Thought for the Day

Traveling Thought Theory and Story Ideas

I've been working on a new project that's based on Shadow People, the current hot topic on the paranormal message board forums. It hasn't 'really' been done before - Dean Koontz touched on the subject in his book 'Odd Thomas' and I've seen references in other fiction works here and there, but never a full novel done on it.

So, as I happily began scribbling down the outline and first chapter for my as-yet untitled novel, I then went to one of my favorite writer's web sites and found another guy writing a novel on the same damn subject! It was so close to my story's premise that it gave me the chills. I sent him a note that cursed him for being psychic. Not only that, his story was better written than mine. He gave his shadow people distinct 'personalities' while mine were little more than mysterious dark wisps that take human form.

So, how do ideas spread so damn quickly? Does thought travel?

How do some people seem to get a grip on a story idea that you thought you had first dibs on?

Something weird's going on.

I still have a unique angle on shadow people that he's not using, and it's so top-secret that I won't mention it here (if by the incredibly slim chance that someone actually reads these things). I KNOW that no one else is currently using my angle. I know because I searched the topic on the net, and maybe only five sites turned up that even mentioned it. It's brand-spanking new and it's all MINE.

I began work on the first draft yesterday while going camping near Marble Canyon with some Native American friends of mine. I brought 'Precious' (my laptop) and while everyone hiked, fished and generally enjoyed themselves by the river, I sat on a lonely, isolated clifftop and banged out the first chapter to the aforementioned novel. I typed until my battery went dead, which was just under three hours. Just being out there in the middle of nowhere, with the peaceful Vermilion Cliffs to look at, I found that my head cleared and I was able to write effectively.

Little did I know, as I blew through that first chapter, a guy in his twenties, living somewhere in Vancouver, B.C. typed his own first chapter. He posted his online for critique, where I saw it this evening. After I gasped and nearly fainted from deja vu, I recovered and then told him I was working on a similar story and wanted to know where his was going so that we didn't write twin novels. He gave me a couple of hints, and they're very similar in plot, so I'm changing the focus of mine and the shadowpeople will be a 'side effect' of something else that's going on in the story.

The above begs the question: how the HELL does this happen?

My dear, departed Dad once told me that he believed thoughts can travel. A very metaphysically-minded person, he surmised that whether we're aware of it or not, human minds are tuned into basically the same wavelength, like a sort of 'hive-mind.' This was what he attributed to the fact that technological advances seem to occur simultaneously in two separate countries at the same time, despite secrecy and extreme steps taken to protect the 'idea.' For instance, while Henry Ford was building the first automobile assembly line, the French were beta-testing their first assembly line across the Pond. Ford beat them to the finish line, though, and he won credit for doing it 'first.'

Was Dad (that old, crusty hippie) right?

I didn't buy it when he explained it to me all those years ago, but I'm beginning to now, especially after seeing Proudfoot's first chapter.

Maybe I should put foil over my head (like the kids and their uncle did in 'Signs') just to block out the 'hive-mind' and keep people from plucking my story ideas out of thin air.

I'm being sarcastic, of course.

Or am I?

Thought for the Day

Procrastination



Yes, I'm guilty.

I've been avoiding any serious writing work for days on end.

How do I get out of this funk I'm in? And it ain't too funky, neither.

There's many different reasons for it: writer's block, tiredness, headache, not to mention staring at a computer at work for eight hours and then not wanting to stare at one even more once I get home. Focusing on what I want to do is another problem.

Focus, or lack thereof, is something I've been really struggling with lately. Being an ADD (attention deficit disorder) person, I have trouble with it anyway. Lately, though, it's been very hard to get my head together long enough to concentrate on writing stories.

Today, while at lunch with my coworker (and supposed boss), the subject of 'what Jill's been up to lately' came up, and I mentioned my writing. There are undercurrents in the usual river of office politics these days, and I am being very careful with what I say and do as a result.

She asked the question: " So Jill, would you ever like to just quit doing your job and do nothing but sit down and write for as long as you'd like?"

Of course I replied, "Yes." But then I followed that with, "But I have to eat and pay bills, too."

She (my boss/coworker) went to ask me about what sort of writing projects I'm working on, etc. The whole conversation felt like she was 'fishing' for something. Fishing for what, I have no idea. Maybe she's got plans to have me fired, and wants to have some sort of 'peace of mind' after doing so. I'm a threat to her authority, and we both know it. But what does my writing have to do with anything?

Maybe she finds comfort in the idea that I would be then 'free' to do as I wanted without the overtaxing responsibility that my job brings. I literally run a newspaper, at least in the background. There isn't one aspect of the newspaper biz that I don't have my sticky little fingers in, and I've had almost a decade to spread those tendrils far and wide. I'm on a first-name basis with all the big-wigs from Corporate, and on their last site visit, I was the one and only person that they shook hands with. Little ol' me.

The tension is rising at work, and I feel like I'm in a battle for my professional life. Certain people are working very hard to make my job more difficult, and this past Monday, I totally f*cked up. I lost $600.00 worth of advertising for the company, all due to a computer glitch. Of course, 'she' was there to tell me, 'Don't worry about it. Six hundred dollars is small potatoes. And besides, it isn't like you make these sort of mistakes all the time.'

Yeah, that really helps. I'm a perfectionist, and any error is absolutely intolerable. She knows this, so her comment carried the effect of her sticking a knife in between my ribs and twisting it.

So that's what has been on my mind for the last few days. Whisperings that they're trying to find someone to replace me, or else make my position redundant so that they can cut me loose - just to save a couple of bucks on the hour. Sure, I'm to the point where I hate my job, but only because people I work with are making it that way. I don't need to hear the bullsh*t, the back-biting and the snide little comments. I just want to go to work and do my damned job.

Still, the thought of walking away from it and concentrating on my writing alone is intriguing. I just financed a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee, though, and I can't afford to quit now.

So, with these worries on my brain, I can't focus long enough to write anything decent. I've been fighting with my husband on a daily basis as well. He doesn't like it when I sit down to write, because he has to be the center of attention all the time. He's actually jealous of my laptop computer. Yet, he's the one who bought it for me. Go figure...

Thankfully, tomorrow's Saturday and everyone that's been stuffing their crap into the forefront of my mind will be out of the picture for a few hours, anyway. Maybe I might get something done.

If I'm not too tired, that is.

Thought for the Day

Tossing Stories to the Wind


The story in the previous post, 'Sacrificial Lamb,' received decent reviews for the most part. Problems that were pointed out had to do with the mother choosing to hide rather than facing up to her ex-boyfriend, Bruce. But, that's what the story was about.

When I try to write a story that people can 'understand,' I end up with boring, unreadable crap. But, when I tried to push the boundaries a bit, what I write comes off as unbelievable. Oddly enough, the female responders on the crit boards loved it and seemed to understand what I was trying to do with the story. Male readers, on the other hand, found it suspenseful, but totally unbelievable. One guy suggested that I make Annie an alcoholic or a crack addict, which would go a long way to explaining her behavior. I guess the world STILL isn't ready yet for stories based on Battered Woman syndrome.

Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

There's a contest I found recently that's offering a $10,000 prize and a book contract (plus royalties) to the winner. Basically, they want mysteries - all sorts of them. The best one gets published and a possible deal to publish more books after that, if it's well-received. I'm going to dust off 'Cold January Mourning' and send it in. The requirements are that you must have never been published before (which I can adhere to quite nicely), and it has to be a definite mystery genre novel. I'm also thinking of sending in 'Daughter Jones,' which is a mystery set in the early 1800's, and it might do, too. I didn't see anything in the rules about a limit on submissions. Maybe I'll submit under five different pseudonyms.

In the meantime, I'm writing short stories like crazy, which is nice because at least I'm writing again. For a long while there, I couldn't focus long enough to type an entire paragraph, let alone a short story. So, pretty much any story I post online is toast - no one will pay me for them if I post them on the internet. I'm tossing them into the wind, right and left. All the while, there's that damn nagging little voice that says, "You're not good enough. You'll never be good enough. Everything you write is complete crap."

Am I good enough?

I get lovely compliments from people who don't know how to write. It's the published writers I know that eat me alive. I'm even starting to get compliments from them, though. If I can please other writers, then the last hurdle is pleasing a publisher.

Publishers can live with a few errors in an MS, but they need you to have a cohesive, entertaining story. Story is what sells books, and how much money they have the potential to make is what's important. Sure, I could seriously use that ten grand from that mystery novel contest, and by God, I'm going to submit. I probably won't win, though, unless I write something so smashing that they can't put it down.

Thing is, I need a unique protagonist, an even more unique antagonist and a plot loaded with more twists and turns than a snake in a blender. I can do it, I think. I'll storyboard something tonight, and also take a good hard look at what I've already got. "Cold January Mourning" was already rejected once - for being way too long. When I submitted it, it was close to 180,000 words. It has to be roughly half that in word count. No one's going to touch a first-timer with a monster-sized MS. 85 - 90 thousand is what they're looking for. Maybe if I can cut it down and only leave the core elements to the story, they might find it worth publishing.

Then again, the deadline's July 1st of this year, and I KNOW I can bang out 90,000 words in that amount of time. I might just start a new one altogether. Hell, I can write 30,000 words in less than 2 weeks. Maybe if I blow through the first draft a la NaNoWriMo, then spend two months polishing and cutting it, I might actually have something.

Novel writing isn't easy. You have to have your manuscript literally ready to scan and print when you send it in to a publisher. This contest I'm talking about is put out by Warner Books, so it's not a cheezy, fly-by-night thing flung out there by a no-name publisher. This is the real deal. Whatever I send them has to be The Sh*t.

So, I guess it's time to quit fooling around and tossing stories to the wind. Ever since my last rejection, I've been afraid of another. Besides, this is just a contest, right?

Sacrificial Lamb

A short story by Jillian S. Clayton
2500 words


Dessa watched the tiny lizard scamper across the hot sand. When it stopped and craned its neck to look around, she touched it with a stick, and it jumped. A tinkling crash of broken glass came from the house behind her. She flinched, but didn't look - didn't dare. Bruce had come home, and he was looking for her mother. Whenever he appeared in their lives, he broke things. Last time, at their house in Tucson, he'd thrown the TV set through the window and it shattered as it rolled all the way to the curb. He'd broken her mother's jaw then, too. He was inside right now, breaking things.

Why does he keep coming back, God? Why can't he just go away and stay gone?

She asked Him questions all the time, but He never seemed to find the time to answer. She figured that sooner or later she'd wise up and quit asking.

The lizard flicked its tail and darted down into a gopher hole. She wished she could do the same.

The screen door flew open and banged against the wall, and this time, she turned to look. Bruce stood there, his fat belly hanging out from under his T-shirt, his face dark with exhaustion. Sweat dripped from his curly brown hair. He lifted his head and glared at her with hooded eyes.

"Hey, Dess, come over here," he said, and sat down on the top step of the porch. It creaked beneath his weight. "Tell me where Annie is."

Dessa shook her head and backed up a few steps. She could smell the whiskey on his breath, even though he was several feet away. "Mom's gone shopping," she lied, "she'll be back soon."

He gave her a too-wide smile and waved at her to come closer. "Okay then. Come over here and talk to your Uncle Brucie. I won't bite, I promise."

She glanced at the house and then away, hoping he didn't notice. Somewhere beneath it, her mother hid in a crawlspace with the snakes and spiders. Dessa knew that her mother wouldn't come out, even if one of the nasty things crawled across her and sank its fangs. Bruce hurt her real bad last time he'd shown up. Dessa felt the cold burn of hatred at the memory of Mom's face when she'd come home from the hospital. There were still scars.

Maybe this time, if the two of them kept their cool, he'd get bored and leave. So far, he'd never laid a hand on Dessa. She hoped that he wouldn't this time, either.

She stepped forward, taking her time and taking care to keep her face blank. When she drew in close to the porch, his arm snaked out and his grimy hand closed around her wrist.

"So, how have you been?" He pulled her to him and squeezed her tight. She fought the urge to struggle. His armpits were warm and wet. Holding her breath, she focused on his new blue Ford pickup and wished he'd climb into it and hit the road. She found herself wishing for a lot of things lately.

Too bad God doesn't pay attention to wishes.

"Ain't you gonna answer me?" His ugly, gap-toothed grin disappeared and he released her from the bear hug, but held on to her arm. "It's not good to disrespect your elders."

"I'm not being disrespectful," she said, keeping her voice even.

He jerked her arm and a bolt of pain shot through her shoulder. There was a first time for everything. "So, what does Annie need from the store so badly that she'd leave a runt like you home by yourself?"

Dessa winced at the blossoming pain. "Just groceries and stuff. It-it's my birthday tomorrow and she was gonna get me a present. I couldn't go because she didn't want me to see it." Out of the corner
of her eye, she saw Mrs. Garcia from the house across the way step out onto her porch and stare at them for a moment.

Bruce noticed her, too. "What the f**k are you lookin' at? Can't a man talk to his kid in peace?"

I ain't your damn kid. She tried to twist out of his grip. He held firm.

The old woman frowned and went back inside, murmuring to herself. The screen door snapped shut behind her. Somewhere inside Mrs. Garcia's house, her pet Chihuahua barked its head off.

"That's what I thought," he said and returned his attention to Dessa. "It's your birthday, huh? How old are you gonna be?" His fingers sank into her arm.

"Twelve," she said. It wasn't that much of a stretch. Her birthday had come and gone three weeks ago. "Mom said she's getting me a nice present."

"Uh-huh." Bruce didn't seem to be buying it. But then he let her go and stood up, brushing the dust from his grimy jeans. "I'm going to find some place around here that'll sell me a drink. Maybe I'll check out the grocery stores, too, while I'm at it. Tell Annie I'll be back."

She nodded and felt her chin quiver. He winked at her and lumbered off toward his truck. With a sigh of relief, she watched him climb in and take off down the rutted dirt road, tires kicking up plumes of dust.

Before long, she heard the whisper of footsteps in the sand. Dessa turned and looked up at her mother. "He's gone."

Her mother put hand to her own hollow, tanned cheek; her long thin fingers traced a ghost of a scar there. "I'm sorry, Pumpkin," she said, her voice ragged with tears. "I hated to do this to you, but if we'd both have crawled under the house, he'd have just kept
looking until he found us."

"I know, Mom," she replied. Her shoulder throbbed. "But he's coming back. You heard him. We have to make him go away for good this time."

"I'll think of something, don't worry."

****

Annie paced back and forth by the kitchen window. The sun dipped low on the horizon, painting the sky in bold slashes of orange and red. She paused to lower the blind and turned to look at Dessa. Her daughter sat perfectly still beside the kitchen table, studying a rip in the stained linoleum floor.

"Look," she said, after a few moments of silence passed, "here's what we're gonna do. If he stays gone 'til full dark, then we can hike into town without him seeing us. I wish I had a car, but I don't. We'll be okay though, as long as we follow the service road."

"But Mom, the rattlesnakes come out after dark." Dessa's face paled.

A headache began to brew in the back of Annie's skull. They had no
choice. Dessa would have to do as she was told, and no arguing this time. "I've got eighty dollars. That's enough to get us a bus ticket out of this hell-pit and on to California. You'd like California, Pumpkin. Lots of white sandy beaches, fresh air and plenty of nice people. Arizona hasn't been very good to us, you know that."

Dessa groaned and buried her face in her hands. "When do we stop running?"

"Today," Annie said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. She went to Dessa and ruffled her daughter's short blond hair. "When we get on that bus, it will be for the last time. I promise." She winced at the sound of her own words. How many times had she said `I promise?' No matter where they went, Bruce always found them and they always had to leave. Annie had been forced to break more promises than she could count. "Go pack your things. One bag only. Get a move on."

When Dessa stomped off to the bedroom, Annie leaned against the kitchen sink and splashed cool water into her face. It felt like it was on fire, and she guessed she was running another fever. Drying herself off with a paper towel, she took one last look around the room.

A few plastic plates sat in the dish drainer, and the battered refrigerator hummed, empty as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. For a moment, the gray walls seemed to ripple and recede. She reached for the countertop to steady herself.

Annie couldn't believe they had to leave yet another place that they'd tried to make their own. Sure, the house was a mouse ridden *beep* hole, but it was theirs. Maybe she could still make the payments to Mrs. Garcia once they reached Los Angeles. Maybe one day, if she survived her illness, they could come back, long after Bruce had forgotten all about them. It was a stupid, long-shot of a wish, but it served to keep her grief at bay. She tossed the crumpled paper towel into the trash can and went to grab some clothes, her photo album and a few other things light enough to carry.

Dessa tossed her pink duffel bag onto the couch and sat down beside it. "It's getting dark," she said.

Annie nodded and went to the window. She pushed up a slat on the mini-blind and peered out into the purple haze of evening. Off in the west, beyond the jagged spine of the Superstition Mountains, brief flashes of lightning lit up the sky. Her gaze went from there to the empty road beyond Mrs. Garcia's squat blue trailer and found a set of rapidly approaching headlights.

"Sh*t. He's coming," she said. "Let's go. Now!"

Dessa stood, shoved her hands into her pockets and refused to move."Go hide in the crawlspace, Mom. He won't think to look there. I'll tell him you're not back yet."

"No! You can't, Pumpkin. He won't believe you," Annie said. Panic rushed through her. Grabbing her daughter's arm, Annie tried to pull her towards the kitchen door. Dessa cried out and snatched her arm away.

"Go on and hide. I'll tell him you're not here!"

Annie recoiled at the hard, defiant glare in her daughter's eyes. It reminded her a lot of...of Bruce.

"I'll be right outside. If he tries anything, you run. Hear me? You run." She backed away and then turned at the sound of truck tires plowing through the sand outside. She shook her head. "It's too late now."

"Just go," Dessa said, tears brimming. "God will look after us."

Annie sobbed and dashed to the bedroom, pushed open the window and climbed out into the quiet desert night. Dropping to her knees, she felt around for the opening into the crawlspace. For a moment, she paused, remembering her bag of clothes on the bed.

Why not just put up a big, arrow-shaped sign saying 'she went thataway.'

She got up and hurried back to the window. Inside, she saw Dessa bending to shove the bag under Annie's bed. The house shook as Bruce beat on the front door. Her daughter hurried away to the front of the house to answer the door. Annie ducked and went back to the loose piece of wooden siding that hid the way into the crawlspace. Lifting it aside, she wedged herself into the hole under the house. Warm sand grated her knees and forearms and the smell of musty wood crept intoher nose. Above her, the floor thudded as Bruce entered the house.

She braced her feet against a mound of sandy dirt beside the flap. If Bruce poked his head in, she might be able to buy a couple seconds if she kicked some dust into his face. With each passing second, she hated herself more and more.

If Bruce hurts her, I'll... She closed her eyes.

I will what? I'm too sick and weak. There's not a damn thing I could do.

An inner voice - her former, non-sick self, maybe - spoke up in reply. You could stand up to him. Call the police. Do something!

Been there, tried that, and it didn’t work. Besides, I've got cancer, she thought back, arguing with it. I can't fight it or Bruce anymore. I'm so very tired...

Sure, that's a good excuse. Poor, poor Annie... More excuses than guts.

Another voice - Bruce's - filled the house. She could hear him clearly through the floorboards. "Bullsh*t! I know she's here. Where is she?"

Dessa's frail reply came. "She's not back yet. Maybe we'd better call the police so they can look for her."

God, don't say that, Dessa, Annie pleaded. A few seconds of silence passed.

"Quit playing games, Kid. Where's Annie?" His footsteps thundered overhead. He was in the bedroom. Did she forget to close the window? Her mind raced, trying to remember.

"She's gotta be outside somewhere," Bruce said. His footsteps receded as he apparently headed for the kitchen door that led out into their empty back yard. Dessa was wrong. Bruce wasn't stupid. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, there would be only one place to look.

Annie froze, her body so tense that her back arched. Any second now, and it will all be over. He'll do it this time. She prayed that Mrs. Garcia would get suspicious and call the Sheriff.

Too late, the voice said. By the time the Law shows up, you’ll both be dead. This is what you get for not using your brains and using Mrs. Garcia's phone.

Would Bruce really do it this time? Probably. He’d been pretty ticked off by the latest restraining order. She might as well have tried to stop a speeding freight train by stepping in front of it.

"No!" Dessa cried. She was close by, moving around outside the flap that hid the crawlspace. "You leave her alone!"

Thick fingers appeared in the crack between the boards, prying at the siding. Bruce had found Annie's hidey-hole.

She couldn't move. Hot tears spilled down her cheek and plopped into the dirt beside her head.

"You lied to me, Kid," Bruce said.

"Someone help us," Dessa screamed. "Mrs. Garcia!"

"Shut up," he roared. The fingers disappeared from the crack. A scuffle followed, and Annie rolled over on to her side, preparing to kick the siding out. Dessa screamed once, a piercing cry that drove itself into Annie's heart. Then, she heard a dull ring of something metal colliding with something soft. All fell silent.

She held still, and listened.

Nothing.

She waited a few more seconds.

...And heard a hissing scrape. Something being dragged.

Oh, God. Not Dessa. Please...

She kicked the flap open and crawled backward out of the hole. Standing up, she glanced around for Bruce and Dessa, who were nowhere to be seen. The back yard was empty. She jumped at the sound of chain link rattling and turned to see the dark shape of a jackrabbit bounding away into the darkness on the other side of the fence.

"Dessa?" She took a tentative step toward the kitchen door, and then another. When she reached it, she turned the knob and peeked inside. The house felt empty. She stepped back, afraid to enter.

What's he done to my baby?

If he's hurt her, all it's your fault, said the inner voice, sounding smug. Coward.

A low moan rose in her throat and she broke into a run, slamming through the gate that led to the front. "Dessa!"

She rounded the side of the house and stumbled when she reached the front porch. The moonless night had settled in, shrouding the yard in near-total blackness.

Two forms struggled in the shadows beside Bruce's truck. Annie gasped and reached inside the front door, her fingers scrabbling along the wall for the switch. Then, she found it. The light came on and flooded the yard.

Dessa turned to face her, a shovel in her hand. She set it against the side of the truck and wiped her hands off on her shorts, leaving dark, smudged prints behind. Blood dripped from one edge of the shovel blade. Mrs. Garcia stepped in beside Dessa and put a plump arm around her shoulders. Annie strained to see the large, dark lump on the ground, at the back end of the truck.

She felt faint and couldn't breathe. When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper. "Dessa, what have you done?"

"God only helps those who help themselves," Mrs. Garcia said, wagging a crooked brown finger at Annie. "Don't blame the child. You left her to fend for herself against that evil man, and she did."

The lump shifted, gurgled and then went quiet. Dessa's face spread into a tight, satisfied grin that chilled Annie to the bone. Nearby, a tiny lizard skittered across the pool of light in the sand.

"Bruce won't be coming back anymore, Mom," she said. "Can you help us get him into the truck? He's kinda heavy."

*****

Additonal Thoughts for the Day

On Keeping Online Journals & Other Blog Stuff

I've been blog-browsing for the last couple of hours, and I'm amazed at what I've found. After having recently discovered the joy of writing on my own blog, I became curious about the sort of things other people write about.

Some of the blog sites I wandered across were much like my own - musings on writing, art, poetry and the like. Others seem to be magazines in their own right, discussing issues that fascinate the site's owner. And of course, there are the ones that make no bloody sense whatsoever. They ramble on, with no real point. Even those are important, in a way.

Writing something and posting it online is akin to stuffing a message in a bottle, flinging it out into the sea and hoping someone finds it. I have 3,000 pages of handwritten journals and diaries, plus an additional 4,000 typewritten entries saved on disk and on my personal web sites. This blog represents only the finest of my musings, arranged in a somewhat orderly fashion in case someone happens to find this particular message in a bottle and reads it.

Why are people casting their personal thoughts to the wind in such a manner?

Because the Internet is anonymous. We're free to speak our minds without any physical repercussions. We're not held accountable for what we say, unless it's really, really bad and a large number of people complain. Even then, the only thing that happens is that the offender is banned from the particular site where they've based their web page or blog. They'll only go elsewhere and keep on keepin' on.

On some level, we're all searching for kindred souls out there - someone or several 'someones' who travel on the same wavelength that we do. We all feel alone, lost in the back-country of our own minds. We long to share the things that make us special and to have other people recognize that we're living, breathing, feeling, thinking beings. Maybe, in some cases, it's enough just to be 'noticed.'

I think that's why I want to write stories. In a way, writing fiction is an avenue I take in order to expel the many demons from my head. Just call me 'Legion.'

As a child, I spent many hours alone, sitting in my bedroom and staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. Having been made aware of mortality at an early age, the very idea of death dominated my thoughts. To escape that daily self-made horror, I created 'mind-movies' to distract my already world-weary brain. One of those 'mind-movies' stayed put and I've added to it over the last twenty-four years until it became this great epic that resided only within my skull. This mind-epic has become my third novel, 'The Rose and the Dandelion.' It's not quite finished. I've got the rough draft out, but for some reason I can't let it go. Somehow, just the act of finishing it on paper has had the effect of emptying it from my mind. It's an old favorite fantasy that I don't want to be shed of yet. I haven't posted a single word of it online, other than a short synopsis, because it is that special to me.

I once rewrote the prologue with different character names and posted it on a critique group, and several members said that I had a twisted imagination, but the scene gripped them and they wanted more. I didn't post more, though. It's a unique angle and it's all mine. I'm not casting that particular bottle into the sea. In fact, a publisher won't even get to see it until I've published 'Cold January Mourning' or one of my other novels (if that ever happens) first. It's deeply personal, and I'm nowhere near ready to share it with the rest of the world. It's my magnum opus, and if I put it out there too soon, just stick a fork in me because then I'll be done. I've got that much blood, sweat and tears invested in that novel.

I'm sounding too cryptic, I know. If you've read the synopsis that I've posted on this blog regarding that novel, it doesn't sound too spectacular. I presented it that way for a reason - I want to protect my unique angle at all costs. Plus, I'm not one to carelessly toss my words into the wind.

So what will I ever do with this blog or the 7,000+ pages of journals that I've kept since the age of ten? It might be something to leave behind for my kids and grandkids, if anything. Ever since I can remember, I've wanted to make some sort of mark on the world, something that says, "Hey - I was here." I want to be remembered long after I'm gone, and for people to read my words and hear my thoughts in their minds long after I've crumbled to dust. In a way, that's immortality. I could care less about the here and now.

In short, the words that I DO cast to the wind mean nothing to me. What does matter is that my stories and thoughts live on. Because I was shown the meaning of death at such a young age, I don't want to pass from this world as an unknown. Due to my youthful indiscretions, my body is worn out and very, very tired. I have a bad heart and if I live to see the age of forty-five, I'll be amazed. Time is running out, and I'll be thirty-seven before long. This is why writing is important to me. I want to cast hundreds of bottles out there for people to find, long after I'm gone. They will ensure that a hundred years from now, people will know that I once existed - that I once looked out at this world through troubled eyes and tried to process what I saw there.

The Internet is the greatest thing ever invented by mankind. Like man himself, it's flawed. For every bit of wisdom that one might find floating about in it, there's ten times as much porn and other thought-garbage to wade through. Maybe in time, that will be fixed.

In the meantime, though, I write something every single day. Not necessarily here, but somewhere. Leaving random thoughts laying around like breadcrumbs pleases me to no end. That's also why I do take the time to read the musings of others, so that for a fleeting moment I'm aware of the thoughts of yet more individuals out there amongst the millions.

If someone finds your message in a bottle, know this: Someone has noticed you, and made an attempt to understand you and your thoughts. That's a gift, of sorts, from one stranger to another. Cherish it.