Mark David Gerson's Blog, page 9

"Walk the Earth Naked, Clothed Only in Your Truth..."

This phrase, which has followed me relentlessly since it first made itself known in to me in a piece of unpublished writing back in 1996 and which finally pushed its way into print in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir , has taken on fresh significance in recent weeks, as I work to dissolve the inner barriers, unconscious until now, that have been holding me back from my next levels of success. 
Like the Tarot Fool, the predominant archetype in my life, this phrase is like a life-motto, a leitmotif, underlying much that propels me forward and reminding me that open-heartedness and vulnerability are not dangerous. Rather, they are the ultimate protection against all perceived threats. 
"Walk the earth naked, clothed only in your truth." ~ Mark David Gerson, from Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir
~~~~~
Please "like" these Facebook pages...• Acts of Surrender book• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration• Mark David GersonPlease  follow me on Pinterest and Google+ and subscribe to my videos on YouTube

The MoonQuest Goes Ebook-Only in 5 Days -- Two Weeks Earlier Than Expected

Paperback Sales of The MoonQuest to Cease on June 15
Get Your Signed Copy While You Can...  for only US$4.99


While I had originally planned to keep The MoonQuest for sale in paperback until the end of the month, that is no longer possible. Instead, the paperback edition will no longer be available after June 15, when The MoonQuest will go ebook only.
Why? The following reprint of my original announcement (amended to reflect schedule and price changes) explains it all...

A soon-to-be-obsolete bookstore sceneThe past is passed. We let it go.~ The MoonQuest
Say goodbye to this book cover for The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy and, by the middle of June, to its paperback edition. 

Late on June 15, The MoonQuest goes ebook-only, and the current paperback edition will go out-of-print.

Why am taking this seemingly radical step? I have both energetic and practical reasons.

Practically speaking, there are not many copies left of the current paperback edition. So this edition's days would have been numbered, regardless of my current action.

But the energetic/symbolic reason is more important. When this edition was printed in 2007, there was no  Q'ntana Trilogy  and The MoonQuest's  StarQuest  and SunQuest sequels, though percolating on the far back burner of my mind, were nowhere in sight.

Since then, my MoonQuest/StarQuest/SunQuest trilogy has gained a name, the remaining books (and all three screenplay adaptations) have been finished, and artist Richard Crookes has designed a unified look for The Q'ntana Trilogy books and films, including new covers for The MoonQuest, as well as for the soon-to-be released StarQuest and SunQuest.



The old MoonQuest look is, well, old. And while Angela Farley's original artwork and Bob Spear's inside design served the book well in its first incarnation, it's time to move on -- to embrace an energy that represents both the full trilogy and the next expression of its potential. To quote from The MoonQuest itself, "The past is passed. We let it go."

The ebook edition of The MoonQuest already sports the new cover, and its insides have also been redesigned and updated (and typos corrected!) to match.

But why now? Well, The StarQuest, Book II in the trilogy, is set to release (finally!) on July 9. And it's important to me that this "old energy" be retired before that happens.

Now the really good news, especially if you haven't yet read The MoonQuest and need to get up to speed before its sequel launches next month:
• Paperback copies of The MoonQuest are now selling for US$6.29 on Amazon.com (down from US$16) through June 15...unless they sell out earlier)
• Would you prefer a copy signed by me to you or to a friend? You can get one right now on my website through this special link -- for only US$4.99. But only through June 15. (Signed copies of The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write are also available through that link.)

If you'd prefer the new ebook version, you'll find it right now in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBook and Google Play stores.

And don't forget to watch for The StarQuest (coming July 9), The SunQuest, final installment in The Q'ntana Trilogy (coming this fall), and The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies, coming in late 2014/early 2015 to a big screen near you!
~~~~~
Please "like" these Facebook pages...• Acts of Surrender book• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration• Mark David GersonPlease  follow me on Pinterest and Google+ and subscribe to my videos on YouTube

Infinite Creation, Infinite Mind

June 8, 2013 is the 146th anniversary of the birth of Frank Lloyd Wright, the eccentric, iconoclastic philosopher-architect who helped revolutionize how we view our built environment. I first posted this piece two years ago, used parts of it in my memoir, Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir and reprint it today in celebration of a man whose singular story and body of work continue to inspire me.

"If you do the land's bidding, you can build a house that's organic to it."
~ Frank Lloyd Wright, in Nancy Horan's fictional biography, Loving Frank

Although Frank Lloyd Wright speaks here about architecture, what he says applies to all manner of creation. If you do a story's bidding, you can build a novel, screenplay, short story or nonfiction book that's organic to it. And if you do a soul's bidding, you can build a life that's organic to it, too. For isn't life the ultimate creative act?

Too often, we allow the limitations of what we think we know to constrict what's possible, what's natural, what's organic. But the possible, natural and organic have nothing at all to do with what the human mind perceives. They have everything to do with what the infinite mind perceives.

You don't have to believe in God to believe in "infinite mind." For all that the concept of infinite mind suggests is that there is a wisdom that transcends our conscious thoughts, desires and creations. How often has a notion popped into your head that seems to make no conventional sense? And how often have you followed it through only to discover, perhaps in distant retrospect, that it made more sense than anything else you could have ever possibly tried to figure out?

That's God or infinite mind or the muse or, as Wright might put it, nature at work.

My whole life, it seems, has been predicated on that notion -- that there's a force at work that has a much clearer sense of what will serve and satisfy my deepest (often hidden) desires than the childish cravings of a limited mind ever could.

A friend of mine describes it as watching the game not from the field or the stands, but from a blimp floating high above the stadium. It's not a blimp that's separate from us, any more than God, muse, infinite mind or nature are. These are all aspects of all of us, all pieces we carry within us. What we don't all do is acknowledge, access and experience it. What we don't all do is let it, with its broader, deeper perspective and infinite wisdom, be in charge.

Writers often balk when I suggest that their stories are smarter, wiser, cannier and craftier than they could ever hope to be. Writers, like all human beings, would prefer to believe that they can be in control and still create from a place of infinite possibility.

Not even the God of Genesis is that arrogant. God doesn't "make" creation happen. God allows creation to occur. "Let there be light," He says. And light appears. Not because God forces His will on it. But because he allows light its natural form, shape and substance. And when each day's creation is done? He doesn't sit in judgment over it, calling it worthy or unworthy. He recognizes that all creation has innate merit and declares it to be "good."

"...a genius is merely the man who sees nature, and has the boldness to follow it."
~ Frank Lloyd Wright, in Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan

I spent more than half the years I've lived so far with my eyes closed and ears blocked to infinite mind, my infinite mind. Although we're all born with a direct link to that source of wisdom and, as young children, act from it, we're often shut down to it by a so-called "grown-up world" that is in fearful denial of anything that can't be accessed by the five physical senses. I don't know why or when I was shut down, or by whom. But, clearly, I was. And it wasn't until a creative and spiritual awakening began to move through me in my early to mid-30s that I began to to tune in to the infinite possibilities of the invisible.

My life since then has been rocky, on-the-edge and unconventional. It's been scary, disrupted and a distant remove from what most people still cling to as "security." It's also been creative, exhilarating, passion-filled, vibrant, exciting, adventurous and enriching. It has pushed me beyond the boundaries of what I believe and what I believe I want, and it has propelled me beyond the frontiers of the conventionally possible. In every moment, it steers me on a course I could never consciously chart for myself. And in every breath, it reminds me that the story knows best -- the story I'm living as much as the story I'm writing.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

‎"I've never been like other people. Not other fathers, not other businessmen. I have never fit into any social norm. And you know what? I don't want to."
~ Frank Lloyd Wright, in Loving Frank

• Photos (except the Wright photo) by Mark David Gerson

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A New Look for an Old Video

With The MoonQuest  book getting a new look and its paperback edition going out-of-print at the end of the month, I needed to find a way to update the one-minute book trailer that was created for it a year or so ago.

If I'd had the raw footage, I could have done it easily. But in one of those many miracles that surrounds my Q'ntana books -- and my life -- someone created the original trailer for me for free. Unfortunately, he disappeared from my life soon after, taking the raw footage with him.

Still, while not an iMovie expert, I was able to use the program to tweak the video...and here it is!



The only downside is that in replacing the video, I lost all my YouTube views. So please take a minute and watch it again if you saw the original, or for the first time if you missed it the first time around. If the video doesn't show up for you, use this link.

And, as a reminder, you can pick up a copy of the soon-to-be-discontinued paperback edition of The MoonQuest for only US$6.99 on Amazon.com or for US$5.99 (signed, if you want) from my website.  But only until June 30, when the paperback edition goes out-of-print.

If you'd rather go digital, you'll find the ebook in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBook and Google Play stores for your e-reader, tablet, computer or smartphone.

Now's a great time to read The MoonQuest. Why? Its sequel, The StarQuest , comes out on July 9...with the final installment in The Q'ntana Trilogy, The SunQuest , following on October 3 (in celebration of my birthday)!


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Shattering the Past

As I sat in Starbucks yesterday afternoon, working on my blog post about shattering the old energy of The MoonQuest, a violent gust of wind blew up out of nowhere, picked up the cafe's patio umbrellas and catapulted them into the parking lot. One of them smashed into the driver's side window of the car I had been driving. I was just quoting from The MoonQuest-- "The past is passed. We let it go" -- when the incident occurred.

A few hours later, with both the incident paperwork and my blog post complete, I got into the car to go home. As I gazed out through the now-windowless opening, I had a flashback to a similar incident six years ago, also in Albuquerque, when my car was broken into through the driver's-side window.

As I chronicle below in this excerpt from Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir, that 2007 incident shattered some aspects of how I then viewed myself and how I had been living, and launched me into a major new phase of my life. 

And, so today, as I reflect on the parallel incidents, I wonder: What major life change will this latest shattering trigger....? 


  From "Texas Omens," in  Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir

If my first Texas trip had activated the return of my Muse, this second one was about to activate the end my life on the road.

I had just returned to Albuquerque and was asleep in Room 133 of the Howard Johnson Express when my room phone rang. It was a few minutes past seven.

“Mr. Gerson?”

“Yes?” I croaked through my morning fog. I have never woken up easily or quickly.

“You’d better come to the front desk.”

“What?”

“Someone broke into your car. The police are here.”

Some things easily focus the mind. This was one of them. Moments later, I was dressed and in the lobby.

Through thirty-three months of full-time travel, I had never worried about the safety of my car or its contents.

And if I had ever parked in the one spot in a hotel parking lot out of range of security cameras, as I had apparently done the previous night, I had no awareness of it.

A guest at the next-door Clarion Hotel had called 911 when she had seen two young men smash my driver’s side front window. By the time the police arrived, the malefactors had vanished — fortunately, with nothing of real value: personal documents, my inexpensive point-and-shoot camera and, significantly, the now-dusty digital audio recorder I had used to record my God Activation events. Not sophisticated enough to recognize the marketability of my Canadian passport, they had left it on the front passenger seat before fleeing.

As I filled out police reports and called banks, credit card issuers, insurance companies and auto-glass outlets, I wondered what it meant. By the end of the day I knew: If I had lost my itinerant identity in the break-in, it must be time for a new identity, a more established identity. I realized in that moment that my full-time traveling days had come to an end. My new ID, then, would need to reflect my newly settled state...as soon as I could figure out which state to settle in.

• Find out which state I settled in and which life changes this incident sparked in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir (c) Mark David Gerson, available in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBook and Google Play stores for your e-reader, tablet, computer or smartphone.


~~~~~

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The MoonQuest Goes Ebook-Only on July 1 ~ Last Chance to Get It in Paperback!

The past is passed.  We let it go. ~ The MoonQuest
Say goodbye to this book cover and, by the end of June, to the paperback edition of The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy . --->

On July 1, The MoonQuest goes ebook-only, and the current paperback edition will go out-of-print.

Why am taking this seemingly radical step? I have both energetic and practical reasons.

Practically speaking, there aren't that many copies of the current paperback edition left. So this edition's days would be numbered, regardless of my current action.

But the energetic/symbolic reason is more important. When this edition was printed in 2007, there was no Q'ntana Trilogy  and The MoonQuest's StarQuest  and SunQuest sequels, though percolating on the far back burner of my mind, were nowhere in sight.

Since then, my MoonQuest/StarQuest/SunQuest trilogy has gained a name, the remaining books (and all three screenplay adaptations) have been finished, and artist Richard Crookes has designed a unified look for The Q'ntana Trilogy books and films, including new covers for The MoonQuest, as well as for the soon-to-be released StarQuest and SunQuest.



The old MoonQuest look is, well, old. And while Angela Farley's original artwork and Bob Spear's inside design served the book well in its first incarnation, it's time to move on -- to embrace an energy that represents both the full trilogy and the next expression of its potential. To quote from The MoonQuest itself, "The past is passed. We let it go."

The ebook edition of The MoonQuest already sports the new cover, and its insides have also been redesigned and updated (and typos corrected!) to match.

But why now? Well, The StarQuest, Book II in the trilogy, is set to release (finally!) on July 9. And it's important to me that this "old energy" be retired before that happens.

Now the really good news, especially if you haven't yet read The MoonQuest and need to get up to speed before its sequel launches next month:
• Paperback copies of The MoonQuest are now selling for US$6.99 on Amazon.com (down from US$16, as of June 4 and through the end of the month)
• Would you prefer a copy signed by me to you or to a friend? You can get one right now on my website through this special link -- for only US$5.99. But only through the end of June. (Signed copies of The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write are also available through that link.)

If you'd prefer the new ebook version, you'll find it right now in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo and iBook stores. (Google Play is very slow at this sort of thing, but it will eventually be updated there as well.)

And don't forget to watch for The StarQuest (coming July 9), The SunQuest, final installment in The Q'ntana Trilogy (coming this fall), and The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies, coming in late 2014/early 2015 to a big screen near you!
~~~~~
Please "like" these Facebook pages...• Acts of Surrender book• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration• Mark David GersonPlease follow me on Pinterest and Google+

June's Electric Muse Radio: Authors, Artists & Celebrities! Oh, My!

What is  The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson ? It's a brand-new radio show featuring an eclectic blend of authors, playwrights, screenwriters, directors, musicians, photographers and visual artists -- all talking about themselves, their work, their passions and their muse. And it launches this month with an exciting roster of guests!

Read on to see who will be joining me in the studio. (Click on the date/name link for each guest to be taken to the show page for that episode. And visit the Electric Muse pages on my website for more about these and other upcoming shows.)

June 4 ~ Luke Yankee grew up around a glittering galaxy of stars that most of us know only from our seats in a darkened movie theater. Marilyn Monroe played catch with his older brothers on the set of Bus Stop. Paul Newman showed him how to upstage fellow actors in a school play. And in a true Auntie Mame moment, Ethel Merman taught him how to make the perfect Merman martini.

How did Luke Yankee get to be so lucky? An accident of birth: His mother was Oscar-winner Eileen Heckart, remembered by many in more recent years for her portrayal of Mary's feisty Aunt Flo on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but a film and theater star long before that television success. Luke has written about growing up with his famous mother in his memoir, Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart . And he'll share with us some of the funny and touching stories from the book, as well as some of his own accomplishments as a gifted writer/director/producer in his own right.

June 11 ~ Michael Scott is one of the most prolific authors you will ever encounter, with more than 100 books to his credit that span fantasy, science fiction, horror and Celtic folklore and that include his six-part New York Times bestselling fantasy series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel . Given that Michael has only been writing for some 30 of his 53 years, that's three books a year: a prodigious output for any writer, especially when you consider that he has also written for stage and screen and was, for a time, head of drama for the production company that created Riverdance. "Some stories wait their turn to be told," says Scott. "Others just tap you on the shoulder and insist you tell them."

But it was the quality not the quantity of his work that prompted the Irish Times to crown him "king of fantasy in these isles" and that caused Who's Who in Ireland to name him one of "the 1000 most significant Irish." During this episode of The Electric Muse, Michael will talk about the world of mythology and his writer's world and will, hopefully, tell us how we, too, can produce so many good books in so little time!

June 18 ~ D.J. McIntosh. How do you get from Toronto city planner to internationally acclaimed author? D.J. McIntosh will share part of that journey with us on this week's show, as she talks about The Witch of Babylon, the page-turning initial installment in a projected trilogy and a first novel that has already propelled her to the top ranks of historical-thriller writers. CNN called The Witch of Babylon, set against a backdrop of the Iraq war, one of the "top six enduring historical thrillers" and McIntosh has also been dubbed "an erudite Dan Brown" for her expert blend of intrigue and historical depth and accuracy. Book II, The Book of Stolen Tales, is just out, and we'll be taking about that too...along with some of McIntosh's more "interesting" writing habits!

June 25 ~ Melissa Vincent discovered her obsession for iPhoneography in 2011 when she created an account on Instagram. She had always taken photos of her kids, she says, but "Instagram stirred up a creative part of me that was dormant for a long time." The result: more than 200,000 followers on Instagram and an increasingly high profile, not just in the mobile photography world but in the photography world in general. Her surreal, storybook images with a Southern sensibility have been exhibited in galleries from coast-to-coast and were recently featured on National Geographic online, on the cover of Time magazine’s first annual wireless issue and in The Huffington Post.

Melissa takes all her photos on her iPhone; she processes them all on her phone as well. On this episode of The Electric Muse, she will be sharing not only her art and her passion but, for all you mobile photographers out there, she'll also be sharing her favorite apps and photography tips.

• Tune in to The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson every Tuesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Don't miss an episode! But if you must, you can always catch it after the fact. Just look for links to every episode on my website.

Don't forget! June 4 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET...and every Tuesday after that: The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson.

~~~~~
Please "like" these Facebook pages...• Acts of Surrender book• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration• Mark David GersonPlease follow me on Pinterest and Google+

My SolutionQuest!

As I was reading D.J. McIntosh's The Witch of Babylon the other day in preparation for my June 18 radio interview with the author, I had an aha about The StarQuest (Book II in my Q'ntana Trilogy of fantasy novels) that was so obvious that it shouldn't have been classified as an "aha" at all.

You see, there has been this recurring descriptive detail in my sequel to The MoonQuest  that has never felt right, no matter how much I have tinkered with it; and I have tinkered with it...in every draft since I began the first in (gulp) 1998! Suddenly, though, one throwaway phrase in McIntosh's thriller offered up a simple solution to my elusive problem!

Perhaps that's why The StarQuest told me soon after that it's finally time to release it...as soon as I make the appropriate alterations, of course. (Yes, I talk to my books; why wouldn't I, when they know their story far better than I ever will!)

Then, yesterday, as I began skimming through the manuscript to make the necessary revisions, I stumbled on a phrase of my own, on page 74. "You idiot!" I shrieked out loud. The solution to my "problem" had been right in my own manuscript -- probably since the first draft! At the same time, that solution probably couldn't make itself known until the book was ready to be published.

I'm still grateful to Dorothy McIntosh and will be certain to tell her so when she's on The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson  in a few weeks. For now, though, I'll be spending the next while prepping The StarQuest for publication.

My goal? A July 9 release, to coincide with the 16th anniversary of my "accidental" arrival in the U.S. (a story I share, along with many others, in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir  ). And as July 9 is a Tuesday, the day  The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson  airs, I've recruited author/singer/songwriter Amy Robbins Wilson and asked her to interview me on that show -- a show all about The MoonQuest, The StarQuest and The Q'ntana Trilogy books and movies.

What about The SunQuest? Well, if Amy asks during the show, I'll tell her that I aim to get this final Q'ntana installment out before the end of the year: on my birthday, October 3. That means that by the end of 2013, the 19-and-a-half-year-long literary odyssey that began in March 1994 with The MoonQuest book will have come to an end. To quote Charity in the musical Sweet Charity, "All I can say is WOW!!" What a journey!

The StarQuest will be available on July 9 in the Kindle, Nook, iBook, Kobo and Google Play stores, where you can also find The MoonQuest, a multiple award-winner and on its way to the big screen. The MoonQuest is also available in paperback at Amazon.com.
~~~~~
Please "like" these Facebook pages...• Acts of Surrender book• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration• Mark David GersonPlease follow me on Pinterest and Google+

The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson: Starting June 4!

What is  The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson ? A brand-new radio show featuring an eclectic blend of authors, playwrights, screenwriters, directors, musicians, photographers, visual artists -- all talking about themselves, their work, their passions and their muse.

Want a sneak preview of a lineup that includes a writer/director who spent his boyhood palling around with Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and Paul Newman, a New York Times bestselling author with more than 100 books to his credit, one of Houston's "Top 100 Creatives" and the author of a historic thriller described by CNN as "one of the six enduring historical thrillers"? Visit www.markdavidgerson.com/electricmuse.html. And be sure to bookmark the page so you don't miss any new additions to the exciting roster!

• Tune in to The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson every Tuesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET starting June 4 on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Don't miss an episode! But if you must, you can always catch it after the fact. Just look for links to every episode on my website.

Don't forget! June 4 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET...and every Tuesday after that: The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson.

~~~~~
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Mark David's Art: #126 - "City of Destiny"

A new blog series featuring my artwork, old pieces and new...

"It’s as though a fiery pilot light burns somewhere beneath L.A.'s endless sprawl, a flame that rekindles and renews my life force whenever I travel its streets and freeways and that calls to me wherever in the world I find myself."~ Mark David Gerson
Like my writing and photography, drawing just sort of snuck up on me. I never saw myself as an artist, and I was startled to sell my first piece. I was even more incredulous when other visual artists began to introduce me to their friends and colleagues as "a fellow artist"!
 And like my writing and other creative endeavors, drawing is a medium I don't plan out. I simply stare at the blank page until the first color and pencil stroke call out to me. As for the rest of the drawing, it's never any less an act of surrender.
To view/purchase any of my artwork or learn about my custom portraits, visit www.markdavidgerson.com/art.html. • Direct Link to "City of Destiny"(#126)
Each 8.5" x 11" print comes with information about the drawing, along with instructions on how to tap into its potential as a crystal-like a tool for healing. All prints sell for US$20 plus S&H.
~~~~~
Please "like" these Facebook pages...• Acts of Surrender book• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies• The MoonQuest book• Writing Books/Recordings & Inspiration• Mark David GersonPlease follow me on Pinterest and Google+