M.S. Humphreys's Blog: Just Banter

For 2022

Another year has passed. Though I have fallen short of many goals for 2021, in the interest of maintaining a positive outlook, I’m only going to focus on my achievements from the previous year and my new goals for 2022.

I started 2021 with the goal of reading 15 books by December 31. I listed a number of specific titles, some I’ve already read but wanted to read again, and a few professional, non-fiction books to progress my new-for-2021 career in sales. Amazingly, I surpassed that goal by reading 20 books, as well as a dozen or more individual short stories, even some children’s stories as a reviewer for up and coming new authors. I didn’t read many of the titles I prelisted for 2021, but as an active participant on Pubby, I read many new titles from new authors that I wouldn’t have read otherwise, and I thoroughly enjoyed most of them.

For 2022, I’m upping my game and shooting for 22 books in 2022. New titles I’m adding to my 22-in-22 list are some fan favorites that I’ve wanted to read for a long time like The Great Gatsby and several spiritual books from C.S. Lewis, most notably The Screwtape Letters. Not connected to the 22-in-22 goal, but a reading goal nevertheless, is my goal to finally finish the Holy Bible from start to finish. I’ve read every book of the Old Testament at least once, and I’ve read straight through the New Testament once before, but I’ve never completed the scripture in full immersion study like I have tried to do for more than three years now. It is an obtainable goal, but it requires a great deal of commitment. I generally start strong, but inevitably fail to achieve as the year progresses, so the goal is back on the scoreboard.



Yes, I have a scoreboard. Goals just aren’t goals if they aren’t written down. Every Sunday morning I open up my scoreboard and verify my weekly achievements. At the end of each month, those achievements are annotated in their proper place so I can see if I’m on track and make adjustments as necessary. Each annual goal is divided into 12 parts and categorized under one of five categories: Spiritual, Physical, Mental, Professional, or Personal.

My reading goals are actually placed into three of the five categories. Under Spiritual is of course my Bible study; Professional includes any reading designed to improve my career, and Personal includes reading for entertainment, other spiritual reading and reading designed to progress my education in other matters outside of my career. It is just easier to list any reading outside of the Bible or professional in personal goals though the Mental category does include the tracking nodes to total the aggregate personal and professional reading for each month.

The Mental category also lists the total monthly hours of Bible study, professional study, other study, hours spent learning the dulcimer, vacation and trip plans to reduce stress and finally my total words written for the year. Last year I set a goal to write 120,000 words. I came across that number based on the average number of words Stephen King writes in a year. I didn’t make 120,000 words, but again, I’m focusing on the achievements. I wrote a little more than 88,000 words in 2021 and I’m incredibly proud of that. For 2022, I’m renewing my goal to finish 120,000 words. In 2021, the 88,000 words was divided among many projects with the most, about 30,000 words so far going to the second book in my Lil’s Spirits series, Sorrow Hollow. I wrote a little more than 7000 words toward a spontaneous, psychological thriller, The Mad Dr. Drennan; I put about 4000 words into another Lil’s Spirits installment tentatively titled Talon for now; somewhere around 12,000 words on short stories and poems for various writing prompts and contests from Vocal, Medium and Fanstory among others, and the rest in the form of blog entries and such.

For 2022, I’ll finish and publish Sorrow Hollow; finish and publish Talon and the Mad Dr. Drennan, and get started on a sequel to A Place of Rest from the first Lil’s Spirits book as well as start another comedy. These are ambitious goals, but they are nothing if not written down and monitored.

In 2021, my reading and writing goals monopolized the majority of my efforts, but this year I want to be more rounded and diversified to include the wholeness of my life. New to my scoreboard this year is the activities related to progressing my career. There are things I can control and things I can only monitor, but clearly within my control and foundational to my success is my effort to find leads, so I’ve committed myself to finding and calling 600 qualified businesses per week.

Finally, I’m renewing my physical goals for the New Year. I did well in 2020 to lose weight and increase my physical fitness; I maintained that for 2021, but I’m doubling down for 2022. I’m reaching for a target weight of 220 lbs, which amounts to a weight loss of about 50 lbs. More importantly, is the physical training that I desperately need to recuperate my body from the remnants of my near-death experience with COVID last year.

I suppose I could blame the virus for stealing a month of my goal reaching for 2021, but there is no room for excuses in 2022. In this new year I will read, write, live, love and pray. I will remain focused through monitoring my progress weekly and one year from now, Lord willing, I will find joy in my success in the old year and prepare for the next.

Lil's Spirits: This Side of the Veil
Archibald Lindsey's Study of Women

Resolve to be Happy

“Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary,” -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Resolving to be happy

I was thinking about that line this morning and considered how appropriate it is, and how I believe it is much more than it seems. For several days, we will move about our lives greeting each other with “Happy New Year,” and though I’m certain of the sincerity in those words, I think, in today’s day and age, most will find it difficult to believe for themselves. I pray for an abundance of joy in every life in this New Year, but I know it isn’t reasonable to expect that every life will be joyful just as it isn’t reasonable to expect any life to be inundated with sorrow. Though some lives may tend more one way or the other, it is more likely that most are an equally distributed aggregation of both.

For me, the supposition of Happy New Year comes amidst feelings of disappointment and self-pity; though I endeavor to hold on to hope within dwindling faith, I discover that I am less sympathetic toward others, but “Happy New Year” rolls off my tongue to every person, nonetheless. After two years of false starts and abject failures, I look to the New Year now more with trepidation than with expectation. Depression mounts as I sail farther down that river of life, looking back at the unobtained goals undulating in my wake and destined to collect along the bank like discarded waste. But I do not place these words here seeking pity for me or mine. Self-pity is debilitating enough without embellishment.

The New Year notwithstanding, it is appropriate to have my own epiphany this time of year. I know I have been so self-absorbed in my own struggles that I failed to see – more like, I failed to care about the battles waged and lost by my brothers and sisters in the trenches of life. I’m reminded again of that wise oracle Charles Dickens and his treatise, A Christmas Carol:

“Oh God! To hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.”

I hope Mr. Dickens will not be tormented in death by my restatement of his prose to befit my proposition:

Oh God! To hear the insect, secure on the leaf, lamenting its struggle to hold on while its brothers and sisters, defeated by the wind, are drowned in the mud.

My battles are real and my physical and mental acuity to wage them is diminished, but if I labor for myself and impose a wish of “Happy New Year” on my fellow man without the intention of making it so for them, then I am a hypocrite. This New Year, I resolve to do what I can to make it happy for others. I know that more often than not, I will succumb to the demons of anger and self-pity but surmounting those burdens will be the objectives of my own struggles this year for bringing happiness to others will increase the happiness for me and mine.

How I will bring happiness to others:

- For my employer, I will strive to exceed expectations throughout the year to increase revenue and I will use assets responsibly.

- I am going to return to church in person; I’m going to participate and give more of my time and treasure.

- I’m going to tip 20 percent or more every single time.

- I’m going to find more ways to volunteer.

- I’m going to visit friends and family more.

- I’m going to say “I love you more.”

- I will expand my circle of friends and do more for them.

- I will buy and read more books from new struggling authors.

- I will turn the other cheek more frequently (every time if I can).

- I will empathize more.

- I will pray more and worry less; pray for five people every day.

- Love more and anger less.

Obscured Joy

I’ll do all I can to spread a Happy New Year on everyone I can, but even when there is an abundance of joy, there are those who will suffer sorrow. “Some days must be dark and dreary,” and for those days I offer my empathy if I know it and my sympathy if I do not. Take heart in knowing that even the direst circumstances may impart happiness on another unbeknownst to us.

While young lovers will be lost in each other’s affection, another’s goes unfulfilled, and when a legacy is retired, a new journey may begin, but grief is an unfeeling succubus. Yet even death may impart joy though the survivor is beyond it. More than 16 years ago, my father passed away leaving me with feelings of hurt and anger. I was called home from Iraq when he was checked into the hospital for pneumonia. Though he hadn’t smoked in a decade, Dad had been a smoker for more than 40 years. Diagnosed with CLPD years before, this wasn’t the first time he had been in the hospital for respiratory issues, and I nearly declined my command’s offer for emergency leave. As it was, I made it home three days before he passed away.

Neither Mom nor I thought this would be the time, but I think Dad saw it coming. When Dad gave up smoking, he recommitted himself to the Lord. At the end, he wanted a CD player in his room to listen to his gospel music. He was on a respirator and couldn’t speak, but as the praise music came softly through the speaker, he communicated to me through a pen and pad that he loved me and was proud of me. On the day he passed, Mom and I had spent the day with him at the hospital. He was looking better and in good spirits. We went home in the afternoon to get something to eat before going back to stay with him that night. As soon as we got home the doctor called and told us to get back to the hospital right away. When we ran into his room, Dad was surrounded by doctors and nurses all working frantically to keep him alive – just long enough for us to say goodbye. In the chaos, the nurse ushered Mom up to Dad’s side and I saddled up next to her with my hand on her arm.

“You need to say something quickly!” the nurse urged us both. “We are losing him.”

I wanted to get up next to Dad’s face, but Mom wouldn’t let go and I wouldn’t move her away from the love of her life in his final moments.

“Hurry!” the nurse pleaded with me. “He can still hear you! If you want to say something, do it quickly!”

The moment was so surreal. My father was dying in front of me, and I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t even know if he could hear me. In the last moment, I grabbed his hand and shouted over the noise, “It’s okay Dad! It’s okay! I love you!” and then he died.

From the moment I got the Red Cross message until that phone call from the doctor to return to the hospital, I knew this was not the time. Dad was only 66 years old. I still had more fishing trips to take with him. He just couldn’t be dead. By prayer and by faith, I believed Dad would live many more years, that we would have more time together, but my faith was dashed in those final words, “It’s okay Dad! It’s okay!”

Joy Revealed

After putting Dad in the ground in the most beautiful grave plot in the world overlooking the Appalachian Valley to the towering Viking Mountain, and helping Mom to get her affairs in order, I went back to my unit in Iraq, an angry and unhappy man. Our wonderful, faithful and observant chaplain could see I was hurting and though I was trying to avoid discussing the matter, he cornered me one day as I was trying to sneak off to my bunk for a quick break.

“Hey Mike! Can we talk?” he asked me.

“Sure,” I said not really wanting to and guided him into my cozy containerized housing unit or CHU.

Our chaplain was good. He cracked through my defenses and got me to open up about my anger.

“I don’t understand,” I spat with rage. “My dad was only 66. He was supposed to be a grandfather to my kids. It wasn’t time.”

The chaplain let me vent without saying a word.

“I’m so pissed at God right now! This is just bullshit!” I screamed, totally out of control. “I prayed... I prayed the whole way home! I just don’t understand why now... Why now, while I’m in this damn shithole.”

The chaplain waited to see if I was finished before leaning toward me and putting his hand on mine. “I don’t have the answers,” he said to me. “I don’t propose to know God’s reasons, but the one thing I would offer to you is this...”

He had my full attention.

“We don’t know what your dad was praying for.”

At that exact moment my hurt and anger was displaced by an overwhelming feeling of selfishness, and I was so ashamed. I had become so engrossed in my own loss, that I failed to see what Dad had gained; his pain was gone and he no longer felt a burden to his family. I knew then that he was at peace, and I found joy in knowing that his prayers were answered though my heart was in pain.

Sew Happiness and Reap the Joy

Though some days will be “dark and dreary,” it is wholly necessary because “some rain must fall” for joy to blossom. This year, I resolve to go beyond wishing happiness in this new year; I will do whatever I can to make it so for as many as I can. And when my days are “dark and dreary,” I’ll endeavor to take pleasure in the rain knowing that for someone, the sun is shining – and for me, it will again.


Happy New Year! May your days be filled with more sun than rain.

Dead Colon

So, it is my tradition: nigh on 13 years now. Nothing else can be gleaned from this if that isn’t made clear. It is my tradition that I read Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol every Christmas, but this year I read it differently; this year I studied it; this year gave birth to questions.

I’ve been a fan of Charles Dickens since reading Great Expectations in high school so long ago, but as a storyteller that writes, I’ve always been too engrossed in Dickens’ descriptive prose to concentrate on the mechanics of his writing. However, this year, for the first time in my life, I committed a portion of my weeks to developing my writing career. Though I may fall a little short of making my words-written goal for the year, I have surpassed my number of books read. I’ve read more and different books than ever before from new and different authors than I would have otherwise, and I have made a point to study their style and mechanics to improve my own craft. It seemed logical to take the same approach with a good ol’ favorite, and it was enlightening.

From the very first oddly placed colon in the opening sentence – as I tried to emulate in this article – A Christmas Carol is unique. Sadly, its uniqueness is not universal by publisher as I found out by fortunate accident. By conservative estimate, I have read the novella at least 15 times in my life. In all those times I have never stopped to wonder why the first half of the opening line, “Marley was dead,” is succeeded by a colon – not a comma like I have here – and finishes “to begin with,” completing the sentence. It is and would have been grammatically correct for the opening line to simply read “Marley was dead to begin with,” but Dickens sees fit to not only separate “Marley was dead” from the sentence’s infinitive, meaning: at first, from the start, already so, established and etc; but he does so with a colon.

Even though I was intent on studying Dickens’ mechanics this time, I was left unaware of that odd punctuation until nearly halfway through the book. It would seem obvious that if I were sincere with my intentions that I would have immediately noticed the curious colon in the opening sentence but studying the mechanics of A Christmas Carol became much more worrisome when I discovered that Dickens is grossly inconsistent among different publishers. I have several different editions of the novella, including the Special Kindle Edition with illustrations, but this year I pulled from my bookshelf a worn paperback from Washington Square Press, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc and began to read.

One of the first things I noticed was that Dickens did always, when appropriate, use question marks or exclamation points at the end of a partial quote before identifying the speaker. For example:

“Are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge.

I also noticed that he did not then capitalize “asked” even though “asked Scrooge” is a complete sentence with subject and verb following an ending punctuation. Dickens did not, however, act accordingly with the use of a period. For example:

“These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.”

It may be elementary to other writers, but I love to tell a story through dialogue, and I have struggled to find my style, often experimenting with different methods to see what looks most appealing to me – considering words the medium I use to paint the story. How the words look, and the emotions they convey is as important to me, if not more so, than structure.

The next thing I discovered about Dickens was his liberal use of the semicolon and the em dash. The former, I almost never use in fiction; the latter, I am quite fond of. Catch what I did there?

I shy away from the semicolon when writing fiction for the same reason I have mentioned. It is related to aesthetics over structure. For me, the semicolon is cold and unfeeling, too industrial, like writing for an instruction manual. On occasion, when nothing else will do, I may use a semicolon when separating a list of comma-laden objects, but generally, I do not love the semicolon, nor the colon for that matter, when writing fiction. If an all-stop is needed, a period will do. If I wish to connect two clauses, then I use a conjunction. If I’m looking for an artistic pause, then it’s an ellipsis or more commonly for me, the em dash.

As for my common use of the em dash, understand my excitement to see Dickens’ liberal use of that punctuation! Equally, realize my disappointment to discover that my Washington Square Press paperback edition was not indicative of Dickens’ original, which, by the by, is the same reason I wasn’t privy, on this occasion, to the errant colon succeeding “Marley was dead.” The WSP edition of A Christmas Carol punctuates the opening line like so: “Marley was dead, to begin with.” In fact, it was another obvious error in punctuation that led me to this discovery.

In Stave Three, The Second of the Three Spirits, Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present were observing the Cratchits as they prepared for a hot drink after their meal. To emphasize the family’s contentment, though they be impoverished, Dickens chooses to describe the Cratchit’s collection of drinking utensils. The WSP edition reads as such:

“These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done and Bob served it out with beaming looks...”

For a writer such as Dickens, an obvious fan of the artistic pause regardless of how he structured it, how could he have missed a necessary comma after “done” to separate these two independent clauses? I further believed that he wouldn’t, so I looked to the same passage in my Kindle Edition, which read:

“These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks...”

Of course! A semicolon and not a comma, but a separation in the clauses, nevertheless. By my further inspection of the Kindle Edition, I discovered not only did Dickens more liberally use the semicolon than I first suspected, but his use of the em dash was immeasurable. Where the em dash had been used in the WSP edition to demonstrate a pause or a stutter, the Kindle Edition had nothing, surprisingly nothing at all. Where I was prepared to see a different method for demonstrating, in writing, this particular nuance of the spoken word, I was not prepared, however, to see nothing, and this further confused me. For example, when Marley’s Ghost visits Scrooge in his room, Scrooge nervously asks the ghost if he can sit down. The WSP edition demonstrates it like this:

“Can you—Can you sit down?” asked Scrooge...

When reading it that way, I can actually hear, in my head, the fear and doubt in Scrooge’s voice when he asks the question of Marley’s Ghost. And as a fan of the em dash, I can relate.

In the Kindle Edition, however, the same line reads like this:

“Can you can you sit down?” asked Scrooge...

Huh? Even my grammar check doesn’t like it this way.

Now I’m actually angry as it dons on me that the multiple times I’ve read Great Expectations or Tale of Two Cities, or the more than a dozen times I’ve read A Christmas Carol, or all the other works of Dickens I’ve read, I was actually reading somebody else’s edition of Dickens’ work. Will the real Charles Dickens please stand up?

In my quest to discover the real Charles Dickens, I came across one critic’s top ten “most amazing bold and creative,” uses of punctuation for which the colon after “Marley was dead” came in at number seven. “Marley was dead (colon) to begin with,” – for real? I turned back in my book to the beginning of Stave One. Nope! The WSP edition uses a comma following “Marley was dead” and preceding “to begin with.” I looked to the Kindle Edition, and there it was, just like this:

“Marley was dead: to begin with.”

My anger surges now with the inconsistency in these two editions of this beloved Christmas classic immediately available to me. Though in most cases, the differences in the two editions were subtle – I saw preferences in both – I am left wondering the author’s true intent in other cases – most notably the Dead Colon, in the opening line. I expect there to be differences in varying editions of ancient text, which is why I usually study multiple translations of the Holy Bible, but A Christmas Carol is less than 200 years old. Why didn’t anyone just ask: “Hey Charlie! What Gives?”

In the course of trying to figure out that colon, I read a few critics’ suggestions, but I honestly did not find any of them enlightening with the exception of one. The anonymous critic suggested that the colon was in fact grammatically incorrect, but Dickens intended it that way. That much I knew, but why? The critic goes on to say that Dickens used the incorrect punctuation to draw attention to the fact that Marley was “ALWAYS” dead, suggesting that while Scrooge was once alive and capable of warm feelings, at some point he dies inside, but “Marley was dead: to begin with.”

I think I prefer the “Marley was ALWAYS dead” explanation, but I would be remiss if I didn’t develop my own conjecture about Dickens’ Dead Colon. I think Dickens had a thing for lists. If you consider the rest of the paragraph, it really does read like a list of exhibits to prove that Marley was, “no doubt whatever about” it, in fact, DEAD. “Marley was dead: to begin with,” and it is followed by the “register... was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner,” Scrooge had also signed it. “Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”

I will add the Dead Colon to the list of literary mysteries I have filed away for the day when H.G. Wells Time Machine becomes a reality, and I can go back to ask the greats exactly what they were thinking. In the meantime, I’m open for a discussion on the mechanics of Charles Dickens and the Dead Colon.

Be the Designer

I was speaking with another struggling writer friend and surprised myself with some poignant thoughts on writing that I decided to record here for posterity.

My friend was stuck on some writing mechanics. My first response to him was to “stop worrying about writing perfectly and just write.” I thought that was a bit simplistic but especially regretted it when he woefully told me he was struggling to find his voice. I had to adjust my comments to be more heartfelt.

“Write it like you want to read it and tell it like you want to hear it,” I said.

I told him when I have a hard time finding the words, I often pick up one of the greats and read. Dickens is usually my go to – especially A Christmas Carol, one of the best stories ever written, but it’s Hemingway’s quote that I often think of at these times. “There is nothing to writing,” Hemingway said, “all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

My friend likes classic Ferraris, so I added a simile to my sermon. “If it was a car,” I said. “Be the designer, not the mechanic. It’s your story; be the artist and not the English professor. Use your own voice; that’s the one you are used to hearing.”

I’m no writing saint by any means. I’ve been exactly where my friend is now, many times in fact, and I’m sure I’ll be there again. These words of advice and encouragement were as much for me as they were for him, so when I am in the doldrums again, I can read this and hopefully take my own advice... Not likely.

Lil's Spirits: This Side of the Veil

Analyzing Lilith

I haven’t visited my blog in a while. In fact, I’ve been off my writing game for weeks. Less than mediocre book sales and current events have been very depressing and distracting. It seems my creativity and my opinion do not operate well together and I won’t tarnish my blog with political opinion. This is all about writing.

Then today I woke to a new review of my horror anthology Lil's Spirits: This Side of the Veil, my first in a planned series. It was a 4-Star review, and the reader did say the writing was “very good” and I had “quite the imagination,” but it was almost a backhanded compliment considering everything else she said – needed “more introduction,” “too much cursing,” no backstory. Naturally, I reacted as mature and professional as always – I got pissed off and tried to figure out how to pull the review. Eventually, I calmed down and thought maybe I should use this marginal review as a learning point. Perhaps there is something I could do better, maybe an extended prologue. Would cited reference material help? I studied for several minutes wondering if there was anything I could have done to avoid that less than positive review...

"Nah! The reader is obviously just stupid," I finally decided.

Okay, I may have thought that initially, but truly, I don’t believe this reader is stupid – perhaps ignorant and a bit lazy, but not stupid.

Clearly, my first instalment of Lil’s Spirits was not the right fit for Jessica – her last name I’ll keep to myself though anyone can see the review on the book’s Amazon page. I want to be clear though, I’m not talking about my wife whose name is also Jessica.

As a member, same as me, of a club of writers and book lovers that read and share reviews, Jessica selected Lil’s Spirits and then had to write a review on it. Compelled to rate high, she took the opportunity to pick apart the book in the review text. Her review, titled with the single word “Huh,” is here in full.

Not sure how to review this one. I think there should have been more of an introduction of Lilith. She is not particularly familiar to the Christian world, but obviously, she is one we could do without, since we already have lots of bad guys. I think the writing is very good and the author has quite the imagination. A bit too much cursing without getting a real hold on the back story of how clever, evil, or foolish Lilith is. Does she have an Achilles heel? I am giving this 4 stars to be generous.

I certainly appreciate her generosity – insert face-palm emoji here.

I truly do want to thank Jessica – again, not my wife – here though as she has encouraged me to discuss my book, and why I chose Lilith as my antihero, but as I do that, I would like to address some of Jessica’s concerns.


A Case for Introduction

As a Christian myself, I can agree that Lilith isn’t particularly familiar to the Christian world because her story was left behind in Jewish folklore and Mesopotamian mythology, but she has made many appearances in pop culture that most simply overlook. More importantly however, is that this is a work of fiction and whether I believe that Lilith was made from the same dirt as Adam and torments the modern world is wholly irrelevant. I’m not trying to alter beliefs or write modern scripture; I’m simply spinning a good yarn using an extra-biblical character that I like to write. There is no more reason for me to “introduce” Lilith to the “Christian world” allegedly unfamiliar with her, than there would be for Stephen King to introduce Pennywise to the Hindu World because they aren’t used to seeing an orange-haired Bozo’s with a mouth as wide as a great white and three times as many teeth running around in public.



I too read plenty of books found on the group site I mentioned above and post reviews as my way of giving back and also to earn more reviews for my books, but I’m honest and do my best to understand the writer's intentions. It pains me to hear people say that fiction is a waste of time, that the reader can’t learn from it. I love to learn from fiction. About a month ago, I finished a very enjoyable psychological horror novella about a struggling writer who met a beautiful Greek woman named Calliope. He mentions to the woman that her name is the same as Homer’s muse for which she was aware. As I watch Calliope develop into the antagonist of the story, I’m also perusing pages of information about Homer’s fabled Calliope. I easily could have just accepted that Calliope was a fictional character of the writer’s imagination, but I took the extra step to learn Calliope’s back story.

Even with a desire for knowledge, often the reader is left to accept that the characters of great fiction are just the writer's dreams embodied by the writer's words and the message learned comes from their story. We never learned the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West, nor even her name, until Gregory Maguire wrote her Life and Times in Wicked 100 years after L. Frank Baum made her the principal antagonist in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In Maguire’s story of Elphaba, created by the phonetic pronunciation of Baum's initials L.F.B., we learn what truly makes the witch wicked, and that works for Maguire and as a Broadway musical, but never forget Baum never thought it necessary to explain her history. It was good enough that we knew her intentions.

With that said however, it is important to note that Lil’s Spirits: This Side of the Veil does have an introduction where I clearly explain Lilith’s origin, how I came to know her and how I started writing short stories with her character before I knew who she was. The book includes a prologue that explains how she came to have a liquor store in the Appalachians and the first two short stories of the anthology further describe her relationship, or lack thereof, with Samael – aka Satan in case you missed it – her extrication from the Garden of Eden and finally her dedication to corrupt God’s most beloved creation, Mankind, until the end of her days. I can’t help but think what more could I have done to demonstrate Lilith’s backstory without making it a documentary. Even A Place of Rest, the novella and principal story of the anthology, is titled after Isaiah 34:14 long disputed among theologians as the only place where Lilith is ever mentioned in the canonized Bible.

“The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the isle, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech-owl (or night hag, or night creature translated from lilit) also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.” Isaiah 34:14 is literally the foundation for A Place of Rest. Jacob, my protagonist and a young pastor trying to save his wife from a manipulative entity, even repeats the verse in chapter three titled The Ish. Coincidentally, Lilith’s attestation to be the Ish, or the last remaining whole, and her allegation that Jacob is a “half with two faces,” is yet another hint about who she is. I fully realize that most people have no knowledge of the Ish but I intentionally injected that opportunity for self-discovery knowing full well that the plot and culmination of the story would not suffer if the reader chose to overlook it. I personally enjoy a little literary treasure hunt when reading a good story, but I acknowledge that it isn’t for everyone.

Hint: There are many convoluted and wholly unrelated definitions of ish. To understand more about what the Ish means in this story, search for the Hebrew meaning or the comparison of Ish and Isha.

Telling the Right Story and Knowing the Right Words to Say

I particularly find the comment about “too much cursing” laughable as I’ve heard it before, but I’m actually offended by the annexation of “without getting a real hold on the back story...” as if my alleged shortfall is a direct result of an alleged indulgence. I take great pride in avoiding gratuitous sex, language, blood or gore in my writing. However, just how does one speak to a tormentor when all the known world has been upturned, a loved one lies on the brink of death and lost salvation and sin has been embraced and the consequences realized? To caveat, Lilith doesn’t care so much about offending someone’s delicate sensibilities, she was once the Queen of Hell; Annie Wilkes she is not. How serious could the reader take Lilith if in the course of scolding Jacob she called him a “cockadoodie sinner?” Just doesn’t carry the feel of a 10s-of-millennia-old vengeful entity.

Finally, reviewer Jessica asked the question, “does (Lilith) have an Achilles heel?” I thought about that question at length and wondered why it had any relevance. Would Nightmare on Elm Street have been such a successful franchise if Wes Craven had revealed how to defeat Freddy Krueger early in the first movie? Hell, it’s been 40 years and we still can’t successfully kill Michael Myers.

In all truthfulness while avoiding spoilers however, I actually do reveal Lilith’s vulnerabilities, again in A Place of Rest, and I don’t at all regret it even though I intend for the series to live on for as long as I’m able. I don’t regret it because most of the characters that interact with Lilith will not be able to carry or successfully wield the secret weapon because their hearts are too weighted with hate, anger and fear. Love and forgiveness are concepts by which Lilith can simply not abide. It is this that despite the foul language, the sexual situations and even allusions of blasphemy that lead me to believe Lil’s Spirits is Christian literature though I would hardly attempt to convey that to Christian publishers, so I’ll just stay outside the genre like a rebel.

In the first decade of the 16th century, Michelangelo, a devote Catholic, began painting the ceiling in the famed Sistine Chapel in the heart of Vatican City. His more than 300 figures, commissioned by Pope Julius II, that took him four years to paint, depict the doctrine of the Catholic Church going back to creation. Near the center of the great vaulted plafond, and only one panel away from the world-famous Creation of Adam is his painting Temptation and Fall. The two-part image illustrates Adam and Eve giving in to the original sin and then their extrication from the Garden. At the center of the image is the Tree of Knowledge. Holding fast to that tree by a great serpent tail and offering Eve the forbidden fruit is the naked upper torso of a redheaded woman, Lilith.

I grew up in an old fashioned Southern Christian family and I never heard of Lilith until 2008 from my good friend and brigade chaplain during a late-night theological discussion near Baghdad, Iraq. It was at that moment that the face of a recurring character in my imagined stories had a name. Immediately upon hearing that Lilith was the mythical first wife of Adam, banished from Eden because she refused to be submissive to her husband, I suspected she would have a motive to conspire Adam and Eve’s dismissal from God’s Garden. I imagined she was the snake that tempted Eve and thought myself blasphemous for even suggesting such a thing. Imagine my surprise when months later my research unveiled the discovery that Lilith as the serpent was a widely held theory among theologians. I wrote Out of Eden: A Story from the Beginning as my account of The Fall with no intention of publishing it. It was to be for my personal reference only so not to offend or enrage the Christian elite, but learning of Michelangelo's fresco on the ceiling of the residency of the leader of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, I decided my story too was a panel of Christian art. Out of Eden is the second story in the anthology, Lil’s Spirits: This Side of the Veil and is Lilith’s backstory from The Beginning.



From Beginning to End

I don’t see Lilith as evil. She is fueled by evil things such as vengeance, rage and hate, and she is committed to tempting Mankind away from salvation, but she is a victim. She is scorned, lost and alone and she acts badly on it. She is the antihero, neither protagonist nor antagonist though she may at any time display the traits of either or both. She inspires fear, lust, anger and hatred to manipulate but she is not a friend of her former consort Samael, the archangel cast out of heaven for rebelling against God. Samael manipulated her once as well when she was at her most vulnerable and tender moment. She trusted him, and for that, he used her to send man and woman out of the graces of God and into a flawed mortal life.

Of course, after my description of her, most would respond that Lilith is evil, and I would not argue except to say that so are we. We are fatally flawed beings. Not that God created us that way, but after freewill, we corrupted the vessel. God created Man in his image then we amended the creation to our own image. We are not so different from Lilith when we fill our hearts with fear, hate and anger and cultivate it throughout the world chaining our souls to Earth’s bitter fate, but when we purge our hearts of these wicked emotions, we set our souls aloft, lifted by love and forgiveness.

That is what I hope readers will learn from Lilith and I hope they are entertained in the process. Whether Lil’s Spirits is ever accepted in Christian circles, I am indifferent, but if I inspire some readers to self-discovery and in the process they read a little scripture, then I’ve done my part.

Again, I want to thank the reader Jessica for her review though it doesn’t seem appropriately connected to Lil’s Spirits: This Side of the Veil. Regardless, it has compelled me to speak more about it, which I hope will drive interest.

Thanks for reading.

Lil's Spirits: This Side of the Veil

Half-Way Update

I started this year with the plan to make 2021 about my writing career. There is certainly more to a writing career than just writing, though my primary goal was related to wordcount. But what kind of wordcount should a great writer be expected to reach in a year’s time? That is of course without pretention that I am a great writer, but rather that I am aspiring to be a great writer.

If I’m looking to be a household name, then I had to look at what another household name does each year to achieve fame. Stephen King writes more than 130,000 words per year to be what he is. It was that knowledge that encouraged me to set a writing goal for myself to reach 124,000 words this year. Interestingly, this very blog is me trying to stay on track as this week, so close to the chronological center of the year, has so far been the only week this year that I haven’t made significant progress in my wordcount. To date, I have managed to write more than 40,000 words. That’s about 22,000 words from where I should be for the end of June. As I’m still holding down a full-time job and spending much time outside this time of year working on my gardens and home, I anticipated that the largest volumes of my writing will be into the fall months, so I’m still confident that I will meet or exceed my writing goal for the year. Up until this week, I’ve had my 4000-word weeks and I’ve had my 800-word weeks but every week of the first 26 of 2021 have been filled with words.

There is more to my annual goals than writing. I believe it is important to hone my skill by reading other writers as well. At the start of the new year, I set a goal to read at least 15 books this year. I didn’t do much reading the first four months of the year, only reading all the way through two books, Stay, a wonderful nonfiction collection of stories related to how dogs teach us about faith by setting a great example. It was wonderfully entertaining and thought provoking. The other book was an educational manual on Personality Selling written by a client I’m taking on for my freelance marketing business.

So, 2021 got off to a slow start in the reading column, but in the last two months I’ve finished five books and several short stories or children’s books thanks to the Pubby platform that allows me to ask for reviews of my current books in exchange for reviewing other struggling writers’ books. I was very cautious about joining this group, but it has turned out to be a boost on two fronts. Plus, I've found a few new authors to follow that I never would have discovered otherwise, a couple I have even had conversation with via email. Before the end of next week, the true middle of the year, I will have finished at least three more books that I am in the middle of bringing my half-year total to 10 books read and well toward my annual goal, and I’m not including the quick reads.

I’ve been keeping up word count by continuing to write Sorrow Hollow, three parts totaling about 24,000 words so far. I took a break from Lil’s Spirits novel to start another project that first came to me early in the year. The Mad Dr. Drennan, only four chapters in so far, is a psychological thriller incorporating some of Jessica’s and my actual experiences of the last 18 months. Unfortunately, that is all I can say about The Mad Dr. Drennan now to prevent reprisal from a real-life psychopath. ,The Mad Dr. Drennan will truly be an evisceration in fiction. I stumbled onto a few contributor-copy digital magazines as well that is driving up word count. Vocal’s weekly writing challenges, some of them with quiet hefty rewards, has forced me to write out of my comfort zone, which has led to several epiphanies. I’m also on Medium and Booksie though I’m just getting started on those platforms and will likely just share stories already on Vocal. Each site is designed to earn a few pennies per read. It isn’t much, but a person could do well with plenty of content and reader volume.

My writing career and reading goals have taken the priority and is progressing nicely, but other personal goals for the year have fallen short. My faith study and Bible reading has been underwhelming. I have so far missed our financial goals and my personal education goals are almost nonexistent with the exception of a few Great Courses lectures, now called Wonderium. I listened to a special on Andrew Johnson, a 12-part lecture on the Federalist Papers and I’m still infrequently going back to a lecture on Gnostics that I started last year.

The good thing about putting this in words is that I can visualize my current position and make adjustments to better meet my personal, and family goals before the end of the year. I even have everything in spreadsheet to reference weekly, but this is really by best organizational tool putting fingers to work to carve the words. I comprehend as I go along. There is much work to be done.

Educationally – including general study, dulcimer, piano and language – I'm just not sure what to do. I have to carve out more time from work and working on our home and rental to spend on these activities. Fortunately, I took a new job in May that will soon free up more time for me, has allowed an escape from the mad doctor for Jessica and will greatly influence our financial freedom in the near future. Soon, Jessica will move part-time into the marketing position I now hold with LaFerney Commercial Roofing so I can move into sales. The sales position will be better income with more control of my work schedule. Perhaps I can carve more time for bettering my mind and body because I’ve suffered physically as well.

Lil’s Spirts: This Side of the Veil and Archibald Lindsey’s Study of Women will both get hardbacks this second half of 2021 with TSOTV hopefully getting a fully illustrated version. Additionally, both are submitted to a self-publishing contest that could bring big dividends. I will complete and publish Lil’s Spirits: Sorrow Hollow and plan to finish The Mad Dr. Drennan and submit to another contest for unpublished works. If all goes well, I'll start a sequel to A Place of Rest this year and hopefully another comedy, likely titled The Restaurant. I might be overly ambitious, but at this point in 2021 I will consider any measure of what I still plan to do as a success. Looking forward and not back.

Archibald Lindsey's Study of Women
Lil's Spirits: This Side of the Veil

L'Homme vrai aime son pay

I wasn’t born in Wales, and I don’t speak the Celtic language of the people, but even as a child, fascinated by the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, I felt in me the spirit of the Welsh bard that propagated these tales and gave life to the legends.

The fact or fantasy of Arthur was irrelevant to me, and it remains so even today. Equally intriguing to me as the story itself was the origin and advancement of the tale. For eats and ale, these talented storytellers told of monsters and magicians, wars and warriors, demons and damsels and the hero kings and knights. They were more than just entertainers; they were news anchors. They were the CNN of their time; only I would have believed a bard.

I’m sure Cymru isn’t the only national origin of the bard, but truth or lore, among the earliest compilation of stories regarding King Arthur is in the Annales Cambriae, the Latin for Annals of Wales. Later William of Malmesbury and Geoffrey of Monmouth made medieval bestsellers of the stories and even Geoffrey Chaucer was thought to have modeled his Canterbury Knight from Arthur. Today there are literally hundreds of books, live theater and film adaptations of Arthur as well as thousands more Arthurian inspired stories spanning all entertainment platforms. For this, we have the storytelling prowess of the Welsh bard to thank.

Of course, there must be more to my assumption of the moniker The Bantering Welshman than just an admiration for the legendary storytellers – and there is. The name was first levied on me 20 years ago, while stationed in Germany, by a friend and colleague, in a friendly jab at my quest to learn the origins of my family name, Humphreys. I recently returned from a week of discovery in Wales and was eagerly sharing with him what I learned. He jokingly tagged me with the name and I immediately loved it.

Originating from the French l’homme vrai aime son pays – the true man loves his country – the phrase is itself a short story about the Celtic Welsh displaced from their homeland by invading Saxons but returning with William the Conqueror in 1066 to take it back. Armed with that knowledge then, I had planned to visit the Red Dragon for more than a year. Ahead of my trip, while in command of a company of Army Engineers, I was actively searching for more information regarding where the Humphreys largely resided in the old country. Unfortunately, there wasn’t as much online information in 2001 as there is today, and ironically, Great Britian had recently allowed Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to restructure their local administrations back to an old Celtic system which had all historical records in upheaval. My trip was scheduled, but other than knowing the name Humphreys was Welsh, I had no idea where to go.

Anxious to be on my quest, I landed in London on the afternoon of November 5, 2001, and quickly made my way to the train station for the four-hour trip to the port town of Conwy. With the belief that my name was from Northern Wales, I planned to begin my search there. It was dark early this time of year so I anticipated a restful train trip as there would be nothing to see out the window into the blackness of the English and Welsh countryside. However, soon after leaving the lights of London behind, I began to notice countless bonfires of varying degrees illuminating the landscape. Some of these fires were quite large and a few were close enough to the tracks that I could see large groups of revelers partying around it as we sped past. I immediately thought of St. John’s Fire, or St. Johannes Feuer as my friends in Germany called it, but that coincided with the Summer Solstice; This was mid-Autumn.

Well toward the train’s final stop, the majority of travelers had already exited. With only a few of us remaining on board, a local noticed my inquisitive glances through the window at the fires.

“It’s Guy Fawkes night,” he said collecting my attention though doing little to educate me on the meaning. From my furrowed brow, I gathered he could sense my confusion.

“The Gunpowder Plot of 1605,” he continued. “He tried to blow up the bloody Parliament.”

“Your Parliament?” I was still confused.

“The English,” he responded.

“They celebrate that here,” I asked trying to understand why they would celebrate an act of treason against their own country.

“Aye!” The man chuckled. “There are plenty in these parts wished he’d done it... a few more that would do it today.”


It was already getting late when I finally rolled into Conwy, a little more enlightened into Great Britain’s centuries old socio-political strife. That would call for more study later. Right away I needed food and beverage. I quickly found a B&B in town, dropped my gear then walked around the corner to the closest watering hole I could find for a meal and a traditional Welsh cask ale. From the door of the pub, I could see Conwy Castle built by Edward Longshanks, the same from Braveheart fame. Surrounded by thousands of years of history and culture, I resolved to have a great time here whether I discovered my family origins or not. The spirit of the bard was with me though because all I had to do was tell folks my name.

“Humphreys? Well, that’s a good Welsh name for sure,” said the man at the end of the bar after he overheard me tell the romantically inclined bartending couple my name and mission.

“Thanks,” I responded. “You wouldn’t happen to know where it comes from would you?”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” he said pausing with his fork full of food halfway to his mouth, “My wife is a genealogist.”

“Are you serious?” I was elated.

“Yes! And I think she would say your family comes from Ceredigion, south along the coast.”

“Well, there ya go,” said the cute lady-half of the bartending couple. “Bob here eats with us about twice a week. Good thing you came in tonight.”

It was heaven sent is what it was. Of all the bars and pubs in this little city of Conwy, I found a B&B next to this one and not wanting to travel far from my bed on this first night in Wales, I take my supper here and meet Bob, the friendly barstool pigeon husband of a Welsh genealogist. Bob finished his meal and poured the last of his refreshing cask ale down his throat before standing to take his leave.

“Hwyl am rwan,” Bob said for my benefit as he stepped out into the chill of the evening before the rain started again as it was oft to do in coastal Wales this time of year.

“Hwyl!” The bartenders said with a wave of their arms.

“What was that?” I asked.

“That’s Welsh for goodbye.”

I didn’t delve much further into the Welsh language as I found the pronunciations beyond the physical manipulation of my tongue and vocal cords, but I enjoyed listing to it, nevertheless. I was fascinated to learn that there was significant effort throughout the English-speaking country to preserve the ancient language and that it was commonplace for locals to speak among themselves in the old tongue. I was delighted in my conversation with the bartending couple and sat for hours enjoying the rich flavor of several more pulls of the cask ale even after I finished my meal. It was a good thing I stayed.

About an hour and a half later, Bob stumbled back through the pub door looking wet and disheveled having been caught in a shower.

“Glad you’re still here,” he said slightly out of breath and shaking the chill from his limbs. “I was cozying up to a hot toddy when my dear Lowri came home. I was so proud that I met you tonight and gave you advice that I rushed to greet her with the news.”

By the way he despairingly closed his eyes and shook his head, I understood the earlier exchange with his wife did not go well but couldn’t understand why his Lowri would have been so displeased.

“I told her that I pointed you in the direction of Ceredigion,” he said still shaking his head. “Christ! You’d think I pissed on her mother’s grave. She slapped me in the chest and screamed ‘Bloody Hell! That isn’t where the Humphreys come from you blooming ID’YOT!’”

“Oh no!” I said as the bartenders laughed.

“Ah, it happens all the time. I am a blooming id’yot... Anyway, she made me come back down here to find you and tell you that Blaenau Ffestiniog in Gwynedd is where your family hails from. It’s an old slate mining town smack in the middle of Snowdonia”

“I’m sorry you had to come back down here, but thank you so much for doing it,” I said.

“Ah, no problem,” he responded. “You probably won’t find much in Blaenau these days. Kind of a ghost town really, but Dolgellau is just down the road. It’s the old county seat for Merionethshire. They are likely to have some records.”

I thanked him again.

“Aye, guess I’ll be on my way again. Hwyl!” He said as he disappeared through the door back into the night.


After my first night in Wales, I finally had a direction that would lead me to the treasure I came here for. I did a little studying of the maps and sites in the lobby of the Castle Hotel that night and discovered that I could take an historic steam engine tour of Snowdonia National Park from Porthmadog right into downtown Blaenau. Early the next morning, I had a hearty Welsh breakfast then boarded a bus to Porthmadog by way of Caernarfon, where I stopped to tour another of Edward’s castles. For all the remaining animosity toward the English, there sure is plenty around here to constantly remind the Welsh of the English Monarch that conquered them.

In Porthmadog, I found the schedule for the next day’s train to Blaenau and turned in for the night. I’m sure I dreamt of a crowd of Humphreys gathered at an iconic train station in the hills of Snowdonia welcoming home a wayward son, but reality was far from the dream.

I woke early in Porthmadog and found a greasy spoon to have breakfast in before catching the train. I remember the waitress politely sashaying up to take my order. She leaned against the high back of the booth opposite me and spat something unintelligible at me. I gave her my best deer-in-the-headlights look then she switched to Her Majesty’s English.

“What can I get you hon,” she asked.

After breakfast, I bundled up against a cold day, threw my pack on my back and boarded an open car on the Ffestiniog Rail bound for Blaenau. It was breezy and snowy in the forested hills of Snowdonia, but the scenery looking out over the patchwork land of Gwynedd was worth it. There were no throngs of Humphreys at the sleepy little train depot when I got to Blaenau. Not even the handful of chilled travelers with me on the train did much to add to the traffic on the town streets when they debarked. Outside the normal tourist season on a cold and blustery day, there were very few open businesses and hardly any lodging available. Blaenau really was a ghost town.

I darted into the town’s post office just before the postal officer closed for lunch to ask about a registrar. I had hoped to jot down some names of Humphreys still living in this sleepy mining town. I was in the right place he told me, but the registrar only works on certain days, and it so happened that this day was not one of them.

“I’m American,” I told him for which he shook his head in acknowledgement of the obvious. “My name is Humphreys and I’m looking for the origin of my name.”

“Aye, there are plenty of Humphrey here,” he said. “More than a few.”

“Is there someplace I can see records,” I asked.

“Dolgellau,” is what he said though as usual, it was unpronounceable to me.

He laughed as I tried to regurgitate the word so I could explain to a driver where I needed to go.

“There is a bus leaves from the corner at four,” he said. “He’ll know what you are trying to say.”

With a few hours to kill, I decided to pay a visit to Europe’s steepest cable railway into the Llechwedd Deep Mine. By the end of the 19th Century, Wales was supplying much of the worlds slate for roofs and other applications. The slate mining industry in Wales at one time employed more than 17,000 men. As I descended 500 feet below Moelwyn Mawr, it occurred to me that many of my ancestors probably worked these mines.

I purchased a few slate trinkets from the gift shop to remind me of the industry of the Welsh Humphreys then hurried back to town to catch the last bus out lest I get stuck here. I crossed the road diagonally just as the bus came to a stop. The driver opened the door and I greeted him with my best attempt and mimicking the guttural sounds I heard others repeat for the word Dolgellau.

Just as the post officer had said, the bus driver laughed and said, “Yes, that’s where we are going.”

Every interest that Blaenau Ffestiniog lacked, Dolgellau had in abundance. For me that night, the bus had been a spaceship to a time and place that I never could have imagined existed. The bus dropped me off at the edge of an ancient stone arch bridge across the shallow Wnion River opposite a Grimm Brothers Fairy Tale. Every pub, every shop, every home, road and walkway were made from thick, heavy, milled stones and of course every building was roofed in slate. Smoke streamed up from the chimneys into the cold evening air and yellow light poured through the doors and windows to illuminate the cobblestone streets. I was in a Dickens novel.

Fine food and cask ales were in abundance this night and shared in the company of a traveling American couple and friendly Welsh locals. That night when I finally poured myself into a bed, pleasantly worn out, inside a home older than the United States, I didn’t know my search for my family name had already drawn to a close, sadly unfinished.

The next morning, I eagerly marched to the old county records building where I was assured local records were still stored, but found the doors locked though the posted hours indicated they should be open. A woman called down to me from an open window overlooking the front door.

“Can I help you,” she asked.

“My name is Humphreys,” I answered. “I’m hear researching my family history.”

“Oh dear,” she said sincerely. “We are closed for renovations all this week. How long will you be here?”

“Oh no. I have to be back in Germany on Monday.”

“I’m so sorry,” she pleaded. “I would let you in, but all our records are crated up at the moment I’m afraid. You wouldn’t be able to find anything if I did.”

I was literally heartbroken and damning my luck, but I graciously thanked the woman and returned across the bridge to Dolgellau to contemplate what I had achieved. I wasn’t able to tie my heritage to any specific Humphreys coming across the water to the new world, but I did find my origins. I walked the streets where many Humphreys before me had walked and lived for nearly 1000 years, and I toured the mine where I'm sure hundreds of Humphreys worked for centuries. I heard the language they spoke. I ate the foods they ate. I drank the beers they drank, and I witnessed some of the festivities they participate in. I didn’t identify any names, but even before I knew of Blaenau Ffestiniog, I said I would have fun here and at that I was very successful.

I said good by to Gwynedd and Snowdonia and spent the rest of my time in Great Britain in Cardiff and London. That was 20 years ago and I left vowing to return one day to finish the job I started. Now that I have officially publicized my pen name, The Bantering Welshman, I suppose it is about time to plan a new trip.

Hwyl am rwan!

Archibald Lindsey's Study of Women

Making a better writer

Writing has been my greatest passion since I was old enough to pick up a pencil and form words, but only then because it usurped my earlier passion of telling myself a good story. Once I learned to write, I could share my stories with someone more than an imaginary audience.

I’ve written for the Army. I’ve written for newspapers and magazines. I’ve even written for radio. But in every case where I have written for someone else, there has been a slew of editors and proofreaders to clean up any errors. I write fast and I write conversationally. Though, in my opinion, that makes for a good read, it seldom allows for the best structure. I’ve never been able to edit my own work, and I don’t think I am alone in that handicap. I can read and read and read again every chapter of every story I have ever written and still overlook the most mundane technical errors. Time away from the work does increase the likelihood that I will find more of my mistakes, but since I started writing for publication, I’m not amenable to putting a story on ice for several months until I can look at it with fresh eyes. It has to go out now!

I’m sure there are some phenomenal, perfect pitch writers out there; I am not one of them and I am not sorry for it. What I learn from my mistakes makes me a better writer, but when the story is pouring out my fingers, I’ll not interrupt the thought to make sure the grammar, spelling or word usage is perfect. That’s why I hire an editor.

Maybe the day will come that I can write flawlessly. Maybe one day my fingers will perfectly translate the thought from my mind to exacting context… but that is not now. Now I struggle. My stories are no worse for it, but I am excited to share a newly discovered hack that I’m sure will make me a better writer, and hopefully a few others as well. It will not eliminate my need for an editor at this time, but it will make her life easier and she can enjoy the story a little more without the painful attention to every little detail.

This writing hack is a 2-step process requiring a digital word processor (that’s old speak for Word, Pages or some other application since Word Perfect was booted from the peak decades ago).

Step 1: Know your tendencies. Do you more often type “it’s” in place of “its” or the other way around? Is it confusing “lie” with “lay?” Is it “here” for “hear,” “where” for “wear,” “there” for “their,” or etc? For me, the biggest bane to my talent is the garments we where… I mean wear. Seriously, I cannot type “clothes” during the course of a story flow if my life depended upon it. It is as if my mind and fingers have come to the mutual understanding that they will just drop that superfluous “e” in the interest of time. I mean, clothes are made from cloths, right? How can that be wrong?

To make matters worse, my first novel, Archibald Lindsey’s Study of Women, is a 108,000-word, adult comedy about a young man on his death bed – I mean the day before his wedding – commiserating about all of his lost loves, crushes or infatuations starting with his very first “show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” incident as a child. The word “clothes” is prevalent throughout the book. In fact, I’m fairly certain it is mentioned at least once in all 47 chapters. I typed it wrong EVERY SINGLE time and though my editor did a great job, even she didn’t catch them all. Thankfully, Kindle Create has the same functionality as most word processors that I will discuss in Step 2.

Archibald Lindsey's Study of Women

Step 2: Do a word search for known errors. I know it sounds paradoxical, but it isn’t. Hence, knowing your tendencies in Step 1. It has to be done methodically though. If you have a tendency to use “it’s” the contraction for “it is” in place of the possessive “its,” then you will search for “it’s” not “its” because there is a greater likelihood that “it’s” is used contextually wrong. I particularly love the possibilities when searching the word “here.” When searching for “here,” you can effectively find and correct at least five common errors. Most word search functions look for the order of letters, not the specific word. When searching for “here” you will find every incident of “here,” “there,” and “where” among others, but among all three of those words you can verify that you did not intend “hear”, “their,” “they’re,” “wear,” or “ware.”

I’m sure there are plenty of experienced writers that will read this and say, “duh,” but this is a great discovery for me and I can’t be the only writer that hasn’t already thought of this, so I’m inclined to share. As I experiment with this functionality more, I’m sure I will discover more common errors and add those to my search as well.

As I mentioned before, this writing hack does not eliminate the need for an editor and I almost never rely on the grammar correction of the typical word processing software, but it will certainly eliminate many common mistakes, and as I become more aware of my tendencies for error, I will be less likely to repeat them in the future. I will wean from the digital teat and be a better writer for it.

So this is 50?

“I’m older but wiser,” in all cap, block letters is what it reads on the card shaped like a chubby, grayed owl with a cane and spectacles. That, among other assorted, age-related accoutrements is what my family laid out for me to find on my way to the homemade, caramel cake. They know I’ve always liked caramel better than chocolate.

So, I’m older, but I’m wiser. I’m certainly experienced, and I suppose under some situations that does make me wiser, but I struggle with the question… “Do I really care?” If given the choice, would I be happy with the experience, or would I go back to do it again for the very first time. Of course, that means taking the good with the bad, but when I look back, it’s the greatest moments I remember most.

I’ll never swim to Dad again for the very first time. I’ll never lean over the front seat as we top that last hill and see water that goes past the edge of the earth for the first time ever again. I’ll never ride a bike for the first time without training wheels. I’ll never press the throttle of my first motorized two-wheeler again. I’ll never break-in another glove. I’ll never catch a ball again for the first time. I’ll never again play football, have a first day at school, experience a first kiss, hold hands for the first time, experience puppy love, get my first drivers license, go on a first date, move away from home, buy my first truck, buy my first house, etc, etc, etc. Those are all events I can only relive in stories now.

One half of a century… I have achieved that and everything that goes with it, but I’m really not sure how I feel about it. Truly it is a moot point because like it or not, there is nothing I can do about it. I’m sure there are others turning 60, 70 or even 80 who would tell me to stop whining and they are right to scold me, but this is my moment to commiserate and I’ll do it.

I think it is safe to say that I have fewer years in front of me than I do behind me now, but before I dwell on the clock counting down my time to make an impact on this world, I’ll look back on my 50 years and the stories my experiences will help me to tell.

I didn’t find much about the day air touched my slimy head for the first time, but 35 days later, Joe Frazier beat Muhammad Ali in “the Fight of the Century” and oddly enough Frank Sinatra took the photo of the bout that made the cover of Life magazine. That doesn’t have anything to do with me, but I did find that an interesting story to tell.

I was born in Indiana and the first home I remember is a trailer in a trailer park in Churubusco. Before moving back to Mom and Dad’s home in Greeneville, Tennessee, we moved into a home in suburban Fort Wayne and later a house on the edge of the city with 10 acres and a creek. With Mom and Dad back in Tennessee we lived in three different rentals before finally settling in a double-wide on the 20-acre family farm, which I now own. In my adult life, I’ve owned nine homes starting with a trailer in a trailer park in Johnson City. I’ve rented twice, once while stationed in Germany. I currently still own three homes to include the Seaton homestead and the double-wide on the 20-acre farm and our forever home in Rogersville, Tennessee. In total, I’ve moved 17 times and unless I’m forced into a home in my older age, I never intend to move again.

Nixon was President when I was born, though I don’t remember his administration. I can remember nine Presidents, from Gerald Ford to Sleepy Joe. Six presidents have died since I was born… Maybe seven, are we really that sure about Jimmy Carter? The most recent to die was George H.W. Bush and the most memorable was Ronald Reagan. I have been able to vote in eight elections and my pick won in only three.

I remember the Iran Hostage Crises, the failed rescue attempt, Iran-Contra, the Ayatollah, the Shah, Grenada, Panama, the Falkland Islands, Brezhnev and Perestoika, and “Mr. Gorbachev… TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!” I saw the end of the Cold War and watched the Berlin Wall come down as well as the World Trade Center Towers all on color television.

I remember when Tom Landry was the only coach of “America’s Team” the Dallas Cowboys, and when the NFL was still relevant and entertaining. I remember my first Louisville Slugger with Mickey Mantle’s signature engraved near the end of the barrel, and I remember being a die-hard Cubs fan until the 1994 strike and I never watched MLB again. Oh, and I remember I always hated basketball but watched the Indiana Hoosiers with Dad religiously only to see the next time Bobby Knight would throw a chair across the court.

I was fortunate enough once to be in the right place at the right time to attend one Super Bowl match-up with the legendary Peyton Manning still leading the Indianapolis Colts. Unfortunately, the Colts didn’t win that one, but several years later I watched from my Fountain, Colorado home as Manning became the first quarterback in history to win a Super Bowl with two different franchises. I’m sure that record is about to be broken, I’m sorry to say (choke Tom Brady), but I haven’t watched the NFL since the start of the 16-17 season when Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall took a knee during the National Anthem. The NFL is dead to me now, nothing but a bunch of cheaters, punks and spoiled brats.

As a kid, and even a little now, I was a science and space junkie. Vividly, I remember sitting barefoot and cross-legged in my pajamas, in our Indiana country home, in front of a Magnavox, floor model, color television – I knew was made in Greeneville, Tennessee, my parents’ hometown – to watch STS-1 (Space Transportation System) Space Shuttle Columbia, the world’s first, reusable orbital vehicle launch into space. Five years later, in Tennessee, I remember my uncle meeting my Mom and me at the door of my grandparents’ house to tell us the Challenger just exploded, and I was glued to the set for the rest of the day in sadness and grief. Then on my 32nd birthday, February 1, 2003, I watched with the rest of the world that brilliant feat of human advancement I first saw 20 years earlier, disintegrate upon reentry killing seven more astronauts. Finally, more than 30 years after that 10-year-old boy watched in awe the first shuttle launch from his color TV in Indiana, he stood near the countdown clock at the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida to watch in person, STS-135, Space Shuttle Atlantis embark on the very last shuttle mission.

I’ve traveled by foot, ski, horse, bike, car, motorcycle, jet ski, train, bus, plane, boat and ship. I’ve been in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Adriatic, the Mediterranean, the English Channel and the North Sea. I’ve been to 47 of 50 states, all but Vermont, Oregon and Washington. I’ve lived in Germany and visited Poland, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Andorra (it’s a country; look it up), Spain, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech, Austria, Hungary and Lichtenstein. I also traveled to the United Kingdom a couple times where I visited Scotland, England and Wales. I served on official business in Bulgaria, Moldova, Japan, Egypt and Canada and have been deployed to Macedonia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq; the last I have spent a total of 29 months of my life.

I’ve skied the Alps of Germany, Austria, Italy, and France, the Rockies of Colorado and Canada and so far, only the not so exciting Ober Gatlinburg in the Appalachians. I’ve been to world class cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, Toronto, New Orleans, Miami, London, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Prague and Cairo. I’ve also been to other major cities like Denver, Anchorage, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Nashville, DC, Inverness, Cardiff, Frankfurt, Munich, Nuremburg, Plovdiv, Chisinau, Alexandria, Pristina, Riyadh, Baghdad, and many more. I’ve seen The Pyramids at Giza, the castles on the Rhine, the Brandenburg Gate, Gettysburg Battlefield, the Polders of the Netherlands, the windmills of Holland, the Tigress and the Euphrates, Gracanica Monastery in Pristina, Big Ben, Parliament, Loch Ness, The Eifel Tower, The Arch de Triomphe, The White House, The US Capitol, The Tomb of the Unknown, the Sears Tower, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Lake Michigan, Great Salt Lake, Mount Rushmore, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Smoky Mountain National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park and the Hoover Dam.

I’ve rode a BMW through the Appalachians, East and West Coast highways, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. I totaled my 2000 BMW in Zadar, Croatia, went home to Germany via train then came back with my Dodge and hauled the carcass back 13 hours to Bavaria to trade it for a 2002. Earlier on that trip, I got into an argument in German with a Hungarian border guard coming out of Slovakia then paid off a Hungarian police officer every last Forint I just changed at the border so he wouldn’t arrest me and impound my bike for speeding. I’ve ridden highway 50, the loneliest road in the country through Nevada into a total whiteout coming out of Ely over the mountain into Utah. I rode through a dust storm at Four Corners that looked like the face of Mars and was indirectly struck by lightning… twice, leaving Peterson Air Force Base trying to dodge a storm on my way home. In 20 years, I’ve put more than 40,000 miles on two wheels and about 7,000 miles two up with “one headlight.”

I spent 25 years in the Army starting with four years in the Army Reserve and a combat tour to Desert Storm where I collected lots of stories like grabbing all my gear in one trip and running out of the last tent on Log Base Echo before the hoard of Bedouins stole the floor out from under us. I came back to finish school at ETSU, contracted with ROTC as the only combat patch wearing cadet and completed Airborne School between my junior and senior years. I got my commission in the Corps of Engineers and went back in the Army for the next 21 years. My first assignment as a Sapper with the 326 Engineer Battalion at the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell got me tickets to Air Assault School, Sapper School and Ranger School all of which I completed in my first three years in the Army.

I’ve spent at least two and a half years in training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri; a few months in Fort Mead, Maryland; three months in Fort Lee, Virginia and sorted trips to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Fort Benning, Georgia. Germany was a fairytale assignment where I gained life-long friends. Colorado would be the end of the road for my Army career with assignments at Fort Carson, 27 months in Iraq and then four years with the North American Aerospace Defense Command and US Northern Command. I spent three Christmas’s in Iraq including one Christmas Eve with a Lebanese shop owner outside of Baqubah where we ate grilled lamb and almond stuffed dates and smoked an apple flavored hookah.

I retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in December 2013 and in all my years of service, I saw firsthand all the Iraqi munitions stockpiled on the beaches of Kuwait City. I witnessed fighter escorted B52s flying into Iraq and felt the ground rumble minutes later as they carpet bombed the Iraqi Regular Guard. I witnessed the construction of the hailed “eighth wonder of the world,” Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. I watched the world change forever on 9-11 while in command and I changed the nature of how I trained my soldiers. I saw the enemy vehicle identification photos in a former Soviet war college and shuddered to realize that the vehicles I was looking at were our own. I imparted wisdom on Guard and Reserve to prepare them for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. I helped to organize and document two free Iraqi elections and I worked to implement an Iraqi free press (they weren’t very good at it). I was there when we built a wall around Sadr City to keep the bombmakers from getting in or out and I’ve been too close for comfort to flying bullets and bursting munitions on many occasions. I’ve seen the not so soft underbelly of an SU-27 at 30,000 feet over Russian air space as part of a multi-national exercise and I watched in awe the last shuttle launch of the U.S. manned space flight mission. I’ve even officially tracked Santa joyfully on behalf of NORAD for millions of children around the globe, but sadly attended far too many memorial ceremonies for those who would never be afforded retirement because their service, and their lives, were ended prematurely.

I’ve been through three hurricanes and a tornado passed between my house and my neighbor’s while in Kentucky. I remember my Dad taking his boat to his car to get to work, leaving Mom and me stranded in our home on an island during severe flooding in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I’ve seen several blizzards, as many ice storms and 10s of feet of snow, including a white Christmas in Iraq.

I’ve been married, divorced, and married again. I’m a stepfather but was never blessed to be a father of my own. I’ve survived many friends and family to great sorrow including my Grandfather, Grandmother and by the most extreme grief witnessed my father’s death.

If I be blessed to start on the second half, albeit the last third of my life I will focus more on love for my wife and my family and the talent the lord blessed me with; the talent to manipulate words and spin a good yarn. I begin this part of my story, with one novel, a novella and four short stories published and available and a stockpile of words yet to appear in print. I begin Stave III, an accomplished, though also humbly defeated man. I will undoubtedly end it proudly accomplished and as equally defeated by this world though I be heralded a victor when the Good Lord calls me home.

Archibald Lindsey's Study of Women
Lil's Spirits: This Side of the Veil

Write More in 2021

I’m more thankful for a new year than I have ever been, but I wasn’t going to let 2020 go without wrestling it to the ground.

Since April, I have written more than 50,000 new words, brought a stalled 17-year project to completion and published two novel length works. I didn’t start out 2020 with these goals but through what I can only credit to divine intervention, they were cast at me and I caught them.

Ever since retiring from the Army in 2013, I have promised to finish the manuscript I started in 2003, "Archibald Lindsey’s Study of Women," but life gets in the way. In February of this year, while attending our church and hearing our pastor speak of fasting and praying, I was struck with a new story idea. I started writing that Sunday and less than two months later I finished my longest single work, "A Place of Rest," a 30,000 word novella in the supernatural genre.

Of course, "A Place of Rest" was on a different trajectory than "Archibald Lindsey’s Study of Women," which was an adult comedy, but the writing juices were flowing, and I wanted to publish. It occurred to me that if I were writing query letters to agents and publishers, I would be better off with a portfolio of completed works and not just one novella so I blew off the proverbial dust – everything is filed electronically – from a "Study of Women" and ended it with an additional 20,000 words bringing the finished manuscript to a whopping 107,000 words. That is a hefty number for a first novel, but it was done.

After about two months of trying to entice an agent to recruit me, I discovered I was spending more time emailing query letters – and everyone wants something different – than I was actually writing. To make matters worse, another supernatural horror story was eating at me to be written, but just making a living and moving into our new home in Rogersville, Tennessee during the day and writing query letters at night was leaving me little time to do what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do was tell another great story. Again, as if by divine intervention, a friend, fellow veteran and fellow struggling writer with whom I have had intermittent contact with over the last 18 years reached out to me in early summer for writing advice. As it turned out, I got the advice I needed from him. He introduced me to Kindle Direct Publishing, and I stopped writing query letters.

I hired my own editor – hired is an exaggeration; it is better to say I know people and I asked for a favor. I did a complete rewrite of "Archibald Lindsey’s Study of Women," asked my wife the artist to design a cover and proudly published my first novel. Even before "Study of Women" went live, I was already matching up "A Place of Rest" with short stories I previously wrote to publish a second novel length work in the anthology "Lil’s Spirits: This Side of the Veil." At 6:14, New Years Eve, I published that anthology with the necessary edits from my favored editor and again with my wife’s art for the cover.

I didn’t finish all my writing goals for the year. Remember that other supernatural tale I said I’m writing? Well, my earlier goals were to at least complete the initial write of that work, but I still have a long way to go with "Sorrow Hollow" that is shaping up to be a novel. So, for 2021, expect to see "Sorrow Hollow" and a sequel to "A Place of Rest" on the e-shelf as well as a paperback of "Archibald Lindsey’s Study of Women" and "Lil’s Spirits: This Side of the Veil." I wrote 60,000 words in 2020, I expect nothing less than 120,000 words in 2021.

Lil's Spirits: This Side of the Veil
Archibald Lindsey's Study of Women