About Life Generally

I’m working on this blog and looking at the email notices that pops up showing me what I’m missing if I just stop what I’m doing and read them.

Roxie just stopped by to say hi. She’s a Blue Healer, well trained and well behaved. Elsa is in her cage looking relaxed while the other three birds perched in their cages looking hungry and bored. Sounds of alarm clocks alerting the other children it’s time to get up is echoing down the hallway.

I’m at work now and a dear friend of mine’s picture of her is encased in a plexiglass cover and an article tells us that her spiritual journey began Monday. It was very sudden, and she was young relatively speaking. Her name was Red Autumn Eagle-Bear. She was a very vivacious woman with long raven colored hair, and she was going to be a grandma for the first time.

Life is generally fickle.  It is how you live your life that matters most.

Death is always sudden and final, though all believe that somehow our spirit will continue long after our earthly body has decomposed and gone.

I was four when I first saw death. A dog was run over by a car. The driver was remorseful, pouring out apologies to the father while the mother openly wept and the young boy who I guessed was at least five years older than me had a determined face and a shovel. He walked across the vacant field across the street from the house where they lived and began digging a grave for the black lab that laid dead on the street.

I have seen it many times after that: when my own dog Herman was poisoned, another neighbor’s young pup many years later was run over by a cement truck, seeing my mother after her fatal car accident and little Bobby the cockatiel that we lost last year.

I actually liked the way this person described how Red Autumn left us; a journey as if leaving for a trip far, far away. There was no mention of a destination. The concept of heaven or hell was not mentioned. She just began her spiritual journey where me and everyone else will eventually join her on our own spiritual journey.

Any New Ideas?

I received an email from a literary agent asking me how my book A Man’s Passion is going. I’m sure she’s talking about sales, which I haven’t heard about from my publisher. The last report was so abysmal I didn’t even receive a royalty check. I’m hoping it turns itself around soon. I have three different marketing companies doing their due diligence to make the book a success. I just haven’t seen it yet.

I reckon it’s a crap shoot, like anything else one invests their heart and soul into. I have worked hard to get this book into the hands of loyal readers than anything else I’ve done before. Maybe this literary agent is the godsend I’ve been looking for and everything will finally be fruitful for myself and future books yet to be published.

Splitting Hairs

Someday this will be a best seller. My wife arrived with the camper at the new property we just bought. For the last two months she had her own idea of what she wanted done on the place, starting with the cargo containers she wanted and where she wanted them for her own designs, which as I mentioned in an earlier blog was neither realistic nor legal since it would require a special permit to do what she wanted.

The first thing she noticed was me getting out of my car to push the gate open all the way. The gusty winds that day had blown it mostly closed. That was when her mother, Lillie, who come up here with her noticed that most of the barb wire fencing had fallen in front part of the property that she pointed out to me later.

I kept an open mind, but her mind was made up; Stephanie wanted nothing to do with this. She saw firsthand that she did not like where I placed the fifth wheel trailer, how it looked and the fact it was not even set up yet. The garage was locked where my son in law’s shop was, and she wanted to look inside.

I had warned her that I did not possess the keys to the shop, nor for that matter the other parts of the house. I did have the house key, but that was it. Unlike her I respected his privacy and considered it off limits.

She then saw the one container that had come. We had gone to the business I bought the two containers from, she was steaming mad I bought twenty feet used, when she wanted forty footers instead. She gone there to cancel the one order of the remaining container going there and procur a forty-foot used container. She cancelled that order too when she stated how rusted they were. Needless to say, she did not like that container either citing the same rust issue. I will not bore you my loyal readers with the rest of this sad tale. Suffice to say we were heading toward a breakdown of epic proportions.

The next day I took Stephanie and Lillie back to Gooding, Idaho, arriving close to midnight. I spend the next day walking on eggshells waiting for someone to tell me what an idiot I am for allowing this mess to occur. But nothing of a sort occurred. I read over my latest proof of my manuscript, just to get a feel of the pacing, ignoring the glaring punctuation and spelling errors for now.

I then watched my wife pack for the return trip back. She already informed her son he would have to stay behind with the birds but promised they were going to get their own place instead of the house I bought…

I feel like an invalid, as she tells him how his sister is being so cruel and unsporting, and I am allowing this to occur. It is not that I do not want to tell everyone that this is not the case, yet she has it in her mind that her words ring true. I allow her side of the story only because whatever I say will fall on mute ears because her brother only believes what Stephanie told him.

I learned long ago that there are two sides to a story, even more than two. I also know it is pointless to argue facts to someone unwilling to listen when her mind is already made up. Which was where I was at and left it at that.

I spent the evening talking to Lillie and allowing her to remembrance about the same stories she shared with me last year when I lived here. We talked though half of what I told her fell on ears that do not hear so well.

I left the next morning bidding everyone farewell and kissing Steph goodbye. I drove home to my new house conflicted over everything that happened over the past 48 hours. I listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd and tried to justify my feelings and knowing what the right thing to do was.

It was not until Tuesday morning that I got the answer.

A Night at the Concert

I am sipping on my coffee looking for something to write about when the thought struck me to write on last night’s concert at Northern Quest where I work. It was Lynyrd Skynyrd, a southern rock band from the early to mid-seventies until a plane crash in 1977 took out a majority of the original members.

I always admired the songs that played out on FM radio in the days of my youth such as “Tuesdays Gone,” “Whiskey Rock and Roller,” “Give me Back My Bullets,” and my favorite, “Free Bird.” So, for me it was a no brainer to volunteer so I could listen to their classic hits along with their newer songs from their latest album, Last of a Dying Breed.

My responsibility was to look after the port-a-potty area where over thirty were in placed, along with the six different hand washing stations that needed tidying up. So, as I went about dumping trash, sweeping up paper towels or their remnants as I got to reminisced to a less complicated time in my life where my only concerns were graduating from high school.

The performers who remained, along with the newer members, had grayer hair, longer beards, and weathered faces but they played as if they too were still that younger version of their selves. They belted out “Simple Man,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” and of course, “Free Bird,” with all the vigor and enthusiasm of over forty, fifty years ago.

I hope other older bands come to our outdoor concert venue next year so I can volunteer and work and listen to those older songs I grew up on.

My Writing This Week

My loyal readers, I have no real history breaking news or antidotes of world leaders to share this week, just my craft which, as many of you know is a passion I will most likely continue to my last breath.

My step daughter and her husband gave me a birthday dinner last night and one of the topics of course was my writing and what I was doing at the present time. The son in law, I’ll call him Nic, asked if I ever saw the Johnny Depp movie Rear Window. I told him I had and the book that I was working on was loosely based upon the plot of that very story in which a writer has witnessed a murder and decides to write a similar story.

After I explained to him and my step daughter how the plot twists and turns in which the poor writer is in serious jeopardy with the antagonist, he tells me that that sounds like a good story.

As I have mentioned on A number of my past blogs, my technique is to just freely write the story without the benefit of a structured outline showing character developme4nt and drafting it out to its minute detail before putting the story together. I’m a proud pantser and am not about to change. After all, my fiction writers group’s coordinator made it clear that the first draft for a pantser like me, is the outline. After that it is edited, revised, and sometimes completely rewritten before it becomes the final product.

It is how I started the first book I wrote, This Life: My Life After My Stroke,  as well as the Marteau series, my second published book, A Man’s Passion, and I Albert Peabody.  Plotting out a story outline to me is a tedious endeavor that reminds me of when I had to do term papers in college; boring and unimaginative.

I like to think that when I’m writing it’s an enjoyable effort, not something akin to work. Even when I’m working, I make it seem enjoyable and not a drudgery or chore. So, without further ado I present my latest effort called Mobley’s  Dick. It is full of action, suspense, romance, and drama, with antidotes of humor to keep it lively. Richard Mobley is an unpublished writer who thinks he will make the best seller’s list if he can just get out that one book that will open day make him a household name.

He then witnesses a car accident on a street he lives on and the scene escalates into a murder when the driver of one car shoots the other driver. It is later reveal the victim was a news reporter for one of the local television stations. Dick thinks he has seen his opportunity and decides to write this book. What he is unaware of is that no one wants that story written including a certain city government official who wants the mayor to win reelection at any cost, including murder.

That is the elevator pitch I’m revealing to you, my loyal readers. Hopefully later down the line, it will become a best seller as well.

A Time For A Change

As if pried from a cockney accented newsboy in the heart of London, “Hear ye Hear ye, the Queen is dead, long live the King.”

After seventy years Britain’s Queen Elizabeth the second, passed at her summer estate in Balmoral in the Scottish highlands.

It’s hard for me to grasp how Britons feel right now at the loss of someone like her. I definitely felt more sadness at the sudden passing of John Lennon and Princess Diana, than I have of her. Many admire her for her strength and perseverance, though she was not the truly authoritative monarch many of history’s past rulers were. Their power had waned significantly in the past two centuries and her role was more as a figurehead than as an absolute ruler.

Now Charles the third will inherit the throne, though as I mentioned before it isn’t as it was before. His only concern now is keeping the family peace. That is something I truly don’t envy after my own family issues this past month or so. 

More and more it appears as though the role of the British monarchy has diminished so much as to make it obsolete, though I am certain many Britons would disagree. After all I’m just a Yank who was brought up in a representative democracy and we pledge allegiance to our flag and defend our constitution. They pledge sovereign allegiance to the crown. I have to ask though, how much longer before that too changes?

I’m Done

The house I told you of last month is in my name. It has been a very long 30 days. The frustrating part was that my wife had made certain demands and her daughter who is also going to reside there with her husband and three children have consistently told her they are un-realistic, viable or in some cases, even legal.

To put it in a nutshell, my wife has been making this harder than it needs to be, and it has been a very long and trying month with bickering and the cost of trying to make this deal work. It still might not because of how my wife is acting right now. Hopefully she’ll settle down and see the potential of this deal and just go with it.

I am hopeful that we can all get along on this and be happy with what we have invested. Obviously that can only happen as we can all pitch in and provide a good, positive attitude for all of us. Three of the four of us are willing. Stephanie is the wild card.

Nature All Around Us

As many of you my loyal readers know, I am a lover of nature; the world is a breathing entity of organisms, plants, and animals. My eyes are wide open to all things beautiful and I enjoy admiring any creature that comes into my space.

The other day I was driving home from an errand and saw to my surprise a doe and an antlered stag. I didn’t count the points but I felt certain it was at least a ten-point buck. The doe stood to one side while the buck laid on the grass of someone’s front lawn in front of their house. It is scenes like this, rare but yet not so rare. The other day a buck walked leisurely in front of the house I’m living at presently. It was early morning and I’m certain I was the only one up that early.

Another time at work, I walked by the smokers’ shack between the hotel and the casino and spied a Praying Mantis perched on the wall, camouflaged the same general hue as the wall; a beige-like color that most everyone missed until I pointed it out. Unfortunately, the next morning I came to work and discovered the creature had been crushed by someone’s shoe. Apparently another person didn’t see the mantas in the same way as I do; just another pest to destroy.

Yesterday afternoon there was a brush fire in a wooded area in a place near where I live called Palisades Park. I felt sad because those animals were running away from the fire because it’s their natural instinct for survival. Obviously the trees that were burned or scorched will slowly succumb to disease and die because their natural antibodies were compromised just as ours are if a similar fate should ever happen. Eventually the animals will return as well as the insects, and new plants will emerge from the ashes.

It is after all a part and parcel of our own life cycle of our biosphere. We all see this wonderful thing called life, the nature of it and the beauty of it and then one day we won’t because our own body will die and decay and become a part of this thing called nature.

A Sad Time

The other day I got this Facebook notice from a former co-worker from Northern Quest. She was an African American woman who I knew for years and resigned to have her baby three years ago. So, I was pleasantly surprised that she sent a post to me. Most of the time people who used to be on Facebook friends’ list cancel or delete these former contacts. I assumed she did the same.

At any rate she showed  a collage of photos of her and her daughter. She then mentioned how her two-year-old daughter had passed and was going to buy an urn for her and bury her next to her grandmother at the cemetery.

Two years old! Wow, it’s hard to grasp what she must be feeling right now, how utterly alone she must feel losing her only daughter. The cause was kidney failure which I suppose is something congenital. I couldn’t imagine something environmental would be the cause of someone so young.

I tried doing research on it and of course all the statistical analysis and studies told me very little. At least it didn’t tell me anything except that both enfant and child mortality rates in most of the developed world are going down, and a study done on acute kidney disease was so academic and dry as to make little or no sense to what the author was trying to express.

The hardest job I ever had was when I worked for the cemetery company in Richland, Washington. It was a grave I had to dig by hand on account it was meant for a four-year-old child and an earth mover would disturb the other graves too much. The ground was rocky and the grave was only to be big for the parents to come and visit on those special occasions we all feel is fitting. It was an area reserved for the children who passed from any number of illnesses, accidents or worse. I never like to consider the worse, but that too happens much too often these days. I know the innocent children always go to Heaven. After all, they aren’t corrupted by the evil influence of mankind.

I pray that her daughter is in a better place where her spirit is flying with the angels of Heaven and Jesus is smiling down on her with love and tenderness and mercy.

My Writing This Week

Okay, here is the good news that I have wanted to share for months now but only today am able to tell my loyal readers, my book I Albert Peabody is paid for through my diligent efforts. Like I said it’s been several months of suffering through in which case it seemed someone or something always seemed to get in the way. I don’t know when the release date will be yet, but hopefully, at least this time it will happen before Christmas which is an ideal time for books to get out there to the public.

Like I mentioned some time ago I am currently working on a new project called Mobley’s Dick. It’s a mystery suspense thriller, a bit tongue in cheek and also some romance to go with it to add some spice that I rarely do with most of my books. I also decided to use my Spokane Fiction Writers’ Club as a bit of a backdrop to the story, though it isn’t a centerpiece of the main plot.

I blew the dust off one of my second draft manuscripts called Luke Warm: A Nick Roberts Mystery. The detective is a down and out PI whose partner is murdered in the first scene. A news reporter named Luke Warm witnesses the shooting after he and his girlfriend end their date at a theater in Missoula, Montana. They partner up and soon discover there is much more to this mystery than just the murder of Nick Robert’s partner.

So here we are again looking at my next up coming projects in its various stages of metamorphosis. I am hopeful with the help of some marketing companies who have helped me these past months, these projects will begin to blossom into something quite successful.