Galleycat & MediaBistro - Thanks for the recommendation for my novel Chasing God's River.
http://ping.fm/fcQ6f
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Am I full of b.s. or not? Thanks for the interview on my writing, Norm.
to view: http://ping.fm/2AloJ
to view: http://ping.fm/2AloJ
Friday, February 4, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
http://ping.fm/8O9JB
Prologue for my book Waking Paul Bunyan.
Recounted by James Jefferson Madison - as told by a dying man with guilt on his conscience. Year 1871.
Deep in a forest primeval against the canopy of murmuring pines bearded with moss, echoed the voices of maddened men indistinct in the twilight. A hundred arms carrying tar-tipped torches searched, their shadows grown large against the distant and jagged ancient rock. They raced to and fro, to and fro, past stubs of trees freshly hewn, over a dishevel of leaves and trunks and decaying bark.
"Over there!" a voice announced. "Up the mountain!"
The man pursued appeared in an open glade ahead of them. He seemed disproportionate to the landscape, the ancient trees at his back standing like saplings. Wearing a red and black checked lumberjack shirt tucked inside canvas overalls, he was thick-bearded and strong. The man held a wooden cask firmly under one arm. In his other arm, a double bit ax gleamed in the moonlight.
He shouted back towards the pursuing mob, his voice slurred from drink. "It was a fine night, men! Now go back to your camp and rest for Boil Up Day! Pick your blueberries and hone your iron in the morning! For there is not a man among you drunken bushworkers can keep up with the likes of Paul Bunyan! For I am the tallest of all tales"
The mob entered the glade like a small stream of angry ants, torch lights revealing the faces and clothes of scruffy lumberjacks armed with axes, picks, saws, cant hooks and ropes.
Their leader, Jack Scraggs, announced in a thick Scottish accent, "He's stolen his last drink, I tell you!"
The mob replied in chorus, "Hear, hear!"
"A lumberjack's whiskey is more important than his woman!" Scraggs added.
"Aye!" the mob cried.
The Mob stampeded into a frantic run across the glade towards the man, their torches sending off sprays of sparks into the crisp night air. As the field narrowed between pursued and pursuer, it became apparent that Paul Bunyan was no ordinary-sized man, but rather a giant. Leaning his long-handled axe against his side, he lifted the keg to his lips and took a long, steady drink.
"There you have it!" He laughed. "I saved a pint for the fastest man!"
He set the cask down gingerly, picked up his axe and raced into the forest, arms and shoulders breaking boughs as the forest engulfed him.
The mob reached the keg. Three men lifted it and shook it. "If he left us even a pint, then I'm the King of England!" one complained.
They dashed the empty keg to the ground, breaking its iron bands and reducing it to slabs of bent wood.
Scraggs twirled his rope like a lasso, mustering his men. "Keep up the pursuit! He is headed up the point towards the glacier! We'll have our way with him there!"
The mob rushed on into the thick of branches and bramble, over cool hard rocks, following the path the giant had made.
"Fan out left and right," Scraggs ordered. "He won't escape our noose! He's put himself on a rock ledge!"
They saw the giant ahead. He was paused at a cliff, considering his options.
The mob closed in. Loggers with ropes let them fly, snagging the giant's arms, his axe, head and legs. Men dropped their tools of the trade and joined them, tethering the giant from all sides. He pulled and pushed, but the ropes had taken well.
"You can't fend against a hundred men, Bunyan! There's a cliff behind you and a mile down beyond!"
Scraggs picked up a single-blade axe and approached the giant cautiously, poised to strike a leg.
"Stand down, Paul Bunyan or we'll cut you down to a proper man's size! Speak for yourself before we cast the first stone!"
"I am a man of unequalled appetites," Paul spoke drunkenly. "I do the work of forty men, but am given the share of only twenty. How is that fair?"
"The whiskey delivery was low this month. All of us are thirsty! You drank too many shares!"
"Then have at me and we'll make a night of it!" Paul Bunyan bellowed. His giant voice boomed and the men leaned back, frightened.
"Aye, Paul Bunyan! You have worked your last camp in these woods and mountains!" Scraggs turned to the mob. "Bind him up good and tight! We'll find a way to hang him from the tallest tree!"
The delirious mob took to the ropes, pulling the giant to the hard earth as he let out a long, loud whistle.
"Hurry now! Before his beast arrives or there will be no stopping them together!"
In the distance, in the direction of the open glade below, came the unearthly, deep-throated moans of an enormous animal. Its voice echoed in the woods like that of a demon.
Spooked loggers turned their torches and looked behind, nervously exploring the forbidding darkness.
"If we put out our fires..." suggested one.
"The beast can smell us," Scraggs shouted. "Hurry, men. Strike your blows upon him!"
Men raised their axes, hesitating to strike at the giant, for they were not killers of men, but slayers of wood.
Scraggs stepped towards the giant, ready to strike the first blow as the earth at his feet rattled and shook.
"His beast is upon us!" screamed the camp's cookie. "We're dead men now!"
Trees snapped and fell towards the frightened mob, sending them together in a tight circle as a rain of pinecones and needles showered down upon them. Men dropped their rope grips. Axes and saws shook from their moistened hands. Torches dropped. All fell silent, awaiting the inevitable.
The beast cleared the last rows of trees, revealing long horns on either side of its massive head. A broken yoke hung from its thick neck. It towered over the men, a steady drip of yellow snot steaming from its nostrils heavy with exercise, its thick blue body glistening with sweat
Paul Bunyan stood and ripped the ropes from his body. He reached inside his overalls and pulled out a large lump of sugar wrapped in paper.
"That's a good boy," smiled the giant. "Come, Babe. Come my little ox. Here is your treat."
Paul extended his hand with the sugar as Babe moved cautiously forward. She was a dumb animal, uncertain of the situation at hand. Slowly the heavyset beast emerged from the trees, its black untrusting eyes peering at the men one by one as it slowly passed towards its master on giant hoofed feet. Inch by inch, men stepped back away from the giant, the ox and cliff, ready to flee for their lives into the thicket at a moment's notice.
"Good ox," Paul said softly. "Steady now. There is no harm at hand."
The enormous ox shuffled a few more feet, the ground creaking beneath.
"Easy, Bunyan!" Scraggs announced. "We're on uncertain ground near this cliff!"
Babe took more steps and reached the giving hand, licking at the sweet mound, its eyes grateful.
Suddenly, the earth seemed to jar beneath them all. Cracks appeared all around, illuminated by the dropped torches.
"The land's giving way!" shrieked a logger.
"There's too much weight between them!" shouted the camp cookie.
The earth cracked and swelled again, creating a rift that separated the loggers from the giant and ox.
"Run for it, men!" shouted Scraggs. "Away from the cliff before she gives in!"
A hundred men scrambled into the safety of the woods.
The camp cookie looked back, seeing the sodden giant known as Paul Bunyan sway from uncertain footing as the giant blue ox stepped forward again, nudging his master with a massive head as it licked at his open hand again.
"No, Babe!" Paul said. "Whoa! Back up, Babe! Back..."
But the uncertain earth cried out again. Rocks screamed and the sinewed roots of trees snapped free from the edge of the primeval forest. Suddenly, the entire point of land gave in at once and heaved a broken sigh, sending the giant man, his beast and axe head over heels, backwards towards the long-sloping abyss beyond.
Men covered their ears, listening to the giant's final screams for salvation, the oxen's moan, as they tumbled, tumbled towards oblivion into the pit of the frozen glacier below.
As the ripped earth steadied beneath their feet, lumberjacks crawled towards the edged cut of land and peered into the glacier below.
The giant man and beast landed with a thunderous end, shaking snow and ice loose from above as the glacier groaned and drifted downwards, burying them forever in a white shroud.
Jack Scraggs stood up and blessed himself. One by one, other loggers found their footing and joined his side.
"Let us say a prayer for Paul Bunyan. There was never a better man with an axe." Scraggs heaved a long sigh. "We must have agreement between us," he said to the disheartened men. "There will be no more talk of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox or of this deed done tonight! In a generation from now, his name will fade from history! But we here shall never forget our own sins performed for the sake of the wicked spirit we call whiskey!"
The camp cookie looked at the freshly carved grave down below.
"He drank like no other."
"Poor Paul Bunyan," said Jack Scraggs. "Born too big to find his peace on this earth."
"Amen," said the assembled men solemnly.
After a moment of silence, torches, axes and ropes were found and the men made their way back towards their lumber camp deep in the forest. Tomorrow was Sunday. Boil Up Day. They would rest and whisper and remember the man they knew as Paul Bunyan.
Prologue for my book Waking Paul Bunyan.
Recounted by James Jefferson Madison - as told by a dying man with guilt on his conscience. Year 1871.
Deep in a forest primeval against the canopy of murmuring pines bearded with moss, echoed the voices of maddened men indistinct in the twilight. A hundred arms carrying tar-tipped torches searched, their shadows grown large against the distant and jagged ancient rock. They raced to and fro, to and fro, past stubs of trees freshly hewn, over a dishevel of leaves and trunks and decaying bark.
"Over there!" a voice announced. "Up the mountain!"
The man pursued appeared in an open glade ahead of them. He seemed disproportionate to the landscape, the ancient trees at his back standing like saplings. Wearing a red and black checked lumberjack shirt tucked inside canvas overalls, he was thick-bearded and strong. The man held a wooden cask firmly under one arm. In his other arm, a double bit ax gleamed in the moonlight.
He shouted back towards the pursuing mob, his voice slurred from drink. "It was a fine night, men! Now go back to your camp and rest for Boil Up Day! Pick your blueberries and hone your iron in the morning! For there is not a man among you drunken bushworkers can keep up with the likes of Paul Bunyan! For I am the tallest of all tales"
The mob entered the glade like a small stream of angry ants, torch lights revealing the faces and clothes of scruffy lumberjacks armed with axes, picks, saws, cant hooks and ropes.
Their leader, Jack Scraggs, announced in a thick Scottish accent, "He's stolen his last drink, I tell you!"
The mob replied in chorus, "Hear, hear!"
"A lumberjack's whiskey is more important than his woman!" Scraggs added.
"Aye!" the mob cried.
The Mob stampeded into a frantic run across the glade towards the man, their torches sending off sprays of sparks into the crisp night air. As the field narrowed between pursued and pursuer, it became apparent that Paul Bunyan was no ordinary-sized man, but rather a giant. Leaning his long-handled axe against his side, he lifted the keg to his lips and took a long, steady drink.
"There you have it!" He laughed. "I saved a pint for the fastest man!"
He set the cask down gingerly, picked up his axe and raced into the forest, arms and shoulders breaking boughs as the forest engulfed him.
The mob reached the keg. Three men lifted it and shook it. "If he left us even a pint, then I'm the King of England!" one complained.
They dashed the empty keg to the ground, breaking its iron bands and reducing it to slabs of bent wood.
Scraggs twirled his rope like a lasso, mustering his men. "Keep up the pursuit! He is headed up the point towards the glacier! We'll have our way with him there!"
The mob rushed on into the thick of branches and bramble, over cool hard rocks, following the path the giant had made.
"Fan out left and right," Scraggs ordered. "He won't escape our noose! He's put himself on a rock ledge!"
They saw the giant ahead. He was paused at a cliff, considering his options.
The mob closed in. Loggers with ropes let them fly, snagging the giant's arms, his axe, head and legs. Men dropped their tools of the trade and joined them, tethering the giant from all sides. He pulled and pushed, but the ropes had taken well.
"You can't fend against a hundred men, Bunyan! There's a cliff behind you and a mile down beyond!"
Scraggs picked up a single-blade axe and approached the giant cautiously, poised to strike a leg.
"Stand down, Paul Bunyan or we'll cut you down to a proper man's size! Speak for yourself before we cast the first stone!"
"I am a man of unequalled appetites," Paul spoke drunkenly. "I do the work of forty men, but am given the share of only twenty. How is that fair?"
"The whiskey delivery was low this month. All of us are thirsty! You drank too many shares!"
"Then have at me and we'll make a night of it!" Paul Bunyan bellowed. His giant voice boomed and the men leaned back, frightened.
"Aye, Paul Bunyan! You have worked your last camp in these woods and mountains!" Scraggs turned to the mob. "Bind him up good and tight! We'll find a way to hang him from the tallest tree!"
The delirious mob took to the ropes, pulling the giant to the hard earth as he let out a long, loud whistle.
"Hurry now! Before his beast arrives or there will be no stopping them together!"
In the distance, in the direction of the open glade below, came the unearthly, deep-throated moans of an enormous animal. Its voice echoed in the woods like that of a demon.
Spooked loggers turned their torches and looked behind, nervously exploring the forbidding darkness.
"If we put out our fires..." suggested one.
"The beast can smell us," Scraggs shouted. "Hurry, men. Strike your blows upon him!"
Men raised their axes, hesitating to strike at the giant, for they were not killers of men, but slayers of wood.
Scraggs stepped towards the giant, ready to strike the first blow as the earth at his feet rattled and shook.
"His beast is upon us!" screamed the camp's cookie. "We're dead men now!"
Trees snapped and fell towards the frightened mob, sending them together in a tight circle as a rain of pinecones and needles showered down upon them. Men dropped their rope grips. Axes and saws shook from their moistened hands. Torches dropped. All fell silent, awaiting the inevitable.
The beast cleared the last rows of trees, revealing long horns on either side of its massive head. A broken yoke hung from its thick neck. It towered over the men, a steady drip of yellow snot steaming from its nostrils heavy with exercise, its thick blue body glistening with sweat
Paul Bunyan stood and ripped the ropes from his body. He reached inside his overalls and pulled out a large lump of sugar wrapped in paper.
"That's a good boy," smiled the giant. "Come, Babe. Come my little ox. Here is your treat."
Paul extended his hand with the sugar as Babe moved cautiously forward. She was a dumb animal, uncertain of the situation at hand. Slowly the heavyset beast emerged from the trees, its black untrusting eyes peering at the men one by one as it slowly passed towards its master on giant hoofed feet. Inch by inch, men stepped back away from the giant, the ox and cliff, ready to flee for their lives into the thicket at a moment's notice.
"Good ox," Paul said softly. "Steady now. There is no harm at hand."
The enormous ox shuffled a few more feet, the ground creaking beneath.
"Easy, Bunyan!" Scraggs announced. "We're on uncertain ground near this cliff!"
Babe took more steps and reached the giving hand, licking at the sweet mound, its eyes grateful.
Suddenly, the earth seemed to jar beneath them all. Cracks appeared all around, illuminated by the dropped torches.
"The land's giving way!" shrieked a logger.
"There's too much weight between them!" shouted the camp cookie.
The earth cracked and swelled again, creating a rift that separated the loggers from the giant and ox.
"Run for it, men!" shouted Scraggs. "Away from the cliff before she gives in!"
A hundred men scrambled into the safety of the woods.
The camp cookie looked back, seeing the sodden giant known as Paul Bunyan sway from uncertain footing as the giant blue ox stepped forward again, nudging his master with a massive head as it licked at his open hand again.
"No, Babe!" Paul said. "Whoa! Back up, Babe! Back..."
But the uncertain earth cried out again. Rocks screamed and the sinewed roots of trees snapped free from the edge of the primeval forest. Suddenly, the entire point of land gave in at once and heaved a broken sigh, sending the giant man, his beast and axe head over heels, backwards towards the long-sloping abyss beyond.
Men covered their ears, listening to the giant's final screams for salvation, the oxen's moan, as they tumbled, tumbled towards oblivion into the pit of the frozen glacier below.
As the ripped earth steadied beneath their feet, lumberjacks crawled towards the edged cut of land and peered into the glacier below.
The giant man and beast landed with a thunderous end, shaking snow and ice loose from above as the glacier groaned and drifted downwards, burying them forever in a white shroud.
Jack Scraggs stood up and blessed himself. One by one, other loggers found their footing and joined his side.
"Let us say a prayer for Paul Bunyan. There was never a better man with an axe." Scraggs heaved a long sigh. "We must have agreement between us," he said to the disheartened men. "There will be no more talk of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox or of this deed done tonight! In a generation from now, his name will fade from history! But we here shall never forget our own sins performed for the sake of the wicked spirit we call whiskey!"
The camp cookie looked at the freshly carved grave down below.
"He drank like no other."
"Poor Paul Bunyan," said Jack Scraggs. "Born too big to find his peace on this earth."
"Amen," said the assembled men solemnly.
After a moment of silence, torches, axes and ropes were found and the men made their way back towards their lumber camp deep in the forest. Tomorrow was Sunday. Boil Up Day. They would rest and whisper and remember the man they knew as Paul Bunyan.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
"There's a new girl at school. She's coming over to visit. Please don't make a mess of things by mentioning Paul Bunyan is my great, great uncle."
"Why are you so ashamed of your heritage?" her father Bob asked.
"This is the 21st century, dad," Alissa said. "Your fairy tales are killing my social life."
"Just last week you said acne was killing your social life."
"That too."
"I'll try to behave," her father said. There was disappointment in his voice.
http://ping.fm/P6sql
"Why are you so ashamed of your heritage?" her father Bob asked.
"This is the 21st century, dad," Alissa said. "Your fairy tales are killing my social life."
"Just last week you said acne was killing your social life."
"That too."
"I'll try to behave," her father said. There was disappointment in his voice.
http://ping.fm/P6sql
Friday, January 28, 2011
I just reread Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. A nice reinforcement when I feel mired in the muck I often create by letting people step over my unattended boundaries. Nice guys really do finish last if they allow the universe too much of their time, energy and creativity.
http://ping.fm/1TMR3
http://ping.fm/1TMR3
Awakening to your life's purpose
http://www.eckharttolle.com/home/about/
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Lean Sentences With Power
Amber Beulah stood at the guardrail of the footbridge, studying the streambed below for signs of life.
She was barely seventeen, but the weight of the secret baby ball inside her skinny kid belly made her feel thirty. What have I done? Two minutes of a strange new terror and pleasure while I leaned against a dead tree. What have I done? I’m a mistake. Worthless.
She pressed her arms against the pair of library books that were now a month overdue. She adjusted her flimsy black waistcoat, pulling it down. It was a good buy. Two bucks at the secondhand store, according to the price tag. What made it even better was that she stole it. Just slipped it on and walked out the door. Amber didn’t like stealing, but there was no job, no allowance. You didn’t get an allowance at the group home for wayward girls.
Amber Beulah stood at the guardrail of the footbridge, studying the streambed below for signs of life.
She was barely seventeen, but the weight of the secret baby ball inside her skinny kid belly made her feel thirty. What have I done? Two minutes of a strange new terror and pleasure while I leaned against a dead tree. What have I done? I’m a mistake. Worthless.
She pressed her arms against the pair of library books that were now a month overdue. She adjusted her flimsy black waistcoat, pulling it down. It was a good buy. Two bucks at the secondhand store, according to the price tag. What made it even better was that she stole it. Just slipped it on and walked out the door. Amber didn’t like stealing, but there was no job, no allowance. You didn’t get an allowance at the group home for wayward girls.
Lean Sentences With Power
Amber Beulah stood at the guardrail of the footbridge, studying the streambed below for signs of life. http://www.barryhickey.com/
She was barely seventeen, but the weight of the secret baby ball inside her skinny kid belly made her feel thirty. What have I done? Two minutes of a strange new terror and pleasure while I leaned against a dead tree. What have I done? I’m a mistake. Worthless.
She pressed her arms against the pair of library books that were now a month overdue. She adjusted her flimsy black waistcoat, pulling it down. It was a good buy. Two bucks at the secondhand store, according to the price tag. What made it even better was that she stole it. Just slipped it on and walked out the door. Amber didn’t like stealing, but there was no job, no allowance. You didn’t get an allowance at the group home for wayward girls.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Science has not made me happy yet
Why does the magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it - Albert Einstein.
And here I am at my computer, reminded that War and Peace, Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick were written by hand and typewriter... There is something said for the slower method, connected perhaps most implicitly to the thought process from head to hand... Not a mad dash to fill up the page with extemporaneous and unnecessary words. Anyone use a typewriter anymore?
And here I am at my computer, reminded that War and Peace, Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick were written by hand and typewriter... There is something said for the slower method, connected perhaps most implicitly to the thought process from head to hand... Not a mad dash to fill up the page with extemporaneous and unnecessary words. Anyone use a typewriter anymore?
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Writing novels on napkins
Yeah, I know. Crazy title, but I can't tell you how many ideas, changes, insights I get as I'm constructing my story and I'm away from the keyboard. At least once a day an idea strikes and I'm off! I write on a Starbucks napkin, the back of a grocery receipt, the edge of a newspaper ad, whatever is immediately available and able to soak up the ink of a particular pen I may be carrying. (I have backed away from cardboard... Just doesn't feel good in my shirt pocket... Never a Sharpie! Screws up my clothes when I forget the napkin and wash it. Anyone else out there doing the same?http://www.barryhickey.com/
Sunday, January 16, 2011
THE GREEN DOT
The sea was unnaturally calm and not a cloud on the western horizon. Golden time. In a few minutes the sun would dip into the ocean with a wink of a goodbye followed by a final green flash.
Katie Jones stood alone, her bare feet dug in the sand at Crown Point, a strand of beach at the end of Jewell Street. Crown Point was just one of many approaches to Mission Bay Park, a massive recreation area with twenty seven miles of Pacific shoreline and nineteen sandy beaches in San Diego. Day’s end was near, but jet skis, open-water kayakers, skiers and an armada of windsurfers darted around the bay like pesky flies on water.
There were birds here, too. Migrants and residents. Over at the eastern mud flats, ruddy turnstone, willet, and black-bellied plovers nested. A goofball with a tuft of blue punker hair seemed to have one of its luckless feet stuck too deep in goop to pull itself out.
I know the feeling. Katie shook her shoulder-cropped blonde mane. Love isn't dead; it's just hibernating.
The sea was unnaturally calm and not a cloud on the western horizon. Golden time. In a few minutes the sun would dip into the ocean with a wink of a goodbye followed by a final green flash.
Katie Jones stood alone, her bare feet dug in the sand at Crown Point, a strand of beach at the end of Jewell Street. Crown Point was just one of many approaches to Mission Bay Park, a massive recreation area with twenty seven miles of Pacific shoreline and nineteen sandy beaches in San Diego. Day’s end was near, but jet skis, open-water kayakers, skiers and an armada of windsurfers darted around the bay like pesky flies on water.
There were birds here, too. Migrants and residents. Over at the eastern mud flats, ruddy turnstone, willet, and black-bellied plovers nested. A goofball with a tuft of blue punker hair seemed to have one of its luckless feet stuck too deep in goop to pull itself out.
I know the feeling. Katie shook her shoulder-cropped blonde mane. Love isn't dead; it's just hibernating.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Hooking the reader in your novel
Opening pages of Chasing God's River
BANKING IT
Wade Jones stood in the shower and yawned. He had originally planned his day for the garage, stripping the antique nightstand that he and his wife Katie had found at the yard sale in Hillerman Heights the previous weekend.
Instead, what he got was an eight-thirty phone call from Doctor Lieverman’s assistant. The doctor wanted to check his remaining testicle again, grab another blood and urine test for tumor markers, get a serum testosterone level and maybe try to bank some sperm.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Just a simple lube job," the doctor’s assistant quipped over the phone.
His female doctor was a godsend, an excellent physician with good information. Because of her, he might become a father some day and for that, he was grateful. The cancer could have spread to his abdominal lymph nodes, lungs, bones, liver, maybe even his brain.
Katie was the one who noticed the signs – he was losing weight, eating less and complaining of lower back pain. The back pain he attributed to old sports injuries. But one night, while attempting to make love, Wade complained of pain in his scrotum and when Katie playfully ran her fingers over his nipples he pulled her hand away.
"That hurts," he had apologized.
The next day, his wife ordered him to get a physical. After that, his personal physician sent him to Doctor Lieverman and the race against cancer was on.
He rinsed off the hair conditioner and watched the froth puddle at his feet.
Wade had done a lot of work around the house, even before the cancer was found. Finding a job was the last thing he wanted to pursue. He had a college degree. He was six-feet tall and smart, good-looking for thirty-five. He was also a kayaking hero to a handful of somebodies somewhere. The cancer was just an inconvenience. Wade knew what he had to do to get back in the real world soon. The only nibble at an opportunity was a commission job shaving down fiberglass surfboards and kayaks at a local beach shop, but the owner was taking a "wait and see" approach because of the cancer, promising Wade a space when a clean bill of health was provided.
Wade ran his fingers along his deadened pink scar. He had a bikini line now, a four-inch incision running across the lower abdomen on his left side from the orchiectomy – a surgery to remove one of his beloved testicles using an inguinal incision. They put him under general anesthesia during the surgery. The incision sounded like a simple long snip. After she made the cut, the good doctor pushed the left testicle up through the pelvis and out it came with a ‘pop’. A snip, snip, and tie followed. The whole surgery took forty-five minutes.
Wade was home the same day before the pain medication wore off. That was almost three months ago.
He grabbed a towel and stepped out of the shower stall, thinking of the summer kayaking circuit again. He had made a few secret phone calls in the past few days to old friends, but he was just poking around, making inquiries.
Who am I kidding anyway?
In the past months, he'd been through the chemotherapy regimens used to kill the cancer and so far it seemed to work. Wade had lost twenty pounds since they found the cancer. Twenty pounds of practiced muscle and sinew. Now the chemo was over and everyone was watching the healing clock. His hair was coming back fine. On his last visit, according to Doctor Lieverman, it seemed the chemo had worked and killed all the germ cells and so it stood to reason that he wasn't going to have a whole lot of sperm anytime soon. At least, no sperm with fish swimming upstream. The good doctor said that for fifty percent of men the sperm counts returned to normal in two to three years and for a select few even sooner.
"Depends on the quality of the sperm," she said. "Like karats in a diamond."
The doctor gave Wade a five-minute pep talk about sperm being genetic and since he had five siblings, it was all looking good.
"Good genes," she reassured him.
He banked some sperm before the surgery and the chemo treatments began. A whole vault full. Enough to repopulate an entire city, it seemed. He wondered aloud where they kept all that banked sperm. "Is it a savings account or a checking account? Does it gain interest or lose interest? Do they keep it in a hospital or a mini-storage unit? What happens if the power goes out and the refrigeration is kaput?"
A physician’s assistant had examined a sperm sample under a microscope. "You have good sperm. High quality," she reassured him with a smile.
The tumor attached to his lost testicle turned out to be malignant so the sperm bank turned out to be a great idea after all. Doctor Lieverman explained why the surgery was an absolute necessity. Doing a biopsy in that area of a man's body might cause the cancer to cross-contaminate and spread and then he might lose his other "ball."
He didn't know why men called their testes balls. He thought eggs or walnuts a better name.
Katie sat through the ultrasound as moral support, talking with the doctor about scrotal sacks and lymph nodes and testicular cancer having a tendency to "run north."
That Katie. Gotta love her.
When the pathology report came back from the lab on his removed testicle, everyone was relieved. It appeared Wade had beaten the cancer. So he was down to one remaining testicle. It was all he needed to grow hair, have intercourse, and make babies. Now all he had to do was wait and see if he could get an erection again.
After his morning visit to see the doctor, he'd taken his kayak down to San Diego Bay and worked out for almost two hours. He would have paddled in Mission Bay but didn't want to risk the chance of Katie seeing him out on the open water. He was afraid of hurting his wife. She was the center of his universe.
After he dressed, Wade contemplated going out to the garage to start stripping the nightstand. He decided to take an afternoon nap instead.
It's the water that's missing in our lives. The water.
His rivers had run dry and a mean sea had replaced Katie’s lakes.
Wade Jones, former world champion kayaker, was ready to change their future. All he needed was a few returned phone calls to start the process. All he needed was the ripple of a small pebble into the stale pond that had become their life together.
All he needed was a swift kick in the ass by any old friend to jump-start him again.
www.barryhickey.com
Opening pages of Chasing God's River
BANKING IT
Wade Jones stood in the shower and yawned. He had originally planned his day for the garage, stripping the antique nightstand that he and his wife Katie had found at the yard sale in Hillerman Heights the previous weekend.
Instead, what he got was an eight-thirty phone call from Doctor Lieverman’s assistant. The doctor wanted to check his remaining testicle again, grab another blood and urine test for tumor markers, get a serum testosterone level and maybe try to bank some sperm.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Just a simple lube job," the doctor’s assistant quipped over the phone.
His female doctor was a godsend, an excellent physician with good information. Because of her, he might become a father some day and for that, he was grateful. The cancer could have spread to his abdominal lymph nodes, lungs, bones, liver, maybe even his brain.
Katie was the one who noticed the signs – he was losing weight, eating less and complaining of lower back pain. The back pain he attributed to old sports injuries. But one night, while attempting to make love, Wade complained of pain in his scrotum and when Katie playfully ran her fingers over his nipples he pulled her hand away.
"That hurts," he had apologized.
The next day, his wife ordered him to get a physical. After that, his personal physician sent him to Doctor Lieverman and the race against cancer was on.
He rinsed off the hair conditioner and watched the froth puddle at his feet.
Wade had done a lot of work around the house, even before the cancer was found. Finding a job was the last thing he wanted to pursue. He had a college degree. He was six-feet tall and smart, good-looking for thirty-five. He was also a kayaking hero to a handful of somebodies somewhere. The cancer was just an inconvenience. Wade knew what he had to do to get back in the real world soon. The only nibble at an opportunity was a commission job shaving down fiberglass surfboards and kayaks at a local beach shop, but the owner was taking a "wait and see" approach because of the cancer, promising Wade a space when a clean bill of health was provided.
Wade ran his fingers along his deadened pink scar. He had a bikini line now, a four-inch incision running across the lower abdomen on his left side from the orchiectomy – a surgery to remove one of his beloved testicles using an inguinal incision. They put him under general anesthesia during the surgery. The incision sounded like a simple long snip. After she made the cut, the good doctor pushed the left testicle up through the pelvis and out it came with a ‘pop’. A snip, snip, and tie followed. The whole surgery took forty-five minutes.
Wade was home the same day before the pain medication wore off. That was almost three months ago.
He grabbed a towel and stepped out of the shower stall, thinking of the summer kayaking circuit again. He had made a few secret phone calls in the past few days to old friends, but he was just poking around, making inquiries.
Who am I kidding anyway?
In the past months, he'd been through the chemotherapy regimens used to kill the cancer and so far it seemed to work. Wade had lost twenty pounds since they found the cancer. Twenty pounds of practiced muscle and sinew. Now the chemo was over and everyone was watching the healing clock. His hair was coming back fine. On his last visit, according to Doctor Lieverman, it seemed the chemo had worked and killed all the germ cells and so it stood to reason that he wasn't going to have a whole lot of sperm anytime soon. At least, no sperm with fish swimming upstream. The good doctor said that for fifty percent of men the sperm counts returned to normal in two to three years and for a select few even sooner.
"Depends on the quality of the sperm," she said. "Like karats in a diamond."
The doctor gave Wade a five-minute pep talk about sperm being genetic and since he had five siblings, it was all looking good.
"Good genes," she reassured him.
He banked some sperm before the surgery and the chemo treatments began. A whole vault full. Enough to repopulate an entire city, it seemed. He wondered aloud where they kept all that banked sperm. "Is it a savings account or a checking account? Does it gain interest or lose interest? Do they keep it in a hospital or a mini-storage unit? What happens if the power goes out and the refrigeration is kaput?"
A physician’s assistant had examined a sperm sample under a microscope. "You have good sperm. High quality," she reassured him with a smile.
The tumor attached to his lost testicle turned out to be malignant so the sperm bank turned out to be a great idea after all. Doctor Lieverman explained why the surgery was an absolute necessity. Doing a biopsy in that area of a man's body might cause the cancer to cross-contaminate and spread and then he might lose his other "ball."
He didn't know why men called their testes balls. He thought eggs or walnuts a better name.
Katie sat through the ultrasound as moral support, talking with the doctor about scrotal sacks and lymph nodes and testicular cancer having a tendency to "run north."
That Katie. Gotta love her.
When the pathology report came back from the lab on his removed testicle, everyone was relieved. It appeared Wade had beaten the cancer. So he was down to one remaining testicle. It was all he needed to grow hair, have intercourse, and make babies. Now all he had to do was wait and see if he could get an erection again.
After his morning visit to see the doctor, he'd taken his kayak down to San Diego Bay and worked out for almost two hours. He would have paddled in Mission Bay but didn't want to risk the chance of Katie seeing him out on the open water. He was afraid of hurting his wife. She was the center of his universe.
After he dressed, Wade contemplated going out to the garage to start stripping the nightstand. He decided to take an afternoon nap instead.
It's the water that's missing in our lives. The water.
His rivers had run dry and a mean sea had replaced Katie’s lakes.
Wade Jones, former world champion kayaker, was ready to change their future. All he needed was a few returned phone calls to start the process. All he needed was the ripple of a small pebble into the stale pond that had become their life together.
All he needed was a swift kick in the ass by any old friend to jump-start him again.
www.barryhickey.com
Hooking Readers - first chapter of Chasing God's River
BANKING ITWade Jones stood in the shower and yawned. He had originally planned his day for the garage, stripping the antique nightstand that he and his wife Katie had found at the yard sale in Hillerman Heights the previous weekend.
Instead, what he got was an eight-thirty phone call from Doctor Lieverman’s assistant. The doctor wanted to check his remaining testicle again, grab another blood and urine test for tumor markers, get a serum testosterone level and maybe try to bank some sperm.
Instead, what he got was an eight-thirty phone call from Doctor Lieverman’s assistant. The doctor wanted to check his remaining testicle again, grab another blood and urine test for tumor markers, get a serum testosterone level and maybe try to bank some sperm.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Growing your presence on the Internet takes time and patience.
After Aunt Alice read your book, you hired a book editor. You found hundreds of companies online available to take your dimes and sell you their webinars, podcasts, press releases, publishing packages, and marketing schemes to put you at the top of the heap as a self-published author. But for how long? At what cost per unit? As a novelist, it's still like rolling a giant rock up a hill when it comes to self-promotion. I've had press releases that went to the moon, I think, because I never got any kind of response. At my book signings I usually spend more on lattes for four hours than the profits I make from my books. Unless I sing karaoke, too. Drunks buy more freely than tea-sippers. My local paper passed on a cover story because I'm not a nationally known writer. They told me to come back when I'm John Grisham. (As a sidenote, my book appeared on the shelf at the Westminster library weeks later next to a book by John Grisham - at which point I realized Barry Hickey would never be John Grisham because there is already a John Grisham). And so I plod on. I use Ping.fm to post many ramblings which then populates to my accounts and friends at Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Blogger, etcetera and I'm on Youtube with interviews and book trailers. My name comes up on page one in every major search engine in the world alongside the archbishop of Perth... But with such an odd name, where else would you find me on an internet search except page one? Keep inviting your potential audience, your newly acquainted friends into your universe, to share the adventure! Inch by inch, step by step your tree of influence will grow. Strangers will discover you one by one. And remember - sometimes, along the way, a Tipping Point may occur where you are discovered by the masses. Fame and Fortune (pays some bills) will follow or perhaps your book will have such an impact that you change some lives in the process. Here I am reminded of my old days as a narcissist - sitting in a tree in India surrounded by hundreds of people wanting my autograph (I was an actor then). As I felt the weight and crush of people below me I realized what it must be like to live day in and day out as a celebrity... It can't be much fun being Tom Cruise, wearing disguises, talking to bodyguards, living with paranoia...
Barry James Hickey
Author of The Five Pearls, Chasing God's River (almost finished with The Glass Fence in January before attacking my outline for The Mermaid Latitudes.
www.barryhickey.com
barryjameshickey@yahoo.com
After Aunt Alice read your book, you hired a book editor. You found hundreds of companies online available to take your dimes and sell you their webinars, podcasts, press releases, publishing packages, and marketing schemes to put you at the top of the heap as a self-published author. But for how long? At what cost per unit? As a novelist, it's still like rolling a giant rock up a hill when it comes to self-promotion. I've had press releases that went to the moon, I think, because I never got any kind of response. At my book signings I usually spend more on lattes for four hours than the profits I make from my books. Unless I sing karaoke, too. Drunks buy more freely than tea-sippers. My local paper passed on a cover story because I'm not a nationally known writer. They told me to come back when I'm John Grisham. (As a sidenote, my book appeared on the shelf at the Westminster library weeks later next to a book by John Grisham - at which point I realized Barry Hickey would never be John Grisham because there is already a John Grisham). And so I plod on. I use Ping.fm to post many ramblings which then populates to my accounts and friends at Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Blogger, etcetera and I'm on Youtube with interviews and book trailers. My name comes up on page one in every major search engine in the world alongside the archbishop of Perth... But with such an odd name, where else would you find me on an internet search except page one? Keep inviting your potential audience, your newly acquainted friends into your universe, to share the adventure! Inch by inch, step by step your tree of influence will grow. Strangers will discover you one by one. And remember - sometimes, along the way, a Tipping Point may occur where you are discovered by the masses. Fame and Fortune (pays some bills) will follow or perhaps your book will have such an impact that you change some lives in the process. Here I am reminded of my old days as a narcissist - sitting in a tree in India surrounded by hundreds of people wanting my autograph (I was an actor then). As I felt the weight and crush of people below me I realized what it must be like to live day in and day out as a celebrity... It can't be much fun being Tom Cruise, wearing disguises, talking to bodyguards, living with paranoia...
Barry James Hickey
Author of The Five Pearls, Chasing God's River (almost finished with The Glass Fence in January before attacking my outline for The Mermaid Latitudes.
www.barryhickey.com
barryjameshickey@yahoo.com
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Do we retain more information as a reader from hard copies versus ebooks? I'm sure there is someone out there trying to discover the answer. I think with textbooks there is much to be said for the printed and highlighted text book as one crams for an exam.
Survey Finds 75% of College Students Stick to Print Textbooks
By Maryann Yin on January 7, 2011 3:47 PM
According to the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)‘s “Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education” survey, 75 percent of college students prefer print textbooks over digital versions.
eBookNewser noted that 12 percent of those surveyed had purchased eBooks for convenience and lower prices. This group consisted primarily of men pursuing MBAs and long-distance learning students.
The BISG survey also revealed: “Renting a textbook – rather than purchasing or downloading – was preferred by 11% of surveyed students … Survey respondents said they often buy previous editions of a textbook (16% did this for their current class ) or international versions (18% did this at least once) … Print study guides, Campus Learning Management Systems – such as Blackboard and WebCT – and diagnostic self-tests held high value for survey respondents.”
Survey Finds 75% of College Students Stick to Print Textbooks
By Maryann Yin on January 7, 2011 3:47 PM
According to the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)‘s “Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education” survey, 75 percent of college students prefer print textbooks over digital versions.
eBookNewser noted that 12 percent of those surveyed had purchased eBooks for convenience and lower prices. This group consisted primarily of men pursuing MBAs and long-distance learning students.
The BISG survey also revealed: “Renting a textbook – rather than purchasing or downloading – was preferred by 11% of surveyed students … Survey respondents said they often buy previous editions of a textbook (16% did this for their current class ) or international versions (18% did this at least once) … Print study guides, Campus Learning Management Systems – such as Blackboard and WebCT – and diagnostic self-tests held high value for survey respondents.”
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