WRITERS CROSSING THE LINE
While attending a dinner with a friend, his wife said, “Glad you have a hobby like writing.” My then-wife saw me bristle and understood why. This incident occurred some time ago but not forgotten.
At the time of this event I had already been published and aware of the agony associated on being a writer on the quest to being an author. I have pondered the issues of writing and differences of the title as writer as a hobby or writer as a profession and arrived at the following conclusion.
My thoughts are these. As I went for putting words on paper to attempting publication, I felt writing could no longer be deemed a hobby after experiencing the rejections, multiple times of my work. After some thought, I realized writing can be a pleasant pastime; that some write for the sheer joy of the experience. Never seeking publication, only enjoying the mind wandering to places they would never have considered. Simply enjoying the process of creativity.
Writing is a hobby until you decide to publish. It is then you crossed the Rubicon. There is no going back. You crossed the line from hobby to profession, and God help you. For unless you are extremely talented, a writing gem hidden from the world, you will most likely experience rejection. The words you consider magnificence will push upon the brick wall of reality.
But if you goal is to become an author you will experience a level of doubt and rejection you never anticipated. But someday, if you carry on, your work will find a home and you are on the road of being an author. The difference between writer and author is perseverance.
You made it!
You’re an author now and the years of writing as a hobby are behind you.
LIVES THAT MATTER
With the recent event on both sides of the spectrum of gun violence I am lost in sadness and anger.
I could say I understand the sentiment behind ‘Black Lives Matter, but as a white man there is no way I can appreciate the tension the black man experiences walking or driving.
Our society has become a gun-toting society out of fear and hate. I’m sick of hearing about mass murders, people of color killed and now those with the mission to protect us slaughtered. Neither side is totally right or totally wrong. After all we are human, prone to mistakes and anger.
What it comes down to is the problem of the acceptance of guns in our country. Even when 20 six year olds were killed in Sandy Hook and robbed of their future, our government does nothing to change gun laws. The massacre in Orlando resulted in the same result. What does it take to make a change of us killing us?
There is a sickness in this country, one born hundreds of years ago and haunts us to this day. In reality, there is more than one sickness and what can we do to cure the disease our society must cure to remain the nation we once were and need to be in the future.
I pray that someday the dedication to ‘Black Lives Matter’ would transition into ‘All Lives Matter’.
Am I a dreamer, or is there hope?
LOIS LANE (NOEL NEILL) HAS DIED
Being a lover of science fiction from an early age, I, of course, watched Superman on TV during the fifties.
I just read that Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane, had died at the age of 95. I had to have watched every episode where Noel Neill playing Lois Lane appeared beside George Reeves playing Superman.
Here are some musings about how that past Superman would have a problem dealing in the current day and age. It struck me, in this day and age, with cellphones the predominate means of communication and phone booths a thing of the past, where in our current society could Superman change?
Also, a pair of glasses was his disguise. I must admit, when I remove my glasses people around me expect me to fly. I continually disappoint them, so far. And also, what would happen if Superman developed a super zit on the tip of his nose? Would taking off his glasses still conceal his identity?
Questions keeping me up some nights. I’m sure they have the same effect on you.
POEMS & FLEETING THOUGHTS: FORGETTING OUR FELLOW MAN
In this land,
Why is it
That when we gain wealth
The poor of the land
Are forgotten?
POEMS & FLEETING THOUGHTS: NIGHT
Night shuts down
The day’s life.
As mine
Comes alive
With memories
And monsters
Too real.
POEMS & FLEETING THOUGHTS: IMMORTALITY
I am a transient form of life
This my body knows,
Yet my mind seeks immortality
Never ceasing to exist,
For the world would surely
Cease to exist
Without my presence,
And my world
Would cease to exist
Without my infinite hope.
POEMS & FLEETING THOUGHTS: ORLANDO
Once again guns take lives,
Once again talk of gun control
Will fill the media,
And politicians will profess
How they will solve
The problem,
And once again,
Nothing will be done.
THE READING WORLD WAR II WEEKEND
The World War II weekend at the Reading Airport is now history. A short time ago I posted a piece describing the event and providing the date. Along with the information I included my first published short story centered on that weekend event.
After working the mornings of all three days of the event this year, I would like to share some observations.
We had quite a few veterans of that war, along with more recent wars, in attendance. I watched the World War II veterans, mostly in wheelchairs or supported by walkers, make their way through the gate to relive their youth. Although there was one spry 94 year old, who could have passed for 70, come to enjoy the show and I’m sure relive a time long gone. I tried to imagine what life was like when they were young men, in a foreign country, facing death any day. And what life must have been like for the civilians. In this day and age, could we muster the dedication on the scale to defeat the evil foe of that era?
These gallant men, participants belonging to the great greatest generation, rapidly dwindling, need to reveal their experiences. If you know a participant of that war, gently try to persuade them to talk of their experiences. Some are just waiting for someone to ask.
Also, if you know someone who lived during that era on the home front, ask them to share their experiences during that stressful time.
Their history needs to be preserved while we can still touch it.
THE STATE OF OUR NATION
I cannot express my feelings as eloquently as some of the fantastic poets I follow online. I must come to the brutal point; this country is in deep shit.
Not only of Donald Trump and what he has accomplished in this election year. Rather, it is because he was able to do what he has done. The sorry state of our government is the birth of his success.
The future of our country is in jeopardy of failure.
I thank God I am old.
STRUGGLING TO GET WRITING APPRECLIATED
Why do you write?
If you’re young, it’s to begin and establish a career, and along the way, perhaps make a living. If you are young this article may not interest you for it’s coming from a different place in life. The place is old age, but the need, perhaps not the reason remains the same. But then again, you will not be young forever.
My first and only novel published thus far appeared while I entered my sixties. Now, at the ass-end of that decade, when maturity infiltrates my brain, I still have a need to write as demonstrated in these mumblings. Do I enjoy it? Hell no!
I should not be working now. I should be enjoying ‘the golden years’. But my personality has always had a strange quirk, the need to accomplish something meaningful. This disease began while I was a teen and has pursued me ever since. Someday soon I may write of how this change to my personality began.
But for now, to the point of this article.
At the end of last year I receive an email from Books To Go Now, a publisher of e-stories telling me I had made 16 cents for the year. This notification brought me joy in a year of a publishing drought. I don’t know and will never meet the person who put down money to read my work.
In my mind, my friends, that is what it is all about. Not fame or fortune which is rightfully sought by the young, but appreciation of our efforts in writing. The bottom line is that appreciation and recognition, no matter how minimal of your work is important. It means someone finds your work worthy of buying. The buying is not the important part, the desire to read your work is.
That is why I write, and perhaps your reason too.
