R.J. Smith's Blog: THE MADHOUSE, page 13

Frenchy’s Sugar Sand Festival

I needed to get out and find my way along the sun drenched surf and find my mojo.

So, there I was, researching background for my next book,  BEACH BODIES. I had two locations in mind.

Clearwater and Miami Beach…

For a while I was leaning towards Clearwater because I wanted to showcase the wonderful beaches.

But after being rebuffed by Clearwater and being told their city was a “family” destination and didn’t want to be associated  with a serial killer novel on the west coat of  Florida, I called my closest allies, consulted south Florida associates and can now announce… the backdrop of the book will showcase the excellent Miami Beach Police Department,  the wonderful South Florida hot-spots, mysterious attractions…. and let’s not forget the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean and Ocean Drive.

It is, after-all…  an international destination with tropical flare.

But, this weekend, I went to Frenchy’s Sugar Sand Festival (April 27, 2013) … located at Pier 60 on Clearwater Beach.

The water… it really is clear, I went-in and checked it all out.

There I was… walking  through a thousand tons of  sugar-sand which had been sculpted into sandcastle exhibits. During the VIP walk-through, I  witnessed the display inside a 12,000-square-foot tent.

 (I guess it was that big – but I didn’t measure)

I was here to see exactly what the set up was. I wanted to understand the process of sand sculpting… how I might set up scenes for the possible Clearwater novel and maybe… I’d even find a sculptor or two (I found three) who I’d conspire with in designing the cover of Book Two in my FBI Serial Killer series.

I schmoozed with the artists, spoke with attendees and scared the living shit outta a few promoters when they mistakenly asked about the book I was researching.

“My killer will be murdering touristy types and burying them beneath sandcastles….”

Not sure how the city will like the premise… after-all…  I will be killing-off the very people they try to attract… the all important tourists.

HA – HA –  HA – HA – HA …. GULP!!!!

“Look at it this way”,  I said… but wasn’t really convincing….  ”the tourists will be laying on your beach reading about my killer stalking them in their hotel rooms.”

Half  hidden frowns and fully raised eyebrows were detected here… and I swore the Clearwater Police Officer over under the tent turned his attention my way for a look or two.

CLEARWATER is obviously not interested in dark thrillers.

          On the way home back to Belleair… I think I spotted an unmarked with three burly guys inside.

BUT SERIOUSLY…… The fact is this…………..

I met a lot of great people, was amazed at the artistic sculptors and got a few ideas along the way – and a sunburn… but what the hell, this is Florida and if it didn’t have burning sun-rays.. what the heck?

So, onward and upward…  at least there were no great white sharks named Bessie the Beast, Jessie Jaws or the Great Eater… but that’s another story for another time. Cataclysm is coming along, and those beasts in that tale are hungry.

Damn… I am getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? It’s those darn voices which whisper into my head… chattering, mumbling their nasty little opinions. SHUT UP!!

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes… the Clearwater event… hanging out on the sugar sand beach, the hot sand burning the soles of my feet, the UV light scorching mypale white skin… and the man-eaters waiting just off shore… the voices warned I shouldn’t get into the water.

I still have dreams about the water…

And the corners of my thoughts STILL  tug with that once horrid question from JAWS…  

“Is it safe to get back into the water?”

I went IN… screw it... what was the worst that could happen besides a shark ripping off my head and running off a few Canadians? 

Well… it didn’t happen – the northerners are still here and I can say with all confidence that I did survive Clearwater Beach, its sun, the hordes of out-of-towners who attended the event and ….

Well, here I now sit telling you about sharks.

For that tale, you’ll have to wait for certain CATACLYSM to hit the shelves of Barnes & Noble,

So, if you get to Clearwater, FLA, tell the officer I said hello and do me one other little favor? Don’t tell them about the bodies my killer hid under the main-tent … that’s a surprise.

As for the event… I’ll leave that for others to recommend. My opinions lay in the pages the international best-sellers I pen and the characters which grace my world. They will have a thing or two two say in BEACH BODIES, I am sure.

Til next time… go out to a beach and have fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE FRAUD OF A FEW

Friends, fans and entertainment insiders:
Facebook has allowed a Nigerian national
(https://www.facebook.com/james.moses.948?fref=ts)
to claim he is the CEO of my entity RJ SMITH PRODUCTIONS.
This claim is fraudulent, infringes on my trademark, copyrights and multiple registrations of intellectual properties.
Please realize I, the entity: RJ SMITH – do NOT KNOW THIS PERSON, he does not represent me, has never written any of my properties and is in no way connected to me PERSONALLY, PROFESSIONALLY and certainly not INTELLECTUALLY.
Facebook has refused to address this issue, and I am currently filing next level infringement paperwork and working with my lawyer if this is not addressed by Facebook.



James Moses

WORKING ON A CATACLYSM

This month has been busy. It started out with a trip to Arizona where I met with some of the best UFO researchers the world over.

Then, on to Los Angeles I roamed, where I met my friend, Carol, a producer and writer.

We had drinks in Marina Del Rey. It was there, sometime during my third margarita, where were spoke of future movie projects.

The next day, I stalked the  Hollywood Walk of Fame,  where the pulse of the crowd sent electricity through the air.

If you’ve never been to L.A., I highly recommend you  add the experience to your personal bucket-list.

It is there, along the storied sidewalks, where I found myself at home.

I love Hollywood Boulevard. There’s something magical about it.

That sense which courses through the veins that whisper anything might happen.

Up in the hills, surrounding the Walk of Fame, that’s where the stars reside, and I could imagine them peering down the ridge where we ordinary folks get caught up in the celebrity of it all.

Hollywood, its a place where dreams are envisioned and then sometimes find themselves shattered along the path you traveled.  Thousands come here to find stardom, but unfortunately, most return to their hometowns with their tail between their legs and failure in the heart.

Making it big in HOLLYWOOD has nothing to do with talent. But rather, attaining success in the land of broken promises must come by making the right connections.

It’s all about who you know, and then, you must have a bit of talent.

You  must have a strong will within your soul to succeed,  a desire to never to give up.

YOU HAVE TO WANT IT!

 

The doors to the kingdom are locked tight, but there are keys to the locks… hidden throughout the valley – in the deep pockets of power-people who seek out new special projects.

Big shots are looking, seeking the next big thing. Yet, what that next thing is… well, nobody knows what lingers in the minds of those with the power to expand the dream.

As a writer of screenplays and novels, I stalk the shadows. I lurk back behind the curtain where plots are birthed. I pen the tales, and then savor  twisting the knife deep in the muscle of my story. I give life to my characters and set them free to roam the streets in search of their destiny.

That is what placed me aboard a Boeing-757 for the six hour plane ride across the country to New York City. I had come here to sign an OPTION CONTRACT for my 2012 screenplay, DESTINY/HARD KNOCKS.  It was the first piece of literature I ever wrote.

The script follows my life growing up on the streets of Manhattan and explains how I found redemption and success in writing.

My manager, Julie Stern, was the first person who  discovered my talent and prodded me to continue along this path.

It’s a path littered with broken dreams…..

So, there I was last week, two days after my visit to L.A., walking down Broadway in the heart of Times Square, ready to sign the deal which may one day become a motion picture.

Feelings of excitement filled my soul. I was home, I’d come full circle in a life torn by demons and monsters of every imaginable form.

I had vanquished the things which sought to slaughter me. I had made it, there was purpose in life, a reason to place one foot before the other and walk on… my head held high, a bounce to my step.

Ah, before me lay New York City in March.  Behind me, Los Angeles, and my prospects seem great,

And then, at 3:30 p.m., I hailed a taxi (and grabbed by balls in fear of certain death) as the cab swerved and honked its horn. My body shook with the knowledge that at any moment the cabbie would crash into something.

But the disaster never came and I found myself at Paddy Riley’s for a meeting with my  Literary Agent,  Joyce Keating.

I was a bundle of nerves, she had just read my new book, THE SANTA CLAUS KILLER, and we were scheduled to discuss the agency’s plan going forward to find a publisher.

We talked for hours, caught in the grasp of the story. And I found something out that day, I had a fan in addition to an agent.

And damn, what else could a guy ask for?

 

 

 

HANGING OUT WITH ALIENS

It is early March 2013, and I have just returned home from the 22nd Annual Convention & Film Festival at the International UFO Congress.  It was held February 27th through March 3rd within the Fort McDowell Resort and Casino in Fountain Hills, Arizona.  http://ufocongress.com.  There, nestled among the rolling, jagged mountainous terrain I discovered the best of the best the world has to offer in reference to UFOLOGY. I discussed the Ancient Astronaut theory, watched video evidence and read multiple texts – these,  they were the tireless men and women who research the topic seeking disclosure.

It was a privilege to spend time with Mr. Stanton T. Friedman, a nuclear physicist and world-renowned UFO expert. He explained to me how close we are to achieving interstellar travel.  We talked of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction and his belief that this case was one of the most telling of all MISSING TIME accounts backed up by evidence. The couple’s story, called the Hill Abduction, and, occasionally, the Zeta Reticuli Incident, was that they had been kidnapped for a short time by a UFO. Theirs was the first widely-publicized claim of alien abduction, adapted into the best-selling 1966 book The Interrupted Journey and the 1975 television movie The UFO Incident.

Then, I met with longtime Author, journalist and TV personality Nick Pope who used to run the British Government’s UFO project at the Ministry of Defense.  Initially skeptical,  his research and investigation into the UFO phenomenon and access to classified government files on the subject soon convinced him that the phenomenon raised important defense and national security issues, especially when the witnesses were military pilots, or where UFOs were tracked on radar. 

While working on the MoD’s UFO project Nick Pope also looked into alien abductions, crop circles, animal mutilations, remote viewing and ghosts. He is now recognized as a leading authority on UFOs, the unexplained and conspiracy theories. He does extensive media work, lectures all around the world and has acted as presenter, consultant or contributor on numerous TV and radio shows.

Nick is an amazing person to speak with, listen to and from whom to soak up information. His words are like daggers which slice into the meat and bones of the matter leaving no doubt of his beliefs.

I left Nick with a sense that I had not seen the last of him, and my friend, Philip Mantle, thought as much as well. All these guys can be seen on the History Channel’s ANCIENT ALIENS program.

After Nick, I wandered into the hall to track down my favorite of all active UFO HUNTERS and all things mystical. Many of you know him as the REAL LIFE INDIANA JONES, Mr. David Hatcher Childress.  He is personable and telling, he has a way of getting under the skin… of pulling the attention from the core and stabbing his love of discovery into the soul.

David is an American author on topics on alternative history and historical revisionism. His works cover such subjects as pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, Atlantis, Lemuria, Ancient Astronauts, UFOs, Nikola Tesla, the Knights Templar, lost cities and vimana aircraft.

 Childress claims no academic credentials as a professional archaeologist nor in any other scientific field of study, having left the University of Montana after one year to travel and research subjects about which he would later write.

He was amazing and offered to work together in the future on a possible movie script and I came away feeling renewed in my belief in the subject.

 

Then, it was over to Author and historian Richard Dolan who has firmly established himself as a leading contemporary UFO scholar.

In 2000, Dolan published UFOs and the National Security State: An Unclassified History, Volume 1: 1941-1973, a book that Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell called, “a thorough and monumental undertaking.”  Dolan followed up in 2009 with a second installment titled, UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991.

In 2010, Dolan co-authored the book A.D. After Disclosure: The People’s Guide to Life After Contact with Hollywood producer and screenwriter Bryce Zabel.

You can find out more about Richard at Keyholepublishing.com

Overall, the conference was incredible, yet believable in its subject matter. I enjoyed the exhibition halls, the crystal skulls, the films and speakers.

I will be back again, when I am ready to write INTERVENTION, to gain the knowledge I need to create a telling tale of ALIENS.

 

 

 

 

 

THE VOICES IN THE DARKNESS

It is late January, 2013 as I write this. The time is 4:55 A.M., darkness surrounds me and the voices of the dead linger in the tunnels of my mind. I have just come off a ten-month writing frenzy – knocking off my 110,000 word 400+ page murder/mystery debut novel, which I am hoping to publish in fall.

Those voices I wrote about, they are sinister at times, whispering from the echoing hallways of hell. In that world, where the utterances spring from, there are demons and fiends of every imaginable shape and type. But there are hero’s and romantics there as well, they trounce through my mind, whisper their demands and move through my fingers and onto the screen before me. Alive, breathing, grasping for the life they so desperately wish me to give into them.

And so, I gave one of them what they desired. A voice of eternity, I complied with the role I was assigned. I told his tale, I stoked the flames of indecency and let the killer spring forth upon the blank page. For those sins of creativity and entertainment, The Santa Claus Killer became real. His blood was as thick and red as that which flows through my own veins – gushing through the heart of wisdom as a force to be reckoned with.

Richard Blake tramped through the city which never sleeps, he took his gifts of life and left a wreck of bodies in his path. Bloody, retched trails… they littered the Manhattan alleyways he stalked, a bone yard of bodies were piled along the avenues of Brooklyn. And in the end, well, in the end… he found something of himself in Times Square.

Now: He lives forever in the pages of that massive tale, forever holding his place as the King of Christmas.

And so I wait: The silence is deafening…

But there is a whisper, a boy named Michael is mumbling, the corners of my mind can sense his pleading. There is a ship, The Valencia: caught on the Atlantic Ocean and a tsunami is headed its way. On board is the pope, the ashes of an erupting volcano have caused birds to take flight and fly into the engine of his helicopter, Shepard One….  Now, it is headed for a crash-landing on the biggest cruise ship in the world.

And now, they are doomed in the path of a killer wave.

Perhaps I will save them, maybe I will heed the call and rush in with verbs and nouns to save the day. But perhaps, possibly… I’ll need a bunch of help from characters who have yet to make themselves known.

And yet, as I sit here considering the possibilities… I feel their presences surrounding me, waiting for me to type these simple words on the page: CHAPTER ONE.

And so I must go... into that dark night of a terrorizing CATACLYSM, to give my all to save the voices. For without me, they are sure to perish on the ocean floor. Their hopes and dreams will not be vanquished to a whisper, because I will listen and tell their tale.

I WILL SAVE THEM.

RJ Smith – February 05, 2013. 6:00 A.M.

RJ BEGINS OUTLINING HIS 2014 NOVEL

Hello my friends and foes. I have begun to create the outline for what will be my 2014 Novel, CATACLYSM.

Soon to be renamed CATACLYSM.The story is already registered with the Writers Guild of AMERICA. It is the novelization of my movie script, Doomsday.

What I love  about writing novels are this: I can be free to do whatever! If I so choose, I can describe the metal ramblings of my killers or show the reader the froth on a giant tsunami wave bearing down on the unsuspecting coast of Miami.

Screenplays limit  my creativity, they cause writers to concern themselves with page numbers and descriptors. Whereas screenplays are dialogue driven, books allow writers to create THE whole scene, vision, feelings and emotions.

I create depth and beauty and sometimes describe the intricate details of a murder or disaster.

In screenwriting, I can show the knife (or hatchet) entering the body of a victim, but not the thoughts or visions of what the condemned individual is thinking. I don’t get to weave the feeling or emotion of the death, or express the background or describe the fabrics of the story.

I like to tell a TALE, the whole story. I love to show the scene, thoughts, emotions, THE COLOR of the story.  MY STORY.

For me, a screenplay is a skeleton for others to flesh out in the film making process. Whereas, the novel is the skeleton, flesh, clothing and background.

I as the writer…  am able to create the entire process. That’s exhilarating! That’s art!

So as I set out to create my new mega thriller… I am blessed to be able to create.

 

 

 

 

RJ and SANTA CLAUS

This was taken recenlty ….. LOL…. probably going to put him on the cover.