Book Review: Quest for Lost Heroes

Over the break I read three books and I thought it worth while to share my opinion of each. The first I read when I came down with flu on Christmas Eve. I had begun the book prior to that but spending the better part of the day in bed aforded me much time in order to read. I finished it in that day. It was The Quest for Lost Heroes by David Gemmell who's work I try to emulate. He is such a talented fantasy writer and writes in a style similar to mine. Though we still differ greatly, not the least of which is his success versus mine, we have similar fantasy models. I don't like magic and apparently neither does he. I modeled my fantasy world after real cultures and apparently so did he. The book is about heroes, as are most of his works, and so are mine. I love it. He inspires me to continue writing fantasy.

This book is another great example of his powerful prose. He weaves a tale of old heroes who have all fallen on, well, different times. While all are still praised for their efforts none feels the same about the battle in which they held off a barbarian hord. They go on what is sure to be a fool's quest to rescue a maiden from slavers and, as it turns out, the barbarian king. It is action packed and even includes more of the play by play fighting than he usually writes. I loved it. I couldn't wait to reach the end which always seems...perfect in Gemmell's books. I only hope that one day I can write as well as he.

Play Write

After some reflection and a bit of reading and writing I have decided to try and sell the plays I've written for our church's Christmas and Easter programs over the last couple years. I have four that have been performed and another couple written. At first I was worried that there was not much of a market for Christan plays but after some research I found publishers willing to buy plays. It may not be as wide a market as novels but it exists and I have some so I thought I would try my luck. I have confidence in my work and have received strong feedback from those who watched them. At this point I suppose it makes sense because I already have a catalogue of plays and only two manuscripts for novels. I wonder if I should even dabble in the short story market in order to build a resume worthy of consideration. Time will tell whether this goes anywhere. I have high hopes.

Reflection on 2009

With 2009 closing I have a lot of things to think about. This year it was my goal to secure an agent. Mission failed. While at times I temporarily gave up so as to not be over depressed about rejection, I still hoped to find someone willing to represent me. I am still confident that I will be a full time writer, that I will find a publisher for Sureshot the Assassin and that I will have a long and successful writing career; but not this year. Thumbs down on finding an agent.

I am pleased that I have maintained a blog for this long. At times I have gone a month without a post, but as I look around the net, this seems common. I have managed to continue posting even when no one is reading. If nothing else it is an exercise in perseverance. Thumbs up for the blog.

When it comes to writing I have written a lot this year but not finished anything. This is a little disconcerting because I can't sell anything that isn't finished. I have a number of promising projects, but that's all. Aside from Sureshot the Assassin I have nothing to offer the market. I have to work on that next year. Thumbs down for finished work.

When it comes to a fore mentioned work, Sureshot the Assassin, I am pleased that it has gone through a semi-professional edit and came out better than ever. People who have read it, love it, and I think it is a good piece. Actually that is what frustrates me the most. I have a good book that I can't get anyone who could buy it to even sniff at it. Still, thumbs up on Sureshot the Assassin going through an edit.

Play writing this year was probably my biggest writing accomplishment. I wrote the Easter play "Between two thieves" which went fine, and then the Christmas play "Take me to your Leader" which in my humble opinion, was epic. I continue to get encouragement and motivation to pursue writing. I also have a vague hope of publishing my plays eventually. This in turn could lead to further writing success. So big thumbs up on play writing.

I'm going to stop now while I'm a net thumbs up. Overall, I could have done better, but then I never expected things to be easy. As long as I continue to love writing and have things to write about I will continue to have a positive attitude about it. We'll see what 2010 has in store for me. Prost.

Take me to your Leader

I wrote the Christmas play again this year and decided to write a comedy. It was a challenge but in the end came out great. I added the three Star Trek characters to the play as a parody and made them the three "wise" men, or "wiseguys" as we were. It was a lot of fun, and more importantly it worked. My church is working on uploading the play to the Internet so when it's there I hope people will take a look. I am proud of it because it was clever and yet effective. The message was there and it entertained everyone who saw. This one will be hard to top.

Christmas Vacation

With a few days off hopefully I can get some writing done. I have a few things on the agenda. I have to write the Easter program before I go back. I have a few things in mind so it should only take a couple days. I would like to finish a short story I started about Pinocchio or more specifically his conscience Jiminy Cricket. My kids have been watching it lately and he is the crappiest conscience ever, and yet he got a medal. So I decided to write a story about his performance review. It is fun. Also I would love to continue writing a story I started this year. I have about half a dozen working titles, but it has zombies. Very fun. Oh and the ever popular vampires. I know I've been playing too much Resident Evil. Lastly, I have new motivation to write the final Sureshot installment. I have the plot pretty much worked out I only need to get it done. Of course I would love to get the second one in print before that but I can only control so much. Searching for agents is on my list of things to work on as well. Shot I just realized that I only have two more weeks until school is back in session. I better get started.

Thanksgiving story

One of my favorite Thanksgiving stories is when Samoset the first native to greet the pilgrims does so for the first time. I decided to recreate it in micro because I enjoy it so much. I don't know the names of the men Samoset met first so I will guess. Enjoy.

It was a warm and inviting day in March, a welcomed condition given the difficult winter the pilgrims endured their first days in their new home, Plymouth. The Pilgrims were busy with their daily tasks: gathering wood, tending to soil, preparing what meager meals they could, mending and building structures. The main structure, the church, stood as a monument to God's Providence in their lives. Unwelcome in their own homeland they sought a new chance. God gave them that opportunity, as he does when a person is saved, they were given new life.

Their new home was beautiful, but foreign. Wild and untamed the land was nothing like the terrain they knew in England. It was lush but unpredictable; it offered life and threatened death. They survived there only by God's grace and they thanked Him constantly for it. Still, they looked for new assurance of his blessing so that they could rest knowing that they would not be erased from the world and forgotten like other colonies before them.

On this day just such a sign strolled into town. While everyone went about their work as they did every day a native of the tribe Abenaki walked down the only street in town as though the colony had always been there and he was welcomed their openly. The people stared in awe as this "savage" paraded alone past the homes that were strange to him in their rows toward the center of town which was of course, the church.

His name was Samoset, second in command in his tribe. He had a strong gait, striking long black hair, a mere loin cloth around his middle and he did not even bother to return the stares that the pilgrims gave him. Some hid their children though they could not be prevented from watching the visitor from windows and cracks in doors.

The men at last headed him off and halted Samoset before he entered their church which was clearly the main building. Samoset was on a mission to make contact with the leader of the colony, the normal diplomatic thing to do, but the pilgrims would have been horrified had a heathen entered their church. Once halted they sized each other up a moment—Samoset not intimidated by the Englishmen. Why should he be? He was in his land, though the pilgrims had moved in. He and his tribe had watched with interest as they erected buildings and suffered through the winter. Many thought they would not survive, as other "visitors" had perished in the new land. These somehow endured the winter, so they deserved to know who their neighbors were. With these motives, Samoset looked into the eyes of the English pilgrims and said something that shocked the socks off of everyone there, "Welcome."

Samoset knew English! He told them that they were in the land of a tribe that had died of plague a few years earlier so that none of the natives cared too much of the choice in their settlement's location. He wanted beer, having been given some by the fishermen who frequented the region and taught him some English. Samoset gave them a lot of information on the tribes nearby and later brought them Squanto, who would prove to be a gift from God because without him it is unlikely that they would have survived. The pilgrims gave the visitor gifts, a bracelet, a knife and a ring. This meeting is historic and momentous.

I am struck by the amazing events that surround the Plymouth colony. They believed that God guided them to their new home and that he watched over them carefully. Surely no other early settlement was as successful as this one, though it was not without challenges. As I celebrate Thanksgiving, the holiday that they inspired, I trust as they did that God is alive in me and has a plan for my life.

Thanksgiving

Thank you Lord for all you've given me. Help me to use your gifts to glorify you and advance your kingdom. Forgive me for my selfish pride, for my failures and my sin. Take it from me so I may be near you. On this day I give you thanks for your love, forgiveness and grace. It is all about you. Let your light shine for the whole world to see. Amen.

Query

In an attempt to get some feedback on my query I have decided to post the gist of it here. I have written about half a dozen queries for the Sureshot 2 (as I'm still calling it) but none have secured representation. Maybe someone will have some advice on how to improve it. Still I am moving on and trying to complete another story to peddle that one in the hopes of breaking into what appears to be a tough industry.

Who is the Sureshot? Is he a hero or a paid assassin? Unfortunately even he does not know the answer.

My novel, Sureshot the Assassin is 100,000 words of adventure fantasy. It is character driven and yet full of action. At its core it is about identity and how environment and people shape who we are. Durbar the Sureshot rose to stardom because of his amazing skill with a bow. He became a champion out of isolation and obscurity. His family's history tripped him up however and through a series of events he was forced to serve as an assassin or face a worse fate. Reluctant and yet effective he eventually had to come to discover who he really was and own that identity, or risk permanently being an assassin. As he found out however, quitting is not always an option.

The story twists and turns, involves mysterious family dynamics and good old fashion adventure. It appeals to a young audience and also fans of adventure or fantasy.

I am a history teacher who studied at Fresno Pacific University and am in my third year as a high school teacher. I have been writing for years and this is my second completed novel. The first was publish with Tate Publishing, and I retain the rights to that work. Beside writing novels I had an article published in New Man a now online (was print) publication. I also take pride in writing the Christmas and Easter plays my church performs for the last three years

Record Rejection

After posting my big hurrah about how I am going to get back in the fight and try to find an agent I was rejected. Not only rejected but in record time. 40 minutes to be exact. I know…I was shocked too. It was almost depressing if it wasn't comical. I replied to the agent to try to get some feed-back as to what I am doing wrong, since I am convinced that I am doing something wrong. So far it's been four days and she has not responded. I am disappointed about the lack of response to my plea for help only because rejection was so swift. I hope that it does not become an indictment on the industry that rejection is in surplus and advice scarce. I still can't believe it…40 minutes…I am not even exaggerating.

Back in the fight

Ok I thought I had given up. I was so tired of emailing agents just to wait around for a negative response or no response at all. It was depressing. I really thought I was done. It has been a full four years since The Sureshot came out and I have not found a publisher for my second book. It makes me want to give up. Then someone encourages me and I get a second (or third, or fourth, or tenth) wind. Again it was students. I sold a few books to them after some were interested and they really liked it. Of course they did. I have had very little negative feedback. Normally I would question their sincerity but with teenagers I have no doubts because they rarely spare anyone's feelings. One said I looked like Hitler today. Still it is tough shaking the feeling that all my effort is in vain. They are really excited about a story I was working on this summer, but I think it is because they all want me to create a character based on them. Tonight's goal…send more queries, and pray someone takes an interest.

Not Giving Up

It was a tough summer for me in regard to writing. I did not land an agent yet and it is bothering me more than it should perhaps. I almost gave up. About a week ago I was sitting at my computer ready to write my resignation letter. Then I was encouraged by my students. Some of them told me that they loved my book and couldn't wait to read more. This was all I needed. I doubt sometimes as I have not been blessed with endless confidence in myself, but when I am reassured by others I can keep going. Perhaps it is a character flaw, but what can I do? Nevertheless, I still feel like I have enough talent and potential to be a successful writer. I need to hone my craft, and learn to market myself better, but ultimately I still believe that I will get there. Where ever "there" is. Ultimately I know that it takes faith more than anything, and I still have some. We'll see where I am in a few more months, but until then I am going to wake up every day with the mindset that my future is in writing. That's where I'm at, and that's where I'm going. For better or worse.

Dress Up

I am an amateur psychologist. I am especially interested in child psychology having three children and being a high school teacher. They are a fascinating breed, both the little ones and the not so little ones. One topic that I am interested in is the nature v. nurture argument that I imagine will never be settled. Like most people, I think that there are strong elements of nature in children, but they are amazingly susceptible to molding it seems so I cannot deny a nurture component. When it comes to the genders I am highly opposed to the idea that we as parents and a society instill basic gender roles on our children. To further my understanding of the topic, I am conducting an ongoing case study in my home. Here is one piece of evidence.

My son is a warrior. From birth he has been different from his older sister who is a mere 18 months his senior. There is something in him that compels him to hit things, throw things, smash things and build things. Few of the toys his sister had held his interest unless they could be fashioned into something that could be used for the afore mentioned purposes. It is fascinating for me to watch. For instance I have seen him put on one of his sister's princess dresses. Naturally his older sister wants to play dress up, and since he was not really at the dress up age yet he had none of his own. Instead he came around the corner in a princess dress. Seeing my son wearing a dress, I had a serious decision to make, and one that could heavily impact the nurture side of the argument if I were to respond poorly. I chose to act as though it were perfectly acceptable because I figured he was far too young to be embarrassed about it and punishing him seemed completely idiotic. I let it be as the Beatles song goes. It turned out it was the right choice. Once dressed up, his sister handed him a magic wand. Not a magic one like Gandalf (Lord of the Rings) would have, but a princess wand that one might associate with, well…fairies. I was slightly more concerned but had already committed to seeing how this would play out without my interference. I watched…admittedly nervous. Would he twirl and spin? Would he sprinkle magic fairy dust on things? Would he hope a prince saved him and gave him true love's first kiss? The outcomes were unnerving. Alas I was spared the more controversial results. With a princess dress on and a magic wand in his hand, my son proceeded to try and whack his sister with the bejeweled wand as though it were not a wand at all but a club instead. I sighed and smiled. His sister ran in terror afraid of the savage attack. He chased her making crashing sounds with his mouth as he pretended to club her with his wand. At that moment I saw the scene from a different point of view. I no longer saw my son in a beautiful, elaborate princess dress accessorized by a jeweled wand, I saw a savage warrior in a kilt wielding a club and engaged in a primitive battle for survival. He has not changed my image of him one iota since that day. Score one for nature. You can put a dress on a boy, but he still wants to smash things.

All You Need is Love

Just a little poem for anyone interested.

To not have to worry about money or wealth,
To never have problems with sickness or health,
If food was free, and there was plenty for me,
If the world was at peace, and there was oil in the East,
It would be nice.

But everything is literally uncontrollable.
It is a nice dream, and an immense goal.
It’s not something that will change overnight.
Hopefully someday we can live in an utopia,
But until then we must survive,
And keep our hopes alive.
So to walk down the long and winding road,
All you need is love.
Everything else is lace on the tapestry of life.

Book Review: East of Eden

Besides spending time relaxing on vacation for the first time this summer, I have been doing a little reading. I just finished East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Let me say first that I love Steinbeck. Although he has radical tendencies sometimes, and I do not always support some of the statements he makes with his writing, he is an excellent author. In this book he built an elaborate story around the creation story, but more so the story of Cain and Able. On this theme he compared and contrasted the brotherly dynamic and their propensity to sin, and their desire to be loved by God or their father in this case. It was amazing how he used believable and deep characters to retell the story so many people are familiar with, while adding his own commentary about sin, religion, family and people. I loved it. It was of course very dark as a bit depressing as his writing often is, but still gripping. I am not sure I will add it among my favorite books since Tortilla Flat also by Steinbeck already resides there, but I definitely give it a thumbs up.

Summer Time

Summer is here and I was disappointed to count out the number of weeks I had off and come up with a paltry 6. I know I sound selfish because very few other occupations allow you that much time off, but still I was hoping for more. Besides that, this is the first summer in which having kids is going to use up much of my time. I wrote The Sureshot while watching Madelyn, Sureshot 2 with Madelyn and Elijah around. But with Madelyn, Elijah and Olivia, and them all getting older and more demanding of my time, things might be different. I am not sure what I wrote last summer except for a bunch of lessons for my world history class, but this summer is definitely going to be a struggle. So far we have filled our time with Vacation Bible School, summer reading classes for Madelyn at Fresno State, and karate (both mine and Elijah's). Next week there are swim lessons, and more reading classes. We actually made a calender and posted it in the kitchen so that we could keep up with all the things we needed to do on a daily basis. It is a bit exhausting. Still I have managed to nearly complete the Christmas play and I am way ahead of schedule on that. After that I think I will put a bit more polish on Sureshot 2 then move on to another writing project. Which one is any one's guess. I would love to write the third Sureshot story, but it might serve me well to work on something different. I have loads of stories I summarized and feel I can dive into. Maybe I will create a survey and let people help me decide what to write. That would be fun, let people help me choose the next story. I am passionate about so many things that sometimes I cannot even choose which to pursue. Anyways, I hope you all are enjoying your summer, and hopefully it is not as busy as mine. Ciao.

Monopoly

I don't need to say any more than....I dominated. There was a brief discussion over which game was more impressive to win at. I suggested that monopoly was the best because it represented business smarts. Then Brandi reminded me that I can't spell, so I stopped arguing. Still....dominated.

Scrabble

I suck at scrabble. The other night I suggested that Brandi and I play because I was tired of watching TV. It had been a while and I do not think I have ever defeated her at the game, but if I remembered correctly the last game was surprisingly close so I took my chances. My Scrabble woes are multi faceted. Firstly I am a poor speller. I feel like I am getting better but when I was in the midst of my foreign language studies I could hardly construct an English word properly. This stems from the fact that I was learning to write in other languages, and the fact that Slavic and especially Serbian has an alphabet wherein every letter makes only one sound. It is brilliant really and if there was a vote today on switching to Serbian as a primary language I would vote yeah. I can't stand the letter C for instance. C is the most irrelevant letter in our alphabet in my estimation. It makes either an S or a K sound. When combined with other letters it manages a new sound like CH but we could make a new letter for that sound, or adopt (as in the case of Serbian) C for the CH sound. I digress.

My other problem with Scrabble is that I am creative. When I get a word in my head (and I am apt to create large words) I find a way to make it work. A creative way. I will scramble letters until I find a way to make a word that I want. It may be by dropping a double consonant, or by changing vowels so that the word still sounds the same phonetically. To me that is all I want. I want the word to sound the same, even if it is not technically correct. Brandi disagrees. She insists that I spell the word correct or she penalizes me and makes me remove my word. Harsh I know. So after the third word I had rejected, I gave up, threw a bit of a tantrum and called quit. It was disgraceful really. I should have done the right thing, continued to play even though I was getting smashed, and taken the loss like a man, but I overreacted when my third word was revealed to be a non-word. All my frustration came to a head when I was trying to spell the word ghost. When I typed it just now I had no problem spelling it, but on my board I did not have an "h". So I tried to improvise by spelling it goest. Why not? It sounds right. Ultimately I knew that it was incorrect and Brandi was nice enough to confirm that before I embarrassed myself further by trying to lay goest down as a word. So then I tried to throw down the word geist as in poltergeist. I accidentally switched the center letters however spelling giest, which brought an objection from Brandi. I lost it. At now my third incorrect word I could not handle it and quit after a bit of a tirade. I admit it was childish.

So, I suck at Scrabble. Next time I am going to suggest Monopoly. Now that is a game.

Getting an A

I did a border line unethical thing. Ok it is definitely unethical and I am sorry, but in the grand scheme of things it is much better than having a relationship with a student or being drunk on the job or something like that. I wrote a sonnet for a student. I know! I shouldn't have! It was wrong! If you can find it in you to let me explain, then perhaps you can see your way to forgiving me.

There is an English teacher on campus with a reputation for being hard. He teaches seniors only and gives them a lot of work. One day a student in my Econ class was complaining because she felt like there was no way she could write a sonnet. I dismissed her complaint by stating that sonnets are not all that difficult and that I had written several. She persisted and explained how there was a pattern to them and that each line had to be 10 syllables. I reiterated my position that there were not that hard, but she did not back down and we were at an impasse.

To settle the dispute she issued a challenge. She said that if I was so good, I could write a sonnet for her. I, being a writer and confident in my sonnet writing skills, did not back down. I said that I could do it no problem. Having accepted the challenge I asked the class for topics. Hotdogs, spam, and pirates, were among the topics that made the list. I chose pirates as my topic.

I assigned my students their work for the day which involved them reading then responding to some questions about trade or something, and sat down to write a pirate sonnet. Armed with the Shakespearian sonnet pattern I began. In fifteen minutes or so I was finished. I grinned confident that I had won the challenge. I feel as though I wrote an excellent sonnet and announced to the class that I had finished. Many did not believe that I had actually created one in such a short time span having spent hours on their own. I then read it to the class. There was applause and I smiled widely brimming with pride. The girl who issued the challenge asked repeatedly if each line was indeed ten syllables so I gave it to her to verify. She did so and the sonnet was intact. There was more adoration. Then I was put in an awkward position that I myself walked into. The student wanted the sonnet.

I did not intend to actually do work for a student, but she had challenged me to write her a sonnet with the implied intention of turning in the work I produced. I did not want to allow it however finding it unethical and to complicate the situation further there were more students who then wanted me to write them a sonnet. Students were petitioning me for sonnets immediately and shouting out topics while my head spun. In the end I chose a middle ground. I gave the student the pirate sonnet and declined to write any more.

I was then anxious to know what I got on the sonnet. It had been ten years since a poem of mine had been submitted for evaluation. Eventually she told me that it received an A, but to make things more uncomfortable, the teacher took her aside to compliment her pirate sonnet. I debated telling the teacher, but did not want to put everyone involved in an embarrassing position. The student would likely have her work erased, I would have to explain the whole situation and risk damaging a relationship with a respected colleague, and the teacher would potentially be embarrassed for praising her, or rather, my work. So I kept quiet.

It was wrong, I know, but I am still rather proud to have received an A. It was like being in senior English all over again. Here is the controversial sonnet for your judgement.

 

Pirates swinging in the rigging up high

I'm deafened by the loud booming of guns

Cannon balls and debris falls from the sky

Battle raging on, had only begun

 

Swords clinging and clanging, wanting to run

All around the ship, is nothing but sea

Death all around me my body is numb

My efforts are vain with nowhere to flee

 

Brave sailors all dying shown no mercy

The ship over taken, the battle lost

The pirates laugh and cheer with evil glee

One handsome and tall, apparently boss

 

Captured and made a pirate captain's queen

Together we sail the oceans wide and green

Getting Older

May was a busy month. My daughter turned 5, I turned 29, my wife turned...well...she had a birthday. I was rejected by another agent (3 total), we suffered two plagues (swine flu, and bubonic plague) and I guess I worked somewhere in there. I managed to do some writing. Mostly I continued to polish Sureshot 2, but I also worked on a new project.

As I get closer to thirty I take stock on what I have accomplished and I am not ashamed. I have done a lot in 29 years. I would love to add best selling author to the list, but so far that remains on my list of things to do. Still I have studied 3 foreign languages while serving 5 years in the army. I have been married 7 years (nearly 8), and helped create 3 beautiful children. I have had a book published and written another. I finished a bachelors in arts, and the teaching credential program. I have taught history and economics for two years, as well as Sunday school. I have written 3 Christmas/Easter plays, and am working on 4 and 5. I have served as a deacon, and brought a few people to Christ. Over all, not bad for 29 years of life. I have more to do, but I am trying to be patient and keep things in perspective.

Here's a toast to life, more birthdays, and more accomplishments. Prost!

Wimp

I realize I’ve something lacking.
You say it is my gut relaxing.
I believe it’s my mind still turning.
That stops my heart always burning.
If you lose patience and move on,
I cannot blame you for your action.
I’m a wimp and a coward at that.
All I’ve done so far is sat.
But please remember my lack of time,
That I’ve invested in women divine.
For surely I will come around.
I just pray that when I do it’s you I’ve found.