Edward M. Wolfe's Blog, page 3

The Art of Not Marketing on Social Media

This blog post is a part of the blog hop, created by b00kr3vi3ws.

The Art of Not Marketing on Social Media

Here’s something you might find refreshing, especially if you’re at the tail of the Baby Boomers and among the first of the GenX’ers and aren’t really all that hip to the whole idea of “building a platform” and plugging in to social media like Facebook and Twitter. Many authors who buy books and/or read blogs about how to self-promote their self-published books are constantly told that they need to get on these two huge social media venues. Once there, you now need to build a huge following so you can then promote your book to that eager crowd.

The truth is, it’s actually a catch-22. If you had the means to get thousands of people to “Like” you Facebook page, or to follow you on Twitter, then you’d simply promote your book to those thousands, wouldn’t you?

Here’s an example of how this works (or doesn’t, actually) via silly dialogue:

The Catch-22

Author: How can I get people to notice my book?

Helper: You need to create a website.

Author: Okay, I have a website now. How do I get traffic to it?

Helper: For that, you need a blog.

Author: Okay, now I have a blog. How do I get people to read it?

Helper: You should promote it on Facebook.

Author: Okay, now I have an author page on Facebook. How do I get people to Like the page?

Helper: Are you on Twitter?

Author: I’m on Twitter now. How do I get people to follow me?

Helper: Have you linked to your Twitter account on your website?

You should see at least one problem with this approach, but there are actually two. The first is that it’s circular and the “solution” just recreates the same problem on another platform. The second is that the author is attempting to use social hangouts to sell his or her book.

Imagine you’re at a party enjoying a good time with some close friends. You and two friends are having a very interesting conversation. A guy walks up, rudely interrupts the three of you and says, “Hey, you should buy these vitamins! They’re on sale this weekend only, and several people have said they really love them. Here, let me know show them to you.”

Would you be inclined to buy some? Or would you be annoyed and irritated at the interruption and tune the person out so you could continue talking with your friends? That’s what happens when you promote your book on social media sites. The bad news I have for you is that you’re an annoyance. A spammer. Someone who just crashed the party, hoping to make a profit.

The good news is, a really good way to promote your book and to generate interest in it, and sales, is to stop promoting it on social media.

Isn’t that a relief? You don’t have to do that anymore. You probably hated it anyway and felt like it was a chore, but all of the “experts” said you had to, so you did, but nothing seemed to come of it, so you suspected you were doing it wrong, or not enough, and so you tried harder and got the same results. Right?

So what should you do then to get people interested in your book if you’re not blasting away on the Holy Grail of social media? The answer is that you should *use* social media the way it was intended.

About your Facebook

If you’ve been trying to develop a following or a fan-base there, you may have engaged in a practice of exchanging Likes with other authors. It doesn’t say a lot about you or your books if you only have 10 likes, so everyone wants more. That’s understandable. But here’s where the problem comes in. If you Like the pages of five hundred authors and they Like yours in exchange, what do you do next? You post about your book to your larger “fan base” that you’ve established. The problem there is that you don’t have a fan base yet – not aside from the original 10 Likes from people who really like your work. And they already bought your book, so now when you promote it on your Facebook page, the people most likely to buy it, already did!

As for those other 490 people – they already gave you something of fair value in exchange for getting something back. They got your Like, and you got theirs. That’s all they wanted from you. They’re not interested in your book. They’re trying to promote theirs. Did you buy all of their books? Of course not. You have no idea what they wrote, or if you’d even like it. You were just exchanging Likes. Your new “fan-base” has equally little interest in what you wrote.

The way to use Facebook is the way it was intended. Connect with friends and family. See what they’re up to. Congratulate them on their accomplishments; cheer them up when they’re down; share photos of you and your wacky pets; pass on the funny meme that cracked you up. Whatever you’d ordinarily do on Facebook is what you should be doing on Facebook. And that includes talking about your book on occasion. Post about your writer’s block, or pass on a meme image that addresses that, or other author issues. Post a link to your book when you publish it, or when you get a good review. These are important things in your life and your friends and family will celebrate with you.

You should also make a Facebook Author page, just to have one. I don’t think it will do you a lot of good and I would discourage you from buying Facebook advertising or paying to “Boost” your Author page. But at least you’ll have that their to organically grow your fan base on that platform.

The Funny Thing about Twitter

With 255 million active daily users, this surely seems like a place you need to be. So you sign up and get some friends to follow you. Now what? You need new followers who don’t already know about your book. If you’re smart, you start following new people, and a good number of them will follow you back.

This is a long and slow process, so maybe you’ve bought some followers. You paid out $30 and now have 5 or 10 thousand followers. So you tweet to them, and you find that it’s still not helping your sales any. You might have noticed with all of the people that you’ve followed that their tweets come pouring in constantly. If you’re following a few thousand people, the incoming tweets are non-stop. If you were smart enough to realize that the same thing applies to your followers, then you also realized that there’s very little likelihood of them ever seeing your tweets. They’re drowned out by the mass quantity of incoming messages. Just realize that when you send a tweet, it does not necessarily reach the people it went out to. It’s sent to them, but if thousands of others are sent to them daily also, why would anyone assume that one particular tweet will even be seen?

This is where some people get creative and use software to auto-tweet for them every few minutes in the hopes that a cup of red wine poured into the waterfall will get noticed on its way down past the follower’s face – if he just happens to be sitting on his home page and looking at all of his incoming tweets as they arrive. Some of you are probably doing your recommended “one tweet every eight minutes” manually because you couldn’t figure out the software. Either approach is wrong-headed, ridiculous, and isn’t worth the effort at all.

Here’s what you should do instead. Use Twitter the way it was intended. But first, set an image of one or more of your books as your cover image. (The big, wide one.) In your bio, talk about yourself the way you would if you were writing a super brief bio that was going to be used to introduce you to others at a party. Include a link to your website, or your Amazon author page, or your book’s website! Don’t leave this out. Now tweet occasionally about something you’d like to tell the world. Or go find an interesting topic by doing a hashtag search and join the conversation that’s taking place. Do NOT mention your book. People who find you interesting will find it on their own when they visit your page to follow you. Or to follow you back. And when people visit your page to follow you, it’s a thousand times more effective if they see a page full of interesting tweets instead of seeing a page filled with ads for your book for as far as the page will scroll. Think of your Twitter page as a website home page. Whatever you tweet will be the content of that home page.

Be social on social media!

If you act like a person on social media, people will find you interesting. Some of them will develop an interest in your book. And by finding it themselves, they’re far more likely to buy it than they would be if you’d urged them to. This approach is crucial if you’re on Goodreads. Establish your author page, then do nothing but socialize, review, read and rate,  as the site was meant for you to do.

I’ve sold over 660 books this year with my non-selling approach and my $0 marketing budget. Consider giving it a try. It’s not a fast advertising approach, but if you’re an author, I would assume you’re in this for the long haul, you want to develop a fan-base, and you’re not just trying to make money.

If you read this entire blog post, you just won a free copy of my latest novel, “Reaching Kendra”

Congratulations! Click  the link below this sentence to download the Kindle version in a zip file. Reaching_Kendra_Edward-M-Wolfe

If you’d like to have the book in another format, just let me know, and I’ll send it to you.

You can also view the book on Amazon to read the description and find out how awesome reviewers say it is.  Thanks for reading!

Question: Will you ever stop promoting Kendra?

Answer: Yes. As soon as I finish writing Return of the Gods.

Author Lynn Salisbury gives Kendra’s Spirit five stars

Author Lynn Salisbury gave Kendra five stars on Amazon, saying:

A wonderful love story that answers man’s oldest question. No matter what you believe, Kendra is a thought provoking tale of love that transcends all challenges. Edward Wolfe is an amazing author who delivers what every reader yearns for – a world so real you know the characters as best friends. Characters that stay with you beyond the last word on the last page.

Thank you, Lynn!

Kendra is still on sale for six more days.

New 5-star review for Kendra

Author Lynn Salisbury gave Kendra five stars on Amazon, saying:

A wonderful love story that answers man’s oldest question. No matter what you believe, Kendra is a thought provoking tale of love that transcends all challenges. Edward Wolfe is an amazing author who delivers what every reader yearns for – a world so real you know the characters as best friends. Characters that stay with you beyond the last word on the last page.

Thank you, Lynn!

Kendra is still on sale for six more days.

Dissolve Writer’s Block

I wrote this as an answer to a young writer who asked what to do when you have 1) writer’s block, 2) too many ideas, and 3) when you see someone else whose writing is far better than yours.

Writer’s block – If nothing is coming to you for what you’re trying to write, then don’t try to write it. You might have some other idea that *will* flow if you change the channel.

You might skip to another, future chapter, or change to another character’s viewpoint, or change to another work completely.

This is also a good time to put effort into other writerly duties such as editing, promoting, marketing, or just enjoying socializing with other writers.

Another good task is to lie down, close your eyes and let your mind clear. Part of a writer’s job is to daydream and visualize. These things need space in your mind and if it’s too cluttered in there with too many other thoughts, then it’s good to clear out the space and make room for ideas.

This might also mean tending to some things that are bugging you, and lying down and seeing what’s in your head could alert you to what it is that’s blocking you.

Too many ideas – No such thing as being too wealthy with ideas. Write them all down. If that means opening a notepad document and writing down one-line plot summaries because the ideas are for multiple different projects, then write them all down. That clears space in your head and ensures you won’t forget the brilliant ideas that you know you’ll remember, but really might not.

If you have ideas for other stories and feel the need to start on one or more, give yourself permission to do that too. Some people feel it’s important to discipline themselves and finish what they’ve started, and won’t start anything else until then.

There are no rules in your writing world other than those that you choose because they work for you.

Feel free to start multiple stories. Create sub-folders in your Works In Progress folder for each one. The next time you feel that you have writer’s block, go look in this folder. Your mind may have a flood of words just waiting for you to open the right document.

This gives you a Get Out of Writer’s Block Free card.

When you write multiple things at once, the progress is slower on each one, which delays the satisfaction that comes from finishing a story, but you’ll also find yourself finishing one work after another, giving you a cascading satisfaction.

Thinking: “I’ll never be this good.”

Realize that the author you’re awed by didn’t start off that good. He or she developed their craft and you will too, the same way they did – by writing, and by learning from your mistakes, listening to your critics, and writing, and re-writing, and lots of reading of better authors.

or “How the heck did this book get published and become hugely successful?”

You can learn from that too. There’s something in that book that appealed to readers. Read that whole book and discover what it was that people love about it. Remember that thing, and if possible, use it when you can in your much better books.

It isn’t always great writing that makes for success. Sometimes a poorly written book strikes a chord that resonates with a large percentage of the reading population.

When that happens, readers don’t care about the delivery. It’s the end result that mattered; the emotion, hope, excitement, inspiration, or whatever they’re getting from it that overshadowed the less than polished method with which that feeling was invoked in them.

Sometimes though, there’s no explaining it, and it will never make sense, and fortunately for us, it doesn’t matter. Use it as another inspiration. “If something this bad can make millions, then I know I’m going to succeed because I’m a much better writer, and I know I can write a much better book.”

View highly successful but badly written books as evidence that you too can and will succeed. How could you not?

Elliot Rodger: Clueless Psychopath

If you look at his FB page, you can see that for years he posted mainly pictures of himself and his cars. The one time he actually used words, he said, “Damn, I look good.”

It’s not hard to see that he was a shallow narcissist. And that just had to drive him crazy. He was convinced he was a god (for apparently nothing more than being born wealthy,) and yet the evidence made it abundantly clear that he was a total loser, piece of shit.

He was incapable of finding fault with himself, like a true psychopath/sociopath, so he concluded that everyone else was wrong. Only he was right. And everyone else would have to pay for their “unforgivable crime” against him.

Some other sick bastard created a Facebook page, using Elliot’s name, and is calling him a god and condoning everything Elliot did. Facebook won’t remove it.

I and others have reported it to the police. Maybe they’ll at least talk to this guy and make sure he doesn’t have any guns – and if people grow brains, they’ll come up with a new database to be checked before selling someone a gun.

When we see totally fucked in the head people, we need to be able to put them away. I know people cry out, “But then that will be used against people.” But we need to not be stupid about it. If some douchebag is divorcing his wife and tries to get her committed, we can see what the play is there.

We just need to use common sense and not continue to act like blithering idiots, which is the standard today.

So many things that plague society are so easily remedied, but we just forge ahead like morons.

The guy who is worshiping this psycho needs to be put in a mental hospital. But, nope. Can’t do that. It would deny him his rights. Only after he copycat murders a bunch of people and denies them their right to life, then we can wring our hands and say, “If only we had known there was something wrong with him.”

But the fact is, we do know in advance. And we either do nothing, or we try and can’t get through the barriers, as was the case with Nancy Lanza trying to get Adam committed before he slaughtered a bunch of children.

But all we’ll do is say we need another hundred laws against the type of tool that was used. Because it obviously makes sense that some day we’ll reach the magic number of laws against guns that will prevent people from using them to commit murder.

How many more people have to die before we actually do something sensible?

“Humanity, you never had it.” – Charles Bukowski

Blog Hop: My Writing Process

I was recently tagged by a great author named Henry Martin. Sometimes when I’m typing his name, I start to type Henry Miller. Henry is very fond of Henry and so I associate the two in my mind. I’ve always heard of Miller, and I’m aware that he was instrumental in securing free speech rights for authors when his books were censored for being obscene, but beyond that, I don’t know much about him, and I’ve never read him. But that’s changing now, thanks to Henry Martin. He’s inspired me to purchase my first Henry Miller book, “Black Spring.”

I’ve barely started the book and I can already see that this is a man with a super-sharp mind and I probably should have read his work 20 years ago. I also stumbled across one of his quotes yesterday that indicates he and I may think alike in key areas. “Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.”

I don’t know how much Miller has influenced Martin’s writing, but I can tell you that Henry Martin has created one of those characters that you won’t soon forget – if ever. His “Mad Days of Me” trilogy is about a young man named Rudy who leaves his family home to find himself and some kind of life apart from the one he despises at home and the town he grew up in. But a tragic assault early on in his adventure leaves in stuck in Barcelona, injured and broke, with no one to turn to but the family he is determined to avoid.

The book (and the trilogy) gets better and better as you read it. By the time I finished the first book, I was so glad to know that I had two more books full of Rudy yet to be read. When I reached the end, I still need just a little bit more, so I wrote an epilogue. Then I was satisfied. If you haven’t read Henry’s trilogy yet, you should check it out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, now for the questions about my writing process.

Q. What am I working on?

A. Sorry this can’t be a short answer, because I’m always working on multiple things.

1. I’m in the final stretch of a new novel called Kendra’s Spirit. This is a novel about a young couple named Keith and Kendra who are madly in love with each other and plan to get married soon. She goes to Iraq to report on the U.S. troop withdrawal and is a victim of a suicide bombing.  I don’t know how to say more without ruining story elements.

2. Readers of my short story When Everything Changed have asked for it to be made longer, or to be turned into a series, or for a full-length novel version of the story, so that’s another thing I’m working on. In the short story, the protagonist tells you what has changed in the five years since the Guardians came to earth. In the novel version, called Return of the Gods, we live through those changes through the eyes of the protagonist.

3. Priority number three is a follow-up book to In The End, which picks up with the survivors from book one leaving the mountain lodge that was the focal point of book one and it follows them down the mountain as they seek a new home (or place to survive) while world war three is waged on the streets of the U.S.

4. Another work in progress that is nearly complete (just several chapters to go) but which I’ve also decided needs a complete re-write to give it the classic dystopian feel that I don’t feel it has yet is called Equal Signs. It’s about 40 years in the future after America has survived the devastation of a civil war. The new government is determined to make everything in our country perfect this time around and take steps to prevent all of the things that made a civil war (as well as all major crimes against people) from ever happening again.

5. I’m slowly working on a screenplay about a true story with the working title, “Restrained.”

6. I’m writing an auto-biography titled, “Ascended Bastard.”

Q. How does my work differ from others in the genre?

A. I don’t write in any one specific genre, and probably never in the confines of whatever genre I’m writing in the vicinity of.

I’ve been told that “In The End” is unlike any post-apocalyptic fiction. Devon’s Last Chance would have to be considered paranormal, but it’s not like anything I’ve read before in that genre. Return of the Gods is science fiction of a sort since another race comes to earth and embeds itself here for a time, taking over the planet and changing our way of doing things, but very few such stories exist where the “aliens” are the good guys. Kendra’s Spirit is a paranormal romance, but the only thing I can think of that comes close to it is the movie Ghost. Mind you, I said “close.” 

I’m not sure exactly how my work differs from stuff in the genres that it comes close to being in. I guess it’s original, unexpected, and does not conform to any expectation the reader might have. For example, I call In The End a pre-apocalypse story. That’s probably different. There’s also no protagonist. Or rather, the protagonist is a group of people. So I guess I not only defy expectations, but standard conventions as well. I let the characters tell the story and come to life just like real people. And we, real people, don’t follow pre-conceived character arcs or live out our lives in three acts. Real life is more random and unexpected and captivating than a formula, and I write what one reviewer called “realistic fiction.”

Q. Why do I write what I write?

A. Certain ideas get stuck in my head. There are some things that I want to communicate to the world. That’s what Return of the Gods/When Everything Changed is all about. We don’t have to allow tens of thousands (if not more) people die of starvation every day. We don’t have to allow murderous psycho paths walking our streets and ruining the quality of life for others, killing or maiming people when they feel the urge. So that novel and story is to communicate something I feel passionately about.

Other times I’m just thinking and imagining and I ask the traditional creative question, “What if…?” In my short story, “Lost Father” I just asked myself, “What if you saw someone talking to themselves, but they were really talking to someone you just couldn’t see?” In the case of Devon’s Last Chance, I wondered what it was that makes real people who everyone considers to be normal, suddenly decide one day that they’re going to shoot everyone at work or school, or wherever. And I thought, “What if someone else was making them do it? And what if the entity who drove them to do it, had to succeed in getting them to do it because their life depended on it?”

So, sometimes it’s just weird ideas, other times it’s to get people to think about things they might not have thought about. But not in a preachy way. My primary goal is to tell an entertaining story. But my favorite stories are the ones that make me forget about life for a while because they’re so engrossing, but they also allow me to walk away from them with something I can keep, and think about, and maybe change for the better in the best of cases. So I try to write that type of story.

Q. How does my writing process work?

A. I start with an opening scene that I believe will lead me down the line to the plot idea that I had. Beyond that, I know nothing. I discover so many things about the story much the same way the reader does. I find out what’s going to happen when I get there. When I reach the end of what I know, I have to see more of the story in my mind. This could involve lying down, closing my eyes and activating the movie in my head, which I’ll then write down what I saw. Or it may come to me when I’m driving along the freeway on autopilot, paying more attention to the burgeoning story than I am to where I’m at. In those cases, I eventually get off the freeway, turn around and get back on, and go back to my exit that I missed, then write down what I saw when I get home.

I don’t edit a thing in the first draft. The hardest part is just getting the whole story written. I don’t care what shape it’s in, or if it has a million typos and missed words. First, I just have to get the blob of clay onto the table, roughly shaped like the bust of JFK. Once it’s done, then I’ll go back to the beginning and read through to the end, spotting all of the things that need to be revised, fixed, or changed. This is where I fix the hair length and the size of the nose, and shape the ears, etc.

I’ll continue the same process; going back to the beginning and reading through again and sometimes I may realize that a scene doesn’t need to be in the story, or I’m missing a scene. I might yank off an ear and start over so it matches the other ear.

In the final pass, I’ll finesse the hell out of every sentence, making sure that it says exactly what it should and that there’s little to no chance that any reader will be confused or misunderstand what is being said. I want the reader to have the smoothest ride possible, with no brain-jarring speedbumps along the way that jolt them out of the fictional world that they should be happily immersed in. This where I’m sculpting the eyelashes and the pupils and making sure that the viewer of the sculpture is just a little freaked out to see what really looks like JFK’s head staring back at them.

Q. Who’s next?

A. I’m passing the torch to a couple of great authors who are also great people.

Lex Allen is the author of a trilogy called Imagine. It’s no coincidence that it’s also the name of a song by John Lennon. The books in the trilogy are called No Heaven, No Hell, and No Religion, which isn’t published yet. (So, hurry up, Lex! I neeeeeeeed it!) I absolutely love fiction that not only entertains, but could inspire people to change their way of thinking about things they never gave much thought to before. And if they do that, they can change themselves, and thus the world. Or at least the small part they have influence over – which is how the world gets changed – one person at a time. That’s the kind of trilogy Imagine is. If the thought of metaphysical science fiction sounds interesting to you, check out Lex Allen’s trilogy.

Lex Allen’s blog

Twitter

 

J. Cornell Michel is a relatively new author (although she’s also a fourth-generation on her family tree) who just burst out of nowhere one day when she decided to write a novel. And what a great novel it is. Michel takes the zombie genre and makes it her own. Her debut effort, Jordan’s Brains is about a mental patient named Jordan who has trained for years to be ready for the zombie apocalypse. Jordan is a loveable character who goes on an unexpected journey that keeps the reader guessing and laughing along the way. The second novel by MIchel, “Where’s My Dinner” is an even more original take on the zombie theme as it skewers the 1950s mindset about the roles of men and women. Imagine I Love Lucy meets Night of the Living Dead. I can’t wait to read her third book. If you like the zombie genre, but yearn for something fresh and different, you might just love J. Cornell MIchell. For a sampling without getting deeply into a full novel, have a look at her book of zombie short stories, Zombie Zeitgeist. You’ll see what I mean by her original take on things.

J. Cornell Michel’s blog

Twitter

 

Indians, Cowboys, and the Environmental Cavalry: The Battle of Lake Earl

Indians, Cowboys, and the Environmental Cavalry:

The Battle of Lake Earl

by Ed Wolfe – Published: 03.13.01

 

The Indians

Aside from technological advances, the biggest change in our society today compared to 200 years ago is how involved that mutant servant of ours called Big Government has become involved in our local affairs.

Once upon a time there were still Indians who went about their lives without having to worry about hunters, explorers or United States soldiers interrupting their affairs by shooting at them, massacring them and nearly wiping them off the face of the land. One such group of Indians was the northern California Tolowa tribe.

 

Tolowa girl. circa 1921

They never thought of it as California though. To them it was home, and they were “the people.” If we were to compare where they lived then with the cities most of us live in today, we would have thought they lived in Eden. The Tolowa lived at the uppermost tip of California, just below where the Oregon state line is today. The land they inhabited was a topographical smorgasbord featuring mountains behind them, ocean in front of them, a lagoon/lake between their village and the ocean separated by a natural sand barrier, pastures, creeks, rivers, etc. Try to imagine a setting like that and at the same time, blot out any thoughts of cars, buildings, telephone poles, or any kind of mechanical noise.

The Tolowa lived off the natural resources provided by the abundant wildlife and wilderness. As does anyone who maintains their existence with natural resources, they knew how to strike a balance between their needs and the respect they held for the plants and animals. They did not hunt or fish for sport. They did not cut trees to make convenient paths through the forests. But neither did they leave everything in its native state out of a reverent worship for the earth and the things that grew, walked and swam on its surface.

The Tolowa Indians could teach a thing or two to today’s “environmentalists” about how to live on and respect “Mother Earth” at the same time. When they needed to make canoes, they cut down trees. When they needed hides, they hunted deer. They fished, hunted birds for food and feathers and killed predators when necessary.

 

Earl off to the left, Tolowa to the right

In addition to using the natural resources for their sustenance, they also engaged in what we might call land management. The Tolowa lived on the edge of what is now two lakes called Lake Tolowa and Lake Earl. This is a lake sitting right in front of the ocean but separated from it by a sand bar. (Technically, it’s a lagoon, but it’s considered today to be Lake Earl and Lake Tolowa, so that’s how they’ll be referred to here.) Unlike most lakes, Earl and Tolowa don’t have a way to provide natural run-off when the lake water rises continually from heavy rains. Some of the Tolowa Indians lived on land near the twin lakes and had a cemetery close to them so they naturally had a vested interested in the lake water not rising too high. Their solution was to breach the sand bar by hand thus allowing the lake to slowly drain into the ocean. The natural ebb and flow of the tide would gradually fill the breach in again. It was a fairly simple solution to what could have been a huge problem requiring them to relocate completely.

Although they had the option of relocating, it’s doubtful that the elders at the time would have approved of relocating their deceased tribal members buried there. But this solution of slowly draining the lake on occasion worked out well for them. The process was simple and had the added benefit of drawing out some waterfowl for easy hunting. And so, life was good for the Tolowa. And it remained good while elsewhere in the nation indigenous people were fighting for their lives and waging war with U.S. Cavalry, settlers, trappers, traders, etc.

The Tolowa may have been among the last to join the fray, being situated as they were as far as anyone could possibly be in the West without going into the ocean. Apparently though, all good things must come to an end, and they surely did for the Tolowa people.

In 1828 famed explorer Jedediah Smith passed thru northern California on his way up North. According to local Tolowa history, he did what explorers and traders usually do when encountering a new culture – he introduced them to things they’d never known about before. Although our history books describe Smith as man who didn’t drink or smoke and was believed to have very strong Christian morals, the Tolowa say he introduced to their culture via their young women such things as rape and gonorrhea.

After their encounter with Jedediah Smith, things only got worse from then on for the Tolowa. They would never again know the peace and tranquility of their village by the sea. Eventually, many of their tribe were massacred and buried by the lake that bears their name. Later, the descendants of the survivors were mostly relocated by the U.S. Government. Those that agreed to the relocation (tribal dispersement and dilution) were given official status as “federally recognized Native Americans” and the attendant (welfare) benefits of such status. The hold-outs may as well be listed as Irrelevant Endangered Species.

 

The Cowboys

Original article sidebar

“Numerous vigilante type paramilitary troops were established whose principal occupation seems to have been to kill Indians and kidnap their children. Groups such as the Humbolt Home Guard, the Eel River Minutemen and the Placer Blades among others terrorized local Indians…

The handiwork of these well-armed death squads combined with the widespread random killing of Indians by individual miners resulted in the death of 100,000 Indians in the first two years of the gold rush. A staggering loss of two thirds of the population. Nothing in American Indian history is even remotely comparable to this massive orgy of theft and mass murder.” — Professor Edward D. Castillo, “Short Overview Of California Indian History”

After the Indian massacres and the Gold Rush hysteria ended, life went on as usual. People settled in the area near the lake which became Crescent City in the county of Del Norte. The area was rich with old growth redwoods and a mill established in 1853 cranked out redwood lumber for the next 100 years. In addition to the timber industry, fishing and agriculture were mainstays of the area.

To people not familiar with the California and Oregon coasts it appears odd at first to see cattle and sheep roaming pastures with the Pacific Ocean in the background, often times less than 1/2 a mile away. The people that set up ranches on the fertile ground near Lake Earl quickly learned the customs of those who lived and worked the lake area before them. They had to keep an eye on the lake to keep it from rising higher than four feet above the Mean Sea Level (MSL).

For generations, this was never a problem. Eventually the county took over the task and it would appear that everyone was happy. The ranchers in the area like Helen and Brian Fergeson who kept dairy cows on land adjacent to the lake never anticipated that there would be a problem. The lake only flooded after heavy, prolonged rains and the county was good about breaching the sand bar when the water surpassed four feet MSL. An investor named Andrew P. Tell certainly didn’t anticipate a problem with the lake(s) when he sub-divided and sold 1500 lots, many on the lake’s perimeter. The California Real Estate Department had no reason not to allow Tell to sub-divide the land north of the lakes into 1500 lots. The buyers, mostly southern California retirees had no reason to believe there’d be any problem with the lots they rapidly bought from Tell with the intention of building their coastal getaways and retirement homes.

In the mid to late sixties Viet Nam was starting to become a serious issue. The Beatles had invaded America, and flower-power was making its debut in larger metropolitan areas. But small town life in Del Norte County was much the same as it had always been. Timber was harvested, salmon were fished and dairy cattle were milked for cheese. Crescent City, the heart of Del Norte County had recently lived thru a tsunami that destroyed the downtown area and killed nine people, but the area was being rebuilt and people were getting on with their lives and businesses. But then a new force seemed to suddenly appear on the American landscape at the tail end of the sixties and early seventies. Since then it’s become a problem for landowners across the country. The man who takes credit for starting it all lived in Crescent City near Lake Earl from August of 1997 to February of the following year – accommodations provided by Pelican Bay State Prison.

The Cavalry

 

Father of the Enviro-wackos?

Although the genesis of the American environmental movement has probably not been traced to a single person, there is one man who can be described as one of the very first environmental wackos, though he became notorious for reasons completely outside the scope of land and animals. I consider Charles Mills Manson to be the founder of all the flakes following in his footsteps – whether they realize it or not. Although Manson specialized in brainwashing teenaged runaway girls into seeing him as some sort of messiah, you wouldn’t see a recognizable difference if he had spent his time teaching environmentalism to a modern class of earth worshippers.

Along with teaching his followers that the Beatles were sending him secret messages that could only be heard when you played their songs backwards and that these messages were instructing him to provoke a white/black race war, he also taught them the sanctity of the “Air, Trees, Water, Animals” which he called ATWA and that they needed to be “ATWAR” with pollution and environmental degradation. “Charlie” takes credit for starting or planting the seeds of today’s most extreme environmental groups such as “Earth First!” and the Animal Liberation Front. There is no discernible difference between Manson’s sentiments on nature and the way today’s environmental extremists feel about nature – giving any living thing, including flies and snails supreme importance and sanctity over human life and welfare.

Few enviro-wackos would argue with this quote from Charlie:

“…God’s coming is not for the glory of people but the kingdom of life and that’s bugs, birds, bees, wildlife, trees, fish.” – Charles Manson

Left-wing extremists in general probably agree with this one:

“All must have a one world government, money, army, all in order to bring order in fast…” – Charles Manson

With the most extreme of the environmentalists now engaging in bombings, arson and sabotage of timber woods, none of them would appear to be at odds with Manson’s directive to the U.S. population about getting in tune with the environment: “Do or die.” Manson was ready, willing and able to kill in order to bring about what he believed was some sort of solution. His environmental heirs don’t seem to be too far behind him. This extremist cavalry that has ridden in to the town of America to save every creature that walks the face of the earth (people not included) have done what other liberals and wackos seem to have also done nationwide – they’ve insinuated themselves into our civil service. As their radical counterparts cause mayhem for the timber, fur and fishing industries, the more low-key among them are on government payrolls, turning their ideology into policy.

 

Evening at Lake Earl near the Fergeson’s

In 1972, the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act became law. California quickly adopted a state version of the Act to implement the federal act. The effect this act has had on the people living around Lakes Earl and Tolowa is being felt to this day. One of the first ramifications was a regulation imposed on the Pacific Shores 1500 lot sub-division that basically said that anyone who actually intended to follow through with building a house on the ocean or lakefront property they had just bought could not include any type of septic system. It’s almost impossible to understand and keep track of all of the city, county, state and federal agencies that have been involved in the war over Lakes Earl and Tolowa so I won’t even try to cite each of them and their specific regulatory restraints that have made life hell for some citizens in the area. The first that seems to have jumped into the act though was the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. In addition to disallowing septic systems to be put in on any of the lakefront lots, they also required that there be “zero drainage” of any “pollutant” into the lakes. If you watered your lawn and runoff made it to the lake, that would be considered a pollutant.

This effectively stopped anyone from building on their recently acquired property and moving in. The purpose appears to have been to preserve the lagoon and the “wildlife habitat” in and around it. (It could just be a coincidence that the State of California wanted to make a wildlife park on the land that the subdivision sits on.) As part of California’s self-imposed responsibility for implementing the federal coastal management act, the Fish & Game Department conducted a study of Lake Earl and published their recommendations. Nevermind that it had done just fine by itself and with the occasional help of locals, (starting with the Tolowa Indians over a century before.) The official environment cavalry had to have its say in the matter, and to the surprise and relief of many, it said that the lake should be left the way it was, including maintaining the water level at 4 feet. This was good news for the ranchers because it meant the state was not going to force them to be flooded off their land. It was also good for the Pacific Shores lot owners, the Tolowa Indians, and the wildlife that lived in the area or stopped in along the “flyway.”

For some reason, everything changed in 1986. Despite the Fish & Game study that was authored by four Wildlife Managers and Biologists, a Fisheries Biologist, a Marine Biologist and a Coastal Wetland Program Coordinator, the Fish & Game Dept. decided that the lake could no longer be breached until it had surpassed the eight foot water level. This decision seems to have been made with the thinking that “Mother Nature should be left alone for the good of all wildlife concerned.” But it is in complete contradiction to the Department’s own study of the lake and the observable effects that flooding has on the wildlife that depend on the lake being at a lower level. Don’t expect to find reason or sanity though when dealing with environmentalists.

With the new, higher water levels, mandatory flooding became the norm. The effects have been disastrous for the ranchers, the lot owners, the Tolowa Indians and the endangered species that are alleged to benefit from the higher lake level.

 

Flooded Pacific Shores “homeowner lot”

(2 weeks after an emergency breaching)

Ranchers with land that extends to the lake now have to deal with flooded pastures. This requires the expensive relocation of their herds. The subdivided lots become what the owners would call a swamp, but the green-freaks call a “wetland,” which although it doesn’t exist without the flooding, must now be allowed to remain as though it were vital to the wildlife and waterfowl. However, the flooding wipes out the habitat of the endangered Silver Spot Butterfly forcing it to land and frolic elsewhere. It also wipes out the greenery that the Aleutian Geese, (recently taken off the Endangered list) normally eat, forcing them to go further inland for food and nesting areas. This results in adding insult to injury for the ranchers since the land of theirs which isn’t flooded gets raided by geese. The geese have the run of the land since they’re still a protected species, which means the cows have to be moved if they haven’t already been moved due to the flooded pastures. The endangered Coho Salmon that used to take advantage of the lake breaching to gain entry to the lakes and streams no longer have a way in and are forced to go elsewhere. And lastly, the Tolowa Indians who’ve been all but wiped out in the area now have the further indignity of having the burial grounds of their massacred ancestors flooded.

None of this makes sense when the whole point is supposed to be the protection of these species and the habitat they depend on. And it makes the least sense of all to the landowners who have reasonable expectations of rights to their land. One logical proposition to solve this dilemma of high water or low water for the lake would be for the state to purchase all the land around it and then flood it to their heart’s content. This presupposes that the state would be willing to spend a sufficient amount of money to not only buy all 1500 lots in the Pacific Shores, but to also sway those ranchers that don’t want to move and have lived in the area for generations with no desire to leave. The state is not willing.

 

Bill Erickson looks down at the ocean from his

property. The subdivision is behind him.

Former County Supervisor Bill Erickson has endured a unique problem as a direct result of the forced flooding. His property is on the ocean front, adjacent to the subdivision lots, but it is not subject to the flooding despite its proximity to the subdivision. However, the county roads that were put in to serve the subdivision do get flooded and they provide the only access to Erickson’s land aside from coming at it from the other side in a boat.

Bill says, “You can’t develop, sell or even use land you can’t get to, so my property was effectively taken from me years ago when an out of control State Agency considered itself above all laws [including] the State and Federal Constitutions.” As far as he’s concerned, the forced flooding is a crime. If his land is going to be rendered unusable, then he should be compensated for it. If the state doesn’t want to buy it, then they need to recognize and respect it as being private property.

Others like Helen and Brian Fergeson don’t want to move. They’ve lived on their lakeside land for generations and don’t see why the lake can’t continue to be breached as it has been for over a hundred years, and as the Fish & Game Department’s 1975 study said it should continue to be in order to keep the lake at four feet above MSL. Helen and Brian have been battling this issue for a while and at times, the battle has gotten fairly ugly, especially on the government’s side. At one time when the lake was flooding in the 80′s due to the required eight foot above MSL that the Fish & Game Department insisted on, a Fergeson cow pasture was being destroyed, as was the subdivision properties. Someone called the President of the Pacific Shores Property Owners Association and he flew up and had someone go out and breach the lake. It was a defiant act of preservation. The Fish & Game department only saw the defiance in it and charged him with violating federal laws. What’s worse is that Helen Fergeson was charged with conspiring against the government since telephone records revealed that the president of the association was called from her phone. Helen gives the impression of a woman who has never walked away from a battle and the 14 counts against her didn’t change that. She fought the state, and just when the state was about to lose in court, all of the charges were dropped.

 

Subdivision lot owner/resident

Terry Litz flies a distress signal

Of the 1500 lots on Pacific Shores, the majority of them have become ruined, sandy pastures. The lake water when allowed to flood, turns the normal green grass into swamp grass and kills the trees. When the area is covered with water, it’s useless to the Silver Spot Butterfly and the Aleutian Geese. When the water is finally allowed to drain out into the ocean, the dried out land looks more like a coastal wasteland than a “wildlife preserve” or a place anyone would now want to live on. There are a few people who have decided to take up residence on the lots they purchased so many years ago with the dreams they entertained of a new house near the lake and the ocean. Getting there is sometimes impossible though when the roads are flooded. They have almost none of the services they expected to have long before entering the 21st century, like street lights, garbage service, cable TV, etc. The state doesn’t want anyone living there and has made it too difficult for most people to go to the extreme measures it takes to do so.

Although a few people are determined to exercise their rights by living on the land they own, most of them want the issue resolved one way or another, once and for all. As Bill Erickson puts it, “The state can’t have it both ways.” The land around the lakes is either going to remain private property without being subjected to forced flooding, or the state needs to buy it and do whatever it pleases with it. “Anyone should know that farm and residential land — and flooded wildlife habitat — cannot possibly exist together in the same space. Those two uses are absolutely incompatible in the same area,” he said.

Far from being near a conclusion, a new chapter in this battle has just begun. On March 8th, the Fish & Game Department held a public comments meeting in Crescent City to gather opinions from concerned citizens regarding the state’s intention to come up with an official plan for managing the Lake Earl Wildlife Area. It’s not clear to anyone why the state can’t use the study results it published in 1975 that recommended in part, that “No project be permitted which would alter the water level or characteristics of Lake Earl in a manner adversely affecting fish and wildlife. Any significant change in these conditions would result in damage to the existing natural resources. The periodic breaching of the barrier dune to reduce floodwater level is an acceptable practice as long as water levels are not dropped below those presently existing,” which was at the four foot level and had been for over a hundred years.

 

Fish & Game public comments meeting

in a packed Del Norte County courtroom

The meeting that was conducted to solicit public comments filled the courtroom it was held in. Approximately 125 people attended, filling every seat and taking up wall space and standing in the doorway at the back of the room. People were given a few minutes each to express their opinion of what should be done about the lake water level and what things they wanted the F&G to consider when drawing up their new plan. The majority of the speakers were logical and sometimes angry landowners who have been denied their rights for many years and often at great personal expense because of the flooding. Their arguments would go without saying in a sane world. They own their land, and they are entitled to live on it without the state flooding it. What more needs to be said? One angry land-owner concluded his comments with a simple solution that was met with cheers and applause, “If you flood it, you buy it!”

Several greenies were also in attendance and made pleas that rested less upon logic, rights, reason or even science than they did on emotion and imbalanced sentimentality. In fact, being that no real valid argument exists in favor of flooding private land and the endangered species’ habitat, they were forced to ramble on about un-related issues and rely on un-supported claims that had no bearing on the matter. One of them claimed that “…left to local control, every Redwood would be cut down today.” Not only did the meeting have nothing to do with Redwood forests, but cutting down every Redwood in the area in one day would be physically impossible. Such is the typical method of the greenies when “arguing” for their cause.

Another one suggested something that I found to be ironic and disturbing. This spacey ambassador for the environment insisted that the lake only be allowed to breach naturally and at worst, only be allowed to be breached manually after exceeding a 10 foot water level. This would mean that the county could only come in and do emergency breaching after the lake surpasses by two additional feet, the eight foot level that it currently waits for before doing emergency breaching. Not only is this far too late for the ranchers and property owners surrounding the lake, but there’s another problem that results from emergency breaching that one would expect the Mother Earth worshippers to have some serious concern about for several reasons that are visibly obvious and disturbing.

When the lake fills up to eight feet and beyond, and the county comes in to breach it, a tremendous volume of water suddenly escapes through the opening in the sand bar and flows rapidly out into the ocean. This causes coots (shorebirds that float on the water) to be sucked under water and drown as they are not able to take flight quickly enough since they require time to get a running start. After an emergency breaching of the lake, thousands of dead coots litter the shores. You’d think this would be enough to show the wackos how well their solution protects the wildlife they love so much. But even more disturbing (to some anyway) is that this rapid water drainage also pulls away dirt and sand with it. Remember, this isn’t just lake-bottom sand, but dirt that had previously been dry land as well, such as that in the Tolowa Burial Grounds. After being flooded over, the dirt pulled away from the graves by the escaping water leaves the bones of massacred Tolowa Indians exposed. This is an additional insult and injury long after they thought they were finally resting in peace, put in those graves by people who had just as much disregard for their well-being then as the environmentalists do now.

 

Interview with a Pearl Harbor survivor

Pearl Harbor: A Survivor Talks About

Then and Now

by Ed Wolfe 12.07.01

(Bandon, OR) – Once there was a young, Vermont farmboy who wanted to be a sailor. His father had been in the military before him and his mother supported her son’s wishes to follow in her husband’s footsteps. In 1940, there weren’t politically correct admissions standards for the U.S. military. You made the grade, or you didn’t get in. And just being physically fit wasn’t good enough. The armed forces wanted big, strong, young men to populate their ranks. This particular young man weighed in at just over a hundred pounds and was rejected for service in the Navy.

Determined to enlist, his mother put him on a weight-gain diet and on the day of his third enlistment attempt she stuffed him full of bananas and water and got him to successfully weigh in at the minimum required weight of 110lbs. After boot-camp, which he was told he’d never make it out of, he was sent cross country from Norfolk, VA to Long Beach, CA to serve on the U.S.S. Ranger.

U.S.S. Ranger

Sixty-two years later, this sailor looks back over a long and interesting life that includes such memorable events as shaking the hand of the ‘leader of the free world’ and getting shot off the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

What follows is a candid interview with one of America’s unsung national treasures – George Miller. Although we present this interview to you on the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it isn’t George’s status as a Pearl Harbor survivor that makes him special. The greatest thing about George is that he’s, well… George. We were interested in talking to him and did so because of his unique experience, but aside from Pearl Harbor and World War II, George is also a man who’s lived in completely different eras in our nation’s history and has come through this long, slow time-travel with his mind and memories intact. He remembers what this country used to be like; what people used to be like and what a free country we once had. In this interview, George Miller discusses his Pearl Harbor experience, politicians, the attack on the World Trade Center towers, the decline of America, and plenty more. We hope you enjoy it and find some food for thought. We also thank George’s family for letting us take the time with him for this interview. – Ed Wolfe

SierraTimes: What was the first memorable thing you experienced in the Navy?

GeorgeMiller: One Saturday morning during inspection [on the Ranger] we were lined up according to size, and naturally, I’d be clear down at the end because I was the smallest. Along came this entourage of brass and civilians on the flight deck, inspecting us. This man stopped in front of me in civilian clothes and asked me where I was from. I said, “Woodstock, Vermont, sir.”

He said, “You’re not very big, are you?”

“No. I’m not.”

He said, “Well, it’s not the size of a man, but the size of a man’s heart that makes a good sailor,” then he shook my hand. That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

From there, they shipped me cross country from out of Norfolk, Virginia to Long Beach, California where I boarded the U.S.S. Arizona.

U.S.S. Arizona

I was tickled about that because my Daddy served on there as a marine in World War I. We left Long Beach and we got to Pearl Harbor where the Arizona didn’t want me and the Ranger didn’t want me so they transferred me to the U.S.S. Pennsylvania. Most of my class is on the Arizona at this time. But again, being one of the small guys, they got rid of me and a couple others.

ST: You were the runt of the litter?

GM: You got it!

Well, we fiddle-diddled around in Hawaii of course, as all sailors do in peace time and so forth. And being as young as I was, I didn’t hear anything about war or know anything about war. I’m sure the older people did, and maybe even the civilians at home did. I don’t know.

ST: But it wasn’t the talk of the ship at the time?

GM: No… [On Saturday, December 6th] I got liberty and went back over to the Arizona to be with my buds and to get some civilian flight training. I wanted to get a pilot’s license. I stayed overnight; me and my buds and the following morning they had church services. If you go to church service, which starts at 8 o’clock; ends at 9 o’clock, that means you can go on the beach. Otherwise, you have to stay aboard and work. It wasn’t a case of being religious, it was more a case of getting on the beach and having some fun.

So while we were standing on the quarterdeck, we were in dress whites – I don’t think you’ve ever seen them, and that’s the last time I wore ‘em. We were on the quarterdeck, that’s where you come aboard the ship from the gangway. Then something happened – and we was in the water. There was fire and oil and so forth…

U.S.S. Arizona

 

ST: That was Sunday morning?

GM:Yeah. December 7th. Sunday morning. And of course, you don’t know what happened. There was no way of knowing what happened.

ST: You didn’t hear anything before the attack?

GM: No, we were gabbin’. You know how guys gab.

ST: Was this after church?

GM: No. Before – it hadn’t started yet. About five minutes before church started.

ST: So, you were going to go to church and play on the beach and the next thing you know, you’re in the water.

U.S.S. Pennsylvania

GM: Yeah! And I never knew how I got out of the water. I made it back to the Pennsylvania okay and made it up to my battle-station. But I never knew how, because it was really about a nautical mile from the Arizona to where the Pennsylvania was in dry dock. And it was 50 years later that I found how. This ensign was running around in a captain’s [boat.] This was a real fine boat, all dolled up for captains and admirals, ya know, and he went around fishin’ guys out of the water, and I was one of ‘em.

ST: So you went from standing on the quarterdeck of the Arizona, into the water, then back on your own ship, the Pennsylvania and didn’t have any idea what was going on?

GM: Yeah. And of course, your readers know the rest of the story.

ST: Were you unconscious and then just woke up back on the Pennsylvania?

GM: No. I was never unconscious as in a state of being unconscious and helpless. I might’ve not known what the hell was going on.

ST: Were you shell-shocked?

GM: I would say ‘bewildered.’ That would be a better word.

ST: Did they pull you out of the water and pump water from your lungs?

GM: No. Not to my knowledge.

ST: So you found yourself on the Pennsylvania, kinda dazed?

GM: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Definitely. but you work by instinct from your training and the first thing you think about is getting back to your own battle station. You have a feeling of, ‘Boy, that’s the place to be. That’s gonna be the safest place.’ Which is of course, not true.

By the time the second wave came, I’d made it up to what we called ‘the bathtub’ – that’s the highest portion of the ship. It had four machine guns up there – water-cooled, .50 machine guns. The only problem was, the Pennsylvania was in dry-dock and there was no water. We laid into ‘em anyhow. We were shooting. We got some shells off. And I thought I got one of them Jap planes, but so did the other three guys, so they awarded us each a quarter of a plane.

After the raid was over, that was really the horrible part. Because we had to take care of all the people that were deceased.

ST: So, while most people would think that the worst part of the experience would be getting attacked, at that time, your adrenaline’s rushing, you’re engaged in activity…

GM: Yeah. There’s not a soldier, sailor, marine or anybody during a time of action that knows what the hell is going on. Because the word is ‘survival.’ People lost their lives. You don’t give a shit who the President of the United States is, who’s Republican, you don’t care who’s a Democrat, you know, you worry about who you are and who’s the guy next to you.

ST: Just recently, at least three of our soldiers were accidentally killed by one of our own bombs…

GM: Oh, I predicted that. I told Mrs. Miller that two, three days ago. That happens all the time.

ST: We could have guys doing special ops that others don’t know about in a target area?

GM: Let’s be honest; Men in uniform are the toys of politicians, no matter how the hell you look at it. There isn’t one damned politician in uniform over there fightin’. You know it and I know it. And they’re blowin’ a lot of smoke.

ST: So this is a regular occurrence then? Guys getting hurt by our own munitions?

GM: Oh sure! Happens all the time. Friendly fire? Happens all the time.

ST: It seems like whenever we have a reported casualty in some military operation, It’s usually the result of a freak accident while unloading a stove from the back of a truck, or the amount of people killed is initially smaller than it actually turns out to be later…

GM: I know what you’re saying. You’ve got to understand something. You heard on TV, well, you know, ‘he lied,’ ‘he didn’t tell the truth,’ ‘be sure to take an oath,’ – well, hell – Everyone’s a liar. So are politicians, so’s the President of the United States, so’s guys in uniform. I mean, anyone that tells you anything is a liar. So, that’s the end of that story. You know they lie. [laughs]

I think what’s disturbing out this is that they made [the World Trade Center attack] sound like a Pearl Harbor, when it isn’t even close. And listen, I have all the sympathy and feeling in the world for the people that were killed there in those buildings. Believe me. But remember something, the federal government was formed for one reason and one reason only: to protect the 50 states that we have now. They didn’t do it – at Pearl Harbor, and they didn’t do it now! They screwed up! So, what did they do? They covered it up real fast. Didn’t they?

ST: They always cover their own asses.

GM: You heard what they said: ‘This is war. This is…’ What the hell does Bush know about war??

ST: How would you compare what Bush knows about war versus what FDR knew about war?

GM: FDR didn’t know anything about war. He was just a fantastic politician. That guy could twist a knot better than anyone. I loved him. For twelve years of my life, he was my President. And I’ll back Bush too. He’s my president. I don’t have to like him.

ST: What if Clinton was in office conducting this “war.” Would you back him?

GM: Well, you gotta look at it from [my viewpoint]. I’m 80 years old, and I’m tired of boys becoming president. It’s not good for the country. It really isn’t. You have to have more maturity than that. And we don’t have an elected president. We have a selected one.

ST: Do you think the 35 year old age requirement to become president is too young?

GM: Oh, sure! Sure. All you have to do is listen to him on TV. Listen to him talk. He’s a broken record. Same thing, over and over and over. But like I say, this is our system and I’ll protect it, and I’ll back my president and I’ll back those politicians – but I don’t have to like them.

ST: How would you compare the casualties at the World Trade Center with the number at Pearl Harbor?

GM: ‘Bout half. Bodies? – about half. We also lost a bunch of ships, and so forth. The difference now is this is people fighting against a certain class of people. Then, it was a country against a country…

ST: That’s a weird thing about this war. We’ve never declared war against Afghanistan and yet we’re committed to knocking out their governing body.

GM: I really don’t give a damn what they do over there and I’m gonna tell you why. Those people have been around. We’re a very young country. I’m 80, so I’m almost half the age of this country. We’re a little over 200 years old. China’s what? 5,000, 6,000 years old. We’re babies. We’re still growing in the eyes of those people and their leaders and so forth. They’re just waiting for us to stub our toe, to stumble. Anybody on top usually gets knocked down. You know, that’s the philosophy.

ST: It’s been said that Japan brought about the destruction of Germany by attacking Pearl Harbor. Now a comparison is being made that Bin Laden has brought about the destruction of the Taliban by attacking New York.

GM: That could be.

ST: But wouldn’t that presuppose that there’s a possible end to a so-called war on terrorism.

GM: There never will be an end to terrorism!

ST: That was going to be my next question. We were able to bring about an end to Germany as it existed at that time, but how do we bring about an end to people fighting for a religious ideal or concept?

GM: There’s a baby being born today that will be a terrorist. There’s a baby being born today that will be a doctor or a lawyer. Every generation has its downside.

ST: Especially when you have kids growing up today in Afghanistan being told that the United States killed their daddy.

GM: Well, that’s what they’re taught. We are what we were taught as kids. Let’s not kid ourselves. Your faith is what your mom and daddy told you. Your schooling is what your mom and daddy helped or didn’t help you with.

ST: And they’re already taught over there that America is the great Satan, so that’s compounded now by the death of loved ones caused by Americans…. So there could never be an end to a war on terrorism.

GM: Of course! What did we do when they bombed Pearl Harbor? What’d we say to that? I didn’t even know what the hell the Japanese was until the propaganda came out. Holy Heck! They had them raping my mother and my sisters and everything else – pictures all over the place gettin’ us mad.

ST: I imagine that back then, people called the Japanese any name they could think of…

GM: Some still do.

ST: Do you think that in today’s military, soldiers are not allowed to use names such as towelhead or camel jockey or whatever derogatory nicknames as soldiers have always done in wars?

GM: They can’t do that now. That’s one of the freedom’s that’s gone now.

ST: In your 80 years of life, what other freedoms would you say you’ve lost?

GM: I can’t go anyplace without feeling that I’m in a police state.

ST: Most people today wouldn’t know that…

GM: No, there’s no way of knowing. I wouldn’t blame them.

ST: What do you think of the news today?

GM: You know, I told Mrs. Miller, ‘Gee, I always thought we were the only ship fighting in the South Pacific till I came back home after the war and saw Victory at Sea and I said, ‘Gee, there was other ships? Wow! I didn’t know it was that big!’

[laughter]

ST: How about modern news reportage compared to the news 40 or 50 years ago?

GM: The media today has a bunch of idiots. An example, this morning on CNN. I forget who the lady is, a pretty lady and all that. [In a stupid sounding falsetto:] ‘How did you feel about your brother being killed when you first heard it? Give me your inside feelings….’ My wife and I go up the wall when we hear that. [laughs]

ST: Were reporters that stupid when you were younger, listening on the radio?

GM: They weren’t like that. They were really factual people. CNN does it because they have to fill time slots. Walter Winchell – he didn’t have to fill anything.

ST: I talked to a guy once who said he was at Pearl Harbor and that he knew for a fact that we knew in advance about the imminent attack on Pearl Harbor but that there was deliberately no warning given so that the attack could be used as a justification for entering the war in Europe.

GM: Oh, there’s no hush-hush about that. There’s a book that’s been written on it. We knew we were gonna get hit, but they didn’t know where it was gonna happen.

ST: I guess it might be a conspiracy theory then that we knew the exact location where the Japanese were going to attack. Apparently FDR promised during his campaign that he would not bring our country into the war, but then allowed the Pearl Harbor attack to take place so that Americans would demand that he break his word and enter us into the war.

GM: Well, that’s what you’re hearing now. How much of that is true – I don’t know. I think Churchill had something to do with that. He wanted us in. We were isolationists. I can’t remember the name of the book I read about it, but if you ever pick it up, all your questions will be answered. And in the back of the book, he had a statement in there that there is still stuff that the United States Navy will not release.

ST: Stuff dating back to WWII?

GM: Yes. A lot has been released under the Freedom of Information Act. But to have things remain secret is a piece of cake. I worked for the government at one time. Everybody had Secret stamps. If you didn’t want anything to go anyplace, you went [stamps an imaginary paper] ‘Top Secret’. It could be a piece of toilet paper and it would still be Top Secret. That’s common. They do that all the time. That’s another freedom we’ve lost. It used to be you could know what was going on.

ST: It seems to me that there was a time when reporters would resent being given “spin” and they worked to find out the truth of a matter. Now they see it as their duty to deliver the spin to us as provided to them by the White House. What happened to the old style, real reporters?

GM: That kind of guy – the classy reporters are gone. Today, it’s showmanship. It’s a big difference. You can blame the boob tube – a lot of these reporters today were born with that. That’s the only life they know.

ST: Getting back to the World Trade Center…

GM: I had a guy come up to me and ask me what I thought about the towers being hit. I said it was a terrible tragedy. Just terrible. But I said to him, ‘You’re talking to a guy whose generation saw England bombed. France bombed. Germany all wiped out. Japan. We’ve seen it before.’ It is terrible. But what’s the motto of Pearl Harbor survivors?

ST: I don’t know.

GM: Stay alert. Keep America as it always has been, and it always will be. But they didn’t do it. They screwed up. But you can’t blame anyone. We had a president before this one, and one before that one, ya know. You have to say that the federal government who was supposed to protect these states – these independent states – that’s what we are – we have different laws. The only laws that are the same over all the states are the federal laws….

ST: Do you think the federal government is too busy being involved in all the duties that it’s taken upon itself rather than doing the specific 19 things delegated to it by the people?

GM: When they take it upon themselves, that’s terrible. And sometimes they do. But what happens is when John Doe citizen or Mrs. Citizen says, “There oughta be a law… I’m gonna tell my congressman. I’m gonna tell my senator.” Then the politician tries to appease him, and he gets [the law] through. What’s that mean? 50% like it and 50% don’t like it. I had a judge tell me that the minute they pass a new law, there’ll be five thousand new people in jail.

ST: Every time you pass a new law, you make a new class of citizens into criminals that weren’t criminals the day before.

GM: You got it. You see, what was permissible when I was a boy isn’t permissible today, but that doesn’t mean we were criminals then.

ST: Like bringing guns to school today.

GM: [laughs] You know, I’ll tell you something. Before going to Vermont, I lived in New York City in Brooklyn. And the Mafia was running everywhere, Dillinger was running around, BabyFace Nelson, you know, they were shooting each other up and all that stuff, but they didn’t bother civilians with their crap. And we had cops all over the place, walking the streets. They had their own streets. A city block was mighty long. And I never saw a city cop with a gun.

ST: They didn’t have them?

GM: I’m sure they probably had them underneath their long coats, but I never saw one. Now you look on TV – God, I saw a woman policeman who looked like she was a Green Beret. [laughs]

ST: Have you seen the ones that look like some kind of armed, commando ninjas?

GM: Ever since Viet Nam, they’re all dressed in fatigues, and when they surround a building, God Almighty, they have 50 cars and it’s all for one or two guys inside.

ST: Speaking of the loss of liberties in our country, what do you think of the USA PATRIOT Act that’s supposed to increase the government’s power to track down terrorists?

GM: I don’t like anything that gives the federal government more power. I don’t like that. If they can specifically say that it will protect the 50 states – it doesn’t say Florida, it doesn’t say Vermont, or Texas, any of the 50 states – if they could come up with something that would do that, I’m for it. But what they do is say, ‘let’s try this and see how it works. Let’s just try this.’

ST: The government’s response to every crisis situation is to grant itself more power to prevent situations that the excessive power they’d previously granted themselves was insufficient to prevent, because the solution is never more power for the government, so it’s a never ending cycle.

GM: You gotta be careful how you say that. You’re saying ‘government.’

ST: Federal government.

GM: The federal government is made up of people. Like you and me.

ST: But we’ve also got various law enforcement agencies, the Justice Department – and they want less restraint.

GM: Americans love to screw each other. I don’t understand it. I’ve been to other countries and gee, those people love to get along with each other. For some reason, over here, “You sonofabitch! I’m gonna sue you!” “I’ll blow your brains out!”

[laughing]

GM: What the hell’s the matter with us?

ST: Are we just more combative than other people?

GM: Of course we are. Are you kidding? That’s our nature. Because that’s the way we was raised ever since Paul Revere started riding from the British. You know, after we got through with the British, we took care of the Indians…

ST: I read that our country has been involved in more military operations than any other country on earth, but many of them we wouldn’t know about…

GM: Since WWII, there’s been over 350 wars on this planet.

ST: We say we’re a peace-loving nation, and yet we’re always involved in, if not an actual war, some type of military “conflict” or operation somewhere.

GM: That’s the biggest mistake we ever made, when we became the police force for the entire world. And that’s why you get people P.O.’d at you.

ST: You said earlier that when someone wants a new law, lawmakers will try to appease people and pass the laws. Do you think that perhaps the federal government has been involved in that type of thing, not only in this country, but world-wide appeasement and thus creating problems as a result of not focusing on those specific duties that the government was instituted to perform?

GM: Let me throw this at you. Just prior to those planes hitting those buildings, all over the news were stories about some senator [Gary Condit] screwing some girl [Sandra Levy] who then disappeared, and mom and pop were on TV all the time. They still haven’t found her. The next day, you never heard a word and I haven’t heard a word about him ever since. And they’re not even thinking about firing this guy. Now, doesn’t that answer a question for you? What do we really care about? Dramatization. Ya know? ‘It sells! It sells!’

ST: It’s almost like ambulance chasing.

GM: There ya go. That’s a good way of put

ting it.

ST: Like this morning there was a shooting at a workplace in Goshen, Indiana and that became the big ‘breaking news’. Reports of a hundred officers on the scene. SWAT teams there. Up to thirty-five people shot….

Police in Goshen, Indiana at the Nu Wood shooting

GM: Localization has been taken away from us. When I was a boy, running around Brooklyn, do you think Texas gave a damn what John Dillinger was doing in New York?

ST: No.

GM:Hell no, they didn’t. Texas had their own Rangers chasing someone else. Each state in the country was taking care of its self. Now, we’re becoming a state. Not fifty – we’re becoming one state.

The Storyteller

The storyteller awoke before dawn. He opened his eyes and saw just a little less black than when he was looking at the back of his eyelids. Off in the distance was the fire. He saw the orange glow peripherally and did not turn to look at it directly. It occurred to him that it would be good to look over there and confirm that the firekeeper was still awake, but he wanted to utilize the darkness and the not-quite-awake state of mind that he awoke in.

He used this time to practice the art of perception. What could he sense right now without his eyes? He smelled the musty, tangy odor of the animal skin he used as a blanket. Of course he could smell the fire. It almost went unnoticed because it was always there and it was usually only noticeable upon re-entry from outside. But he could smell it now because he was focusing his mind on everything he could possibly smell.

He could smell the remains of the charred meat from last night’s meal. It was barely there since it emanated from the sticks that were held over the fire to cook the meat, but it was definitely there. Noticing it made him hungry for the first meal. He tried to ignore that feeling and return his focus to what else he could perceive.

He could smell the people. That was another odor that was always present and then faded out due to its constant presence. He could smell their old sweat. It wasn’t the same as it was just after they had labored. It was strong at those times and assaulted the senses. Now it was the way they smelled some time later after they’d relaxed and it had dried.

His sleeping place was far from where the little ones slept, but still, he could smell that some had released their waste during the night and needed to be cleaned. This was the worst of the smells, and it was strong, even way back here. He was sure that the wind carried it all the way to where he slept.

He thought he detected a trace of the much nicer smell of the women, some of whom rubbed the pleasant scent of flowers on their skin, but the nice scent was overwhelmed by the odor of waste from the babies. He would like to be alone with a flower-smelling woman and have the opportunity to fully enjoy that pleasant smell untainted by all of the others. But so far, that was just a wish.

Among the people, he was almost as revered as their leader. He had a special duty, and because of his high status , women did not approach him and speak to him as they did the other men. When he spoke to them, they smiled and looked away. They enjoyed his attention but none could return it as his equal. His status was too high, and so they adored him, but feared him at the same time. It was a sad irony. He was gifted with the adoration of everyone, and yet he was equal to none, and therefore, he was set apart, excluded from so much that was a normal part of life with the people. He had never coupled with a woman. The desire to do so grew stronger every day. Perhaps he should discuss this with the leader. He was wise and could probably offer a solution. But no, he knew what he would be advised: Take one when you need one. He could, and he should do that, but for some reason, he only wanted one who wanted to be taken by him.

Just as he was about to shift his focus to sounds to see if he could detect anything behind the chorus of respiration between his place and the entrance, the wail of a baby who had just woken filled the cave. Most of the clan would wake now. The normal sounds of the day would take over as the people got up and performed their morning tasks and started a new day. The time for practice was over.

He shifted his focus from what he could perceive around him to thoughts of the day that awaited him. He stretched out on his fur and yawned. He looked forward to the day and the excitement it promised. The hunters were going out. He and one woman would accompany them. Their responsibilities were no less important than that of the hunters.

Before he rose, he mentally expressed a wish. May the hunters find food quickly and safely, and may the medicine woman heal any who become injured; and may his mind be sharp enough to bring the story back to the people well enough so that they could feel the excitement of what it was like to have been there. He added one more secret desire. May the hunt and the story of the hunt be good enough (and told well enough) that the leader would command that it be added to the cave wall.

Such a story would outlive him and it would be there for those not yet born to be read and be enjoyed long after he was gone.

***

The storyteller placed the wedge on the table alongside all of the other wedges. He was relieved that his work was complete. It was tedious, boring, and in his opinion, barely useful. Maybe someday people would actually want to read about the daily activities of the king, but not every day included anything worth writing, or reading. He wished some days could be skipped, or that he could at least be able to write, “Nothing important happened today.“

But how would he even write that? Maybe he could write the words for rising sun, the king, and then the rising moon. With nothing in between, maybe people would understand that the king was simply king for another day, and the absence of anything else would be the clue that there was nothing significant to write that day.

Although his job was often tedious and boring – chronicling every day in the King’s life – he was well aware that it was a far better job than his fellow scribes had. Most of them worked for merchants and they toiled day after day, recording transactions. He thanked the gods he didn’t have to write receipts each day. Being the King’s scribe was certainly a better post in life. But it wasn’t one filled with glory and prestige as his merchant scribe friends assumed it was. It was often as dull and routine as their own jobs.

He cleaned up his work area for the night, wrapping his wedges in a long piece of leather and tying it off before placing it at the edge of his table. He carefully moved the tablets one at a time over to the drying rack. He returned to the table and used his hands to sweep the clay debris into one spot on the table then carefully brushed it with one hand toward another hand pressed against the edge of the table. He dropped the small pile into a basket to be given later to a vegetable grower who used the small dried pieces to throw at birds who descended on his fledgling crops.

After cleaning his work area, he returned to his room and lay down, letting his mind wander. He was still thinking of his friend the farmer and he imagined a bird like none in existence coming down to steal a tomato. He imagined this bird being so huge that it was undeterred by the pebbles hurled at it by Ur-enki. He watched the story play out in his mind.

The giant bird of the air took one tomato after another into his mouth, swallowing them whole. He suddenly becomes aware of Ur-enki and the steady barrage of pebbles pelting his left wing and turns to look at Ur-enki with eyes that reveal no emotion or soul. They are cold and unfeeling, but alive and glaring. Suddenly the bird hops toward the man who is attempting to assault him, flapping his wings just a little to aid in his forward progress, but not enough to take to the air.

Ur-enki jumps up and runs, at first not knowing where he is going. His only thought is to run away; to reach safety and escape the pursuing bird. Then he thinks in terms of fighting this beast. If he doesn’t, it will eat his entire crop and Ur-enki will become a beggar. He turns and runs toward his farming tools. He spots the best possible weapon which he hasn’t used since the beginning of spring. He reaches the row of farming tools and grabs his harvesting sickle. He turns and braces himself for confrontation with the beast-bird.

The bird is undeterred by the sight of the harvesting sickle and charges Ur-enki, bending his long neck and leaning forward, his snapping beak coming in for the kill. Ur-enki swings the sickle, embedding it in the large bird’s neck. The bird screams out an awful squawk as it falters, turning its eyes upward to look at Ur-enki as it falls to the ground. Ur-enki then imagines the king and his guests having a feast with the bird as the main course. It’s delicious and everyone praises the unlikely hunter who provided this remarkable and rare feast.

Late that night, Ur-enki sneaks into his workroom, walking slowly and concentrating to keep from spilling the oil in his lamp. He fetches his tools, then goes down into the cool room and takes some clay. He is aware that this would count as stealing since what he is about to write does not involve any activities of the king, and even worse, this is nothing but the product of his imagination. How could he justify the waste of materials for a story that has no truth? It is like scribing a dream. He laughs. He’s about to scribe the dream of a scribe.

He quickly imprints his story on tablets and places them in the window to dry quickly. The idea thrills him despite his fear; to tell a tale that never even happened, and to do so just for entertainment. Maybe one day he will be bold and offer it to the king as a gift. He might be applauded and gain status for this rebellious act. Or he might lose his head.


***

Stephen finished reading the latest edition of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and extinguished his lamp. As he lay in bed with his mind swirling with thoughts of Arthur and Merlyn, he wondered if he could pen his own ideas someday, and then somehow find a way to get them printed. Maybe he would be lucky enough to have occasion to drive for the passenger he had driven earlier today; a man by the name of Gutenberg who talked about an invention of his that would revolutionize printing forever.

But even if he was able to get in touch with Gutenberg one way or another, he doubted the man would publish his ideas. Stephen was nothing but a carriage driver and he would never be a nobleman. His only chance of being recognized as an author and getting his work printed would be if he married into royalty or acquired friends in very high places.

It wasn’t fair. Malory was known in multiple countries, and everyone who could read talked about his tales of King Arthur – which weren’t even his own tales. Malory didn’t come up with them. Stephen however, had ideas that had not been told over the centuries. They had not been acted out on the stage. They were his original conjurations. He had thought them up.

Stephen decided that the following morning, since he was free of his duties for the day, he would spend his savings to purchase parchment, a quill, and ink in sufficient quantity to write down one of the story ideas that swam about his mind day after day. He had no interest in poems and he only thought of his stories as just that, stories, but he felt they were good enough for the stage, and possibly even good enough to be read – if he could get them printed.

The next day he returned home with his supplies. He couldn’t wait to get started. His only problem was deciding on which tale he would commit to parchment first. Eventually, he decided to write the tale of the thief who snuck into a Lord’s castle and ended up getting caught by the Lady, who became smitten with him and carried on a love-affair with him until the Lord died one day. The thief believed she would then allow their relationship to become public and perhaps even marry him, but in the end, she rebukes him for she first must mourn, and then after sufficient time has passed, she must entertain suitors to re-marry someone of noble blood.

The first half of the story was one of Stephen’s fantasies that he daydreamed about on long rides to pick up a passenger from far away. The second half was how he assumed such a scenario would eventually play out if it should ever happen in real life. But an audience could be led along by the story and hope for the hero to win the Lady’s love.

Stephen began writing the story. He infused it with frightful tension as the thief snuck into the castle. He imagined the audience being jolted with fear as the thief is caught by Lady Wexford. Then the mood would change and the audience would be shocked and outraged as the Lady falls for the thief and kisses him while the Lord lies sleeping not far from where they stand. He knew this scene would be controversial, but he felt the world needed something new, something modern, and something theoretically possible.

Stephen ended up using more parchment and ink than he had ever imagined. He hadn’t thought about the fact that he might make mistakes and have to start entire pages over again. But eventually, he finished the story and felt a supreme satisfaction that he had never known before. And now the truly hard work began; finding a publisher and praying that someday his story would make it to the theatre.


***

The old storyteller sat in his house and cursed the cold draft that chilled his stocking feet. He could not get them to warm up unless he dragged his chair over to the fire. He was born with the arrival of Halley’s comet and he knew for a certainty that he would die with its return in just over a few weeks. If his conviction was correct, he didn’t have much time left. With the house blessedly empty for a change, there were a few things he wanted to do before everyone returned and ordered him back to bed, which was the right and proper place to die as far as all were concerned.

He had enjoyed success around the world with his books and his speaking engagements where people gladly paid to hear him tell stories. But now at the end of his life, he did not derive pleasure from looking back on his career. He’d had a good run as an author. He’d made a lot of money, but he’d lost a ton of it too. Life was funny that way. He almost wondered for the millionth time, what if he had invested in the linotype instead of the compositor, but he swatted that thought like a fly. He’d kicked himself in the head enough already. He no longer had the luxury of wasting time on fool’s errands; not even mental ones.

He glanced over at his vanity bookshelf that held one copy each of the books he had written. He felt a calm and grateful assurance that Clara would not have trouble providing for herself. Intelligence is not hereditary, but money will suffice in its absence, he thought, resisting the temptation to ponder another age-old mystery. He second-guessed his decision to allow Clara to publish his most controversial manuscripts which he could never bring himself to burn. The Christians will probably dig up my corpse and give it a lynching. Man loves to hate as much as he loves to love, and the object of one is equally good for the other.

As he thought of his long-awaited good fortune at finally being relieved of this confounding coexistence with a populace consisting mainly of idiots, he shook his head and resolved to turn his last thoughts to the few good things in life. The bad things had consumed his energy and good will for far too long already. He took a deep breath and let the force and lure of negativity deflate along with his lungs.

He thought of sunlight flashing like diamonds on a stream. Roses startled and trembling under assault by drops of rain. Gay smiles and fairy laughter from pretty and still innocent girls. Ah… his Angel Fish. Now there was a fine place to lay his mind to rest in advance of his body doing the same. A sad smile slowly reshaped his face, pushing through the resistance forged by anger, grief and melancholy.

His Angel Fish girls were among the few things that could make him smile since the loss of his wife and two of his daughters; the second one just several months ago. Dorothy. Sweet Dorothy. His favorite Angel Fish. She deserved a goodbye letter from him. And if he was wrong about the comet and still alive after it passed, he wouldn’t post the letter. Best to write it now, no matter his fate. What if he did survive Halley’s comet, regained his health and took a walk, then got smacked into oblivion by one of Ford’s motor-cars driven by a jubilant friend racing over to celebrate his revival? The raspy sound pushing through his whiskers would’ve once been recognized as laughter. Best to write the letter now to be safe.

My Dear angel-fish Dorothy,

It is with the utmost regret that I must inform you that your upcoming trip to Redding, should you decide to follow through with it after reading this letter, will not include a visit with me in which I will be able to engage in conversation. It is not for lack of desire, nor physical illness, but for the reason that (I believe) I shall no longer be an animated member of the human race.

I implore you to not feel sadness at this news. By the time you hold this letter in your hands, I will already have been deceased for several weeks and be finding the experience quite enjoyable. Consider me to be re-united with Jean and Susy. If there is an afterlife, and the evidence suggests that there must be, I will not rest until I find them. No man or spirit will have sufficient strength to prevent such a reunion.

Before my departure which (as I indicated to you on your last visit) will coincide with the departure of Halley’s comet, I wanted to convey my immeasurable gratitude for your friendship, the joy you brought to my final years and the light that still shines in my heart when I merely contemplate that someone as wonderful as you exists and breathes and lightens this world which can be such an awful and cruel place for some.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, dearest Dorothy.

I will be leaving something behind for you that is not mentioned in my will. (Jervis will contact you directly.) In addition to that material token of my love, I will attempt, if the metaphysical landscape in which I find myself allows for it, to watch over you and keep you safe.

You are in my heart as I leave, and I hope I remain in yours.

Love eternally,

S.L. Clemens



***

The storyteller knew that he was born to be a writer. He had always been one, although not one who could point and say, “There. That is a book that I authored. See it on that bookstore shelf.” He knew that writers were born and not made, and that he was born one. To the world though, he was nothing and nobody. Few people knew he was a writer. Those who were most acquainted with his manuscripts were the editors of the publishing houses who sent him rejection letters over the years. He might never be known as a writer to anyone else – at least not with his track-record of rejection.

He sat in the guard shack looking at his laptop screen. He had just completed his fifth, and he insisted to himself, his final revision of his latest novel. He felt an absurd mixture of emotions. On one hand, he was elated. This was his best work ever. He loved the story, and he was sure that others would too. A lifetime of escalating skill had gone into this book. He felt he had reached some sort of peak in his creative ability.

But that meant it was time for the next step – submitting it to publishers and living with the ensuing hope, fear, and eventual depression that came from the rejection. Did editors even read his submissions? It was true he did not have an agent and his submissions were unsolicited, but did they ever think that there were talented people in the world who were capable of writing a good book but who were perhaps lacking in the skill of acquiring a literary agent?

This was the source of the other half of his feelings which countered his happiness. He was elated at the completion of what he was certain was a great novel, and yet facing the ridiculous task of trying to find someone willing to give it a fair reading and whether or not it would be allowed to see the light of day; to let readers have a chance to make their own judgment of it.

“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” had been rejected 121 times before someone finally decided to grant Robert Pirsig access to readers by publishing his book, and then it sold over 5 million copies. Was Pirsig’s book of poor quality before the 122nd publisher accepted it? No. He just wasn’t given a chance. The first 121 people who looked at it decided for the reading populace that they wouldn’t be interested in it. And thus Pirsig was not a good author, or even a real author until William Morrow Publishers signed him on.

Ted couldn’t imagine being told 121 times that his book was no good and continuing to seek out someone who felt otherwise. He didn’t want to do it. He couldn’t go through it again. He didn’t know how Robert Pirsig, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling and others could just keep submitting their work, rejection after rejection. The system was broken. The same thing applied in music. Ted wondered how it felt to be the man who turned down The Beatles. Or one of the 33 people who told Jack Canfield that “Chicken Soup for the Soul” would never sell, before it sold over 80 million copies.

Ted tried to tell himself that maybe it was just a matter of time. Maybe this time, someone would realize that his story was good and people would at least like it, if not love it. Maybe he wouldn’t be rejected this time. He tried to convince himself to go out and buy some envelopes and stamps and go through the motions once more of submitting to the all of the publishers he had addresses for. But he couldn’t do it.

He imagined yet another editor reading the first paragraph of his unsolicited manuscript, tossing his ten months of mental labor into the trash, printing off a pre-written rejection letter and giving it to his secretary to place in the next day’s outgoing mail. He couldn’t go through it all again. Each rejection letter was an invalidation of his ability as a writer.

He started to feel depressed and thought maybe he wouldn’t even bother this time. He’d just write for himself. But that didn’t make any sense. Stories were meant to be told. If he was going to just write for himself, he might as well not bother letting the stories out of his head and on to the page. He couldn’t stop writing even if he wanted to. He didn’t choose to be a writer. It’s just what he was. Ideas came to him. Characters were born in his mind, unbidden. Plots formed, tensions developed, love and betrayal happened.

A writer’s mind is like a small universe where a Big Bang happened and worlds go hurling through it, waiting to observed and communicated to others. No one chooses to have this burning passion to create characters and bring them to life just to have them float around in their minds forever. A writer writes because he’s a writer. Not because he wants to, or to make money. Whether it was a blessing or a curse, it’s what he was.

If he couldn’t stand another rejection letter, he conceded that there was one other option. He could self-publish. But then he remembered a man who lived down the street from his childhood home. He had a garage full of boxes containing copies of a book he had printed by a vanity publisher. He probably still had all of them decades later. Ted did not want to be that man. But he decided to see what his options were these several decades later.

One week later, after studying self-publishing every night at work, and reading every blog post that JA Konrath had ever written, Ted felt sufficiently knowledgeable about the process to self-publish his latest book online. He felt confident that he could have this book online and available for purchase by the end of the weekend.

By Sunday night, his book was “live” on Amazon.com, but no one in the world but him knew it was there. He didn’t know what to do next. Now he had to find a way to let people know that the book was published. It existed now and could be read anywhere in the world. It felt great not having to rely on someone employed by a publisher to allow him through the gate and become a published author.

But, he wondered, was he an author now? Did self-publishing count? At what point could he distinguish himself from someone who typed “poop” on a page and uploaded it to the internet? How could he gain recognition as a serious and talented writer when he was unknown to the world?

Would he only truly become an author once he made it onto a best-seller list? Or was he already an author because he had written several books – whether or not they were published by himself or anyone else? Ted thought about this for a while and pondered the question: what is an author?

The dictionary said he was an author because he had written books. Society would more than likely only see him as an author when they saw his books on shelves or on tables in bookstores. He could describe himself as a self-published or “indie” author, which did not have anywhere near the clout of a traditionally published author – not until a traditional publisher picked up the indie and put the publisher’s name on the book.

Ted continued thinking about what an author was and eventually concluded that an author was a storyteller, no matter how the story was told. The dictionary said that an author was the writer of a book. But what about in the time before there were books? Before there was such a thing as printing. Before there was even a form of writing by which a story could be recorded? Well, there had been storytellers long before the printed word existed.

Storytelling went back to the dawn of time. Ted snickered as it occurred to him that his craft was the true “oldest profession.” He was a modern day man engaged in a craft that boasted a legacy older than just about any other in the history of man. It was ancient, and uncommon. There were seven billion people on the planet. The percentage of them who could conceive a story idea and then have the necessary skill to put that story into words and entertain others with it was relatively small.

For the sake of the argument he was conducting with his own internal monologue, he decided to pick a practical number. If there were 100,000 authors in the entire world, that would mean that they made up only 0.00001% percent of the global population. If a million authors existed in the world, then they were still only 0.01% of all people. Ted saw clearly that he belonged to a very special and elite group of people on the planet. Not everyone could be a storyteller.

Ted didn’t know what the future held for him as far his storytelling went, but he was proud of himself for being one. It was a gift that he was born with, and through his effort and dedication, he had honed his skill and made it better and better as he aged and practiced his craft. He felt it was definitely something to be proud of.

He closed the lid of his laptop, grabbed his clipboard and keys and stepped outside into the cold, windy night to drive around the facility. It was boring, and no one ever trespassed or tried to break into the chemical plant, but that was his job so it had to be done.

He got into his security vehicle and started the engine. He thought that he should go back in and give the car time to warm up, but he decided to just brave the cold. It would take longer to warm up the car than it would take to drive around the entire property at five miles per hour.

He sat there watching his breath for a minute and was thankful for modern technology. In a few minutes the vents would begin blowing warm air into the car. He imagined a time before technology, when heaters didn’t exist. He thought all the way back to how the first people must’ve gathered around a fire to keep themselves warm. His smile was lit up by the dashboard lights. They probably had storytellers back then too.

It occurred to Ted that he was keeping the flame of creativity and entertainment alive by telling stories in modern times. His book on Amazon may not ever reach a million people. It might not ever appear on a bestseller list. But some people would read it. If it entertained those people and they had joy in their lives for some small measure of time, then he was glad to be the author who gave them that joy.

His was a special calling. He decided not to tarnish it or belittle it based on such modern measures of success as, number of units sold, or published by so-and-so, or two thumbs up by John Doe of the Daily Blab. Just being a storyteller was sufficient. The only difference it would make if a million people bought his book instead of ten people, is he’d be able to quit his job and write full-time. But then again, he laughed to himself, being a night watchman with nothing official to do for 55 minutes out of every hour, he was already getting paid to write his books.

He shifted the car into drive and slowly cruised the property, smiling and thinking about the plot of his next novel.