I WANT THE SAME THING ... BUT DIFFERENT

Schumel Gelbfisz was born in Warsaw, Poland. As a very young man, he left that city on foot and penniless.

After an epic journey, he made his way to Birmingham, England where he stayed for a few hard years, using the Vonnegut-like name Samuel Goldfish.

In 1898, he emigrated to the U.S {in steerage.} But fearing refusal of entry due to his quick-silver identity changes, he got off the boat in Nova Scotia, Canada.

He finally made it to New York where he soared in success as a salesman in the garment industry. He was a Jewish Ulysses, living by his wits.

He became a naturalized citizen in 1902. Scanning the landscape for financial opportunities, Gelbfisz found one in his beloved past-time, going to the movies.

He went into the movie business with a vaudeville performer and a theater owner, using an unknown director, Cecil B. DeMille.

As it usually does, business got nasty.

And he left ... the company not the dream. He partnered with the Broadway producers, the brothers Selwyn. They named their studio in a meld of their names : the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.

Wily as ever, Gelbfisz changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn.

He got forced out of the business, never becoming part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But he never gave up on his dream.

He created the Samuel Goldwyn Studio and for 35 years made classics that people like me still enjoy :

WUTHERING HEIGHTS, THE LITTLE FOXES, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, GUYS & DOLLS, PORKY & BESS, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, THE WESTERNER {Gary Cooper}, and the fascinating but utterly silly, THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO {Gary Cooper.}

Samuel Goldwyn was a dreamer that refused to quit.

And sadly, most of what he is remembered for is his misuse of the language that was not his first. How many of us who laugh at his words know a second language?

And his sharp wit was what enabled him to survive a trek clear across Europe, a journey over the seas, and battles in the shark-infested waters of Hollywood.

Often his wit is mistaken for a verbal flub as in : "I don't think anybody should write their autobiography until after they're dead. A hospital is no place to be sick. {And if you've ever been ill in the hospital, you know that statement is oddly true.}

I was thinking of two of his "Goldwynism's" : "What we need are some new, fresh cliches." and "I want the same thing ... only different."

I was thinking of them as I was contemplating our uphill struggle to get agents to consider our novels.

On one hand, they universally complain of being submitted the same kind of "handsome vampire/angst-ridden teenage girl" fantasy or the young wizard in today's world fantasy.

On the other hand, stroll down the fantasy aisle of the bookstore, and those kinds of novels are the only ones you see.

Before TWILIGHT, the vampire novel was considered old-hat. Before HARRY POTTER, mixing magic with young, impressionable children was considered taboo. Think of your novel.

How is it the same thing but different? Looking for a new road to walk in writing your next novel? Try looking at "Where The Mountain Meets The Moon." It is a coming of age novel, mixing common teenage angst and questions with Chinese myth.

Strive to keep your fantasy from being the same old "cookie-cutter" fantasy that blurs from one title to another. Give your fantasy, or whatever genre you choose, a unique magical allure all its own. Like Schumel Gelbfisz, I will not give up on my dream. Don't give up on yours.

And when I think of never giving up in life, I see the image of an eagle flying high in the sky, being lifted by the currents of the winds, invisible but powerful ... as our dreams are invisible yet capable of lifting us further than we believed possible :
***

GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER 32_HELL IS YOURSELF

{"Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another."

- Tennessee Williams.}

{Samuel Clemens, here, I look at Roland's charred journal,

its pages turning with a life of their own. We last left my friend at the breached wall of Hell.

To enter is to die.

Just past the wall, Epona, a unicorn, is being sliced to ribbons by a ghoul,

whose legs work like a frog's, and whose arms flail with razors.

Roland has just ordered the ghoul to leave the unicorn alone ...}



Epona lolled her head to me. "N-No, you must not. To enter is to --"

The ghoul raised the bloody razor up high. "Time to scream."

"Great Mystey," I whispered, " not for me, but for someone who called out for mercy. Let me cross over."

The foot-long razor swept down. Sucking in a breath, I leapt through the opening and blocked the ghoul's slashing attack with Marlene's saber. Sparks flew as the razor met the black metal of the sword.

The ghoul cursed me in some forgotten language. She twirled frog-like and thrust at me with blinding speed. She was good.

But I still had the agility of Gypsy, my cat. I twisted at the hips, evading her attack.

I threw the black sand into the creature'e eyes. "Here's Hell in your eyes!"

Her eyes burst into flames.

Blinded, the ghoul flailed screaming past me through the opening.

And then she exploded.

Just simply exploded. Or not so simply.

The sound had been odd, a distant popping as if she were some small firecracker going off, not a large body going up in a cloud of foul-smelling smoke.

I hurled up my arms to protect my face and stiffened, expecting to be splattered with blood and gore. Nothing. I shook my head.

I wrinkled my lips at the stench. Her body had been as empty as her soul had been.

There were other creatures twitching, slithering, and crabbing towards the unicorn.

But the ghoul's exploding had made them stop for the moment. I bent down with complaining knees next to the bleeding unicorn.

Epona lolled her slashed head with torn tendons, her eyes straining to glimpse something of what lay beyond.

But from her position, she could see nothing. She whimpered.

"They cut me, cut me. Laughing, laughing. Let me get so close, so close. But never making it. Never."

Her eyes tore into me. "I black out, dream such terrible, terrible dreams.

Then, I awaken whole once more. And it begins all over again. A-All over again."

Her head slumped towards the cold cobblestones, but I caught it before she could hurt herself.

"I to want to run ... run so far from here until the memories are left far, far behind."

I saw the creatures start towards me again and heard the unicorn as she rasped, "I want to run ... run fast as I can.

Let the wind wrap its cold fingers through my mane again. I want to run, run so far from here

until at long last I feel the grass under my hooves one last time. One last time."

The scattered torturers began to giggle as they grew closer. "D-Don't let them get me again. P-Please. Please!"

I looked down in despair at the unicorn, blood welling like tears along the gashes in her white satin flesh. I cocked my head.

I began to write on the saber in Epona's blood.

I looked back up to the darkness above me and whispered, "She only wanted to run. She only needed a gentle light to lead her through the darkness."

My throat closed, but I forced the words out. "Lead her to where there is no pain. No pain."

Her eyes looked at the blade with weary eyes for a long moment. I felt her muscles quiver beneath my fingers. Epona raised wet eyes to me.

"Will it hurt?"

"No. No, it won't hurt."

"No more bad dreams?"

I nodded and each word felt like a raw wound. "No more bad dreams."

I plunged the saber deep into Epona's heart. She screamed shrill.

The world around us went nova. Epona stiffened. And the encroaching torturers squealed gut-deep and wet.

A wave of sensation both ice-cold and warm knifed through me. I felt the unicorn scramble to her hooves in a thrust of sudden strength.

I crabbed back and fell on my butt. I braced myself with one hand and held Marlene's vibrating saber in the other.

My vision cleared. My mouth dropped.

Epona was rearing on her hind legs. Her healed hind legs.

The words I had written on the saber in her blood were burning with strange fires. "This sword now heals."
***

GHOST OF A CHANCE_CHAPTER 31_STANDING ON THE THRESHOLD

{"Talking Monkey, you are standing on the threshold

of something that befalls every culture, every nation, every soul ...

but with each at a different cost."

-DayStar.}

{Samuel Clemens, ghost and friend of Roland. His skein of days is almost run out. He is accompanied by DayStar, who claims to be Lucifer,

as they walk to the crack in the wall of Hell. Let Roland's charred journal take it from here ....}



DayStar's gray eyes looked at me with something almost close to sympathy as he talked about thresholds.

And that scared me more than if he had sneered.

I turned to the left and headed down the slope towards the walled city. DayStar strolled lazily beside me. His smile said I was heading to my utter destruction.


"Behold the knocked-down portion of the wall."


He smiled wide. "Only the pure of heart may enter the Kol Basar from Hell through that rough portal. For any other to try is to die."


He bowed politely and gestured with a graceful flourish. "Be my guest."


"Oh, go climb your thumb," I snapped and turned to him.


He was gone. I didn't know what bothered me more : when he showed up or when he suddenly left.


How I was going to enter through that opening if only the pure in heart could go through?


But then again, DayStar was the source for that. Still, it would be just like him to tell me the truth so I'd disbelieve him and walk through to my death.


I shrugged. Only one way to find --


There was a whinnying whimper. A shrill scream of pain. And laughter, long and mocking. I felt my face go as tight as my fists.


Someone was torturing a horse for fun. My face became rock. Someone was going to be laughing out of the other end very, very soon.


I clutched hell-sand in one hand, Marlene's saber in the other and walked fast to the opening. I pulled up short at what I saw. Aw, damn it to Hell.


I snarled at myself when I realized my mental curse.


A unicorn.


A poor hamstrung, slashed unicorn. She was struggling towards the opening from the Kol Basar side, longing and sadness in her wet blue eyes.


Her slashed body was leaving a long smear of blood as she painfully dragged herself. And jerking grotesquely towards her was a slender, disjointed figure that was female in only the roughest of terms.


Long, oily black hair hung down beside a corpse's face. Wiry arms flailed froglike as the ghoul skittered with oddly jointed knees towards the unicorn vainly struggling towards the opening.


A blood-dripping long razor was held lovingly by the giggling abomination as she twitched towards the crawling unicorn. She was going to beat the unicorn to the opening.


The giggling got louder, shriller. The unicorn gasped out wet words as she lolled her head to look up into the darkness above her.


"L-Let me see the outside, please. Please just one glimpse of the horizon. One last look."


The ghoul tittered, "Oh, no, Epona. No lookie, lookie. Just screams and screams."


I walked up to the opening and locked my eyes with the ghoul's solid black ones, seeming like nothing so much as a shark's.


"I'm only going to tell you this once : leave the unicorn be."
***

I WANT THE SAME THING ... BUT DIFFERENT

Schumel Gelbfisz was born in Warsaw, Poland. As a very young man, he left that city on foot and penniless. After an epic journey, he made his way to Birmingham, England where he stayed for a few hard years, using the Vonnegut-like name Samuel Goldfish. In 1898, he emigrated to the U.S {in steerage.} But fearing refusal of entry due to his quick-silver identity changes, he got off the boat in Nova Scotia, Canada.

He finally made it to New York where he soared in success as a salesman in the garment industry. He was a Jewish Ulysses, living by his wits. He became a naturalized citizen in 1902. Scanning the landscape for financial opportunities, Gelbfisz found one in his beloved past-time, going to the movies. He went into the movie business with a vaudeville performer and a theater owner, using an unknown director, Cecil B. DeMille. As it usually does, business got nasty. And he left ... the company not the dream. He partnered with the Broadway producers, the brothers Selwyn. They named their studio in a meld of their names : the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. Wily as ever, Gelbfisz changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn.

He got forced out of the business, never becoming part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But he never gave up on his dream. He created the Samuel Goldwyn Studio and for 35 years made classics that people like me still enjoy : WUTHERING HEIGHTS, THE LITTLE FOXES, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, GUYS & DOLLS, PORKY & BESS, THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY, THE WESTERNER {Gary Cooper}, and the fascinating but utterly silly, THE ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO {Gary Cooper.} Samuel Goldwyn was a dreamer that refused to quit.

And sadly, most of what he is remembered for is his misuse of the language that was not his first. How many of us who laugh at his words know a second language? And his sharp wit was what enabled him to survive a trek clear across Europe, a journey over the seas, and battles in the shark-infested waters of Hollywood. Often his wit is mistaken for a verbal flub as in : "I don't think anybody should write their autobiography until after they're dead. A hospital is no place to be sick. {And if you've ever been ill in the hospital, you know that statement is oddly true.}

I was thinking of two of his "Goldwynism's" : "What we need are some new, fresh cliches." and "I want the same thing ... only different."

I was thinking of them as I was contemplating my uphill struggle to get agents to consider THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS. On one hand, they universally complain of being submitted the same kind of "handsome vampire/angst-ridden teenage girl" fantasy or the young wizard in today's world fantasy. But then, they reply to my Native American/Celtic fantasy that publishers only want teenage vampire love or wizardry novels.

Before TWILIGHT, the vampire novel was considered old-hat. Before HARRY POTTER, mixing magic with young, impressionable children was considered taboo. THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS is a bit of "The Wind In The Willows," a bit "Lord of the Rings," a bit of "The Last Unicorn, and a bit of "Where The Mountain Meets The Moon."

My fantasy is not the same old "cookie-cutter" fantasy that blurs from one title to another. THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS has a unique magical allure all its own. Like Schumel Gelbfisz, I will not give up on my dream. Don't give up on yours.

And when I think of never giving up in life, I see the image of an eagle flying high in the sky, being lifted by the currents of the winds, invisible but powerful ... as our dreams are invisible yet capable of lifting us further than we believed possible :