Wolf's Point, the third book by Mike Robertson, is a fantasy novel set in a friendly village on the Missouri River. The time is now. You might think the ambience a shade Little House on the Prairie, except for the occasional murder.

Magic is afoot. The practitioners, for better or worse, are all children.

"Martin Conrad was confused by his new powers. He hadn't meant to kill the Amish man. And earlier that day, at the library, he hadn't meant to hurt the guy who wanted to hit him. He just needed gas for his truck and a way to get warm again. But sometimes magic takes you by surprise."

Wild Birds

Kikio spoke no Cantonese. Wi had no Japanese to speak of. They both spoke a kind of English. They had met by grace of accident a week earlier on a high mountain trail in a remote part of New Zealand. There were hesitant smiles and flashing eyes. Both were raised courteous in families of wealth; both had gentle manners and soft voices.

They agreed almost immediately to jump together from the highest cliff they could find.


Wi, tall and tan with long eyelashes and toothy grin, kept her hair short, the style of one of her favorite movie stars. "We hold hands?"

Kikio, looking over the lip of the 900 meter cliff on which they stood, said "No. Room, need room." She spread her arms wide and took several steps to the side. The wings of her flying suit made her look like a brilliant moth. She only came up to Wi's chin but her suit displayed her wiry perfect body, flexible and toned by a lifetime of yoga and acrobatic exercises.

They moved up to the edge together. They might have been some kind of alien insects, both thin in brightly colored striped suites, each with a small hump in the center of their backs, parachutes they would not deploy until the last possible moment.

They looked into each others' eyes and grinned. "Three two one," said Wi. They leaned forward together and dropped like brilliant spears into the space below.


They lost sight of each other almost right away. After landing, each went in search of the other. They scoured news reports, looking for accident or death notices. Each knew that if the other had failed to land safely, her body might never be found in the ravines and forest valleys of those mountains.

For each, panic soon eased to concern and then curiosity. Each returned to her home. Loving the silences between them, they had never talked about their families or where they came from, so they had no idea where to look. They didn't even know each other's last names.


Still, an ache lingered. As they grew older, each knew it was ridiculous, childish even, to try to preserve that fleeting sense of connection they had felt on discovering one another.

Kikio returned to Tokyo, where she struggled to establish herself professionally. She finished her education with a degree in urban planning. She worked as a city planner, first in Otsu in the Shiga Prefecture, then, as her reputation grew, in Kyoto. She wrote poetry. She studied the western poets. Her favorite was this one, by Wordsworth,

Not seldom did we stop to watch some tuft
Of dandelion seed or thistle's beard
That skimmed the surface of the dead calm lake,
Suddenly halting now -- a lifeless stand!

 She had lovers, but chose never to marry. Each time she met an attractive man, she secretly asked herself, "Is this man like Wi? Will he disappoint, as Wi never did? Will he disappear, as she certainly did?"


Wi, for her part, after spending a year in Germany and traveling in the Netherlands, returned to her family home in Jiaxing, a suburb of Shanghai. Her father, whose fortune was in textiles and who owned a number of clothing factories in Nanjing and other inland cities, welcomed her home with news of the death of her brother and mother. An accident, he said, though Wi knew it was otherwise. Her father had enemies; it was why he had sent her abroad in the first place.

He tried to convince her to leave again, offering to pay for an advanced degree in a school of her choice in the US. She refused politely and promptly disappeared, going to live with a girl she knew in Suzhou. Because she had money, she was promptly recruited into the heroin trafficking trade. She welcomed this. She never touched that or other drugs, but she was a skilled organizer and soon she ran export operations.

Both suffered from recurring dreams of falling into deep nothingness. Each, upon waking from these dreams, remembered only the last image: a highly colored bird winging into the darkness below, feathers shuddering as if its speed were too great to sustain; as if, were it to spread its wings fully, it would be blown apart like the seed head of a wild flower, to a million stars by the mouth of a child.

The Tent

THE TENT

Mark Amblin was trembling. That was the point. Jack up the adrenalin. Feel alive. Do something dangerous. He had worked out the reasons to be sitting here at 4 a.m. in a small mountain tent in total darkness, trying to figure out what to do next. To possess this thing without getting caught.

The camping store faced the busiest street in town. As spring warmed to summer, Mark admired the display as he drove to and from his janitorial job. Then the owner decided to improve sales by setting up  tents on the strip of lawn between the store and the street. Mark was struck by one tent in particular. The smallest one, orange and blue, shaped like some kind of jungle creature. Just right for him and his wife.

It didn't matter that they no longer went white water canoeing in the pine forests of northern Wisconsin anymore. That had been part of their mating ritual: daring the rushing cold waters to defeat them.

Although truthfully, it had been Charlotte's ritual. She invited Mark to go with her when they started dating. The time on the water was the best part. The noise, the rush of water, almost freezing cold, the danger. For the rest, it was mostly a matter of sitting on hard ground, swatting huge mosquitoes in the heat, or huddling beneath sleeping bags, spooned with Charlotte.

Now, married and living in a cottage near the outskirts of this town where Mark had dropped out of college after two years, things were different. He was comfortable enough, even on the small amount he made sweeping floors and emptying ashtrays and setting up chairs at his former school. But without the G.I. Bill that had been paying rent while he went to school, he and his wife couldn't afford things like a mountain tent.

Mark wanted it. For Charlotte, he told himself. He couldn't afford to buy it. But he could steal it.

###

Charlotte Amblin turned in circles in the middle of her kitchen. She was looking for Velvet, her kitten, who had followed Charlotte when she came downstairs and walked through the livingroom. Velvet liked to walk behind her, watching the heels of her shoes. At some point, it would jump up and try to snag the shoe with a claw. Barefoot, or weariing her thin slippers, that was painful. Mark already had had to paint her heel and ankle with iodine, which was even more painful. "Infection," he said. "Can't let that happen."

She couldn't disagree, but Mark's annoyance with the kitten was growing: he seemed unwilling to even try to train Velvet, or get along with her. Last night, coming down the narrow stairs from their bedroom, she heard Velvet screech as she flew through the air from the living room. Mark stood, scowling and rubbing his leg. He glared at her. "I can't wait for her to get out of her kitten stage," he said. "She hurts."

"Mark, don't throw her like that. Don't ever do that." Charlotte found Velvet huddled under the bench behind the kitchen table and gently coo'd her out and into her arms. "All you have to do is love her. She'll love you back."

###

Careful planning was key, he knew. Think it all out before acting.

It had been Mark's goal when he returned to college to learn the craft of writing fiction. Now, each evening after the day was over and Charlotte had gone to bed, Mark hovered over his typewriter and thought about the story he was trying to write. Mostly this meant staring into space, struggling in vain to quiet the noise in his head and to hear the little voice that might be that of a character, or a narrator. More often than not, he failed at this. As the weather warmed and the nights became nearly as uncomfortable as the days, all he could do was strip down to a tee and shorts and sit in front of the fan.

Instead of stories, the image of the mountain tent grew in his mind. Having it, and what he needed to do to get it. Imagining the theft was another way of creating a story. He had his French ten-speed bicycle, which he liked to ride, silent as a panther moving across the savanna on hot nights with no lights. He felt invisible when he rode at night, the later the better. Invisible and invincible.

The plan, when he had thought it through, was simple. Ride to the camping store after everyone was asleep and there was no longer traffic on the boulevard. Park the bike in total darkness. Get in the tent and when the moment was right, disassemble it from within. Back on the bike and ride it, silent and invisible, down the back streets to his home.

###

"Lea is coming to visit," Charlotte said one morning that spring.

"When?" said Mark, dipping a measuring cup into a bag of whole wheat flour. Saturday mornings were Mark's day to make pancakes for breakfast. He was proud of his recipe: half whole wheat, half unbleached white; eggs and baking powder and milk. Make it thick and chewey; smear it with peanut butter and slather with syrup. Eggs over easy on the side. A full protein meal.

"Tomorrow."

Mark paused, thinking about their inventory of groceries.

"I'll have to pick some stuff up from the grocery store then," he said.

"Yeah," said Charlotte. "We'll all go. I'm sure Lea will chip in."

"Good. Because we're almost broke until payday."

"She'll chip in," Charlotte said, looking up from her copy of Scientific American, her bathrobe exposing her thin legs. "She always does."

###

It helped that the camping store was located in the dim stretch between two street lights and well to the north of the main part of the city. The shopping center a quarter mile on up the boulevard, anchored by Walmart, had been closed for several hours. A light industrial park too. All closed. Everyone slept at 4 a.m. in this sleepy Midwest town in northern Illinois in 1972 except a few city police in patrol cars. And people like Mark.

He saw no one on his ride to the store. Now Mark sat quietly in the dark of the tent that would soon be his. He listened, not moving, almost not breathing, for cars or other sounds. Nothing. When finally he did hear a car approaching, he noted the way it illuminated the tent, confident he couldn't be seen in it. He tried to estimate how long it was between passing cars, but no more came after the first.

The danger he felt was danger he had chosen, and that thought thrilled him. He listened. All he heard was a long stretch of silence. He knew he would have to decide: dismantle this tent and in doing, expose himself, or crawl back on his bike and disappear and pretend he had never been here.

###

Lea arrived around lunchtime Sunday, chirpy and restless from the long drive as she always was. She and Charlotte were best friends. They had graduated together from a private high school in Kansas City's south-town six years ago. They'd never lost touch, though their lives had diverged from each other when Charlotte moved to Illinois to go to college. Lea had gone on to some school near her home, Mark hadn't paid enough attention to their chatter to know where. They hugged; Lea pulled two bags from the rear seat of her aging BMW. "There's more back there," she said. "Some stuff for you."

Charlotte grinned and grabbed one of Lea's bags and her free arm and marched them both to the house.

"Mark," she said, "Would you mind getting the rest of Lea's things from her car? I'm going to get her settled and start lunch."

Lea and Charlotte had grown up together and gone to the same schools, but they could hardly have been more different. Lea was taller; round faced where Charlotte's high cheekbones and narrow chin gave her the appearance of a rough-cut gem; large bones; a thin waist with large breasts that Mark could imagine were soft and smooth like overripe fruit, where Charlotte's figure was straight, almost no difference between her hips, waist and breasts, the body of a small athlete, which Charlotte had been in high school.

The box remaining in Lea's car contained nick-nacks for Charlotte. A small hand-thrown jar with a lid, brown with blue streaks; a plastic icon that Mark recognized as the Indian elephant god Ganesh; salt and pepper shakers in the shape of small birds; copies of The New Yorker magazine. Mark put the box on one of the dining room chairs.

"Hi Mark," said Lea, coming out of the kitchen. "Thanks. These are some of Charlotte's things that her mother gave me to bring up." They were nearly the same height. Mark just looked at her. "So how are you? How's your job? Still writing?"

"Still writing," said Mark. "If you can call it that."

"Well you know. One bird at a time," she said, smiling.It was a reference to a book she had brought him on her previous visit. Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life." A book to encourage him to keep working on stories. She smiled, a warm, lingering look.

###

There was no way to predict when another car might pass. Mark decided it was time to act. He popped loose the flexible rods that formed the tent's skeleton.

Mark sweated heavily while furiously trying to disassemble the tent and collapse it upon himself in the dark. He dared turn on the small flashlight he carried just long enough to be sure he had all the rods and gathered them into their bag. The tent by now had settled down around his body.

He crawled out as fast as he could, heart racing, and pulled the tent into a tight bundle under one arm. He could see the lights of a car in the distance. He had maybe twenty or thirty seconds to get himself and the tent out of sight. He stood up, a little unsteady after sitting cross legged for so long in the stifling tent. Why did he want the thing anyway? Would he actually use it once he had it?

He pulled up the stakes around the tent's perimeter as fast as he could, refusing to let himself look up at the approaching vehicle. It would only slow him down, only increase his nervousness. Finally, stakes tucked into the folds of the bundled tent, tie-down strings dangling dangerously close to his feet, he skittered to the side of the building and into the darkness where he had parked his bicycle.

He sighed with relief as the car - not a police car, he gratefully noted - drove past without slowing. He watched its lights recede while he searched the bundle for the carrying case he knew was inside it. He stuffed the tent into the case along with the bag of poles, zipped it closed and strapped it to the small carrier on the back of his bicycle.

Mark rode as quietly as possible down the back and side streets the way he had come.The night air was still and warm as the ground continued to give off its day's heat. The moving air as he rode helped cool his face and arms. It was the beauty of a bicycle in summer. He savored the rush of the night air around his grinning face.

###

Lea, like Charlotte, came from a comfortably middle-class home. She didn't have work that summer; Charlotte encouraged her to stay. It wasn't a problem for her to chip in on expenses. Groceries at least. Her presence seemed to make Charlotte happy, a good thing, as Charlotte had not looked for another job and was lonely at home by herself during the week when Mark worked.

Mark couldn't complain. He came home each day to a meal freshly prepared, and to interesting company. After sharing their day all day, Lea and Charlotte were ready to turn their attention to Mark. Both were smart, well educated, interested in his ideas. Discussions sometimes ran late into the evening, after which Charlotte retired early. Her psychiatrist had her on anti-depressants that caused bloating at the same time it lessened her appetite both for food and for sex. This left Mark and Lea alone, reading quietly in the living room together each evening.

They shared their silence comfortably. Occasionally Lea would ask Mark about something she was reading, always in a low voice. Mark would reply as quietly, even though Charlotte slept soundly with the help of sleeping pills in the bedroom above.

After a month of this, Mark began trying to figure out whether, and how, he could tell Lea how erotic he found her presence.

###

After, at home, Mark felt strange. Not tired, but somehow disoriented. It was hard to focus on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. Planning and carrying out the theft had given him a sense of purpose. It kept him focused. But after, still sweating as he put his new acquisition away somewhere Charlotte wouldn't find it right away and ask awkward questions, he wondered what he would tell her if she did ask.

He would have to tell her. The truth. She wouldn't judge him, he felt sure. He wouldn't lie to Charlotte about what he had done. That would be stupid and there was no need. They were a pair, a team, in it together no matter what, regardless of his feelings for Lea.

Lea slept in the spare room on the ground floor, in the top bunk of a pair of bunk beds he and Charlotte had found from a bulletin board ad at the supermarket.

Mark pushed open the door to her room.

"Lea?" he said quietly.

"Yes?" He could see her propped up on an elbow, the drape of her night gown revealing her body in the dim glow like the form of a young gazelle.

"Sorry to wake you. I just wanted to ask you something," Mark whispered. He wanted to touch her, but he didn't dare. Not yet.

"What?"

"I want you. I really want you. To lie with you. Have sex with you. Is that a terrible thing?"

Lea was silent for a moment. Then, "No. I want you too."

"But we can't, right? Because of Charlotte?"

Again, a long silence. Then Lea gently settled herself back down.

"I don't know," she said. "Good night, Mark."

Mark closed her door and settled himself in the living room, breathing heavily.

Two risky things in one night, he reflected.

It wasn't like he was a bad person. With the tent, he had acted more to relieve his boredom than out of anything like greed. He worked a menial job without complaining, without even feeling it was menial. Still, he could barely afford to live, much less have things that made his and Charlotte's lives more bearable. It was the inequality of it all. Corporate greed. All he had done was exercise what little he did have, his cleverness and courage, to tip the balance of things in their favor just a little. Only a little. It was such a small thing, really. Just a tent.

As for the other, he would work that out too. One way or another.

The Bubble

She floats within until she doesn't
wet with the remains of memories

of a day when trees sashayed double time
lime in her glass of Pacifico 

a reflection of the ocean in her eyes 
the sound of wind in her hair 

a wind so fair and dry to the touch
of the arch of her back and I chugging 

in the sand to keep up, wondering 
why she drips so with water of the sea 

fairy splashes that make sinkholes in sand 
that last only seconds then bear themselves 

and me to some lair within and below
sallow invisible trembling hollow trees 

those trees we both have come to love 
so much

WHAT IS ART?

Everyone, perhaps writers more than most, have favorite quotes. Maybe you'll find a new gem in this list. Many are unattributed due to my laziness. That doesn't reflect my gratitude for the insights and wisdom that are the authors' gifts to us. - Miker

Cynisism is the shamefaced product of inexperience ~A.J. Liebling

One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. - Oscar Wilde

"Remember, when you say 'I love you' you're not just saying it to the one you love. You're saying it to yourself, and to the planet." -Yoko Ono

Between Tragedy & Comedy lies Irony. That's where I live. If you don't live there now, you're missing most of the fun. ~John Perry Barlow

When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally. - Lao-Tzu

Art is spirituality in drag - Jennifer Yane

Art is a lie that makes us realize truth - Pablo Picasso

Art consists of limitation.  The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.  ~G.K. Chesterton

Great art is as irrational as great music.  It is mad with its own loveliness.  ~George Jean Nathan, House of Satan

Poets do not go mad; chess-players do.  Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.  ~G. K. Chesterton

One of the best things about paintings is their silence.  ~Mark Stevens

Artistry is an innate distrust of the theory of reality concocted by the five senses.  ~Robert Brault

A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist.  It lacks imperfection.  ~Oscar Wilde

Art is a kind of illness.  ~Giacomo Puccini

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." Groucho.

“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, then for a few close friends, then for money.” ~ Moliere
   
“Never let your schooling interfere with your education.” Mark Twain

"The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there's no ground." ~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Writing fiction can be an act of rubbing oneself up against reality, relishing the abrasion and sharing that with readers.

Faith and Doubt belong together, each inhaling and exhaling the other.

An author in his work must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. ~Flaubert

Buddhists never conquer anything ~Kim Stanley Robinson

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own. ~Emerson, 1841

I don't disbelieve in miracles. I'm simply not impressed by them. They tell us we have more to learn. ~Lazlo Kovaks

The time may come when you discover the beauty of leading with your heart rather than following it.

"You can look at a thing 999 times without seeing it. But if you look at it that thousandth time, you risk truly seeing it." ~ G.K. Chesterton (paraphrased)

I reserve the right to exist, temporarily at least, in an altogether different universe. ~Lazlo Kovaks

Wanted: Editor for short fiction. Requirements: Appreciation of the cosmic joke. Love of irony. Sense of humor. Minimalist sensibilities. Pay: negligible. Appreciation: boundless.

In what way is it possible we are not music? -Lazlo Kovaks

Composition is the arrangement of unequal things. -Ruskin

The material world is made up entirely of collisions between otehrwise indefinite objects. ~Rae Armontrout

Speak only if you can improve on silence. ~Anonymous

Fiction, like life, is capacious enough not only to contain everything but to make us see how and why the personal, the political, the moral, the spiritual, the economic and historical—and the mythical—fits so seamlessly together. ~Francine Prose

It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself. ~Pound

Life is too short to live a sufficient number of experiences, so you have to steal them. ~Enrique Vila-Matas

With the lamp of word and discrimination one must go beyond word and discrimination and enter upon the path of realization. ~Lankavatara Sutra

For society to survive and reinvent itself in meaningful ways, we must in a sense become a "post-literate" culture. ~Andrew Gurevich

Expressions of poetry are moments of extreme emotion recalled in moments of extreme quietude.

The emotional progression of a small number of clearly drawn characters through a decisively shaped tale, leading to a series of wrenching encounters and a satisfying climax.

It is awe-inspiring when a writer hits a high note, goes dancing along the edge of something; hurls himself against enormous questions again and again.

Attraction

Michael spotted a breakout session at the Reality Formation Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. It was called "Attraction: A Comprehensive Model of Reality Formation." It featured five panelists: a physicist, an astrophysicist, a psychologist, a neurologist, and the host/convener, a young man from MIT's Learning Lab.

"Anything attracted to something else usually follows a similar pattern," he began. "First comes awareness, if consciousness is involved, which is not a requirement. Second, the beginnings of movement toward the attractor, followed by an often irresistible fall into its embrace."

The audience tittered a bit, then fell silent, as Todd, the leader, brought up an image of a planet circling a sun.

"There are many examples of this procession, which we'll call Attention, Mild Attraction, and Fatal Attraction. I could use more technical terms, but what I hope to demonstrate is a general theory of attraction, best expressed in general terms." Todd flipped on a laser pointer and pointed to the planet on the screen.

"We're all familiar with at least two examples of Attraction. This one, of course, is gravity. As two objects approach each other, the force of gravity will begin to affect their trajectory. Let's say that when a change in trajectory due to gravitation can be detected, the two objects are in a state of Mild Attraction. As the force of gravitation increases by the square root of the distance between objects, the closer the objects come to each other, the stronger the pull, or Attraction. Assuming gravitational attraction isn't sufficiently counteracted by, say, centrifigal force, at some point the pull of gravity will overcome the inertia of the two objects, and they will fall into each other. That point of no return, we can call the point of Fatal Attraction.

"We know the same forces apply to magnetism. The mathematics are the same. What other examples of Attraction do we know about?" A hand shot up.

"What about sexual attraction?" said an attractive woman. The audience laughed.

"What's that? Sexual attraction? I wouldn't laugh. Our work leads us to believe it works the same, though it's much harder to measure, and it's complicated by the various dynamics of psychology, physiology, and cultural and social pressures. The extent to which sexual relations between unmarried couples is condoned. Or maybe when was the last time each person bathed." More laughter.

"Surely you've set up studies to try to measure that at MIT?" added the woman.

"We'd certainly like to," said Todd. "We just need sufficient numbers of scientifically minded volunteers like yourself to help us get started," he said, winking and smiling at the woman.

(excerpt from work in progress)

Still Pool

A god and a goddess sat on a park bench. In front of them, on another bench, sat a man, facing away from them. He watched his lover, who played with their child in the field beyond.

The god and goddess whispered to each other. Each watched the man: the god watched his head and saw his thoughts. Though fleeting and coiling in among themselves, as thoughts tend to do, they were tinged with hope, respect, curiosity, even wonderment, tempered by thoughts of how he might improve the lives of his loved ones. The god saw, too, worry and concern appear and then dissipate like sudden bursts of steam leaking from the valves and joints of a mighty engine.

The goddess watched the man's heart and saw his feelings. She saw the gentle pull of physical attraction, deep calm love, not just for his mate but for the child and all the other people around them. She saw compassion and grace, all tempered by a sense of humility. Around the edges hovered flickers of fear, like tiny flames unable to find sufficient tinder.

The god and goddess, lovers themselves, giggled and whispered and seemed to come to an agreement. Each pointed to the man, the god to the man's head, the goddess to the man's heart, and slowly drew their fingers toward each other until they touched.

At that moment, the man's thoughts merged with his feelings and a great sense of focused contentment and acceptance replaced the wildness of his thoughts and feelings. All fear, all disappointment, all concern left him. He felt unified and capable of facing any challenge. He sat very still, the better to contemplate this moment, which seemed to him like a deep pool grown calm in the aftermath of a life-long storm.

With this, the two gods rose, linked arms, and wandered off in search of new adventures.

Isn't It Grand, or Ten Hundreds

1
It's not writer's block. For that, I would have to want to write. True, I enjoy words when they flow like a river, or move like a panther, with their own will. I enjoy it less when, as now, they are forced from me by an invisible pressure on my mind, as if an invisible gangster held a gun to my temple and whispered in my ear, "Write something."

Fingers hovering over the keyboard, unable to move for lack of direction, I might whimper back, "Write what?"

"You know what," he whispers back, a malevolent glint in his invisible eyes.

2
Zen tells us that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. But that's only part of the story. I can tell you that the journey isn't a real journey until you've walked the first hundred miles. Then you can think about what it's going to be like to walk that nine more times.

The gangster in my head throbs. Maybe he's only a headache, or some sort of vitamin deficiency. "I'm not going away," he whispers. "Keep writing."

"Why?" I ask. I'm feeling bolder.

"Shut up. I want ten chapters. No more, no less. Got that?"

3
It occurs to me that he's testing me. Will I revolt? Walk away? Phone for a pizza and turn on a game show on TV? But what if I can't shake him? If he's inside me, in my head, what then?

But he's annoying me. What kind of man am I if I don't try to regain control of my life?

"Leave me alone," I say. I say it out loud, as if he were a real person standing behind me, just beyond my peripheral vision.

"Ain't gonna happen," I hear in my mind. That soft intimate voice, so close.

4
I can't stand it. I throw on my jacket, put my cell in my pocket, and head out the door. Away from my laptop and hopefully away from that voice.

Out on the sidewalk, I flip open my phone and call Sarah. My lifeline, she is. My friend. Maybe my best friend. Hell, maybe my only friend, so I try not to intrude on her too much. But this, I've got to do something.

"Hi Sarah?" I say when she answers. She's at work. "Yeah, it's Mark. Got a minute?"

She does, but only just. I pace while I talk.

5
"I'm in a little bit of a pickle," I say. "I've got this thing," But wait. I can't tell her I have a voice in my head, with a gun, for cryin' out loud. That's just crazy. And what could she do about it? "This, uh, problem. What? Well it's hard to describe. Wait, never mind, okay? It's nothing, never mind. Bye." I can't go on. I don't know what to tell her. I flip the phone closed. Hang up on her, something I've never done before. I look down at the phone, dumbstruck. I turn back toward home.

6
Settled back on my laptop, fingers over the keys. What else can I do? I can't just do nothing, which is what I've done for so long now that I can't remember the last time I wrote anything worth half a read. Why can't I write? It's more than just my dissatisfaction with myself. That's easy to deal with, as long as I can afford pizza and ice cream. It's this new thing, this pressure and the gun. It's life or death now. Squeeze something out or have my brain blown out.

I go to the fridge, get out ice cream.

7
"What are you waiting for?" whispers the voice. I feel the gun pressing harder now.

I whimper, sitting back down and spooning ice cream into my mouth as fast as I can. "I don't know what to write."

"Just make something up! That's what you always do. Something out of nothing, isn't that the creative challenge?"

"Uh," I say, ice cream dribbling down one side of my mouth.

"What's the problem?" There's a gravely edge to the voice, an impatience that frightens me.

"I need something. Structure. Boundaries. Constraints. Otherwise the canvas, so to speak, is too broad. Too white."

8
I feel the voice in my head shaking, not in anger now, but in amusement. "Structure? That's easy. Here's structure for you. Give me a thousand words. Exactly. Tell a story, a real story, in exactly a thousand words. Not a word more or less or I'll end it for you. Got that?"

"Uh huh." I say. "Yeah. Let me think."

I start typing: "Sarah was a sweet thing of twenty. She stared at me intently as I unbuttoned her blouse."

I look at what I've written, consider where this might go for a moment. Then I erase it all.

9
I run out the door, damn the voice, damn the gun. It isn't fair, this making me write about Sarah, or about anything. What am I to stories, or stories to me? Must I be held hostage to them, to the damnable flow of words? Must I die for them?

On the sidewalk, surrounded by the building I live in on one side, tall fences on the other. There's no way out. A fine day, though, I think. A fine day to die, if die I must.

The voice is still there, I can feel it. A gentle flutter within.

10
Feeling calmer, I walk back. Sit at the laptop. Gaze at the still empty page.

"It's all good, Mark. You're fine, my son. Fingers on the keys, empty your mind. Now, give me a thousand words, ten chapters of exactly a hundred words each, please."

All tension drained, I feel I can do this. I type: "Sarah stood still before me..."

"Don't write her," the voice said quietly. "You. Write who you are. What it means to be a writer."

I blank the page again, then write, "It's not writer's block. For that, I would have to want to write..."

Daddy's Girl

Debbie pulled her aging Old's 88 to the curb across from the two story clapboard, once white, now a mottled, weathered, gray. She was assaulted by the familiar odor of rotting leaves masking the smell of garbage and rotting shingles. Her sister stepped down from the porch of the house they were raised in and walked across the street. "You gonna come in this time?" 

"How is she?" Debbie spat the words. 

Dark hair tumbling across Megan's face couldn't hide her expression. Mad. She had a right to be, Debbie knew. But she'd be damned if she'd admit that to her sister, or to her mother. She could see the glow of a cigarette just behind the screen door opposite. It was a standoff. Her mother wouldn't come out, and Debbie hated going in, to admit she'd chickened out. Ran away. 

"Look, don't do this," Megan said. "It's dad all over again." 

Debbie turned off the motor, gripped the steering wheel with both hands and lay her forehead on her knuckles. "I'm not like dad!" she said in a low growl. "I'm not!" 

"Then come inside. She doesn't have any of the old bite left, I can tell you. She's mom, and she's tough and she won't be sweet. But dammit, she really needs us both right now." 

Debbie sighed. She hesitated, then opened the door. "Shit," she said, climbing out. "Shit."

(9/26/2012 - Lascaux Flash Fiction contest entry)

Cicada and Hummingbird

Cicada and Hummingbird fell in love

Because their wings made the same sound
each mistook the other for a mate

So they dressed up to the max
and went out to dinner and a movie

They don't speak each others' language
but who needs talk when you're in love

when romantic foreignness and
odd looks and inflections
says it all and they'll always have

that moment when her wings
answered his, song for song

Butterfly Woman and Other Tales

Available in two e-book formats, each $2.99 or less.

Kindle format. If you don't have a Kindle, try the excellent Kindle Reader, available for PCs, Macs, and mobile phones!

Paperback version and EPUB format, from the Lulu Store. Looks great with the free Adobe Digital Reader. This book is now available for iPad and iPod too.

"A bit of magical realism, a taste or two of natural realism, even a bit of fantastic hilarity. Author Michael Robertson presents a sampler of short stories, the perfect length for a morning's read after breakfast, or an afternoon's relaxation on the deck or beach of your choice.

"'Butterfly Woman', the title story, gives us a glimpse of a woman who turns kisses into insects. Or spend a few moments with a woman in Hawaii who longs for her youth as a surfer beyond the beaches of Waimea. An artist who loses words and gains world fame. A shocking moment in the life of the president of a small coastal country.

"We enter the minds of a drug dealer with a big heart, a former aid to a powerful Russian bureaucrat, a boy hiding in the winter woods of the Ozark hills, and a young man who has lost his past but discovers his future. And more. This little book presents a medley of portraits of real human beings in defining moments.

"Whatever your taste in fiction, this little book will whet your appetite and tease your imagination."

How My Parents Met

Mark met Melanie online, through a friend. It wasn't a romance. Not even close. The connection was professional. Or at least creative. Both were writers of fiction. They exchanged some Facebook comments about their work and eventually shared their stories with each other. Their conversations were funny, flippant, sharp and clever, but only mildly flirtatious. Each needed feedback from the other about the craft and effectiveness of his or her work. Each agreed to become beta-readers for the other's new stories.

They lived in different states. All of this was on the Internet. They hadn't met in person. When Melanie came to Mark's town to visit old friends, they agreed to meet in a local coffee shop, finally in person, each with a laptop, each ready to write as well as exchange ideas.

Mark knew what Melanie looked like from her Facebook icon, assuming it was a recent photo and more or less accurate. It was, but Mark was surprised when Melanie walked in, briefcase in one hand, books in the other. It wasn't that he was expecting anything. It's just that, well, she looked great. He knew she was smart--very smart, judging by her stories. He knew she had a great sense of humor. Everything she did and said expressed that. What he hadn't expected was how incredibly sexy she was.

That, of course, was a problem for him. How could he concentrate on writing, on creating a new story on the fly while sitting here next to her? How could he keep his head down and keep his eyes off of her amazing face and body and concentrate on the craft of writing?

He tried. After a bit of chatter and slightly embarrassed smiles, they both sat quietly, eyes on their laptop screens, considering. Listening to the muse that would start their respective short stories. Or so it seemed. Finally Mark looked up at Melanie and was surprised to find she was looking at him too. He waited for her to speak first.

"What?" she said.

"What? What do you mean?"

She said, "I'm sorry, it's almost like you're thinking out loud. Is it your story? What's bothering you?"

"My story. Yeah." He glanced down, considered for an instant. Realized it was not going to be possible, and would be pointless, to try to fool her.

"Okay, yeah," he said, looking back up at her. "Here's the thing. I can't think about my story right now."

"Why?"

"It's, uh, embarrassing. I'm embarrassed to admit why."

"Well, tell me. We're here to write, right? Let's talk through whatever is blocking that, if possible. Then let's write."

"What's blocking that for me is you."

"Me?" she said, brows furrowed. "Why me? I'm not doing anything."

"See, I told you it was embarrassing. I don't mean you really. Me. It's me. I just didn't expect you to be .…" He stopped.

"What?"

"So attractive. So damn good looking. So sexy."

She held his eyes but said nothing for what seemed a long time to Mark. "Okay," she finally said. "Thanks. I get it now. You're distracted." They both glanced away and nursed their coffees for a moment. "Can you just get over it so we can get down to writing?"

Mark said, "Maybe. I don't know. You can. Maybe I can. I know I should be able to anyway. Direct this energy into my story somehow."

"Right," she said. "Okay then."

They each turned their attention to their laptops for a few minutes. After typing a bit, Melanie looked up again. "Hey. For what it's worth, I'm having the same problem."

That's all she said. That's all Mark needed to hear. He pushed his laptop cover down out the way, stood halfway up, leaned forward, and kissed Melanie on the lips. Slowly. Gently. Lingeringly. She didn't pull away, didn't resist.

The rest is history.

Serena's Cape

This is a story of epic proportions, a mythical historical drama, featuring a powerful evil villian and an heroic female protagonist who thwarts him, with a smile and great attitude, and a single sentence. All of this in 175 words. I hope you enjoy. ~Mike

---

"Forgive me mistress, but you must know you'll die if he finds out. We all will!"

Serena continued weaving, eyes and hands steady. She looked only at her work and remained silent in the face of her servant's entreaty. Then she said, as she had said the day before and the day before that, "You've distracted me, Melanie. Now I've found a mistake. I must tear out this day's work and start again."

As her mistress began tearing out thread after thread, Melanie ran from the chamber, weeping.

The next day, the lord master of the realm arrived with his vast army. He came immediately to Serena's chamber, accompanied by the still weeping Melanie.

"What? Not finished? When will you deliver me my Impervious Cape?" Rage and impatience flamed up in his eyes. "I return to battle this day. I must have it!"

Serena looked up at him with a grim smile. "You've distracted me, your Lordship. You've caused me to make a mistake. I must tear out this day's work and start again."

Mark Twain On Style, and Writing with a Pen versus Typewriter

Mark Twain Autobiography, p. 224

"Within the last eight or ten years I have made several attempts to do the autobiography in one way or another with a pen, but the result was not satisfactory, it was too literary. With the pen in one’s hand, narrative is a difficult art; narrative should flow as flows the brook down through the hills and the leafy woodlands, its course changed by every boulder it comes across and by every grass-clad gravelly spur that projects into its path; its surface broken but its course not stayed by rocks and gravel on the bottom in the shoal places; a brook that never goes straight for a minute, but goes, and goes briskly, sometimes ungrammatically, and sometimes fetching a horseshoe three-quarters of a mile around and at the end of the circuit flowing within a yard of the path it traveled an hour before; but always going, and always following at least one law, always loyal to that law, the law of narrative, which has no law. Nothing to do but make the trip; the how of it is not important so that the trip is made.

"With a pen in the hand the narrative stream is a canal; it moves slowly, decorously, sleepily, it has no blemish except that it is all blemish. It is too literary, too prim, too nice; the gait and style and movement are not suited to narrative. That canal stream is always reflecting; it is its nature, it can’t help it. Its slick shiny surface is interested in everything it passes along the banks, cows, foliage, flowers, everything. And so it wastes a lot of time in reflections."

Mowers and Reapers

Ed Jackson was a real pain in the ass to work with for the first couple of weeks. Arnie and I had met a couple of months before when we both hired on to do lawn maintenance and warehouse work for the new community college. We got on right away. Arnie was streetwise scruff, no college but smart, a little younger and a lot shorter than I am, but focused and calm and handsome in a dark, Italian way. Me, I was the white-bread boy, veteran of three different colleges and four years in the Navy, but forever the beginner at everything I did, newly married, just finding my way. We discovered right away we were both musicians and that eliminated any need for shyness. Musicians, serious ones, share more than an interest. We speak a common language that makes little sense to others. We harbor brotherly feelings toward other musicians, as if we were a subspecies of humans with our own set of challenges and passions. Which, of course, is exactly what we are.

Then Ed hired on and it was Arnie and me working one side of the big garage, and the new guy working the other side for a couple of weeks. He struck me as standoffish, a loner, not interested in conversation, though truthfully Arnie and I made little effort to get to know him.

Then finally we all three ended up on a job together, mowing and hauling clippings and rakings. Arnie and I talked about music, about gigs and instruments and venues we'd known, and groupies. Ed heard us but said nothing. Until lunch, when he surprised us by walking over with his sandwich and sitting down only a little ways from us.

"So you guys play?" he said. "I play too. A little."

"How little?" I asked.

"Been playing guitar for a few years. And writing songs."

Arnie and I looked at each other and grinned. Arnie played guitar, a little, but mostly blew mouth harp. But his real background was sound reinforcement. For me, that meant he was one of the wizards behind the curtain who made it possible for hired-gun bassmen like me to stand on stage and be heard. He, on the other hand, was in awe of musicians with the chops and balls to get up in front of an audience. We shared mutual respect for each other. But we both knew there was another kind of musician who had a kind of natural talent so rare it actually (sometimes) made it possible to make a living at music: the songwriter/singer.

"Really. Arnie, you have a guitar tucked away somewhere here, don't you? How about you sing us something, Ed?"

He did, and we were blown away, and we became a trio after that. We huddled and traded jokes and songs and gig stories. Soon we started skipping out to a local abandoned house that Arnie spotted in order to eat our sandwiches in private and then share a doobie for dessert. Then our conversations would get loud and raucous and silly for the sake of silly. We would have partied together after work too except I had a new wife looking for me to come home each afternoon.

Of course I wanted to start a band. We'd need a drummer, so I called a friend of Arnies he recommended. I got a tentative yes, so I went to Ed. "What do ya think? You, me, Arnie, and Arnie's friend Jesse? We could make a few bucks, drink a few beers, have some fun?"

Ed said no. Didn't even think about it, just nixed the idea on the spot. "Sorry Mike, I don't have the chops for one thing. I've never played with a band." Didn't have the chops didn't fly for me. I'd heard him play. His songs were good, well written, great rhyming and alliteration and, well, they moved me when I heard them. Deeply felt. Authentic. A little sad, most of them, but some were just the opposite, as if he had written them to cheer himself up. And his playing - not the usual three chord blues-based changes. Unusual but appropriate passing chords, closer to jazz than to rock. He may be shy, but the guy was a real natural.

I asked Neese, my wife, if we could use the sun porch of our little house to jam in, or maybe even practice for a gig. She didn't mind, so I invited Ed and Arnie over. Saturday afternoon worked for everybody. I didn't tell 'em, but I'd invited Jesse to bring his drums over too. "It's just a jam," I answered Ed when he saw the drums. "No big deal." I dragged an old guitar amp my brother had given me from the attic and set up an extra microphone so his acoustic guitar could be heard over the drums. It didn't do any favors for his guitar's tone, but it more or less worked. Ed played rhythm guitar and sang, Arnie wailed on harp between verses, Jesse turned out to be better than I'd hoped on drums and kept his volume down, and I played bass through my practice cab. The result? Pretty damn good for a first jam, I thought. Jesse and Arnie did too. They both agreed right away to do it again the next week, same time same place. Ed did too, reluctantly.

Over the next year, the fun factor and the music just got better, to everyone's surprise. Arnie invited an old friend who used to play lead guitar in a blues review band but had quit when he injured his hand in a work accident. Mel was quiet and humble and apologized constantly the first few times, but he had a fine ear for melody, got along well with the rest of us, and grinned with gratitude at the end of each song we played. One of his old band mates owned a club in town. The next thing we knew, we were on stage, wailing and making all kinds of joyful noises. Thus took birth Mowers and Reapers, the town's newest blues/jazz group. We played for three years straight, never made any money to speak of, always had a good time, and, though we dissolved the band finally, remained friends for the rest of our lives.

The Bully

Every day after school on the way home it was the same thing. I sat quietly at the back of the bus for the twenty minute ride. John - I don't even know his last name - sat somewhere in the middle with two friends. They'd laugh and make fun of someone. It didn't seem to matter who it was. When their target ended up in tears, they shifted their attention to someone else. As often as not, that someone would be me. He kept coming back to me, I think, because I refused to give him the satisfaction of crying or groveling. In fact, I almost never said anything to him. So every day it was more of the same and every day he tried harder, got meaner and more threatening.

Now I'm sitting on my bed, waiting for my dad to get home. I've got to tell him what I did. I think I'm okay, but I can't quite tell with him. He might smile and say well done. Or he might whip me with his belt just to remind me what it feels like. Trouble is, I'm not sure what I did. I might have killed him for all I know.

The bullying had gone on for weeks and recently it had gotten a lot worse. The bus driver could see what was happening. I could see his eyes in the wide mirror above him, glancing back at us. He wasn't afraid of John, of course. He was an adult, much bigger than any of us, and he could have stopped it. But it would mean stopping the bus and making everyone late and he'd have to explain that to someone and maybe it would get him in trouble. He looked troubled, even sad, like he wished he could stop it somehow, but he didn't know how. To his credit, he'd tried yelling at John and Benny and Joe when they got loud and especially when they jumped out into the aisle to get into their victim's faces. But it was no good. It helped for maybe five minutes, then John would start up again.

I complained to my dad about it, once. He didn't hit me but he looked like he wanted to. "Why do you let him do that?" he said. "You can stop him. Are you a coward?" That's when he looked sore at me and I figured I might be in for a whipping. Then he stopped himself and said, "Look. I'm going to tell you how to stop this kid. The next time he does this to you, here's what I want you to do. You listening?" I was, but he must have thought I wasn't because I was looking down. I felt humiliated and a little scared. "Look at me. Look at me!" He hunkered over in front of me. He's a big man, very strong, an ex-green beret who fought in Vietnam. "Son, you need to pick your moment carefully. Let him get in your face. Let him get agitated. Maybe he'll push you - all the better if he does, but you've got to keep your balance and above all, you've got to stay calm. Whatever you do, don't show fear. Just watch him carefully. There's going to come a moment when he thinks he's won, when his guard will be down. He'll probably grin and taunt you even more. He's showing off, see. He may look back at his friends. He'll need their approval. That might be your moment. If he looks away from you, he feels like you can't do anything to him. He's vulnerable then. You got that? You listening?"

I was watching my dad then. I knew he knew what he was talking about, that his advice might be good, might be just what I needed. So I calmed my breathing and held his eyes. "Yes," I said.

"Okay, like I said, you're watching for a certain moment when he's least expecting you to do anything to protect yourself. That moment when he thinks your'e beaten and he can do anything he wants to you. Then, son, you listening? Then you're going to plant your fist right here ..." he pointed to the place right at the top of my nose, just between my eyes. "You're going to aim carefully and plant one with everything you've got right there." He smiled then, showing his teeth. I could see cigarette stains all around the edges of his gum lines and down the sides between them. He did his best to keep them clean but he smoked a lot, my dad. "You can't give him any warning though. Try not to telegraph it, especially with your face. Be the stone at that moment."

"When you do that, if you do it right, here's what's going to happen. He's going to go down. Right on his butt. His legs will just fold and he'll drop. His buddies won't do anything to you. They'll try to get him on his feet and out of your way. Trust me, they won't come after you. They may make threatening noises , but it'll be from a safe distance. See, you will have completely surprised them. Here they thought you were soft as pudding, a sheep. When they find out you're a cobra - fast, cunning, not afraid to hurt them even more than they've been hurting you, son, they will leave you alone after that."

Today I'd had enough of John's bullying and I remembered my dad's training. The way it went down, John had been taunting me for maybe ten minutes, getting louder and meaner and more physical every time he taunted me and I didn't react. He was determined to send me off the bus in tears. I knew I didn't want to stick around afterwards, so I waited until we were almost at my stop. I was like a stone - I said nothing and tried to show no emotion. I made a fist and held it behind my butt and tensed my muscles and aimed very carefully. When I struck, John went down just like my dad said. He dropped instantly without making a sound. He dropped hard on his butt and after a few seconds made a gasping sound. I could tell the pain he was feeling must be so bad he couldn't even take a breath with which to yell. I didn't feel good about that. But I didn't feel bad either. It was like I was suspended over a ravine, and I'd land on my feet, or I'd die. The two boys behind him looked dazed. My hand hurt but I ignored that. I picked up my books and stepped over John and pushed past Benny and Joe. I refused to look to either side and strode straight to the front of the bus. Before he opened the door to let me out, the driver whispered "I saw what was going on back there. I don't blame you one bit. You don't need to worry about anyone complaining." Then he let me out the door.

Now I wait. Maybe there'll be a phone call from John's parents. Maybe the police will show up. I'm ready. Just as long as my dad doesn't beat me.

Literary Fiction: Tastes Good and Good For You!

Where do story ideas come from? What sparks a story? Obviously, there's no single answer, or even class of answers. One challenge writers of fiction face is the fact that there are infinite possible stories. The trick is to cut down the numbers to something more manageable. That is what a good story spark does: it narrows the possibilities. An image, a few suggestive words or a phrase, a "what if", a name or face of a character, some simple action out of context. Through training and creative openness, any of these may suggest a story line, even if vaguely. The rest is discovery, like mining for gold.

To serious writers, that gold is meaning. I may tell a million stories and none of them be worth the time it takes to type them. Better for everyone if the story that emerges has some significance, some resonance to the reader, some reason for being told. It may instruct or entertain or tickle memories or ideas in ways that leave readers a bit more willing to explore the question of who they are as humans.

Stories about real people, then, are important. Stories about our peculiarities, our habits and culture and the assumptions upon which we try, sometimes feebly, sometimes with confidence, to build our identities.

Drama is a useful tool for this end. Small or large, conflicts which our characters succeed or fail in overcoming always teach us something of ourselves. Vicarious beings that we are, they are also highly entertaining, especially if they are believable. Situations you or I might actually find ourselves in, and the struggles to survive or thrive when our needs are threatened, that's the stuff of good stories.

Literary stories differ from others only in that the drama, while still present, is dampened down to a level closer to our daily reality, while character choices and actions result in multi-level revelations about those characters. Minimal or moderate drama, along with layered truths, often subtle, doth good literature make. None of us are simple creatures, though few of us are blessed (or cursed) with insight to our true natures. The power and importance of a story increases as it reveals more complex truths about us. Literary stories seem to emerge from a great stew of knowledge and experience. They give us glimpses of truths about ourselves we would rarely experience otherwise. They do so, however, at the expense of being less entertaining, at least to most readers. The exceptions are skilled readers who are broadly educated in the liberal arts and psychology, and who are, as a result, erudite, reflective, critically self-aware and philosophical. Such readers, familiar with the work of the world's greatest thinkers, have access to a broad range of values and ideas, and are well equipped to synthesize concepts, see patterns, and see through bullshit. To these readers, great stories are not only deeply meaningful, they are also highly entertaining, in ways that simpler stories cannot be. Great stories not only taste good, they are truly nourishing.

Unfortunately, to less well trained readers, this may seem elitist. No one wants to feel judged for her skill level, especially regarding something which seems trivial and no more than light entertainment. And quite right. Light entertainment has its place in our culture too. It may be useful to remember that skilled readers know better than to judge others, and similarly, deserve no judgment from others. Some love sports, some soaps, some talk shows, some Star Trek or fantasy novels. And some love the chewy intellectual challenge and literary delights of a Nabokov or Dostoevsky or Huxley or Graham Green. And some love both high and low culture equally. It's all good.

Hi, It's Me!

I am your first sentence. That's your throwaway. That means you're meant to get rid of it when you've finished writing this and go back to editing. Got that? Don't forget. Get rid of that first sentence or else dude. Yes, I just called you dude, get over it. Oh, by the way, you might want to keep in mind that the farther you get away from that first sentence, the harder it's going to be to remember to get rid of it. Out of sight, out of mind. Okay, that's wasn't very original, but it's approprose, isn't it? Nice word that, "appropropose" except you have no idea how to spell it, so I've got to point out that you have little business using it. You should try to use words you know how to spell, dude. Ha! Got ya again. Not to mention words you know the meaning of. Ow! Ended that sentence with a preposition, didn't you! And you know better, I'm sure. You've trained yourself in how to write properly, haven't you? You're proud of it!! I've heard you say so more than once! But hey, did you ever think that might be the problem, DUDE? That you taught yourself and didn't bother to learn the right rules for writing? But hey, no one, least of all me, is going to tell you how to write!

Okay, so you're tired of that paragraph and want to start something new here. Why not? It's your right. You're the author after all. You can write any damn thing you take a mind to write, and boy, you mean to practice that freedom, don't you!

What? Cutting that off so soon? I'm getting the impression you're trying to get rid of me. But DUDE, there's only one way to get rid of me. And you know what it is, don't you. I don't have to tell you. You stop writing and I'm outta here! But you being you, the author, you're just not gonna be chased off that easily, are you. Not by me anyway.

Okay. So you're still trying, aren't you. To have your cake and eat it too. What do I mean? You know what I mean, you're writing this stuff, aren't you? You want to keep writing but you want me to selflessly get out of the way so you can write ... what? Other junk? Stories? Fiction? Well good luck with that, dude.

Right, I hear ya. You're gonna stop, go pee, go fill your face, go watch TV, go do something else until I just fade away. Well. It might work, but I'm not promising anything. But I want you to promise me something before you go: get rid of that damn opening sentence!

The Writing Game

"What does it take to win at this writing game?"

Les sat on a folding chair a few feet away from one of his idols, the Great Writer X. X nursed his fourth scotch and squinted at Les.

"Lemme tell ya what I think about that, son. It's a damn shame, is what it is. So many people wanting to write, to tell their great story or whatever the hell it might be, huge egos on the line. So much sadness. So much suffering. It's a shame, is what it is." X closed his eyes and looked as if he might weep. Then his face went neutral again and he brought the scotch to his lips.

"Okay," said Les. "But what does it take? To write a great book, to get it published, to get readers, to make it in the business?"

"Yeah, well it ain't gonna happen. Not anymore." X finished his drink and poured another. The bottle Les had brought was almost empty. "Lemme tell ya why."

"Sure. Why?"

"Need three things to happen, son. One, talent. Ya got to write, and write great. Ya got to have that magic something that takes your story over the top, that makes it dance along the invisible edge, the razor's edge. You, the writer, you have to be able to throw yourself over and over against a wall that will never give. You have to bleed, and you have to be able to give that blood to your readers."

"Shit," said Les.

"And you have to have ambition. Real ambition. You have to want more, you hear me? More than the average person would ever want. I don't mean stuff, son. I mean Truth with a capital T. You have to have it in you to write great, and more than that, to want to write great work, not just trivial fluff. To have to have to do it. And hell, maybe you have to want to suffer too. You listening to me?"

"Yeah," sighed Les, finishing his own drink now.

"One more thing that's got to happen. You got to be lucky. You got to write books that're gonna hit at the right time. It's all in the timing, son. Because those readers ain't always out there, see. They come and go. Sometimes they're there, like they were in the twenties, and again after the second war, and like they really were in the fifties. Hungry for more than what was in front of them. Dying to know secrets. It has to be a time when people believe they can be more, and the culture and the media are telling 'em to read, to think bigger, to actually work at growing their understanding of how life works. During those times, and they're rare, people queue up to devour anything that comes along that might lift them from their dumps and remind them that there's more. You have to publish in a time when people believe it's possible to become fully human."

The old man sighed and put his glass down hard on the table. He looked at Les. "Son, you came at the wrong time, that's all there is to it. I can't help you. Because right now, let me tell you. There's maybe one of those hungry readers left out of the thousands that used to crowd into the book stores. Maybe not even one. Son, the time's out of joint. Truth, especially the hard core subtle truths that used to make our hair stand on end, stuff like Dostoevsky and Waugh and Hesse and Hemingway and maybe even Salinger or Updike used to write. Christ son, that hunger is just gone now. Eat up by triviality and illiteracy and stupid computer games and sports bars and ...."

X poured the last of the scotch into his glass and raised it to his lips once more. This time the tears were real. "Everyone wants the illusion of mystery. Mystery as game or as entertainment. No one cares about the real mysteries anymore. Son, go home. Write your books. Then put 'em somewhere where they can be found in another age. Thirty years, or maybe fifty. Maybe then. Maybe. Or maybe there won't be books or anyone left to read them by then."

SoftCopy Anthology: Facts of the Case

Publisher SoftCopy has just released an anthology of short fiction and art work titled My First Time, available in Kindle and I-Pad versions only (no print).

Included: my short story of love, pain and alienation, "Facts of the Case". Only $7.99, it includes work by 50 authors and artists, and the quality of that work is mad great.