Hearing Things

First off, and completely off subject, I want to give a huge shout-out to Tyler Melhart who has done the cover art of both Beginnings and The Ferryman, not to mention the cover for my upcoming release of The Burden of Immortality. He's also working on new covers for my series Jeremiah Stone (newly renamed the Stone Vengeance series) which I plan to republish shortly. He deserves a lot of applause for putting up with my demands. Thanks.

Now back to the point of this post. So this is going to sound odd to a few of you, suspicious to most, and just plan crazy to a lot of you, but it's something that's been on my mind for a few days now though this occurred over a week ago. Anyways, though people may not know it, I'm a religious man. I don't often demonstrate this, but if asked then I will answer truthfully with my belief. It is also something I will not argue because I hold this internally and my thoughts (though they stray at times) only cement my belief. So just to be sure everyone understands, I believe what I believe, I don't push my beliefs on others, and I respect that my body is truly a temple of (and for) god. Most of all, I will not say my beliefs are any better than another persons. Yet, it is also due to my beliefs that causes religion becomes a center point of my writing. That being said, I can now continue.

A week or so ago, I was reminiscing over my book The Burden of Immortality, contemplating life and all its vastness, and wondering if there is a beyond. To some these are fatalistic thoughts, or even hearsay, but to me these are just the processes of my wandering mind and over-active imagination. However, unlike most times, these thoughts occupied me for more than just a few minutes or few hours, but rather a few days. When I was done, and believe me when I say I was done I was done, I simply continued with life without another thought, though in all this time I'd not come to a resolution. In fact, I'd discovered nothing. I felt empty for having wasted so much time and thought, yet had come away from it all unfulfilled. Moreover, if anything, I was less of myself at the end than when I started. This is odd for me because I seek meaning in what I do. Still, I left it as it be, and just started life again.

Then several hours later, while driving down a street near my house with nothing but the road on my mind, I heard a voice in my head. First of all, I know right now you're thinking I'm crazy and for that second I have to agree with you. But in that moment, I analyzed everything around me; the softness of the radio in the background, the noise of the cars around me, and even my own thoughts. What I discovered was none of those things were the cause of what I'd heard. In fact, despite my immediate denial of what the voice said, I knew I'd heard the divine. But I also knew I'd never hear it again (well, most likely never hear it again). Yet, what I heard lifted my spirit, it brought meaning back into my life. Most of all, however, it re-established, in an odd way, that my religious belief was good and what I was doing was good. It provided meaning.

Now, I'm not the best person around. I have huge character flaws. I have deviated from the beliefs of my youth more than I like to admit. And I'm not the nicest person to have at your side. Despite this, I try to be a good person. I try to do the right thing. I try to help others. And in my belief, this wins out (most of the time). Anyway, what I heard within my head has supplied me with something I could not have gotten from some one or some place else. This is even more relevant when I take into consideration the single word I heard in a voice as non-descript, yet overwhelmingly positive, as any I've ever heard in my life.

I am now going to pass that word on to you, the word I heard which I can't explain from where it came, and a word which now brings a refreshed smile to my face. So I say in a friendly tone, just as it was said to me, 'Hi'.

Choices

During a fatalistic phase, I wrote this....

We have a choice. Life or Death. We have a choice.

Every day we make a choice, consciously or not, on whether we wish to go on in this façade of a life or not. Most don’t even know they make this choice as they go about their business, but I do. I see the window I can jump out of. I see the approaching bridge as I’m driving. I see the bottle of pills on the counter-top. With everything I see I make the conscious choice to continue my existence because I have more to live for than I have to lose. But with every passing day I wonder if that balance is going to shift. I wonder if what I’m living for is enough. I wonder if I have the strength to fight through a bad day and survive into the next.

There are some days, however, where I have teetered on that brink. I hate those days because if I actually knew I’d made my peace with GOD, you wouldn’t be here to read this.

Nor would I be here to type this. 

Burden - Complete

With feedback given and editing complete, I've made the necessary changes to finish the book. Now it's just time to get the cover done and submit the book for publishing. Quite proud of that, though this is just one more book I will publish in my arsenal yet to be written and published.

For now, here's the back cover of The Burden of Immortality:

Drazan Cvetko hates his life. He’s meant for better than this, but pulling himself out of the gutter isn't easy. This all changes when his father dies and an old acquaintance delivers to him his father’s encrypted journal. Yet, despising everything the journal means to him, Drazan begins to painstakingly unmask his father’s latest archaeological discovery. Unfortunately, it’s not the only journal of his fathers out there and other people, people far beyond his understanding of wealth and power, want what’s contained within the scribbled pages. So, fighting his better judgment, Drazan launches himself into the middle of something he can’t begin to comprehend for the sake of what; a chance at immortality. Is it enough to risk his life for?

Maybe the better question is what does he have to give up in order to acquire it?

New Intro to Jeremiah Stone

Working on an update to Jeremiah Stone by putting a better intro into place. Here's the draft, which drops you straight into where the action begins. Feedback wanted:

With his mind teetering on the edge, Jeremiah reviewed his plan and knew it probably led to certain death, but he was familiar with death. In fact, he’d journeyed across the grey void twice already only to be denied by the Divine both times. In that experience, however, he learned hatred, he learned the meaning of retribution, and he learned a little bit more because after he awoke from his coma he could hear voices, voices which weren't there. But now he knew the truth of them. Now he knew the world was not as it seemed, as everyone believed. There was more occurring than people imagined with Heaven and Hell being just another stepping stone from what we currently lived within. And what no one else knew is that angels and demons moved among us bartering for our lives.

Jeremiah understood that now all because the voices he heard made too much sense. They drifted in and out of his mind like lucid daydreams, but some of the words were of names he knew, names within the mob. Names of men he used to associate with regularly. At least that was the case up until the point he died for the second time. Now, he was abandoned, left for dead, and all alone in the world. That fact didn't bother Jeremiah though because he was also full of hatred, skilled in bending the world to his need, and determined to enact some revenge.

Of course, most wars start with revenge, and Jeremiah knew he was about to start a war. He knew how his actions would create a rift, causing turmoil in an already shaky situation. And he knew that once started there was no walking away. There was no turning back. There was only survival while pursuing his personal vendetta against those who made him who he was, what he was. They were the only ones to blame because there had always been more to Jeremiah than met the eye.

So as Jeremiah paced down the cold concrete among the darkened skyscrapers of Manhattan, he could only fathom one action; the kidnapping Zygi Wolf. Why Zygi? Because he was the one man his new enemies seemed interested in. He was also the one man Jeremiah was going to use to piss off the Divine enough to get their attention. This one action was going to be the start of his war, a war against both God and the Devil for taking away his death. Soon enough, his pain was going to be their pain. He just hoped he’d survive long enough to twist the screws deep enough that neither would deny him death again.

Jeremiah Stone - Fighting Chance

The excerpt you’re about to read from ‘Jeremiah Stone’ is still under draft, but you can get a sense of action the novel entails. In the story, Jeremiah has just saved and taken into protection (from angels, demons, and police alike) a crime syndicate up-and-comer named Zygi Wolf.  They’re currently holed-up in a New York City hotel (which Zygi considers a dump) with Jeremiah questioning him about his importance.

“How should I know?” Zygi replied with innocence. “I’m one of the proverbial ‘bad guys’, so I guess it could be anything.”

Jeremiah stared at the man for a few seconds not satisfied with the answer while hoping his stoic stance would intimidate the man a little. “That’s where you’re wrong. You’re not the typical drug lord or mafia type, but you run in both circles. So what are you not telling me?” Even as he asked, however, Jeremiah made a connection of his own, one he didn’t want to contemplate, but he felt was the truth. Then, just as Zygi opened his mouth to answer, Jeremiah heard a whisper. An instant later he launched himself across the room at Zygi, grabbed a fist full of the man’s shirt, altered his weight, and flung Zygi through the doorway into the single bedroom with a crash just as the door to the apartment burst open. Luckily Jeremiah’s momentum was already moving towards the door, so he let it carry himself into the midst of policemen even as they brought their weapons to bear. 

Training helps a person prepare for real life situations, but when the opposite occurs during those times than everything is thrown off balance. So it is with the police, as they expect people to either freeze or run away giving them a second to analyze the situation and react accordingly. They never suspect an unarmed man to dive into their midst faster than humanly possible. To say they lost the upper hand in that first second would be an understatement as Jeremiah’s fist impacted the fourth man’s flak jacket with enough force to put knuckle imprints in its quarter-inch thick steel plate. Then Jeremiah turned his attention to targets one, two, and three. Spinning, he kicked the legs out from number three while backhanding number two shattering the man’s visor, then slammed his fist down into number three smashing him into the floor. By now, number one was spinning around bringing his weapon about. Jeremiah was just a bit slow in turning as two shots thudded into his chest and shoulder, but knowing his timing was off by just that much he altered his weight and skin density allowing the force of the bullets to twist his upper body to the right as his left fist shattered both the door frame and the man’s right bicep. As the gun dropped, Jeremiah shifted all his weight to the left stopping his momentum abruptly as number one’s momentum continued into him allowing Jeremiah to grab the man’s vest. Yanking it downward, the man caught Jeremiah’s rising knee. With a heavy grunt the man stilled before Jeremiah let him fall to the floor in a heap.

Jeremiah stopped and surveyed the scene in satisfaction. Four down in four second and all of them would live, which was a good thing since none of them were either angels or demons.

With a turn, he took a step back into the room and saw Zygi lying limply against the dresser, though still breathing. Damn, he thought. He wasn’t about to carry the man away, so he’d just have to leave him for now, though he wasn’t that useful anymore, he told himself as he reflected on his last thought before the policemen’s interruption.

Jeremiah’s ability to alter his weight became a study (after his second death) into whether it was truly his weight or his density he was altering. Believing it had to be the latter; he’s since tuned his power and thoughts into increasing his skin’s density into something more like hardened leather while making his innards lighter. This means he’s able to maintain his weight while turning his skin into something akin to a bullet-proof jacket. Granted, he still has to dig the bullets out of his skin and receives some really bad bruising, but he survives and is unhindered by the bulkiness of a true Kevlar jacket.

Hope

A twist of hope:

Hope is not always what it seems. Hope can be a killer. Hope can be a twist of the knife in the small of your back when you least expect it. Hope can be the turning point from life to death. Hope brings forth thoughts of salvation when disaster looms heavy, right before the floor falls out from beneath your feet. Hope is the angel of irony. Hope is God's joke on humanity.

Yet it is hope that causes us to aspire to something greater than what we are. It is hope which reaches out it's hand in the most desperate of times, raising us out of the ashes. And it's hope which gives many of us the will to live another day.

I have lived with hope for a long time and often I pray that hope never leaves me, even when it falters sometimes. This is because I doubt humanity can evolve without it. In fact, I doubt I can evolve without it. This is the power of hope.

Some Romance

Reviewing my romance novel and some snippets within which I wrote years ago when I came across this. It's fits into the story quite well and, though it may be a bit cheesy, it makes me wonder if it carries any truth. So I'm sharing it with you now to see if anything like this really matters? Does it carry any meaning beyond that single night? It's titled Intoxicating. I hope you enjoy.

I inhale the sweet scent of your perfume, see the sway of your body, taste the passion on your lips, and I know I have found all that I desire. You are perfection in my eyes as I run my fingers through your delicate hair, brushing it from your eyes so I can see into the depth of your soul. I feel the pounding of your heart against mine as our bodies mingle, intertwine, in an intimate embrace. I sense your needs and provide as your body arches and curls in rhythm to my touch. I hear the soft moans from deep within your throat and the tremors of pleasure passing through you on your way to release.

For me, I walk a fine line in hopes I give enough stimulation to satisfy, but not enough to overexcite. I want you to last as long as possible on the edge of ecstasy. I want you to remember my touch, my breath, my soft caress on those lonely nights when we are apart. I hope you ask for me to spend more tender moments within your embrace. I am yours and wish you to be mine for another night. I seek only your pleasure in what I do, for my deepest desire is the fulfillment of yours.