING OF IT!

July 4th is America's INDEPENDENCE DAY.

I want to help my writing friends become INDEPENDENT of fear

which is the chief cause of aspiring writers never writing the novel inside them.

Here are 23 (a mystic number in itself) quotations from authors much wiser than myself!


Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. —E.L. Doctorow


Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure our what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. —Barbara Kingsolver


Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. —Gustave Flaubert


The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. —Mary Heaton Vorse


Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. -Anne Lamott


I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I’m one of the world’s great rewriters. I find that three or four readings are required to comb out the cliches, line up pronouns with their antecedents, and insure agreement in number between subject and verbs…My connectives, my clauses, my subsidiary phrases don’t come naturally to me and I’m very prone to repetition of words; so I never even write an important letter in the first draft. I can never recall anything of mine that’s ever been printed in less than three drafts. You write that first draft really to see how it’s going to come out. —James A. Michener

Fear of failure is the reason most often cited to explain why so many aspiring writers never realize their dreams. But I think it’s that same fear of failure that absolutely invigorates those who do push through—that is, the fear of not being heard. -Betsy Lerner


If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages. —William Campbell Gault


Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. -Mark Twain



A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. —Sidney Smith



I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it. -Ernest Hemingway


There is always the risk that you may disappoint yourself. That risk is there even for productive writers, as most writers don’t write as often as they would like. Because of this reality, you will need to practice self-forgiveness. —Eric Maisel


By writing much, one learns to write well. —Robert Southey


If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage. —Cynthia Ozick


Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up. —Jane Yolen


Please, don't torture me with cliches. If you're going to try to intimidate me, have the courtesy to go away for a while, acquire a better education, improve your vocabulary, and come back with some fresh metaphors. ― Dean Koontz (ODD HOURS)


Inspiration doesn’t descend like a lightning bolt from the gods. Inspiration comes instead from a steady breath, a solid foundation, and a commitment to the process. —Laraine Herring


Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. —Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)


Work inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you are interested, keep working. If you are bored, keep working. —Michael Chrichton


Once we are aware of our fears, we are almost always capable of being more courageous than we think. Someone once told me that fear and courage are like lightning and thunder; they both start out at the same time, but the fear travels faster and arrives sooner. If we just wait a moment, the requisite courage will be along shortly. —Lawrence Block


A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than for others. —Thomas Mann


The secret of getting ahead is getting started. —Agatha Christie


At some point we must stop anticipating our journey and set sail. Willa Cather said that she wrote best when she stopped trying to write and began simply to remember. —Ralph Keyes (The Courage to Write)

A last word about writing:

“But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...

well, it’s like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within.

You can’t just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.”
― Dean Koontz, Lightning

“No one's life should be rooted in fear. We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are.”
― Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy

{Thanks to several of my friends who have talked about my contest yesterday, I am EXTENDING THE DEADLINE TO JULY 15TH to give those who've just learned of my contest a fair chance.}
Prepare yourselves for chills.

THE HANGOVER ... of ALEX CAVANAUGH_CassaFire Blog Tour

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

Alex Cavanaugh held his head. “Ow! Where am I?”

I said, “I can explain ….”

His eyes popped open. “It’s never good news when you hear those words.”

The ghost of Mark Twain chortled, “Alex, old boy, you just set back and enjoy the ride. Captain Clemens is at the wheel.”

The wheel in question was straight off a Mississippi riverboat. Sadly, we weren’t on the Mississippi. We were in the Shadowlands of outer space.

Alex started to spring out of his seat, but the safety harness stopped him. His eyes went wider as he took in his surroundings. We were on the command deck of a space ship. Or what Hollywood thought a space ship to look like in the 1930’s.

We were not alone.


Tied not too securely was Princess Ardala from the 80’s BUCK ROGERS show. She was muffling outrage through her gag. Ming the Merciless was out cold in the seat beside her.


A large teddy bear was busily half-doing the ropes on him. The teddy bear was dressed like Mr. Spock.

“A Hoka!,” gasped Alex. “An honest to Gordon R. Dickson Hoka!”



“Commander Spock,” squeaked the Hoka, whose race lived to imitate all that fascinated it.

Princess Ardala spat out her gag, “You dare?”

Mark Twain beamed, “Why, ain’t you the feisty hellcat? Don’t worry none about your daddy, Ming. I just needed his space boat here.”

“He is not my father, moron! I am having a tryst with Ming!”

Mark frowned, “I don’t see any pastries.”

“Tryst, imbecile! T-R-Y-S-T!! We are having an affair!”

Mark Twain’s cigar dropped from his mouth. “With that honey dew melon?”

Ardala was about to spew something forgettable when the Hoka inserted the gag back into her snarling mouth and waddled to his blinking console.

“What?,” sputtered Alex. “Where? How? Why?”

Mark Twain cackled with pleasure, spinning the wheel, sending the poor Hoka tumbling as I answered in reverse order.

“While we were guzzling Romulan Ale at Meilori’s, you mentioned you yearned to go into space in a real space ship.”

“This isn’t a real space ship! This is the movie set of Ming the Merciless’s space ship.”

Mark Twain twirled the wheel again, sending the Hoka tumbling across the deck in the opposite direction.


“This is as real as it gets, Alex! This is the Shadowlands where everything thought of by Man exists for deadly certain.”

I groaned, “Would you stop spinning that blasted wheel? My head is killing me.”

“Son, I’m trying to keep those Klingons from doing that to all of us.”

“Klingons!,” shrilled Alex, finally getting his harness undone.
He and I both looked, mouths ajar and eyes wide, at the view screen, showing the Klingon Bird of Prey preparing to blast us into tiny disbelieving bits.

The Hoka cocked its big head. “Most odd. Rudolph’s nose is glowing, and it is not even Christmas.”

Alex picked up the Hoka, shaking it while shrieking, “That is not a nose, you little Furball! That’s a plasma cannon!”

The teddy bear tilted its head. “Alex Cavanaugh, do I look in need of fluffing to you?”



Alex sputtered incoherently, dropping the Hoka.

The teddy bear muttered, "You were more fun drunk."

Alex started for Mark Twain when the view screen changed to show a confused Klingon who growled at us.

“Your vessel … it is being propelled by a wire on top?”

Alex stopped in mid-step. “What?”

Mark chortled, “You keep asking that question, son. That’s the way Hollywood got this danged thing to fly in the 30’s so that’s how it flies now.”

“No matter,” grunted the Klingon. “You are invading Klingon space. Prepare to die!”


Alex shrilled, “Twain, do something!”

Mark turned to the Hoka, “Commander Spock, you have a plan?”

“He’s a teddy bear!,” shrieked Alex. “What kind of plan could he have?”

“An excellent one,” smugly smiled the Hoka, flipping a few switches. “I have taken control of their vessel.”

Alex danced in place. “Great! You’re turning off that cannon, right?”

The teddy bear frowned. “That would be rude.”

Alex’s eyes looked as if they were preparing to leap out of their sockets. “Rude? RUDE!? ”

The teddy bear sighed, “Really Alex Cavanaugh, your emotions will be the death of you.”

“That cannon’s going to be the death of me, you fuzzball!”

“No,” smugly said the Hoka. “Klingon Poop is the most devastating stench in the known galaxy. Observe as I re-route their sewage system through their ventilating shafts.”

Streams of thick brown ooze flowed through the vents above the Klingon Captain. Gagging wetly, he grabbed his throat, sinking to his knees along with the rest of his crew.

“H-Have you no shame, no honor, human?”

Mark Twain smiled wide as he lit up a new cigar. “No. That’s how I win, Turtle Brow.”

He turned to the Hoka. “Mr. Spock, the Borg Sector, if you please. I always fancied that Borg Queen to be a sexy little thing.”
“Nooooooo!,’ Alex and I wailed.

Alex began clicking his heels. “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home!”

***
Buy your own copy of CASSAFIRE!
http://www.amazon.com/CassaFire-Alex-J-Cavanaugh/dp/0982713940
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Want to read more of the Hoka (used copy for only a penny!)
http://www.amazon.com/Earthmans-Burden-Poul-Anderson/dp/0380479931/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330143119&sr=1-1
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Oh, Erin Kane Spock (no relation to the Hoka!) just let me know that I have been shortlisted for the the finalists in the 4th campaign's first challenge. Neat, huh?
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