General

  1. The Death of My Father

    My father killed himself when I was around ten years old. I can not remember the date nor even how old I actually was. Family members are the ones who need to remind me of the date and my age when I ask about his death. It struck me hard, I was nearly apathetic and very silent for many months afterwards, much contrary to my usual personality. When he died, it was like an awakening to a harsh truth. That everyone you will ever meet and love, can and will eventually perish. This set me back...
  2. Figuring Out My Relationship with God

    Figuring Out My Relationship with God Don’t know what’s got into me but I want to go back to church. I used to go to mass every Sunday with my mother and it felt like going home sitting beside her in the pew in the same church in which I was baptized, confirmed and got married. But then Covid hit and we stopped going. And then we entered the worst part of my husband’s battle with MS which ended with his death in September of 2021, and my faith was shook up bad. There was no God in what...
  3. Missing the Cat

    So the Mrs. is out visiting family this weekend and I'm at home, free to run wild. Took a bunch of naps this afternoon. Almost went to Kyoto but didn't have the energy. And it's after midnight and I've got a tumbler of brandy, watching something or other on cable and missing the cat. Back 25 or more years ago I was living with my dad, working the midnight shift so I found myself awake in the middle of the night with a glass of something sitting in front of the cable in the basement and...
  4. Don't Let the Shield Slip

    Late August 2008, wife's phone rings around 8am. She's asleep. It rings again. Then mine rings. Mother-in-law asks to be put through to Mrs. A. I tell her she's asleep. “Nobunaga (the little dog's nom-de-morte for this post) is died.” I wake up Mrs. A and put her through. We have a proper Buddhist funeral for the dog at a veterinary (?) funeral home and I learn the forms I will need later. Mid 2014 Mrs. A's mother goes to hospital. Mid-2015 I get the message from Mrs. A. “Mama died.” It's in...
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  5. Piscis Fugit

    Maybe 10 years ago my daughter won a goldfish in some sort of raffle or such. Cost her one quarter. 25 cents. She named the fish "Adele" and we put her into a small fishbowl. She outlived my admittedly pessimistic expectations, and soon outgrew the bowl. We got her a bigger one. Ultimately, we bought a nice 20-gallon tank, with filter and a gravel bottom. Which is where she's been for the past several years, in a corner of the "family room," where we enter and leave from the garage,...
  6. Draft One Completed

    I have now written to completion draft one of my first ever book. At sixty four thousand words (around 106 A4 pages) it sits ready for extensive edits, which is the next part of the process. It has taken me more than ten years to refine the world and around three years of writing the current draft. Though the end result lacks my contentment, I am confident that I will improve the work to the best of my ability. The story is about a grey skinned human who grows up in the slums of a city...
  7. Still not dead…

    I don’t even know when the last time is I logged on here, let alone posted content, reviewed others’ content, or acted like a member of this community. I’m still alive, still writing. In fact, I’ve started taking a class from David Gerrold, which is exciting. In case anyone’s interested, I’ve launched a new website with a series of shorts I’ve been working on, called Tales of the West. Stop on by if you care.
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  8. Books Read in 2022

    Bolded titles were my favorite (4.5 or 5 star) reads of the year. Some of the books, such as the two from H.G. Wells, could be considered outside the genres where I’ve placed them. I did my best. :) Fantasy (14) The Darkness That Comes Before, R. Scott Bakker At the Earth’s Core, Edgar Rice Burroughs Traitor’s Blade, Sebastien de Castell Tigerheart, Peter David Beyond Redemption, Michael R. Fletcher Smoke and Stone, Michael R. Fletcher The Grey Bastards, Jonathan French The King...
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  9. Character, Plot, & Theme

    Recently in a thread on this forum, a member put forward two potential “driving forces” of a story (plot & character) to suggest where the greatest share of a writer’s focus should be. I then chimed in to say that I subscribe to a theory of three potential driving forces, those being: character, plot, and theme. And in this post I’ll go into more detail about those three, as well as what I view as their hybrids. (1) Plot-driven: I opted to start with plot because I suspect it’s the most...
  10. Man is like the grass that flourishes and is gone.

    I'm not much of a Biblical person, not because of animosity toward the Bible or the faith, but because of unfamiliarity. As a kid I only rarely attended Sunday school, and when I did I invariably got lost in any reference to a particular book of the Bible. Later I learned to understand and appreciate Christianity, but never really the Bible per se, especially the Old Testament. Anyway, the above words popped into my mind the other day, as I was rooting through long-sealed cardboard boxes...
  11. A Phantom for My Opera?

    Some days when I doubt myself and my abilities to write I think of employing a ghost writer. But in a bit of a different setup. I will write the first draft and then the potential ghost writer can refine it to a readable/enjoyable state. I love storytelling, and I love the creative process. But my produce just isn't up to par most of the time. Training is like trying to teach an old dog new tricks. I read, I watch, I practice... I learn? Yeah, sometimes I do learn. But I will continue to...
  12. Word Of The Day

    Today's word of the day is ZEN. I refound my Zen today. I didn't even know I lost it. I was mowing the lawn, giving it a scalp cut, 1st cut of the spring. This is where you cut it at the mower's lowest setting, trim off all the dead so it can grow back green for the spring. I was transfixed atop the riding mower doing a repetitive task, the drone of the engine, gentle breeze in my hair. I'm back in the groove again. A calm & peace came over me, & I was reminded of when I worked as...
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