C.J. Sears's Blog, page 19

Don’t Believe the Lie

Schools are for learning. For the taxpayer’s money, students are expected to acquire a standard and fruitful education. They’re being prepared to enter the workforce. The goal is for them to become productive members of society. A noble task, right?

But it’s a farce. Students aren’t getting much of anything from their days spent in the miserable halls of school. They learn to answer questions that nobody will ask them. They dabble in professions that will hold no appeal to them. They’re taught a smidge of this and a smidge of that while faculty knows that it won’t pay off for most of them.

And in the worst cases, the only thing they’re being taught is how to be an obedient mind slave to whatever the flavor of the month is. School—particularly universities—is where the most outlandish and nonsensical opinions and theories are instilled in children and young adults. They became infatuated with non-realities like being “triggered” and form ridiculous concepts such as “safe spaces” because the idea of conflict and non-conformity is frightening to them.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” someone asks.

No. I’d even argue that the nature of how children are schooled becomes an endless feeding trough for these disastrous concepts.

Think about it: from the age of five or six, children are placed with complete strangers for eight or nine hours a day and expected to get along. They’re forced to sit through the tutelage of an adult they don’t recognize as the authority in their lives. Said adult has their own agenda, their own beliefs, and even when they aren’t the type to share those thoughts it is inevitable that a bleeding effect occurs.

Children are uprooted from their homes and stored away in a miasma of conflicting ideas, dreary days, bullying, sexuality, and a host of other stains on their lives and their souls.

“But won’t this ready them for the real world? Isn’t life after school harsh, unforgiving, and also stuffed with information and misinformation?”

Yes, life in the workforce isn’t fun for most of us. It can be just as boring and aggravating as any bad school day and likely worse. But it’s also not a cloistered society. People out in the real world are either mature or they aren’t and there’s nothing that can hide one from the other.

Perhaps a person leaving high school can cope with their new life outside of their walled-in existence. Maybe they’ll even have developed a sense for distinguished reality from fantasy. Chances are that they meander through life knowing that school taught them an abundance of interesting but ultimately useless trivia.

“But college! That’s where you go to get an education. Real learning goes on there.”

Listen: the enthusiasm here is great. I’d like to believe that so-called higher education does wonders for the mindset of adolescents. But I’m not naïve and I graduated from one of these institutions four years ago.

If the lesson learned from elementary through high school is that life is harsh, but you can cope with a good education and a commendable work ethic, the lesson learned from college is that you can change the world to suit yourself.

It’s a lie. An enticing and promising lie, but a lie nonetheless. Worse, the transformation of the world isn’t what a student transfigured in this environment really wants. They’re not looking for peace and harmony or smiling faces and friendship.

They’re looking for control and order. Brought up in chaos and disillusionment, how can parents expect anything else from their children?

In early schooling, children are cluttered together and shuffled hourly from subject to subject. Teachers rarely have time to delve in-depth into anything beyond the subject matter. They also don’t have time to inflict much of themselves on an unsuspecting student population.

University teaching changes this. Gone are the massive quantities of students in one room learning multiple subjects from someone living on their tiny salary. Now they’re afforded concentrated time and effort in a reduced population. Students develop relationships with their teachers in a more intimate setting.

Without all the noise and fluff, the rhetoric of an appealing (and flawed) professor shines through.

From that narrowed viewpoint, students come to believe the lie. They become entranced by the fairytale that they’re special snowflakes whose own agendas and beliefs aren’t allowed to be contradicted, even with evidence.

The world is their enemy. It must be controlled and reconfigured to their liking.

Most of us empathize with the sentiment that the world needs changing. How often do you look around and see the vile, disgusting acts on display in television and newspapers, on sidewalks and theaters, and even on your front doorstep? How much of this is propped up in perpetuity by the same people spreading the lie to your children?

In the end, the Truth will out. The utopia that these “learned” folks long for is not attainable for them. It is the lie of their father, the selfsame father of lies. The fairytale is bought and paid for by arrogance and the prideful (delusional) wish to be their own God.

That’s the lesson they might never learn until it’s too late.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

“Discipline is harsh for the one who leaves the path; the one who hates correction will die. Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the Lord—how much more, human hearts. A mocker doesn’t love one who corrects him; he will not consult the wise.” (Proverbs 15:10-12)

May we all keep to the Truth in these times of confusion, myths, and lies. Thanks for reading and God bless.

Special Discounts Starting Midnight

Ready for a low-priced thrill or hard-hitting slice of life stories? Discounts ahoy begin at midnight.

Starting at 12:00 A. M. Eastern Daylight Time on July 29th, the kindle edition of my first novel, The Shadow Over Lone Oak, will be discounted to 99 cents on Amazon. This deal will last until August 5th.

The same deal is being offered on Amazon UK, beginning 12:00 A. M. GMT on the 29th and ending on the 5th at the equivalent hour.

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Over-Lone-Oak-ebook/dp/B01MZ2SB4W/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shadow-Over-Lone-Oak-ebook/dp/B01MZ2SB4W/

In addition to these deals, my short story collection Tales from Lone Oak – The Lives & Lies of a Small Town will be available absolutely FREE from July 31st through August 4th.

https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Lone-Oak-Lives-Small-ebook/dp/B01NCK0GG8/

Still unsure if you want to click those links? Get an idea of what you’re buying by reading the synopsis for both titles below.

Synopsis for The Shadow Over Lone Oak:

The idyllic town of Lone Oak is surrounded by mountains and forest – isolated from the outside world. When a young woman is murdered and her body displayed, the news hits the peaceful town with a devastating blow. But as Special Agent Llewyn Finch discovers, the town was always rotting underneath the surface.

Lone Oak’s sheriff is out of her depth. Between the moonshiners and the local newspaper’s antipathy toward her, Willow Donahue already had a host of problems on her plate. But a dead girl is new. It’s threatening. A cult is on her doorstep and Finch is the only one who can help her stop it – if she can learn to trust in him and his abilities.

As the investigation unfolds, the two of them come to realize that there are more important questions. Who really runs Lone Oak? Why? What is the endgame of a crippled town at the edge of civilization?

There’s a saying in Lone Oak: evil is a whisper in the wind. But this whisper is everywhere. It’s in the mines. It’s in the woods. It’s in their homes.

It’s under the skin.

Synopsis for Tales from Lone Oak – The Lives & Lies of a Small Town:

This is a series of literary short stories set in or around the small town of Lone Oak.

In “Expectant” Isaac and Nora have a problem: she’s dying and their marriage is already dead.

“Bad Blood” sees Reese Kauffman’s orderly life turned upside down by the mind games of a prisoner he psychologically evaluated.

“Cleansing Fire” explains how Chris Collins’ criminal pastimes forced him too close to the flames.

Finally, “The Pain They Carry” explores Davis and Kat’s messed up sibling relationship and the secret they share from a night many years ago.

Whichever way you want to roll, this deal is a steal (bad rhyme) and the best way to celebrate The Smiling Man Conspiracy’s debut on Kindle Scout.

Kindle Scout Round 2

I’m overjoyed to announce that The Smiling Man Conspiracy is now up for nomination on Kindle Scout.

For those of you unfamiliar, Kindle Scout is a program created by Amazon which helps get budding authors in the limelight. For thirty days, readers can peruse the first 5000 words of a prospective novel. Each reader can nominate up to three novels at a time. When the thirty days are up, the book goes into review and one slot is freed up for further nominations. Within two weeks, the author is notified whether their book was selected for publication by Kindle Press.

What do you get as a reader? Aside from an early access glimpse into future novels, the reader also receives a thank you note for their effort as well as a FREE copy should the novel be chosen by Kindle Press. It’s a win-win.

Now that you know what Kindle Scout is, where do you go to nominate The Smiling Man Conspiracy? Here:

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2ISVGY4MGES30

Agent Llewyn Finch embarks on a mission to uncover the truth behind a series of abductions.

There’s a hitch: he hasn’t recovered from his last case. He can’t shake the fact that where he goes, death follows.

Someone’s playing a mad game with the lives of innocents. Evidence points to a shadow organization within the government.

In a world of deception, who can he trust? As he untangles the web of a grand scheme, Finch knows one thing for certain: when evil is in control, good men die.

The nomination period for The Smiling Man Conspiracy ends August 26th @ 12:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time.

I’ll have more announcements to share in the coming days. Happy reading and God bless.

He is the Light of the World

Lord, I ache to write for You. For Your Glory. I don’t know where to begin. What scripture should I apply today? What message am I supposed to give? My mind is clouded with the fog of distractions. I yearn for clarity.

Some days, my thoughts are without form, without craft. There is a sense of duty and faith, but the words are created only with time and patience, not through forceful intellect. I cannot see them via my will. It is Yours I must anticipate.

Your greatness is beyond compare or comprehension. I mean this not as mere flattery but as a flat statement of Truth. It is the Truth that I sought one autumn eve. The Truth bestowed upon me that I would have known had I eyes to see.

For I was blind. I made myself the center of a world. What is man but an imitation? What he lacks, only You can fulfill. There is no thing or person to satisfy our needs. You are the One.

I am not perfect, but You loved me. My flaws are many, but You love me. I have committed hatred in my heart and bore the cross of evil, but still You loved me. I fell into an abyss so dark there was no hope—a lie bought from the enemy.

You are the Light of the World. In your presence, darkness evaporates. Who can hope to combat this power? For whom is that a worthwhile desire?

Yet we are content to make such claims. We elevated ourselves and worshipped vain images of creation. In our search for godhood, we found only our selfish ambitions and petty knowledge. We are nothing.

And You loved us anyway. How am I to decipher such a puzzle? How can such a profound realization be distilled in the muddied waters of a blog post?

Perhaps it cannot. But I am glad to know You. I am glad to know Your Word. You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The message is apparent for all to see. I did not create it. From the foundation of the world, it was known that You are whom we should seek.

“Anyone who ears to hear should listen!” (Mark 4:9)

“Today, if you hear His voice: Do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 4:7)

Through His grace, may I never be completely blind, deaf, or hardened again.

Cover Reveal: The Smiling Man Conspiracy

The moment is here. Whether or not you guys got my hint, it’s time for the grand unveiling.

Are you sure you’re ready? You might want to sit down. It’s quite the revelation. Perhaps I should wait until you’ve amended your will…

Voice from Off Screen: You’re losing them. Stop being snarky and corny. Show the darn thing already!

Okay, stranger. That’s probably right. Here’s the cover (ignore the protective watermark) for The Smiling Man Conspiracy:

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I will reiterate that there isn’t a release date, but I look forward to sharing more information in the very near future. Keep an eye on the blog.

I’d like to give special thanks to Maduranga of Sri Lanka for once again turning in a fantastic, effective, and reasonably priced cover. If you’re in the market, check him out on Fiverr.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the cover in the comments. Thank you for reading and God bless.

Every Moment Matters in Fiction

Post-draft progress on The Smiling Man Conspiracy is smooth. I’ll be making an announcement in the next few days that you’ll want to keep your eye on. It won’t be the release date, but if you think artfully you’ll grasp how much ground is covered.

Now that I’ve gotten that enticing nugget out of the way, it’s time for this week’s blog post. Sponsored by: EMM the Pace Master.

Who is EMM? Well, he’s an otherworldly force that exists in all of the best works of fiction. He’s poignant and timely. He doesn’t rush to get ahead of the viewer or reader. He doesn’t bog down the scene with superfluous dead air. You might say that with EMM, every moment matters.

Last night, I watched two programs on separate premium cable networks. One show established current character predicaments, pending conflict, and foreshadowed multiple plot points. The other took twice as long to do anything similar and wasted valuable viewer time with a six minute musical performance while ending about seven minutes early.

Yes, I’m talking about Game of Thrones and Twin Peaks. It’s sad to say that my interest has waned considerably for the latter. It’s painful to admit that while there are snippets of enjoyable program somewhere in the ten hours I’ve watched, I’m actually starting to hate the show. Me. Considering the original series was one of my primary inspirations for The Shadow Over Lone Oak, I feel like I’ve lost touch with a friend.

Why is this happening? It’s because the revival is antithetical to everything that made the original show special. It’s not a murder mystery. It’s not a soap opera. It’s not warm or charming. It’s not even all that compelling. It’s like someone sucked the soul out of the show and the lifeless husk went on pretending that it had a reason to exist.

But that’s not the whole problem. I can work with a darker take on the series. I’m not all that adverse to weird or dreamlike things occurring. I can deal with the false maturity that comes with being on Showtime. At the end of the day, the core problems with the show are its disjointed narrative and Lynch’s tendency to fixate on an image or a concept rather than story.

EMM is an infrequent visitor in Twin Peaks. He shows up every third episode to remind us that a plot or two do exist and that yes, progress is being made. By and large, however, he spends most episodes lurking on the periphery, waiting for his chance to shine, only to be denied by a lingering camera, an absence of dialogue and music, and unremarkable events.

As much as Lynch and writer Mark Frost are unwilling to admit it, the original Twin Peaks was not exclusively their show. It involved collaboration between multiple directors and screenwriters. It was a primetime show on network television and had to create week-to-week television to draw viewers in. The new show was written and pre-shot and chopped into chunks by Lynch with unrestrained creative control. The dissonance is enormously apparent to anyone paying attention.

That’s what Lynch wants from his audience. He wants us to pay attention, wants us to hang on every spoken word. The problem is that very little of the show demands it. In the Dougie plotline, we’re meant to be exploring the world through the eyes of someone who is basically an amnesiac newborn. We’re supposed to experience the childlike glee and confusion that comes along with entering a world we don’t recognize.

That’s not what happens. One Dougie scene blends in with another. There are glimpses of the real man, but there’s no development. Only stagnation. Nothing matters. Lynch expects the viewers to savor every second, but he’s offering them scraps. After twenty-five years, drip-feeding the audience isn’t good enough.

But Dougie, as frustrating as he is to watch, doesn’t bother EMM nearly as much as the numerous instances of unusual dead air between lines of dialogue. There are a plethora of scenes where someone speaks, then there’s five to ten seconds of silence where someone might as well have cut a fart, then another line, and repeat. EMM doesn’t like that. He doesn’t appreciate it at all.

You see, in fiction, EMM is the name of the game. A scene has to have a purpose, it has to make narrative sense, and it has to affect the characters in some way. If you write a novel that’s five hundred pages of a character eating a sandwich and staring at another person, you’re going nowhere.

Other than obvious plot development, defining character moments please EMM. What’s a good example in the new Twin Peaks? I’d say its Andy and Lucy’s “argument” over which chair to buy. Why does that work? It highlights the relationship between those characters and where they stand all these years after the end of the original show. It means nothing for the plot, but it means everything for the characters.

What doesn’t work? Roadhouse performance intermissions/endings. Sweeping the floor. Twenty minutes of nuclear explosion. Someone taking an extra three minutes to leave a room. A superfluous scene of a woman scratching a gross rash. I could go on.

Taken in isolation, any of these scenes would be grating but manageable. As a whole, they keep compiling into what feels like a middle finger to the viewing audience. Stories need momentum. Moments need to matter. Characters must act and react to things happening to and around them. Plots have to unfold in a consistent and intriguing manner.

Twin Peaks forgets that all too often. It’s a series that has long worn out not only patience but interest. The show is starved of value and EMM is practically an afterthought.

I’ll finish out the run because of my curiosity to see how Cooper’s story is wrapped up, but I’m afraid I won’t have enjoyed the ride. I don’t know if I’ve ever encountered a show that offends me as a viewer and a writer, but Twin Peaks is pushing it.

In the meantime, I’ll take an hour of political maneuvering, assassination, ice zombies, dragons, and a lot of EMM to cleanse my palate between sessions of David Lynch’s Dull and Plodding Ride.

Sequels: What Can You Do With Them?

You know, I think screenwriter David Koepp put it best. He realized that the level of expectation for The Lost World had to be decidedly higher than the first Jurassic Park. “Audiences are quick to get jaded…sure you can do dinosaurs, but what can you do with them?”

The greatest difficulty when writing a sequel to an established piece of fiction is matching audience expectations. The groundwork has already been laid and the characters are formed. In addition, any leeway you get in world-building is decidedly revoked in a sequel. Everything you write comes under the lens of scrutiny—in a sequel, the added pressure of living up to a standard doubles the potential criticism.

After I finished The Shadow Over Lone Oak I knew it couldn’t only be one story. That’s not to say it doesn’t work as an isolated tale—it does—but that I had already immersed myself in this universe and I wanted to see the fallout. Where does Llewyn Finch go from here? How does he feel about the events of the first novel? Are there any repercussions?

Naturally, answering these questions became a priority when drafting the plot. The quirky federal agent needed to take on a few new dimensions for the sequel. Enter Kasey Alexander, his former partner and lover. Who is she? What was their relationship like? These questions continued to drive the narrative in a specific direction.

Unlike the first novel, I didn’t want The Smiling Man Conspiracy to be told almost entirely from Llewyn Finch’s point of view. He wouldn’t be able to carry the narrative on his own. There were too many places for him to be and not enough time to get him there.

Thus the novel is told from eight POVs. Some characters have bit parts contained to a single chapter. Others span multiple sections. Whatever the case, I’ve crafted each of them to fulfill a specific role. Some are victims. Some are heroes. Some are both. In each and every one, I isolated at least one particular quality that would define their “moment” in the story.

This task was difficult. It may not even pay off. Not owning a crystal ball does tend to blind me to the future. But David Koepp’s lesson holds true. I can create a character (Llewyn) but what can I do with him? The answer is inside the pages of The Smiling Man Conspiracy.

Yes, I’m being rather non-specific. Aggravating, isn’t it? You’ll live. At least, I hope you will. I don’t what it’s like to die from anticipation of spoilers. Sounds like something a person ought to see a doctor about.

What do I hope readers take away from the second book? That it’s not necessarily grander or better than the first, but that it is sufficiently different and equally engrossing. That’s all I can ask as I move forward into the editing process and eventually publishing. I’m not aiming to top the first book in any specific way. Just because one has dinosaurs (metaphorically) doesn’t mean one has to use them in an expected, over-the-top way.

As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed my post. Today’s wasn’t particularly deep or meaningful, but I thought it prudent to share my thoughts on what it’s like to write a sequel after-the-fact. See you guys later. God bless.

Free at Last! (An Announcement)

Free at last! Free at last! Free at last!

There’s no greater feeling than the taste of freedom after a long internment. At times, it felt like I was locked away and my master or the warden had thrown away the key.

No, I wasn’t a slave or a prisoner. But it certainly felt like I was a hostage to my work. Finally, after all this time, I can say that The Smiling Man Conspiracy (the sequel to my previous novel) is basically complete. It can be read from start to finish. It was a seven month journey (that should’ve been three, but my procrastination and writer’s block interfered) of odd avenues and increasing alterations to the story in my mind, but it’s all on the page now.

Well, technically the epilogue still needs to be written, but I’m waiting for a revised version of the rest before I commit to that part. As I enter the editing stage, I can’t help marveling at how the plot took shape. From the horror-thriller that was The Shadow Over Lone Oak, we enter an action-packed race against time juxtaposed against lost love, struggling with guilt, and the feeling that evil is in control of this crazy world

There’s still a ways to go, but at least I can see the light from here. I don’t know when TSMC will be made available for purchase. It probably won’t make that summer estimation for a release date. I’m glad that I’ve given it the breathing room it needed, however, because I think a much better story emerged from that lack of a rush.

I can’t wait to see what my beta readers have to say about this one. And I’m really looking forward to seeing what my dad thinks about a particular chapter created in his honor.

As the impending gruel of editing the work hovers above my head, I can say this much: my next novel will be different. Yes, there is a novel after TSMC. Can I say what it will be? Not really, except that it won’t be a sequel and will probably be told in the first person. I won’t commit to writing it until after TSMC, so it’s more of an idea rather than a plot at this point.

There’s a saying about getting to know a person by walking a mile in their shoes. Well, after TSMC, I feel like I’ve walked ten miles in seven pairs of shoes. My feet hurt and I’m exhausted.

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I’m glad that this is the post I can make on the final day of my week-long experiment of daily blogging. I can think of no better cap than this announcement. Will I continue to make posts every day? I’m not sure yet. I definitely want to do more than once a week, but it remains to be seen if I can keep up the pace.

Well, that’s enough rambling and raving from me today. It’s time to sign off and watch a little Twin Peaks.*

*Please don’t waste twenty minutes on a surrealist exposition of a nuclear explosion, David Lynch…

Hope from Above (Poem)

I’m back with a Saturday Night Syllabic Poem. I’d explain what it’s about (what it means to me), but that would ruin half the fun, wouldn’t it? Enjoy.

HOPE FROM ABOVE

A star in my eye,

blinded by light,

it’s hard to deny

that shiny might.

My hand reaches out,

clutching at naught

but an endless pout

and I am fraught.

What are you but bane:

a schism in mind

that tears heart in vain.

Why so unkind?

I run to the edge,

my shameful head

bowed low in the dredge,

weighed down like lead.

First I will teeter,

then I sink,

immersed in ether,

a cruel drink.

A dragon’s gold hoard

isn’t treasure.

Yet it gleams abroad

beyond measure.

“Begone,” I do cry,

a child’s lame wail,

effective in time,

but now I pale.

The allure is strong

for one like me.

I need a gong

to set my soul free.

Hope from above draws

the rigid line.

He has no harsh claws,

He is Divine.

An Audience of One

I’m a firm believer that if stories aren’t entertaining then they aren’t worth telling. This doesn’t mean that I crave action fests and no exposition. It doesn’t mean I desire only surface level storytelling. I don’t demand a particular kind of process in the stories I consume. But I am confident that if a story is not entertaining to some degree, then it has no basic merit.

Being entertaining doesn’t preclude being artful or intellectually fulfilling. That’s an extremely misinformed claim. It’s a poor pseudo analysis of what art is capable of giving to the world. It’s a flat, selfish notion that says entertaining art is only for the masses. The true auteur, says this person, makes art for the sake of creating it or to explore an abstract plane of thought or any other possibility that isn’t meant to be pleasing to an audience.

But I cannot agree with that sentiment. To abide by the thought annoys me as a creator. When art doesn’t have to be entertaining, when it doesn’t need to engage with an audience or a secondary figure other than the artist himself, all you get is narcissistic bunk. Instead of compelling plotlines, interesting, layered characters, and thoughtful themes, you end up with twenty minutes of surrealist nuclear explosions.

Where there’s no reason, there’s no sense. Where there’s no sense, there’s no hook. Where there’s no hook, there’s no audience. When there’s no audience, there’s nothing worth knowing. All that’s left is a delusional, self-indulgent artist with a meaningless mess of a canvas.

That’s not who I am. I care about creating my stories because I like to make them, yes, but I also don’t do them for only my own sake. I’m just as interested in hearing what others have to say. An audience of one is never enough.

In the end, if I’m the only one listening, then no one is being heard.