Life After Graduating From College ( One year Later )

March 19th 2010 I graduated from College. June 1998 I graduated from High School, so that should give you an idea of the marathon run I had at trying to complete my BA, have a successful marriage (15 years we've been together this fall), fix up the house I grew up in and work to pay for it all.

Unfortunately (and I use that word only because of the recession) I got my degree in Psychology. Health and Human services is not the most well funded area of American life, but one of the most necessary to keep our communities growing happy and healthy, which means I didn't get a job right away after graduating. I had been so focused on getting good grades and finally finishing that I hadn't really thought about trying to find work. In my defense I knew I would have to go to grad school to make a real living after I finished my BA so I was stuck between finding a parttime job for experience, or finding a career and trying to make it work. So after I didn't get into grad school I immediately went to work trying to find a job that would get me experience and help pay the bills (all while studying for finals!).

A year later I've worked three jobs, two of which I still have (one was as a caregiver for my ailing grandmother in law and she has unfortunately now passed on), one of which I think I'll be quitting soon due to the fact that it doesn't really work well with my lifestyle and I have no motivation to try and go further (but still have a great amount of love for my clients). I've volunteered two places and still try to volunteer weekly at the crisis center. And I've written two novels, and edited a third I wrote in 2006.

So where does that leave me now almost a year later? I'm much more marketable, which is why I was able to get into grad school this time, I start in the fall. I have a really good job, an excellent marriage, a comfortable home and three beautiful and loving (Expensive!) bulldogs. I'm also on the verge of a fantastic venture becoming an indie writer.

Until I started seeing myself as an indie writer I felt like I'd sold out. Yes I have the skills and talents that will make me a happy and great mental health worker, but my passions lie in creating worlds and sharing them with others. The idea of self publishing and letting people decide if they'll read my work instead of large publishing houses, has made my life seem much more full.

All that said I thought I might share a little bit about the projects I've been working on.

I wrote The Storm Before My Calm in 1996-97, in six notebooks, during my high school lectures (sorry, but not really). I then self published with iUniverse and was very unhappy with the editing job I had done, and was never really happy with the cover and such. The story has to stay because it was my 1996 story, and I would be betraying my teenager self to change it, however adding an L to the end of Withdrawa(l) might make the story more cohesive when reading. So I'm working on editing it to self publish a 2nd edition. I recently purchased photoshop so I could work on making my own covers as well, since I really don't like the one I have for this book's first edition.

Snowed In: I have decided that some books (the storm.., The Calling series) are more works that really come from my soul, and then others are experiments in genres or style (that doesn't mean I don't love them, I do!). Snowed In developed from my interest in writing something that took place over a short period of time (a weekend) and writing in the third person. So this book takes place in Tahoe during a blizzard at a Bed and Breakfast, while a serial killer is on the loose.

Qualia, the Calling Series Book 1: See previous blog post for chapter 1.

The Noble Son: another experiment in writing in the third person with a romance novel. My wife reads what she calls "junkfood" romance novels, mostly paranormal phenomena have a large part of the plot twists, so I had thought about writing one of these for a while just because it sounded like a lot of fun. Then I was playing Dragon Age 2 and certain characters were of interest to me and I wondered if I could create a story that would make their relationship ok with me, without writing a fanfiction (because Thedas is way more complicated politically than I wish to work with). In the Calling series, part of one of Eden's dreams takes place in a world called Serasia, so I decided to write this novel 1000 years after the events in the dream.

The Irish Killer: Haven't even written down anything but the title. The premise is much darker than anything I've ever written. When I wrote The Storm Before My Calm I didn't know as much about psychology as I do now (don't know everything though hope to continue learning!), so I have always kind of felt that I didn't do the rape scenario respectfully enough in regard to the trauma that is caused by sex crimes. So this book will have to do with a husband who's wife has been brutally attacked, and his way of coping with it is to hunt down sex offenders, and when they seem to be ready to give into their addiction he murders them. Think Dexter, but different. There will be a lot of levels to this so I imagine it will take me more than a week to write, because I want to do it justice. I may write this in tandem with something much more lighthearted to keep my sanity.

Paparazzi (this may be that lighthearted title) will be about a photographer that takes up as a paparazzi to feed his family, even though he hates to idea of the entire thing. He manages to snap a money shot of a famous girl (Lohan, Spears, you get the picture, pun intended) and moral dilemas and love ensue.

There is also the Super Mario Brothers story where Luigi is the hero...but that's just for fun. Also a Morrigan (Dragon Age Origins) fan fiction. So all that and a bulldog calendar made with my pups should keep me quite busy (until grad school starts)!

Thanks for your continued support, means a lot!

The Calling Series: Qualia, the first Chapter

So for almost 18 months I've been working on this Calling series. I've finished five drafts of the first book Qualia, and am into chapter two for the second book Seer. Editing seems almost an endless endeavor, but I think I have one more good draft in me before I consider my end of the process complete. Obviously if an agent takes me on there will be more for me to do, but without guidance I can just guess what might be commercially viable. I've decided to post the first chapter. It is an ode to the millenial retail employee living in the East Bay, I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter One: A Day in the Life

            Everyday begins the same. I’m asleep and just before the alarm goes off I wish that I won’t wake up. Inevitably I wake up, my room coated in the blue light of winter morning. The ceiling fan on low turning, vuum-vuum-vuum. With one eye open I stare at the fan. I turn 32 today. I’m not married, I have no children and I work at a bookstore for just over minimum wage; same job I’ve worked for almost ten years.

            They say my generation is the “new” greatest generation. We elected Obama, we’ve sacrificed our brothers and sisters to two wars and we have more problems to tackle than any generation previous. When I hear stuff like that I feel like a used car salesman is jerking me off before selling me a lemon.

            The media has high hopes for my generation. It’s too bad the world didn’t create enough jobs or lower the cost of a quality education to help us along the way. I always find it funny that in one breath those that came before us can say we’re lazy, never had to work a hard day in our lives, and also commend us for defending democracy in some desert they can’t find on a map. When I was in high school my geography teacher told us we had it easy. We’d never lived through a real war or a draft. Turns out he was a kid during Vietnam and he never had to fight or get drafted. Most days I wanna punch him for his ignorance.

            Anyway back to waking up. Yawn, scratch, all that drunken tired zombie dance to the bathroom. So this is what 32 looks like. Black unkempt hair, bags under my pool water blue eyes, the beginning of crow’s feet from squinting instead of wearing my glasses and a scraggly beard. One somewhat shameful glance at my supremely fit gamer body and I turn on the shower, hot. My showers are always hot, to burn that AdHd itch in my skin. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.

            My 21^st century world citizen guilt doesn’t allow me a long shower. Images of polar bears swimming until they drown due to global warming melting their habitats, gets me out of the shower every time. I think about global warming deniers and wonder why the fuck it matters if it is a normal Earth pattern or not? The point is, with or without global warming we’re poisoning the fuck out of ourselves. However, when people that don’t believe in evolution also don’t believe in global warming, their credibility wanes as far as I’m concerned.

            Nice black slacks, pressed white long sleeved shirt and tie. Nice clothes to give the illusion that the overpriced books you’re buying pays the wages of bookseller professionals. When really the people that I work with can barely afford rent, let alone whatever else we need to survive the new millennium. Some gel in my hair, little body spray (still waiting for women to sexually harass me like in the commercials), and here we go.

            I walk back into my room. I mournfully glance at my 42 inch flat screen TV, my gaming console calling me for a marathon session of play. If only I’d known at a young age that gaming could be a profession. Instead I double majored in Psychology and English Lit. I sigh thinking of all the reasons those degrees were such a flat waste of time, but truly my lack of motivation and the comfort of my shit job results in the reality of my not reaching my full potential, failing to launch, so to speak.

            I make my bed to help my recently retired mother out in her daily chores and smile. After my father died, my brothers and I spent every waking moment in the care of our mother and trying to make her proud. She always said that just being her boys was enough to make any mother proud, but we all made it our personal mission anyway. Lately, despite her never treating me otherwise, I feel as if I’ve failed her. I get away with a lot being the youngest, but that doesn’t mean I don’t strive to be a better son.

            I stare at the picture of my father sitting on my desk in his fireman gear, Jack Monaghan. He died when I was seven. Dad was a decorated fireman, and he died in the line of duty. I used to have nightmares as a little boy of him burning, screaming my name as his body blistered in the heat. Two of my brothers, Aaron and Christian, couldn’t become firefighters fast enough. Rian, Ben and I steered clear, although Ben went into law enforcement. My Grampa used to say that without the Irish there would be no cops, he also used to say if there were no Irish we wouldn’t need any cops.

            My Grandfather built this house. We live deep in the unincorporated Tilden Hills up above Berkeley California, surrounded by pine and eucalyptus trees. No one ever seemed to remark about eucalyptus trees without recalling how they exploded during the Oakland Hills fire. I found comfort in the salty medicine smell they gave off. 

            I’m not even sure people live in houses like this anymore. My Grandfather came from Ireland at a young age and started his own pub, built the house off the profits. Rian runs the pub now, and I tend bar there sometimes, but mostly he and his wife, Bette, take care of the place, modernizing as needed but mostly keeping with the Irish pub charm that ole Patrick Monaghan created.

            Grampa Patrick intended on a large family and built a sprawling six bedroom house to accommodate, but in the end Gramma only produced one heir, my father. My grandmother used to say Jack was plenty, but I always thought she lived vicariously through my mother’s five pregnancies.

            Rian and Bette have a baby girl, Becca. They turned the basement into an apartment. Christian divorced shortly after his two boys were born Tommy and Drew; they stay with him in the guest house when he has his two weekends of custody. The guest house was built when my great grandparents came here to live out their days before I was born. Aaron converted the attic into his bachelor pad, just before he found the woman of his dreams, so only one notch was ever consummated up there and Ben lives above the garage.

            I’m the only single boy living here these days in his childhood bedroom surrounded by comic books, video games, large amounts of Psychology textbooks and great works of literature. Various action figures from multiple universes stride the objects of my room. I’m sure they come alive when I leave like Toy Story; although I’m pretty sure they have a much saltier vocabulary.

            Unlike many of the people I’ve grown up with, I’ve never been chided for still living at home. People have always said, “Those Monaghan boys love their mother, and always take good care of her.” It’s true really, but she takes a lot of good care of us too. Sometimes I think we never really left home, because we didn’t want mom to be alone. She’s never gotten over Dad dying. She always said he was her soul mate; she’d loved him plenty and had no use to just have a “man”. No one would ever measure up, and to this day no one ever has.

            “Hey Happy Birthday Eddy!” My brothers yell in almost unison. Papers, breakfast and text messaging put on hold long enough to celebrate my birth. I start to feel guilty for being so morose. I do love my family.

            “Happy Birthday Eden,” my mom presents me with my favorite breakfast, French toast.

            “Thanks, Ma.” I smile and she kisses my cheek.

            “Good news, the world didn’t end!” Ben exclaims as I sit down at the large family table.

            “So much for the Mayan calendar,” Aaron grunts, texting his facespacetwit status.

             “I’m pretty sure it isn’t supposed to effect January first 2012. I think it’s later. Who the fuck knows?” Christian remarks grumpily from the newspaper.

            “Watch your mouth!” My mother sits with her cup of coffee and watches me eat, a glowing happiness on her face. I look up and grin at her.

            “Sorry Ma,” Christian mumbles.

            “Well?” I choke out while she watches me eat.

            “Well what?” She acts as if she hasn’t performed the same ritual since I could comprehend speech, maybe sooner.

            “Mom…” I groan at her coyness.

            “We were watching the New Years Day parade, a bird in the oven and a ham ready to go for the whole family to eat a glorious New Year’s dinner. I of course was cooking the whole thing. I’d been through four pregnancies prior and never a problem, not once. You had two months left, but oh no, you wanted to watch the Rose Bowl your father said. Well right after basting that turkey my water broke. Your father, bless his soul, rushed me down to Alta Bates. He was so sure he was going to lose us both. He missed USC beating the Buckeyes, said he didn’t mind. You barely fit in my hand, two weeks you stayed in the hospital. The day you finally came home was one of the greatest days of my life.” She tears up and takes me in her arms. “Happy Birthday, baby, I love you.”

            “I know Ma.”

            “Finish eating and go to work so we can eat New Year’s dinner when you get home.” Ben groans at the spectacle of my birth story. Everyone knew mine was the most dramatic, but everyone had their story retold every year on their birthday too.

            “I can’t believe they are open on New Years, un-American.” My mother scowls. I often wonder if she becomes irritated I have to work on my birthday or New Years. My money is on the birthday aspect; Un-American indeed, really, a capitalist country working on a holiday.

            Hurriedly I finish my meal and kiss my mother on the cheek.

            “See you all later. Thanks Ma!”

***

            The smell of coffee made its way through the empty aisles of books. Everything was quiet, an unusual moment for a retail establishment cursed with the monotonous drone of elevator music. Moments like these were blessed by the invention of the iPod and secure ear buds. The only sound beside the indistinguishable buzz from random iPods, being played too loud, was the sound of the cleaning crew vacuuming, and the occasional squeak of a shelving rack moving down an aisle.

            This is where dreams come to die. Not so much in the shelving of books. I like books. I like organizing books alphabetically. I even love the smell of books, old and new. I especially like the discount I get when I buy books from here. But no, sitting here in the café going over the sales numbers from last year, yesterday and the projected sales for the day, and the membership cards we’re all expected to sell, that is the moment. Being berated for not writing up a schnazy review for a book so that customers can be inspired to buy the books we read, and knowing that we’re never going to make enough money to compete with a Harry Potter release day, that is the moment where dreams die.

            “And, we have a special announcement! Last month’s staff recommendation that made the most sales goes to!” Yes, she drum rolls with the sales report clamped between her legs. “Eden Monaghan,” goddamn it, that’s me.

            I give a smug smile and cross my legs as she hands me a gift card for the store. Awesome, excellent, fantastic, as if it isn’t hard enough working for this place, but having the worst manager in the history of managers congratulating me for something she wanted done, in front of all of my fellow cellmates, makes me want to die. I vow to pick a book no one will ever want to read, and then I decide that might mean someone would read it, and then sigh with my own version of a bookstore catch 22.

            “Oh and Eden, excellent work on your membership sales, you’re leading for the month. Maybe you can help everyone else with some pointers on why you’ve been so successful.” She nails my coffin shut and I don’t even want to claw my way out. 

            “Um, I just ask everyone if they’d like one and then I smile, that’s about it.” I thumb the letter of resignation in my name card holder, the one I’ve had folded behind my nametag for over two years now, and wonder why I haven’t left this place.

            “See, that’s what I’ve been telling all of you. Just ask, throw in some charm with a smile and you’ll sell those cards.” She ends with enthusiasm and the familiar acid bile taste fills my mouth. “We open in ten, make it a great day!” She stops herself and faces us again. We all stop waiting for the missed announcement, “Make it a great year! Happy New Year everybody!”

            Thank God she forgot it is my birthday.

            I groan and stand up, my eyes meeting the cheese eating grin of one of my friends, who hands me a latte and slaps me on the back. “Just ask with a smile? Is that the secret? Man I’m going to smoke you on those cards now buddy.”

            “Please do, I think that’s like four months in a row I’ve been suffering through these meetings. I haven’t even been trying. I picked War and Peace for my fucking staff rec. How the hell was I supposed to know Oprah was going to make it one of her favorite books this quarter?” I straighten my tie as the cleaning crew leaves for the day. I see one of the recyclers dumpster diving for cardboard and I consider a career change, really hard to collect cardboard with a motorcycle though.

            “The only thing that could make this day better would be if my mom showed up with a bag lunch for me.” I blow at a loose strand of hair that has fallen across my vision.

            “If she does ask her to bring me one!” My buddy walks back towards the café and I man my post at the customer service desk. Soon those window paneled doors will open and a plethora of customers will cry in unison ‘I’m looking for a book’. Really, how did I know?

***

            By the afternoon the self deprecating thoughts seep into my soul like a toxin. With a cigarette in one hand and an energy drink in the other I sit on the edge of the loading dock and watch the people coming and going in the parking lot. One thing about California, the weather, it’s a bit chilly, but the sun is nice on my face. Hasn’t rained in a couple of days, which is nice, I hate dragging coffee ground riddled garbage bags across a rain soaked parking lot. The parking lot is full. I wonder why these people don’t have family functions to attend. I know I would rather be at mine. The convenience of life, maybe that’s one of the breakdowns of modern America, modern humanity. Obesity, broken homes, disinterest in the world’s problems, less activism to make the world a better place. I pat my belly. Thankfully a baggy shirt hides my gamer physique. Maybe it’s all been made too easy. Shackled by debt into dead end jobs, we’ve made keeping up with the Jones’ our own private prison, working for the very places we spend all our money. Most of these customers are returning Christmas presents they didn’t want, or redeeming gift cards for gifts they do want.

            So my life has become this, a Farside calendar I don’t even read every day, the pages gathering ripped from their base and left to lay on the floor collecting dust. I chuckle to myself at the thought, calling myself on my own bull shit. I stare up at the sky as my cigarette burns out, smoke wafting passed my sunglasses, the crinkle of me crushing my now empty energy drink and a jet carrying braver souls than I, is climbing higher in the sky. Once curious and adventurous awe has been replaced with the emptiness of two wars and a loss of innocence when I thought America was a pure democratic country full of hope and promise. Now, I’m not so sure, but I still get pangs of patriotism with the possibility of an uncorrupted equality. The can somersaults in the air and lands in the recycling can. How could I ever let those brainwashed bastards take my country from me?

            “Hey, fuckwad says your break is over.” One of my fellow cellmates alerts me and I nod checking my watch to see if said manager is correct, she’s not, but ya know they don’t care about the five customers I helped on my way out the door. I walk up to the customer service desk, not a customer in sight. Most of them are at the cashier area and the café at the moment. A couple of my co-worker buddies are conspiring.

            “The swine flu vaccine will start it,” I overhear as I pick up a stack of books, the newest hardcover who-done-it ready for the first bestseller list of the year.

            Here we go again. I used to partake, zombie apocalypse, how we’ll survive. The scales would finally be even, debt cleared, true equality based on Darwin’s survival of the fittest. We talk about the end of days as if they’d liberate us, save us from the oppressive retail white middle class dull-drum of impulsive hoarder OCD spending, never get anywhere, never find the right girl, buy a house or have a job you never wish to retire from, bull shit life.

            “Shotgun,” now the conversation about the best weapons for said apocalypse. Everyone who will survive knows a shotgun is too goddamn loud. Give me a bat or a katana and a face mask to shield me from the putrid blood of Dexter proportions and I’m good to go.

            I’m no fool though. I know that death and destruction won’t save me from Darwin’s rules or Jesus’ for that matter. I’ll probably never be able to kill a defenseless animal to feed myself, or kill a person to protect myself, but I do yearn for silence. I yearn for a simpler time where meals are earned, not pit stops during monotony. I yearn for a freedom, less people, more open spaces. Land that is occupied not owned. True equality determined by a person’s quality, not their quantity. Mostly though, as I look up from these stacks of books, my friends continuing their monologues of zombie warrior superiority, I yearn for the fluorescent lights to stop humming.

            The lights I’m staring at start to flicker, and then they go out. I sigh, it’s just the one. For a moment I wish an assassin’s laser sight was targeted on me, the light going out my distraction from becoming red mist.

            “Eden,” the manager’s voice beckons. No such luck.

            “Yea, I’m on it.” I head off to get a replacement bulb.

***

            I watch the sunset over the bay as I stand in the BART train car, my I.D. badge banging against my chest. Everyone on the train has their headphones on, talking on the phone or listening to music. I wonder if anyone is listening to the same song. I feel so disconnected from everything. I try to remember if I clocked out before I left, and I can’t remember. I wonder if I’ll ever feel connected to anyone. I’ve tried and failed a few times. A couple of failed engagements even, but I’ve never felt connected to another human being in the way my mother always says she was connected to my father. Sometimes I wonder if that even exists, if people just lie about how they feel about their partners, to fit some sort of model that Shakespeare created and Disney perfected. I lean my head against the door between the cars and close my eyes.

            A short motorcycle ride later and I’m home. It isn’t late, but it’s winter so it’s dark already, pitch black the further I get into the hills. Yellow lights glow here and there in houses spaced far from each other, trees and ivy covering the land between, brown and dead needles covering the ground, a severe sweet and natural pine smell in the air. The air is cool and clean and as I turn off the engine of my motorcycle I hear the cracking of the trees. I can smell dinner before I even open the door. Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, rolls fresh from the oven with a distinct smell of fresh butter, my stomach growls as I set my helmet down and pull off my leather jacket and gloves and put them in their respective places. The hallway entry is narrow, the way they used to make them when heating was an issue, not that it isn’t now, but for a while we were all living the high life in our wide open and vaulted ceiling McMansions, well some people were.

            Wood hooks to hang all of our coats, a mirror and a table to place our keys and knick knacks, a jar of loose change, two pair of fireman boots. In the mirror I take an evening look at myself, my hair is longer, around my face, curled a little, mostly from the laziness of not going to get it cut, but it isn’t like anyone cares if a guy has long hair these days, not like when my dad was growing up. I’m sure my Grampa would give me a lecture about looking like a proper gentleman, but he isn’t around anymore for such things.

            At the end of the hallway the family room opens up, stairs on the right, between the kitchen and the family room, in the middle a huge dining room table. The fire is going, and the game is on. My brothers are all a bit tipsy. The niece and nephews are playing with their toys, dressed in their New Year best.

            “Oh good, I wasn’t sure I could keep them from eating any longer.” My mother sets an un-carved turkey at the end of the table. She kisses me on the cheek as she wipes her hands on her apron. “Soup’s on kids!” An army of thundering feet race for the table. Christian carves the turkey, as he’s done since Grampa died. No one ever really asked him if he wanted to. We’d all been gathering for Thanksgiving that year and then just stared at the turkey where my father had once been the carver before he’d died, and then my Grampa had resumed the job for a while, and no one had known what to do. My mother had been on the verge of tears when Christian, still a boy in his own right, walked to the front of the table, picked up the utensils and carved the turkey and the ham without a word, white meat on one platter, dark on the other. Sometimes when I think about that moment, I feel as if that was the moment when my eldest brother became a man, far before any boy should have to.

            I roll up the sleeves of my shirt and sling my tie over my shoulder there is serious eating work to be done here. A short non denominational grace is spoken, with a customary amen. The night continues with polite conversation. What the year will hold for everyone. Pounds to be lost, muscle to be gained, classes taken, career maneuvers, relationship maneuvers, even a hint at another Monaghan to be born in the coming time, but nothing certain besides a wink and a nuzzle between lovers. Candles illuminate the table as the fire crackles behind us, the TV on mute so we can glance at the score between conversation gaps. Accolades to the chef and promises of a cleanup detail (all of us that didn’t cook) and questions about how my day went and a toast to my birthday with glasses of cabernet sauvignon (even the boys got a swallow like we all did at their age), my mother’s proud Irish smile as she surveys her greatest accomplishment, a beautiful and respectful family that truly enjoys their time with each other. Granted we fight, all families fight, but we don’t fight like some families, but mostly we just don’t hurt like some families. There is definitely always a sense of those that aren’t there, but with the coming of the next generation the pain and dull ache of the one that came before is covered with hope and pride.

            “The only thing that could make this more perfect would be a blanket of snow.” Bette says before sipping some more wine. My mother, born and raised in the Irish Catholic streets of New York sighs with a fond remembrance of snowy holidays and smiles in agreement. I raise my eyebrow and snarl a bit at the thought of trying to shovel the driveway of snow, but if it was in my power to make it snow for my mother, she’d never go a holiday season without.

            A large birthday cake and a song to go along, each of my brothers singing as if they were an Irish tenor, but in reality just tipsy and sloppy, I laughed anyway before blowing out the candles. No one had room for cake, but we all forced a slice in anyway. More cake ended up on Becca’s little face and dress than in her stomach.   

            I had a cigarette on the deck looking up at all the stars, the trees cracking in the cold winter wind. I watched as Bette and Rian kissed under the mistletoe before scooping up their sleepy daughter and retreating into the basement for privacy and eventually sleep. I want that, maybe that’ll be my New Year’s resolution, find a woman to love, and to love me, hopefully all in one person.

            I turned away from the windows that overlooked my brothers asleep on the couches and leaned against the deck railing that viewed a dark pretend wilderness where deer and raccoons lived and where we’d built forts and skinned our knees as children.

            Each flick of ash produced tiny flying pieces of white floating on the wind like sparks in a fireplace. The smoke wafted by my fingers like the touch of a lover’s ghost. Nicotine stained my fingertips as the blood vessels in my veins constricted. I wondered about all the fires my father put out caused by these little cancer sticks and guilt came over me.

            “You know I hate that you smoke.” My mother joins me and slides the glass door closed behind her, a blanket over her shoulders. 

            “Yea, I know Ma.”

            “Your old dad used to get melancholy in the winter too. Sometimes I’d have to do some crazy things just to get him to smile. After we had you kids though, he was always full of joy. Your time will come Eden.” She puts her arm around me and joins me looking out into the darkness.

            “Sometimes I wonder. I wonder if I’ll ever find someone like you found dad, whether I’ll have a family-a career-whether Dad would be proud of me-whether you’re proud of me.”

            “Of course I’m proud of you. You’re my son, you work hard. You’re talented. I know your father would be very proud of you. You mistake other people’s success as your own failure.” She squeezes me, but she knows my melancholy won’t be lifted in this way.

            “I just want more.”

            “Then my son, you’ll have to go and get more.” She forces me to look at her and a single tear rips itself free from my left tear duct. “Figure out exactly what you want, and go get it.”

            “Thanks Ma.” I bury myself in her comforting hug, and on the carrying wind I hear the ghostly call of the BART train in the distance.

Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

Earth Cracking, Water Rushing In

Is this the end?

With death does it matter?

-Haiku in honor of Japan During Disaster

S.L. Clifford 3/11/11

Since the first reports came in I've been effected by this disaster in Japan. I am one of those people that when it comes to crisis I want to be apart of the doing, not the watching, but since there is a vast ocean between my helping, and I'm not a billionaire, I figured I'd write. I took a Japanese History class as part of my graduation requirements and remembered the Haiku. Granted it isn't easy to do in English, but I tried and the above is what I came up with after a few edits to stay within the 17 syllable, 3-line rule.

I remember reading many poems during my class. The people that wrote those poems were eerily aware of nature and its destructive path. There were many poems about tsunamis, earthquakes, storms, death, love and the changes in the seasons that reflected the aging process.

I also see these things happening and I tend to joke about the end of the world, because there is a vocal minority of Earthlings obsessed with the end of the world. I would even say a large amount of people are obsessed with it, I mean look at the Zombie/Robot/Paranormal-apocalypse that litters our media. I am a fan of that genre, but that is all I really see it as, a genre, not a fortelling of things to come.

I wonder if such ideas about the end of the world comes from civilization reaching a peak. We become slaves in the innerworkings of the empire, important, but nameless, and subconsciously we yearn for a simpler time (that may or may not exist), where we are a person and not a $.

It could be a human thing, or a pioneer thing, I mean look at all the stories where we go into space to the final frontier, which is a much better way to become a self made person than being strong during the apocalypse.

For many years I have thought on days in history where the sky went black, and the air became thick, and people entered that final journey that we all must some day take alone. I've wondered if they've thought the world was ending, and if so did it really matter in that moment, because for them it was. Maybe in the minds of our ancestors the world has ended many times, and still we keep going.

It is truly a disaster what has and will continue to happen in Japan in the days to come. I hope that in the rebuilding this moment shows us all again what a proud and extraordinary people they are. I hope that the world gives what it can to aid them.

Albert Camus once wrote in his novel The Plague "What we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise." I imagine the same is true in times of natural disaster.

Amanda Hocking-My Two Cents

Last week the internet went absolutely viral for Amanda Hocking. Of course the 24 hour webcycle announced that traditional publishing was in danger. You may remember this happening for the music industry during the Napster era, but now that we’re all sporting itunes accounts and CDs are still the top selling way that music is sold.

So what does this all mean? That we can be lazy, pop something on the internet for 99 cents and make a million? Well no, duh, even though some people feel that way and unfortunately Amanda Hocking fears that people view her in that light.

I see something entirely different. Let me give some back story. I, like Hocking, have been writing since before I could actually put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. Writing has been my life for a very long time. I can’t stop breathing and continue to live, nor can I stop writing and continue to live.

I, like many other writers, have been in this loop of trying to find something commercially viable. A catch phrase in a query letter/synopsis/cover letter that just maybe will get an agent/publisher interested in my work. Because let’s face it, there is no reason to buy a book and pay an author if the publisher/agent doesn’t think there is a $ sign at the end of the process for them.

What is the advice of published authors? Buy Writer’s Market. I often wonder if that little catch phrase gives them money, because I’ve used Writer’s Market, and I still haven’t gotten the attention of an agent or publisher, and most publishers require that a writer have representation before sending in a manuscript, which makes agents the gateway to the life we all want. What is that? A life where we don’t have to work as retail clerks by day and starving artists by night. I’ve lived that life for a long time, it sucks (I don’t anymore, but I know many people that live similar existences).  The worst part of the agent/query marathon is that agents want the writer to let them review their work for six weeks at a time, but don’t promise to send a rejection letter. Now granted it is allowed to submit multiple queries at a time, but if you don’t tell the agents there is a risk that you’ll lose their respect, and really if you’re telling an agent that you’ve decided to multi-submit it doesn’t make them feel/think that you are picking them out for any other reason than they are an agent. Agents will say on their websites that they want to be addressed by name, and for us as the writers to (in as few words as possible) tell them why we’ve chosen them. See how this already is complicated as all hell? All I want is to write a book, have someone help me edit it and then help me market the thing. But this creates this strange world where three pages of who I am, what I think the commercial viability of the novel is, why I chose said agency or agent and then the synopsis of the novel. Tricky dance, and some people have mastered it, and still don’t have an agent. This whole deal is a lottery, and the lucky few that get publishing deals don’t even necessarily have to be good writers. This is proven by walking into any bookstore and picking up five random novels, I guarantee that at least one of them is bad, or at least bad to you (insert phrase about one man’s junk is another man’s…)

I’ve never read one of Amanda Hocking’s books, but I really respect what she’s done. Instead of wallowing in her own self pity, she’s decided to do things her own way and let her writing and ingenuity do the talking. She has a pretty large following on her twitter, blog and facebook pages. She seems from the outside to be living the dream and I applaud her for that.

Now I don’t think that print media is dead, and I hope that it never dies. I like the idea of the Nook, Kindle, Ipad revolution for reading books. I hope that this causes the strip process to die. What do I mean by this? After an amount of time passes the bookstores take paperbacks off of the shelf that haven’t sold or are deemed not to sell (I’ve seen an entire box of Moby Dick stripped so it isn’t just monthly romance novels) are stripped. The Front cover is ripped off and sent to the publisher I’m assuming to start a process where the bookstore gets some sort of refund for the lack of sales, someone in the industry will have to post a comment on that end of the process. The rest of the book is trashed. Sometimes a bookseller will take it home to read, or it’ll be recycled, but for the most part it ends up in the trash. What I hope will happen in the future is that print media will be for books with artistic bindings and print, cost a bit more, but will be mostly collector’s items. Huge warehouse bookstores will go away and leave room for smaller more quaint book stores like we used to have before the big boys stripped mined the retail sector. And for everything else that might have been stripped or for people that aren’t interested in collections-all that will go to our handy handheld devices.

As for the future of publishing? I think that what this all means is that writers can be writers. We don’t have to let our work collect dust or become lost on our computer. We can publish too. We can put in the work of editing, marketing for ourselves. The entire market has just been opened up for us to follow our dreams. And for consumers, we don’t have to wait for the publishers to determine what we want to read, we can peruse the store online and decide for ourselves from a larger library. This brings about so much more freedom for every one of us. It isn’t that print media or the publishing world is dying, it just means that a whole other market has opened up. Indie publishing just became streamlined.

So as artists let’s support one another, post each other’s blogs, read each other’s work. Create an online community to promote the effort we’ve put in. Over the next few months I’m going to be venturing into this market to see where I can go, but mostly my interest is sharing my work with others, because at the end of the day we write because we have to, and sharing that experience is what motivates us to continue.