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Beginnings: Back Cover Blurb

Skirting the law while skipping between Ivy League schools in search of himself, Jeremiah finally finds someone who accepts him for who he truly is. This love, however, is short-lived as his latest interlude raises more than just the police’s curiosity. Within weeks he’s on the run again with only one safe option to turn too, but can he manage to endure his choice while surviving the initiation process or will he lose himself within the folds of the mafia with powerful enemies on all sides. His life hangs in the balance as both friends and enemies weigh their options against a quick profit. In a last ditch play, he returns to the one person who might love him in return. The only question he has is will she accept him where his choices have led him while knowing the danger he’s in or will she turn away like so many others. More importantly, can he live with himself if he puts her in danger? Unfortunately, it’s not his decision as external forces converge around him in an explosive confrontation.

Ferryman: Back Cover Blurb

Brian Dalton thought he was going to survive his genius with only a resentful childhood, but when his parents are murdered in front of him his life takes an odd change for the worse. Now, obsessed with death, Brian is pulled into the CIA who’s more than willing to use his abilities to their advantage in a massive mole hunt. Brian, however, has other plans as he uses his mental prowess and new found skills to commit a string of murders against his own personal enemies. But no one’s perfect and as an up-and-coming FBI agent starts to close the noose, Brian taunts the man’s morals while disappearing under his CIA cover, Opus Wright. But soon his superiors are pulled into the mix as he struggles to stay one step ahead of everyone in a game he’s still learning. With his plans on the verge of backfiring, he wonders if his fascination with death will prove to be his savior or his downfall.

Vocabulary verses Style

I’m always been told I have an excellent imagination and for that I am thankful. But having vivid thoughts and putting them onto paper is quite difficult for two reasons. One – I want to get the intent of the scene written down and move onto the next so I don’t miss the flow. Two – I don’t know enough adjectives to express the feel in minute details.

Now I can imagine the chill in the air, how my warm breath fogs a mirror, and even shiver at my imagined scene, but describing it in words is something I’m not exceptional at doing. This is why I write sudden-fiction, which is a style of writing which leaves more to the imagination of the reader than to the writer. However, I see everything clearly within my mind, it’s just the process of expressing it on paper I find difficult.

In one of my first blog posts ever, I wrote a scene written in two different ways: regular fiction and sudden fiction. And though I prefer one style to the other, I've trying to slowly switch to the other or at least incorporate it further into my preference. It’s not easy for me. I don’t like describing the intricate nuances of things, but for my vocabulary to grow I need to expand my style a bit (or maybe vice versa). In conjunction with that, I also need to read more.

Lately, as previous blog entries have alluded to, I've been in editing mode for over a year, though I have delved into writing Burden at times. This will end soon. I will get Limbus and Azazel out through my publisher. Then I’ll put out Beginnings and Ferryman. After that, I think I’ll take some time to read a book or too. Maybe I’ll come up with a few more ideas or maybe I’ll be inspired to finish Burden, I don’t know.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll start editing my series of nine called Shadow Gods. No matter what, though, I will work on my style; refine it, test it, play with it a bit, and see where it takes me. In the end, I hope I’ll be a better writer for it. If not, then I hope it’ll be a good vacation from my passion.

Jilted - trailer

Just imagined this up after rethinking a possible story-line of a future book named Jilted. And if you'd like to understand more, you can go back to previous posts and find a few entries there as well. Enjoy.

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Scrambling for purchase on a ledge made for squirrels, Marcus clung to the bricks in frantic desperation. He didn't want to die. He didn't deserve to die, but fate had chosen otherwise. Fate, at least in this instance, came by the name of Justin Turner, an eccentric billionaire who offered Marcus the role of a lifetime. Unfortunately, Marcus wasn't perceptive enough to pick up on Justin’s level of deceit at the time. Now, far too late in the game to crawl out of the grave he’d so willingly dug for himself for a few thousand dollars, Marcus realized his stupidity was going to cost him his life. More than that though, he knew this was all part of a plan to crush the life out of Cristina, the woman he seduced and later married at Justin’s request. That was the role he played, an actor’s dream if you will, but it’d all gone terribly wrong. People were after him, bad people, wanting money for the drugs they believed he’d purchased, but it was all a setup. Then he slipped, his fingernails scrapping across the red bricks leaving claw marks as he started to fall from his precarious perch. It wasn't a short fall, seven floor of pending doom passed by like an eternity before the deadly thump of impact on hard pavement. No one would know his final thoughts during those last seconds except Marcus.  And what he imagined was not his life, nor the lives of Cristina or Justin, but rather how things got so out-of-control.

The Introverted Mind

A piece of writing from my past...

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For a dozen dark eternities and across a million miles of endless wastelands I walk, but these are just the jagged steps I take within my mind. In an attempt to discover myself, I became lost. I explored the crevasse, the gulf separating reality and fiction, and all of the emptiness held within in the hopes of finding that which I have endlessly searched for, but I am only further away from it now then when I began. I have found no meaning, no answers to deep questions, and no awe-inspiring thought. In fact, I find more questions without answers. I find the world turned around with bits flowing in directions unimagined. I find a separation of fact and reality, where the conceptual belief brings about a turn within the actual. I wonder how can this be. Can the mind define the reality? I have no way of confirming my suspicions, but I can feel the world bearing down upon my shoulders as my small belief goes against the norm. So I turn and walk away.

My giving in is a submission to follow and not to lead, but that is my choice. I will choose, when the time comes, to air my voice alongside another. I will lend my support to a braver, stronger, heartier man than I because he has the strength to fight the norm. His beliefs, though the same as mine at one time, will change the world, even though I held them long before he did. He will receive the credit, take the praise, and be glorified for his accomplishments while I receive nothing. It does not bother me for I have moved on. I have found other discoveries, but again I keep them to myself and wait for another to bring them forth. Why you might ask? Because I lack the means to validate my theories and the world does not support my ideas right now. So I turn and walk away.

In my ignorance, I watched the world pass me by, but worse yet I let my imagination die with each passing day. I have succumbed to the norm. I look back now and realize it has all been by choice. My choices, made for foolish reasons; made out of fear, made out of ignorance, made out of weakness, were my own. I have no one to blame, but myself. So I have wasted my life. What I do have in return, though, are the memories of bloodied feet and longing loneliness of the miles I’ve walked across the endless waste that is my mind. It is not a satisfying thought, but then few are when you only share them with yourself.

And yet again, I turn and walk away.

Walking Dead

Over the past week+, I’ve put aside the editing of Azazel, Book 3 of Jeremiah Stone, in favor of watching NFL football and The Walking Dead. It’s the second of these I wish to discuss.

Let me begin by saying I’ve enjoyed watching the series up to the current episode. In a way I was addicted to it for several days. On the other hand, I was also appalled with the nonsense of the show. It was absurd; not the premise, but rather the people. Their stupidity is unbelievable as they continually bring shame upon every writer I have dared to read. The fact they survive past the first few shows is almost more than I can stand and that is what I find so upsetting. The only way I can forgive this atrocity is the fact that if the characters were smarter then it’d be more a sitcom than a suspenseful TV series.

Now I could list most of the reasons why I believe this, but I’m not. Instead I’m only going focus on a single person and the absurdity of this person’s survival. The person I’m speaking of is Carl, the boy who pays no mind to his parents, wanders off on his own all the time, and blatantly disregards danger even though there are flesh-eating zombies all over the place. The sheer stupidity of this kid and his mother, who never knows where he is, push logic and sensibility completely out of the realm of possibility, especially concerning the boy’s survival. In fact, the only time the mother panics is when she can’t find her son in the middle of a zombie attack. Never mind the fact zombies are attacking all the time and she never knows where Carl’s at, but the nerve of her to suddenly care only when surrounded by danger makes me want to slap sense into her. 

This, of course, would occur after I take a belt to the kid’s behind because the child doesn’t listen to anyone and wanders away from the group all the time. In fact, nearly every time someone wanders off on their own something bad happens, yet when they stay together they survive. This alone would prompt me to always go somewhere in a group, but even though they know this they continue to separate themselves from each other.

Contrary to this, however, is Darrel, the hillbilly biker dude with the crossbow. He’s the only one of the group who has a proper head on his shoulders all the time. His presence within the group is the group’s only saving grace. Here-here for the single redneck out of them all who actually uses logic. And I must say it’s going to be the guys in the country with a trunk full of guns and ammo which carry on this nation if this should ever occur. It’s their ‘all for one and shoot the rest’ attitude which will likely prevail.

Now I understand all this is to create drama and suspense, but seriously! The writers should be chastised for making the common person appear so ignorant. Or maybe their message is to not act like these people (through continued repletion of the same theme) should this ever occur. Either way, they’re setting a bad example on how intelligent people would behave in a time of dire emergency.

Then again, after watching the people who stayed put during Hurricane Sandy and the devastation she wrought, it’s almost hard to believe intelligent people actually do exist.