Patrick Sean Lee's Blog, page 2

THE Hardest Thing To Do!

I'm writing a script based on Marvin. A spec script. Should be around 100-110 pages I hear tell. I'm already too wordy or actioney, or something. So I have to start trimming. In my latest scene I have consumed 5 pages. Condensing, condensing, condensing. Cutting a lot of the good parts.
Here's the chapter from the book that I kind of wept over as I...CONDENSED. All that good stuff...GONE! The camera doesn't want to see any of the non-visual beauty, lol.
Maribeth Harris, the governor’s daughter, twenty-one come September, five-four, maybe five, blonde, eccentric, brilliant but too young to know it, a lover of lost or hopeless causes, beautiful in a James Dean sort of way, and a terrible driver. Someone Anselm could make use of in his two times two equals ten method of calculation with these beings.Angels are no smarter than men or women—simply more obedient, less distracted, and much better traveled. He’s going to have to vacate the underside of that dock. But, where should I put him? Have him put himself? The rescue missions are no good, he’d wind up killing someone.Anselm sat deep in thought atop a stone bench. The bench stood amidst a bed of dazzling, colorful flowers running alongside the narrow asphalt road winding through Cheesman Park, a few blocks to the east of the downtown area.  It was nine-fifteen in the morning. A Colorado morning, a Denver morning that was impossibly exquisite—resting as the city did just below the ceiling of the world like a pearl in a silver mount. Marvin was sleeping soundly, with a spike holding him securely down. Roget had Amy’s hand in his, even if she was unaware of it. The situation was two-thirds under control, but where to put Marvin? Where might he be planted that he could truly blossom? A sparrow with a worm in its mouth shot in a blur from the sky and perched on Anselm’s knee, though in the physical world his tiny claws clung firmly to thin air—six inches above the cool stone surface of the bench. The little creature rested for a moment and studied him, offering the angel, perhaps, a piece of her chicks’ breakfast with a quick twist of her head that made the worm’s body whiplash. No? She whisked away again toward her nest in an elm thirty feet away, leaving the angel to sit quietly, considering Marvin’s housing dilemma.  Anselm failed to notice Maribeth Harris racing along the road on her way through the park to visit Maggie. The governor’s daughter was in a hurry, as usual, and drove her Mercedes coupe, top down, stereo blasting Phish for all the world to enjoy along with her.  Maggie, a close friend from Denver University, was leaving for the airport at ten-thirty, and Maribeth was late to taxi her there. Seventy-five feet away from Anselm, her cell phone sang out from its pocket in her purse, a monstrosity of denim and sequins lying on the passenger seat beside her.“Damn, that’s probably Mags…” She reached with her right hand, yanked the top open and thrust the hand into the well of it. Searching through the contents for the phone, shifting her eyes from the road ahead to the purse. Windshield and road beyond quickly.  Purse. Windshield glaring. Purse again. Edge of pavement at forty-five miles per hour.Anselm turned his head and watched as the flowers fell like soldiers under a withering barrage of machine gun fire. In a blink the front end of the roadster sheered the bench he was sitting on. It passed through him, over the grate and crunch of disintegrating cement, and came to a lurching stop on the decapitated remains of a fire hydrant five feet away.The hiss and roar of five hundred gallons of water per minute blasting the bottom of the engine block quickly followed. The call on Maribeth’s phone went to a drowned out message.“Hi, Mare. This is Mags. Just wondered if you were…Ohmagod, hold on, I just heard a horrible crash over in the park…”Maribeth sat riveted to the seat back in the aftermath, her eyes like owl’s, hands in a death grip on the wheel, and her legs fully pistoned on the pedals—brake and accelerator, yin and yang. The torrent of water, unable to drive its way through the dense block and crinkled metal of the hood found its way out through other, more convenient orifices. It gushered sideways through the wheel wells in a spray to rival the bursting of Hoover Dam, and forward like a thousand fire hoses aimed point-blank at the smashed grill. It finally awakened her.“Oh—shit!  Daddy’s going to kill me this time!”This time was number three. The first was two years ago, at midnight, on a dare from Mags and Jonathon to run the diagonal across the park lawn. An officer was at the other end of the hypotenuse, sitting with the lights off in his patrol car. Daddy had to quietly fix the careless driving ticket.  The second time was five months ago in broad daylight at five below zero, on black ice, here in the park, not far away. The Mercedes—Daddy’s that time—did a series of swift and graceful twirls, but to port as surely as if a strong tide had locked it in its grip. The sparkling snowcapped handrail of the bridge the car was about to cross brought the sleek, formerly undamaged SL to a halt.  Maribeth blamed the entire mishap on Mayor Copperfield’s legion of useless maintenance workers who hadn’t sanded and salted the road properly, and that was somewhat true. But she had been cruising along, again, toward Mag’s house, watching a jet silently swimming in a silver gleam thousands of feet above her. Thirty-five in a fifteen zone, with a jogger enjoying the frozen morning directly in her path, enjoying the passage of the jet herself as she ran. The lady survived with only a severe case of heart palpitations, but the driver’s side door of Richard Harris’ automobile required expensive surgery, and the bridge rail had to be replaced.Careless driving. Reckless endangerment. Destruction of city property.“That’s the last time, young lady!”It seems it was not.Leaving the thorny problem of Marvin for the moment, Anselm breezed the few feet to the roadster impaled on the remains of the hydrant. He found it curious, this incident. Had the young woman somehow seen him and aimed the vehicle directly at him?  Disregarded the damage that would be done to the fragile body of the car by the stone bench? Certainly she must have known she could not hurt him—if she had, in fact, seen him.It was not unheard of that a physical being could at times catch a glimpse of a spirit. It had happened often enough on other worlds, and the writings of these people themselves documented the same here on planet Earth.He hovered over her, then flitted his enormous wings and moved to the front outside the windscreen, wondering if she would react. She did not, at least to him. Maribeth bit her lower lip and stared straight ahead through the body of the angel in a kind of hypnotic vacancy. Anselm peered into her thoughts. Curious, indeed.Damn! Damn, damn, DAMN! Stupid phone. Stupid, stupid me. How could I have…he’s going to murder me! Accident. This time just an accident. Wasn’t speeding. Too much.Oh, Mother of God, help me.Mother of God? But He has no mother, Anselm smiled. He is Mother. Poor Mary back there in Heaven having to blush at these prayers every other second for two thousand years. But who knows, he thought, maybe she’d run to the throne this time, red-faced, but moved by the plea. She carried a lot of weight back home, it was true. Such a sweet girl herself, with the fathomless heart of a mother. And her smile.  He’d listen if she asked.Maribeth slammed the heels of her hands on the steering wheel after a few more long seconds of alternately cursing her luck and praying to anyone listening. She finally opened the door angrily. The water continued to jet out from beneath the car, creating a swimming pool in the remains of the flowerbed, overflowing in a merry stream onto the asphalt. She stepped into the soft ooze of mud, her left foot sinking into it up to her ankle. So long Prada flats.“Crap!”A pair of bicyclists circling the park happened upon the scene and stopped immediately when they saw the Mercedes straddling the gush of water, the remains of the bench, the devastated flowerbed that had stood in her path. And they saw Maribeth looking down, trying to work her way out of the mud, muttering to herself. The man gently let his racer fall to the grass on the far side of the road, then ran to her on tiptoes through the stream as though it were hydrochloric acid.        “You okay? What happened?” he asked from the edge of the pavement where he had stopped.She raised her head and shot a look at him. Her blue eyes flashed imploringly.  “I lost my shoe!”Shoe? Anselm chuckled, leaning sideways with the tips of his wings lifting quickly, like an eagle readying for lift off.“Shoe?” the man asked, slightly confounded.“Here in the mud! God, they cost a fortune. I can’t believe this happened!”“Do you need…your shoe? I’d think that’s the least of your worries. Are you all right? What happened?”The female rider joined him at the edge of the pool of water on the pavement, grabbing hold of his muscled arm at the elbow. She lifted her Vuitton shades onto her brow and shook her head sadly. The woman appreciated Maribeth’s sense of loss. Expensive shoes, God forbid.“I lost a Gucci once. I nearly cried. Well, I did,” she said to Maribeth.“They’re Pradas! Brand new!”“Oh, no. That’s simply tragic.”“What about the car!” he said. From the east, across the expanse of lawn, another young woman sprinted toward the scene in the bright sunlight. Anselm glanced over at her. She wore denim shorts, cuffed at the upper thigh, and a magenta blouse tied in a loose bowknot above her navel. The woman ran athletically, with long, barefoot strides, leaning forward. Her full lips formed an O as she sucked in air and handfuls of consternation. The red hair settled in tight curls against her high cheekbones when she came to a quick stop just outside the mud field.“Ohmagod! What happened, Mare? How on earth did you manage this one?” she cried out.“Exactly,” the male bicyclist said. This one. This one?“Do we need a cop?” the Gucci asked incidentally. “My God, Pradas. You might as well just kiss them goodbye,” she raised her voice. “The water alone will have simply ruined the one stuck in the mud.”Maribeth was busy tugging to free her foot, and at the same time keep the shoe locked halfway on it. The deluge continued, unmindful of the drama that had unfolded on its account. Anselm took it all in; the man afraid to de-cleat his own feet and go to the unfortunate girl’s assistance. His vacuous friend. The latest arrival hardly breathing heavier than if she’d ambled slowly across the park. The blonde named Maribeth who seemed less worried at the moment about the someone who was going to kill her than the necessity of retrieving a shoe.“Oh God, Mags…I’m so sorry I was on my way over to your place and I knew I was late I was speeding just a little when the phone rang it was in my purse and I went to find it and lost the road and then my shoe my brand new Prada no less and Daddy’s going to friggin’ kill me. SHIT!”That about said it all, in less time, too, than it had ever taken Maribeth to say, “Bless us, oh Lord, and these thy gifts.”“Jeez-Louise, Mare. You and your driving. Here, let me help you get out.” Mags took a step forward through the water on the lawn to the beginning of the super-saturated mud pit and her friend. She leaned far forward, extending her hand.“Don’t worry about Richie. I’ll make up some cock and bull story to get you out of this one. Here, take hold.”Richie? The murderer-to-be? Daddy? Anselm brought a finger to his chin and wondered. He looked at the expensive car, the girl. Where could this go?Maribeth was nearly calf-deep, refusing to abandon the shoe.  Mags drew back, grimacing and pulling. Digging her heels in and grimacing. Pulling and slipping.“Hey you over there. Can ya’ maybe give me a hand?”The biker looked quickly at his friend. Not directed to her, he was pretty certain. He looked back at Mags, and then lowered his eyes to the flood of water beneath his cleats.“Uhh…” Anselm leapt from the hood and swooped behind Mags. He reached around her with both arms and placed his hands on top of hers, then as easily as if he were lifting a flower from a vase, brought Maribeth Harris out of the mud, shoe miraculously intact. His body and wings enveloped the two young women, which sent a momentary shudder racing through him when they fell through him to the grass.Mags felt a blinding sensation the moment Anselm’s hand had touched hers. Something bordering on frightening, for those few seconds, heretofore outside her sensory experience in the physical world. Frightening, yet strangely joyful and comforting. Star hot, yet frigid. Soft, yet diamond hard. Falling backward through the angel’s chest and abdomen, the warm waves of Tahiti met the fury of Cape Horn’s. Her vision tingled from the shock of a flashbulb erupting, her ears picked up Brahms and AC/DC, intermixed and lovely.  Sensible. Shockingly impossible.The angel stepped away, uncertain in his universe of simpler makeup and emotions for the first time. Accomplish the task assigned, but be wary of coming into contact with the fruit of the tree. He shook the uncomfortable feeling away, but he wondered at its power, the alluring aspect of it. He thought of the Angel Of Light.No.Maribeth, soaked and covered in mud, rolled off Mags, who lay still and bedazzled on her back. The governor’s only daughter raised herself to her hands and knees."Gosh, Mags, thanks so much. So much. I thought I was going to sink with my sh…Mags?”According to Maribeth’s reliable fate in times like this, a black and white appeared on the scene. The officer pulled to a stop at the curb and flipped the cherry top on. He recognized the car across the road in the demolished garden, closed his eyes and shook his head. Her again. Officer Thompson grabbed his log notebook, opened the door, and stepped out.Gucci reached him first.“No one was injured, officer. The woman just lost a shoe.” She wanted to say more, but the important fact had been disclosed. She smiled and lowered her shades back into place on the bridge of her nose.“What?”“Well, I mean after she hit the water thing…”He left her there constructing the next words and walked across to her friend.“What happened here?” he asked.“Not sure, sir. We got here after she plowed over the bench and the hydrant. I was just going to call and report it…”“Thanks.” Thompson left him in the water and made his way to dry ground north of the carnage, then across the lawn in a wide circle. He noted the woman lying unconscious on the edge of the mud pool.“Does she need an ambulance? Is she hurt?” he asked Maribeth. “You, huh?” he added.“No, sir.  She…” Maribeth looked down on Mags, then back at Thompson. “I guess she’s just dazed…or something. She came to help me after, after…” Yes, what? After I went for my phone, lost control, again, and trashed the park? Again?He bent down, checked Mag’s wide-open eyes, felt for pulse, then tapped on her cheek with his fingertips. “You okay?”Mags came to life with a gasp.“Jee-zus Jones! What was that?” She raised herself to a sitting position quickly, as though a spring had released its energy beneath her back, and turned her head in rapid circles looking for, for. For something.Thompson stood up and called dispatch to send a tow truck and a city crew to the park. Afterward he peered down at Maribeth sitting beside her friend.“So, how’d you manage this one, Governor Harris?”“Ha, ha, ha. Very funny. Look, it wasn’t my fault.” She thought quickly. “A dog came out of nowhere, right in front of me. I had to swerve to miss it. I swear.”“Speeding again, right?”“No! That’s the truth,” answered the child with her fingers in the cookie jar. Something better. A sudden hurricane force wind behind her. She passed out momentarily, fearing she’d hit and killed the poor animal. A sudden defect in the accelerator cable…or however the apparatus was connected and worked.“I went for the brake, but somehow missed it and hit the accelerator in…stead?”As Maribeth tried to lie her way out of this one, Anselm looked on, absently rubbing the tingling in his arms with his fingers.The governor’s daughter. I like her. I think Marvin might, too. Wonder where the palace is?
The situation was under control, now. With a little nudging, a little direction, the two of them would soon enough cross paths. Anselm took it upon himself to make certain the governor did not do the poor girl in when he found out about “this one” in the meantime.

ABNA EXPERT REVIEWS

In 1998 I sat down at the computer one morning, inspired. I wanted to write a book. I was 49 years-old.

It's true that I'd written two books many years prior to that day, one in which a man winds up in Hell for no apparent reason, and tries to get out (he did). I wrote most of it longhand, and still have portions of it stuffed away in a box. It wasn't really gripping, and so I went on to other things as the years passed by.

My next venture in writing took me to a street in downtown Denver where a man happens upon a gangland car chase/shoot-out/terrible crash. Conveniently, all the bad guys die. This man, an early morning jogger, nervously walks to the scene, rather confused, as any of us might be. In the back seat is a briefcase which he retrieves and takes home. Hmm...

There is another witness. An indigent by the name of Marvin Fuster, a thoroughly disreputable character. He follows the jogger home, very curious about what is in that briefcase. Cash, of course. Lots of it he discovers as he spies through a window. Marvin's quest is to get into that house and steal that money.

I killed off the jogger; had him run over by, of all things, a city bus one day. I didn't need him any longer. Smiley face. I needed Marvin the bum and the guy's wife. To make a long story short, Marvin follows her everywhere because she has hidden the money. One day in frustration he corners her--in her car, in a lonely place--and he makes his move. Being old, but not immune to a seriously strong testosterone attack, he tries to assault her in the back seat. Screw the money for a moment or two. The woman has a pistol, and, well, Marvin loses his pride and joy. I mean at the time it sounded like a great plot device.

Moving forward many pages, Marvin redeems himself when he saves the woman's new boyfriend  one dark and stormy night. The marriage between her and the jogger evidently wasn't very happy. That was the end of Marvin in the book. I didn't need him any longer, either. The woman and boyfriend simply take the money and move out to, naturally, Southern California where they encounter a whole new set of problems. The mob doesn't give up easily.

I finished the novel--actually closer in length to a novelette--became disinterested in writing, and so stuffed the manuscript pages into the box with the earlier one.

More years flew by until I had that vision to create a new, world-class novel. The main character was clear as crystal (yes, I know that's cliche) in my mind. Very old, thoroughly disreputable, but lovable. I resurrected Marvin and threw him back onto the streets of downtown Denver...

I went back to school in 2005. Seven years had passed since I wrote that opening scene. I was stuck, and so I took a class on "Writing the Novel." I learned a lot. An outline? I need one of those? Story arc? What's that? Rise and fall of tension?

I completed the first draft within two semesters, and knew, just KNEW it was brilliant. It wasn't. Another smiley face. Still, I had Marvin, and I also had a young woman named Maribeth Harris, who except for her age was very much like dear Marvin the dreamer. I shelved the manuscript after about a hundred, "Thanks, but not for us..." answers to my horribly-written query letters. I was disgusted, and so began my next book to alleviate the pain of rejection.

I finished that next book--"One Year On Meade Street"; went through the whole "Thanks, but not for us..." routine again. It was brilliant, too. No, it was.

Several more years passed, and I pulled Marvin out of mothballs, determined to replot, re-characterize the secondary cast, tone down the language somewhat (Thanks, Trish). In 2012 I completed the new Marvin and said, "Screw agents. I'm going to self-pub," something I SWORE I'd never do as I wrote that first draft many years earlier.

Last year, 2013, I entered it into the ABNA contest. Big money for the winner(s). The breakthrough I'd been waiting for. I had to write a pitch, though, first off. Oh, God help me. Blurbs and query letters are the twin demons from hell! I didn't make the first cut.

2014 comes rolling around and I retitle the book, enter it into the Romance category. It IS a romance, essentially. Just a Fantasy/Romance. I made the cut with a new, splendid pitch. How on earth did I manage THAT? I was stoked. Prayed that the one thing I'm not very good at would be good enough to get me to the PW reviewers in the quarter finals. That one thing is opening chapters--getting the ball rolling effectively. It's so damned hard for me. I stated publicly that whichever way the Vine reviews went regarding the first 5,000 words, I'd be fine--secretly praying I would squeak through.

Monday the announcement was posted, listing those authors and their books that made it to the next round. I knew something was wrong when I returned home from work, and Pammy wasn't beaming with joy. I wasn't on the list. I fell into a deep funk and crawled up into a ball for a few days. I'd failed. All those years, the hundred first chapter drafts. Everything, including me as a writer, into the toilet. A serious case of self-pity. Smiling more there. We're all allowed to do that for a short while.

Still, reviews of the opening couple of chapters would be posted at Createspace, and I was curious. Yesterday they came up. I was ready to say, "Yeah, and what do you know, anyway?" I had my mental hatchet in hand...

Maybe there is some truth in what these two Vine Reviewers had to offer. Unlike my friends and relatives, they don't know me from Adam, and evidently they read and review lots of books. I'm okay now, but I won't rewrite the novel. I don't have the money to get it professionally edited, and so it's a done deal I guess. When I wrote THE END in 2012, I meant it. The only thing that confuses me is the statement concerning punctuation and grammar. I worked very hard at both.

Oh God, I don't think I could rewrite that book!

Here are the reviews, at any rate.

I'm kind of laughing (humbly). Walter Brennan? I saw Robin Williams, lol! Marvin is crazy, for God's sake! But okay. What do I know?

ABNA Expert ReviewerWhat is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?The basic concept is great here, the idea of an old and thoroughly undesirable guy infatuated with a young beauty and being guided by an angelic being...
What aspect needs the most work?The trouble that I find is that somehow Marvin just is not emerging as the character he is: old, alcoholic, delusional. True, he must have a paradoxical charm about him and that is being somewhat portrayed. I see him as a character who would be portrayed by the classic character actor, Walter Brennan who was able to combine age and shabbiness with a sympathetic aura.
What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?It does need work, but it also has, in my mind, a truly great potential. Good luck.ABNA Expert ReviewerWhat is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?There are a couple of very strong elements in this excerpt.

First: the author does a great job of evoking a dream-like state. While Marvin is 'in between' life and death he takes a journey that is quite magical. The picture the author creates is much like a Dali painting-- very stream of consciousness and meandering. Wonderful stuff.

Second: the author has a way with descriptive phrases. Several times in the excerpt the writing is amazing. The words and phrases the author puts together are neither trite or boring. I was frequently stopped in my tracks by some of the sentences I encountered.
What aspect needs the most work?There are some parts that are not very clear-- and not because they take place in the dreamlike portion of the excerpt.

For example, the opening sequence is just plain confusing-- what the heck is Marvin doing? He's crawling out of dumpster? Into a dumpster? What?

The writing actually becomes more clear when he enters the strange netherworld while in the hospital.

This excerpt needs a great deal of proofreading to work out the kinks. While it's great to put the reader into a fugue state when you are intending to do so, it's not so great when you do it inadvertently.
What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?Great creativity and writing that is almost transcendent in places.

This author can clearly write and has a very particular and engaging style. However, they need to take care of some detail work and tighten up the grammar and punctuation in places.

Netanya Danrath and Inspiration

Digressing.
I happened back upon Netanya Davrath singing "Bailero" from Joseph Cantaloube's marvelous folk composition, Chants de' Auvergne, and brought it up at Youtube. That reminded me of a scene in Marvin (The Redemption of Marvin Fuster/The Dance of the Spiral Virgins-Amazonbooks) that I wrote a few years ago in the revision, drawing inspiration from Netanya's beautiful rendition of this great piece.***Marvin passed Bunsmeier’s Fine Apparel as he went along in a daze. He walked by the front display windows of the upscale Men’s store, then stopped suddenly and backtracked. More mannequins dressed in fine suits, eyes of empty contentment looking outward, oblivious. He mimicked the pose of one of them as he feasted on the elegant attire it wore. There he was, or could be, outfitted like a banker or a thousand dollar an hour attorney.I could steal that goddam’ suit if I put my mind to it. He turned his head and checked the street behind him. No cops. No hecklers.Maybe I just will.And maybe you should just get your ass to that mansion. Maybe that’s what you should do.Well, he didn’t say when…and why the hell am I goin’ there without shoes or socks, lookin’ like a basket of assholes, anyway? This won’t take long, then I’ll show up an’ knock on the door like I was King Farouk. Maybe that’s what that thing meant.That is precisely not what that thing meant.As Marvin surveyed the movements of the customers inside, two salesmen swooning over them, he began to ease his way to the door. Anselm was there waiting. When a voice from the far corner of the showroom distracted the customers and the sales staff, Marvin reached for the handle. He grabbed hold of the glistening chrome, but then stopped when a blinding flash burst in front of his eyes. He froze.The thread inside him had awakened, slipping across a different, deeper region of his brain, burrowing now, touching a forgotten memory, or a dissipated dream—a life lived, perhaps, in a different eternity. Musical notes, at first. Only notes—rising from a soft and steadily growing field; spreading and pushing at the horizon in its birth. Flowers, then, with sun-swept faces of amber, pink, azure and crimson, raising their thousand leafy arms, waving at something overhead, or simply reaching skyward as their numbers grew, like a wave traversing a hidden reef. Endless fields growing and stretching in every direction as far as his eye could see. And then a high, clear voice beckoning him from everywhere at once.Ne pas errer, mon Coeur, ne pas errer…He recognized the lilting music, the soprano’s singing like a crystal knife opening his heart, moving the same note from word to word to word with clarity and an otherworldly beauty. His heart leapt, and he released his grip on the handle. Against all reason he had understood the command, and he knew whose voice had sung it.Marvin stood immobile, blinded in the third dimension, immersed in the fourth with perfect vision. Anselm lifted a finger and his charge began the return. As the fields softened into blurs, the voice sang from far, far away in the fading mists.My shepherd, the water divides us.
I cannot cross.
Sing to me, then, my love.
Come to me with your music
And your youth…your youth.Yes, yes, I will. I swear it.He turned and left the entryway, continuing south along the street, unmindful of his surroundings, thinking of nothing but the piercing beauty of the voice. Amy had sung to him, and oh, how sweet the melody had been. He knew she was at his destination, waiting for him, and he quickened his pace.Some sense of embarrassment prevented Marvin from approaching the mansion with confidence at first...*What transpires at The Governor's Mansion is PRICELESS:) Marvin's metamorphosis begins:)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iI8tMHrD_c
http://youtu.be/UClzqGPBUls

Merry Christmas!

"It's that time of year..."

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Finally

I've had a terrible time...getting the title back to where it originally was; the book listed at Amazon. But it's done.
I began to HATE the title I dreamed up a year or so ago. The Dance of the Spiral Virgins. Simply terrible! I was thinking keywords. The Dance of the Spiral...Images, or Daydreams might have worked a bit better, at least in my mind. But back in 1998 when I first laid pen to paper in the first draft, The Redemption of Marvin Fuster is what I titled it. In fact, it defines the theme of the book.

I changed the title while in class at Saddleback College one year; The Geneticist. No one like that title one bit, lol. I didn't blame them.

A year ago I finished the final draft. It's great. It isn't Nabokov or Steinbeck, but for what I wanted to do; for the vision I had and continued to maintain throughout all the subsequent drafts, it's Pulitzer stuff:)
That was a smiley-face.

Seriously, at one time--many times--I had visions (or daydreams) about Marvin winding up on the NYT Bestseller list. Well, don't we all think that way? The sea of books and the marketing expertise of others is vast and deep. I hate marketing:)

But, Marvin is GOOD:) I never gave up on it, even after a hundred or so first chapter rewrites.

In other news, Josh is nearing completion of his novel, "The Agonizing Leaves." There, I put that period inside the ending quotations for Trish:) Agonizing Leaves promises to be fabulous, because Josh is such an excellent storyteller, and his writing is superb. "Spencer Ryan" is ALMOST ready to publish Cinderblock Walls as an ebook! I was knocked out when I first read that first chapter (with its tense errors:) back in...when? 2009 I think. She has mastered narrative, but again, it's her voice that floors the reader.

Anyway...we all got a lecture by Spenser (lol) last night on ellipses:)..............one ellipsis and ten periods. Now we know!

The Redemption of Marvin Fuster http://amzn.com/1481843354
You will love Marvin. Maribeth. Trish and Richard (he's real, now:) Jonathan, who can't see the hand in front of his face, but is trying to break into the Los Alamos defense computer. John Delilah who stutters and stammers in the presence of Amy. Esmeralda, who has a fancy for wonderful, filthy old Marvin from the gutter. You'll love Marvin's real redemption.

5 Ways to Make Money Writing

My buddy Joshua Rigsby posted this on his blog. I thought it was worth sharing here.

by Joshua Rigsby5 Ways You Can Make Money as a Stay At Home DadAugust 14, 2013 in Being a Writer / Dad by Joshua RigsbyLet me say it up front. You can work from home, write, watch your child, and bring in some extra income. It’s possible. Five, count ‘em, FIVE, ways to make money writing online.Make no mistake. Writing is work. I am no fan of cheesy, gimmicky, get-rich-quick garbage. If you want to make money from your writing you can, but you will have to earn it.Here are some options for how to do so:
1) Freelance WritingThere are a gazillion magazines and websites that are starving for content. Whether you specialize in well-researched nonfiction or gripping, inspiring, or spooky fiction, there are plenty of paying outlets for your work.The trick: you have to perfect your pitch. Getting the planets to align so that an editor will take a chance on your work is the key here. Fortunately, the more often you are published the easier it becomes.
2) Get Giggy with ItA cursory search for “writing gigs” will yield a boatload of results. These include everything from greeting card writers to slogan strategizers. You will have to compete with eager bidders from India and other developing countries, but if you can deliver the goods, you’ll get the job.The trick: jump in early and often. These jobs are highly competitive. You have to fight and slog and lower your rates to get in.
3) BloggingThis may seem self-explanatory, but there are plenty of ways to make money through blogging. One route is to build up the readership of your own blog with excellent content so that you can make money through advertising and/or affiliate links. The other is to write content for blogs that are already making money.The trick: more than other forms, blogging requires that you master the conversational tone, provide content that people are actively searching for, and that you interact well with readers’ comments.
4) Copywriting/MarketingJust because a business is good at building widgets doesn’t mean it knows how to talk about them in a winsome or compelling way. With a little practice, any writer worth his salt can spice up a sales letter and/or manage a social media page for a company.The trick: you need to find a company willing to let you do this work from home, then stand out from the crowd of other people trying to do the same thing. Craigslist is a great place to start your search. Set up a landing page on your blog explaining your skills and experience.
5) Big Projects: Novels / ScreenplaysI’ve put this last on the list because it’s usually the first thing people think of when you talk about writing from home. Unfortunately, with a few rare exceptions, it also tends to be among the least lucrative fields long-term.The trick: choose your market. Everyone wants to land an agent who will set up that major book deal/meeting with a studio, for many this only happens after years of work and/or a stroke of luck. Why not start off with smaller independent projects to earn a name for yourself and get your foot in the door?
I will write full articles on each of these topics in the future. In the mean time, do you have experience making money as a writer? Let me know in the comments. Also, if you liked this post click the +FOLLOW button on the bottom right of your screen. Thanks!About Joshua RigsbyJoshua Rigsby is a freelance writer and a stay-at-home Dad based in Los Angeles, California.

Cover Images

I happened upon an interesting discussion at Indie Authors Group last week. It made me think...

Here is a portion. I hope the members don't mind me reposting here.


Follow AlexanderHow important is the appearance of the book cover in your opinion and do you think that a professional book cover design affects the success and sales of the book?6 days ago
LikeCommentFollowFlagMoreJames Womack likes this39 comments • Jump to most recent comments
Follow SusanSusan Uttendorfsky • I don't know about success and sales, but I know as a reader, an e-book's cover will draw me in enough to read the blurb about it. I don't think it influences my purchasing decision, but it definitely influences my "look-at" decision. :)

Which, of course, does lead to a potential sale, because if I don't even look at it, then I can't buy it.6 days ago• Like
• Reply privately• Flag as inappropriate8

Follow BeverlyBeverly McLean • I certainly agree with Susan on this one. The book cover tells a story in itself and if the cover is drab, abstract, cluttered or poorly developed I believe the reader will feel the same about the interior of the book. If I have to fight to have the cover exactly the way I see it as being, then it's a fight well worth waging! Sales are influenced by many things, but as it is when you go to a restaurant for a meal...the eyes will influence your decisions.6 days ago• Like
1

Follow PhilipPhilip Mann • Another ` Aye` to what you said , Susan. I can spend a couple of hours lost in a major bookstore, get fed up with myself, then just buy the next title and cover that catches my eye.It shouldn`t be too hackneyed, or too obvious. something original and subtle does it for me.

Of course, subtlety is not what usually sells, and that`s my problem.6 days ago• Like
1

RyanUnfollowRyan Fitzgerald • As though another agreement were necessary ...

Not important for the sale, but definitely important for discovery. If the book isn't recommended to me, then the only two things there to draw me in to read the description will be the title and the cover. The cover, being a visual stimulus, is likely to have the stronger impact.

My Website

Rather like creating my first Youtube video...frustrating!

Can I do it? No I answer, probably not. But, I went to Weebly anyway (after having failed MISERABLY at Wix-through no fault of Wix's:), and dove in this morning.

Admittedly, I wanted a website kind of like those of two of my favorite authors; Mark Helprin and Carlos Ruiz Zafon. What I got was a very nice, not-as-extravagant (if I may say that humbly) site. For me to do this is something like a Kindergartner...well, writing a novel! That's how tech savvy I am.

But I did it. I'm beaming. Now I have to finish two works-in-progress! As promised at my page:)

 http://patrickseanlee.weebly.com

I even created a new gmail address in order to receive messages from my devoted fans:) patrickseanlee@gmail.com

So many thanks to the following:

L. Avery Brown, (When a Southern Woman Rambles)
Glynis Rankin,
Stephen Johnson,
AND
Faith Ruelle

What faithful support!

Miss Marilou Jenkins

I wrote the first draft of One Year On Meade Street in 2007, revising sporadically since. I added this in 2012:) I'm very proud of my "fictional memoir". Yeah I know there is no such thing; it either is or it isn't a memoir.


Love this remembrance, though, of the East side of town, and who I imagined lived there for many years.


                        Rocky Mountain News headline.  Page 2.  April 10th, 1957.
                        Blaze Erupts In Westside Elementary School
      I said a hundred more prayers of supplication after reading that, but Jimmy and I decided against finding Dennis and stringing him up by the thumbs...or the balls.  Local investigators somehow failed to add up two and two, to our greatest relief, and so the mysterious fire in Mr. Kintzele's lot, the girl with the incinerated scalp at the Comet, and the roaring blaze in the auditorium at Barnum Public School remained isolated incidents.            We thought.
      We decided to forevermore curb our fascination with pyrotechnics…well, kind of.  Jimmy boasted that he’d nearlysolved the problem of the amount of gunpowder needed to propel his broom handle rocket into orbit.
                                                                             ***


                                                                FOURTEEN
                  Detective Ryan visited the home of the Minkle family.  I learned much later that Butch Minkle had answered the door with the ever-present cigarette dangling out of his mouth that day.   Unlike me, he didn’t make a good impression on Detective Ryan.  But he did make a lasting one.  Being stupid, Butch’s vocabulary was limited to sentences which made little sense, were contradictory, or else splattered with four letter words—and that didn’t set well with the detective.  All told, his explanation of the events that terrible day at the Comet Theater sounded very much like a lie to Ryan.  Suspicion concerning who committed the crime fell immediately onto his and Inky’s shoulders.                  Still, the matter was easily settled now that a battery of suspects had been tracked down.  Ryan requested that my parents bring me, and that Mrs. McGuire bring Jimmy, down to the home of Dennis to star in a line up.  All hope in my heart vanished when Mom informed Pop at the dinner table in tears that her son would likely be going to juvenile hall soon—if not the state penitentiary.      Afterward she left the tear-stained room and marched next door to awaken Mrs. McGuire, if such a thing was possible, and inform her that Jimmy must accompany us on the death march.  Mickey’s name was never brought up.      “Did you do it?” Pop inquired calmly after mom had disappeared in her breast-beating, doloroso veil.        I did not lie.  “No, sir.  I had nothing to do with it.”
      We walked; Mom two steps in front of Mrs. McGuire, Pop bringing up the rear, Jimmy and I sandwiched in between.  Down past Clifford’s big house, past Allen’s tiny one, then across Ellsworth Avenue we walked.  Midway down the street we passed the dancer’s front door, and a sort of hellish feeling welled up in my stomach.  She sat on the porch swing with a friend—or maybe the other girl was her sister.  I tried not to glance over at them, or at her I should say, but a morbid impulse latched onto me and I turned my head.  She’d noticed the parade, and she must have known it was more a procession of calves to the slaughterhouse, or murderers to the gallows.  I dropped my eyes and cursed the moment.      When we reached our destination, I saw detective Ryan standing on the doorstep of Dennis’ house, the door ajar, the boy’s mother halfway in and halfway out, holding a handkerchief over her mouth and nose.  At her side peeking out at us stood the bane of creation himself.  I shot a look at Jimmy.  He was sweating bullets this time around, and he whispered to me, “By his little balls.”  Dennis eased farther behind his weeping mother’s skirt.      “Ah.  Here they are, Mrs. Humboldt,” Ryan said when we came to a halt at the foot of her porch.  “Terrence, can you step out here and take a look at these two boys?  Do you recognize them as the ones who gave you the matchgun?”      Dennis, or little Terrence as it turned out, poked his head out from behind his mother’s broad posterior.  He wasn’t looking at me, I’m certain.  His eyes locked on Jimmy’s immediately, and the necessary words were quickly communicated.  Even little Terrence valued the jewels he had not yet had the opportunity to use.  He crumbled in the face of Jimmy.      “No.”      “No?” repeated Detective Ryan.      “No.  I never seen these guys before.  They ain’t the ones.  There was three of ‘em.”      Detective Ryan’s brow fell at that lie.  He addressed Pop matter-of-factly.  “Wait by my car.”      And so the five of us turned and marched back out to the street.  Ryan, Terrence, and his mother had disappeared by the time I took a seat on the curb and looked back at the house.  A few moments passed in that state of Limbo out in the silence of the street.  Then Ryan exited the house alone and strode down the steps, down the sidewalk, and came directly to me.      “You told me yesterday that you’d given the boy a matchgun, Daniel.  Now he tells me he’s never seen you before.  What’s up here?   Did you or did you not give that boy the weapon that enabled him to start a fire at school?”      I stood alone in the universe after that question.  A concept I’d never truthfully encountered on a real level surfaced in my head.  A moral dilemma.  I had two options, and neither of them was particularly palatable.  Deny my involvement, or tell the truth.  I answered Detective Ryan.      “No sir.  I didn’t.  Jimmy did…but I was there.  And it was us who shot the match inside the Comet…”        Mom let out a sound that was not a wail, nor a screech.  I had kicked her in the stomach and her response was a muted bellow, a groan, a whimper.       Pop remained quiet.        Mrs. McGuire merely seemed confused.                                                                         *      I thought better of speaking at the dinner table that evening; of even being there in fact.  But, my presence was requested, and my replies to the questions pitched at me were duly noted, as if Detective Ryan had seated himself with his notebook and pen at the ready directly across from me.  A rancorous veil was thrown across me, this time not only by Mom, but also by Pop.      “Even if it’s true you didn’t actually shoot that match in the theater, or have anything to do with handing the gun to that boy,” Pop lectured me waving a finger in my face, “you’re still guilty by association.”      “Yes, and I’ll tell you another thing, and it ain’t two…” Mom began.      “Be quiet, Rosie, I’ll handle this,” Pop said.  The color in his face deepened to incendiary red as he continued, at long last not the least lost for words.  Mom sat back in her chair, defeated, or content with his command, or waiting—but in silence.      “So here’s the deal.  I’ll drive you to school for the remainder of the year, and pick you up at 3:30 every afternoon.  I can’t stop you from talking to Jimmy or that Fumo boy while you’re out of my sight, but by God if I hear even a whisper that the three of you have done anything—anything—that would make me raise an eyebrow…do I make myself crystal clear?”      Like looking through a window in God’s home on high.  “Yes, Pop.”      “Good.  You’ve shamed your family and yourself.  Don’t ever let it happen again.  Understand?”      “Yes sir.”      “Alright, then.  You’ll stay in this house until I say you can leave.  Now, finish eating, get the dishes done, and then go to your room.”      I looked up.  Mom had placed her hand on Pop’s forearm, and though I’d pierced her side with a spear a few hours ago down at little Terrence’s house, I saw her mouth curl upward into a smile.  She remained silent as I rose and took my plate to the sink in the kitchen.      “And one last thing,” Pop added.  “You’ll go along with me to that girl’s house and you’ll tell her you’re sorry.  God help you if her folks decide to press charges.”      “What about Barnum School?” I asked in dread.      “We’ll wait and see there.”      At last Mom decided it was probably safe to interject her feelings on the matter.      “Skippy.  That was a courageous thing you did…telling the truth.  I’m proud of you.”
                                                                    ***
      The smoke cleared two weeks later, and I heaved a sigh of relief.  The girl at the Comet had a name, I discovered.  Marilou Jenkins.  She was very pretty, an honor student at a private school for girls on the eastside of town.  As promised, or as threatened, we visited her.      Jimmy, Pop, and I drove to her home one morning when the sky had abandoned itself to a somber rug of gray.  We pulled up to the curb, and at first I was shocked and disheartened when Pop checked the address he’d written on the back of an envelope, and then announced, “This is it.” He cut the engine of our dusty old truck, emitting a cloud of smoke out through the tailpipe thicker than the dreary sky above us.  We had driven to another planet.      “Je-sus H. Kee-rist,” Jimmy remarked, and I had to second the invocation.      The home, sitting in Versailles elegance on the corner lot, looked more like a grand museum or an important public monument, except for the park-like expanse of golf course lawn, and the English gardens meandering through the acreage spanning the distance to the mansion that would have made Mom explode with envy.  Bordering the broad parkway, towering elms stood, perfectly aligned and spaced.  They were trimmed as if a small army of tree barbers spent innumerable hours each day manicuring them, until even the squirrels and birds donned tuxedos before entering the branches.        The three of us exited the truck in a state of awe—Jimmy and I, anyway—and hiked up the meandering flagstone walkway to an entry as imposing as that of Montecello.  I glanced nervously at my ragged sneakers as Pop pushed the doorbell button.        We waited.     The door was opened halfway by a predatory-faced woman dressed in the attire of a maid instead of what in my mind should have been spots, or stripes.  She smelled strongly of lemon oil mixed with mothballs, and she showed us into a foyer the size of our entire house, where we were politely instructed to wait.  She then padded silently across the black and white checked marble floor into an adjoining gallery lined with ten foot-tall paintings and milk-white statuary.  Standing in the foyer peering in, it seemed to me none of it had any practical use beyond its grandiose statement of sinful wealth and extreme snobbery.  Undoubtedly, Mom would have agreed.  And, the statues were naked.      But such was not the case with the occupants themselves.        A middle-aged gentleman dressed in a Lord and Taylor black suit strode across the floor several minutes later as I stood gawking at the smooth, sculpted, firm breasts on one of those statues.  He was followed by a much younger woman, fashionably attired, who at first I mistook for Sophia Loren.  Miss Marilou Jenkins, sporting a blonde, pixie cut hairdo, followed her beautiful black-haired mother.  My eyes fixed on the young woman immediately, trying to imagine if she could have looked any more angelic with locks like waterfalls of silk drifting all the way to her shoulders, and snow white wings that had not been savaged by the fire.  I shuddered and drew in a breath as inconspicuously as my instantly smitten condition would allow.  I glanced again quickly at the undressed statue directly over her shoulder—and then as quickly made an abbreviated act of contrition.          Miss Marilou Jenkins surveyed the three visitors from the westside; Pop and Jimmy, impassively, briefly, and then she let her gaze fall on me where it rested as she followed her parents into the foyer where we stood waiting.  Whether she was counting the droplets of sweat that had begun to form on my forehead after seeing this creature Jimmy had lit on fire, mentally sneering at the apparent rags I’d thrown on not two hours ago in ignorance of the impending audience, or simply wondering what alien universe I’d escaped from, I could not tell.        “Mr. Morley.  Thank you for coming across town with the boys,”  Mr. Jenkins spoke in a clear, mellifluous voice as he walked toward my father, his hand extended in greeting.      Pop seemed very comfortable, or at least not particularly ill-at-ease.  He shook the gentleman’s hand.      “I’m very sorry, Dr. Jenkins, that this visit became necessary.  This is my son, Daniel, and his friend Jimmy.”  He motioned with a nod of his head for me to say something.  But what was I to say in that ambassadorial place, standing before these people who likely had just removed wreaths of laurel from their heads before entering the cavernous room?        It’s so lovely to meet you, sir.  May I kiss your daughter?         And so I merely said, “Hello, sir.”  To my undying horror, my voice cracked mid-sentence.  The velvety mid-range C of ‘hello’ suddenly kicked up three octaves at the next short word, ‘sir’.  I cursed my vocal cords and would have bolted for the door right then except that Miss Marilou Jenkins’ aquamarine eyes had brightened like twin novas, and she smiled across the room at me.  I cleared my throat.  My cheeks and forehead bled heat.      “Please,” Dr. Jenkins gestured to us, “Come into the library.  Right this way.”  He waited until Pop drew alongside him, and then walked with him, trading small asides, grinning at my father’s pithy replies.      The amiable doctor’s wife lingered a step behind the two of them.  She smiled at Jimmy and me and then inquired.  “Your mother could not make it, Daniel?”      “No, ma’am.  Saturday is laundry day.”      “I see.  That is a shame.  And your mother, James?” she said turning to Jimmy, who turned up his nose at the appellation.         “Umm…she’s emptyin’ bottles.”      I cringed, certain that...       “I see.  Baby bottles?  You have a younger brother or sister?”      Jimmy nodded, as if he had rehearsed his answer.  “Yeah, one of each.”      “Ah.  How lovely.”  We crossed the expanse of the gallery of naked statues, Miss Marilou Jenkins gliding between her mother and myself as though one of those marble images had come to life and stepped down from its pedestal.  I thought I caught the faint scent of lilacs drifting from her.  “The younger ones must keep her very busy, indeed.”      “You can’t imagine,” Jimmy laughed.  “Bottles everywhere.  And crappy diapers.”       Mrs. Jenkins’ pencil-thin, dark eyebrows soared upward at the remark, and she shot a mildly disdainful look at my best friend.  Miss Marilou Jenkins put a hand to her mouth, stifling a giggle.  We moved on, me wishing I had at least worn my old suit.      At the end of the gallery of statues and paintings, an ornate archway of stone led into a wide hallway lined with several imposing carved wood doors, their polished brass handlesets set midway up on one edge in the European style.  Dr. Jenkins stopped at the second room on the right, opened the door inward, and indicated with a gracious wave of his hand for us to enter.  Again, and not for the last time that day, my jaw dropped.  This was the library.      Four wingback chairs—that Pop took only casual notice of, but probably would be able to describe down to the last luxurious thread later—were set in a semi-circle in front of a kingly desk of mirror-polished wood.  Floor to ceiling bookcases stood, packed with volume after volume, and except for the doorway in, and a single, tall window behind the desk, the books dominated; a dense wallcovering of thousands of lofty, written thoughts.        We took a seat; Pop, Jimmy, me, and to my right, Miss Marilou Jenkins with her faint scent of summer flowers.  Dr. Jenkins sat imperiously in his leather chair opposite us behind the desk.  A gray-mist shaft of light shined through the window making him appear otherworldly.  Lit from a passageway leading back out into a place that was not the city I inhabited.  He leaned back and surveyed the two arsonists, the fingertips of his right hand tapping his chin, and then he let his gaze fall on his daughter.      “That was a very serious and foolish thing you boys did in that theater.  You understand that, don’t you,” he said, as though the statement was being directed at her.      “Yes sir,” I concurred holding onto my vocal chords with all that I possessed.      “Yeah, I guess so,” Jimmy followed.      I did not wait for anything further to erupt out of Jimmy’s mouth.  I turned to Miss Marilou Jenkins and melted into an apology worthy of my finest moment inside a confessional.      “Please accept my sincerest forgiveness, miss.  If I had it all to do over again I wouldn’t of…well, that is…I would have…”      Miss Marilou Jenkins’ smile broadened in amusement at my comments.  She turned full-face to me and said, “I accept your ‘forgiveness’.  I was planning to have it cut anyway.”      I heard Jimmy exhale in relief.  If we were to be chastised and made to kneel in sackcloth outside their door for one or two weeks; made to survive on moldy black bread, and water from the gutter, it appeared it would not be at the hands of the girl sitting beside me.  We both looked imploringly over at Dr. Jenkins, as if to say, “See, sir?  No harm done.  None at all.”      “What were ya’ doin’ at a theater clear across town?” Jimmy asked Miss Marilou Jenkins in the momentary lull in the conversation.  Pop looked over at Jimmy in astonishment.  I dropped my gaze and squinted with pain.  Still, it was a good question, but I would never have had the courage to ask it.  I waited for her answer.      “Our daughter wished to visit her cousins who live near a park on your side of town,” Dr. Jenkins emphasized the phrase, ‘near a park’.  Barnum, I guessed, as there was nothing as grand as City Park where we lived; just the small, hilly half mile square home of smaller trees, smaller trails, a smaller playground, and the smaller lake.  “Her mother and I were going out of town.  Perhaps we should have taken her with us?” he asked in a serious tone, but with a glint in his eye.        Probably so.      In the moments ahead we learned these things:       Dr. Jenkins had been in Minneapolis with his lovely wife that weekend attending a convention of Proctologists.  The eminent rectal repair specialist did not tell us exactly what one hears at such a convention—perhaps long hissing sounds punctuated by laughter and the pinching of noses?—but he lectured us, punctuated, definitely, with extremely long words neither of us had ever heard before.  We sat before him nervously, and I’m certain shook our heads yes once or twice, when in fact we should have shaken them no.      The inferno in Miss Marilou Jenkin’s hair turned out to be not an inferno at all.  In fact it was only a minor brush fire of really little consequence.  The cousin sitting at her side had had the foresight and prize fighter reactions to smother it long before it did more than eliminate most of the split ends caused by teasing and hairspray.        “Young gentlemen such as yourselves from good Christian families,” Dr. Jenkins turned his head slightly toward Pop and nodded.  Pop nodded obligingly back at him.  “…must consider their actions very soberly, weighing the consequences…”  And we listened to it all again.      An hour later as we left his mansion I couldn’t help but overhear Pop inquiring of Dr. Jenkins whether he knew the little known fact that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart suffered from Tenesmus, brought on by an unwillingness, or forgetfulness, to run to the chamber pot due to his complete immersion in composing.  Of course, Pop continued, the physicians of the day diagnosed the discomfort as nothing more than gas.      “Not precisely true,” corrected Dr. Jenkins (who certainly would have known).  “Herr Mozart consumed entirely too much beef, and drank cheaper wines far in excess of what would even then have been considered moderate to heavy alcoholic consumption.  While he imagined his bowels…”      At the end of which Pop quipped that never in his life had beef, or beer, at least, “…caused any discernible deviation from other than a normal bowel movement in my life.  At any rate, I bow to your probable expertise concerning Mr. Mozart’s unfortunate condition.  It certainly didn’t affect his fingers.”        With a hearty laugh, the doctor agreed wholeheartedly.  I moved down the corridor toward the entry at the side of Miss Marilou Jenkins, lost in a cloud of medical shadows cast by the doctor and the upholsterer.  My father, I suddenly realized, inhabited a world far below the one he should have lived in.      “He loves to speak to his guests about stuff like that.  My father is so weird,” Miss Marilou Jenkins whispered to me.      “So is mine,” I whispered back, my lips touching the strands of sweet-smelling hair covering her ears.      At the entry, Dr. Jenkins grabbed hold of Pop’s hand once more, clasping over the top of it with the other.  For the short moments of our visit they had looked in each other’s eyes on an equal plane, but I knew the moment we left that the invisible barrier separating their worlds would have to be erected again.        We returned to Barnum along the same streets that had taken us to that place of refinement and beauty, relieved, silent. 
(c) 2012 Patrick Sean Lee

Kristen Lamb-Sage Advice

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2...

I need to read this again. And then again.

#1...Where did I put that list?
#2...I don't feel inspired this morning. For sure I will tonight! Guess what happens "tonight"? Yep, For sure, then, tomorrow.
#3...I love this one. We were all trained to be factory workers and corporate mind slaves. Actually, having attended 12 years of Parochial schools, I think I was trained to become a priest. I'm a little fuzzy on that remembrance; I forgot where I put that list containing my thoughts on it, lol. Maybe I'll write a story about it tonight. Wait, maybe tomorrow!
#4...I'm going to revolt! Quit being a wife, entrepreneur, teacher, and mother today and become a full-time writer! I don't multi-task well :)
#5...This one I can do!
#6...I have a few friends who, when I submit a chapter I'm working on, rip it to pieces. Yo:)
#7...Birds of a feather...
#8...This one took me 14 years to figure out, lol.
#9...No a problem for me. That's my day job!
#10...I think coffee, being mostly water, should do?

There. You notice I didn't copy and paste the "suggestions" by Kristen. You'll have to follow the link to her Blog post in order to see what they are :) Which kind of hearkens back to part of Kristen's comments in #2.

Off to WRITE!