Second Thoughts

Fiction

2012-01-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

So, I'll take a break from my standard semi-annual gloom and doom post, and put some fiction up here for any lost souls who stumble across this blog. This is the first chapter of a new story I've been working on for a little while. Constructive criticism is welcome.

Chapter 1

Chuck Truett watched from behind dark sunglasses as people streamed in and out of the bank. He sat at a table on the patio of a coffee shop across the street, holding the sports page of the local daily. He folded the paper to an article on the upcoming college football season and slowly sipped his coffee as he alternated reading, scanning traffic, and eyeing the bank.

The sun crashed down without mercy, shattering off cars and pavement. A slight breeze moved the heat around. Even in the shade of the table’s umbrella, he felt like he might spontaneously combust.

Two tan, leggy coeds came out of the coffee shop and took the table next to him. One of them smiled at Chuck. He smiled back. The girls immediately pulled out their cell phones and began tapping away at the keys.

He sipped coffee and looked west, scanning Beach Boulevard. Moderate traffic flowing in both directions, slightly heavier going east toward the beach. He looked south down San Pablo. Light traffic going south, somewhat heavier coming north. Rush hour had not yet begun in earnest, but it was getting warmed up.

There’s a cop, coming north on San Pablo. Chuck glanced at his watch. Three twenty-two. He checked the notepad sitting on the table in front of him, frowned, and made a notation. In five afternoons over the last two weeks, he’d detected no pattern to the passing of the patrol cars at this intersection, other than they did so with some regularity.

A sardonic grin played briefly on his face. Casing a bank. Never in all his life, not even as recently as a month ago, would he have imagined he’d be casing a bank. But desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.

But would he have the balls to actually go through with it? He wondered. Right now, he felt good, working it over in his mind, playing it out. In his mind, he pulled it off without a hitch. The teller was always pretty, and she gazed in awe as she put all the cash in the bank zipper bag and handed it back to him. He winked at her before he turned to stroll calmly out of the bank, several thousand dollars richer than he’d walked in.

He knew reality would be different.

For starters, he would need a disguise. He’d been doing some research on the internet and had some good ideas about how he might disguise himself. Tomorrow he would drive down to the outlet mall in St. Augustine to purchase make-up at the beauty supply store there. He would pay cash. He was trying to think ahead and anticipate how the police might investigate, and shopping out of town and paying cash seemed like common sense precautions.

He had what he thought was a stroke of genius with the disguise. He would wear a wig, of course, and he was going to give himself a couple of facial scars – nothing major, but something for the teller to remember. But the icing on the cake would be some temporary prison tattoos on his hands. He’d just had the idea this morning, and later he would do some research on the internet for prison gang symbols. This, he thought, would surely throw the investigation off track.

Thinking like a criminal was not in Chuck’s nature. Casing a bank, conjuring a disguise, plotting the robbery and the getaway, it all seemed surreal to him.

He’d always been a hard worker, always tried to do the right thing. He had never imagined himself as a criminal. Well, that is, if you don’t count the many times he’d visualized beating the shit out of the lawyers and bankers he’d encountered in the last few years.

No, he’d pretty much always been on the right side of the law. And he’d done well: built a business, made a good living, employed twenty to thirty people, had a nice family and a nice home. But the universe had thrown him some curves, and all of that was gone now. He had almost nothing left.

He’d gone through a soul-searching phase, and he came to terms with his decision. He determined that he was robbing the thieves, so there was no moral issue beyond the decision to break the law, and the law didn’t seem to count for much these days.

He watched the bank until four o’clock. He noted two more patrol cars, one at 3:38 and another at 3:52. Random, no pattern. He finished his coffee, dropped the cup in the receptacle, got in his truck and drove home.

The house felt empty, as it always did now. Memories echoed in the silence. Precious memories, but painful, like a diamond wrapped in barbed-wire.

He’d tried to sell the house, but the market was so bad that the bank wouldn’t even approve a short sale for what the house would bring. He hadn’t made a mortgage payment in eight months, and had no plans to make another. Fuck the bank, let them come and take the house, it would be a blessing. He knew they wouldn’t do it any time soon, though, since the mortgage was underwater. If there was equity in the home, they’d foreclose in a heartbeat. The bad decision to build the house at the wrong time was actually paying off, in an unexpected way.

He dropped two ice cubes in a tumbler and drowned them with Jack Daniels. Bandit, his yellow Lab, was hopping around in a circle toward the door that led to the back deck and yard. He opened the door and Bandit led the way outside.

He watched the dog sniff around the yard as he considered his circumstances. There was still some money in the bank. He could live and eat for a few months yet. A few thousand more from robbing the bank would stretch it out a little further. Beyond that, he didn’t know, but he didn’t worry much about it. He’d become accustomed to living with uncertainty. It was just part of the game now. It was the “new normal”. That, and there were plenty of banks to rob.

An osprey called out from a tree top in the small patch of forest beyond the fence that surrounded the back yard. Probably scoping the pond back there. The pond was surrounded by eight other lots, six of which were undeveloped. The lots were large, by today’s standards, each one consisting of three plush acres. Wildlife still inhabited the neighborhood, which was adjacent to a large tract of undeveloped land. Deer, foxes, osprey, red-tailed hawks all made their homes in the forest.

Chuck liked to watch the osprey and the hawks hunt their prey. He’d seen the osprey take some nice bass from the pond, and he’d seen the hawks streak down and pick rabbits and squirrels off the ground. Somehow the raw, unforgiving nature of the food-chain seemed less predatory than the world in which he lived.

His cell phone vibrated in the holster on his hip. He checked the ID. It was Sam, his brother.

“Hey,” Chuck said.

“You busy?” Sam asked.

“I was right in the middle of solving the world’s problems, but I can talk.”

Sam laughed. “Right. You finish that book?”

“Yeah, finished it this morning. It’s interesting, like you said. And very disturbing.”

Sam had mailed Chuck his latest recommended reading, Crossing the Rubicon, by Michael Ruppert. He told Chuck to start with an open mind. Three years ago, Chuck would have laughed at the premise, that 9/11 had been an inside job, and would have said it was ludicrous. But over the last couple of years, with the combination of his own experiences, observations, and the books that Sam had insisted he read, his view of the world had changed. Ruppert’s book had only added to the evidence that there was a powerful, evil undercurrent that churned below the surface of the political and financial systems of the world, and the U.S. in particular. Greed and lust for power had corrupted the government and destroyed the foundation of the country. Chuck’s faith in the government of the United States had been shattered, and his belief in the ultimate good of the human spirit had been shaken.

“Disturbing, for sure,” Sam said. “Better to know the truth, though. Forewarned is forearmed.”

“So you tell me.”

“When are you coming up for a visit?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe in a couple of weeks.”

“That’s what you’ve been saying for six months, Chuck. Come on up, the kids would love to see you, and so would Gina. Not to mention, you and I haven’t had the chance to hang out much the last few years. And it’s important to me, because we need to have a serious conversation about some things, and I don’t want to do it over the phone. We need a couple of days for this.”

“A serious conversation about what?”

“About a lot of things, man,” Sam said. “We just need to talk about some life things. I have some ideas I want to bounce off you, get your feedback.”

“Alright, I guess I can take some time off,” Chuck said, as if free time was a strain these days. “I’ll take a look at what I’ve got going and I’ll block off a good long weekend. Hell, maybe even a whole week.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Sam said. “Seriously, this is important to me, Chuck. I want you to give me a date and commit to it, so look at your calendar and call me back tomorrow.”

“What’s the deal? I mean, why the mystery?”

“Just humor me, okay? It’s important. Isn’t that good enough?”

Chuck nodded, staring into the forest. “Yeah, man. That’s good enough.”

What Did It Feel Like?

2011-07-31T18:30:00.001-07:00

I wonder what it felt like back in 1930, after the stock market crashed and unemployment was rising and the economy was tanking. The US was in the midst of the Great Depression, and with the luxury of hindsight we can look at the charts and the numbers and see the progression, the spiral downward. But what did it feel like to the people living it, at the time it was happening?

Did they know that they were living through a period that would be talked about for decades, and perhaps centuries? The communication technology that we have today didn’t exist then, but newspapers and radio existed, and word of mouth has historically spread the news. So were people talking about the Depression? Was it dinner table conversation?

I’m amazed by how the majority of the US population has largely ignored the financial crisis that began to erupt in 2008 and continues today in an even more unstable system. It’s a fading memory in the collective national consciousness.

Out of five close friends that I interact and communicate with on a regular basis, only one of them is paying attention to anything beyond the headlines in the news. He understands, as I do, that the future of our way of life, and that of the world, hangs in the balance as we speak.

The negotiations that are public, like the debt ceiling debate/farce/spectacle, but more importantly, the negotiations going on behind closed doors, are beyond the control of most of us, individually. We are not in a position to affect the outcome of these negotiations, and our future, on a macro-level, is beyond our control. And from all appearances, the decision-makers themselves have lost control.

It seems easy to say, “Let’s throw these guys out and put some people in office that will act like adults and get the ship turned around”. But in order to do this, we need an honest political system; we need an honest way of choosing honest men and women. Therein lies the problem. Our system is corrupt, and a corrupt political system will produce corrupt politicians. We can thank the US Supreme Court for legalizing the purchase of our politicians., but that’s a story for another day.

So this is how I feel at this historical moment in time. Frustrated. Angry. Helpless, with regard to fixing the roots of the problem: the corrupt political and banking systems.

In all honesty, I’m kind of shocked that more people don’t see what’s going on. Why isn’t the current state of our nation the primary topic of discussion around the watercooler and at dinner tables? Why aren’t people absolutely outraged at what the sell-outs we call politicians are allowing the banks to do to us? The politicians are in fact facilitating the rape of our country; where is the outrage that none of the criminals have gone to jail?

For all of our apathy in the face of an imminent crisis, I think the tables might finally be starting to turn. With the debt debate/farce/scam being played out on TV and the papers and the internet, more and more people are waking up to the fact that the government and the financial institutions are in this thing together, each as guilty as the other. The mainstream media is doing a good job of keeping up the façade, but there is a small percentage of the people who search out the facts and tell their friends and family, and slowly, like a drunk coming of a four day bender, people are opening their eyes and not liking what they see.

I think it is only a matter of time before we reach a tipping point, but what that time frame is, I really can’t say. It will most likely be a rude awakening, long after the point of no return, as I believe we’re there already.

As we spiral downward, I feel a very primal kind of fear. It’s not a surface-type fear, more of a general sense of uneasiness and uncertainty.

Angry. Frustrated. Uneasy. A macro-level helplessness. That’s what 2011 has come to feel like for me. I wonder if this is what it felt like in 1930?

Insanity

2011-04-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

The world is upside down.

Fucking craaazyyyy.

The Middle East is on fire. Revolution, bitchez.

Japan: Earthquake; Tsunami; Nuclear meltdown. Death. Destruction. Suffering. Craaaazyyyy.

Europe crumbling. Soveriegn bailouts only delay default. Old conflicts will rise anew. Europe will collapse on itself and then explode.

The U.S. in terminal denial. Unsustainable debt; promises that cannot and will not be kept. Welfare state goes bankrupt. Middle class wiped out as they watch American Idol and text their votes. Fucking crazy. Their way of life stolen as they believe the lies their Uncle told them. Blind or foolish, it matters not.

Crazy shit.

Mother Nature is pissed. Earthquakes by the dozen. Tornadoes by the hundreds. Fires burn Texas to the ground.

Two week news cycle keeps the peace. Spin it. Inform the masses but don't scare them.

The air is heavy. Storm clouds moving in. Stay low.

Looking Back At America - Conclusion

2011-01-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

This is Part VII, and the conclusion, of the Looking Back At America series, which presents the perspective of what today's America might look like to historians 100 years in the future. This series of articles is most easily understood by starting with the first installment.

The picture presented here was painted with broad strokes. In order to paint the big picture, it was necessary to give only superficial treatment to many of the underlying causes and conditions, and to leave out numerous other contributing factors.

The Federal Reserve System is a subject on which hundreds of volumes have been written, and it is certainly worthy of in-depth scrutiny, but for the purpose of this account, suffice it to say that the Fed exists to serve the banks. This fact has been kept from the general population by cloaking the financial systems in mystery, using esoteric terms that serve to confuse rather than enlighten. By design, We the People are not supposed to understand the banking system and the nature of money. As Henry Ford was quoted as saying, “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

Very little attention was given to the deficit spending by the government, or so-called stimulus spending, facilitated by the Fed and the Treasury. This policy attempts to fix a debt problem by piling more debt upon it. Mathmatically, it cannot succeed. In 2010, the deficit was $1.7 trillion dollars, more than 12% of GDP, and growing. This stimulus spending is hiding the fact that the real economy is contracting by almost 10%, with no relief in sight.

The collapse of the housing market and the magnitude of the foreclosure crisis was discussed, but this part of the story is worthy of the volumes being written about it now.

The flight of manufacturing from the U.S. to other countries deserves more attention than it was given here, and the pathetic condition of the American public education system was not even mentioned, though both of these factors are greatly responsible for the situation in America today.

The political system in the United States is broken. The very qualities required for the average politician to organize and fund an election campaign are the exact opposite qualities that are required for an honest political system. Politicians of all stripes are bought and paid for during the campaigns, and once elected, do not represent the people, they represent the corporations and special interests that made the biggest monetary contributions to their campaign.

The two party system is a scam that is perfectly suited to the interests of the financial cartels. They can purchase both Democrats and Republicans for virtually the same price, and this system keeps the American population focused on wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage, while the critical issues facing the nation are kept hidden from view.

The complex federal tax code serves to drive American businesses overseas, which accelerates the deterioration of employment conditions in the U.S. The tax code also creates pockets of special interests that further corrupt the integrity of the political system.

The mainstream media is complicit in the deception. Many of the mainstream news outlets serve as the public relations channel for the collusion between the federal government and the banking cartels, keeping the American people distracted and therefore marginalized.

At this critical point, the remaining options are not attractive, but the opportunity still exists to steer away from the cliff and avoid catastrophe. This would require an awakening of the population and a demand for honesty and integrity in the financial system. This would be painful, as many people and institutions would be bankrupted, but it would allow the system to purge the bad debt, cleanse the economy of inefficiencies, and provide a foundation for recovery. But if the difficult decisions continue to be avoided, the outcome will be determined by the markets, which cannot be deceived forever. This would be The Great Collapse. If that happens, God help us all.

Looking Back At America - Part VI

2011-01-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

This is Part VI in the Looking Back At America series, which presents the perspective of what today's America might look like to historians 100 years in the future. This series of articles is most easily understood by starting with the first installment.

It was in 2010 that another problem manifested for the banks. This was dubbed “Foreclosuregate” by the media, and came to light as a result of a rash of lawsuits by people who felt they were being foreclosed upon illegally. These people alleged that the banks could not prove they had the right to foreclose, because they didn’t possess the required documentation; indeed, in some cases, multiple banks were trying to foreclose on the same property at the same time. The reason for this is because the banks, in their haste to originate loans, securitize them, and sell the securities, had ignored well-established property title laws regarding the transfer and notarization of “wet signature” documents when the loan moves from one “interested party” to another. In hundreds of thousands of instances, perhaps even millions, the notes had not been properly transferred, but yet the securities had been sold, and the issue of who actually owned the loan became very opaque indeed.

In an attempt to cover up their fraud, the banks used law firms as “foreclosure mills” to process the foreclosure legal paperwork. The law firms employed people who did nothing but sign legal affidavits all day long. Some individuals signed as many as ten thousand affidavits a month. These people were given the title of “Vice President”, as the documents had to be signed by an officer of the bank, and it was later revealed that many of these people, employees of the law firms, were listed as officers for multiple banking institutions at the same time. The affidavits they signed attested to the fact that the original “wet signature” documents were unavailable but that the representations made in the foreclosure documents were true and accurate. The people who signed these thousands of documents did not in fact know that the representations were true and accurate because they had not even glanced at the contents of the documents. This amounted to perjury in a court of law. When this story broke in the news, these people were dubbed “Robo-signers”.

When the “robo-signing” scandal erupted, the banks began to panic. The robo-signing of fraudulent affidavits was the banks’ attempt to cover up their fraudulent business model. In September, 2010, most of the major banks instituted a moratorium on foreclosures in the 27 states that require a court procedure to foreclose. This received some attention in the mainstream media, but it was spun as merely a pause to confirm that their processes were legal, though perhaps a bit sloppy. They took down the moratorium weeks later, to give the appearance that the problem no longer existed; it was all an over-reaction to sloppy paperwork.

The problem for the banks was three-fold. First, the originations of the loans were fraudulent, because they made loans to people knowing, at the time of origination, that these borrowers would not be able to afford the loan once the teaser rate expired and the interest rate reset higher. They told the borrower that it was no problem, they could refinance in two years because their property would appreciate in value so much that they would have enough equity in two years to do so. This was illegal, as it constituted “fraud in the inducement”. And people signed up for that scam. By the hundreds of thousands. The mortgage industry had turned into one huge, unbridled Ponzi scheme.

The banks gave loans to people who had no business taking out a mortgage, even people who were unemployed or marginally employed. These loans became known as “liars loans”, and it is estimated that by 2005, “liars’ loans” constituted 80% of the mortgages being written each year. The banks attempted to cover this fraud with the illegal affidavits, as they did not want the original paperwork to come to light and expose their fraudulent business model. In fact, in many cases the original documents had been intentionally destroyed.

Second, the banks were packaging the liars’ loans into pools and dividing them up into securities that somehow received AAA ratings, and selling these loans to the institutional investors. The problem here was, the securities were actually worthless because the securitizers had not followed the legal procedures required to transfer the mortgage into the trusts from which the securities were sold. Essentially, the investors had been sold empty boxes. Because the banks had misrepresented the quality of the contents of the securities, they could now be on the hook for all of the securities they sold. The investors could put back trillions of dollars worth of securities on the banks. This would blow them out of the solar system.

The third problem for the banks was the HELOC loans. If the first loan was in default, the HELOC was completely worthless. It is estimated that the three remaining major commercial banks (Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo) had upwards of $350 billion in HELOCs outstanding. If only 30% of these loans were behind defaulted first mortgages, it would be enough to render these banks insolvent many times over.

Still, the full realization of the insolvency of the institutional banks had not reached a critical mass of the population. The main stream news media colluded with the banks to downplay this story, spinning it as mistakes in documentation, mere technicalities, rather than a full-on cover-up of the disaster they had created. But the bank officials knew they had a problem. They knew they would need a lot of help from the media (from whom they purchased millions of dollars of advertising every year), from their political puppets in Congress, and especially from their key accomplice, the Federal Reserve Bank.

Both Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke share the blame for the monetary policy that allowed the credit explosion to occur. But it was Bernanke who, when his policies failed to stimulate the economy, redoubled his efforts to pump liquidity into a system that suffered from insolvency. He was trying to pump up the credit markets by holding interest rates low, but this policy was doomed to fail because the credit markets needed to void the bad debt before they could absorb any new debt.

He also instituted “Quantitative Easing”, a euphemism for the monetization of the massive debt held by the government after bailing out the banks. Still, We the People failed to see it for what it was. And in 2010, he implemented the second round of Quantitative Easing, or QE2, a policy that would pump another $600 billion into the system if it ran its full course.

The problem here was, even as Bernanke tried to force credit into the system to get the economy moving again, there were no borrowers left to whom to lend. In order to lend, there must be a willing borrower, and all potential suspects were already soaked in debt.

It was apparent to all but the most obtuse observers that The Fed’s policies ultimately served only to bail out the insolvent financial institutions at the expense of the American taxpayer. Although Bernanke’s policies led to a reflation of the stock market for almost two years, and let him claim that TPTB had saved the world from a total collapse of the global financial system, in reality it was only a temporary fix.

The economy had not improved, though in the summer of 2010 the media did its best to convince the American public that a recovery was underway. A massive PR campaign – “Recovery Summer” – was launched by the spin doctors in the Federal government. By this time, however, a larger percentage of the population refused to accept this spin, and there was growing unrest among the natives. As 2010 drew to a close, there were many indicators of what was to come in 2011, but even so, very few people understood the gravity of the situation.

Not only had the banks, on a historically unprecedented scale, perpetrated a Ponzi scheme on the American public through their fraudulent business model, but this reality was finally dawning on the public. And now the powerful unions were aligning against them, as well. As 2010 came to a close, this confrontation was quietly manifesting.

Entering 2011, the American economy was contracting again. The government and the media continued to skew the unemployment numbers, but even with their manipulations unemployment was over 10%. The real numbers were far worse, with actual joblessness running at well over 20% of the working age population. Over 14% of the US population was on food stamps. Homelessness was on the rise and becoming a middle-class problem.

Global disruptions were also manifesting. European nations were struggling with their own sovereign debt, and the European Union was showing signs of fracture. North Korea was rattling its saber. China was fragile, going through its own credit expansion, inflation, and housing bubble. Mexico had seen an explosion in violence as the drug cartels feuded with each other and the government. Al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups continued their random attacks on America and other western countries. The worldwide landscape was simmering, seething, and approaching a boil.

And it was then, as a critical mass of Americans finally awoke to the hubris and rapacious greed of the men in power, and the nefarious nature of all their schemes, that the shit truly hit the fan…

Part VII concludes the series.

Looking Back At America - Part V

2011-01-02T06:37:00.000-08:00

This is Part V in the Looking Back At America series, which presents the perspective of what today's America might look like to historians 100 years in the future. This series of articles is most easily understood by starting with the first installment.

The stock market topped in October of 2007 and began a downward decline into 2008. The U.S. economy slipped into recession as the construction industry stalled along with the housing market. Unemployment started rising and kept rising. People, ever so subtly, began to restrain themselves from borrowing more money.

It was early in 2008 that the financial system began to get more widespread attention. The sub-prime mortgage market was collapsing, and with it the value of the securities the banks had sold to the pension funds. The collateral that investment banks used to float their transactions had lost value, and this created a solvency problem for the banks. Banks reacted by tightening lending standards, belatedly, and this served to further exacerbate the collapse of the housing market.

By September of 2008, the financial system was in a full blown crisis, the likes of which had never been seen in human history. On September 18, 2008, an electronic run began on the banks, draining over $550 billion dollars from the money market accounts of the large financial institutions in less than two hours. The U.S. Treasury shut down the accounts and announced a $250,000 guarantee on these accounts, stopping the run.

Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary, told Congress that afternoon that if they had not taken these actions, and did not take further action, that the world as they knew it would come to an end. Paulson, as paraphrased by Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, told congress:

If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.

On September 18, 2008, with the financial markets in chaos, Congress, the White House, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Treasury, and leaders of the large financial institutions scrambled to stop the bleeding and prevent an all out collapse. These leaders will be referred to from this point forward as TPTB (The Powers That Be), for it was collusion among these leaders that stayed the collapse in the near term while making it all the more catastrophic when their manipulations inevitably failed.

After temporarily stabilizing the financial markets in September, the next several months offered the last opportunities to minimize the pain that would be necessary to fix the financial system. This is when losses should have been taken and the banks restructured. The bad debt should have been exposed and flushed from the system. This would have caused a short term dislocation in the American and global economies, but it would have been over fairly quickly and would have provided a healthy foundation for recovery. Instead, TPTB instituted policies that would cover up the problem in the short term, but magnify the ultimate devastation that was guaranteed by their actions in the longer term.

When the bailout for the institutional banks was announced, We the People did stand up and shout, but TPTB ignored the strident pleas of the population and bailed out the banks anyway. We the People were told that these banks were integral to the financial system itself. These banks, it was explained, were Too Big To Fail, for their failure posed “systemic risk” and could cause a complete failure of the global banking system; they had to be bailed out. This bailout was funded by We the People, though they did not agree to be pillaged in this manner.

This is when We the People failed to fully recognize that the system in its totality was rigged for the banks, and that their elected political leaders were indeed bought and paid for by the institutional banking cabal.

The American people had been fleeced in a number of ways by the fraudulent behavior of the institutional banks and, to add insult to injury, were then forced to bail them out. The sub-prime mortgage market was shot through with fraud, from appraisals to origination to processing to securitization to the ratings and sale of the securities. The entire business model was fraudulent. Then, when the bubble collapsed, the American taxpayer was forced to bail out the same institutions that had fleeced them. Not only that, but many of these people were invested in the pension funds that bought the worthless securities, and their retirement funds were now in jeopardy. The average middle-class American had been robbed in three different ways by the same institutions.

This was akin to having one’s pocket picked by a meth addict, then, after he has smoked himself nearly to death on what he stole from you, being forced to allow the him to stay in your home while you pay for his rehabilitation. Then he turns around and burglarizes your home while the sheriff holds you at gunpoint.

The financial crisis impacted the psyche of America, and as the U.S. approached the Presidential elections of 2008, Americans wanted change.

Barack Hussein Obama represented change in every way. He couldn’t have appeared more different than George W. Bush, or the any of the Republicans, physically or ideologically. He was the first black nominee for either party, and the first truly serious black contender for the White House. It didn’t seem to matter to the American people that he was inexperienced and untested. He ran on a platform of Hope and Change, a brilliant campaign stroke at a time when America was hungry for hope and desperate for change. He was a charismatic orator, and a tireless campaigner, and the financial crisis couldn’t have come at a better time for Barack Hussein Obama.

It was ironic that the American people, in their desperation for change, would elect not only the first black President, but one whose name sounded like that of a Muslim terrorist. In fact, the Iraqi war had been in part a thinly-veiled effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. And his last name, Obama, rhymed with Osama, as in, bin Laden, the world’s most influential terrorist at the time. That they would elect as President a black, very junior Senator with a terrorist name spoke volumes for the desperation in America.

Obama, who said he would not appoint lobbyists and Wall Street insiders to influential positions, took office and promptly began appointing lobbyists and Wall Street insiders to just such positions. Many of his appointments created public embarrassments that he and the mainstream media substantially and successfully ignored. Many of Obama’s appointees seemed to have trouble paying their taxes. Ironically, Tim Geithner, Obama’s choice for Treasury Secretary, was found to owe the IRS over $35,000 in unpaid taxes. Still, Geithner was appointed to oversee the Treasury. Not only was he a tax cheat, he was also one of Wall Streets most influential advocates. So much for Obama’s promise.

In 2009 Obama approved Ben Bernanke’s nomination to another term as Chairman of the Fed. Ben Bernanke had succeeded Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in 2006. Bernanke was a Harvard educated economist and an academic. He had been a professor of economics at Princeton, and was a proclaimed expert on the Great Depression, prior to being appointed to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 2002. In 2006, President George W. Bush appointed him to a four year term as Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve. It was widely believed (or at least, widely promoted) that Bernanke’s machinations to stem the crisis of 2008 had saved the world from disaster. Bernanke was even named Time magazine’s 2009 Man of the Year. Thus Obama kept him in power.

Incredibly, very few people saw that Bernanke’s machinations were nothing more than a bailout of the banks at the taxpayer’s expense. Americans weren’t paying attention to details; they saw only the mendacious big picture painted by the mainstream media. A small minority opposed Bernanke’s reappointment, but they were a tiny voice in the din.

It would be negligent to overlook the compliance of the mainstream media in the charade. Americans might not have been paying attention to details, but the alleged journalists of the mainstream media did little to provide honest details. The primary news media outlets were owned by corporations with plenty of motive not to rock the boat. If Americans had been exposed to the truth, perhaps they would have woken up sooner.

Part VI continues the construction of the historical perspective.

Looking Back At America - Part IV

2011-01-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

This is Part IV in the Looking Back At America series, which presents the perspective of what today's America might look like to historians 100 years in the future. This series of articles is most easily understood by starting with the first installment.

For over two decades American prosperity was on the rise. There were minor setbacks. The late eighties and the nineties saw recessions, but they were relatively brief and shallow. Policy-makers allowed the recessions to occur naturally. Recessions are natural and healthy and necessary for organic growth in a free market economy. Excesses are voided from the system, as they should be. The economy burps and feels better afterward.

For two decades, the collective mood of America was also on the rise. It can be said that the collective mood of most of the Western world was on the rise, but nowhere more so than America. Unemployment was low, holding steady below five percent the majority of the time from 1982 through 2000. People felt safe in their homes and safe in their jobs. The future looked bright.

Because people generally felt good about the future, they took their eyes off the ball. They became accustomed to being in debt, with credit cards, car loans, and mortgages, and didn’t worry about their ability to pay their debts, because on paper they looked wealthy.

There was a bit of a disruption in mood when the stock markets tanked in the spring of 2000 and the economy went into its worst recession in two decades, but even then, people knew that the American economy would bounce back shortly. It always did.

This time, however, policy-makers didn’t allow the economy to recover naturally and void the bad debt it had accumulated. The Federal Reserve Bank, under the direction of Alan Greenspan, lowered interest rates to try to force liquidity into the system. It didn’t matter that the system wasn’t suffering from a lack of liquidity, but rather trying to void the waste of excessive speculation, liquidity was viewed as the solution.

The large institutional banks, now free to both create credit and use it, did what banks do and found ways to capitalize on the easy money policy of The Fed in a non-regulated environment. They started lending money as fast as they could find borrowers. This unchecked credit expansion is precisely what led to the bubble in the housing market and the explosion in real estate that occurred between 2001 and 2006.

If Americans felt wealthy in the late nineties, by 2005 they felt filthy rich. A couple in their early thirties who bought a house in 2001 had $100,000 in equity by 2005, in many cases much more than that. They could refinance their mortgage at historically low interest rates, take out $50,000 in cash, and not even see an increase in their mortgage payment. In fact, many even saw their payment decrease.

During the eighties and nineties, America went through a period of de-industrialization. U.S. corporations moved manufacturing operations to other countries with more favorable tax policies, cheaper labor, and few, if any, environmental restrictions. Due to advances in technology, agriculture needed fewer laborers, so employment in agriculture became less significant to the overall economy. The U.S. economy became tilted much more toward services and away from manufacturing and agriculture.

In 2006, America was at the height of her hubris. Americans had become accustomed to a comfortable life that was bought but not paid for. They had fallen in love with false prosperity, living in debt but not feeling poor because no one saw the end of real estate appreciation, and the stock market had been rising for four years straight.

But 2006 was the year that something changed. The first tiny cracks in the real estate market began to appear. High risk borrowers who obtained adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) in the early 2000’s began to default on their loans as interest rates adjusted higher after the initial teaser period. As these defaults began to show up in large numbers, the real estate market stopped appreciating. Few people at the time thought of this as anything more than a minor bump in the road, and virtually no one understood, or would admit to, the fact that the system had reached the point of credit saturation.

The stock market continued higher into 2007 and people were still optimistic about the future, but perhaps less so. The euphoria was starting to wane a bit. Although the credit market had stopped expanding exponentially, real estate prices had flattened, and America was fighting two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), people still had jobs and their stocks looked good, so there was no noticeable change in lifestyles. However, the underpinnings of the American quality of life were showing serious weaknesses to the few who bothered to look. The ones who bothered to look saw that the American dream had become a lifestyle based on debt and supported by the illusion of wealth.

Part V continues the construction of the historical perspective.

Looking Back At America - Part III

2011-01-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

This is Part III in the Looking Back At America series, which presents the perspective of what today's America might look like to historians 100 years in the future. This series of articles is most easily understood by starting with the first installment.

It was during the mid-eighties to the late nineties that more and more middle-class Americans were becoming stockholders and investing, if somewhat tentatively at first, in the financial markets; buying stocks, participating in 401K plans, investing their savings with their eyes on big returns. People who had never owned stocks before – hadn’t even really thought about it – were now buying stock, afraid not to because they didn’t want to miss out on this incredible opportunity and be left behind on the road to riches.

The internet mania was coming into full bloom at the same time that banks were making it easier to borrow money. Because prospects were good, people had an appetite for risk, and many borrowed money to speculate on the Dot Com craze. The mania turned into a full-blown bubble by the late nineties and the stock markets experienced a meteoric rise, led by the technology firms and internet-based companies of the NASDAQ index.

People saw their investment portfolios double and triple in the late nineties, and they felt wealthy because, well, on paper they looked wealthy. The American middle-class fell in love with their newfound prosperity. They spent money freely, though their incomes had not improved significantly. It was okay, though, because according to their stock portfolios, they were doing just fine.

Credit cards were now available to anyone with a job, and people spent money they had not yet earned. Car loans were available with no money down, and in fact people could even finance the taxes they paid when they bought their car.

While previous generations worked and saved so that they could buy the things they wanted, people now bought first and paid later. The culture was changing. Being in debt became a way of life, but people did not worry much because their stock portfolios and 401Ks were doing quite well, thank you.

The Dot Com craze came crashing down as the NASDAQ tanked in April, 2000. Investors had poured hundreds of billions of dollars into companies that never produced a dime of profit, but whose stock prices had risen exponentially on the potential that they would become immensely profitable one day. Irrational exuberance was the fuel for the fire, but this insanity began to wane as the companies wallowed in losses before finally going belly up. Investors lost billions. People no longer felt so wealthy, and the economy went into a recession in late 2000 that lasted until 2002.

And it was during this time, the eighties and nineties, that commercial banks and investment banks were pushing for deregulation of the finance industry. They wanted the right to merge their operations, and expand into those areas that current laws prohibited.

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 came into existence as a result of the Great Depression, and imposed laws that kept commercial banks separate from investment banks. This act was designed to control speculation and avoid moral hazard. It was designed to keep an entity from being able to both grant credit and use credit; otherwise, banks could basically create and lend money to themselves for the purpose of speculation. It was designed to prevent another Great Depression, and it had.

Banks began lobbying to repeal this Act in the eighties, and the movement gathered steam going through the nineties. It was in 1999 that the critical decision was made to repeal Glass-Steagall. It was this decision that exposed the underpinnings of the global financial system to the rapacious corruption that ultimately led to The Great Collapse.

On November 12, 1999 President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Glass-Steagall and allowed commercial banks to operate investment divisions, and vice versa. This act gave birth to the exponential credit expansion of the early 2000’s. This was the first necessary ingredient in the recipe for disaster.

It was during the 2000-2002 recession that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan, lowered interest rates in an effort to provide a boost to the economy. And it did, as it opened the valve on the real estate bubble that would inflate for the next five years. This was the second necessary ingredient.

With the repeal of Glass-Steagall and a loose monetary policy by The Fed, large banks such as Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, and Bank of America were now inventing new investment vehicles; creating exotic, complex securities - known as derivatives - that were sold mostly to institutional investors such as pension funds and mutual funds that were attracted by the strong returns promised by the banks. These investors were the teachers’ union pension funds, and the firefighters and police and autoworkers’ pension funds, and government employee pension funds, and the managers of corporate 401K plans.

This is where cause and effect begin to blur. Beginning in 2001, thanks to the easy money policy of The Fed, low interest rate mortgages were stimulating housing demand, and also creating a market for mortgage refinances. The mortgage industry was booming, aided by an easy market in which to fund these mortgages: the Big Banks. The banks bought these mortgages, pooled them and divided them into risk tranches, based on the credit-worthiness of the mortgages in the tranches. This process was known as “securitization”. They then packaged and sold these securities, known as Mortgage Backed Securities, or MBS, to the large investors (pension funds).

Because the managers of these pension funds had a fiduciary duty to buy only the highest quality securities, it was necessary for the banks to have these securities rated AAA by the rating agencies such as S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch’s. It is difficult to say with any certainty whether the analysts in the rating houses were corrupt, stupid, or both, but it is plain to see that they applied AAA ratings to securities that were clearly higher risk than what was specified by the rating criteria. This was the third ingredient in the recipe for disaster.

Now, with the path cleared for the pension fund managers to buy these AAA rated securities that promised 8% or greater returns, demand for these securities soared. The banks had a seemingly insatiable market for MBS. This gave birth to the massive sub-prime mortgage industry, as the banks created new types of loans that were marketed to people with worse and worse credit. The prime mortgage market was mature, but the subprime market had yet to be truly exploited, so the banks went after subprime borrowers with frenetic gusto. Banks were so anxious to create more mortgages that by 2005, a person with a 600 FICO score could buy a home with no money down and without having to prove they even had a job. Yet somehow the securities derived from these questionable mortgage pools were still rated AAA.

As mortgages became easier to obtain, and interest rates continued to fall, demand for houses skyrocketed and drove real estate prices into a mode of nearly exponential appreciation. From 2001 through 2006, real estate prices in many markets doubled every two years. In nearly all significant markets, property values appreciated a minimum of 75% in those years. This was the fourth, and most visible, ingredient in the recipe.

As property values appreciated exponentially, homeowners felt wealthy again. A home for which someone paid $150,000 in 2001 was worth $225,000 in 2004, and $350,000 in 2006. With all this equity, people could refinance at a lower rate, take out some cash with which to remodel their kitchen or buy a new SUV, and not see much of an increase in their mortgage payment. This felt like real wealth.

The construction industry boomed as developers built new neighborhoods as fast as they could buy up the land. Carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, landscapers, all were thriving, and they were buying houses, too. The construction industry, both residential and commercial, provided a feedback loop and helped fuel the bubble.

And people speculated. People who had never built a house before were getting into the homebuilding business, buying lots and building spec houses, turning them and starting two more.

Another cottage industry that emerged was the House Flipping business. People who had never speculated in real estate before could get loans to buy second houses based on the equity they had in their primary residence. They bought homes, did a little landscaping and applied new designer paint, installed wood floors, and three months later sold the homes for 25% more than they invested. Then they did it again, and again. Many people generated substantial “wealth” in this manner.

Banks were now offering Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs) to those homeowners with equity, which was just about anyone who owned a home for more than a week. This helped fuel a home remodeling frenzy as everyone now had to have wood floors, granite counter tops, and stainless steel appliances. But the difference with these loans was that the banks kept most of these loans on their books, rather than packaging and selling them. This would prove to be critical.

All of this development activity spawned new businesses to cater to the new neighborhoods. Grocery stores, dry cleaners, hair and nail salons, restaurants, gyms, flooring stores, landscape businesses, nurseries, and gas stations all sprang up around the new residential developments. Banks were handing out commercial loans with the same gusto as residential mortgages, and they packaged these loans into securities and sold them also.

Most big cities experienced expanding suburban sprawl. Counties and municipalities had to build new roads and new schools, new water treatment facilities and additional capacity on the power grid, but as property values increased, so did tax revenues, so these governments spent freely. They also sold bonds to raise money for their growing infrastructure needs, and as their coffers grew, so did their budgets, but this was no concern, as property values continued to rise. This was yet another ingredient in the catastrophic recipe.

But how could all of this be bad? From the outside looking in, America was thriving. Everyone had iPhones and flat screen TVs and shiny cars. If all of the previously stated ingredients looked good on the outside, how could they become so harmful when mixed together? How could this lead to The Great Collapse? An examination of the psyche of the American public will offer some insight.

Part IV will continue the construction of the historical perspective.

Looking Back At America - Part II

2011-01-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

This is Part II in the Looking Back At America series, which presents the perspective of what today's America might look like to historians 100 years in the future. This series of articles is most easily understood by starting with the first installment.

In the early 1980’s, as the Greatest Generation reached retirement age and the Baby Boomers grew into their prime earning years, America and many of the world’s most advanced societies began an ascent that can only be described as fantastic.

Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States and the country was on a course of increasing prosperity. America had just weathered more than a decade of hard times, but patriotism was enjoying a revival. The sixties and seventies had been challenging times, economically and politically, but by the early eighties the country was on the mend and people were optimistic about the future. Ronald Reagan was a strong, charismatic leader, the economy was growing, and Americans were feeling good about America.

The U.S. economy was the engine that drove production and growth throughout much of the rest of the world. The economy was fueled by the American consumer and as the U.S. emerged from the doldrums of the seventies, Americans had more disposable income and were willing to spend it. Credit cards also were becoming a staple in the wallet of the consumer, and it was becoming easier to spend money one had not yet earned. But, the economy was surging and all prospects looked good, so there was little concern with debt.

The American middle-class was a powerful force and comprised about sixty percent of the U.S. population. Middle-class Americans generally lived in a house; had a color television set; a phone; a car, maybe two; a grill in the backyard and a basketball goal in the driveway. Middle-class Americans worked hard, but they also enjoyed their recreation. They played bridge, and bowled, and played golf, and the kids played baseball and football and cheered and danced and took piano lessons. They had block parties and cookouts, cut the grass, raked the leaves, and generally treated their neighbors with respect. People, for the most part, were happy and felt positive about their prospects. Life was good and getting better. The collective social mood was on the rise.

Americans were productive, hard-working people and enjoyed an increasingly comfortable quality of life. And they were proud of it. America was the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Many people in the world believed America was the Promised Land, and immigrated to America in search of the American Dream, or for the more practical reason, to escape oppression. Yet to others, America and Americans were to be despised; they were thought of as arrogant and crude, a society of belligerent bullies.

No matter how the rest of the world thought of America, if you were American, you were proud of it. From a global perspective, Americans were the kids at the cool table in the high school cafeteria.

American innovation was carving a path toward the information age, and the U.S. military was the mightiest, most technologically advanced fighting force in the world. America dominated the air and sea, yet frequently found itself in ground wars it could not win. America tried to force her will upon certain regions where it would be advantageous to have an ally in power, but found that she could not win the war short of a pyrrhic victory. In Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the U.S. fought to a draw in wars that drained its coffers and produced no strategic advantage.

The American economy and indeed the global economy were dependent on oil. The countries of the Middle East supplied most of the world’s oil, and this was a region consumed with religious and tribal conflicts; highly unstable and unpredictable. America was the world’s largest consumer of petroleum, and the lion’s share of America’s petroleum was imported from countries in the Middle East. For that reason, America tried to impose her will on this region, supporting certain nations, like Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, while being at odds with others, such as Iran and Iraq. American leaders spoke of peace in the region but often supplied the instruments for war, if not the armies. America wanted peace, but she wanted it her way.

In the early nineties the personal computer and the cell phone exploded onto the scene. Advances in transistor technology and miniaturization allowed for the proliferation of the cell phone and laptop computers as they shrank in size and grew in power. It was during this decade that personal computers became ubiquitous in homes and offices, and virtually everyone had a cell phone.

The mid-nineties brought the proliferation of the internet and the World Wide Web, and spawned the Information Age, where with a few taps on the keyboard and clicks of a mouse, people could access just about any kind of information and it would be delivered right to their desktop. The birth of the World Wide Web gave rise to a global industry that impacted every nook and cranny of society, from business to military to government to consumer.

As America approached the new millennium, the sky, it seemed, was the limit.

Part III continues the construction of the historic perspective.

Looking Back At America - A Hundred Years From Now

2011-01-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

Historic times, these days. Epic times. Looking back, a hundred years from now, people are going to say, “Why didn’t they see it coming?”

Eighty years ago we had The Great Depression. Eighty years from now, the times in which we currently live might be called The Great Collapse. Just as with The Great Depression, future economists and other self-proclaimed experts will disagree as to the exact cause of The Great Collapse, but there will be no question that We The People fell asleep at the wheel, allowed the banking cartels to take control of the government and the economy, and waited until it was too late to take the painful but necessary actions to save the country from the greatest financial, economic, and social catastrophe the world has ever seen.

History will view the generation currently in power as the generation that ran America off a cliff. This generation is commonly referred to as the Baby Boomers. History will not treat this generation kindly, nor should it, because this generation, when the chips were down, didn’t have the balls to make the difficult decisions that were needed to save the country from disaster. Indeed, they created the policies that allowed for the unprecedented explosion in the credit markets, and when confronted with the pernicious consequences of their policies, failed to take corrective action. For this reason, history will view this generation as an epic failure.

But to blame one generation is not accurate, because it’s not that simple. No, it was actually a blend of multiple generations that created the circumstances leading to The Great Collapse. The Centennials (the generation coming of age at the turn of the Twentieth Century) and the Greatest Generation laid the groundwork and built the foundation, and the Baby Boomers and Generation X were more than happy to raise the walls and hoist the rafters. The people born between 1875-1975, give or take a few years, are the people who created the system, perpetuated it, abused it and finally broke it. But it is the Baby Boomers who are at the wheel at this critical time in history.

Some will assert that it was the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in 1913 that set in motion the events that would eventually lead to the collapse. This is true, but the collapse wasn’t imminent at the moment the Fed was created; decisions made later charted the disastrous course (though these decisions were only made possible by the existence of the Fed).

And it is in 2011 that the last opportunities to steer away from the cliff are being ignored. Difficult choices are being avoided. The American Empire is straining under the burden of unsustainable debt, while We The People sit idly by, occupied with iPhones and FaceBook, where we tell anyone who cares to listen what we are having for dinner, or that we joined a karate class, or that the baby just crapped its diaper.

The Baby Boomers will be blamed because they are holding the wheel as the country goes over the cliff. They are the ones in the leadership positions, ignoring reality in favor of greed-fueled schemes, while the general population is too enraptured by the illusion of prosperity to actually look at what is happening. As blatant as our leaders’ incompetence and greed will look to us in a few years, it is the American population, We the People, who have allowed ourselves to be distracted, marginalized, and defrauded.

And while history will judge us harshly for our greed, corruption, and neglect, this is not the entire picture. It would be unfair to ignore the accomplishments of these generations, for we have also overseen the greatest advances in technology, science, and medicine since the beginning of human history. We built a quality of life unmatched by any other society in history. These achievements provide the contrast, and the irony, for our greatest failures.

So what happened?

Let’s take a look at what our society might look like when viewed from the historical perspective of a hundred years in the future. In an attempt to simplify an immensely complex situation, a macro view will be presented, with a focus on the terminal economic, financial, and political conditions that led to The Great Collapse.

Part II begins the construction of the historic persperctive.

Rant

2010-09-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

I'm frustrated. My friends and family, for the most part, do not share my view of what is happening to our country. Sure, they're upset about the economy and many of them feel that Hopey the Clown is running some BS about an economic recovery; they're not blind, they can see that things are not getting better. But they don't truly see the danger.

My view is that we are now at the brink of a catastrophic collapse. An economic catastrophe of epic proportions. And no, I don't blame Hopey for all of it. This is a situation that has been building for more than two decades. Our current lifestyles have been built on policies of credit expansion which have led to an environment of false prosperity. We were headed for a cliff before Hopey took office, but his policies, along with Bernanke and The Fed, have guaranteed that we're going to drive off the cliff in spectacular fashion.

People talk of bubbles. There was the tech bubble of the late 90's and the real estate bubble of the 2000's. These bubbles were the manifestation of credit expansion policies; credit expansion was the air that blew up the bubbles. We've now reached the point of credit saturation (QE is the proof of that, though it will prove to be a futile attempt to let the air out slowly), and once the saturation point is reached, a contraction must follow. Credit contraction has another name, it's called "Deflation". Deflation and depression go hand in hand.

My view is that we have not had a recovery at all, but a delay of the inevitable. Yes, the stock market rallied from the lows of March 2009, but this was a correction of the initial decline, which was only a partial decline: the first wave down of the depression, which is occuring in a stair-step down fashion. Until we reach the recognition point, at which time things will accelerate downward at a pace that will shock everyone, hope will still surface and try to breathe. It's happening now.

If one looks at the mathematics of the debt, GDP, the housing market and the position of the banks in both commercial and residential real estate, there is no other conclusion one can reach about the outcome. The Fed can claim to have tools and weapons to combat deflation, but all they are doing is delaying the inevitable, and compounding the ultimate damage.

I'm frustrated because I have friends and family with a lot to lose, and when I talk to them about the situation, their eyes glaze over. Sure things are bad, they say, but the elections are coming up and we'll get this spending under control and we'll bounce back. They refuse to look at the underlying fundamentals. They have hope that things won't get that bad, and if they do, the .gov will somehow save us.

Hope is good in most cases. Hope can sustain you through tough times. But when hope turns into denial it can be devastating. Recently I was playing golf with a good friend, a very successful entreprenuer who has built up some sizeable wealth. I told him I think the lows of 2009 will be breached on the way to a much lower bottom. "Damn, I lost my ass in that last decline. I've gotten a lot of it back now, but damn, I hope you're wrong."

Hope is not a strategy, my friend.

Hope does not die easily, nor should it, but hope is treading dangerously close to denial. People have already forgotten the fear and confusion they felt in 2008, the near panic that rippled through the country and the world. Hope bounces back.

I've tried to help my friends and family see the big picture, but I've noticed that people walk away when I start talking about my view of the future, so I choose my moments with discretion.

And I'm not without hope myself. I have hope for a better future after we hit the bottom and rebuild. I think we'll be stronger for it, those of us who make it through to the end. I think manufacturing will come back to the US, we'll come up with new innovations that will be better for the population and the planet, we'll be leaner but hopefully smarter. Unfortunately, we have to hit bottom before we rebuild. The credit contraction must happen; the bad debt must be purged from the system before true capital formation can occur. It will be painful, and we cannot avoid it, but let's try to minimize the pain with intelligent monetary and economic policies.

I'm not going to beat my head on the wall any longer, but I'll still share my views when asked. And I'm sure that once the inevitable occurs, I'll have friends and family asking plenty of questions.

Sarah Palin for President?

2010-02-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

Why is this even a topic of conversation? Is there really a percentage of the population that think this is a good idea? Hopefully - please God - it is a very tiny percentage, because just the fact that she is even mentioned as a potential candidate sends me into a swirling vortex of disbelief and anger.

Folks, she is a BIMBO! The Palmgate thing is just the most recent evidence, but don't let it overshadow her previous displays of ignorance. Anyone remember the Katie Couric interview? I thought so.

This is the same Sarah Palin that was elected by the PEOPLE OF ALASKA (How? I have no idea) to be the CEO of their state, and she walked away from the job when the going got a little bit tough. Or maybe it was because she was tired of running a state and had higher aspirations and thought that her job as governor might interfere with her plans to run for president. I don't know what her motivation was, all I know is she fucking QUIT.

There should be a law that says if you quit the post you campaigned for and to which you were elected, you can't run for public office again for anything, ever. End of story.

If it's not a law, it should at least be common sense to the voters that you don't elect a fucking quitter to a higher office. I mean, come on. Does this need to be explained? I saw a lady on TV recently - something Geller, I think her name was (I was in too much disbelief to remember her first name, dammit) - saying that Palin quit because the "Lower 48" needed her. Are you fucking serious?

And she was telling Ron Reagan (yes, son of the former Prez) that his father would have liked Palin. Ron, Jr. was like, you've lost your mind, he wouldn't be able to tolerate her. And Geller (who never met President Reagan, by the way) argued that yes he would too like her. It was one of the most assinine displays of ignorance I've ever seen. This lady was so unaware of her own ignorance that she was impossible to shut up and was flat out rude to the other people on the panel. I cry for our country when I see things like this.

Message to Sarah Palin:

Please, just go back to your good ol' home state of Alaska, go back to bein' a hockey mom and droppin' your "g's" at the PTA meetin's and talkin' all folksy and cutesy pie, and just drop off the radar. Please. This country is in bad shape and all you're doing is throwing gravel into the cogs. I was interested in hearing what the Tea Party had to say. I wanted to find out where this fledgling political party stands on the vital issues facing our country, but was so disappointed that you were chosen to be the featured spokesperson that I really can't take the Tea Party seriously anymore. You, however, didn't fail to disappoint, you played the clueless bimbo to perfection.

Ron Paul, anyone? The Libertarian Party is looking pretty good right now.

A Few Good Men (and Women)

2010-01-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

I'm normally a pretty optimistic guy. I can usually be found looking on the bright side, hoping for and expecting the best. I believe in the good of mankind. I've always looked for the best in people, and I have a tendency to take them at their word until given a reason to do otherwise.

Not so much anymore.

This isn't about John Edwards specifically; it's more about politicians in general. Edwards' ignominy is just the most recent shining example of the character of our illustrious elected leaders. This is a guy who made a pretty serious run at the most powerful position in the world, and he's a confirmed cheater and an admitted liar. I'm inclined to believe he's also a thief.

I'm fed up with Democrats and Republicans alike. If the current roster of Senators and Congresspeople are a sample of the best people that America has to offer, we're all doomed.

The lies are so blantant, and told with a smile and a gleam in the eye of the teller. And it's not just a few of them. Seems like every politician is a liar. I'm sure that's not true (there's my optimism again), but take just a couple of examples.

Bammy (my sobriquet for President Obama) runs on a platform of "Change We Can Believe In", and gets elected. Most Americans recognize the need for change, and we put our money where our mouth is and elected the first black president in American history. During his campaign, Bammy promised the American people that his administration would be different, no more Washington insider bullshit. He promised that no lobbyists would be appointed to his administration. Then, it seemed like everyone he tried to appoint to his staff were not only lobbyists, but HAD NOT PAID THEIR FUCKING TAXES! Tom Daschle, anyone? Not a lobbyist? Uh, okay. Also, he owed $140,000 in back taxes and interest. A fine upstanding citizen. Timothy Geithner, Bammy's pick for Treasury Secretary, owed $34,000 in back taxes and $8,000 in interest! Really? What a surprise.

Way to live up to your word, Bammy.

And how about that Sarah Palin? What a fine character she is. Gets elected Governor of Alaska, and is subsequently chosen by John McCain to be his running mate as Vice President. She comes on strong, gets the Republican Party fired up with her sexy mouth and well-toned legs, and promptly shows her ignorance on national TV during the infamous Katie Couric interview. She's completely clueless about world affairs. She comes across like a total bimbo. My heart was broken, and I began to question McCain's judgement. Then, after they lost the election, Palin fucking QUITS her job as Governor! Really, Sarah? And now people are talking about her potentially running for President? God save us all.

"The only thing required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

This quote has been attributed to several different people over the years but no one knows for sure who originated it. Doesn't matter. It's the truth.

What Comes Around

2009-08-16T06:54:00.001-07:00

From the karma department:

It's funny how it happens sometimes. Little karma events that might go unnoticed if you aren't paying attention. I've seen it happen on a larger scale, but those usually aren't quite as funny as the smaller ones.

The first time I really noticed the reciprocal nature of things, I was about fifteen. I was playing in a Pony League baseball game and a guy on my team hit a fly ball to right field. The right fielder tentatively tracked the pop up, moved around a little as he waited, had his glove up, and the ball came straight down on his head. I laughed out loud. We slapped palms in the dugout, and generally made a ruckus that made the poor right fielder feel pretty bad.

Two innings later when we were in the field, I was playing shortstop. The rightfielder was up at the plate. Dude hit a hard grounder at me and as I went down for it, the ball hit a pebble, took a funny hop, and hit me right between the eyes. As I lay on my back looking up at the sky, seeing stars, the thought popped into my head, "That'll teach you."

Last weekend I was at a party at my friends' house, Gary and Missy. They have a great set-up in their backyard, with a pool and a tiki bar, horse shoes off to the side. We play a lot of water volleyball in the pool. It's usually coed, and sometimes it can get pretty competitive. We were playing five on five in a close game and my team was serving. I was on the front line, the guy serving was right behind me. He hit a line drive serve, missed it I should say, because instead of going over the net it hit me right on the side of the face. Stung like a sumbitch, too.

Well, everyone got a laugh out of it, and the guy who hit it convinced me that it was truly an accident, so it didn't turn into an ass whipping. As everyone was laughing I noticed that one friend, Tara, playing on the other team, was laughing a little too hard for my taste. She was taking a little too much pleasure in my misfortune. I didn't say anything, but I did make note of it.

Later in the game, a ball went up near the net and my boy Skinny went up for a spike. He nailed it hard to the side, but it hit the side wall of the pool and ricocheted directly into, you guessed it, Tara's face. It didn't hurt her bad, but I know it stung like hell. I didn't laugh out loud, but I gotta admit, I was laughing pretty hard on the inside. I was thinking, "That'll teach you". I wonder if she made the connection to her earlier laughter. Probably not, and therefore she didn't understand the significance of this karmic event. The lesson was not lost on me, however.

The lesson is: don't get too cocky because it's never inconvenient for God to bitch slap your ass back to a more humble state of mind.

Hitting Bottom

2009-08-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a recovering alcoholic. I don't thump my chest about it, nor am I ashamed of it. It is what it is, part of who and what I am today. So I went to an AA meeting tonight (People ask me, "You've been sober for a while and you still have to go to those meetings?" Makes me laugh, I go because I want to. You can't beat an AA meeting for pure entertainment value.) and the topic of the meeting tonight was hitting bottom.

This young fellow, a newcomer, attending the meetings in an attempt to build goodwill with the judge before his DUI trial, raised his hand and asked a question. "What is a bottom, really? I mean, I kinda know what you're talking about, but how do you know when you've hit bottom?"

This old tattooed biker dude named Jim, big guy with a silver ponytail and wire-frame glasses, raised his hand to reply. Jim's voice sounded like gravel churning in a deep well. He said, "You know you've hit bottom when the bad shit is coming at you faster than you can lower your standards."

I found that simple explanation to be very profound. A slice of wisdom based on experience that I can relate to. I hit many bottoms, but I always managed to lower my standards further.

I was what you call your "low-bottom drunk".

Thank God for friends and family, or I would not be here to share these insights with the hapless reader who stumbles upon this blog. By the grace of the Spirit I've been sober over 6 years now, and I have a great life. I'm not saying I'm a choir boy, but I haven't had an alcoholic beverage of any kind.

But that's not the point. I'm getting there, though. So, I was thinking about what Jim said, and how I always managed to lower my standards. No matter how bad it got, I could rationalize it into being not all that bad. I was kind of zoning on this and I noticed a guy in the meeting who looked like Harold Ramis, which made me think of the movie Stripes, which made me think of Bill Murray's "Big Toe" monologue, which made me think of my own big toes.

During a couple of very drunken episodes, I managed to break both of my big toes. Not at the same time; separate occasions, separate toes. One episode I remember - a Panama City trip. Need I say more? The other episode I was in a blackout. On both occasions, I didn't just break my toe, I mangled it. My right toe I broke and jammed at the same time, and split the tip of it wide open. Very nasty. The other one, it looked like I dropped an anvil on it, and none of the other toes were damaged in the slightest. No idea what happened, just woke up the next morning and cried like a little girl when I rolled out of bed and tried to stumble to the bathroom.

Thinking of the damage to my toes got me to thinking about all the other damage I did to myself and others when I was drinking. I abused myself pretty severely, and in the process, hurt the people around me. I've done my best to make amends to those I harmed, though not everyone has been crossed off the list. I'm working on it, though.

This time last summer, I was doing my best to make amends to my father. I'd made verbal amends long ago, and he'd forgiven me, as he always forgave my transgressions. But this was real. I was making a living amends to him, by taking care of him as his health failed, doing my best to be a good son. I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to do this, and that I followed through and did my best for him. This probably isn't a big deal for most people, but it was a big deal for me. It was growth. I sit here today and think about what a blessing it was to have that time with him, and I'm grateful. I'm grateful to him for everything he did for me.

So, to get back to the point of hitting bottom. It doesn't matter how far down you go. Everyone stumbles in life, everyone falls. Some fall further than others. What matters, really, is how you bounce. You can use the bottom to launch. Find your Spirit and launch. It's inside everyone, this Spirit, and if you look inside and find it, amazing things can happen.

I'm proof. I'm a walking miracle. Bounce, man.

A Key Insight

2009-07-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a few posts back that for several months I've been doing some research on the stock market and stumbled upon the Elliott Wave Institute website. I read up on The Elliott Wave Principle, the underlying theory behind the science of Socionomics.

In short, the Elliott Wave Prinicple proposes that mankind is born with an internal mechanism the governs a collective social mood. This social mood moves in a repeating pattern and has a dynamic form that is self-similar from small to large degrees in what is called a robust fractal. So, at any given time, collectively, we are at some degree of hope or pessimism. The stock markets are the most immediate reflection of our collective social mood. Rising hope is reflected in a bull market. Increasing pessimism is reflected in a bear market. The Elliott Wave is reflected in similar form in an hourly chart, a weekly chart, monthly, on up to the scale covering the centuries that data is available, and the form repeats itself.

Socionomics studies all of the social implications of the wave theory. According to the premise, the Elliott Wave governs social, political, economic, and cultural trends. If this is true, isn't this a HUGE insight? If you know where you are on the wave, at all of the various degrees, you could predict with some reliable degree of probability where things are going, couldn't you? Robert Prechter, father of the science of Socionomics says, yes, absolutely.

I find this proposal fascinating. If we, society in general, are all moving in a similar direction and you understand the direction, it has tremendous implications for not only investing but also business forecasting and predicting trends in fashion and entertainment, not to mention having a deeper understanding of current social events.

Prechter and his followers say that entertainment trends are easily predictable. In a bull market, Disney movies, romantic comedies, and other light-hearted themes are popular. In a bear market, horror and monster movies ride the tops of the charts. Notice the popularity of vampires in the last few years? We've been in a large degree bear market since 2000. Prechter also predicted in his 2002 book Conquer the Crash, that newer, more brutal sports would become popular. Notice the UFC craze in the last few years?

What this means, if true, is that we (globally) are on the cusp of the biggest crash in about 300 years. That's what the Elliott Wave Prinicple shows on the charts. Big time, scary stuff.

Do I believe it? Yeah, I guess I do. I'm fairly educated. I've taken numerous classes in economics in business school and I think I have a pretty solid grasp of the fundamentals of modern economic theory. The funny thing is, economists' forecasts hardly ever agree with each other, and when a majority of them agree, they are invariably wrong. Ask twenty economists what caused the Great Depression and you'll get 20 different answers. And this 80 years after the fact. If they can't explain what already happened, how can they possibly hope to predict what is going to happen? The Elliott Wave Prinicple, from what I've learned in my studies, has a very good track record of forecasting the big trends, and with some degree of reliability, the smaller ones.

It's a difficult concept to grasp, this theory, because it proposes that our mood isn't affected by social events, but rather, social events are affected by our mood. It basically turns conventional wisdom inside out.

Gangsta rap doesn't make kids want to kill cops, they already want to kill them; the music is just an expression of their mood. Sure, you might have a few isolated incidents where a kid got inspired by a song, but I'm inclined to believe he was already leaning that way.

What about how the stock market jumps up and down on Fed announcements and earnings reports and so forth? Well, if you look at the charts, there might be a short term spike or drop, but the overall trend quickly kicks back in to correct it.

The implications of this theory are far reaching. I've only scratched the surface here, but my imagination can get carried away pretty easily as I observe what's going on around me from a socionomic perspective.

It's a powerful insight. It explains a lot about what's going on right now, and I do believe we are in a historic time, where big changes lie ahead. I don't know what things are going to look like in five years, but I do believe they are going to look much different. And, according to the wave theory, we should be coming out of this downturn in 3-5 years, for a decade or two, anyway.

So, what does all this mean? Well, for starters, despite what you hear a lot of people say, now is not a great time to buy real estate or make any long term investments in the stock market. Wait a few years and take another look.

Free advice, that last part. Other than that, I highly recommend going to the Elliott Wave Institute website and checking it out. If the theory is wrong and I'm completely fooled, I'll have a good laugh about it down the road.

Same Old Story

2009-02-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

It just keeps getting better, doesn't it? Banks buying jets with the bailout money. Wall Street brokerage houses paying out billions in bonuses while their customers wonder how they're ever going to retire with what's left of their investment portfolio. Governors selling Senate seats to the highest bidder.

And now the leaders we've elected can't seem to find anyone to help them run the country, because none of the people they want to appoint have paid their fucking taxes. Our elected leaders go on a rampage about how irresponsible the Wall Street millionaires are, meanwhile all their friends are holding out on Uncle Sam.

Give. Me. A. Break.

Aren't there any good guys left? Isn't there anyone who knows how to do the right thing? You know, just normal everyday things, like not humping your intern and paying your fucking taxes. Isn't there anyone we can look to and see hope?

Take the bible thumpers out. Liars and hypocrites. Don't look to the corporate executive ranks, they're thieves and cheaters. Athletes? Thugs and wannabes. The Arts? Come on.

I don't care if someone smoked a joint at some point in their life. In fact, it's probably better if they have. But show me some common sense, huh? If you're a politician, you live in a high profile world. Take care of your business, okay? Do the right thing and pay your taxes.

Okay, that's enough. I need to watch a funny movie or something. Reality pisses me off.

Life Lessons

2009-01-08T07:17:00.000-08:00

The holidays were different for me this year. It was the first holiday season sans both parents. I felt a bit like an orphan.

It was my mother's wish that we spread their ashes on St. Simon's Island, where they spent their most enjoyable years. My sister and I rented a big beach house, and she came down with her family and I went up solo, as I'm not married and don't have any kids. We did the deal on Christmas day, and it was a special time, and I kind of felt like it was my mom pulling us together as a family. It was a very smooth thing, nothing at all like Lonesome Dove, when Tommy Lee Jones had to carry Robert Duvall's body back to Texas and it like to killed him. No, this was an enjoyable task and gave us a great opportunity to celebrate their lives and include them in our Christmas.

I'm getting to the life lessons now, I had to set the scene first.

My sister has two daughters from her first marriage and my brother-in-law has a daughter and son from his first marriage. They have no children together. So, I have three nieces and one nephew, and I love them all.

The girls are pretty easy to get along with, but the nephew is 14, about to be 15, and he's pretty full of himself. He wants to be like his daddy so bad, it just can't happen fast enough. That's not a bad thing, his daddy is a good man, but the boy ain't there yet. In the last year he's grown about 6 inches, and now he's 6' and several inches taller than me. He's going to be a big dude, he's not done growing by a long shot. But regardless of how big he gets, I still have to keep him in line. As the Cool Uncle, it's my job.

So during the holidays we were all hanging out in the beach house. The kitchen and the family room were basically one large room, with one wall nothing but floor to ceiling glass, looking out at the ocean. Very cool.

I start joking around with my sister's oldest daugther, Hayley, about one of her friends. Now, I'm twenty years older than Hayley and her buddies, but they're in their early twenties and full grown. I mention to her that maybe her friend Sarah is in the market for a sugar daddy, and I'd be happy to volunteer for the job. I said, tell her I almost meet the age requirement, and as far as the money, I'm still working on it. But we can go ahead and get a head start, if she wants.

Everybody laughed and my sister got a little tweaked. She looked at me like I'm a pervert, and said I'm not old enough to be a sugar daddy and don't have the money anyway, and I said hell yeah I am and don't sweat the dough, we'll manage. Joe, my bro-in-law, jumps in on my side, and the banter went on for a couple of minutes and it was over with a few laughs.

Later that night after dinner my nephew made some comment, I don't remember exactly, and I said something back and then he said, "Come on, old man."

"Who you calling old man, punk?" I said.

"I'm calling you old man. You said so yourself," he said, smirking a little.

Whoa. My sister looked at me, sort of grinning. Joe was looking at the TV, I don't know if he heard or not, but he was smiling about something.

I looked at the boy and shook my head. "Jared," I said, "walk with me."

I put my arm around his shoulders - I had to reach up a little - and led him out to the deck.

He tensed up, like he knew something was coming but not sure what.

"Jared, that was a dick move, just now. You know it in your heart, but you don't know why, exactly. I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to do you a favor and drop a little adult wisdom on your verdant punk ass."

We were leaning on the railing, the light from inside falling on the dunes and the beach beyond. We couldn't see the waves but we could hear the persistent dull crashing. I looked at the boy, who looked a little confused.

"Jared, you want to be liked by people, right?" It was a rhetorical question and I didn't wait for an answer. "Of course you do, it's natural. One way to be liked by people is to not be a dick.

"Now, earlier, I kind of made myself the butt of my own joke. That's called self-deprecating humor, and most people find it to be an endearing quality. People generally like other people who don't take themselves too seriously, and don't mind providing laughter at their own expense once in a while. It's a humble gesture, and people generally appreciate humility in others.

"Now, by taking my own humility and turning it against me, you've violated an unspoken law. Only a dick or an asshole does it, see?" I squeezed his shoulder for emphasis, and he grimaced a little, as I squeezed it kind of hard, right up there at the base of the neck.

"Not only that, you were just a witness to the joke, not a participant. That joke was between me and Hayley and Robin and Joe, so that's a second violation, compounding the seriousness of the initial dick move. You still with me?"

He nodded, looking into the darkness, kind of forlorn.

"So, ultimately, if you want to be a smartass, and by the way, don't believe the people who say no one likes a smartass, cause plenty of people love a good a smartass, but if you're going to be a smartass, you have to learn the etiquette, and I've just given you your first lesson. If you don't want people to think you're a dick, don't act like one. You dig?"

He nodded again. "Thanks, Uncle John, you're the coolest. I'll try not to be a dick anymore."

"You're learning, boy. I think you've got a chance."

Principles and Prognosticators

2008-11-30T13:54:00.000-08:00

Tricky times we're living in right now. Uncertainty seems to be the prevailing forecast. Volatility in the financial markets has reached, in recent weeks, record levels. Most of the popular TV pundits don't have a clue what's going to happen next, and opinions range from "we've seen the worst of it and we're turning the corner" to "this is only the beginning of a long, painful shift in the way the world functions" to "prepare for the Apocolypse".

Current events affecting my livelihood, particularly the deteriorating economy and slumping stock market, sparked an interest in doing some research on these subjects, including the history of the markets. This research lead me to the websites of some current market historians, as well as some theorists who also happen to be prognosticators of future market events.

One such group of theorists, followers of the Elliott Wave Principle, I found particularly interesting. The Elliott Wave prinicple provides the foundation for the study of Socionomics.

In a nutshell, the theory proposes that man is born with some endogenous mechanism that dictates the collective social mood, and these moods rise and fall according to a particular pattern (waves), and that these waves have a particular form. They propose that the stock market is the most immediate measure of current social mood, and you can trace the wave patterns in the Dow Jones Industrials, the S&P, the gold markets, etc. All of the markets will follow this form.

R.N. Elliott is credited with forming the primary postulates of this theory. In the 1930's, Elliott discovered that the stock market prices trend and reverse in recognizable patterns. Furthermore, these patterns are fractals (he didn't use the word "fractal", but he proposed the concept). A fractal is, to quote Wikipedia, generally "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,"[1] a property called self-similarity. The term was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured." A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration.

Fractals are the basis for a lot of mathematical mumbo jumbo that I won't go into here, but as it pertains to the stock market, it is significant.

If the theory holds true, it means that you can look at the well-documented history of the stock markets, going back to the 1700's, and trace these patterns right up until today. Which also means you can see what the pattern calls for next.

I don't know about anyone else, but if I know what's going to happen next, I'm in a hell of a lot better position to prepare for it.

But the theory is only a theory, right? I mean, no one can really predict what's going to happen next. No one has a crystal ball.

But these guys have been right about a lot of stuff. I mean, a lot of stuff.

Five years ago, Robert Prechter, the world's leading expert on Elliott Wave theory, made some predictions. Actually, he made 100 predictions, and if these interest you, you can find them on the Elliott Wave Principle website. Here are just a few:

Finance:

Stock markets around the world will continue to fall. Ultimately, the averages will drop more than 90 percent.

Real estate values will fall more than they did in the 1930s and 1940s.

Debt packages made of mortgage-backed bonds, auto loans and credit card debt will become viewed as unworthy investments.

The dollar will lose its place as the world’s reserve currency. Either gold, a currency backed by gold (such as the Islamic dinar), or the Chinese yuan will take its place.

The total amount of credit outstanding worldwide will decline substantially.

The Federal Reserve chairman will be labeled a fool who is greatly responsible for the collapse.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will shut down.

“The rich” will be vilified, and their property will be increasingly taxed and seized.

The Economy:

The trend toward economic contraction that began in 2001 will continue to develop into a depression.

The unemployment rate in the U.S. and in most countries around the world will rise and eventually exceed 25 percent.

A record number of manufacturing companies in the U.S. will fail.

Politics:

The occupation of Iraq by the U.S. will progress from a quagmire to a financial, political and public relations disaster.

The Third World War, which began on 9/11/01, will escalate.

Separatist movements will gain momentum. Many will successfully establish new geopolitical entities.

Fears about technology will lead to restrictions on its development.

Politics will become far more polarized, splintered and radical.

Other Social Trends:

Religion will become increasingly popular. Its advocates will become increasingly passionate. Religious intolerance will increase.

Science will be turned to manipulative or malevolent purposes.

New brutal sports will be introduced and gain popularity.

The U.S. space program will be shut down.

Hemlines will fall, and bright colors will go out of style.

Cults and other escapist communities will be established.

These are just a few of the predictions Prechter made in 2003. Some of them are pretty radical, but many are proving prophetic. It makes for very interesting reading.

The idea of a pre-determined collective social mood seems pretty farfetched on the surface, but if you take a closer look, maybe not so hard to believe.

I'm not saying I buy it without question, but I'm reading a couple of books on the Elliot Wave Principle and paying attention to what's happening.

Maybe I'll make some predictions of my own. I'm a prognosticator in training.

Writing Fiction

2008-10-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

Finally, I'm writing again. I've not written any fiction, or rather, I've not worked on anything serious, in about four months. I've fooled around with some stories, but ever since I decided to shelve the recent WIP, I've been spending a lot of time doing research. The new story has some major plot elements that I knew nothing useful about. I've been researching how our Port Authority works, and I'm starting to look into Asian business culture, particularly South Korea. I don't have to become an expert on these matters, but I have to know enough to write with realistic detail where it's needed for the scenes and to give verisimilitude to the plot.

I've had plenty of time in the last four months to plot and scheme and develop characters. Seven hours of highway time once a week was great for playing around with ideas, working them through, scribbling them onto a notepad as I barreled down the highway at 80 mph.

Now that I'm actually writing, starting out on a new story that will hopefully be around 80K words when finished, it feels like sitting down to dinner with an old friend that you haven't seen in too long.

How you doing, Blank Page? Let's reacquaint ourselves.

I don't know yet if I'm starting at the beginning of the story or not, I'm not worried about that right now. I've got a destination in mind this time, and I'll enjoy the journey. I'm sure it will take me to some unexpected places, and I'm looking forward to it. I love the journey. My last WIP didn't wind up anyplace exciting, but the journey was worthwhile and certainly I developed my skills. Writing in first person POV was an interesting excercise, though I'm writing this one in close third. Third gives the opportunity to develop tension in different ways. I think it will work better for this story. It will have a thriller edge to it, though it's still a quest-type mystery.

I read one of Jason Pinter's novels recently, The Stolen, his third one, I believe. I haven't read the first two, so I don't know if they're written in the same style, but he alternates between first person POV for his MC, and third person for other people. It was effective in that it allowed him to develop tension by letting the reader in on what the other characters were doing while keeping the MC in the dark. I've thought about doing this, but I was afraid it might be viewed by editors as a cheap way to create tension, kind of cheating, in a sense. Shows what I know. Pinter got away with it, so I guess it's a legitimate strategy.

If you want some exciting news, check out Stuart Neville's blog here Conduit. What an exciting adventure Stuart is living right now. It gives hope to all of us.

Changes

2008-10-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post, and many things have changed.

My father passed away two weeks ago.

I'm not going to tell a sad story, and this isn't a tribute post. I said the eulogy and that was hard enough; I'm not up for a tribute at this time. There are better ways to honor him.

In addition to the grief that everyone feels when they lose a loved one, there's also a strange feeling when both parents are gone. Kind of a detached feeling, like the last thread to your childhood is finally severed. I mean, I've been an adult for at least five or six years now, but when my parents were alive, I was still someone's kid. And there was some security in that. But now, the last vestige of that childhood security is vanished and it feels weird.

I have some big decisions to make. Normally, when I make big decisions I consult my father. I didn't always heed his advice. In fact, many times I didn't. Funny thing though; the older I grew, the more often I found myself agreeing with him. But, either way, I asked and listened to what he said. Now, that voice, the voice that was usually right whether I wanted it to be or not, is no longer audible. I have to seek to hear it in other ways.

And I think I do hear his voice. Not, like, in a crazy way. But for instance, tonight I was thinking about a situation I'm dealing with and some decisions I need to make, and I've been working through this for a week or so. Out of the blue, an idea popped into my head. Do it this way.

It was a different angle, perfectly feasible, and relatively simple. I liked it. And then I thought about what my dad would say if I presented the idea to him. He'd probably say, "Why didn't you see that angle from the git go?"

I could hear him say it.

So, I'll check it out tomorrow, work it through and see if it makes as much sense in the morning as it makes right now.

I guess I'll get used to it, after a while. The detached feeling, that is, not the voices.

So now life goes on and I know how to honor both my parents. One day at a time.

Home

2008-08-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

Home.

Home never felt so good. Eight days away doesn’t seem like much, from a big picture perspective. In the forest of my life, it is but a few leaves. (Sorry, I waxed poetic. It was an accident.) The thing is, the time I spend in north Georgia just doesn’t allow any time to decompress. That’s what makes time drag the way it does.

I get up, wait for my father to get up, and I get him squared away. Coffee, whisky, cigarettes. A glass of Ensure. I go to work, and the job is stressful, by nature. Then I go back to my dad’s house and hang with him. It is hard to see him in this condition. It takes an emotional toll.

Toward the end of the week, I found myself getting cranky, and snappy with people. I managed to catch myself before I did any damage, but still, having to watch my tongue is tiring in itself.

What made it more stressful than usual this week: there was a friggin typhoon sitting on top of my neighborhood, and all I could do was watch weather.com and try not to lose my mind. Has a tree smashed into my house? They call this place Wonderwood for a reason. The oaks are ancient and massive. And with the Intracoastal only three hundred yards away, I was also sweating a flood. It’s never flooded here in twenty years since the neighborhood was built, but has there ever been this kind of storm just sitting there for three days dumping rain at a rate of three inches an hour during some stretches?

I was getting updates from people here, but it’s different, someone telling you your home is intact, rather than seeing it for yourself. It was additional negative energy, and by Friday, I struggled to keep a foul mood at bay. It took an effort.

I sit here and read this and it sounds like I’m whining. Maybe I am. Hopefully, this will be the extent of my whining. The point is, I’m glad to be home. My bed. My couch. My TV. My remote. My home.

Go For the Gold

2008-08-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

The Olympics are cool.

I know there's been doping and scoring scandals in past Olympics, and the atmosphere reeks of bullshit politics. There's already been one random act of violence - coincidentally, committed upon two fellow citizens of mine. There are overhyped athletes, and the broadcast talent becomes annoying, if it didn't start out that way. I'm aware of the peripheral faults and vagaries, but still, the Olympics are cool.

I get to feeling patriotic, and I want the Americans to win every single contest. USA, baby! Let's beat the Frogs and the Canucks and the Japs. Damn right, win all the gold. Let the rest of 'em fight it out for silver and bronze.

For the most part, I feel that way. I'll admit, I didn't pull for the American skier in the last Winter Olympics, what's his name, Bodie Miller. He was pretty much a jackass, I thought, so I hoped he would lose and then cussed him for losing. The boy had no gratitude and no humility that I could see in the few interview clips I saw of him. I like a little humility in my favorite athletes. Spontaneous celebration with your teammates is cool, but don't overdo it. And don't act like a jackass when you don't win.

I like Michael Phelps, but he's about to get on my nerves this year. His celebrations seem orchestrated, with the removal of the upper half of his swimsuit, the shirt part. His teammates don't strip down when they finish their leg of the relay, why should he? Preparing for the cameras, I do believe. He should know you don't have to be a poser if you're The Man.

But my favorite thing about the Olympics is, they bring back memories from various points in my life. Giving away my age, I was about to turn 10 when Mark Spitz set all the records in Munich. Everyone was talking about it. I remember who I was friends with, who my girlfriend was, what Little League baseball team I played on, and we went to Jekyll Island for summer vacation that year.

Then there was Nadia Comaneci in '76. I thought she was hot, and she was my age. Those muscular legs served as infinite inspiration for a youngster dripping with hormones.

One of my favorite Olympics was in 1984, the Los Angeles Olympics. I was 21 and going into my senior year at Georgia. In other words, I knew everything and I was 10 feet tall and bullet proof.

My father took me on a trip to California and Nevada that August, while the Olypics were going on in El Ay. One night in Carmel, after we'd gone out for a nice steak dinner, we were back in the hotel room chilling out, he with a map spread out on the bed, plotting our travel strategy for the next day. We were headed for Lake Tahoe. Mary Lou Retton was on TV doing her thing, and looking fine doing it. I thought she was the bomb, with that tight little hard body, the perfect teeth and the fire in her eyes. I was plotting my own strategy for ditching my dad, taking the rental car and driving down to El Ay to try to catch her eye.

Right.

So I didn't do that, but we did go to Lake Tahoe the next morning. We spent two days there. I met a lady from Sacremento while playing Black Jack and drinking Wild Turkey. She was 44. We charmed each other and went off to have some privacy and drove her car to a little ramshackle hotel at the end of what was The Strip back in those days. The Playland Motor Inn. I forgot to cash in my chips before we left the casino, but fortunately the sleepy headed manager was cool enough to let me pay him with a casino chip from the High Sierra. Later, when I tried to sneak into the hotel room back at the casino, about 5:00 a.m., my father cracked one eye and said, "You better sleep fast, we're pulling out at 7:00."

I like to go back to those days and relive some of my favorite moments, and the Olympics reminds me to do so. I hope that sometime down the line, I'll look back on these Olympics with some fond memories. There is plenty of negative to be found right now, take your pick. The economy, inflation. Gas prices. The state of the war in Irag, or Afghanistan. I'm sure I'll remember these things and associate them with the 2008 Summer Olympics, but they won't be the things I remember most. This year we've got the new little American gymnast, Shawn Johnson, giving the young boys fits and poised to bring home some serious gold. And I'll remember the time I spent with my father, the girl I'm seeing, who my friends are and what we're doing. Incredibly, I'm still friends with 3 of the guys I was friends with in 1972.

Yeah, the Olympics are cool. Go America.

The Good and The Bad

2008-07-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

I met with Janet Reid on Saturday. Face to face with The Agent. It was... anti-climactic. At first glance.

I was sitting in the reception area after lunch with a few minutes to spare before our meeting, observing the other attendees, absorbing the experience. She came over and asked if I was ready. Sure, ready as I'm gonna be.

We went into a private room with a long table and a sky of natural light. She dropped my pages on the table in front of me and said, "Try not to faint."

I picked them up to take a look. Her blue markings were all over the place. She started talking.

She said my opening sentences were too long. She said start with the second paragraph. She said it needs tightening.

Okay. I can take that.

She pointed out a couple of other problems, such as a lack of a compelling reason for a particular action. Okay, I can see that. Sort of. I thought a reader would take something for granted, but I can see how the action could be given a clear motive. Fair enough.

It seemed to me that she thought she was being more harsh than what I thought she was being. Maybe she's used to wannabe writers who crumble under the critical words of a pro. Maybe she made some early presumptions about me based on meeting me earlier in the day. Maybe I'm dense and couldn't read between the lines. I don't know.

She also said, "You're not a bad writer. No, I take that back. You're a good writer."

Okay, thanks for that.

"You've got all the elements of a good opening." Followed by, "It still needs work."

I put the manuscript down and absorbed the comments, and we talked some more. We talked about writing and writers, and the value of many of the agent and editor blogs. She likes Evil Editor's blog. Who doesn't?

She asked me questions. Where do I live? What do I do for a living? We talked regular people stuff. I shared some personal info, and so did she.

Before I knew it, my thirty minutes were up.

It was upon reflection that I found the real value in the meeting. I took a few days to digest her comments and read her marks and comments on the manuscript.

It does need tightening. How could I have missed the things she pointed out? They seem so obvious to me now.

I played with the first two paragraphs tonight. I shortened the sentences. I moved some things around. What do you know? It's better.

I've also been giving a lot of thought to the story itself. It's no secret to anyone who's read my occassional whinings on here, I've struggled with the outcome. I don't like the plot as it stands. The main character doesn't have enough at stake. He isn't conflicted enough for my liking.

I've decided to start over, and I feel liberated by the decision. I'll keep this story and possibly use some characters and scenes, but I'm making big changes.

The main character is going to be darker, with more inner turmoil. He'll be more tragic. And he'll have personal stakes in the outcome. I thought I could write that subtext into the plot I started with, and maybe I still could, but I'm not sold on the story as the way I'm telling it, so I'm going to create a story I can get my teeth into.

While I noodle the story, I'm researching police and investigative procedures much more deeply than I have to this point. It's fun. Writing cop scenes will be fun.

Back to the conference. A great experience. I met some nice people. I learned a lot.

Shorter sentences. Got it.

New Experience

2008-07-25T18:10:00.001-07:00

Today I attended my first writer's conference, and it was interesting. Lots of wannabes like me, all ages, from 12 to, I'm guessing, about 85. The first event I attended was a panel discussion with agents and editors. Katharine Sands and Janet Reid (agents) and Benjamin LeRoy (editor for Bleak House books). They started out by telling us a little bit about themselves and what they do, and then opened it up to questions.

I kept my mouth shut. As a wise man once said, better to keep my mouth shut and be thought a fool, than open my mouth and prove it. So I just listened.

I thought most of the questions were pretty good, fairly educated questions. I didn't glean a great deal of new information, mostly because I read agent and editor blogs frequently and have seen most of these questions answered in those forums, but it was still interesting to listen to the answers and see the person(s) providing the answers.

Janet Reid is very energetic and witty, and obviously knowledgeable. She's not shy about making her point, but not harsh about it, either.

Katharine Sands comes across as sophisticated and also knowledgeable. Her style is a little more reserved than Janet's, but she gets her point across.

Benjamin LeRoy is younger than I expected and if I were to describe him in one word: serious.

They all share a common trait. They are passionate about their work. It is obvious that they love what they do. They love books and writers, and they love being involved in the process of making a story as good as it can be and getting it into print and making it available to the public.

The next session I attended was a workshop on character development, hosted by Claire Matturro, author of four published novels: Bone Valley, Wildcat Wine, Skinny Dipping, and Sweetheart Deal. She's a very nice lady and a talented writer, and the workshop was interesting and offered some excellent insights on character development.

Overall, it was an interesting day. And tomorrow, I attend another session hosted by Janet Reid called Going Commando. It deals with the question: do you need a literary agent. I'm looking forward to it.

And then tomorrow afternoon I have my manuscript consultation with, you probably guessed it already, Janet Reid. Strangely, I'm not as nervous as I was earlier in the week. I expect some criticism. I can look at the 25 pages I sent in and see where I need to trim some fat. I expect to be told I need to whittle down chapter two, eliminate some redundacy and get rid of some sections of dialogue that can be dealt with later in the story. I'm going in with an open mind, and hopefully I won't get hammered too hard. Whatever happens, it will be an experience I won't forget, I'm sure of that.

More to come...

Friday

2008-07-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

Time is ticking down. Days now, rather than weeks. Soon I'll be counting in hours. Friday I'll be counting in minutes.

The Day is drawing near.

The Day when I meet The Agent.

The potential for an emotional extreme, positive or negative, is off the charts. Which means the stakes are high. Emotional stakes are more pulse pounding than most any other kind.

Personal stakes. Hopes and dreams.

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, but it's true on many levels. I write because I love to write, but like anything else I undertake with some level of fervor, I want to do it well. I'd like to be published, and if some financial success followed, that would be the dream come true. The dream.

But, I don't live in the dream. I live in the hope.

I write, I read, I learn, I practice, and I get better. I do it because I love creating a movie in your head with my words. I love the process of creating characters and settings and scenes. I love the way the plot emerges slowly in my mind as I'm working on the characters, and then when something connects and the epiphany flashes, it's a spiritual experience. I dig it. So I will continue to write, no matter what the outcome of this looming encounter with a being who possesses the power to crush my hope.

I know, dramatic again. All kidding aside, I will be disappointed if I hear, "The writing just isn't there, yet."

I can handle hearing, "It needs some work but it's close." That I can handle without breaking down and crying like a little boy who just dropped his ice cream cone.

I can handle hearing, "It's not for me." Not every story is going to connect with every agent, such is life.

But given the forum for this critique, I think I'll come away knowing if my skills as a wordsmith are approaching a publishable level.

I'm afraid to dwell on the other extreme of the spectrum. The potential fall is too risky. I try to stay right around the middle. Hoping to hear, "This is pretty good. You need to work on..."

Anything better than that is sugar on top. Anything less, well, I'll keep my game face on until I get back to my hotel room, probably call some people and share my disappointment. Try not to cry.

Tick tock tick tock...

Cool Stuff

2008-07-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

That last post was kind of dark, though I didn't mean for it to be. From my perspective, it was kind of a "that's life" train of thought, but the subject matter was melancholy, and I try not to ride that train for long. So I want to share some exciting news.

I mentioned before that I read several agent, editor, and writer's blogs, some more consistently than others. Evil Editor's blog is one I read just about every day, same with Janet Reid, Nathan Bransford, and a few others. I read the blogs of some writers with whom I'm friendly (some damn good friends, too).

A couple of weeks ago I was checking the blog of one of the agents I follow. I was scrolling down, looking at her side bar having read the posts already, and saw that she lists the conferences she'll be attending. I was surprised to see that one of the conferences is only about 90 miles from me. I was immediately intrigued.

I followed the link to the conference website, checked the dates and the sessions in which this agent will be involved. I also read the descriptions of the different workshops being held. One immediately caught my attention. You can submit the first 25 pages of your manuscript to be critiqued by a faculty member of a nearby university, or one of the editors or agents that will be at the conference. That would be cool, to get a professional opinion of the WIP from someone in the publishing profession, and spend 30 minutes getting skewered by them. A face-to-face with someone who can smash my dreams with a pitiful shake of the head, or send me into orbit with an encouraging word.

Unfortunately, the deadline for submitting my work for this particular workshop had passed about five days earlier. No big deal, I would still go to the conference, if for nothing more than to attend the agent's sessions, and maybe try for a chance encounter in the hotel bar and offer to buy her a drink and happen to have several copies of the the first 50 pages nearby, in the event she finds my conversation so enchanting that she asks for some pages. I've heard it can happen at these conferences. It's bad form to ask the agent to read your pages, but you definitely want to have them available if she asks to see them.

So, I called the conference organizer and asked if I could register over the phone. No problem, they take Visa. I tell her I want the half-days for this particular agent's sessions. I tell her that I plan to query this agent when my WIP is complete, and it would be cool to meet her beforehand.

Wonderful, she says. All signed up. Is there anything else?

Well, I said, I wanted to do the manuscript workshop, but the deadline has passed. She says no problem, she hasn't sent the materials off yet. If I can email her the pages that day, she'll still get me in. Cool, excellent, yes sign me up for that. Great, she says. Would you like to do it with (The Agent)?

What?

I can pick?

Hell, yeah, let me do it with her!

So here I am. Registered, paid, and the pages sent.

What the fuck have I done?

I mean, I think the pages are fairly polished, I've been shining them up for a while now, but still. The Agent. Seriously. What the fuck have I done?

This particular agent (I'm not trying to be mysterious, I just don't want to jinx the meeting, not that I'm superstitious or anything) is not known for her gentle handling of us wannabes. At least, not from what I gather reading her blog. She's respectful, but she isn't going to sugarcoat her critique. If you can't handle her opinion, don't ask her for it. Okay, I guess I've asked for it. In a big way. Maybe the drinks should come before the consultation. Lots of them.

It's a strange, pleasant mix of emotions. Excitement blended with apprehension, hope stirred up with dread.

There are many variations of what I might hear from The Agent. Anything from laughter followed by "Oh, you were serious?" to "Send me the full when it's finished."

Realistically, it will probably be somewhere between the two, hopefully toward the "this is pretty good" end of the spectrum.

Whatever happens, I have a feeling it will be an experience I'm not likely to forget. I'm looking forward to it. The ultimate reality check. Pretty cool stuff.

Perspective

2008-07-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

The last four weekends, I've spent one of the weekend days driving 385 miles, north or south. Yesterday I drove home to the beach from north Georgia, where I spent the week with my father. He's not doing well. His health is deteriorating, sometimes it seems daily. He is, for the most part, quickly becoming unable to care for himself. My sister, who lives about 10 miles from him, and I are doing the best we can to make him as comfortable as possible. So the last three weeks I've been alternating between Jacksonville, FL and north GA. It's about 7 hours by car, the way I drive, which is at a pretty comfortable pace, not reckless but not lollygaggin, either. I do have to make quite a few stops, as I drink coffee and water the whole way. But that's not the point. The point is, I've been spending about 7 hours in the car each weekend, which allows a lot of time to think.

It gives me time to work on the plot lines for the WIP, which seems to be coming together, if I can ever find time to write out the ideas I've been jotting down while trying to keep the truck between the lines at 75 mph. The background conflict in the main character was eluding me, that deep-seeded motivation that drives his life choices. I managed to find it during the hours on the road. Hallelujah.

The other thing I think about during those hours is my dad. The man who raised me and taught me what it means to be a man is slowly fading away. He's 76 and he's led a good life, and he is a good man. He had a successful career, not without some bumps, but very successful overall. He had a wonderful marriage that lasted 47 years before the love of his life got sick and died, somewhat suddenly. If you can call 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital sudden. I do, because up until she went to see the doctor for what she thought was the flu, she seemed perfectly healthy. A very aggressive form of cancer took my mother in 2004, and it took a lot of my dad, as well.

My dad has been getting weaker and more frail over the last couple of years. Losing more hair, losing his musculature, just getting older. But since I went up there the first week of May, for my niece's college graduation, his health has deteriorated rapidly. He was driving his truck in May, getting around okay. Today he has to ride an electric scooter from the den to the kitchen. Standing up out of his chair, to step and turn and sit back down on the scooter, is a chore. He has to psyche himself up for it.

We don't know exactly what is wrong with him. There may be several things, but he has all the symptoms of congestive heart failure, including what I've been told are those symptoms that emerge pretty close to the end. We don't know what else might be wrong with him, because he hasn't been to a doctor in probably thirty years, with the exception of the eye doctor. Not a physical exam in that time, certainly. My mom couldn't get him to see a doctor, and she was the only one who could ever get him to do anything he didn't really want to do. In the last few weeks my sister and I have tried to get him to let us bring a doctor to the house to examine him. I found a doctor that actually makes house calls. Dad said no.

But he can give you a quick examination, cursory, nothing intrusive, and prescribe some things that will help you breathe easier, and help with the swelling.

No, I don't want a doctor.

When I tell people this, I get one of two reactions. One reaction is a shake of the head, maybe a tsking sound to go along with it, and, "Stubborn, huh? Doesn't think he needs a doctor."

Well, yes and no. Yes, he is stubborn, without a doubt. In fact, I get mine from him. For the first 25 or 30 years of my life, out stubborness made for some tense times, but I matured and he mellowed and we've been pretty close for the last 15 years or so. But as far as not thinking he needs a doctor, that's not the way he looks at it. He knows doctors can do things, maybe make him feel a little better, and possibly prolong his life.

There's the rub. He doesn't want to prolong his life. He's tired. He's lonely. His body is failing naturally, and he's ready to let it happen and move on to the next thing. He's a man of faith, believes in heaven. He believes he's going there. And he believes my mom is there waiting for him.

The other reaction I get is, "Can't you make him see a doctor?"

Uh, no. I can't. I've never been able to make my father do anything, and I learned enough long ago to quit trying. He has all of his mental faculties, and they seem to be working pretty well. The other day we were watching TV and a commercial for some local politician came on. I wasn't really paying attention, I was reading The Hot Kid, by Elmore Leonard. I heard my father say, not very loud, "That's the most ridiculous haircut I've ever seen." I looked at the TV and burst out laughing. It was a fuckin ridiculous haircut, almost a bowl cut with a part up one side, the politician looking like a caricature of a moron. I looked at dad and he was looking back at me, chuckling. "He's going for the pity vote," he said.

Yeah, he's paying attention and knows what time it is. He doesn't say much, never has and especially not now that he struggles to breath, but when he does speak he makes it count.

No, I can't make my father see a doctor. Honestly, I'm not inclined to make him. He's lived over three quarters of a century, he's dying, and he's ready to go. I don't want to lose him, but what right do I have to delay the journey he's ready to take? It's a hard question at first glance, but as I said, I've had time to think about it from every angle.

I don't have the right to say, "You can't choose to die a natural death. We must let the doctors do whatever they can do to prolong your life." No, he's earned the right to make his own choices here at the end.

All we can do is make him as comfortable as possible, and I believe we're doing that. He has a home care lady that comes to his house from 10-4 Monday through Friday. The weeks that I'm there, I'm with him in the mornings and in the evenings. Weeks that I'm not there, my sister goes over early until the lady gets there, then goes back over after dinner for a couple of hours. We get him what he needs, and I help him bathe, and I shave him and clip his toenails. We make sure he eats. He's as comfortable as he can be without the aid of modern medicine.

He has a Do Not Rescuscitate order, signed and hanging by a magnet on the side of the refrigerator. Legally, he's spelled it out. I've got the same thing written down for me. I can't blame him for wanting to be allowed to let nature take its course. If you believe in heaven, I guess you want to go there when it's your time. I can see it from that perspective.

That doesn't make it much easier, though, when I sit there with him at night and know he's struggling to get some oxygen. It's a helpless feeling. It's ironic, too, that one of my oldest and best friends has a respiratory therapy company and could get him hooked up with some oxygen if a doctor prescribed it. I mentioned it again last Thursday, and received The Look. I used to get that look all the time when I was a kid. It means, basically, "Don't push it, you're one step away from pissing me off." Even at his age, in his condition, he can give me The Look. So I dropped it and won't bring it up again.

I'm grateful for this time I'm spending with him. My company is gracious enough to let me work out of our Atlanta office on alternating weeks, which is a huge help to me and my family. It takes some of the strain off my sister when I'm up there. She has a busy household and when I'm up there she doesn't have to manage her schedule around going to his house twice a day. Most of all, though, I'm truly grateful that I can be there for him, after all the years of him being there for me. It's my chance to thank him for teaching me, through actions more than words, how to live like a man. And he's still teaching me now.

Five Years

2008-06-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

What a difference five years can make. Last Friday, the 6th, made it five years since I last had an alcoholic beverage of any kind. Five years. That is a miracle, and truly the grace of a higher power.

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a recovering alcoholic. I don't go around beating my chest about it, but I'm not ashamed of the fact, by any measure. I'm ashamed of some of the things I did as a practicing alcoholic, but I guess we all have some regrets. I don't mind sharing about my experiences and struggles with the whisky bottle, because someone else might read it and realize that there is hope for anyone.

Five years ago today I was being released from the hospital. In my last conversation with the physician who treated while I was there, he told me I don't get any more chances. He was amazed that I was alive when I arrived, my body had been so devastated by my drinking, and he couldn't tell me that day that I would make a healthy recovery, there were too many test results that hadn't come back yet. I don't think he gave me much of a chance, he didn't even recommend that I go to a rehab facility. He just said, "If you drink again, you will certainly die."

He didn't have to tell me that, I already knew it. And I'd already had a moment of clarity while lying on a gurney in the emergency room. I was looking at the lights in the ceiling, IVs running electrolytes into my veins, three days of sobriety under my belt because I somehow talked my family into waiting until Monday to take me to the hospital and I didn't drink over the weekend, my mind not sober but not intoxicated, and I was thinking, "This is what my life has come to. This is what I amount to after forty years on God's green planet. This is what I've become." One hundred and twenty pounds, yellow skin, yellow eyes, kidneys and liver shut down, and just plain beat.

In that moment, something changed. I can't really describe it other than to say a very calm feeling washed over me, and it felt like acceptance. I decided that whatever time I had left, and whatever condition I was in, I would try to live it right. I would try my best to do the right thing with whatever remained of my life. I wouldn't drink again, and I would try to help others who fought the same battle. If I was going to die soon, I'd try to finish on a high note. I didn't beg God to heal my body, I just asked him to help me do the next right thing. I let go of the idea that one day I would control my drinking and be able to drink normally. I accepted my condition as an alcoholic and I accepted the fact that alcohol couldn't be part of my life. Period.

So, I'll tally some of the miracles and blessings of the last five years.

First of all, my health came back. On a worst case-best case spectrum, I was pretty close to best case. Although my liver had shut down, I hadn't done any irrepairable damage to it. It would be scarred, but it would heal and function normally. My kidneys kicked back in and started working after they had some fluids to work with. My gall bladder wasn't ruined, and my pancreas wasn't destroyed. Everything, over a period of time, started working again.

After two months of physical healing, I looked healthy enough to only look like I'd lived a hard life, not like I was going to keel over and die at any moment. I got a job selling cars, and that, my friends, was a humbling experience. But I gave it my best shot and was able to make a living at it. I got a promotion and started selling our used cars on eBay, and that wasn't a bad gig. It prolonged my time in the car business, but I knew it wasn't going to last forever. Other things were starting to happen.

I began repairing my credit as soon as I started getting a paycheck. Thanks to the questionable lending practices going on in 2004, I bought a home in my first year of sobriety. My first home. I continued to work on my credit and, fortunately, I was able to refinance in two years, or else I'd be suffering the mortgage rate resets that others with ARMs are suffering right now.

I started and completed my first novel. Granted, it wasn't the most wel- crafted novel, and not nearly ready for publication like I thought it was, but I finished it and people read it and encouraged me to keep writing. I'm working on number two now, and this one is much, much better. It might even have a chance for publication. We'll see.

Last year I was able to find employment in the field I'd been in prior to sobriety. I did some damage to my career but I'm overcoming it now. I'm back on track. I'm at the same point I was at about ten years ago, but without the monkey on my back, I'm making steady progress and hopefully will continue to make myself more valuable.

I got my first hole in one.

I stayed sober when my mom died, and I was able to be there for my father and sister and the rest of the family. Truly a miracle and a blessing.

I'm able to be there for my father, now. I'll be going to visit this weekend, and staying at his house next week. We've got to make some arrangements for him, and today I'm able to participate in that, and do the right thing. I'm very grateful for that.

Those are just some of the miracles in the last five years. If I went into more detail, people would think I was making up half of it. That's okay. I know the truth, and the truth is good.

Inspiration

2008-05-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

A great story has come to light. It's been developing over the course of the last couple of months, I guess, but I only became aware of it a few weeks ago, when it became public knowledge. Stuart Neville, up until recently another one of us aspiring novelists who frequent a popular circuit of blogs for writers, agents, editors, and hopefully a few marketing people, has landed not only an agent but one of the preeminent agents in the business. A guy by the name of Nat Sobel. What this means, essentially, is that Stuart, who also goes by the blog handle Conduit, is about to experience the Big Time. In a big way.

I got my first taste of Stuart's writing when he posted a story on the Crapometer, titled The Last Dance. I liked his style right away. He tells a compelling story in an engaging voice, his use of imagery is tight, and his dialogue rings true. I had my suspicions then that he would make it to publication, and soon, but the magnitude of the breakthrough, I don't think anyone could have foreseen. Not to say it isn't deserved, because I believe it is, but for it to happen to someone who I consider an "internet friend", right here in my own circle, so to speak, is truly inspiring.

The cool part about Stuart's story is that The Last Dance played a significant role in his good fortune in landing the uber (pretend you see the little accent things) agent. Stuart submitted the story to Thuglit.com, an online magazine, and it was published in Feb/March 2008 edition. Nat Sobel happened to read the story on the net, contacted Stuart, asked for pages, and the rest is history. Nat initiated the contact, not Stuart. Go to Conduit's, blog and read it in his own words. It is an awesome story, and well told, as you would expect.

Stuart made one of the first comments about my writing when I submitted chapters to the Crapometer. In fact, it was his first comment, and Sex Scenes at Starbucks' comment, that made me truly believe in my writing and really want to get better and write good stories. I owe him more than he'll ever know. I owe lots of people, really, but when you get compliments from people whose opinion you've come to respect after months of lurking and reading comments, it truly boosts the confidence. That's what makes it so cool to watch Stuart's success, sort of from the ground floor. I don't claim to be part of his inner circle, he'll probably have lots of new friends, but it thrills me to be able to know the whole story and watch it evolve. And to know it's happening to a cool guy builds faith in The Good.

It's the kind of story that motivates me to get on with my own writing. Get this first draft finished, polish the sumbitch up, and start sending queries.

Get busy on the next story.

Polish up the short story I wrote last year; it would make good material for Thuglit.com. Who knows, maybe lightning can strike twice.

Cheers, Stuart. Here's to Hope and Inspiration.

Tagged

2008-05-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here's the thing. Blogless Troll, he of the dolphin paranoia, has tagged me. The way it works is, I have to answer a series of questions about myself. And then choose five others to tag, and they have to do the same.

Sounds innocent enough, right? Not so. The questions are designed to elicit personal facts that can later be used for extortion. I'm not so naive as you think, Blogless, my friend. No suh.

But, since I don't plan on running for public office in this life time, I'll play along. I'll answer the questions as though you and I, BT, are on the golf course and we're talking between shots, riding along in the golf cart, standing around the green and waiting on the tee.

What were you doing ten years ago?

That would be 1998. That was an interesting year for me. I lost my job in May of that year, my best friend died that August, and I went into rehab in November.

The job loss was due to alcoholism. It was 1998 when I hit my first real low, what the drunks in recovery refer to as a “bottom”. It was a severe personal crisis. I was an alcoholic and had pretty much lost control of my life at that point.

My friend that died, well, he wasn’t just any old friend. There were five of us that pretty much grew up together, met in elementary school and little league baseball, went through high school together. Went our separate ways after high school but always stayed in touch, some of us staying maybe a little closer than others, but still all very tight. We were pretty much like brothers, all the way into adulthood. I didn’t have any brothers in my family, but I was closer to these guys than their own brothers were, the two that had them. I'd known Wayne for almost thirty years, and when he died it shook me up pretty bad. I didn’t handle it well at all. I fell into an uncontrollable downward spiral, and I landed in rehab.

I didn’t stay sober that time around. I had to beat myself up for five more years and experience many more dark hours, but that year was the beginning of the end of that phase of my life.

Thanks for asking, I’m in a swell mood now.

Just messin’ with you, man. Life is truly good today. A vast improvement over where I was ten years ago. Like another life.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?

Drink coffee
Go to work
Try to stay focused at work
Go to the gym and get at least 20 minutes in the steam room
Go to an AA meeting

What are some snacks you enjoy?

I’m with you,dude, on the Dove minis. I get the smooth milk chocolate with caramel. Yummy. Ditto the Reese’s miniatures.

Ice cream. Pretty much any kind, but pralines n cream, in particular.

Toaster Strudels.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?

I’m in with the boat crowd. Definitely, I would have a big ass boat. I would also have houses in a few choice locations. I’d have to travel around a bit to decide where to put down, but you can believe there would be a big ass house near a very large body of water, and one on a very large mountain.

Travel. I would travel. I’d see whatever struck my fancy, and I would fly there in my jet if it was too far to drive or ride a donkey.

I would also fund the most kick ass adult literacy programs in the nearest cities to my big ass houses. I would hire good people to run them, and I would pay them very well, and I would help the people who came in and stuck with the program and wanted to learn to read and write. They would have to read one of my novels in order to complete the program, of course. And then I would help them find jobs as editors.

That's a joke, just in case anyone tells EE on me.

What are three of your bad habits?

I’m too quick to assume someone is a stone cold stupid son of a bitch when they cut me off in traffic because I left enough space between me and the car in front of me not to be tailgating. They obviously don’t know who I am.

On occasion, not all the time but occasionally, I’ll sulk a little when things don’t go my way.

Might as well say it. Procrastination.

What are five places you have lived?

Stone Mountain, GA
Athens, GA
Macon, GA
Johnson City, TN
Greensboro, NC
Atlantic Beach, FL

That’s six, but what the hell. I’m a southeast gypsy.

What are five jobs you have had?

Peach Picker
Bus Boy
Bartender
Used Car Salesman
Techno Pimp

What were the last five books you read?

Killing Floor Lee Child
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Tom Wolfe
Soul Circus George Pelecanos
Hard Revolution George Pelecanos
Shoedog George Pelecanos

Can you tell I’m studying Pelecanos? I started reading his books out of order, but I’m going to read them all and I’ll fall in line with the next trip to the library.

What’s playing on your ipod right now?

No ipod, but on the CD player is Freddy Jones Band

What five people do you want to tag?

I can’t think of five likely suspects that haven’t already been tagged. Robin would be one. She doesn’t have a blog but tough shit, she can start one with this. Gutterball. Bunnygirl. How about Brenda Bradshaw, has anyone tagged her yet? If I ask that question in Texas I'm sure I'd get a response. Ha, just messin' with you, Brenda. I think all my other blogger friends have already been tagged.

I don't know the code for putting links into my blog. I'm technically retarded. I'm sure y'all can find them, I have confidence in you. I'll drop by their blogs and let them know they've been tagged.

Now, hit it straight, BT.

Evil Editor

2008-04-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

I've been a regular visitor to Evil Editor's blog for about a year and a half now. The time I spend reading the Face Lifts and the New Beginnings and the Q&As, and all the comments of the Minions, is time well spent, an investment in my writing, and always a great way to end the day. Laughing. To quote a brilliant man and incredibly talented writer, Stick and Move, reading Evil Editor is like smoking crack that makes you smart.

EE's wit is cutting at times, always cunning, and if Robin had it her way, cunnilinguistic, to make up a word. Not only am I entertained, but what I've learned is really hard to quantify. My writing is so much better now than it was when I stumbled upon the blog - I think I found it originally from Miss Snark's blog, which also entertained and educated me. My writing is tighter and more powerful. That doesn't mean it's good, necessarily, but I'm sure it doesn't suck as bad as it used to.

I don't know how much time EE devotes to his blog, but I know he's way under paid for it.

I do know EE stops by the blogs of his Minions occasionally, and maybe he's stopped by here. If so, he probably hasn't come back, since I only update this thing whenever the mood strikes me, which doesn't seem to be very often. However, EE, if you happen by, thank you for all that you do. If I were to meet you in person, I'd shake your hand, give you a soul brother hug, and offer to buy you the beverage of your choice.

Robin and Phoenix and Chris and the rest of the Minions on Evil Editor's blog did a bang up job with the two year anniversary party. EE was a frequent visitor to the comment section and all the Minions were posting comments. It was like being in a chatroom with the whole crew, and it was a chance to see a little bit more of some personalities, which is cool. Thanks Robin, Phoenix, Chris, Blogless T, and the rest of the folks that put in so much work on the blog and contests and prizes.

Pray for inspiration...

Expectations

2008-02-25T18:38:00.000-08:00

Not much going on here, same ol’ thing, which isn’t so bad. It’s weird, though, because I’ve been in a kind of negative rut lately. For a couple of months now, I haven’t been able to put my finger on what, exactly, is keeping me from feeling a greater sense of contentment, or satisfaction, or whatever. My overall disposition has been a little off kilter. Nothing major, just not waking up with a smile, and kind of feeling discontent. I think I’ve finally figured out what’s going on.

For a while there, I lost that feeling of gratitude that I’ve been used to having wrapped around me like a blanket. When I first got sober, I can’t describe how grateful I was to be alive and have a second chance, or third, if you’re counting, to do something with my life and how every day was a gift. I was grateful for every little thing. I mean, I even found a reason to be grateful when my piece of shit Dodge broke down on I75 just north of Valdosta: it wasn’t raining on me as I was walking two miles to the next exit. And that kind of gratitude helped me stay humble.

Lately, the last few months, I guess I’ve been looking at my situation from the perspective of what I don’t have, and what I haven’t accomplished, and how things aren’t exactly as I’d have them be. And that’s my ego blowing up. It really is that simple, I think. My ego telling me I should have done this by now, or have that by now, and it’s all bullshit. That kind of self-imposed pressure and those kinds of expectations are too closely related to an ego-driven sense of entitlement, which is something I don’t like in other people, so it's definitely not the perspective from which I want to view the world.

The fact is I ought to feel damn grateful to be where I am and have what I have, and just take the opportunities that have been given to me and do the best I can with them. Those are the only expectations I should have. Do my best with the opportunities I’ve been given, and trust the outcome will be favorable, even if the outcome isn’t exactly as I drew it up.

If I can hold on to that feeling of gratitude and humility, pretty much every day is a good day.

Mondaze

2008-01-28T16:58:00.000-08:00

It was definitely a Monday. I can't honestly say it was a bad day, really, because some good things happened. But from the moment I walked out the door this morning, I was out of synch with the flow, the positive energy flow, like I was a half step off beat all day. Everyone has days like that, where you catch every redlight on the way to work. You're sailing along and a half-second before you decide "If it turns yellow now I go" and you start to hit the accelerator, it turns yellow and you back down and hit the brakes. It was like that today. A half-second off. At every light. Then at lunch I pulled into a gas station to fill up and just as I turned to pull up next to the pump, a dude comes in from the other side and beats me by half a second, so I pull around to the next pump and someone has just pulled in. Like that. All damn day.

I'm not whining about it - at least I don't me to sound like I am - I just think it's worth noting that sometimes one can be out of synch and there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it but just try to minimize the damage, and keep "one of those days" from becoming a real shitty day. I think these are the days that have potential to go bad. For me, days like today, my temper gets a little short. Not like rage or anything, just cranky, irritable. And if I'm not careful, the day can deteriorate quickly into a bad day. So I've learned to watch my step on these days. My mojo is off kilter, so minimize the exposure. When my ability to groove with the positive flow is for some reason inhibited, I watch my step but keep moving forward. It took me many years to understand the cyclical flow of good energy, karma, what have you, and to roll with it when the rolling is good, and to step aside when I can't get the rhythm.

So today was kind of a damage control day, and it worked out okay. I didn't piss anyone off, nothing bad happened, and something that could have been bad, wasn't. So the lesson here, the lesson I have to remember, is we almost always have choices. We can choose how we act or react to the flow. When I'm out of step, don't jump into the middle of the parade. Back off, regroup, and get back in step. Nothing profound, but it's something I seem to forget. I figured if I write it down, maybe I'll remember it.

Peace and comfortable shoes...

Finish Strong

2007-12-06T16:20:00.000-08:00

I started my current job about nine months ago, very enthusiastic to be back in the business of technical staffing and consulting after having been out of it for almost five years. The first seven months of this gig, it was tough. Very tough. I had forgotten how competitive it was, and now it seems it's even more competitive than it used to be. It took some getting used to but I kept plugging away. I had sporadic success during those months, but the hits were few and far between. I told myself to keep doing the right things, the tide will eventually turn. I talked to my dad about it, and others whose opinions I respect. I talked to them mainly for moral support, and they validated my beliefs and kept me propped up. My dad, always quick to sniff out and expose an untruth or weakness in a story, told me to keep doing what I was doing and don't sweat what's not in my control. It's our philosophy, his and mine, and we talk about it frequently.

So finally, the last five or six weeks, things have started turning. I've closed a few deals recently, and have some good stuff working for the next couple of weeks. Which is kind of surprising, because business usually stumbles and crawls through the Thanksgiving to New Year holiday season. That makes it even sweeter.

When I'm trudging through the tough times, it's hard to remember not to sweat the things beyond my control. I want to be in control of everything. I want to direct the play and choreograph all the moves, and when it doesn't go my way, I have a tendency to get a little cranky. I'm getting better about it, though. I've become better at stepping back and observing my own behavior, and most of the time I catch myself before I say something I shouldn't say, or otherwise make an ass of myself. Now I try to step back and take a moment to think. Figure out what I can do to improve the situation, rather than participate in its deterioration. Easier said than done, but I'm working on it.

So now that I have managed to gain a little momentum - a combination of persistence and providence - I have to stay focused and finish the year strong. I'll be taking a nice long vacation during the Christmas week and have a chance to decompress then, so now is the time to keeping pushing. Close another deal or two. Finish strong.

Peace and good tidings to all who managed to read this entire little pep talk I needed to give myself...

Giving Thanks

2007-11-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

As has been the trend for me the last five years, I have a lot to be thankful for. The last year has been interesting for many reasons, one being that I was aware of impending change, and patient enough to let it happen as I tried to do the right things to facilitate it. That's growth for me. That's not really what's on my mind tonight, though. Tonight I'm feeling grateful for the desire to create.

I love creating. When I was a young boy I loved to draw, and had some talent at it, but never really pursued it and tried to learn and improve. As I got older I began to write, very sporadically over the years. Somewhere along the line I lost the drive to create, and didn't draw or write much. Then later, about 6 years ago, I started writing again. The only problem was, I was too drunk most of the time to ever become good at it. The spark to do it was there, though.

Then, four and a half years ago when I got sober, I started writing again, with a purpose this time. It started out as just an idea, to see if I had the tenacity to write a novel, as I'd always liked to think I could. I started it and was serious about finishing it. The desire to create was back, and I was sober enough to stoke the flame.

So I did it, and learned a lot along the way, and now I want to take it to the next level. The first one was an education. My skills have improved, I have a clue what I'm doing now, and the desire to create is burning. The flame peaks and dwindles but it is burning.

I'm almost to the halfway point of the new WIP, creeping up on the pivotal scene, ready for all hell to break loose. I think I've done a good job of setting it up, though I have a concern the first half might need more tension. When it's complete, if I think I need to somehow ratchet up the tension in the first half, I'll have a better idea of what and where.

I'm grateful that the desire to create sparked back to life. There's something spiritual in the creative process, and it syncs well with my desire to grow spiritually and apply my spiritual growth to all facets of my life. The creative process of writing - from the conception stage, through the revision stage, to the fine-tuning and polishing stage - has the feel of a spiritual journey and gives me insight into myself and my view of the world.

I'm taking new strides in my pursuit of spiritual growth. I had a lengthy conversation with a friend in the AA program today, a man I've admired since I've been in the program. He's been sober about twenty years, and I'm intrigued by his spiritual beliefs. Today I asked him to be my sponsor. I have two sponsors already, and they serve different purposes. This guy will be more of a spiritual sponsor, someone I can bounce ideas off of, because we share the same curiousity and desire for greater self-realization. I'm grateful for this also.

So, tonight I'll pound out a few more paragraphs. Keep the flame stoked. Peace and may all the good people feel grateful today.

Stuff

2007-11-02T20:53:00.000-07:00

I've been making pretty decent progress on the manuscript in the last few weeks. The progress is slower than I'd like, but I feel like the writing is solid and I'm not leaving open any plot holes. That's the thing that's slowing me down, I don't know the whole story yet. I kind of like it that way because new ideas have time to form before I get too far down a particular path. But the downside is sometimes I feel like I'm barely moving at a crawl. So be it. I'm in it for the marathon.

One of the saddest things I've seen recently. There was a small article in the paper about a 15 year old girl who was hit by a car while in the road checking on an injured dog. She and an older man had seen the dog lying in the street, pulled off the side to see about it (it had apparently just been hit by a car). A 23 year old kid was driving by, saw the car and the man and swerved to avoid them, didn't see the girl and she was hit when he swerved. She died on the scene. No charges were filed, evidently it was just a tragic accident.

This happened yesterday, about 30 miles north of here. The paper didn't say if the older man was the girl's father, but I got that impression. How very awful. The girl is killed and her family is devastated, and her father, if it was him, had to witness such an awful thing. The family must deal with the loss of a young girl who cared enough about an injured dog to stop and try to help it. The young man, 23, must be just wrecked by it. I try to put myself in his place, the realization of what he's done, the questions he must be asking himself, and it makes me sick inside. The sadness and guilt, even if there was nothing he could do to avoid it, must be overwhelming.

I get numb, sometimes, from all of negative news on TV and in the papers. The body count loses its significance because another suicide bomber has killed 14 or 32 or 53 just about every day, and my life goes on.

I get up every day and go to work, go to the gym, hang out with my friends, and go about my business and another murder takes place in Jacksonville. It's probably 80% black on black crime here, and it's tragic. These kids, mostly, are killing each other over drugs, territory, and street cred. Day after day, they all start to blur together.

I can't stop to grieve over every one of them. It would be paralyzing to acknowledge and mourn every death and murder, so my mind ignores the pain behind the numbers.

Every once in a while, something stops me, grabs my heart and wrenches it, and I have to grieve. For them. For me. For all of us.

Then I take a look at the loved ones in my life and say a prayer of gratitude. And try to shake off the melancholy and get back in the stream of life. Do what I can to make my little part of the world okay for today.

Peace and God Bless the family that raised a 15 year old girl to care about an injured dog...

It's been a while...

2007-09-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

since I took time out to write down some thoughts that don't pertain to novel #2. I haven't settled on a title yet, for now I'm calling it Dirty Deeds. It will probably change at some point, but DD will work for now. But that's not the point.

The fact of the matter is, I haven't been writing much at all for the last couple of weeks. I've worked on some revision, but I haven't written any new material. I need to get back to it. I've been productive in other ways the last couple of weekends I've painted some interior walls here in the hacienda, and I've been reading and doing some research also, but I haven't been creating. I reached a point in the story where some significant events are about to happen and I'm not exactly sure how I want to play it out, so that kind of slowed me down, and then I started this painting project, so... blah blah blah. Get back to it.

I've been doing some research on different religions. Actually, just one so far. I bought the book The World's Religions by Huston Smith. I'm on the first chapter, which is Hinduism. Pretty interesting stuff, actually. I was kind of surprised to find that I share quite a few beliefs with the Hindu.

I guess I should provide some background to put it in context. I was raised as a Christian, not real strict, we went to church on Sunday when I was young, up until about age 10 I guess, and then it tapered off. But I always believed in God and Jesus and the Bible, though I'd never read much of the Bible until I was out of college. Never could make it through the Old Testament, but I've read the New Testament a couple of times. I can't quote any scripture and I don't know who said what, but I like Ecclisiastes. I believe in much of what is contained in the Bible. And if for some reason I'm unable to complete this thought, it's because I got struck by lightning, but I think some of what is commonly preached in Christianity is bullshit. I don't think the only way I get into Heaven is by accepting Jesus Christ as my saviour. I believe that living a life according to what Jesus preached will get me into Heaven, but I can pick up pretty much the same lifestyle from most of the other major religions, probably some Pagan beliefs as well. Anyway, this isn't a rant on Christianity, but Christianity is the basis of my beliefs on the soul or sprit or whatever you want to call it. So now I'm learning what the rest of the world believes about the concept of the spirit and the purpose of life.

I like what the Hindus believe about karma. I like the concept of karma, always have. I like the idea of cumulative karma, too, because I'm also open to the idea of reincarnation. I don't think Heaven is a place that you go to, I think it is more of a progression of the spirit into something better than where I am now. Hell is a regression into misery. At least, that's what seems intuitive to me, and it fits with my desire for the existence of a spiritual justice system.

I haven't gotten all the way through the Hindu chapter in this book, but I'm dialed in to most of what I've read so far. Buddism is next up. This book has chapters on pretty much all the major religions and some less known ones as well.

Anyway, I guess I've rambled enough for now. Peace and good karma to the ones who earn it...

Deal 'em

2007-08-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

Lucky at cards, unlucky at love. Is that the saying? I’ve heard something like that before, and it sure has been true for me. Lately, anyway.

I’ve got a regular poker game that I attend, every two or three weeks we’ll have a game on Saturday night. We’ve got five regulars, four guys and one of the guy’s girlfriend plays, and then we’ll usually have one or two others that are pretty steady attendees. We had seven show up tonight, six guys and the lady, and it was a good time, we ordered pizza and semi-watched the Jaguars-Dolphins game.

Quarter ante most of the games, fifty cent max bet, three raise max. Friendly stakes. I won about forty dollars tonight. It’s been like that the last five or six times we’ve played. Well, actually last time I won about eight, but the other times I’ve won a minimum of thirty dollars, and usually closer to forty.

I don’t know what the deal is, but I get some damn good cards. I mean, really good cards. I’ve gone on stretches where I’ll win four out of five hands, three in a row, like that, and somebody else might not win four hands all night. It was amazing, humorous at times (to me), how the cards would just fall like I needed them to.

Meanwhile, my love life sucks. I don’t go out to bars anymore, not often anyway, but you’d think that through work, or at the gym, or AA, or even the grocery store I’d meet someone and something would click. It’s been so long since I’ve felt that click, I don’t even know if I’d recognize it. Getting laid isn’t the issue, it can be accomplished without too much trouble, but meeting someone that turns out to be a companion, romance, all that stuff, man, it’s just not happening. I guess when you’re in your forties the odds aren’t as good as when you’re in your twenties or even thirties. Most people in my general age group are married, for the second or third time in a lot of cases.

I’ve also finally come to accept the fact that women in their twenties, unless they are particularly mature for their age and happen to like older men, are too young for me. I went out with a lady a couple of weeks ago, twenty nine, and she seemed young. Maybe it’s because she just got out of a relationship and she’s ready to be one of the girls out on the town every weekend, but it really hit me like a brick. Women in their twenties are young to me. I’m an older man now. Wow.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d date a late-twenties woman, no problem for me, but I think, why would she want to date me? I’m in my forties. Now, I do count the fact that I’m very immature for my age as working to my advantage with younger women (that joke goes over better when it’s spoken rather than written). But seriously, where the hell are the single thirty five to forty year old women? Probably dating guys in their twenties. What the fuck.

I really don't sweat it much. I stay busy, and I’m generally okay with my own company, but it’s nice to have someone to share the good times with. I'm not out there searching for it, though. If it happens, great, but in the mean time, deal me in.

Peace and aces down…

Takin a break...

2007-07-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

From the WIP. For tonight. That's the plan, anyway. I've worked on this story every day for the last I don't know how long and I need to just not think about it tonight. When I say I work on it every day, I'm not saying I necessarily write new material, I might just be reading and tweaking or rewriting something I've decided to change. It might only be for thirty minutes or an hour, but I'm all up in it, every day. I'm plotting a scene while I'm soaking in the steam room. I'm working on some dialogue while I'm sitting in traffic. Then at night when I'm home, I'm sitting here working on it.

This is all good, I'm grateful that my enthusiasm hasn't waned. On the other hand, I'm afraid my thinking might be getting stale, and the writing losing some of the voice. So, tonight I'm just not gonna work on it. Not even open the file and read. The last couple of chapters really need some work. The raw material isn't bad, but it needs to be pruned and tweaked before I even think about putting the shine on.

I'm working on the sequel to the scene in chapter ten. "Sequel" being the transition to the next scene, a slight break from the action as the characters reassess their situation and decide on a course of action for the next scene. The sequels become shorter and farther apart as the plot moves forward. Chapter ten was a pretty tense scene, lots of conflict and some decent suspense. It still needs work but I've got some good material to work with. My plan is to write at least one more scene before I go back and polish chapters seven through ten. I don't have all the details of the next scene yet, but after this little break I'll get it worked out.

Nothing else happening really. My social life has been pretty dry lately, but that's the sacrifice I'm making right now. I get out once in a while, but I usually get home early so I can tinker with the WIP. Once I get the first draft finished I'll try to kick start some romance. At 25K with a target of 75K, I've still got a long way to go. Blah...

Work is work. Nothing bad happening, but not much good, either. A couple of deals hanging in the balance could make it a great week or a tough one. I'm just trying to keep a steady course, not get down over the deals I miss, and celebrate moderately the ones I get. I haven't had the opportunity to do much moderate celebration recently, but maybe this week I will.

Takin a break from the WIP. Peace and moonbeams...

Jinx

2007-07-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

I had some success at work today. Hallelujah! It's been a long time coming. I'm almost afraid to write about it, like if I think too hard about it or say something, I'll jinx it. I'm superstitious that way. So all I'm going to say is, it was a good day and I hope I can keep the ball rolling.

I try not to let work affect my attitude during the other hours of the day, but inevitably, it has some effect on my overall disposition. When things are not going my way I don't smile or laugh as much, and I'm quicker to let stupid shit irritate me. When good things are happening on the job, I'm generally pretty happy and in a positive state of mind. Thank the Spirit for that. If work is my only worry, I guess I really don't have any.

I'm getting into the meat of my WIP, the middle chapters, and I'm trying to get things stirred up, ratchet up the tension, and the ideas are starting to flow - more like trickle, but hey, it's movement - and I've got some pretty good scenes in mind. I'm trying not to let the story bog down in the middle when I've got what I think is a pretty good start. I don't have the ending scene figured out yet but I'm looking forward to it. I guess a lot of writers know the end when they start the story but I don't. I'm sure it would be easier to write if I did but I doubt it would stay the same, I'd change it by the time I reached it.

Not much else to say, that is, if I've said anything at all. Peace and tiki torches...

Strength of Spirit

2007-06-29T17:45:00.000-07:00

Friday night and I'm sitting here contemplating the state of my existence. How pathetic is that?

The good news is I'm sober and happy to be that way. I had a fairly unsuccessful week at work, and a few years ago I would have been stone cold wasted by this time on a Friday evening. Drowning my sorrows and creating a deeper depression, which I would wallow in for the weekend, dreading Sunday night because I'd be drunk again and know I'd reek of stale alcohol at work in the morning. Hating it but unable to stop. At the end, after I lost my job, it was just an around the clock stupor. Looking back, I can't believe how far down I let it take me.

Alcoholism is truly a three-pronged disease: physical, mental, and spiritual. The physical part is bad enough, but when you throw in depression and spiritual destitution, it's crippling. I was helpless against it.

Fortunately, I had some friends that pulled me out of the gutter, and with the Grace of my Heavenly Spirit, I've got a pretty good life today. Sure, my job gets me down sometimes - it's semi-stressful and I've always been prone to live on the outer reaches of the emotional spectrum - but overall life is pretty good.

I've come to the conclusion that what has made the difference for me today is my belief in a Higher Power. I've always believed in God in a sort of nebulous kind of way. I believed there was something up there, but I wasn't sure what to make of this God character. All powerful? Big question for me. I just didn't understand God, and wasn't interested enough to try. I just cruised along on a whim, for the most part. I had goals and ambitions and I achieved some of them, but about the time I started getting somewhere in life, I was filling that spiritual void with spirits of another kind. It derailed me and boom, there I was. In the hospital, don't know if I'm going to die, or live and be permanently impaired, or make a full recovery. The doctors couldn't say right away.

That was when I said, "Okay, God, I'll let you have it. Whatever happens, happens. I'm out of answers, I'll leave it up to you and do things your way."

All I know is it's been working for a little over four years now. Things don't always go my way, and lately I've been having some frustration. But now I can look at it and know I'm giving it my best, I'm doing what I should be doing and the results are truly out of my hands. All I can do is give it my best effort and then let it go. So, that's what I try to do.

I still have a nebulous understanding of God, or Heavenly Spirit as I say. All powerful? I still don't know. I do know there is an energy that I tap into and it's real. It's positive and comforting and full of truth and other things that I still don't grasp. When I try to tap into that energy and go with it, do the next right thing and trust that I'll be okay no matter the outcome, things usually work out just fine. It might not be the outcome I hoped for, but if I look at the big picture I might get some perspective and decide it's okay anyway.

I find it ironic that alcohol is also referred to as "spirits", and alcoholism is a spiritual disease. It's funny, really. Drinking "spirits" stole my spirit. I've got my spirit back now.

On that note, I'm going to play around with my WIP for a while. The excitement is palpable. Peace and cool pillows...

Working At It

2007-06-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't made a blog entry in quite a while, mainly because I've been using my writing time to work on the WIP. In trying to keep a balance in my lifestyle, there are only so many hours a week to write, and I've been trying to be productive. I know I'm no different than anyone else in that regard, so I'm not making excuses, I just haven't had anything worthwhile to share with the few lonely souls that happen to drop in here.

I still don't have anything worthwhile to share, other than I'm having success in bits and pieces with the WIP. I'll get something figured out for the plot and things start coming together for what I want to do in the following chapters, but it also means I have to go back and change a few things. Now I'm wondering if I've made the right changes. So I'm a bit stuck again. I'm a quarter of the way into the story, and there are still unanswered plot thread questions. This is my first time writing a mystery of this sort, and I don't know if I'm experiencing normal difficulties or if my way of writing this thing is out of whack. Traditional theory holds that you should know the plot - in the case of a mystery, the story behind the story - in advance of writing the novel. Well, I don't. I have the basics down, the actions and events, but not all the of the motivations. So, I'm re-evaluating some characters. Trying different ideas and following the threads and I've still got some problems. I'll work through them. I just wonder if this is normal. My first novel didn't require this type of pre-planning, it was more organic and just kind of flowed.

I guess writing this story is good for me. I think I've developed a voice that works, now I just have to get the story sorted out. Writing a long story in first person is also a new experience and presents different challenges. All of these new experiences and challenges are making me a better writer. Some wise people have said that overcoming difficulty, if the experience is used wisely, leads to growth and strength of spirit. I hope they're right.

Peace and green fairways...

Rain

2007-06-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Finally, some rain. A good rain. Heavy, soaking, earth-quenching rain. Man, have we needed this. Much of the southeast has been baking in a dry oven for the last few months, and in many places literally burning to the ground. The wildfires in northeast Florida and southeast Georgia have been burning for weeks, with thousands of acres of pine forests and wetlands and swamp smoldering and thickening the sky with columns of pungent smoke, the landscape now reduced to ashes.

The big fire is burning to the northwest of here. When the wind is from the east and the smoke is blown toward the western horizon, it actually produces a pleasant visual experience. As the sun goes down you can almost look directly at it, a perfectly circular orange ball clearly defined in the soot-darkened sky. It creates a hazy, somnolent sunset and when viewed through a thicket of palm trees evokes a languid tropical attitude.

But the rain is here today. Thank you Heavenly Spirit of the Universe for this rain. I'm saying all this but the reality is I wish the rain had started forty five minutes later. It came yesterday afternoon while I was entertaining clients on the golf course. It hasn't rained in three months and the day I have three influential managers from a very important client out for a round of golf, it has to start raining on the fifteenth hole. It couldn't have waited forty five minutes. It wasn't really a big deal, but if I'd have been drawing it up it would have held off until we finished.

I woke up this morning and I could hear it coming down. I love that. I rolled over and looked at the clock and it was blinking 12:00. The power went out sometime during the night. My blinds were open and I looked out the window but the sky was gray and I couldn't tell what time it might be. It was still kind of dark so I assumed it was early, maybe 6:30, rolled over and went back to sleep. I love to sleep when it rains. I hope it rains all day so I can take a nap listening to it this afternoon.

I can practically hear the plants sighing in thanks. The rain is supposed to move out later today, and tomorrow will be sunny and fresh. Maybe some of the smaller fires will be extinguished and the bigger fires will be brought under control. We can hope.

And with the rain I have no excuse not to work on chapter eight. Peace and umbrellas...

Crapometer

2007-05-16T17:39:00.000-07:00

I found the Crapometer blog a few weeks ago; someone in the comments section of Evil Editor's blog linked it so I clicked on it. I'd seen it mentioned before, in Miss Snark's blog, but hadn't checked it out until recently. I really like it. The regulars there give excellent critiques of people's submitted work, really insightful comments and suggestions.

I didn't wait long to submit the first chapter of my current WIP. I really didn't know what to expect. I thought it was pretty tight, but I've thought that about my writing before and been wrong. I was fairly certain that it didn't suck, but I really didn't know if any writers would like it or not. Needless to say, I was hoping for some compliments along with some constructive criticism. As it turned out, it got some pretty damn good reviews. All of the comments contained some level of praise, a couple of actual superlatives. I was flattered, big time.

The insight of some of the people that commented was amazing, and most helpful. I incorporated some of the suggested changes and the result is a tight, vivid first chapter. I think.

I'm working on the seventh chapter now, at about 17K words, still a long way to go. I don't have all the plot issues and subplots worked out yet, they're coming slowly. The good news is I'm making progress, even if it isn't at the pace I'd like. The mystery has been laid out, the plot foundation established, most of the players introduced. Now as I decide on a couple of plot details, the subplots hopefully will start to come clear and I can pick up the pace of my productivity.

I might submit another chapter to the Crapometer, get some feedback on a chapter further into the story, maybe chapter six. It still needs more polish, but it might be ready soon. We'll see.

Peace and cool pillows...

Shit Happens

2007-05-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there is no other way to say it. Shit just happens and there ain't nothin you can do. I had one of those days today. It started out kind of sneaky shitty, and then got worse.

I work in the technical staffing business. Sales. To put it simply, I'm an agent for technical professionals, and I handle the client relationships. Not a glamorous job, but certainly a worthwhile endeavor. It's financially rewarding, I've made a pretty good living in this business in the past. There is also the satisfaction of helping someone take a step forward in their career. So overall, I like what I do. But it isn't always easy.

When you get right down to the nuts and bolts of it, my product is people. People are unpredictable, thus it can get interesting. Like today. People do things, not always with bad intentions, the result for someone is bad. The result of something someone did today, without bad intentions, was bad for me.

People are dynamic, their lives are dynamic, their circumstances change with stunning celerity. A consultant that was due to start an engagement for me coming Monday had such a change. He backed out of the engagement he accepted a week and a half ago. It caught me like a sucker punch. This was an important step in the client relationship I'm trying to build. I'm back in this business after four and a half years of being out of it, with a new company and basically a new world of opportunities and I'm trying to get a solid foundation established with some key clients. This is a key client. My credibility just went to shit. It will be hard to recover from this, and may take some time. As the new guy with this client, my credibility is zero. This deal gave me a foot hold, especially if the guy goes in and they love him. That happens, my credibility is solid, they begin to trust me and the candidates I represent. This is the way it's supposed to be. That's not the way it is, not now.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened to me, it happens to everyone in this business. People are people, and that's the way it is. As with any unpredictable, sometimes volatile product, there will be mishaps. Shit happens. The thing about that is, it always seems like when shit does happen, the timing couldn't be any worse. My first deal with a key manager at a key client on a large project with looming deadlines, my guy, who is going to help them get caught up and meet their deadlines and have a chance to really shine, bails the fuck out. Thanks, dude. Leaves me looking like a drooling idiot, standing with my pants around my ankles.

I have to get some perspective on this. A year from now, if shit like this doesn't keep happening, I'll remember this and smile. Just a challenging time that I dealt with and learned something from. That's my challenge now. What's the lesson? I've had all day to review and consider this, and I can't identify anythng we should have done differently that would have changed this outcome. We did our jobs pretty much by the book. I didn't push the guy on the client, or push the job on the guy. We weren't stretching anything, nothing was shaky. Shit just happens.

Two other negative things happened today, but they pale in comparison to the big one and I won't even dwell on them. I just feel kinda snake-bit right now.

On a different note, I'm reading Bandits by Elmore Leonard. What a great book. Two thirds of the way through now and I think I'll read it again. I'm too involved when I'm reading it to look at it clinically, so I'll make a second pass and break it down.

I think I'm through whining for the day. Pray for peace and good energy...

Truth

2007-04-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be a philosopher. That would be a cool gig to have, but I don't know how well it pays, or how you even get the job. It would be amusing to sit in the bank filling out a form for a loan and in the space for Occupation write in Philosopher. On the income line put a question mark.

I thought about majoring in Philosophy, briefly, back when I was in college. I don't know if I ever even mentioned it to anyone, it was such a flash of a thought. I took a philosophy class and I think my roommate had some good weed at the time. It was a powerful combination, weed and abstract studies. I remember logic was involved, and I could get into those theories when I was in the right mindset.

I'll admit, I don't recall much from that class. For that matter, I don't remember much about any of my classes. Mostly I played a lot of raquetball and backgammon, smoked a forest of weed and drank rivers of whiskey, went on nightly coed round-ups, and attended class sporadically, at best.

A scholar, I was not. My education wasn't something I took very seriously at the age of nineteen, twenty. I'm not proud of it, that's just the way it was for me.

But I digress. My point is, most of what I know to be true and valuable in life, I've learned from experience. Hard lessons, for the most part, but every once in a while when I have my eyes open I learn from someone else's mistake.

So I've been philosophizing lately about the state of my existence. Maybe it was the tragedy at Virginia Tech this week that started me thinking about it. The images the last few days have been disturbing, no doubt, but this isn't another rant on that tragedy. It was a catalyst for me, though.

I didn't have the best week. In fact, the last two weeks haven't been very rewarding. I've just completed my first month with this company and I came out of the gate pretty strong. First two weeks I had some amazing luck. The last two weeks, though, my luck has gone sour. Nothing bad has happened, really, but nothing good. Today was particularly frustrating. Lots of activity, but no positive results. I've got one deal hanging in the balance this weekend, and I'll have an answer on Monday. If it goes my way, it'll be my second deal in the first month. A pretty good first month. If it doesn't, well... it just doesn't. It's out of my hands now. So, I was kind of wallowing in self-pity this afternoon and we all left the office a little early. I went to the gym and was soaking in the steam room, listening to the audio from the TV in the locker room, tuned in to Fox News. Talking about the shootings.

It was a reality check. I'm moping because things didn't go my way this week? What? Here I am sitting in the steam room at my gym after a good workout. I'm in very good health, to the best of my knowledge. My bills are paid and there's still some money in the bank. I have a job to get frustrated over. I have friends and family. I am sober today. What the hell am I moping about?

I thank my Heavenly Spirit for the clarity of mind to see things with this perspective, on the rare occassions that it occurs. I don't mean to minimize the tragedy by this juxtaposition, I use it to illustrate how trivial was the nature of my self-pity.

I don't always have this kind of peace and gratitude for my daily station in life, but it's what I strive for. I'm usually caught up in my own stuff, working and dealing with life in general, but every now and then I'll have a moment where I think, "This is all going to work out one way or the other, and I'm gonna be okay either way." I just have to get out of the way and let it happen.

When I stop and consider my experiences, good and bad, and look for any common truths, I'm able to see patterns in the flow of energy. So now I try to find the flow of the positive energy, the truth of the energy, and get in the current and go.

Easier said than done, but when I practice this philosophy, my life seems to go more smoothly.

So, I guess now I'm a freelance philosopher. Feel free to toss some change into the hat over there.

Fine Tuning

2007-04-14T06:25:00.000-07:00

Fine tuning my writing is something I enjoy now, but it hasn't always been that way. Maybe it's an indication I'm learning to appreciate the craft of writing as much as the creative experience. The creative component is why I started writing. It's the "fun" part. Creating characters and their realities and experiences. The thinking, planning, brooding on plot. Settings and scenes. Actions that advance the plot, pulling the reader in and moving them forward. For me, this is what writing was about for the first couple of years when I started to write long stories.

My problem, like many other young writers, is that when I created and put the story down on paper, I fell in love with my words and thought the first draft must be pretty close to being finished. Man, it's a different perspective I have now.

The first draft is fun and tedious and requires more thinking than writing, without question. But editing and revising is now just as much fun for me, because I have a more refined perspective on the process of writing.

The first draft is just the beginning, the shape and the form of the story. Maybe most of the right words are in there, but not quite in the right order. It's definitely too many words, and the knife must cut deep, sparing no word that doesn't carry its weight. It's like the camera coming into focus, the lines becoming clear and distinct.

It amazes me how, after revising the first six chapters of my current WIP countless times, I can still find a comma that needs to come out, or a way to rearrange a couple of sentences that makes it read so much better. I wonder how the hell I didn't see it the first fifty times I read it. But when it happens I say, "Yeah, that's the way it's supposed to go."

Rearranging sentences, restructuring paragraphs. I kind of like it now. The thing is, I know that once the first draft is complete I'll have already edited the thing hundreds of times, but I'll do a complete edit and probably still find thousands of words that need to come out.

It's okay, even preferable that it happens that way. I appreciate it now, because I know those first words I write, though I might fall in love with them, are just the beginning. The shape and form. I might have to take out some of my favorite lines to make it the best it can be. Unfortunate but true.

The focus and clearly projected imagery comes with fine tuning. This is where the prose takes on a voice that is distinct and in harmony with the tune of the story. We hope.

So I divide my time between creating new shapes and forms, and refining those that I've already created. My time is limited these days - bills and other such trivialities make considerable demands on my temporal resources - but I try to work on my current project for at least an hour or two every day. Sometimes more. It makes for slow but steady progress.

I need to make some progress now, before I get my towel and go meet some friends at the beach. Salty breezes to the ones it pleases...

Life Stuff

2007-03-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

I'm officially back in the business world, after a nice hiatus of about nine months. I'm returning to the technical staffing business, and grateful for the opportunity. I was in the industry for about eight years before my ongoing slugfest with alcohol put me out of the business, and just about killed me (but that's another story altogether). I did alright selling cars for the first three years of my sobriety, and I see no reason why I can't return to the kind of success I had previously in the technical arena.

These last nine months on hiatus have been good for me, if not financially productive. I've learned so much about writing, and the publishing industry in general, that I have to view it as an investment. The return on that investment is yet to be measured, and I believe it will be mostly determined by how I apply what I've learned. It can't be measured exclusively in financial terms. What I've learned applies not only to my writing, but my perspective on life overall. I made some spiritual progress during this time, and there is no way to quatify the value of that. The spiritual lessons pay dividends in all areas of my life.

One of the truly beneficial lessons I learned goes like this: When I try to tune in to the inner currents of positive energy, really focus on training my mind in a positive direction, and take the actions that I believe to be right, my life flows with much less friction. I can feel a most amazing progression of awareness. I meditate on releasing control of the outcome, and focus on my effort. I have to be aware of my motives, and when my motives aren't in line with a positive outcome, I have to slow down and reconsider, possibly change direction. This is improvement and growth for me. It's also a sad commentary on my life before sobriety. I'll admit I was a very selfish person for most of my life. I'm still selfish, but to a much lesser degree now, and I'm working on reducing it day by day.

The more I strengthen my spiritual condition, the more positive my life becomes. For me, the key thus far has been a combination of humility and gratitude. Alcohol humbled me, and my Higher Spirit has given me another chance to make good, and for this I'm grateful. With humility and gratitude in my heart, I find that I have greater awareness of the positive currents that flow from the Spirit. Some may think that this is all a bunch of hocus pocus, but when I feel that energy it's real to me and that's all the matters.

As an example: About six months ago I made amends with someone I worked with in the technical staffing business when I was still drinking. This person, Kathy, was someone I had been holding a grudge against because of some perceived wrongdoing I thought I'd suffered. Over the last three and a half years, as I've made spiritual progress and looked at my past behavior, I was able to see how I'd created the situation myself and was only a victim of my own selfish actions. So finally I called Kathy and made amends and she accepted my apology, admitting that she'd never suspected I held a grudge. We were friends again. Two months ago I contacted her again to let her know I was interested in getting back into the staffing business. I emailed my resume, which she passed on to a lady named Donna, who works for a company I was familiar with. Donna calls me and interviews me for an account manager (sales) position. She liked me and set me up to interview with her boss. He liked me too, but he was reluctant to hire me because I've been out of the business for four and a half years. No established relationships to bring to the table. They held off. A couple of days later, I called her and said "don't forget, I can also recruit". Four days after that, she calls me up and wants me to interview again for a recruiting position. I interviewed with the regional recruiting director and two days later got a job offer. Hell yeah! So I started the job two and a half weeks ago as a recruiter. This week, they decide they need me in sales. A promotion in two weeks. Hell yeah!

So the moral of the story is this: Because I was focusing on my spiritual connection I was given the awareness to see the right action, and with humility I made the amends that I needed to make. My motives were positive, and as close to pure as my motives are likely to be. Even though Kathy didn't know I'd been carrying a grudge, the fact is I blamed her for much of my misfortune. In admitting my own culpability, I let go of that negative energy. A series of events has since unfolded and the result is the very positive situation I find myself in now. This is just the most recent example. I could cite many many more, believe me.

I'm looking forward to a nice weekend, the weather here is supposed to be gorgeous. Sunshine and low 80's. A cool seabreeze. Pretty much ideal, if you ask me. Wishing the same for all the good people.

Chapter Four

2007-02-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

This is probably the last chapter I'll post for a while, but I think it's a good one. It introduces another primary character, drops in another plot element and ups the stakes. It isn't absolutely polished yet, put it's getting close.

Chapter Four

“Suicide, my ass.”

“There was a note.”

“Big fucking deal. That doesn’t mean anything. If the cops are on top of it, they’ll have a handwriting expert look at the signature. Bet my Harley it’s forged.”

“I’m sure they’ll look into it.” I was looking at the lower half of Gator’s body, sticking out from underneath the front end of a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. The car was up on ramps, and Gator was beneath it on a dolly.

“Where did you say this happened?” He’d not seen the news, which didn’t surprise me.

“The fish camp is in Barlow County.”

He rolled out from under the car, sat up and looked at me with his good eye. He wore a patch over the other. Gator looked like the prototypical Harley guy. He was large man with a broad frame and long black hair going gray, pulled back in a ponytail over which he wore a doo-rag, and a Fu-Manchu mustache that matched his hair. He wore a sleeveless black tee shirt that displayed well-developed, tattooed biceps. Worn out jeans, and black cowboy boots. The eye-patch gave him a pirate-type appeal.

“Barlow County?”

“Yeah.”

He laid down the wrench he’d been holding and stuck his hand up to me. I took it, braced my feet and pulled. He groaned as he got to his feet. He took an oil-stained rag from the back pocket of his jeans and wiped his hands, frowning. He removed his doo-rag and wiped his forehead.

“That’s different, then.”

“How so?”

“Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you,” he said, leading the way from the detached garage in his back yard. His old Bassett hound, Bullet, had been lying in the shade of Gator's pick-up, and he gradually raised himself to his feet, wagging his tail as he followed us. We crossed the yard to the house, and I noticed that Gator’s limp seemed to have become more pronounced. The limp was from an injury sustained many years ago in a motorcycle accident. He’d lost his eye at the same time.

He never called it an accident. He called it the “reckless pursuit of justice.” He had been a bounty hunter in Savannah, Georgia, and he’d been in a high speed chase with a fugitive who was fleeing charges of distributing cocaine. Gator wrecked the bike when a passenger in the car he was chasing had leaned out the window and taken a shot at him. The bullet hit his helmet and shattered the face-shield and one of the fragments had lodged in his eye. He lost control of the motorcycle, ran off the road and hit a stop sign, nearly severing his left leg. The car he was chasing ran the stop sign and was struck by a tractor-trailer, and the fugitive and his partner had been killed. Gator’s leg was destroyed, but the surgeons had managed to piece it together and save it.

We went in through the back door and I followed him to the kitchen. He pulled a pitcher of tea from the refrigerator, filled two glasses with ice, and poured them full. Then he took an orange from a fruit bowl and sliced it into wedges, squeezed a wedge into each glass and handed one to me. Gator’s iced tea was the best in the land, bar none. I took a healthy swallow and was instantly refreshed. Two more swallows and the glass was empty. I helped myself to a refill.

Gator picked up the pitcher. “Might as well bring this with us,” he said, and limped out to the screened porch on the back of his house. The back yard was shaded by several mammoth live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, and was bordered by the Amelia River. We sat in rocking chairs and propped our feet on old wooden wire spools. He put the pitcher on the short table between our chairs, within easy reach for either of us. Bullet lay down in front of us, resting his sagging face on his front paws.

“So, what’s different about Barlow County?” I asked.

He pursed his lips and stroked his mustache with a thumb and index finger.

“Ever heard of the Dixie Mafia?”

“Dixie Mafia? I’ve heard bits and pieces. I don’t really know much about them. I thought they kind of fell apart back in the eighties.”

“That’s true, to an extent. The Dixie Mafia was never a true mafia type organization, with families and Dons and shit like that. The best way I can describe it is they were a loosely organized network of convicted criminals and crooked politicians, located primarily in small towns across the Deep South. Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, with hubs in bigger cities like Atlanta and Baton Rouge, even Jacksonville. They were mostly involved in moving stolen goods, gambling, contract hits, and importing drugs. Most of the members were recruited while in prison, but many of the major players were police officers and sheriffs.”

He drained his glass and refilled it from the pitcher. He pulled a pack of Marlboros and a lighter from the pocket of his tee shirt, shook one loose and put it in his mouth. He lit up and blew a couple of smoke rings that hung in the air, floating slowly upward as they expanded and dissipated. I sat quietly and waited for him to continue.

“In this area it was mainly drugs. Marijuana and cocaine. The importers would pay off the sheriffs in these small, backwoods towns, and then they’d either fly in and land the planes on some makeshift landing strip out in a cow pasture, or they’d fly over and drop duffle bags from the planes. The cops would stand guard while the planes were unloaded or the duffle bags were gathered up. This was mostly back in the sixties and seventies, before the real Mafia decided they wanted a piece of the action, and started working with the Cartels down in Columbia.”

“Bobby Joe Blakely was the sheriff in Barlow County from nineteen-sixty-five up until nineteen-eighty-three, when he was killed. All during the heyday of the Dixie Mafia. It was widely rumored that Barlow County was a significant drop off point for a whole bunch of drugs. I’m talking tons and tons of the shit. Coke and weed. Bobby Joe was in charge of security for the smugglers, and he was well paid for his services, so the story goes. In March of eighty-three the FBI busted a plane with four tons of Columbian coke on board, out in a cow pasture in Barlow County. Three days later, Bobby Joe was found in the trunk of his car with his throat slit.”

Gator took the last drag off his cigarette and stubbed it out in a tray on the table. “No one was ever arrested for the crime, but I’ve heard the inside scoop from some people that would know. What happened was, Bobby Joe was getting heat from the FBI, they were snooping around and causing problems, getting a little too close for comfort. At the same time, some Columbians had approached him about bringing in some of their shit, wanting to use Bobby Joe’s landing strip. He made the decision to let the FBI have the Columbian’s plane with all the coke on board, figuring it would take the heat off him and his partners. Well, the Columbians didn’t take too kindly to him donating their coke to the FBI – they don’t take it lightly when they get double-crossed – so they whacked him. This accomplished several things. Number one, the FBI was satisfied that they’d put a dent in the incoming drugs and with Bobby Joe dead, they thought it would put an end to the trafficking in that county. The other thing it did was take the Columbians out of the picture in southeast Georgia and northeast Florida. They wouldn’t take another chance on trying to partner with any of the Dixie boys in this area, and they found other ways to bring in their product, anyway. This cleared the way for the Dixie Mafia to get back to business as usual, because they had Bobby Joe’s nephew in their pocket. Guess who the nephew is.”

“Tell me.”

“Jimmy Ray Cooper, Bobby Joe’s deputy at the time. He’s been sheriff in Barlow County ever since Bobby Joe’s murder. Going on thirty years now.”

“Everybody in the gang have two first names?”

Gator laughed. “I think it’s a requirement.”

“So the Dixie boys are still running the county?”

“I guess you could say that, but it’s not the same as it was back in the seventies. It’s on a much smaller scale today, and much more low-key, but make no mistake, Jimmy Ray runs that county. I think his thing now is gambling. I guess drugs are still in the picture, but if what I’ve heard is true, he’s part of a fairly large gambling operation.”

“I wonder if any of this is related to Golden’s death.”

“What was he doing at the fish camp? I mean, why that place?”

“I don’t know. Like I told you, I’d barely started working for him when this shit went down. I have no idea how or if he’s tied to that camp. I guess the detectives will look into all that. It’s not my business anymore. Detective Gordon made that pretty clear.”

“Gordon?” Gator’s eyebrows went up, and then he made a face like he wanted to spit. “I know him, he’s an idiot. I did a couple of takedowns in Barlow County, back in the day. Matter of fact, that’s where I busted myself up.”

“Your crash happened in Barlow County?”

“Yep. The dude I was chasing was from Durden, county seat of Barlow. When he fled the charges in Savannah he went home thinking he could go underground for a while, get some help and disappear. I tracked him there with the help of another bounty hunter; a guy goes by the name of ‘Hawk’. Hawk knew all about Barlow County and its Dixie Mafia tie-in, that’s how I learned all this history. Your Detective Gordon came to the hospital to interview me after the crash. He’s one of Cooper’s boys, you can believe that.”

I didn’t say anything. We rocked and looked out at the river. I’d been wondering why Richard had gone to that particular fish camp. Now it took on a new importance. If he was involved with the Dixie Mafia in some way, the real cause of his death and the reason behind it might never be resolved. The Barlow County cops might just bury the whole thing.

“What are you planning to do?” He was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Nothing. It’s none of my business, like Gordon said.”

A smile was twitching under his mustache. “That right?”

“That’s right.” Bullet was looking at me, too. He blinked in slow motion.

“I’d be real careful if I was you.”

“What did I just say? I’m going to mind my own business.”

“Well, then, I’ll just tell you. While you’re minding your own business, watch your fucking step up there. If you decide to go looking around, you’ll want to do it real quietly. Gordon wouldn’t think twice about making you disappear if he thinks it’s in his best interest.”

I decided it would be useless to continue the argument. “Okay. If I decide to go looking around, I’ll be careful.”

“Real careful.”

“Right. Real careful.”

The phone rang inside the house and Gator rocked out of his chair to go answer it. I sat there, looking out through the screen at the trees and the river, wondering if any of the information Gator had shared with me tied in to Golden’s death, or if it was simply coincidence. I looked at Bullet and he blinked at me again. He seemed to have his own thoughts on the matter.

“What do you think, Bullet?”

He raised his head and licked his drooping chops, let his tongue dangle as he considered the question. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were full of doubt. He didn’t believe me either.

Gator came back out to the porch. “That was dinner calling. Charlene’s makin’ chicken and dumplins, and she invited you to join us. You don’t want to turn this down, I promise you.”

“Chicken and dumplins sound pretty damn good to me. You talked me into it.”

I followed Gator over to his girlfriend’s house, which wasn’t far. He wasn’t lying. Charlene’s chicken and dumplings were as good as I’d ever had, and I told her so numerous times. Her biscuits were of the same quality, as were the turnip greens. It was as fine a meal as I’d had in a long time. I told them I owed them one and they brushed it off, but I invited them to my house for a cookout next weekend.

Gator walked out to the driveway as I was leaving. He had a few more words for me.

“I know you said you aren’t going to get involved in the investigation, and maybe you won’t. I hope you don’t, for the reasons I’ve already told you. But, if you somehow find yourself looking into the thing, watch your back. I can’t stress that enough.”

“I appreciate it, Gator, I really do, but I’m sure the police don’t want my help. It’s their case, and they can have it. I need some clients that can pay for my services and, unfortunately, Richard Golden won’t be writing any more checks.”

We shook hands and he watched me back out of the driveway. I waved as I pulled into the street and drove away.

My cell phone rang as I was driving home. I checked the ID but didn’t recognize the number.

“Chuck Brody.”

“Brody, this is Detective Gordon.”

Barlow County’s finest. Wonderful. “Hello, Detective.”

“I need you to come up here tomorrow; we have to get an official statement.”

“Should I bring an attorney?”

He made a noise that was supposed to be a laugh but sounded more like a bark. “That’s up to you, shamus.”

I didn’t plan to bring a lawyer, but I’d let him think about it.

“What time?”

“Ten o’clock. My office is in the police department building next to the county courthouse in Durden. Know where it is?”

“I’ll find it.”

Chapter Five will conclude this scene, and the stakes will go up some more. Once again, comments are appreciated! Peace and sunshine.

Chapter Three

2007-02-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

This chapter sets up the MC for the end of the first act and his decision to investigate. It isn't a complete scene, the scene actually continues for two more chapters, but I like short chapters and there is a good break point. It provides a little more insight into the main character, drops some clues for the MC to investigate, and also sets up the introduction of another primary character in the next chapter. Once again, comments are appreciated!

Chapter Three

I was watching the news when Wally called and asked me what I had planned for the evening. I told him I hadn’t made any.

“Come on over. Michelle and Wendy are gonna come by, and I’ve got four steaks marinating, three pounds of shrimp boiling, two bottles of Chianti chilling.”

“And a partridge in a pear tree, I guess.”

“Funny.”

“I think I’m gonna lay low tonight, try to get back into a normal sleep pattern.”

“Wendy’s gonna be disappointed.”

“Life’s full of disappointments. She’ll get over it.”

The local news featured Richard Golden’s death as the lead story. I’d asked Gordon to keep my name out of it, and so far he had, saying only that they’d received an “anonymous tip” about suspicious activity near the fish camp. The news reports contained nothing that I didn’t know already.

I flipped through the channels and tried to unwind but I was too restless to relax. I decided to go for a drive in the old convertible, a 1969 Camaro SS, my pride and joy. Restoring old muscle cars was a hobby of mine, and this was my latest project. It wasn’t completely restored yet, but I was working on it.

As I drove south on A1A with the top down, the last remnants of daylight were being chased away to the west, blurry ribbons of orange and purple dissolving on the horizon. It was a warm night with high, thin clouds being pushed around by a humid sea breeze. A nice night for a drive. Although I didn’t remember making a conscious decision to go there, I wasn’t surprised to find myself taking a right off the highway onto Mickler Road and driving by Richard’s office.

His office was on the left as I passed by, and a light was on somewhere in the building, shining indirectly through a window in the front. I thought this to be somewhat unusual; but then, it wasn’t exactly business as usual after what had happened last night. I wondered who was in the building. No cars were parked in front, but there hadn’t been any cars parked there when I made my visit yesterday, so I assumed the employees parked in back.

I continued past the office and a little further down saw a dirt road on the left that ran off into the woods. About twenty yards into the woods the dirt track was blocked by a chain that was connected to a thick post on each side. A sign hung from the chain – No Trespassing. I turned the car around, backed it up to the chain and shut it off.

I didn’t like leaving it there, unlocked with the top down, but I didn’t expect to be gone long; I just wanted to find out who was in the office at this hour. Darkness settled in quietly as I walked back up the road. When I reached the boundary of the office property where the tree line stopped, I jumped a small culvert that ran parallel with the road, my shoes squishing in the soft, wet turf on the other side, and entered the woods. I walked through the trees and saw that the light was coming from a room on this side, most likely the office across from Richard’s. I continued walking until I could see the rear of the building. The back door had a small landing that was lit by a porch light, and a short flight of steps that led down to the rear parking area.

The storage building had a flood light mounted under the eve, and it cast a large oval of light on the gravel lot. There was a silver Toyota SUV parked near the steps of the office. I made note of the number on the tag.

I was debating about leaving my cover and walking up for a look in the window when the light in the office went out. I stepped back behind a tree and waited. I was crouched low among the palmettos when I heard the dull throb of an engine and beams from the headlights cut across the woods as a car turned into the driveway.

A shiny red Corvette convertible with the top down cruised up the drive to the back, and I recognized Paul Freeley behind the wheel.

Just as Freeley turned off his engine and climbed out, the back door of the office opened and Georgia Cantrell stepped into the porch light. She looked surprised when she saw Freeley. She was carrying what looked like a couple of text books in one arm, her purse hanging by a strap on her shoulder. She had keys in her hand and pulled the door shut but didn’t lock it.

I was parallel with the storage building, about forty yards away from where she was standing. I couldn’t hear what she said to Freeley, but I heard his reply.

“Yeah, leave it open, thanks,” he said.

He closed his car door and approached the stairs as she reached the bottom. They spoke briefly; she nodded as he put a hand on her shoulder. Freeley continued speaking as she pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped underneath her eyes, dabbing at the corners. She nodded again and he gave her a one-armed hug. Commiseration.

They parted and he walked up the stairs and went inside as she got into the SUV, backed out and drove away. The light came back on, the same room as before, and I concluded that it must be Freeley’s office. I wondered what Georgia Cantrell had been doing in there.

I decided to have a look at what Freeley was doing. There was too much light to approach the building from this side, so I started walking the edge of the woods around behind the storage building to the other side, where I could approach the building in darkness. The undergrowth was thick, and I swiped at spider webs as I avoided the sharp prongs of the palmettos.

I reached the other side of the office building and could see indirect light coming through the window of Richard’s office. I left the safety of the woods and was crossing the grass when the light in Richard’s office came on. Six quick strides put me next to the building, standing in the flower bed.

I slid up to the window and looked in without getting directly into the light. Freeley was investigating the drawers of Richard’s desk. I noticed the computer was missing from the desktop. The police must have confiscated it.

Freeley closed one drawer and opened another. He was frowning, tight-lipped and upset, which was natural under the circumstances. His boss had been found dead and he’d just gotten the news this morning. The business would be thrown into disarray. Investors would be pulling out or, at the very least, putting things on hold until Richard’s death was resolved. Freeley was the financial brains behind the operation; he handled the investors and the money. He would have his hands full for the foreseeable future.

He closed the last drawer in the desk and turned to the credenza behind him. He opened the doors and searched the shelves and drawers. He was deliberate and methodical and I had the impression he was looking for something specific, not just snooping around. He pulled out file folders and thumbed through them, put them back in place. He closed the credenza and spun back around in the chair, leaned back and rubbed his face with both hands.

Dark circles hung under his eyes, and his face seemed to have put on years since yesterday. He sat up and leaned forward, looking over the items on the desk, saw something that caught his interest, and picked up a business card from the blotter. He examined it, frowned and put it back on the desk, then stood up and walked out of the office, turning the light off as he went.

I watched him cross the hall and disappear into his office. A few moments later he came out carrying a briefcase, turned off his light and started toward the back door. I snuck over to the corner and peeked around just as he stepped out and locked the door. He trudged down the stairs and over to his car and cranked it up. He drove away slowly, the throaty rumble of the powerful V8 rising as he turned onto Mickler and accelerated toward the highway, passing the side of the building from which I’d been observing, and I watched his taillights fade as the car drove out of sight.

I walked around the building and stood in the gravel parking lot, wondering what individual business Georgia Cantrell and Paul Freeley had in the office that night. There were too many possibilities to consider, most of which weren’t the least bit ominous. Most likely they were simply looking after the business, preparing for the inevitable inquiries of clients and business associates, and an onslaught of condolences. They were also dealing with their own grief. Nothing suspicious about that. Perfectly natural.

Only it didn’t feel that way.

I walked back to my car and drove home, thinking about the mystery caller. Who all had known I was working for Richard? Paul Freeley and Georgia Cantrell had known. Terrence Tyler had recommended me, so I assumed he knew. Richard himself, of course, and whoever he might have told. That was the problem. I had no idea who Richard may have spoken with about my involvement.

Wendy’s car was parked in front of Wally’s house when I passed by, and I decided I’d drop in to see what was going on. I liked Wendy. She didn’t have the annoying habit of growing expectations if we happened to share a night of physical pleasure, and she’d never once asked “Why haven’t you called me?” That alone put her at the top of my list for female companionship. Plus, she was good looking, with a body that was built to go the distance.

I parked in my driveway and walked back to Wally’s place, and I could hear music coming from the yard in back. I went in through the front door, detoured through the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, continued through to the back.

They were all sitting out on the patio, sprawled in lawn chairs in the light of several tiki torches. Wally was sitting on the end of a chaise that Michelle was laying on, strumming his guitar and singing “Aimee” by Pure Prairie League. Wendy was lying on another chaise, and Wally’s neighbors, Todd and Pam, were sitting in chairs around the patio table.

Wendy squealed and hopped up, skipped over and hugged me, mashing her breasts against my chest as she smiled up at me. She kissed me quickly on the lips.

“Hiya, handsome.”

“Hiya, doll. How’re you feeling?”

“Better, now,” she said, as she lifted my hand and twirled beneath it.

I raised my beer in salute to Todd and Pam, and they waved back. I smiled at Michelle, nodded at Wally, and let Wendy lead me back to her chair. I straddled the chair and leaned back and she sat between my legs, reclining on me. It was a nice fit.

I smelled the lingering aroma of Wally’s homegrown mingling with the tangy scent of the sea as we sat on the patio, talking quietly and enjoying the evening while Wally strummed and sang. When Wally tired of playing he turned on the outdoor sound system, tuning in to a jazz station.
I sipped my beer and let my mind wander. I listened to the conversation while thoughts of the mystery caller and Richard Golden and other things tumbled around under the surface. I kept reminding myself that it wasn’t any of my business. It didn’t do any good.

It was after midnight when Todd and Pam excused themselves, thanking Wally for the food and spirits and entertainment.

It wasn’t much later when I tapped Wendy’s shoulder. “If you’re planning to take advantage of me tonight, you’d better get busy.”

She stood up and helped me out of the chaise.

“Let’s go, cowboy,” she said. “I’m ready to ride.” Her smile was wicked.

“Don’t hurt him too bad, Wendy,” Wally said. “He’s old and fragile, you know.”

“Watch your mouth, little man. I’m only two years older than you,” I said.

He saluted me with his wine glass. “See ya, Gramps.”

* * * * *

Wendy was gone when I woke up Sunday morning. She left a note on the kitchen table.

Thanks for the ride, cowboy. See you around the waterin’ hole.

Wendy

If I was capable of falling in love, Wendy would be a prime candidate.

I started the coffee and showered while it was percolating. I decided to take a drive up the coast and see my friend Stanley “Gator” Stallings. I wanted to talk about Richard Golden, and I could always count on Gator’s unique insights to shed light on any questionable situation.

Many thanks to the people who've read and offered comments so far. If you're so inclined, please let me know what you think about this chapter. Peace and warm Krisp Kreme donuts for all the good people.

Chapter Two

2007-02-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

Well, this is the second chapter as it exists right now. It explains a bit of what is going on in chapter one, provides some backstory and introduces new characters that have significant roles in the story going forward. Here it is:

Chapter 2

It was nearly nine o’clock the next morning when I turned in to the narrow drive next to my house and parked my truck. My friend Wally Thompson was walking up the street carrying his surfboard, coming from the beach. He was shirtless, tanned and muscular, sun-bleached hair dangling to his shoulders. Wally lived on the next block up, and seeing him pass my house with his board was a daily occurrence. It wasn’t unusual for him to see me arriving home from work at some odd hour of the morning. Being a private investigator offered strange working hours.

“Morning, Colombo,” he called out. Wally liked to give people nick names, and I was alternately Colombo, Perry Mason, and Rockford, among others. If I did something dumb I was branded 'Barney', the ultimate shame. When I did something clever I was rewarded with 'Sherlock'. A literary figure, Wally’s highest praise.

“How’re the waves this morning?” I asked.

“Not much to work with today. I mostly floated and tinkered with my serenity.”

“Worse ways to spend the morning.”

“You look like you’d know.”

“I would,” I said, turning to go inside. “Cup of coffee?”

“Hell, yeah.”

I left Wally in charge of the TV while the coffee percolated and I took a shower. It felt good to finally wash off the swamp water and mud. The shower refreshed me, but I was still exhausted. I toweled off, put on a pair of khaki shorts and a tee shirt, and followed the smell of coffee down the hall. Sunlight was streaming into the kitchen through the window over the sink as I filled two mugs. Another sunny day in Neptune Beach.

I went to the den where Wally was sprawled on the couch, watching something about the Wild West on the History Channel.

“So, who or what kept you up all night?” he asked, as I handed him a cup.

I rolled down into the overstuffed chair and propped my feet on the ottoman. “You won’t believe it.”

Wally raised an eyebrow. “Really? Try me.”

“Richard Golden is dead. I found him hanging by his neck last night.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

I briefed him on my phone conversation and ensuing frolic in the swamp. “The cops kept me around all night, asking me the same questions over and over.”

“Suicide?”

“That’s how it looks.”

“Did he leave a note?”

“Yeah, they found it in his back pocket. Composed on a computer and printed with an inkjet. It had his signature. The detectives are checking his computers, home and office.”

“What did it say?”

“That’s the interesting part. It was a confession. Said he killed his wife because she was leaving him. He couldn’t live without her and couldn’t bear the thought of her being with someone else. Now he’s so full of remorse he can’t live with himself. May God have mercy on his soul. Signed, Richard Golden.”

“That’s it? You buy that?”

I took a sip of coffee and considered the question. Richard and Sheila Golden had been separated for about five months, prior to her disappearance, and she had filed for divorce. She had been missing now for two months in a case that had been closely followed by the local media. The police had not officially named Richard as a suspect, but he was the primary “person of interest”. It amounted to the same thing, the way the media presented it to the public, and most people suspected it was only a matter of time before he was charged and arrested. Her body had not been found, but there was substantial evidence of foul play, and the evidence pointed to Richard. He hired me to find out what happened to his wife, and clear his name.

“No. I don’t buy it.”

“How long were you working for him?”

I’d taken the job on Thursday night. He died Friday night. “One day.”

“Learn anything?”

“Not much. I hardly had time to get started.”

“You think he killed his wife?”

“Before I met him I thought maybe he did, like everyone else, but after talking to him I didn’t think so. He told me he still loved her and I believed him.”

“The note didn’t say where her body could be found?”

“No.”

“What about the phone call? Who sent you out to the swamp?”

“That’s the big question.”

“What did the cops say about it?”

“Not much. I’m not sure they believed it. The lead detective didn’t take a shine to me. Called me ‘shamus’.”

“Shamus?” Wally laughed. “Talk about old school.”

“Yeah. Detective Gordon, your typical redneck blowhard. Said my story was ‘flimsy’, but he couldn’t come up with a good reason to arrest me. Seemed like he wanted to, though. He asked questions, wrote notes, asked the same questions again in different ways, to see if my story stayed consistent. I didn’t take it personal, I figured he just didn’t like the shamus population in general."

“So what’re you going to do now?”

“Leave it to the experts. I’m just a witness. And they made it pretty clear that my investigative talents, such as they are, won’t be needed. Told me to mind my own business and be available to give an official statement.”

“You’re not going to poke around a little?”

“Probably not. The cops will figure it out, they don’t need my help.”

“I guess,” he said, unconvinced. Wally didn’t particularly care for the police, and they didn’t care much for him. Wally’s lifestyle – funded by a rather large inheritance – consisted of surfing, smoking weed, chasing women, and working on his cars. A thirty-five year old teenager. As he often said to me, “Why grow up if you don’t have to?” He’d never been in any real trouble with the police. Busted once for possession when he was caught smoking a joint on the beach. Nothing major, but the local cops knew who he was and they didn’t let him forget it. They suspected, incorrectly, that he was into heavier stuff. I didn’t count the fact that he grew his own weed as a major offense.

“I’ll see what they come up with. The phone call still bothers me. Someone knows something. Whether they were trying to save Richard from killing himself, or they just wanted me to find the body, I don’t know. The cops don’t seem to think it rules out suicide.”

“It doesn’t rule it out, but it makes his death a bit more suspicious, don't you think?”

“Yeah. It does.”

I sipped my coffee and stared at the TV, not really seeing what was happening on the screen. My thoughts kept getting pushed aside by the image of Richard Golden hanging by his neck. Tugging at the rope.

Despite the coffee, my eyelids were getting heavy, and my brain wasn’t clicking in its normal fashion. I needed sleep.

“I’m going to hit the rack for a couple of hours. I’m beat.”

“You look it,” Wally said, standing up. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll catch up with you later.”

* * * * *

It was three-thirty in the afternoon when I opened my eyes. I felt better but still groggy. I decided to go for a jog on the beach to shake off the cobwebs and get my blood flowing again. I stretched in the driveway, looking around as I loosened my quads and hamstrings.

The only people out in the mid-day heat were the ever-present construction workers. It seemed like every third house was undergoing a major renovation. This neighborhood was still experiencing the benefits of the recent real estate surge, even if the market had cooled elsewhere. Any property close to the beach was still appreciating and you could see small cottages, fifty years old like mine, nestled between million dollar condos and duplexes under construction.

I walked the two blocks to the ocean, still getting loose. I was shirtless and the sun felt good on my shoulders. I kicked up some sand as I broke into a jog when I reached the hard packed surface left behind by the outgoing tide. The waves were breaking nicely and the surfers were out in numbers. I went south, toward the pier, and lengthened my stride as my breathing settled into a steady rhythm.

My mind began to clear and I tried to sort out my thoughts on Richard Golden. I recalled my meeting with him on Thursday night. He’d phoned me that afternoon and said we had a mutual friend, Terrence Tyler, a man that I’d once worked for who’d recommended me. Richard wanted to talk to me about his case. I was curious, and I needed work, so I agreed to meet him.

I knew some basic facts about him, from what I’d read in the paper and seen on the news. Richard Golden was a real estate developer who specialized in residential construction. He bought the land, developed it for small neighborhoods, sold some lots to other contractors and built some houses himself. He had ambitions of becoming a bigger player in the market and just over a year ago had bought a valuable tract of land near Fernandina, which he hoped would be his signature development, but according to some reports he was leveraged out the ass and struggling. He’d never been in any trouble with the law, before his wife’s disappearance. By most accounts, he was an average citizen trying to make his mark in his chosen line of business.

We met at Smugglers, a popular restaurant and nightclub at the beach. He was waiting for me in a dark booth in the corner of the bar, and stood to greet me as I approached the table. He was taller than average, about my height, and built like he’d once been an athlete. He had wavy brown hair starting to gray. His eyes, even in the subdued lighting, were a luminescent blue. He had white teeth and a strong chin. A good looking guy.

“Chuck Brody, I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He shook my hand like he was pumping me for water.

We sat and ordered drinks, and I decided to get right to the point.

“What exactly can I do for you, Mr. Golden?”

“Find out what happened to my wife,” he said. His eyes were steady, sincere.

“Mr. Golden, I – “

“Call me Richard.”

“Okay, Richard. Look, in my business, I find missing people. That’s what I do. But the people I find are presumed to be alive when I go looking for them, and so far I’ve found them that way. Your wife, excuse the insensitivity, is presumed dead.”

“I know, but I didn’t do it. I loved her. I still do,” he said. “I was trying to convince her to come back to me when she disappeared. I had nothing to do with it. Someone is setting me up.”

I expected to hear something along those lines.

I asked him about the night she’d disappeared. He told me he had been out with his friend, a man who worked for him, Paul Freeley. They’d been at a local bar and he had been drinking heavily, as had been his habit since his wife left him. He’d always liked to drink his share of whiskey, he said, but now he was indulging more than he ever had. Drowning his sorrows. He went home about nine o’clock, and had several more drinks while watching TV. He passed out on the couch.

He woke up the next morning, hung-over, took a shower and went to work. That afternoon the cops arrived at his office, requesting that he come downtown for questioning. He called his lawyer, Tim Schneider, who met him at the station.

The police obtained a search warrant while he was being detained, searched his home and his car, and found traces of blood in the trunk, which turned out to be hers.

“What about the divorce? Was she trying to shake you down?”

He rubbed his forehead, ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, I guess. She was going for every penny she could get.”

“So, from the perspective of the police, you had motive. You also had opportunity. You have no alibi for the rest of the evening after you left the bar. The police found evidence of violence in her apartment, and they found her blood in your car. Those are the facts as the cops see them. On a positive note, they don’t have a body.”

Richard nodded, waiting for me to continue.

“Who would want to harm your wife and set you up for the crime?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She was a manipulator, and she knew how to get what she wanted. She could be a bitch, you know? She pissed off plenty of people, women mostly. But I don’t know of anyone that hated her enough to kill her.”

I didn’t ask him to explain why he still loved her, knowing what kind of person she was. It wouldn’t make sense to me, or anyone else. Love never makes sense.

I asked about people close to him that were also well acquainted with his wife. He named several people; mutual friends, his employees, social contacts, and I wrote them down in my notepad.

“Does this mean you’re going to help me?”

He didn’t strike me as a liar. Desperate, maybe, but that was understandable.

I told him my fees and he nodded, very agreeable. His phone rang and he looked at the number, said he needed to take the call and stood up. He apologized, saying he’d be right back. When he came back he paid the tab and we left, going our separate ways, with me telling him I’d see him at his office in the morning.

I found his office on a small side road off of A1A, just south of the Ponte Vedra city limits. It was a small stucco building with a gravel parking lot, palm trees and flower beds in front and a slice of green grass on the left side. The gravel drive continued behind the building on the right, and I could see part of a larger building in back, what looked like a garage for keeping equipment and supplies.

The front door opened to a reception area. To the right was a brown leather sofa and a coffee table with several magazines spread out, showing pictures of tastefully decorated homes. To the left was a desk, and behind the desk was a pretty blonde woman, smiling pleasantly. She filled out her Polo shirt rather nicely. I guessed her to be in her late twenties.

“Good morning,” she said. Her green eyes seemed to peek over her cheekbones, like the sun rising over the mountains. “Can I help you?”

I handed her my card and said I was there to see Richard.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Brody, Richard told me he was expecting you.”

She hopped up and came around the desk, and I saw that the lower half was just as nice as the upper. Her faded jeans were snug and showed a nice form. She leaned into the doorway that opened to a hall leading to the back of the building.

“Richard, Mr. Brody’s here,” she called.

“Great. Send him back,” I heard him say.

She pointed down the hall. “First door on the left.”

Richard was behind a large oak desk, and he stood and waved me toward a couple of client chairs facing him. We shook hands across the desk and sat down and I opened my notebook.

I began by asking him about his business, and if there was anyone that would hurt his wife to get to him. He said he had stepped on a few toes – “It happens a lot in this business” – but no one that would go to such extremes to get back at him. At least, not that he was aware of. He told me about his current project, Treasure Cove, and the investors currently involved. He’d been struggling to hold onto his investors with all the media attention coming down on him. I wrote down the names of these people, as well as others he’d worked with in the past.

I asked more questions about his wife’s habits, her job, social activities, organizations that she belonged to. He told me she had once been a real estate agent, but she had quit soon after they got married and hadn’t worked in three years. She was active in a tennis league, and she worked out just about every day at World Gym. She had a regular group of women that she liked to shop with. I took down their names, a couple of which I was familiar with. She liked to run with the well-to-do crowd.

I asked if she had any boyfriends.

He shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of, but she wouldn’t want that kind of information to get out, with the divorce still pending.”

“Gut feelings, though? Do you suspect she was seeing anyone?”

He hesitated, leaned back in the large leather chair, looked out the window to his left. He seemed to reach a decision.

“No. I thought there might be someone when she first left me, but I didn’t have anything to base it on.”

We were interrupted when a man stepped into the doorway.

“Hey, Richard, sorry to intrude, but we’ve got that meeting at noon,” the man said. He had well-groomed blond hair, average build, dressed in jeans and a yellow Polo, which seemed to be the company uniform here on Casual Friday. Early thirties, maybe. Looked like he probably belonged to a fraternity when he was in school.

“Hey, Paul, this is Chuck Brody, a private investigator. He’s going to be checking some things out for me. Chuck, Paul Freeley. Paul’s the financial brains of the operation.”

I stood and shook hands with him. He had brown eyes and boyish grin that the ladies probably found charming.

“If I can help in any way, just let me know,” he said.

“Will do. Thanks.”

I told Richard I had enough information to get started, and that I’d check in with him later in the day. I walked out into the reception area, where the blond lady was typing something on her keyboard. She looked up.

“Leaving?”

I flattered myself that she looked disappointed.

“Not without a proper introduction. You know my name, but I’m afraid I don’t know yours.”

She stood and offered her hand. “Georgia Cantrell,” she said. Her southern drawl was softer than a lullaby.

“Chuck Brody. My pleasure.”

“Will you be dropping in again, Mr. Brody?”

“It’s Chuck. And if I don’t drop in again, send out a search party.”

She laughed. I noticed that there was no ring on her left hand. “Let me know if I can help with anything,” she said, and I wondered if heard any emphasis on the last word. I decided it was wishful thinking on my part.

I drove home and spent the afternoon reading every article I could find on the internet about Richard Golden, and his wife’s disappearance.

When my eyes began to blur from reading on the monitor, I decided it was time to get something to eat. I walked up the block and saw that Wally’s truck was gone from his driveway, and continued walking to Third Street. I was about halfway through a cheeseburger at my favorite diner when my cell phone rang. I checked the caller ID but it was blank, indicating the ID had been blocked. The mystery caller.

It was after seven, so I tried to reach Richard on his cell phone. No answer. Thirty minutes later I was on my way to the swamp.

This all seemed like a long time ago, but it had just happened yesterday.

Now Richard is dead. It would be interesting to see what theory the cops came up with.

I came out of my reverie and realized I’d gone much farther than my normal run, and I slowed to a walk. I finally stopped and looked out at the ocean. I thought about the phone call. I saw Richard’s face, bloated and grotesque, his fingers in the noose. I thought about Detective Gordon. None of my business. I turned north and took my time going home.

And that's the second chapter. Comments are appreciated! Peace and God Bless.

Revision

2007-02-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, another revision on the first chapter is done. I removed the first version (not really the first, but the first one I posted here), and replaced it with the revision. Kaycee and Brenda, your comments were helpful. I don't know if this new version is any better, but hopefully I've made changes that will increase the tension in the first half of the chapter. I hope it's an improvement. Once again, comments are appreciated!

First Chapter

2007-02-02T19:15:00.000-08:00

I'm working on the plot of the mystery I've decided I need to write. Why do I need to write this? Because it's a good exercise in plotting, and it's outside my comfort zone. My comfort zone being: know where the story starts, and know where it ends, and start at the beginning and write toward the end. This is how I wrote the first manuscript I completed. The result was a year of writing and a year and a half of revision. Genre-wise, the first one was a thriller, and I guess that method was okay for that kind of story, it just sort of evolved on its own. But, I've decided to write a genre mystery, and the plotting has to lead the writing. So, I'm stumbling along in unknown territory, researching and learning as I go. Here's the first chapter:

Chapter One

Up to my ass in alligators. I’ve said it before but never have I meant it so literally. Waist deep in the swamp, wading through the brackish water as pale beams of moonlight cut through the trees, I knew there were alligators.

I held my Glock at shoulder level as I moved toward the dim yellow light of the cabin, sliding from tree to tree and trying not to stumble on the roots in the water.

My eyes caught movement to the right, an indistinct shape shifted in my peripheral vision. When I tried to focus, I saw only varying degrees of darkness, layers of shadows. All was motionless under the low-hanging Spanish moss, and I wondered if I’d seen any movement at all.

The swamp was noisy. Fifteen different species of frogs thrived in this tide-controlled bog, and it sounded like every one of them was starting a riot. This would work to my advantage, masking any sound I might make on my approach. I would try not to disturb the frogs. Or the alligators.

The cabin was a wooden shack with a tin roof, built on stilts and sitting four feet above the water. A deck was built around the outside, the front portion of which was covered, and from there a short set of wooden steps led down to a dock-like walkway, running fifteen feet and connecting to solid ground. The moon provided ample illumination to see a dark Chevy Silverado parked in the drive at the end of the walkway.

Amber light glowed weakly from an open window in the back of the shack. I listened for voices as I advanced, but I could hear nothing over the frogs. From the back deck a small dock floated with the rise and fall of the tide. This was my destination.

I stopped to take inventory of my surroundings and noticed two dark bumps on the surface of the water about twenty feet to my left. When I looked more closely I recognized them as the eyes of an alligator and, judging by the length of its snout, I gauged it to be a rather large one. It was pointed in my direction but it wasn’t moving. I stood still and held my breath, waiting to see if the creature was going to stir. It seemed that the monster was sizing me up.

Just as I decided I should breathe again, the gator dropped beneath the surface and vanished. Now I was a statue. A frog could have hopped onto my gun and spit in my eye and I wouldn’t have blinked. Time hung like a crooked picture.

A mosquito buzzed by my ear and a moment later I felt the familiar tingle on my neck. I could almost hear it sucking my blood but I resisted the urge to slap it. A couple of seasons came and went with no sign of the gator. The mosquito was still draining me. I couldn’t stand there all night, I decided to take my chances. But first I had my revenge on the insect, ending its life in a liquid splatter on my neck.

I covered the last thirty yards to the dock quickly. A canoe was tied to the corner, and from the dock a wooden ladder lead up a couple of feet to the deck. I stood in the water below, listening for sounds of movement in the house, but I couldn’t detect any noise coming from inside. From my position I could see the Chevy truck alone in the drive, and it looked like the one owned by my current employer, the man who had hired me to find out what happened to his wife. I wasn’t able to make a positive ID, there are thousands of dark Chevrolet trucks on the road, and I couldn’t imagine why Richard Golden would be here. I couldn’t think of any good reason.

I removed my small backpack and placed it on the dock, floating just above waist level. I unzipped it and took out a hunting knife in a leather sheath and laid it down, and moved the pack to the back edge of the dock.

I pulled myself quietly up onto the wooden planks and crouched there, listening for any human sound. I saw a disturbance in the water to the left, and through a pool of shimmering moonlight the gator was gliding away. The swirl from its tail was at least twelve feet behind the snout as it faded like a ghost into the cypresses.

I picked up the knife and put it in the waistband of my jeans, around by the small of my back. I hoped there would be no circumstance to defend myself, but the feeling wasn’t optimistic. My instincts were humming, something felt wrong with the whole scene.

The frogs, in concert, went silent, leaving a conspicuous void in the air. The crescent moon held its breath, and the stars twinkled without a sound. A lonely cricket threw out a wager, but no one would take the bet and he soon gave up trying.

I clicked the safety off the Glock and climbed up the ladder to the deck. Keeping low, I moved to the back door and peered through the window into a dark, rustic kitchen, which was open to the living area, forming one large room. I tried the door; it was locked. There was light streaming through a doorway in the wall of the living area, coming from the room with the open window to my left. I saw no shadows, but I knew someone had to be in that room.

I stayed low and moved along the wall, creeping to the window. From this angle, the head of a bunk bed was visible against the wall on the far side. I leaned around, widening my view into the room. I stopped when I saw movement.

A shadow up on the wall was swinging slowly to and fro. A silhouette, with the head cocked at an unnatural angle, and a thin shadow leading up from the neck. My scalp tightened. I leaned back against the wall and took a couple of deep breaths.

I cocked the hammer and spun quickly, bringing the gun up and into the window, panning the room before I looked at the hanging man. He was alone.

It was Richard Golden.

What fresh hell is this?

I ducked back down and tried to gather my senses. I moved quickly around the deck, performing a search of the perimeter but there was no one lurking outside the house. I tried the front door. It swung open, creaking mournfully as I slipped inside.

Entering the bedroom, I saw that the rope was tied to an exposed beam in the ceiling. Below was a chair lying on its side, and the toes of his Nikes swung inches above, twisting slowly. He was clad in faded jeans and a green tee shirt. His right arm was crooked at the elbow and two fingers of his hand were wedged between his neck and the rope, like tugging at his collar. His collar was definitely too tight.

The light was coming from a lamp sitting on a nightstand, next to the bathroom door. I reached into the bathroom and flicked on the light, spun back and waited, but no one came flying out or took a shot at me. I looked in and it was vacant.

I checked the man’s left wrist for a pulse, but there was no life left in him. His hand was cool to the touch. I looked at his swollen face, just long enough to confirm my earlier identification, and turned away. The face of a hanging man is a dreadful thing to see, and the image of his bulging eyes and protruding tongue would be hard to forget.

Obvious questions blasted through my mind. Why is Richard Golden here? And why is he hanging by his neck? Is this suicide or murder?

His presence was so completely unexpected that I decided it must somehow be tied to my reason for being here, and the sinister implications of this sent a hard chill through my system.

I turned off the bathroom light and unplugged the lamp, went out to the deck to retrieve my pack. I inspected the dock area in the light of the moon. It was bare and dry, with the exception of my own wet markings. The canoe tied there was old and weathered, and held a small pool of rainwater and leaves in the bottom.

There was a length of rope lying by the other corner of the dock, tied to a cleat. I picked up the loose end and it felt damp. I felt the rope that secured the canoe, and it didn’t feel quite as moist. I had an urge to use my flashlight for a look into the swamp but I didn’t want to make myself an easy target, if anyone happened to be lurking out there. I listened for any unusual sounds, but all I heard were a few frogs working to get the chorus started again.

I skulked out to the driveway and felt the hood of the truck. It wasn’t hot, but in the heat of the swamp it was hard to tell how long it might have been sitting.

I looked around the clearing, wondering what the hell was going on here.

I’d had an instinct that I was being set up, which is why I came to the cabin through the swamp. I was suspicious about the caller who’d requested the meeting and given me directions to this place.

The caller had been vague, promising information on “the case you’re working on.”

“Which case? I have several,” I lied.

“The lady.”

“What kind of information?”

“Information you’ll be glad to have.” He gave me directions to the shack.

“When?”

“As soon as you can get there.”

“Why do we have to meet eight miles from nowhere?”

“You’ll understand when you get there.”

“I need a better reason than that.”

“No, you don’t.”

How could I not come out here? Sure, it might have been a bullshit lead, someone playing a sick joke, but I couldn’t take the chance. My curiosity wouldn’t stand for it.

Could it have been Richard who called, disguising his voice? That’s a possibility, but not much of one. I have a God given knack for hearing dialect. Richard has – had – a distinct South Georgia drawl, thick as molasses. I identified the caller’s voice as having hints of a Philly accent. Even if Richard could disguise his voice, his best effort couldn’t pull that off.

And if he could, what’s the point? He could have iced himself at his house and saved me a trip through the swamp.

I shined my light through the window of the truck and saw some papers on the passenger seat, a cell phone lying on top, and an empty whisky bottle on the floorboard. Both doors were locked.
The shell and gravel driveway wasn’t a surface from which tire tracks could be lifted. I saw other markings, but there was no way to tell how fresh they were.

I wanted to take a quick look around inside the shack before I called the police, just to satisfy my own curiosity. It wasn’t any of my business, really, this was a case for the local detectives. Murder or suicide, it wasn’t my job to decide, but I saw no reason not to access whatever information I could gather. I’d earned that much slogging through the swamp.

I went back inside and looked around in the dark. I felt safer with the lights out. There was nothing remarkable about the room. It was the bedroom of a backwoods fish camp. Two sets of bunk beds against the walls and a worn out rug lying in the middle of the floor. An ancient chest of drawers between the windows on the front wall, the small table and lamp next to the bathroom door.

The room was neat, the beds were made and nothing was out of place, except Richard. I put on my gloves and opened the drawers on the dresser, they were all empty. Nothing in the nightstand, either. The bathroom held no clues.

The detectives would know I snooped around; my soggy trail wouldn’t be hard to follow. I wouldn’t try to lie about it, but I was careful not to disturb the scene in a way that would be disruptive to their investigation.

I decided not to press my luck by searching Richard for the keys to his truck and having a look inside, as much as I wanted to. Poking around the scene is one thing, frisking a dead man is quite another.

I left the shack and walked up the drive to the dirt road running east and west. I’d left my truck about a half mile up the road. I drove back toward civilization until my cell phone showed reception. I called the police, told them what I’d found, and then I waited.

So ends chapter one. Not too many people read this blog, but anyone that happens to stumble across it, comments are welcome. Peace and God Bless.

Working

2007-02-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

Working at home, sort of. This is my home office, where the deep pondering, brooding, head scratching, frustration and screaming occur. And sometimes I actually get some writing accomplished. Plotting a mystery, I'm finding out, is no easy task. It isn't hard to come up with a plot, but to find a fresh twist to add is something that requires much more thought. The motivation for the crime needs to be compelling, but there are only so many motivations. It seems to come down to love, money, revenge, or a crime of passion. These have all been worked over thousands of times, so how do you come up with a new twist? There's the rub, as the saying goes. So I'm working on it, and trying to write as far into the story as I can without having the killer's motivation completely resolved in my mind. No one ever said it would be easy, but it is fun.

Mom

2007-01-16T20:19:00.000-08:00

Three years ago today, right this very minute, I was in Atlanta. At the hospital. My mom was dying.

I think about my mother pretty much every day. I miss her. A lot. I'm a grown man, but there are days I just wish I could hug my mother and tell her that I love her, and hear her tell me that she loves me.

I was seven months sober when she got sick. She went to the hospital on New Year's Day, 2004, not feeling well, thinking she had the flu. Her regular physician was on vacation, so she went to the emergency room, thinking they would give her some antibiotics and send her home to get some rest. A doctor examined her and thought she might be sicker than just the flu, so they did some x-rays and admitted her to the hospital with pneumonia. Her condition deteriorated quickly, and my sister called me to tell that she wasn't doing well and they were running some tests. I drove up from Jacksonville on the 3rd and stayed a couple of days, and it seemed she was getting better. I came back home, but was in touch with my sister and father daily. The tests came back and the news wasn't good. Cancer in her lungs. She was stable but her lungs kept filling up with fluid. She'd get better for a couple of days, then get worse again. Then better. I decided to go back up to see her on Saturday, the 17th. They were going to start radiation treatments on Monday the 19th, so I wanted to spend some time with her beforehand, try to boost her spirits. My sister and my dad said she was doing okay. I said I'd be there anyway. It was for me as much as for her. The doctors wanted to do another bronchioscopy on the 16th, not sure why, they just did. They did it in the morning. My brother-in-law called me that afternoon. He told me to get on the next plane, mom wasn't doing well. Hurry, he said.

I was at work when he called, selling cars, and I told my boss I had to go. He said no problem, do what you need to do. I was freaking. A friend helped me make flight reservations. I went home and packed. I packed a suit. I didn't like doing it, like admitting that she wasn't going to make it. Somehow, from the way my brother-in-law's voice was breaking, I knew. I made it to the airport just in time. I was the last one to board the plane. As I entered the plane a flight attendant was turning with a tray in her hand and I nearly knocked her over. The tray had two little bottles of Absolute vodka on it, my drug of choice. For just the briefest moment, the thought of a drink appealed to me. Just as quickly I banished the thought. That's the last time I've thought that a drink sounded good.

My brother-in-law picked my up at the airport in Atlanta, and I think we set a new land speed record getting to the hospital. Mom was alive, but pretty much incoherent on a morphine drip. The whole family was there. They tried to brace me. I tried to brace myself. I walked into the room and went to her bedside. Her eyelids fluttered when I took her hand and said, "Mom, it's me."

I squeezed her hand and I like to think I felt her squeeze mine back. Her hands were swollen a little. Her nails were polished. She was warm. I kissed her on the cheek and told her I love her. Her eyelids fluttered again.

She died just after midnight. There is no other sorrow like the one you feel when you lose your mother. So empty, yet, so filled with grief. I miss her so much.

My mother saved my ass on several occassions. It was her love, and the love of my father and sister and a few others, that nursed me back to health during the summer of 2003. The Christmas holidays that year were the best we could remember, as a family. I was healthy again, on the road to recovery, and everyone else was doing well. Mom was feeling fine during the holidays. I'm still baffled that she could have been so riddled with cancer and didn't even know anything was wrong until days later. I'll always remember those holidays. She told me she was proud of me and that she knew I was going to be okay. She could see it in my eyes, I was going to be alright this time. That night in the hospital I told her I was going to be alright.

I know my mother is with me, I know she's still got my back. I can feel her presence sometimes. If I concentrate, I can hear her voice, her laughter. I know she's proud of me. I'm proud to be her son.

Waiting

2006-12-15T20:38:00.000-08:00

I didn't realize it would be this fun. I submitted my hook to the Miss Snark Crap-o-meter, and now I'm reading the blog, updating every 30 minutes or so. I'm enjoying reading the entries as she posts them, and it's fun checking to see if mine is up yet. I expect I'll get a bashing, as I don't seem able to write a decent fucking hook. I'll say that submitting it to Evil Editor was humbling. The good news is, I was able to put my pride on hold long enough to glean the bits and pieces of constructive criticism, and hopefully I've used this information wisely. I think I have. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

What adds to the fun is knowing that there are probably hundreds of other writers out there, doing the exact same thing I am, and waiting with almost breathless anticipation for the beating that is sure to come, but holding on to a quivering shred of hope that you've submitted something she'll approve of, and you can now set about your agent quest with confidence.

Sitting in the darkness, the light from the monitor turning our faces pale blue, reading the beatings that the first queriers are taking. The heart is beating faster, fueled with adrenaline and caffeine, and the mind is performing acrobatics, "I'm going to be humilated... No, I'm not, it doesn't suck as bad as some of these... Hell, it might even be good... No, it sucks and I'm going to be humiliated..."

We're all putting our hopes and, to an extent, our dreams right out there to be shot down in soul-scalding flames. Will the bullet strike my most vulnerable parts, my doubt and my muse? Probably. The hope that I have is, when I'm shot down, let there be some criticism I can use to pick myself up with.

I don't know how long I'll have to wait to see mine. She opened it up at 8:00 and I'm sure there were dozens of people sitting at their computers waiting for the clock to strike the hour, and I didn't send mine until about 9:30. I wonder if this is going to be an all nighter kind of thing? Will she keep going until she gets through all of them? If it is, I'd like to know now, so I can decide if I want to put on another pot of coffee. I shouldn't, I've had plenty of caffeine already this evening.

And now I believe I'll check the crap-o-meter site again. I hope I'm not sitting there squashed like a bug on Miss Snark's limo.

Human Nature

2006-12-11T17:28:00.000-08:00

As a student of human behavior, and being a human myself, I sometimes ponder the duality of perspective. I've been occupying myself with this phenomenon lately. What I mean by "duality" is, the perspective from which I view others, versus the perspective from which I view myself. It's interesting for me, as it can provide a sobering revelation of my shortcomings. While considering one's own shortcomings isn't the most ego-boosting activity you can undertake, for me it's a necessary step in making improvements in whatever area of my life I'm working on.

I look at what I value in other people, and then look at my own actions to see if the two are consistent. I have to look at my actions, because just studying my intentions tells me nothing. I've always (well, almost always) had good intentions, but my actions didn't necessarily follow my intentions, and I did some really stupid shit. Intentions only count if they match the action.

So what do I value in others, and how am I measuring up?

The first word that comes to mind is "honesty". I don't know if this is the most important value to me, but it is the one that jumped up first. I like honest people and don't care for liars. I consider myself an honest person, and don't make up lies for the hell of it. I can't say I never lie, but I don't ever do it with the purpose of causing harm. I'll tell a lie when honesty could cause a problem. In fact, honesty can be a weapon in the hands of a cruel, curmudeonly person. If a girlfriend asks me, after a visit to the stylist, "Do you like my hair?", I'm not likely to say, "Uh, what did they do? Comb it with a firecracker?"

No, that wouldn't be kind, or wise, even if it looks that way. If I'm thinking on my feet, I'm not even going to say, "Uh, do you?" No, I'll probably just nod my head as I admire it, rub my chin and make a couple of noises that sound interesting and hope she pipes in with something. If not, I'll say something nice. Is it a lie? Of course. But it saves someone's feelings from being hurt, and unless they truly look foolish and should be told so, there's no harm done. So, honesty and tact are characteristics that I value.

Class is another quality that comes to mind. The way I define "class" is probably a little different than other people, but maybe not. I'm not bothering to look up Webster's definition, I'll use my own for this. Class is a quality that pertains to self-awareness. It's being aware of one's self, one's place in the world, and being aware of and understanding the feelings of others, while being under the influence of humility. I admire this quality in others, and there's no mistaking it when you see it. It's hard to fake. Some people that don't have it try to pull it off but only end up looking pretentious or condescending. Do I have it? Sometimes. Sometimes not. When I have it, it's geniune because it stems from humility. Sometimes I'm feeling more humble than others. But when my ego tries to step up and take control, humility is the first casualty. However, if I'm not feeling it, I don't try to fake it. I've got shortcomings in this department, and I've come to understand that this is probably a life-long process. Self-improvement is not an overnight endeavor, unfortunately.

Compassion is another favorite. I admire compassionate people. Compassion is a tough thing, because it's often inconvenient and rarely is it economical. You could make a career out of helping every person you meet who's in need, but most people have to make a living and provide for themselves and their loved ones. I'd love to have the financial horsepower to provide for the helpless, but the reality is, I can only help so much and so often. Compassion isn't just about helping others, but that's a big part of it. I need work in this area, and I am going to make more of an effort in the future. Actions are the only measure in this area.

Humor is right up there with any quality. I love funny people and I like all kinds of humor: sarcasm, irony, smart-ass are among my favorites. Dry wit is great. I love to laugh, and while I'm not a comedian, I have some pretty good moments. Smart-ass is my predominant style. A person that can laugh at themselves is welcome any time, because that is pretty good sign of humility. I could probably use some work in this area, I think I tend to take myself too seriously at times, particularly when my ego is driving.

More on this later, it's time to work on "The Hook" for the crap-o-meter thing on the Miss Snark website. I think I'm going to submit my hook and look for the grinding I'm sure to get, but if I learn something from it, and it improves my query, I'm a better person for it. I only hope I can laugh at myself when the time comes.

Peace and warm Krispy Kreme donuts for the masses...

Reflection

2006-12-05T16:08:00.000-08:00

The end of another year is rapidly approaching, and as I usually do at this time of year, I'm feeling somewhat introspective. I think most people probably do a mental review of their year, some more than others, I suspect. I've grown to be one that regards the year with a critical eye, and I've had some good years, some average ones, and some very very bad ones. The last few have been pretty good, all things considered. I had several "firsts" in the two years prior to the current one. I had my first hole-in-one in July of '04. I say my "first" because I confidently believe I have a few more in me. I bought my first home the same year, and this was a very big deal for me. And I started seriously working on my first manuscript. I have to say '04 was a pretty damn good year.

Last year, 2005, was a growth year. I finished the manuscript, queried a few agents and also began researching the self-publishing route. I decided to self-publish and submitted the manuscript for publication in December of 2005. I had a couple of reasons for self-publishing. One, I was anxious to get feedback from objective readers. People well outside of my circle of friends and family. People who paid good money for the book and would be pissed off if it sucked. After researching several of these publishers, including the scammers, I decided on a POD house that seemed pretty straight up. My other reason was somewhat misguided. I thought it would demonstrate to agents my commitment to my writing, and my willingness to promote my book. And it would give me an opportunity to get some experience in promotion. What I learned was, agents don't give a damn if you've self-published your book, undertaken that effort and expense. All they want to know is, do you have a manuscript they can sell, or not? If you've self-published it, they may take that to mean you didn't think it was good enough for a traditional publisher. I realize now that my manuscript was not good enough for a traditional publisher, but at the time I thought it was. It was a decent story, but the writing was in need of polish. A good bit of polish, actually.

This year has been another growth year, a year of learning, mostly. My book came out, and at the same time, some financial opportunities came through, and management changed at my workplace. So, the combination of these things allowed me to take time off from a job and get out and promote my book in the local market. The publisher did a great job on the book and the cover. There were a couple of editing flaws but overall it was a nice product. I had a little bit of success locally. I was somewhat prohibited by the stigma that is attached to self-publishing, but I still placed it on some store shelves and sold about 500 copies in a couple of months. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive from the people that bought the book and took the time to email me. It was as this effort was winding down that I began to turn my attention back to traditional publishing. I started researching agents, and I also began searching out books by authors that wrote in the same genre. I've been studying their writing, and reading books on the craft of writing. I started reading agent blogs, and reworking my query letter. In short, I'm learning about the profession and honing my craft. I feel like I've made great strides, and the most useful thing that I've learned is that I have much room for improvement, and I need to continue writing and learning and practicing. When I think I've trimmed a chapter down, it can still be tightened more. Subtlety is the sign of a true pro, and since I still struggle with this, it tells me that I need to get better. So that's what I'm doing.

If I look at 2006 from a financial perspective, it was basically a wash. I'm coming out slightly ahead of where I as at the beginning of the year, but I also went a few months with no income, and a few more with only a little, so theoretically, I didn't really make much forward progress. However, I'm certainly richer for the things I've learned.

I view this year as a building year. I've gained some wonderful experience, but the value of this experience remains undetermined, and the ultimate measure depends upon how I use what I've learned. Next year offers plenty of challenges, and if I put this experience to use, I see several opportunities for progress and maybe some achievements. Some more firsts.

I'm sure that I'll wax introspective again before the year is over. Some things I know for sure: it's good to be alive and sober and American. God bless the good folks who stumble across this corner of the net...

Giving Thanks

2006-11-23T06:07:00.000-08:00

Like most people, Thanksgiving is a time of reflection for me. I try to be grateful every day for the blessings in my life, but Thanksgiving Day offers a reason to be more diligent and thorough in my introspection.

I’m thankful that I’m sober, first and foremost. I’d be dead or institutionalized by now if I hadn’t been blessed with the moment of clarity that allowed me to see the certainty of this. I’m thankful that upon having this epiphany, the desire to drink miraculously dissipated. I mean, it just went away. Poof. Gone. This truly is a miracle. I’m not the only one who’s been blessed with this miracle, I know many others in the AA fellowship who have had similar experiences. If you’ve ever lived with the burden of an addiction like alcoholism, you know how dark that life can be. Mine was a life without hope, and without spirit. I had drawn the curtains on life, and was just waiting for the last remnants of light to flicker and go out completely. Which brings me to other blessings.

I’m thankful for the friends and family I’m blessed with. It was my friends who saw the flame was dying out, and they had the balls to take action. And it was my family – my parents and sister and her family – that nursed me back to health. I won’t be seeing my family today, but I’ll be spending the day with several of the friends that saved me. I’ll make sure that I take each one of them aside – individually, casually – and tell them that I love them.

I’m thankful for my health. To the best of my knowledge, I’m in pretty good health. I get out of bed a little stiff in the mornings, but I don’t hurt too bad. I might have lost a step or two on the basepaths, but I still move fairly well and my reflexes are pretty damn sharp. I can do most anything I want to do, physically, and do it better than I did ten years ago. This is truly a blessing.

I’m thankful for opportunities. I’m at a crossroads in life right now, and I have some decisions to make in the near future. But thanks to three and a half years of sobriety, and trying to live life right, and do the right thing and make good decisions, I have opportunities now, and choices. Will I choose to follow the entrepreneurial instinct that has been nagging at me most of my life? I think I might. I get excited thinking about it. A new challenge, doing something I’ve often thought about doing. I’m gathering information now, and it looks promising.

I’m thankful for the opportunity, desire and ability to write. I’m thankful that I’m passionate about it. I may never find an agent or a publisher for my work, but maybe I will. I have the opportunity to try. I love to write, I’m learning about the publishing industry and what it takes to be a published novelist, and I’m getting better. I’m improving, and honing my skills. I’m working at the craft. And I’m extremely grateful for this blessing.

I’m grateful for a relationship with a God of my understanding. I’m thankful for those rare moments of insight, when things just happen in a way that I know it has to be God’s doing. I’m thankful for the awareness, and those moments when the lightbulb flashes.

I’m thankful for a lot of things, some of them are:

A cool autumn morning
The little townhouse I call my own
A ten foot putt that drops in the side door
A blazing purple and orange sunset
A gentle ocean breeze
A bank shot on the eight ball that drops like a feather into the corner pocket
The pretty, gentle little older woman whom resembles my mother and makes me think of her
The guy in traffic who waves me over when I’m trying to merge
Living near the ocean
A drive that stays in the air and flies right down the middle of the fairway
Green lights all the way to work
The good looking girl in the car next to me at the light, who smiles and waves and makes me feel a little younger
Penman Road
And
The American troops that make it safe for me to pursue my happiness

Happy Thanksgiving and turkey, dressing and gravy for all the good people…

Stuck

2006-11-20T06:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've got a decent start on the plot for the new story. I know how I'm starting out, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how I arrived at this point, and thus, where the hell the story is going. I know where I want it to go, but I'm missing a compelling motive for the antag. I know who I want the antag to be, but I'm having difficulty figuring out why she does what she does. I've come up with several possibilities but they unravel under closer scrutiny. It has to be intense because the plot is fairly complex. If I don't come up with something soon I may have to find a new antag and a different plot. Which would suck for me because I like what I've got so far. More brooding and contemplation. I'll give it another week. I can go ahead and finish most of the first scene, so I'll work on that and see if it triggers any good thoughts on motive.

I'm just about ready to start another round of queries for Fool's Gold. I feel like such an idiot about this manuscript. I've been billing it as a mystery. Well, it's not a mystery, not by the definition of the genre that the publishing industry uses. The main plot doesn't revolve around a murder and it's solution. I've written a story that falls into the "thriller" genre. No wonder the requests for additional pages were so few and far between. I state in my query that I'm pitching a mystery and the query doesn't mention a murder at all. Talk about a rookie mistake. This might be beyond "rookie" and slip into "just plain stupid". Oh well, I'm sure the agents I've queried in this manner will have forgotten little ol' me by now, and I won't be querying the same ones right now anyway. I'll narrow down the list of agents I'll be targeting - it'll be a short list - and I'll send out some snail mail queries next week. Although I'd prefer to send email queries, it seems that hard copy gets the agent's attention before e-queries. Not necessarily positive attention, it's just a notch higher on the priority list for most agents, or so I've read.

I'm reading a lot of mystery authors right now. I pulled out my Raymond Chandler collection and I'm reading Red Wind, one of my favorite short stories. Awesome prose. I'm also reading Barrier Island, by John D. MacDonald. I think it's the first JDM book that I've ever read. I'm enjoying it so far. I'm having a hard time finishing Tampa Burn by Randy White. I like a lot of White's prose, but his story isn't all that compelling, and the characters strike me as less than authentic. But who the fuck am I to say. I'm just a guy that can't come up with a motive for his antagonist.

It's a beautiful autumn day, crisp and cool and not too much wind. I have the day off, and I'm going to dwell on motives, ever alert to one that might be so obvious I just haven't seen it. Peace and good coffee...

Attitude

2006-11-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

I made it through what could have been a difficult week. It actually turned out to be a pretty good week, and I'm very grateful for that. The details of why it could have been a difficult week aren't important, it's the reasons why it was a pretty good week, and the lessons learned, that matter.

I've known for a long time that "attitude" is important, but knowing it and applying it are two different propositions. For me they are, anyway. Just because I realize the implicit truth of a matter, doesn't mean I'll allow my actions to be influenced by that truth.

That's one of the great frustrations of my life, and one of the great perplexities. In the last few years I've been better about doing the right thing, because I've made it a concious effort. I try to apply the "would God (my God, not yours) be smiling or frowning" test to big decisions, and small ones too, if I have doubt about the course of action I'm taking. And when I do the right thing even though it might not be what I want to do, I have to try to do it with the right attitude. Sulking while doing a favor diminishes the value of the action.

When I take a sober look at my life as it is today, I feel pretty good about things. My life just a few years ago was so dark and empty that it had no value for me or anyone else. I was an existence that was drawing to a close, withering and succumbing to a complete lack of spirit. I didn't implode, there wasn't sufficient energy for that. I folded and collapsed. But thanks to some friends and family, I had a life altering experience, and in a moment of clarity I realized the core, the truth, of what needed to change. I was tremendously grateful for this epiphany, and I started trying to live my life accordingly. I had to change my entire perspective, starting with how I viewed myself.

It had to start with acceptance, humility and gratitude. I started a new approach to life with the perspective that I probably should be dead, and every day is a gift. This was easy to do in the beginning, as my near-death experience was so fresh and raw. But as the days go by, the freshness of that experience fades, and it's easy to go back to the same old perspective of "Why aren't things going my way?", and start having an attitude of expectations and entitlement. When I allow myself to start thinking this way, inevitably I get into a rut. I'll start thinking that I deserve better. My immaturity starts to exert itself, and self pity soon follows. Then every little thing bothers me, and I go through the day grumbling and moaning about the state of my existence.

The fact is, if I got what I deserved, I'd probably be in jail or dead right now. That's the truth of the matter. So if I want to live in the truth, I need to be grateful for what I've got and just keep trying to do the right things, with the right attitude, and accept the outcome for being what it is supposed to be.

My attitude is the one thing I do control. It's the one thing that I bring to the table that no one else can fuck with, unless I let them. It's my decision whether I will have a positive attitude, a negative attitude, an "I don't give a fuck" attitude, or any other. My choice.

I find that it's easier to have a positive attitude if I keep my expectations for the behavior of others on a realistic level. My happiness is often in inverse proportion to my level of expectations. This has been my experience, it is a truth that I know. So why is it so hard to remember? It perplexes me.

So once again last week, the truth was reinforced for me. If I approach the day with a positive attitude, be willing to accept what happens regardless of the outcome, and just do the right thing, the day will generally turn out okay and I'll get a good nights sleep. It's a pretty simple concept, but so hard to apply.

I'll see if I can get it right again this week.

Peace, and five alarm chili for the brave and bold...

Fool's Gold

2006-11-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of changing the title of my manuscript, for the fourth time. Now I'm thinking Fool's Gold sounds like a good title. And it's thematic. It's not a title I'd considered before. I don't know why it never occurred to me, but I like the sound of it, and I think it sounds marketable. I'd buy it LOL.

I'm making some progress with the new story, starting to get the characters fleshed out. I've got a pretty good picture of the protag and sidekicks, and some good ideas about the setting for the two primary action scenes. Still working on the plot. I've got some pliable ideas but I haven't really gotten down to a good motive yet. That's what I'm working on now. I have some characters in mind for the victims of the crime and the actual crime itself, but I don't have the bad guy yet, nor his motive. I wonder if this is how anyone else goes about starting a new mystery? It seems an ass backward way to go about it, but it's just the way it's going for me right now. I'm putting down on paper the things that are coming to mind as I think about the good guys and exploring ideas for the settings. I've been doing some research on the Okefenokee Swamp, and I like it for the major action scenes. Tension is part of the nature of a swamp. It's fucking kill or be killed in a swamp, the way I think about it. The food chain in action, and Darwin's theory being excercised in all its brutal glory. The formidable creatures; alligators and snakes and bears, leeches and insects, huge birds. Quick sand. Danger. Awesome setting for the opening and most of Act IV.

I'm going to try to plot the story first, working it from the culprit's POV, from the beginning, then write the story from the protag's first person POV. It's a new method for me. When I wrote Fool's Gold I knew where I was starting, and I had an idea of how the story would end, and the underlying theme, but that was all I really started with. I created a few main characters and started writing, letting the characters and the story unfold as I wrote what came to me. It was organic, and I liked it that way, but it did lead to a lot brooding, and tons of revision and heavy editing. Perhaps this method will save time once I've got the crime plotted out. The story will still be organic because I won't have such a pre-conceived notion of the story once Chuck Stone gets involved. The antag will try to outsmart Chuck as he solves the crime, and there will be plenty of paths to explore, but I will have a good road map to follow. It has to start with an excellent motive, though. The characters I'm not worried about, they'll be complex and interesting, thoughtful and humorous. The motive has to be compelling and awe-inspiring.

So, now it's back to brainstorming for a good motive and an intriguing crime.

Peace and good coffee for all the brooding scribes...

New Material

2006-11-01T17:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I don't know if Gasparilla's Gold is finished or not, but I'm putting it aside for the time being and working on the next project. So far, I have the main character, a bounty hunter who retires shortly after the story opens. I've got the first plot point figured out, but that's about all so far. I'm really just trying to flesh out some interesting characters at the moment, I haven't given too much thought to the plot yet. I like to populate it with a few interesting characters and let the plot ideas sort of flow from there.

The assistant protag is an older retired bounty hunter who serves as a mentor for the protag. The assistant lives in the swamp and is appropriately named "Gator". There will also be a prostitute - a high class call girl - and a stoned out surfer dude. That's what I'm starting out with. Now, I'll mix these folks up and see what kind of crime they have to solve.

I submitted a query letter to the Evil Editor blog. If he decides to critique it, I'm sure to be humiliated LOL. That's okay. If I get some solid advice and ideas, I can deal with the bashing I'll take. I'm sure some of the commenters will cut it to pieces. Some of the regulars on that blog have never seen a good query, and probably can't write one, either. Other regulars make insightful and constructive comments, entertaining and educational. Those are the ones I'll look for.

Now I'm back to fleshing out these characters. Coffee and donuts for the lucky ones...

Finished?

2006-10-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

Wow. I finished the most recent edit. The manuscript is now 106,000 words. Down from 121,000 at the end of the first draft. It has truly evolved over time, and is so much more polished and tighter now. Most of the word cuts weren't real large chunks. There were a couple of three and four thousand word passages that were cut, but the majority of those 15,000 words were cut out one, two, five, twelve words at a time. I didn't cut out every single adverb, but I damn sure cut out a bunch. I thought I'd been careful as I wrote, not to over-do the adverbs. Going back through with a careful eye, though, I still found way too many. The dialogue flows much more smoothly now (oh, no, an adverb), and the descriptions are better using fewer words. Subtlety is the sign of a true artist, and I'm working on that.

I checked out some Randy Wayne White books at the library last week. Someone who read my manuscript said it reads similar to his books, so I decided to see for myself. Overlooking the fact that he is a better writer than I am right now, there is some similarity. Similar tone and style. I'm reading The Mangrove Coast, and I see that his characters are very thoughtful, and he allows them to explore some tangential ideas that don't necessarily pertain to the story, but it is interesting narrative and doesn't disturb the flow. One thing I find interesting about this book: it begins with the requisite body in chapter one, then the next 180 pages are backstory to get us back to where the book opens. According to some schools of thought, this is a no-no. This book was published in 1998, though, and maybe it wasn't a big deal at that time. Trends in style and structure seem to be somewhat dynamic and constantly shifting. I don't mind it. I was into the story quickly and the backstory was compelling. I'm looking forward to finishing this one and reading the other two, which are more recent, published in the last couple of years.

My next story is going to be something entirely new. New characters, probably keep the setting right here at the beach, but I'm going to experiment with a little different style. A little darker, I think. We'll see. Still haven't decided if it'll be first person or third person POV. I've got to come up with the crime. I'm going to approach it more methodically this time, and it is going to be a more "traditional" mystery. The protagonist is going to be a bounty-hunter (that's all I know right now), and there will be a body in the first chapter. I'm going to write a plot outline from the perspective of the murderer, as recommended by some "experts". Now, I have to come up with a murderer and a crime. This will be interesting. Fun, too. Lots of decisions to make before I start writing.

I'll get back to querying agents next week. The manuscript is ready, I believe. One more walk-through, and then I'll start picking out some agents. My query letter is ready, now, too. The agent blogs have helped tremendously, and I'm looking forward to positive results this time around.

Still trying to get over this damn cold. I feel better but my voice still sounds like I'm dying. Maybe it'll be better in the morning. Vitamin C and OJ for all the lovely people...

2006-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written a blog entry. No reason for this, just lazy I guess. I've been editing, still editing. I've also been reading a lot, both fiction as well as books on writing. I'm learning, and the more I learn, the more I realize how far I still have to go in my writing.

I have the fundamental skills, I believe, to be a good writer, but these skills need more polish. I read my manuscript now, and think "How did I not see these flaws before? This is the twelve thousandth time I've read these pages, how could I not see the weaknesses?". I'm beginning to realize it was because I didn't know what to look for. My skills had not evolved to the point that I could identify the weaknesses. I'm sure I'm still not seeing all of the flaws, but I'm identifying and correcting a bunch of them. I'm taking out words, sentences, and paragraphs that might be well written but they just don't belong. "Self-indulgent" is the tag that most writers cringe about, but really that's what a lot of it is. Words that I might like when I write them, the way they sound or something, so I force them into the story. In many cases, these words are "telling" rather than "showing", but not always. It could just be a comparison I've come up with that I think is clever, so I try to squeeze it in.

Subtlety is the sign of a true craftsman, and I'm trying to develop that aspect of my writing. There is good argument for leaving some ambiguity in your words, and allowing the readers' imagination room to work. I fall prey to the same inclination that many amatuer writers have, which is a tendency to over-describe settings and characters, when fewer words will paint a more lucid scene. This is where the editing must provide a higher-level view and cut out all but the necessary details. I don't mean to say details aren't important, but that the details be well chosen for their purpose, rather than a rambling description filled with minutiae. Don't underestimate the imagination of the reader, and use subtlety to make the prose memorable.

On a different note, the more research I engage in regarding the publishing industry in general, the more difficult it is not to become cynical about the whole business. I'm forming an overall impression of a blood-sucking, life-draining process filled with rejection and uncertainty where luck and timing play a larger role than I ever suspected. I'm not a cynical person by nature - in fact, I'm rather naive in many ways - but in the books and the blogs I read, it seems to be a relatively thin and stable upper crust, while below that it is a roiling mosh pit of unpublished and mid-list authors vying for the attention of mercenary agents and editors.

Right now, I write because I love it. I love creating stories and characters and I love studying the craft. But like anyone else, I'd like to get paid for it. If I keep doing what I'm doing, hopefully one day I will get paid for it, and I can make a living doing what I love. In the meantime, I'll keep trying to grow and enjoy writing for the sense of fulfillment I get from putting together a beautiful paragraph. And I'll try to maintain a posture somewhere between naive and cynical.

I'm down with some kind of cold or flu or something the last two days. NyQuil gel caps are my friends right now. And orange juice. OJ and cran-raspberry juice combo. Hell of a concoction. Fortunately I'm off on Mondays, so if I'm not feeling better by tomorrow, I don't have to worry about going to work. Sucks to be sick right now, the weather is gorgeous. The reason I live in Florida. The good thing about it is, the weather will be like this for the next couple of months. Seventies and sunshine. Or at least, that's the norm. Can't take anything about the weather for granted anymore, it seems.

Chicken and broccoli casserole for all...

Edit Induced Delirium

2006-09-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

I had to take a break, my brain is mush. Still editing, and periodically obsessing about the first paragraph of the prologue. I think I've got it right, for now. Tomorrow I'll probably read it and feel differently. I've cut the manuscript down to 110,000 words and I've still a ways to go, and there is one fairly long passage that I know I'll be taking out. This thing might be down to 100,000 by the time this edit is complete. Fine with me. It's getting tighter and smoother with every stroke and backspace. I've continued working on the query letter, and it is getting better. I hope to get some postive responses from the recent queries, although I haven't sent it out since the most recent improvement, which I guess I made last night? Yesterday? Who cares...

My brain is tired and when that happens I start second-guessing myself on the edits. "Does this sound right? Does it need to go or just change?" My perspective gets wacked and I know it's time to step away for a while.

I've started another story and it's at about 35,000 words and the story still can't decide if it wants to be literary fiction or a thriller. It could go either way. I may have to trash the last 15,000 words. Frustrating. This is my best writing to date, and the story is just hovering out there, indistinct and ambiguous, but it's there and I can feel it's presence waiting to be defined. I haven't written anything new on it in a over a week. Focused on the edit right now. I hope that by the time I finish agonizing over Gold I'll know what the hell is going to happen with the new one. If not I might have to leave it for now and move on to another story. The sequel to Gold or something entirely new. Whatever. It's too far in the future to worry about. If it's not happening tomorrow, it's too far to worry about.

I'm done. It's time to read. I have two books going right now, Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard, and The Night Manager by John Le Carre. Polar opposites in style, but both are engaging and entertaining. Peace and scrambled eggs with cheese...

And again...

2006-09-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

I'm at it again. Editing the manuscript. Cover to cover edit, particularly heavy on the first five chapters. I've edited, revised, removed, rearranged, and rewritten the first five chapters. I've adjusted the pacing, making it quicker to the action. After the prologue, that is. I've rewritten the prologue somewhat, but it was pretty fast paced already. I removed some backstory from the first chapter, trimmed it down and put it back in toward the end of the second chapter, took out some paragraphs, tightened up the dialogue tags, and really made some drastic improvements to the opening chapters. I can't believe how I continue to see ways to improve it, after having edited this thing so many times. Surely I've edited this manuscript a hundred times or more. The good news about that, the way I see it, is that it means I'm learning and getting better at seeing the weaknesses in my writing. That's great. It's also discouraging to know that I had so far to go. I guess it's a good thing that my query letter was so fucked up I hadn't gotten any requests for the manuscipt. As they say, there's a reason for everything. Now, the new and improved query letter should generate some interest, and the manuscript is getting very polished and tight. I should be through it by the end of the weekend and if I have any requests for the full from these recent queries (8 in the last two days), I'll work around the clock if necessary.

I'm into the agent blogs now, big time. What I've learned about the business of getting an agent and getting a publishing contract can't be quantified. I've learned as much from the comments as from the agents, though the ass kissers can be annoying. Miss Snark's blog has an inordinate number of ass kissers. I've never cared much for ass kissers, and some agents have a following, like groupies. They grovel for attention, and when Miss Snark should deign to mention them or in some other way show them attention, they lose control of their bladders much like a delirious puppy does. They are a relatively minor annoyance and many of the people that submit posts have constructive and insightful comments. I've learned much about the professional expectations of the agents and editors from the comments, and rookie mistakes to avoid. The format, for example; I didn't know that it was a huge faux pas (pardon my French) to have hard returns between paragraphs and not indent the first line. My entire manuscript was written like this, and evidently it is the most glaring mark of a rookie, aside from starting out the story with "Once upon a time..." Imagine my relief when I realized what a stroke of luck I'd had in not getting any requests (tongue in cheek, sort of).

But the blogs, yes the blogs. Miss Snark and Evil Editor are my favorites, primarily because not only do they provide me with immediately useful information, they deliver it with such humorous precision that I sometimes find myself laughing out loud. I'm glad I found Agent Kristin's blog, and from there the Snark and EE blogs, I feel like I'm going to school for free.

And now, back to editing...

Gratitude

2006-09-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

One thing about hitting bottom: if you bounce back up it becomes easy to find things for which to be grateful.

If you've truly experienced a mental, spiritual, and physical bottom, the absolute despair and absence of hope, that constant, unyielding sense of "it is never going to get any better", you know that it is a very dark place to be. Existing in doom.

I've been there. It sucks. At the end of an extended alcohol-induced depression, I was existing in doom. I don't ever want to go there again. Staying sober isn't difficult these days, but sometimes staying sane can be. Once you've been granted a reprieve from the obsession to drink, then it becomes a question of living life on life's terms and living it right. Some days are easier than others. I can get twisted up over small stuff in a heartbeat. Let the person in front of me at the light not accelerate within two seconds of the light turning green and I'm throwing my hands up in the windshield, "What the fuck? Let's go!"

Or if life doesn't live up to my expectations in some minor way, my initial reaction will be to consider it major. Sometimes I fail to remember that what I'm going through today is preparing me for what I'll go through tomorrow or next week, and I can use that preparation to learn, or I can use it to get pissed, or sulky, or cynical. These days, I try to learn.

When I get into a rut these days, I'll slow down and take a look at the good in my life and it puts things in a better perspective. A few of the things I have to be grateful for today:

My health
My family
My friends
A roof over my head and food in the house
The bills are paid, and I can pay them next month too
The nearby ocean
My talent, such as it is
My manuscript
Wheels

By the time I get that far on the list, I'm feeling pretty good. If you've got a good attitude, small shit is just small shit and it don't mean shit. Not eloquent, but I think it makes my point. Look at the big picture and focus on what's important and let the trivial shit take a ride. Learn something from it. Grow with it.

As I said, some days it's easier than others, and most days it's as easy as I'm willing to let it be. Peace and left over skeddi...

Finding Hope

2006-09-21T21:07:00.000-07:00

I finally feel good about my query letter. I have to thank the Evil Editor blog. Reading the facelifts he does on queries has truly helped me improve my own. I've tightened it up; it's concise but has punch. I abandoned the business letter format I'd been using, which was too wordy and lacking excitement. No wonder I've been getting form letter rejections, my query really sucked. It's discouraging, because I've queried about forty agents with shitty letters, but it's also exciting because I think I'll be getting a better response now. I'm feeling hopeful about it.

I have about fifty pages left to edit on the manuscript and it's getting pretty tight. This time, it's the discussions on Miss Snark's blog that I have to thank for helping me improve. One such discussion was regarding the over-working of dialogue tags. I found that I had a habit of doing this, adding actions to the tags, like this: "See ya later," she said, waving as she walked out the door. I did that a lot, and it isn't an absolute no-no, but you want to watch how often you do it. It can become a pattern and thus a habit, and it's lazy writing if you're doing it frequently. I've been restructuring quite a few dialogue sequences and it reads so much better.

I really believe this is a solid, publishable manuscript. I wish I had an easy way to update the chapters on my website, I've really improved the flow. There probably is an easy way, and I need to call the guy that designed my site, he can probably walk me through it. I have a fear of all things requiring geek-like abilities so I'm procrastinating on that. I need to do it though, the new revision is much better. Oh well, the manuscript will be ready when the agents ask for the full. More queries going out tomorrow with the new letter, and I'm confident I'll get some requests.

So, tomorrow my task is five queries. Email queries as much as possible, but snail mail if necessary. I snail-mailed one today, even though the agent said she accepts email queries, she prefers snail mail. So I snail-mailed it. Any little thing to get looked at.

I'll edit five more pages tonight and then sleep. Peace and skeddi with meatballs...

A Good Saturday

2006-09-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a good day. I woke up breathing, didn't hurt too bad, everything works properly, nothing went wrong throughout the day, my team won - convincingly, as they should have - and I lost $23 playing poker with some friends tonight. Oh well, I had fun anyway, it was a friendly game. All in all, a pretty good Saturday. It beats the hell out of spending the day on the blacktop lot of a car dealership, which I was doing not so long ago.

After I got sober three years ago, I went to work at a Toyota dealership as a way to get back on my feet financially. I've been in sales my entire illustrious business career, and I knew if I only worked hard at it that one day I would achieve the pinnacle of success and land a job as a used car salesman. A purveyor of high quality, pre-owned automobiles. Finally, I had reached this goal. It only took twenty years of hard drinking to elevate me to such a lofty status, and I was happy to be there.

Actually, I was happy to be there. While in the hospital with plenty of time to survey the wreckage that my life had become - how I ended up in this condition is obviously a long story, but it's sufficient to say that alcohol had kicked my ass - I had what some would call an epiphany. There I lay on an examination table in an hospital emergency room, deteriorated to a puny and frail one hundred and twenty pounds, internal organs screaming and shutting down, and for some reason I was still alive. I decided at that moment that whatever time I had left, no matter what condition my body was in, I would try to live it right. I surrendered with complete abandon. I was beaten, I knew this. I couldn't win the war with the bottle. But if by God's Grace I was given more time, I'd live it right. And I've tried to do this. And for that reason, when I was once again employable and was hired as a salesman for the used car department of this Toyota dealership, I was grateful for the opportunity.

I found that I could make a living selling cars. I didn't have to be pushy, lie, cheat, or be cheesy, and I did okay. The one thing that I always hated, though, was working every Saturday, especially during college football season. I'm a college football junkie, what can I say? Even so, I stuck it out and did pretty well. I was promoted into the position of selling our cars on eBay and handling our internet leads for used cars. It was a pretty good gig, actually. The money was good and the hours didn't suck too bad. This gig lasted for almost a year and a half, but it was destined to change when our General Manager was fired and a new GM was brought it. I saw the handwriting on the wall and several things came together at the right time, and I made the decision to leave the dealership and promote my book full time. That was the middle of May of this year, and for the last four months that is what I've been doing. I promote locally and market the book to agents. I've just recently begun the agent marketing but I'm in full swing now.

In the three years since I've been sober I've regained my health, worked hard and made some good decisions, written a novel, published it myself, and because of the earlier good decisions, have had the opportunity to promote it and get it out in some bookstores, do some signings, generate some local print and broadcast publicity, and I've started another novel. I'm trying to get an agent for the novel I've written and the ones that I'm working on. These things are miralces and blessings and I try to remember to be grateful every day.

It's been a great few months. I work my own schedule, which is usually mornings and evenings, and I have the afternoon to either work or play. I can switch things up as I need, and it's a wonderful thing to have that kind of flexibility. I'll make an excellent writer, once I start getting paid for it. I'll have to go back to work before I start getting paid for my writing, I'm sure. I've a budget set that when I hit a certain point, it's back to earning a paycheck, and I'm trying to make that last as long as possible. Having an agent locked up by the time I have to go back to work has been my primary goal since I started this adventure, and I'm doing my best to make it happen. And in the meantime, I enjoy my Saturdays. I'm grateful for them and I try to wallow in them all day long. I watched college football and took a nap this afternoon and it was wonderful. Almost free, too.

Are you cheering for me yet? Are you fascinated by my tales of danger and adventure and overcoming adversity? Are you fighting down a lump of emotion in your throat or is that your dinner coming up?

My brain grows weary. These perambulating ruminations have exhausted the resevoir of perspective and now I babble. That's a couple of five dollar words there. Nice work. Peace and biscuits with sausage gravy...

Cheers!

2006-09-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not trying to show off. Really. I don't have many pictures of myself in digital form and of the few I do have, this is my favorite. For obvious reasons. This picture was taken last Christmas, and the three ladies are very good friends of mine and are the wives and girlfriends of some guys that are very close friends as well. Cheers!

A New Blog

2006-09-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

I'm a new blogger here on blogger.com. Not a novice blogger - I've another one on a writer's community website - but I flound this place and thought, what the hey, the more exposure the better. Maybe. See, the deal is, I'm an aspiring novelist. I've been writing short stories for many years - I won't say how many - and a few years ago decided to tackle big stories and see how I do. I've written one novel - which I self-published am currently trying to sell to a traditional publisher - and I'm now working on a second, with a couple of other projects percolating on the back burner. This also explains the title of my blog. My way of making fun of myself by using five dollar words to say that this blog will consist mostly of stream-of-consciousness ramblings and occassional rants. Writing is also my way of putting some order to my thoughts, though it may not appear so here. I won't be editing heavily.

Subconsciously I'm seeking your approval, hoping that you will comment on what an insightful, witty and articulate guy I am. I hope you will be fascinated by my stories and perspective. Look how interesting I am... Just kidding. Or am I? I think anyone that puts their thoughts on the internet must be seeking something. I know I am. I'm seeking an agent at the moment.

As a first time novelist, landing a literary agent is no easy task. It is a process filled with rejection. For most writers, anyway. For me, certainly. I've queried about 50 agents so far, sending the queries out steady for about a month and a half now, and only this Wednesday have I finally had an agent request the manuscript. Requested "the full" as they say in the biz. I sent it yesterday. I'm currently going through another edit, cover-to-cover, and I hope it's polished and tight enough. I still have about 90 pages to go on this revision. I've edited this thing so many times and if he likes it enough to rep it, he'll probably have me edit another 20,000 words out of it. It was 121,000 words when I finished it and I thought I had cut it down it pretty well as I wrote. Then I went through it from page one and did a complete edit and cut out 6,000 words, and had it down to 115,000. Now, I'm 2/3 through it again and it's almost into the 112,000 range. It will be at or below 110,000 when I finish it this time, I'm sure. Depending on the feedback I get from this guy, I may hire a professional editor to work on the book. We'll see. Self-editing is a tricky business. After you've written something and reread it about twelve thousand eight hundred and forty seven times, you tend to stop seeing it, you're only seeing what you think is there. And you miss things that a fresh pair of eyes would catch. Thus the need for professional editors.

I should hear something back from the agent by next Friday, or so his email said. If he rejects it, I'll live. At least he will provide some professional feedback, which I've not received from any of the other agents I've queried. The responses to my queries - a query consists of a cover letter, synopsis, and one to three sample chapters - have been pretty much form letter rejections, or an occassional email that says "while we think your project has merit, we're not sufficiently enthused... blah blah blah..." So at least with this he will be able to tell me if it's worthy, close to worthy, or not worth the time it took to open the email. However it goes, at least I will finally have a professional opinion to consider.

Well, I think I've rambled enough for one night. Peace and warm waffles with butter and syrup...