LET'S TALK BLOGFEST

Let's talk.

It's a bit early I know. But spirits of storm and lightning are flying and crying in the dark skies above me right now. At any moment, the power may cut out, leaving me without a cyber-voice. And I am on first call. A bleeding child may need me to drive in these heavy rains. And I have promises to keep.

At least my life is not boring.

Today I'm entering FICTION GROUPIE's LET'S TALK blogfest :
http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/2010/04/lets-talk-blogfest.html

And no one I know can talk like my protagonist, Samuel McCord. This entry comes towards the chilling finale of RITES OF PASSAGE. Sam is on the deck of the cursed DEMETER, not too long after the time of my PAY IT FORWARD entry of yesterday.

He is staring off into the horizon, trying to see in its silver sheen any hope that he will live to see the next dawn. His new-found love, Meilori Shinseen, has a twin sister, Maija. And like Meilori, she is lovely beyond legend, her spirit warring with ambition and passion. Maija has been toying with the ship's doctor, Jason Stewart.

And so the board is set, the pieces begin to move :

I wandered the decks alone. Much of my life had been spent alone. And tonight, I knew I would meet my fate that way. I always knew that when I died, it would be at night -- and alone.

My past was reaching out from the mists for me. History, it seemed, could kill. If it was my history, that is.

Time was stalking me from the future. And that was a mystery. Would I solve it before all went black? My enemies and my answers awaited me at the "Ball of Death and Mystery." If I died then, it would only be appropriate.

The Will behind the world had placed me here on this ship. I had to believe it was for a good reason. One worth dying for. Trouble was, I felt a thought ahead and a move behind.

An embarrassed cough sounded to my left. I turned. Dr. Stewart, looking gutted.

“Maija,” he said and explained everything.

“What about her?”

“I - I thought we had become --”

“Maija is like the sea. You never know all about her.”

“I was an old fool.”

“Lot of that going around."

“Your lady, Meilori, is her sister. I thought you would have some idea of how -- I mean -- just what I might have done to offend Maija.”

“How do you know you offended her?”

His eyes flinched at the memory. “Because she told me not to come to tonight’s Ball.”

I stiffened. “I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“She actually does care for you, doctor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Things are set to get awful ugly tonight at that Ball.”

“Maija knows this?”

“She’s part of it, doctor.”

He paled. “I knew she had a dark past.”

“Her present’s kind of black, too.”

He looked anguished off into the horizon. “I sensed that. Good Lord, how can I be attracted to such a woman?”

“People are never one thing, doctor. There are always several faces behind the mask they show you.”

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “One of those faces cares, truly cares, for you. Just be glad it exists -- and that whatever you two shared was real.”

He swallowed hard. “But if something criminal is being planned for that Ball, I should be there.”

I shook my head. “No. Let Maija have the knowledge that she saved you, and that in your heart, at least, she is still someone worthy of being loved.”

He smiled as if that heart were breaking. “You are not the typical policeman. You are a romantic."

I put my gloved forefinger to my lips. “Shhh. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

He straightened as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll stand in for you.”

He nodded and walked away. I watched him turn the corner about the deckhouse. I sighed, and it felt like blood oozing from an open wound.

Fingers tugged lightly on my sleeve. I caught a whiff of jasmine and spice on the breeze. I turned.

Maija. Odd how she could look so much like her sister and still strike me as appealing as an adder. She looked at me intensely for long moments.

“T-Thank you.”

“De nada.”

“This changes nothing between us, you know. You will still be destroyed by the end of this evening, and I will play my part in it. Play it most wholeheartedly.”

“I would expect nothing less from a future empress.”

She looked hot into my eyes. “Fool! You will hold back against me for my silly attachment to the good-hearted doctor, will you not?”

“I imagine so.”

“It will be your undoing.”

“Probably will.”

“Then why do it?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know any other way to be.”

She studied me. “I shall feel the emptier tonight after what must be done is accomplished. Yours is a face I shall miss, strong without the cruelty of toughness, kind without the bruise of weakness. When I have rid the world of that face, I shall have deservedly earned the hatred of my sister -- and of the name monster.”

“Then don’t do it.”

She smiled with wooden lips. “I know of no other way to be."

She moved with a fluid grace after Dr. Stewart. I wished the two of them some small measure of peace and love before the hell of this evening. I smiled bitter at the realization that I was standing all alone again, drifting silently through the darkness towards my destiny.

And to end with a bit of haunting beauty, echoing Samuel's memory of his love for Meilori, here is Blackmore's Night :

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD ... AGAIN

The unknown.

Its allure is what gave birth to myth, legend, and tales told around the campfire. Man wants to know the unknowable.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Mankind can't abide not knowing. If Man doesn't have an answer, he will make one up. And that is why we have myths. And the desire to make up the answer is why we have science fiction and fantasy.

And the greatest unknown?

Death. Our own. Our species.

And that is why we have the explosion of end times movies :

LEGION, 2012, AVATAR {in its Think Green way.}

ZOMBIELAND, SHAUN OF THE DEAD

NIGHT, DAY, HOUR, SHOPPING MALL OF THE LIVING DEAD movies.

DAYBREAKERS, 48 DAYS LATER, 48 WEEKS LATER

SUNSHINE

RESIDENT EVIL, TERMINATOR, I AM LEGEND,

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, MATRIX

INDEPENDENCE DAY, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW,

SPLICE

Why so many end time movies? They are popular. Why? We look at the headlines and see we have a compulsion to destroy ourselves. And the heights of science provide a certain deadfall for the human race.

We as a movie audience need to work out the terror of our race committing ethnic cleansing on a species scale in a safe arena.

The comforting blackness of a movie theater, surrounded in the safety of fellow humans laughing, shouting out in surprise or dismay, and cringing from CGI horrors.

See, Martha? It's just a movie. No bungled science will wipe us out. It's only Hollywood. Only 3D and CGI and over-the-top writing.

It can't happen in real life.

We ignore the whispers from the news : Jamestown. Cambodia. North Korea. Iran. The Trade Towers. Haiti. Chili. Ever growing dead areas in the oceans. The shrinking ozone layer.

The smoke detectors are still going off. The rain forests are still burning. Entire species of life disappearing. Where did all the bees and butterflies go, honey?

We slurp our cokes, munch our popcorn, and cringe at the latest terror-of-science movie lunging out at us from the screen.

Are we all mentally ill as Stephen King asserts? We outside the asylums can just hide it better? Or do we do it to establish a bar of what is normal and what is not?

We are handed our baby brother who promptly pukes on us. We bat him on the forehead, and get one from an angry parent. So we learn to smile and chuckle, "Oh, look. How cute."

And when we watch on the movie screen an older brother put on a Halloween mask and chop off the head of a younger brother, inside we say, "That'll teach him."

We listen to doomsday economic, political, religious jihad news. We go to the theater and see the world end, only to go outside in the bright light of day, seeing the cars pass by and hearing the pedestrians chatting away on their cell phones. Just Hollywood.

We're safe.

Aren't we?

**********

PAY IT FORWARD BLOGFEST

Becky Miller has a fascinating post on her blog : http://bmillerfiction.blogspot.com/

And it is in keeping with the spirit most of us try to nuture on Sunday. She has a PAY IT FORWARD blogfest from now until the end of the month. The details are on her post. Part of them is telling on our blogs or her by email of an encounter in real life where we payed it forward to someone.

My personal code dictates that I don't let my left hand know what good deed my right has done. But that is all right. I did not help another for reward. As I post this PAY IT FORWARD blogfest entry, not for reward, but just to entertain my blogger friends with laughter and smiles.

This entry comes during the middle of the third act of RITES OF PASSAGE. In the summer of 1853, Samuel McCord has followed a murder suspect onto the transatlantic steamer, DEMETER.

He discovers that the ship, among other deadly things, is a trap ... for him. It is not a matter of if he will be murdered, only when he will be murdered. At the moment, he is on the deck, awaiting the arrival of his new-found love, Meilori Shinseen.
*********************
I stared off into the blue mists of the horizon. I was adrift on a ship filled with the undead. I was a target of a half-dozen death plots. I couldn’t keep track of my old enemies on board without a chart.

The mysterious Gray Man seemed to have a personal stake in destroying me for reasons I couldn’t fathom. And some instinct told me that on top of all that, the Gray Man was a target of a separate scheme, apart from me. I shook my head. Who was so powerful that he, or she, would even try to bushwhack him, much less expect to succeed?

I sighed, reaching under my deck chair. Time to fall back on McCord Rule of Life # 2 : when you didn’t have a clue as to what to do next, do something nice for some other fellow. It wasn’t as charitable as you might think.

No skunk could abide walking by someone building a sandcastle without trying to kick it down. Now, it might not be a skunk connected with my hunt. But in my way of thinking, one less skunk made for a better smelling world.

I looked about. No maidens seemed in need of rescuing from dragons. No lions with thorns in their paws. Just clusters of apparently normal people trying to greet the morning without yawning.

An ugly red mist of anger flowed from the couple with the little boy and older girl off to my right. Mostly from the man. The woman radiated an utter sadness. I shook my head. Not my kind of trouble. I wasn’t a parson.

I pulled out the large sack of stale rolls and placed it on my lap. Opening it, I dug in and selected a big roll. Tearing it into pieces, I threw the bits on the deck.

As I hoped, it wasn’t a minute before the sharp-eyed seagulls noticed a free breakfast. They swept down from the sky and proceeded to peck and swallow. Watching them gobble up the pieces, I smiled and tore another roll into beak-size chunks.

As I threw the pieces onto the deck, the young boy came running up to me. The happy seagulls were too intent on their surprise meal to fly away. He watched me for a few seconds. His once rigid body relaxed.

His face lit up as the seagulls squawked and hopped about. He was about five or six. Maybe seven. I was bad at guessing the ages of children. I winked at him.

“Want to feed them?”

In a proper British voice, he squeaked, “Oh, could I, sir?”

I handed him the pieces of another roll I'd torn up. “Sure. They’ll probably name their next chick after you.”

He giggled, “Oh, whoever heard of a seagull named Samuel?”

I smiled big. “Samuel? Why that’s my name, too. Now whoever hung that awful name on you?”

“My Grandpapa. You must know him, sir.”

“Why must I?”

Before the boy could answer, his father stormed up to my table. He was less than happy to see me. I felt the same way about him. He had scared the seagulls away and stolen the smile from his son’s face. It was back to being pale and frightened.

The man tore the boy away. “Because he thought very highly of you before you became a murderer, McCord.”

The woman hurried to the man’s side, tearing his tight fingers from the boy’s wrist. Little Samuel rubbed it as if the man had hurt him. A low roaring filled my ears.

I fought down the urge to hit him. Striking the boy’s father in front of him would scare him -- and wouldn’t teach the man anything. His eyes were the sort that belonged to boy-men who never learned.

“Robert,” urged the woman. “You scaring Samuel.”

The young boy looked at me. “Y-You are the Texas Ranger, Grandpapa named me for?”

“Reckon so.”

“Have you ever killed any painted savages?”

“Samuel!,” hushed the mother.

I smiled at the boy. “Only when they tried to paint me.”

He giggled again. Even the mother smiled. The father tried to puff up like an outraged adult. But it only made him seem more immature. Not knowing what it was to be a man can do that to you when you fake it.

A tall, gray-haired woman, dressed all in elegant black, strolled briskly up to us. She moved with crisp, disciplined energy barely contained. It was as if she were some clockwork movement that had been over-wound. Her watery blue eyes held the sureness of the fanatic or the psychotic.

Those eyes moved over me like pale blue quicksilver, appraising me as if she were an accountant. They glittered in the dawn’s light, as they added up my worth and subtracted from it my deficiencies. The hard lines around her mouth told me that I came out in the red in her book.

It wasn’t too hard to see how her son turned out the way he had. I was tempted to show her my teeth to see if that would up my value some. But I decided a man had to have some pride. True, mine was a bit ragged, but it was all mine. At least, for a little while longer.

She took the little boy by the hand. “Come, Samuel. Bad company corrupts.”

I winked at him. “She’s right. But go with her, anyway.”

********************************
And yes, I know I have posted this video before, but it is in keeping with the defiant love Samuel has for Meilori. Besides, I just like it. As you can tell I am a sucker for Hollywood romantic classics.

FLIRT BLOGFEST

I have to run important errands long put off by demands of job and writing. So I'm going to enter the FLIRT BLOGFEST { http://critiquethiswip.blogspot.com/2010/04/announcing-flirt-fest-blogfest.html } a little earlier than even I usually do.

All of us flirt. Some with danger. Many with lust. Less with love. A mad few with death itself. Samuel McCord does it with all of them -- and all with one woman.

Meilori Shinseen, empress of a people exiled from another plane of existence.

Samuel's love for his wife, Meilori Shinseen, is as undying and epic as a Greek tragedy. It is known all throughout the Shadowlands. As it is known that his great love for Meilori will be the end of him. And if Sam could hold her just one more time in his arms, he would face that end with a smile.

And here is that ghostly encounter from my novel.

{FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE is a speculative Noir thriller. An alternate history, if you would, of what could have happened after Katrina but didn't -- in a plane of existence where the supernatural exists. And who is to say that it doesn't exist in this one?}

CHAPTER TEN
A REMEMBRANCE OF SHADOWS
The week that followed my visits to Bush and Nagin was a blur of too many demands and too few hands. But Renfield and I managed. Swartzkoph, the new head of FEMA, came steamrolling in, busting heads and butts.

He left me alone, and I wisely kept a low profile, keeping to the shadows, trying to make his work easier not harder. But considering the labors of Hercules he was attempting, he was finding the Big Easy anything but easy.

And I went about my work in the shadows.

But now, after a whole week, he had sent for me. He had picked an odd meeting place : the Tulane campus. It was a mess but relatively dry considering Katrina.

Renfield insisted on going with me. He was worried that I was pressing myself too hard and my senses were dulled by fatigue. But in an odd way, it was the exact opposite. Weariness over-rode the unconscious filter I put on what Rind's blood mingled with mine showed me.

With the soft voice of twilight, ghost music sang in my memory. It was accompanied by the chorus of the whispers of the wind from the listening sky. I closed my eyes.

New Orleans was timeless, especially to me with the blood of Death in my veins. My transformed eyes only told me the truth, and the truth was not what I wanted to see. So I closed my eyes, and for a moment the truth was what I wanted it to be.

Meilori was back in my arms, supple and vibrant, the peach velvet of her cheek nestled against mine. She pulled back to murmur "Beloved."

Slanted eyes looked up into mine, seeming like jade quarter moons waiting to rise. Her smile was a promise of wicked delights to come in the evening hours before us. And my heart quickened.

Her hand lightly squeezed my gloved one. Her head bent forward, and soft lips tickled my ear. And we were dancing, dancing as if our bodies were the wind given life. It had taken me a hundred years, mind you, but I had learned to be a damn fine dancer. The firm body in my arms had been ample incentive.

Some moments lose their way and grope blindly back from the past into the present. Such a moment swept me up now. Meilori and I were dancing across this very grass.

I had paid a prince's ransom to pry King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band out of Tulane's old gymnasium to play out here under the stars. In my mind, I could hear young Louis Armstrong on cornet, see the pleased faces of the other dancers stepping lightly all around us, and hear Meilori's low laughter. How amused she had been at being flirted with on the front porches of Jelly Roll Morten, Buddy Bolden, and Papa Jack Laine earlier that day. Those same houses had somehow survived Katrina, though not without damage. I made myself a promise I would see those places repaired.

Renfield rasped beside me, "Sam, are you doing this?"

"What?"

I opened my eyes and went very still. The speechless shades of a long-gone night whirled and wheeled all around us. That long-ago evening was replaying itself before our eyes. Renfield and Magda were laughing as they danced beside Meilori and me. Outraged dowagers bent heads together, their silent tongues wagging at the sight of a priest and nun openly dancing under the watching stars.

Renfield sighed, "I'd forgotten how your face looked happy."

I looked at my ghostly double, envying him the sheer delight in his eyes. "I'd forgotten how it felt."

The sound of my words settled an old score with truth, and the evening shades slowly faded from sight. I shivered. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Renfield look wistfully at the disappearing Magda in his own double's arms. I sighed. Some truths were best seen only by starlight.

Renfield shook his head. "Remember the last dance of the night, Sam?"

I nodded. "Yes, I remember. Don't understand it. But I remember it."

"Why did Meilori shush you off like that to dance by herself -- as if someone invisible was dancing with her?"

I sighed. "Haven't a clue. But it was a sight. She was so graceful, so full of sad love."

Renfield frowned, then nodded. "Sad love? Bloody Hell, you're right. I could never pin down the expression on her face until now. But sad love says it all."

"All. And nothing. I still don't understand the why of it. Just that she was so hauntingly beautiful as she danced."

Renfield made a face. "She could have been washing clothes on a rock, and you would have found her beautiful."

"I may have many sorrows, Padre, but the memory of Meilori is not one of them."

Renfield was about to say something, then looked off to our left. I followed the path of his eyes. I smiled. Swartz. Not that I called him that to his face, mind you.

He was a career soldier, full of discipline and respect for tradition and position. He was striding purposedly and brisk towards us. He smiled grim at me. I smiled back.

He stopped abruptly right in front of us. I smiled even wider at his clothes. No insignia or rank on his uniform of desert combat khaki, but it was starched and pressed as if just out of the cleaner's.

The smile dropped off his face as if too heavy for the moment. "Next time, McCord, you see me about to be killed, let me die. I do not want to go through something like this ever again. Dealing with bureaucrats is like being nibbled to death by ducks."
{Swartzkoph tells Samuel that he will be leaving FEMA and New Orleans in two weeks, not being able to follow orders given him by President Bush. Sam tells him not to worry, that his jazz club will be open by then.}

Swartzkoph raised an eyebrow. “Hardly a priority, McCord, with all the hurting people in this city.”

“You misunderstand, General. I’ll be able to start my pay-per-view internet concert of the jazz greats. The profits from that non-stop concert will funnel into a Katrina Relief Fund.”

Swartzkoph seemed doubtful. “I don’t know how much money that will pull in.”

I smiled wide. “Worldwide? Quite a bit. When you factor in that most of the jazz greats playing will be dead ones.”

I called upon Elu’s and Rind’s blood within me and misty shapes began to form all around us. Young Louis Armstrong, cornet under his arm, slapped my shoulder.

“Be glad to be there, Sam.”

Dizzy Gillespie shimmered beside him, his trumpet sparkling in the starlight, his beret set at a rakish angle. Jelly Roll Morten, his eyes dancing with “Spanish Tinge,” laughed at Swartzkoph’s startled jump. Charlie “Bird” Parker winked at me, holding his saxophone tight.

Cigarette hanging from his lips, Duke Ellington drawled, “You provide the piano. I’ll provide this old body. New Orleans is our mother. And we aim to be good sons.”

Swartzkoph looked a haunted question at me. He wanted to know who these spectral visitors were. And the hell of it was that I didn’t rightly know.

Just because I had summoned them, didn’t mean I knew. Were they my friends drawn from my heart’s memory when they were young, or could I reach out into the night and bring them to a remembrance of shadows? Think you know the shape of death? I did once. I was wrong.

I thought it a dark tunnel at the end of life, whose end was blazing light. I found it to be a cloud that filled the horizon with flickers of black light and scarlet winds. Thickly it spills over ocean and land, sweeping up all in its billowing path. And even that glimpse is misty, flawed with things my mind cannot contain.

I spoke softly to them. “Give me two weeks, and we’ll put on a show like none has ever seen before.”

Louis mopped at his forehead with a white handkerchief. “Time ain’t what you think, Sam. Nor is the reason we’re here. You open those doors. We be there. Now, you owe someone a last dance.”

He turned to the others. “C'mon, Boys, we’ve got us an empress to play for.”

There was a movement of shadows to my left, and my heart hollowed out as Renfield breathed, “Dear Lord above.”

Meilori’s shade danced open-armed in front of me.

What does love look like? What is its color? A white flash of fright. A billowing wave of warmth, its reach beyond the microscope and further than the length of hope. Is it a jewel sparkling in the night? Or a whisper murmuring within the corridors of the heart?

Once more Meilori danced across the velvet grass, her empty arms beckoning to me. Her soft voice carried like a specter in the dark. Her words brushed by me and into my soul.

“Beloved, one last dance.”

And I finally understood her dancing empty-armed that magic evening so long ago. She had seen me, as now I saw her. Perhaps she thought me the ghost of a future me, dead and searching for her. And not understanding completely, still she took me in her arms.

As I, not understanding completely, now took her in mine. She smiled, brushing soft lips against mine. And my jazz friends began to play in a heart-clasp of sound.

Love is not a shy beast to be caught but a rare moment to be treasured. It burns within each cell, a living seed of hope. Its rays invisible to most, seen only by the searching heart.

Meilori was in my arms, and her love was a sheath that kept me whole. She lightly kissed me. I almost felt it. We danced through the embrace of shadows. And for a very short moment, I was home. Home.
******************************************
As I stated before, I am a fan of old Hollywood classics. Some consider the concept of romance outdated and old. And it is old -- as old as myth, as enduring as the lonely heart's quest for its soulmate, and as fragile as the bodies which house those souls we love.

It is Sunday now. I thought to leave this post with the prayer of Sioux chief Yellow Lark, a favorite of my mother's :
Oh, Great Spirit
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me, I am small and weak,
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have
made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have
hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy - myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my Spirit may come to you without shame.
(translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887)

IT IS WHAT IT IS or HOLLYWOOD PMS

One of the sayings of my favorite private eyes, Spenser, happens to be "It is what it is." Unstated is the follow-up : "And not what you would wish it to be."

As it turns out, it is also how screenwriters talk of Hollywood : "It is what it is." Unstated is the follow-up : "So deal with it."

Jo Schaffer http://jostorm.blogspot.com/ , whose husband is in "The Biz," commented yesterday that it isn't always about the money. It's also about "Politics."

And sadly, Jo is right. Studios, like heat-seeking missiles, tend to follow the popularity of an actor or a director, whether or not is based on anything close to quality. Funny enough, it is called following the "heat." At least that was the phrase several years ago.

Politics is more than following the heat however. It is about personalities, their flaws, their prejudices, their ego's. Studio politics is office politics on steroids.

Which brings us to "Hollywood PMS : Politics, Money, and Sex {behind as well as in front of the cameras -- and for a fascinating view of that topic read MARLENE (Dietrich) written by her daughter, Riva -- As Marlene, the German-born Maria Magdalena Dietrich (1901-92) was a charismatic movie actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Like Greta Garbo, Dietrich symbolizes glamour and mystery.

Riva's perspective is unique and affecting. Using her mother's diary, radiograms, and letters, she gives proper weight to Dietrich's youth, her experience on the Berlin stage, her collaboration with director Josef Von Sternberg (e.g., The Blue Angel , 1930; Morocco , 1930), and her latter-day triumphs on stage and as a chanteuse.

There are arresting tales here (father and stepfather killed in World War I; a stint entertaining U.S. troops during the Battle of the Bulge; affairs with legends of the screen and other arts) that give the reader a true grasp of both biographer and subject.} You can get a used hardcover from Amazon for just a penny. How cool is that? http://www.amazon.com/Marlene-Dietrich-Maria-Riva/dp/0394586921/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

And no, I haven't monetized my blog. My only reward will be the smile I get when you write me how much you enjoyed reading this amazing peek into a world strange and wonderful and sad.

Speaking of sad, let's get back to present-day Hollywood, where sequel no longer means an unexpected twist as in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK but more explosions and a lead actor phoning in his performance as in IRON MAN 2 {a likable but basically the first movie without the hero growing as much as in the first one.}

What is missing? Not much. Just something called craftsmanship. You know, what agents rake us over the coals for lousing up.

How does a writer make science fiction {or fantasy for that matter} real? Especially writers for movies and TV, for without the script all you would have are good-looking actors gazing at one another -- or into mirrors.

More likely the last.

Well, for one thing, you have to make the science plausible. And let's face it, some writers are better sellers of the impossible than others. It's why we have gotten the presidents we have in the past. Let's nail those amoral speech-writers with rotten tomatoes, shall we?

But all joking aside, the science in the tales has to be internally consistent, not change from page to page. Still more importantly, life must be seen taking its toll. Heads must rock back by the thrust of the rockets. Nausea must make stomachs feel like high-tide in zero gravity spins.

Life must hurt. It does for all of us. It must for the characters we watch or we will not believe in them.

We will not buy a story where there is cause without effect. That is why STAR WARS seems more real {despite its space opera elements} than STAR TREK. The blast doors have scorch marks. The Millenium Falcon has dings and dents.

Solo must whallop the door facing of the cockpit to jar the tangled wiring loose enough to fire up the engines. The good guys lose, die, and the survivors feel it in their guts. A father cuts off the right hand of his son. Children, a whole school of them, are cut down by one evil man with a light saber. The evil emperor wipes out the Jedi and rules the galaxy for a generation of terror and oppression.

In life, the bad guys sometimes win. If science fiction or fantasy is to be experienced as "real," then night must fall as it does in the day of each of us. Isn't the true thrill of the dawn based on the depth of darkness to the night preceeding it?

That is why, in a strange way, science fiction can be more "real" than literary fiction. Gene Roddenberry tackled subjects like prejudice, duplicity in war with its betrayed trust of innocents, pacifism in the face of threat, and religious intolerance at a time in the sixties that no other TV show could have done.

And because Gene tackled those subjects that were all too real to his audience, the crew of the Enterprise became real to the viewers as well.

VOYAGER lost sight of that fact. One episode whole shuttles would be destroyed, the ship itself broadsided by raking lasers. And the next week, the ship would be spotless and a new shuttle would be gleaming in the bay.

BATTLESTAR GALATICA showed us wires hanging from the ceiling of the battered starship episode after episode. Mistakes of crewmen would hound them from show to show. Just like our own mistakes follow at our heels for years. Even more, it showed Mankind's arrogance and callousness coming back in the form of his children, the Cylons, to teach humanity that payback is a terrible thing to waste.

Each of us are heading to that last great Exit. Some of us are closer than we realize. As we walk, are we awake or asleep? THE MATRIX and TOTAL RECALL, to mention two Sci-Fi movies, ask that question of us. It is a question that only we can answer. Good science fiction can broaden our perspective to answer it more truthfully.

Again, I am musing in preparation for my two talks at the CON DU LAC Sci-Fi convention here in Lake Charles in June. Come check out its website, will you? http://www.condulac.net/.

Well, that's it for my thoughts on Hollywood's deficiencies. It's easier than looking at my own! And for all of us dreamers out there who refuse to quit, here's Diana Krall :
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I entered the Summer Bucket List of 10 items I would want to do this summer :

1) Finally go out with Angelina Jolie. She's been calling me and calling me. I usually wake before I answer yes to her demands to go out with me. But darn it, this summer I'm gonna stay asleep long enough to say yes.
2) Which leads into my next beloved plan : to get enough sleep. Yeah, me actually going out with Angelina is more likely.
3) Do two excellent presentations at the Sci_Fi convention this June. That is something I actually have a shot at doing.
4)Have a reputable agent offer me representation. Hey, a guy can dream.
5) Have a reputable publisher buy the rights to my novel.
6) Have a studio buy the movie rights to my novel. It's a goal. And goals are good to have.
7) Have the publisher push my release up by a whole year because they're so impressed with my novel.
8) Actually take a vacation this year.
9) Take that vacation in New Zealand.
10) Go out with Angelina Jolie. I know. I know. I already said that. But some things are worth doing twice.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

How did this happen?

Not our space shuttle fleet going into mothballs --

even though experts say they all have ten more safe years to them. After all, as Billy Bob Thornton said in that famous asteroid movie, "It's a big a__ sky." That and there is a lot of space junk floating up there. We may need those shuttles in the next ten years.

No. How do movies like LEGION go wrong? Nick, my co-worker and Mr. EveryMan movie audience, scratched his head and asked that question of LEGION.

"I mean, Roland, it had great actors, access to the best special effects around, and you know it cost millions upon millions to make. And with all that, they made crap? How does stuff like this happen?"

Bad writing.

Lucy Lawless, siren of XENA and SPARTACUS, is reported to have said, "If it ain't on the page, it dies on the stage."

Amen, Xena.

So who's to blame? The Four Quadrants. And no, that is not the Cajun branch of the Illuminati. It's how Hollywood grades movies.

The four quadrants :
Males : Above & Below the age of 25
Females : Above & Below the age of 25

The best quadrant? Males below the age of 25. They will go alone to movies they like. They are more apt to take friends to said movie, making an event of it.

The next best? Females below the age of 25. They won't go alone. But often drag their boyfriends after going to two of their action movies in a row.

So the best film to make obviously is a chick flick with guns.

Don't laugh. That's why we have KILLERS with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher along with the movie, KNIGHT & DAY, with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

Hollywood is a business. And on date night, you've got to go see something. The Four Quadrants will make studios money. Story is secondary.

But not to us writers. And the shame of it is that a good story costs just as much as a bad one. And the repeat viewings of a great film makes more money in the long run.

Case in point :

Take the new STAR TREK. The beginning made me root for and like Kirk's father. He cared about his crew, loved his wife, and died so that she and his son could live. I wanted to watch a movie about him. What happens?

We get a scene of kid-Kirk being a jerk and nearly getting killed. We get another of punk-Kirk getting rightly trashed by cadets in a bar. I didn't like Kirk. And that's how you tell a bad story, making the hero one you don't like.

They wanted Kirk with authority issues and attitude from being fatherless. Fine. Kid-Kirk sees his younger half-brother being roughed up by his step-father for touching his antique car.

Kirk steps in for the boy, gets slapped, makes a smart remark {"What? You working your way up to old ladies and cripples?"} Step-Dad leaves. Kid-Kirk cocks an eyebrow at his brother and goes, "You want to go for a spin?" Now, you have the attitude, neurosis, plus a kid who you care about and like. And the neat car chase.

Punk-Kirk in bar. Hits on Uhura. She fluffs him off. "Your loss, babe," he shrugs.

Up struts an oaf of a cadet who paws Uhura. She protests. Oaf grabs her arm. Uhura winces in pain, just about to hand the guy his head on her own. But Kirk steps in and says, "The lady said no, bruno."

Fights ensues. Kirk gets lecture that turns his life around. But now you care about Kirk and like him. You want him to win, not just because you know his legend, but because of who he is at the moment, flaws and all. That's good story-telling -- making the audience care and root for your hero right at the start.

Hollywood has confused "cool" with character.

You care about Neo from the start of THE MATRIX. Any daydreaming shift worker identifies with Arnold right from the start of TOTAL RECALL. Inside most Sci-Fi men you will find a Walter Mitty or a Chuck from the TV series of the same name.

Hollywood loves its pre-sold franchises. Sometimes they work. Most times they don't. I shudder to think what the movie A-TEAM will be on the screen. But the studio executives know that people reading their computer headlines will know the answer to that most important question : "What is it about?"

Franchises gives the reader of the movie ad a clear mental image of what the movie promises. If the story is lousy or the film veers too far off the historical image. Low traffic. Sink hole where ticket sales should be.

Domestic ticket sales used to account for 60% of a movie's overall profits. Now, it's down to 40%. Worldwide ticket sales are now the make or break aspect of a movie.

The movie must be readily understood universally. Franchises are ideal for that. Also killer titles : Legally Blonde, Crazies, 4 Christmases, and FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE {the title for my book -- hey, I can dream, can't I?}

Hollywood is not about art or about quality. It is about profits. showBUSINESS it is called for a reason. If on top of the 4 quadrants, your movie script is medium-budget, filmed entirely in one location -- and you are the screen writer, you may have to run out of the exec's office to keep him from giving you a wet kiss.

Well, that's it for my thoughts on Hollywood's deficiencies. How about yours? What recent movie had you asking, "What were they thinking of? -- How did this happen? -- They spent millions of dollars on this?" Please tell me. I'm interested.
Again, I am musing in preparation for my two talks at the CON DU LAC Sci-Fi convention here in Lake Charles in June. Come check out its website, will you? http://www.condulac.net/.

And there was one excellent fantasy movie that connected to viewers because it paid attention to the details of life : its losses, its loves, and its enduring hope that the next dawn would be brighter if only you would not give up.


And readers, never give up. Never. Your dream may be waiting for you just around the corner if you will only take those next few steps. Keep walking. Keep trying. I'll be rooting for you that your dream clasps your hand in the darkness, pulling you into the light, Roland

INTERNAL CONFLICT AMID EXTERNAL CHALLENGES

Before we talk about conflict, let's talk about contests. Zoe C. Courtman is having a novel contest. Let her explain it. She does it in such an amusing way :

http://zoecourtman.blogspot.com/

All of us deal with internal conflict while we engage in external challenges. It is the human condition.

For yesterday's blogfest I was going to go with the excerpt I'm posting tonight. I refrained from using it because it dealt with internal conflict amidst an external challenge. I didn't think it completely qualified. Now, I believe I may have taken the parameters too literally. And so I'm posting it now.

It is the beginning of the second act of my novel, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. Samuel McCord has taken harsh, bold steps to help the hurting in post-Katrina New Orleans. The police are coming to arrest him. The army is coming to shoot him on sight.

And his life-long enemy, DayStar, is coming for much worse than that.

DayStar, more powerful than Nyx, the embodiment of the chaos that existed before creation.

DayStar, who, it is whispered, with merely the arching of one eyebrow, struck dead Sennacherib's entire army encamped around Jerusalem in 701 B.C.

DayStar is coming for his final revenge against McCord.

And McCord? Is he like any sane man running? No.

He is sitting in the shadows of his night club, Meilori's. He is Samuel Durand McCord. And he will die, baring his teeth at his enemy like an old wolf, defiant and snarling to the end :

What had Elu whispered as he lay fading away in my arms those long years ago? What is life but a flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in winter, the cloud shadow that races across the tall grass to lose itself in the setting sun.

Elu had spoken, not of God, but of The Great Mystery. I had taken to calling Him
that too. After all, most of the time what He was up to was a great mystery to me.

And tonight, of all nights, He seemed so distant. So very distant. But I clung to the dry hope that somewhere in my darkness He might be standing close. It was a dim light, but it was all I had.

I realized that my head was moving from side to side within the collar of my fingers. Suddenly every dim light in my night club went sin-black. Quiet as mist, darkness rose up around me and stayed like a cold shroud. I waited for the back-up system to cut in. I waited in vain. Story of my life.

All was silence. Then it hit me, and my stomach coiled. Neither the police nor the Army would come at me like this. Only one old enemy liked his dramatic entrances this much.

Only one.

I called out, "DayStar, don't you have more important people to be toying with than small potatoes like me?"

A chuckle like brittle bones breaking came from out of the darkness in front of me, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Samuel?"

"Some should."

Out of the blackness a voice, like the tolling of bronze bells far off in the distance, spoke cold, "You have interfered one time too many."

"That's been said before."

"Not by me."

The half-moon peeked out from behind a cloud and for a flicker of an instant I caught two gray eyes studying me. Deep, gray eyes that seemed to look inward as well as outward. Eyes that appeared to burn with cold fires.

Then all was darkness again. "I know you must have wondered how you’ve survived against me all these years."

"It had crossed my mind once or twice."

"At times there was a hedge from my enemy around you."

I pulled up straighter. Damn, it had flat never occurred to me that his madness had kept him from killing me. Madness you ask. Yeah, DayStar was as insane a being that I had fought. The strongest paranormal I had ever met, mind you, but insane as you could get. Maybe the two went together in some way.

I didn't believe this hedge business. How had I survived then? First, I cheat. Second, I think DayStar enjoyed the game. We'd played it off and on these past two hundred years. Who else would be long-lived and stupid enough to lock horns with him? I was Sherlock Holmes to his much smarter Moriarty
.

Or maybe that was my delusion to counter his.

And what was DayStar's delusion? The name he chose to go by gave it away. "DayStar" was the English translation of the Latin name found in the Vulgate version of the book of Isaiah.

Lucifer.

It was insane I know. But then, so was he. But he was also so powerful my mouth got dry just thinking about some of the nightmares I'd seen him do without strain. I was facing a lunatic paranormal that thought he was Lucifer. But unlike all those crazies you saw who thought they were Napoleon, the delusional facing me had the sheer intellect and power to make more than a few people actually buy into his psychosis.

Including my best friend, Renfield.

But I was hardly going to call DayStar on his madness right now. Jung had warned me long ago that you didn't get anywhere you wanted to go by confronting a delusional head-on concerning the absurdity of his claims. And when said delusional had the sheer paranormal power DayStar did that went double. It flat didn't matter when a man dropped an A-Bomb on you if he thought he was a kumquat or if he was stone-cold sane, you were still just as vaporized.

DayStar spoke again. "Tonight that hedge is gone."

Under the table, my left hand became a fist. I thumbed the ring of Solomon I wore on the middle finger. For the first time in my life, I might have to use its power to control a being of evil.

Slavery.

I clenched my jaws to go with my left fist. No. I would die first. At least that was what I told myself right now. When I felt myself start to wither under DayStar's power, who knew?

The darkness actually seemed to grow denser around me as he spoke low, "I went to some effort to bring Katrina to New Orleans only to veer away, building up hopes of escape, then have my carefully constructed levees collapse in the fashion I wished. Such despair and death. It was delightful."

He was crazier than I thought. He actually thought he had brought Katrina to New Orleans. But then, I had been in the limo when Elvis made it stop so he could demonstrate to me and his bodyguards how he could make a cloud move. Since Elvis had just fired Red and Sonny West, his two childhood friends, none of the remaining guards said a word.

Me, being me, I told him to just listen to himself. I told him I had good doctors that would wean him off the drugs that were ruining his life. He left me on that country road. Being alone, I enjoyed the company – if not the walk.

DayStar took two steps towards me. "But then, you had to interfere."

Thinking back to Elvis, I said low, "I do that sometimes."

"No longer. That meddler Mayor Nagin was supposed to be already dead with the Russian Mob firmly entrenched here. And Empress Theodora was already to have a beachhead established in New Orleans by this time. I need this revenant war as a distraction. And I will have it!"

"A distraction from what?"

He ignored me. I didn't mind. I got the same kind of treatment from his supposed enemy, the Great Mystery. I sensed more than saw him approach my table, the sound of his steps steady, firm and unrelenting. Heard the chair opposite me being pulled out. Felt as well as heard him sit down in the plush leather chair and neatly arrange his clothes.

"Armani if you are wondering, talking monkey."

"Only the very best for the very worst."

He laughed as if I mattered. I smiled back as if I gave a damn. We both weren't fooled.

DayStar’s words were little more than whispers, "Once the world lived by night. The dark drew people together. Under its cover, they could feel the need for each other. But I gave the night to the predators, kept for myself the day so that the living could look into eyes filled with fear and hatred.”

I fought the urge to challenge his delusion. I reminded myself of Jung's warning that challenging the delusion of a madman only made matters worse. And when said madman had the power to wither a man with just a whisper, making things worse seemed like a poor game plan.

I shrugged. "You see what you look for. I take it that the company I was expecting isn't coming?"

"Alas, no. I informed them that I had other plans for you."

"They take it well?"

"What do you think?"

"Any of them still in one piece?"

"Samuel, you know me better than to think I let anyone rest in peace."

I sighed. "Any of them still among the living?"

"Of course. They all are."

His laughter was a thing of nightmares. "They just aren't enjoying it."

His voice became even more hollow. "Man. Bah. Even when I show him the truth of life, he wastes his potential, what pathetic little of it exists."

He chuckled, "Some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to endless night."

A coldness seemingly born of that endless night radiated from DayStar. "Man. Disgusting talking monkeys, nothing more. An endangered species from the very beginning. Not particularly fleet of foot, unless chasing after another man's wife. No large teeth. No claws except for his tongue. A wonder you have made it this long."

"Don't you have a government to topple, a politician to corrupt?"

"All in good time, Samuel. All in good time. In fact, I am having a marvelous time right now with the opportunities still afforded me by Kristina. Whispers to bruised egos to insure one agency will ignore another. Stroking of inflamed pride to keep insufficient mouths from asking for help until it is too late. Suggesting of shallow men for pivotal positions."

He laughed his chuckle of breaking bones again. "All so simple. All so enjoyable. All so effective. Goverment agencies are so much fun to play like puppets. And the nature of human nature makes it so easy."

His voice lowered until I had to strain to hear it. "And the helpless die."

I barely made out the flutter of his long fingers. A dim flicker of images swirled before my eyes. An old woman clutching a small child as the rising waters threatened to swallow them. A faint mewing came from the young girl.

"G-Grandma, I'm ... I'm scared. Awful sc-scared."

"There, there, honey. I'm right here. I got you safe in my arms."

I watched the woman hug her granddaughter as the waters steadily rose, saw the shivering girl clutch back as if onto a lifeline. My fingers became fists in the effort it took me to keep on watching as the dark waters crept up their chests, nibbled at their chins. I forced myself to keep on watching their thrashing about as the waters choked them, then smothered them to finally rise to the ceiling. It took them much too long to finally die. I felt DayStar's eyes on me.

I ignored him. All I seemed able to see was the trail of bubbles shorten, then stop as their bodies slowly became loose and limp. But somehow the grandmother's arms still held onto the small girl. All became black once more. And DayStar laughed as if at the funniest joke in the world.

"Tell me, Samuel, where was your invisible man in the sky in all that?"

His question had echoed my own. But I would be damned if I gave him the satisfaction of admitting it. I reached into the bruised shadows of my mind for a truth I could say with a straight face and forced my throat to work.

"In the arms of that grandmother."
**************************************************
All that Samuel has seen and endured makes him think of himself as an agnostic. When Renfield, the vampire-priest who is his best friend, hears him say that, he asks, "Then why do you live the prayer of St. Francis?" "Old habits die hard, padre" is always the answer. Renfield just gives his friend a sad, wise smile.