A CAST OF LOVERS, LIARS, KILLERS, AND CLOWNS ...

http://www.amazon.com/THE-STARS-BLEED-AT-MIDNIGHT-ebook/dp/B00N758R96

Don't forget D.G.'s post on it:
http://dghudson-rainwriting.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-stars-bleed-at-midnight-and-bear.html
 

THE BEST REVIEW YOU'LL NEVER READ ON AMAZON

Sandra Thrasher sent me a review of my book that she doesn't feel right putting on Amazon

since she is my best friend, but I just had to share:

"Heady, sardonic, yet compassionate -- with an unpredictable cast of lovers, liars, killers, and clowns, THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT entertains even as it reflects upon the instability of identities.  

It is a thoroughly entertaining book by a classic talent."

But enough about me ... on to a real talent: Patricia Briggs:

 http://www.amazon.com/Shifting-Shadows-Stories-World-Thompson-ebook/dp/B00IOE4M9O/

Her latest: SHIFTING SHADOWS is a volume of short stories centering on her secondary characters in her world of MERCY THOMPSON.

The intros to those stories are mini-lessons on how to write.  If you buy only one book this month:

Buy mine, but buy hers next month!  :-)
 

SECONDARY CHARACTERS
 

Her book got me to reflecting upon them.  Could yours support a short story centering on them?  They should.

ARCS
 

Each of your supporting characters should have one.  Not in your novel.  That would give you mental hernias.

No, but in your mind.  They should be real not CARDBOARD CUT-OUTS of personalities.

Your protagonist is defined by his interactions with those around him. 

And if those around him are shallow, he or she will only be able to have shallow relationships.  The reader will become bored.
 

PERCOLATE

 

How do you do that you ask.  Percolate. 

You let the different characters and the rough image of your novel's actions slowly work through your conscious and unconscious mind.

Too many writers rush into their novels in the heat of a great opening scene or bit of dazzling dialogue.

By all means put it down on paper or in Word, but pause and reflect for a few days maybe even .... shudder ... a week.

But if the fire is hot within you, ignore me completely.  I am used to that treatment from beautiful women.

After all, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde in SIX DAYS!
 

TAKE KINDERGARTEN

 

You enter one person, meet those irritating mysteries, other human beings, and emerge a drastically different kind of person.

This happens again and again and again in the lives of us all.

A fact which irritates me when an author says she cannot write a sequel for the arc of her heroine is finished. 

I want to say: "Is she still breathing?  Then, another arc is just beginning!"
 

THE WORLD YOU WANT VS THE WORLD THAT IS
 

Most of you know the term "Mary Sue"

   

The term "Mary Sue" comes from the name of a character created by Paula Smith in 1973 for her parody story "A Trekkie's Tale"

It was published in her fanzine Menagerie #2. 

The story starred Lieutenant Mary Sue

("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet — only fifteen and a half years old"), and satirized unrealistic Star Trek fan fiction.

You can write a MARY SUE novel, too. 

Twilight is basically one and spawned a depressingly large number of copy-cats!

The wallflower or outcast who, up until now has been ignored or ridiculed. 

Then comes the new kid: dark, handsome, mysterious ... and madly in love with the wallflower.

You can write a novel whose world is what you would have it to be. 

And if enough readers want the same kind of world, it will be popular.

But it will not resonate with truth.  It will be mental cotton candy.  And if you write enough of it, it will make you and your ability to create ill.
 

ANTI-MARY SUE NOVELS
 

Then, there are novels where every part of the universe sucks,

the heroine is the doormat of her world, incapable of not making mistakes.  She IS a mistake.

I know we often feel that way,

but if we look down and our shoes are on the proper foot, then we have done at least one thing right.

All of us write of the world as we believe it to be. 

But we must work hard to NOT write of the world that our fears believe it to be.

Like Mrs. Briggs' title to her short story collection, SHIFTING SHADOWS, 

the world is a shifting dance of shadow and light.  

If we find our novel all light or all dark,

we are making it unrealistic and without the music of life that will sing to our readers of the truths we must find for ourselves in the darkness.

THERE WAS A TIME I LOST HOPE_Insecure Writer's Support

Hope is an ethereal yet essential thing.

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.” ― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Beautiful words.  But sometimes the world becomes ashes in your hands, and what do you have left?

When hope dies, life has a weird way of giving you its form of C.P.R. or hitting you with those electric paddles. 

You see, in a strange way there is neither happiness nor misery in the world.

There is only the comparison of one state with another.

He who has been plunged into the deepest grief later comes to see what beauty he foolishly took for granted before.    

That which he was blind to prior becomes to him a healing scene of rare wonder.

Perhaps wisdom can be distilled into two words:

Wait and Hope.

I had a silly dream, born of the wonder my friends in The League of Five had in the thrill of continued adventures in linked books:

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2010/11/leauge-of-five.html

To be able to weave a linked world of different heroes fighting in a cosmic war that few even realized was ongoing from one novel to another and have them read and loved was my dream.

Know how many copies of HIBBS, THE CUB WITH NO CLUE I have sold?   Two.  And I bought one of those for my own Kindle!  Ouch!

Some months back it hit me that I was never going to sell many of my books, much less be popular.

The Father murmured, “There are worse fates.” 

And I contracted cancer like my mother before me.

  Stunned and fearful, I said, “Yeah, you right.”

{By the way, for all you males out there – those are the 3 magic words for your angry wives or lovers:

YEAH, YOU RIGHT. 

They will at least not make matters worse!}

After a very unsettling time, the Father granted me a reprieve. 

A reprieve is all any of us get. 

Our promissory note on life always come due, and the Postman in Black turns up at our doorstep … and he has the key to every one of our doors.

Sandra, my best friend, is dying of cancer. 

When she emails me (which now is seldom for she is focusing on her family and her own fears),

she demands to know how I am doing in work, how my health is, and how my prose dream is doing.

It seems trite in the extreme to whine about the Lab Tech who has been actively trying for years to get me fired. 

(It is a puzzlement to all who know of it and me.  But sometimes you work with mentally unstable people … sadly this one has clout.)

Sandra insists she wants to know of my books. 

She says in this age of reality programming and Twitter, no one wants to think while they read. 

If I enjoy the act of writing, then write.  If 5 people find pleasure in my prose, then my dream has not been in vain

Life is short and fragile as both Sandra and I know. 

We must be mindful of the beauty and love that pushes through the cracks of the concrete of a world seemingly intent on crushing us.

If you want to give me some good news to write Sandra, buy a copy of

THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N758R96  {$2.99}

or

HIBBS, THE CUB WITH NO CLUE  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MT8DNLY    {.99}

If not, that’s all right, too. 

I have learned the importance of each breath treasured for its own sake. 

A  good friend gone far away just reminded me on Facebook of my own words on my Author Page:

“The great thing about being a writer is that you CAN BE a princess, an astronaut, or a dinosaur.

Samuel Clemens was never taken seriously as a writer ... until he was famous.  He wrote ‘You are a crank ... until you succeed.’

People will take you as seriously as you take yourself.

We must be whole within ourselves -- no matter what inane nonsense folks think of us. 

That is why writers are lonely, for a dream is a private thing since no one's dream is dear to someone looking from the outside.

Every pioneer goes it alone, but writers are lucky: they get to take their characters along with them inside their heads!”

It is good to have good friends like Robert to remind us of who we are.

Have a lovely week, my friends.

PAY IT FORWARD entry for Shelli Johannes's contest

Shelli Johannes at Market My Words is holding an AMAZING contest.

Shelli is agented by Alyssa Eisner Henkin of Trident Media Group and is offering a personal recommendation to her agent to the winner.

Hop over to her blog.

http://faeriality.blogspot.com/

Become a follower of both her blog and twitter and then enter your maximum four sentence pitch on a completed M/G or Y/A novel.


Follow the rules of the contest and you're in.


1. Post a "Pay it Forward" post on your blog or FB notes if you don't have a blog. You must pay tribute to a person who has helped you in your writing or your personal life. (This can be any day this week during the contest).

2. Put your entry in the COMMENTS (Shout Out link at bottom of her post). In your entry, you MUST provide the following information:


first, last name
email address

genre (only for MG or YA)

pitch (no more than 4 sentences)
the link to your "Pay it forward" post (either on FB or blog)

your twitter id (if you have one)
Dates Jan. 31st through February 4th, 2011.

MY PITCH :

YA urban fantasy

PITCH for THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH

Thirteen year old Victor Standish is repeatedly abandoned and picked up by his unpredictable mother. A mysterious French Quarter Jazz club owner takes him in. Victor learns the Jazz club is actually the Crossroads of Worlds, and the owner has the blood of Death in his veins. They both find love and adventure as Hurricane Katrina approaches.




SANDRA THRASHER

There are so many people who were and are beacons in my life. But one stands out like a lighthouse on a desolate, storm-tossed shore ... my best friend, Sandra Thrasher.

We all find ourselves in the dreaded Valley of the Shadow at some point in our lives.

I lived there for a short time. It only felt like an eternity.

My mother was dying in the hospital. My book store was dying, too. I had walking pneumonia. Three times someone poured sugar in my gas tank in the Mall parking lot.

Three cars gone. I was reduced to walking to my home, the hospital, and to my Mall store on foot in the worst December in Louisiana memory.

My mother died one lonely night as I sat coughing by her bedside.

I had no money to bury her. No insurance company would cover Mother in her last years with her bad heart.

Poetically, an ice storm shut down the entire city the next day. I sat in a frozen world in my dark, powerless home, shivering and coughing and crying.

I felt as alone as if I were prisoner in a frozen Hell.

There was a knock on my door. Sandra Thrasher. My best friend and fellow Mall store owner was on the porch. Think Bette Midler with pepper and salt hair. She walked in, hugged me, and whispered,

"You're not alone."

From that moment on, I wasn't.

Hurting financially herself, she still used her last untouched credit card to take care of my mother's arrangements. She dragged me to the doctor and got the medicine I could not afford. She gave me a used car.

And though it took long months, she taught me to laugh again.

She led me through the Valley of the Shadow. I shall forever be in the debt of Sandra Thrasher, my best friend, who showed me what wonders one caring heart can accomplish in the life of another person.

She was the wind beneath my bruised wings :

HOW CAN WE KNOW?

There are truisms scattered all through your psychology training as a counselor. One of them is :

"Sometimes you get what you ask for, but not what you wanted."

As in a husband yelling at his wife during a fight, "Would you just shut up!"

She shuts up all right. But the anger, the hurt is still there simmering in her eyes. What the husband wanted was the gleam of love he first saw in her eyes in that intense rapture of dating ... to feel that HE was loved like that once more.

He got what he asked for, but not what he wanted.

Another truism was painfully brought to my mind today during my lunch with my best friend, Sandra. Like me she has a Master's degree in Psychology. She's married to a psychologist. She has an IQ of 154. She's a sharp cookie. And her truism discussed during our lunch was :

"Sometimes what you ask for is not really what you want."

I was relating my concern about several veteran agents bringing up hourly rates last week and reading fees this week.

"Sandra, that would financially devastate most struggling writers. Why would veteran businessmen ask for something that would do that to potential clients? I mean why not ask for a hike in their commissions instead?"

Her face grew sad. She cocked her head at me, mumbling low and motioning me to lean forward. I did.

She thumped me on the forehead with her forefinger.

"OW! Why did you do that for?"

"Because you've been trained to know better."

"Better than to trust a friend?"

"No, writer boy. Better than to accept words at face value."

"Huh?"

She rolled her eyes. "You and I both took the course "The Psychology of Negotiation."

"Yeah. So?"

She sighed as if confronted with a slow-witted child. "So you remember that example they gave us :

A labor union wants Policy X. But do they ask for it. No. They ask for Policy Y which would cripple the company. The company shrieks bloody murder."

She munched a bit of her salad. "The union insists, 'We need Policy Y. What else can we do?"

She smirked, "The company goes, 'Well, how about Policy X. We could afford that. And you would still get your money.' And the Union moans, 'Oh, I guess you talked us into it.'"

"You mean the agents really wanted a hike in commissions all along?"

Sandra sighed and whispered something too low for me to make out. I leaned forward to hear better. She thumped me on the forehead again.

"Ow! Would you stop doing that? That hurts."

"I was trying to jar that brain inside there a bit. C'mon, Roland, use it."

Rubbing my throbbing forehead, I muttered, "I have. The agents say they are underpaid for all they do."

Sandra snorted, "Everyone is underpaid for what they do. It's called life."

"Well, the agents say that reading fees will winnow out the not-serious and the not-ready writers."

"Oh, give me a break, Roland. You and I deal with dreamers all day. No amount of money is going to put off someone all fired up with a dream, and you know it."

"I know how I hate form rejections, Sandra. The agents say that if they charge a reading fee, they'll be able to afford writing personalized rejections."

She motioned with her finger for me to move closer, and instinctively, I did. You guessed it. She thumped me again. Harder.

"Ow!! Would you PLEASE stop doing that!"

"Idiot boy, you know what I always say : usually people are only as good as their options. Why should I try to hawk stories if I can make a comfortable living rejecting them and giving a line of bull why?"

"Not every agent's a crook," I grumbled, rubbing my sore forehead.

Her fingers writhed like she wanted to throttle me. "I don't think any of my customers are crooks either. But I still lock up my store every night. You and I lock up our cars and homes when we leave them, too."

"Why should agents work for free?"

She motioned with her thumb and forefinger. I edged back. I learn slow. But I learn.

"They're in sales, Roland. Jeez, you were in sales when you had a bookstore. I'm in sales with my dress shop. Real Estate agents. Car salesmen. They work for commission."

She rubbed her forehead as if she'd been thumping it instead of mine. "God, Roland, those of us in sales work our butts off. Sometimes you roll seven's. Sometimes you roll snake-eyes. It's the nature of the beast."

I sighed, "I guess I'm a little naive."

She snorted, and I continued, "But I thought they were being upfront about wanting hourly rates."

"These are agents, right? Who deal with lawyers all the time? Give me a break. And I'm sure they've dealt with plumbers and electricians."

I shook my head. "I've been writing in comments in several blogs that we should increase the commission the agents are getting."

She rubbed her temples. "How come I have the headache when I've been thumping you? You're sure you have the same IQ as mine?"

"Einstein couldn't get the same color sock on both feet."

"Listening to you, Roland, and I can believe that. Want my last tomatoe wedge?"

"Sure."

I leaned forward to get it. And you guessed it. Thumped again.

As I rubbed my forehead and ground my teeth, she smirked, "Next time remember your psychology classes."
****************
So what do you think, everyone? Not about how gullible I am with Sandra. What do you think about the agents raising the subjects of hourly rates and reading fees? Do you think they really want a hike in their commission rates? Despite Sandra, I like to think they are being upfront.

But I'm part Lakota, and you know us. We signed all those treaties with the Great White Father. You know the ones : "As long as the grass grows and the waters flow ...."
******************
And it is the beginning of the end :

ROLAND'S 8 SIMPLE RULES

***

Several of my regular readers have wanted to direct their friends to the post where I wrote of the eight simple rules by which I live and how I came by them. But they had forgotten the title to the posting. So here is the post with a new video at the bottom.

******

I just read an article entitled "Rules That Warren Buffet Lives By." No, not the guy who sings "Margaritaville." Though I suspect Jimmy has more fun than Warren despite Warren being one of the wealthiest men in the world.

There was obvious merit to them. He didn't get the wealth he has by chasing the wind. But the phrase "lives by" bothered me. As King Solomon wrote : "Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter. The advantage to wisdom is that it also remains when all else is gone."

And in thinking about that quote, the time came to mind when my home had burned to the ground. My dog, my cat, my possessions {the most dear being the Bible my mother had given me with her thoughts, doubts, and funny one-liners scribbled in the margins} were gone. My savings had been wiped out by trying to pay my mother's medical bills from her fatal struggle with cancer. My face and hands were badly burned from crawling back into my house in a vain effort to save my cat. I was living in the back of a massage school, courtesy of a good friend.

I remember sitting on the corner of the bed, after having talked to my best friend, Sandra Thrasher. She and I had our stores next to one another for years in the Mall. After she had moved out of the Mall, we remained close friends. She helped save my sanity in that black time. And another thing saved it : remembering something Viktor Frankl had learned in a Nazi concentration camp :

"Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

I also remembered reading in that day's newspaper that the TV show EIGHT SIMPLE RULES had just gone into pre-production. And it puzzled me what I would say were my EIGHT SIMPLE RULES to live by. I took out the only scrap of paper I had to my name, a Hallmark store envelope from the "Thank You" card I had bought for Sandra. And I thought for a good bit, then I wrote them down.

Upon reading the Warren Buffet article, I searched through my apartment until I found the carefully folded envelope, kept safe in a drawer. I sat down and re-read them. I felt like a butterfly reading notes written by the caterpiller it once had been. But the words were true. And I still live by them. I thought you might be interested in what they were. So here they are.

Roland's EIGHT SIMPLE RULES :

1) Since everyone is having a harder time than they appear, be as kind as you can to each person you meet. You'd feel really lousy if you had made a bad day worse for someone who had been through the wringer, wouldn't you?


2) When faced with two paths, the more uncomfortable one is usually the right one to take. And try not to hurry so down whatever path you take. If you're heading in the wrong direction, going faster won't get you where you want to go any sooner.

3) When faced with a major decision, take overnight to decide. If pressed by someone to make an immediate one, always say "No." If they don't want you to have time to think it over, guess to whose benefit that is?

4) No battle goes as planned. Especially the Battle called Life. Expect things to go wrong. That way if they go right, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Commit yourself to staying flexible. Bouncing is better than breaking. And as no battle goes as fast as you'd want, learn to be patient or you'll become one.

5) If you treat people as extensions of yourself, you will always be lonely, for you will become the way you look at life -- alone in the sandbox of life with unfeeling toys called people.

6) Don't get mad at the sun for being hot. People will always be true to their natures. It's not their fault you mistook their iron for steel. So don't get mad at the rust in the lives of others. Don't blame the rain for being wet. Just get an umbrella and get on with it already.

7) Always keep your walk in sync with your talk. Divorce your ways from from your words, and the alimony payments will be bitter indeed.

8) Always stand up to a bully. Always deny him what he demands. Yes, you will get beat up more times than you want. But physical bruises heal. Some emotional ones never do. If you let them, bullies steal that which is difficult to replace : self-respect, pride, affection for yourself {and in turn, for others - one stems from the other}, and inner peace.

*) What did Susan Sontag say? Oh, yes. "I envy paranoids. They actually feel people are paying attention to them." Hope someone is paying attention to this list and gets some use out of it. If only to laugh.

*) I have just entered GUIDE TO LITERARY AGENT's fourth "Dear Lucky Agent Contest." Wish me luck. They are listed in my blog roll.

*******************

Right now, I'm listening to "When The Coyote Comes" by one of my favorite artists, Fernando Ortega. In Lakota myth, Coyote was also called "The Trickster," often bringing death and heartache with him. Yesterday, he visited Angela, a new friend of mine. I pray that The Father grant her strength and light enough for the next step on her path. Oh, and Epi and Louie were Fernando's beloved cats. And here is this oh, so cool song :

RULES THAT WARREN BUFFET LIFES BY

I just read an article entitled "Rules That Warren Buffet Lives By." No, not the guy who sings "Margaritaville." Though I suspect Jimmy has more fun than Warren despite Warren being one of the wealthiest men in the world.



There was obvious merit to them. He didn't get the wealth he has by chasing the wind. But the phrase "lives by" bothered me. As King Solomon wrote : "Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter. The advantage to wisdom is that it also remains when all else is gone."



And in thinking about that quote, the time came to mind when my home had burned to the ground. My dog, my cat, my possessions {the most dear being the Bible my mother had given me with her thoughts, doubts, and funny one-liners scribbled in the margins} were gone. My savings had been wiped out by trying to pay my mother's medical bills from her fatal struggle with cancer. My face and hands were badly burned from crawling back into my house in a vain effort to save my cat. I was living in the back of a massage school, courtesy of a good friend.



I remember sitting on the corner of the bed, after having talked to my best friend, Sandra Thrasher. She and I had our stores next to one another for years in the Mall. After she had moved out of the Mall, we remained close friends. She helped save my sanity in that black time. And another thing saved it : remembering something Viktor Frankl had learned in a Nazi concentration camp :



"Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."



I also remembered reading in that day's newspaper that the TV show EIGHT SIMPLE RULES had just gone into pre-production. And it puzzled me what I would say were my EIGHT SIMPLE RULES to live by. I took out the only scrap of paper I had to my name, a Hallmark store envelope from the "Thank You" card I had bought for Sandra. And I thought for a good bit, then I wrote them down.



Upon reading the Warren Buffet article, I searched through my apartment until I found the carefully folded envelope, kept safe in a drawer. I sat down and re-read them. I felt like a butterfly reading notes written by the caterpiller it once had been. But the words were true. And I still live by them. I thought you might be interested in what they were. So here they are.



Roland's EIGHT SIMPLE RULES :



1) Since everyone is having a harder time than they appear, be as kind as you can to each person you meet. You'd feel really lousy if you had made a bad day worse for someone who had been through the wringer, wouldn't you?



2) When faced with two paths, the more uncomfortable one is usually the right one to take. And try not to hurry so down whatever path you take. If you're heading in the wrong direction, going faster won't get you where you want to go any sooner.



3) When faced with a major decision, take overnight to decide. If pressed by someone to make an immediate one, always say "No." If they don't want you to have time to think it over, guess to whose benefit that is?



4) No battle goes as planned. Especially the Battle called Life. Expect things to go wrong. That way if they go right, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Commit yourself to staying flexible. Bouncing is better than breaking. And as no battle goes as fast as you'd want, learn to be patient or you'll become one.



5) If you treat people as extensions of yourself, you will always be lonely, for you will become the way you look at life -- alone in the sandbox of life with unfeeling toys called people.



6) Don't get mad at the sun for being hot. People will always be true to their natures. It's not their fault you mistook their iron for steel. So don't get mad at the rust in the lives of others. Don't blame the rain for being wet. Just get an umbrella and get on with it already.



7) Always keep your walk in sync with your talk. Divorce your ways from from your words, and the alimony payments will be bitter indeed.



8) Always stand up to a bully. Always deny him what he demands. Yes, you will get beat up more times than you want. But physical bruises heal. Some emotional ones never do. If you let them, bullies steal that which is difficult to replace : self-respect, pride, affection for yourself {and in turn, for others - one stems from the other}, and inner peace.



*) What did Susan Sontag say? Oh, yes. "I envy paranoids. They actually feel people are paying attention to them." Hope someone is paying attention to this list and gets some use out of it. If only to laugh.



*******************



Right now, I'm listening to "Fly Me Away" by Annie Little, which began by being a commercial for Amazon's Kindle. It's an inspiration that shows good things can come from small beginnings since she received a chance to do a mini-CD of three of her songs from Amazon. Here it is if you'd like to see it :