Curse of the creative mind

Okay, this must be every writers best and worst dream all in one.

I now have four complete novels written from beginning to end. They are the books of my new Disillusionment series, some I've written about on this blog before. As I read through them again, I can't believe how much I'm being pulled back into the stories and I wrote the darn things. But that's not the problem.

The problem is, book four isn't completed yet because I started it wrong and got hung up so I need to go back and find the true beginning before I can call it finished. Book five is written, edited, good to go. Book six is well on its way with more humor and crazy characters than I've ever had all together under one cover. So what do I do - I go planting more seeds.

I got into a conversation about all that's wrong with the world, pondering fixes and why it won't get fixed and my crazy creative mind took that and did one heck of a crazy S turn--not unlike our scenic Pennsylvania roads that started as cow paths -- and landed in among the thought of something like this "what if Earth is always in misery and at war because we as a species are being prepped for some bigger battle" and there it was. ARGG - the seed for book seven now growing in my head like a bad fertilized weed.

Meanwhile, the character's from book six watch out at me from their sketches hanging on my office wall and laugh (not really, use your imagination here!) at me because I thought they would only star in one book. HA, the bumbling idiots from book six - as I and my middle daughter so affectionately call them - apparently had a whole other story ready for themselves to prove they might not be so bumbling.

The good news is, Daughter of Gods: Book One will be out for November. Yes, this November. It's hitting the presses within the week, I expect. I'll let you know exactly when it's available. Revenge of the Gods is hot on its heels for next spring and Starlight and Judgment for fall of next year (2010). Freedom Wars --- well... Not so much. I'll get it there, the whole thing is worked out in my head, I just can't keep my eyelids open long enough or my stiff fingers to type it all fast enough while taking care of household, sick kids (who shared the bug with me for a few days) and a day job as publisher. Curse of the Gods (book five) is good to go, just needs one last proofread. Then Descended (book six) is well on its way. And apparently there will be a book seven.

The funny thing is, sometimes I ponder the possibility of having no more ideas like I did recently when I wondered what I would do after Descended was written. So, something like this happens as if to laugh in my face.

As I've said often today -- at least I won't get bored in the near future. I just have to work like a frantic idiot to do everything life insists I must do, and everything I want to do (oh, I donno, take care of my kids) and the things my creative mind refuses to not let me do.

There's not enough hours in a day or energy in this body some days. Guess I'll just keep doing what I can as well as I can and that will have to be enough.

The Twisted Things...

I recently stumbled across an article disputing our new president's birth certificate. To quote: "Part of the problem for Mr Obama is that he has not produced his original birth certificate." And I felt absolutely, totally, and completely ill. How does crap like this happen when honest to goodness people like my family have to fight and claw just to get our teen-agers a driver's license? I can guarantee you, when we take our daughter in, they won't want a digitized version of her birth certificate. She also recently couldn't cash a check written out to her at any of three banks she tried because she had no "photo" identification. Yet someone can be elected to lead our country with a digitized representation of his birth certificate?

I work with photo images and in art programs on the computer all the time. I know how easy it is to create something, and while I don't know all the details or what not on the president's birth certificate, it bothers me no less to hear things like this.

Why? I don't know. If anyone has read any of my latest books, I've been writing about the fall of civilizations for a while now. I've studied ancient societies, their rise and falls and have learned that nothing good can stay for long just as nothing bad can. I just hate watching it happen so stupidly, I suppose.

I sit here in my office and am glad for my flamboyant imagination that can whisk me away into another world where my characters have the power to actually do something about the messes they are in...

Money Things

Times are tough all over - who doesn't know that by now? Quite a few states do not have budgets balanced, including my own. I've tried to follow the budget talks but it's a muddled up mess and I'm a person who can understand philosophy talk from Arthur Schopenhauer and the World as Will and Representation. I thought his "will" was difficult until I tried to weed out some useful information about the state budget.

And my fifteen year old who took a summer course studying 1920's history came home and asked me why they are still bothering to call this thing we're in a "repression" when to her, after studying all the signs in class, it seems far too obvious that we are already in a "depression."

The two different words mean nothing to me. I know it's time to make the garden bigger, get the hunters in the family to improve their aim, buy only the bare basics (raw meat and veggies, flour, sugar, salt and eggs) at the grocery store, and cut back on things we don't need to survive. Maybe it's because of how I grew up that my idea of what is "needed" is far different from some others, I don't know. And at the same time, I have to chuckle because "city folk" would probably consider me at the lowest rung on their ladder of life.

Does it matter? Not really. I'll do what I need with the knowledge, stubbornness, and ability to improvise left to me from my grandparents and parents and hopefully teach my kids what the true meaning of "need" really is.

How far down and for how long we go, who knows. Corruption and sloppy handling of funds has states and the entire nation in a tangled mess of impossible debt, and there is no way to fix it in my opinion because there are two types of people. There are those who have never been at the bottom (even if they think they have been) and can't make the sacrifices or see past the false lies of people in power to allow someone who knows how to fix things (because it won't be easy or pretty or comfortable), and there are those who know what it takes to improve things. We'll need to get our hands dirty and stop living with luxuries people - to get out of this mess we are in. We could do it voluntarily the easy way - not pleasant but possible - or we'll be forced kicking and screaming to do it. So as a whole, we'll have to learn things or do things the hard way - kicking and screaming with much suffering.

It stinks, I hate to see it happening when my kids will be forced to suffer it, but common sense does nothing to open people's eyes. They have to be beaten into the mud face first before they'll realize—if they will even then. We've got the "blame game" down to an art, and the removal of personal responsibility perfected.

I've studied ancient cultures for too long now to be surprised. I just wish everyone else would stop being so blind or greedy or whatever you want to call it. And maybe we should all return to doing what's right even when it's not pleasant.

Tired Writer

There come times when kids, work, and my creative mind wear me down to a point where I must just stop for a bit. Unfortunately sometimes when I try to stop, my creative section of mind refuses to cooperate with the "down time."

Well, I refused to touch the memory stick that has all five of my current books in progress stored safely on it. Still, my creative side nagged - nag,nag,nag,nag.

To skip around the long story, the result of my two evenings "off" is here: http://www.tcmcmullen.com/disillusionmentseries/

I fed my creative side by doing something that was basically just a compilation of what was already done (didn't work the brain). The site is far from finished but if any of you get board, there's plenty to keep you reading for a while :) Hope you enjoy.

Growing up old fashioned

I received an email today that seemed right on time. I was talking with a friend of mine (my grandfather's niece) who is a little younger than I am and has a daughter a few years younger than my youngest daughter so we got the two of them to play yesterday. We also got on the topic of how hard it was to raise our kids with people saying so often that we should have them doing all the activities available and things like that.

When my friend called to ask about getting the girls together, I had to holler down to the swing set in the back yard from my garden in the front yard. We were both outside, but my older two were off, one paint balling with her boyfriend and the other up at the college for a summer course she chose to take, so I had only one lonely child. We walked to get there and my friend walked her home.

I'm not a total stickler. We do have an X-box (not a 360) and a Play Station 2. We have a collection of DVDs and got a satellite dish about two years ago. The television wasn't on at all for the past two days except for the hour or so my husband watched it yesterday.

We keep busy with other things. My youngest helps with the dishes, takes care of all her animals and sweeps floors and helps sort and fold laundry. I also have her busy in the kitchen stirring what needs stirred and grabbing ingredients. My girls are not involved in sports or clubs or any summer programs to keep them busy. And they are not bored. I raise them like I was raised, kicking them out to play in the yard if they don't do it themselves, giving them things they must do - be responsible for - so they have a sense of accomplishment. I trust them to make their own decisions with me there keeping an eye on things, but not interfering unless I have to.

Now I hear "school all year round" and "summer school, why don't you have your daughter in it, it's a great program, you really SHOULD do it." And all I can think is "do not take my kids more than you already do!" and whatever happened to parents raising kids? What ever happened to letting a child learn how to occupy themselves? Game systems and televisions can all be unplugged and/or put off limits. But I'm very aware I live in a wonderful place, especially in this day and age. We're stuck in a time warp, changing only marginally from one decade to the next. This became very evident to me the day we had someone here from Harrisburg and they stared as if their eyes would pop out when I told my kids to go play outside. In our yard, the worst thing that might happen is they will get sprayed by a skunk.

So when this arrived in my email box today, it hit just the right note. I still raise my kids like I was raised in the 70s (and 80s but remember the time warp thing here) and everything here applies.

To Those of You Born 1930 - 1979

At the end of this email is a quote of the month by Jay Leno. If you don't read anything else, please read what he said.
Very well stated, Mr. Leno.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. (Oh YES, so very true. Now we "must" be strapped inside so we can't move more than a few inches and we ride along side motorcyclist who no longer have to wear helmets - someone please explain that one to me!)

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY?

Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. If YOU are one of them? CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good. (I HEAR THAT LOUD AND CLEAR!)

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it ? (Not really, but it makes me sick to see what our society has become.)

~ The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:

'With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of swine flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?'

For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us...go ahead and ignore this.. For the rest of us....pass this on.

Killing Characters

I have to ask myself why my characters seem to run full steam in demanding their stories be written when my life is getting ever busier. I have other things I need to do. Weeds need pulled from gardens and trimmed around trees. I have mulch to spread, meals to cook, and laundry to do but my characters don't care. They muddle my mind until I'm left with no choice but sitting down with my laptop and racing through chapters of scenes. I suppose that should be a good thing considering the book I was stuck on and seriously considered tossing in the trash is the very book I'm over half way through now.

At some point in reading through the books I have written, it occurred to me that I was avoiding writing Revenge of the Gods because of something that has to happen in it. In most of my books, the plot is open for twists and turns but in Revenge of the Gods, two major events have to happen to torture the main characters and put them on the paths that carry them into the books I have already written (book three and five of the series). My daughter convinced me not to ditch Revenge of the Gods saying that what happens in it is needed to make the following books even stronger. She isn't wrong. But I hate writing such painful scenes.

I had to create a character that becomes very important to a main character's personal growth. Without giving too much away, I'll say this: I had to create this character knowing the life would be short and have a very violent end. That is what held me up - I couldn't write a character I didn't like, but I didn't want to kill a character I did like. It's like killing off a dear pet, especially since this character and the story situation grew to bring up painful memories in my own "real" life. I didn't do that on purpose - not consciously at least - but that's how it happened. And for twenty-four hours after I wrote the terrible scene I felt lost and depressed just like my surviving main character. But I managed to wax my car while I tried to recover from the tragedy.

My best friend always told me I was good at getting into people's heads. To put it simply, I can empathize with people I meet and with the characters I create. I like to think that is what helps me make my characters so dynamic and likeable. But—darn—it kills me when I have to kill one of them. In the back of my mind I'm screaming - SAVE HIM - and I could easily do it, but then my main character wouldn't have a reason to dive down a completely different path she chooses because of it and the third book would make no sense.

So, tonight I will return to my laptop to write the final scenes of Revenge of the Gods knowing they'll be very hard and sad and I'm glad I'll be alone so no one will see me bawling. And I'm glad I'll be able to go right into proofreading Starlight and Judgment to pull the character and myself out of misery.

So there's your hint - I promise to try to get the two books out as close to each other as I can to ease the sorrow...

Setting Records

Over the past few weeks, I wrote a 99,000 word novel from beginning to end. That is a record for me. It started with two sentences that popped into my head one day and I had to type them out right away. It went like this:

The moment Tarenek sensed energy in the storm that had nothing at all to do with drumming thunder or slashing lightning, he knew his nightmares weren’t only dreams. No, this energy linked to a soul, the soul he killed every night moments before waking breathless in a sticky sweat.

Actually, the original didn't have Tarenek's name included. It was just a couple sentences about a "he" that I expected to stash away in my hard drive. Then I got bored one night and started drawing. Coralie Angenil (new) and Tarenek Brye Annis (all grown up from the first books of the Disillusionment series) came to life so easily that it was scary, and if I ever get my scanner out from under papers and manage to plug it back in again, I'll post them.

A little background: in Daughter of Gods, the parents, Tryn and Cedrik, are young and just meeting. In the second book, Revenge of the Gods, which includes their children Kira and Tarenek, the consequences of the first book come back to get them quite literally. I've yet to get it beyond page 55. In the third book, Starlight and Judgment, Kira is 23 and struggling to find her way. She manages in part because of 14 year old Tarenek. I wrote it in about 7 months and thought that was good. I enjoyed her character a lot too. In the 4th book, Curse of the Gods, Tarenek is the young age of 392.

That's not a typo. It's also not old for an immortal, is it? The fourth book skips about 150 years of Freedom Wars and a couple hundred years of peace. I started it somewhere at the beginning of May this year and finished the last chapter two days ago, June 3rd. I only wrote during the night, after 9 p.m. and I managed to snag a couple Saturdays.

From those first two sentences, the rest of the story unfolded as easily as thread unrolls from a bobbin. Emotionally wrenching and uplifting all in a few weeks - definitely a record for me and I loved every moment of it. The speed of it was due in part to returning characters (Kira who is 6 years older than her brother, but after 392 years, who's counting?). It was also due in part to my middle daughter having a photographic memory and what she learned in science class this past school year. I knew what Tarenek could do, what internal demons he constantly fought (it made him so very interesting to write), but I didn't know how to make it concrete. I expressed my concern about his abilities one night and she responded with a huff and: "Molecular combustion and molecular dispersion should take care of it all." Surprise! She was right, and all I had to do was ask her for explanations and review a bit of her notes.

When will it be released? Hmmm, well, Among the Ancients and Daughter of Gods come out this year, 2009. I'm hoping to have Revenge of the Gods complete for next year to put before Starlight and Judgment- then they will fall as they may so I hope to see Curse of the Gods in print by 2011. And to think, that used to feel like a long time into the future...ugh.

Till next time,

T.C.

It's Spring time

Spring is here. The yard is mowed, the gardens are...started. I have cleaned out the front flower beds (two small ones and one large one about fifty feet long). I also have my peas planted in the vegetable garden, managed that in between rain showers so they should have a good start. And I have my tomato plants ready to go on as soon as I'm sure all threat of frost is past. I need these plants for the spaghetti sauce I'll make. I need it now because since I've been doing the homemade sauce my family refuses to eat the "store bought" stuff. We also have three additions to our family.

My daughter's fourth grade class raised ducks from eggs this year. The children who were able to offer them a good home were to fill out a paper to be put in for a drawing. Ducks - I thought - need a natural pond - which we do not have although there is one close. I told her I didn't think it was a good idea. She asked dad. Then, the other night I got a phone call from my youngest's teacher. Her name had been pulled - she was the new owner of three baby ducks. And the first thing that popped into my head was "who filled out that paper?" See, we already have two dogs, eight fish, one rabbit and a slew of wild birds we feed. When my husband came home, the only thing I could say was "what did you do?" LOL.

Turns out my oldest's boyfriend knew a few things about ducks. Within two days, we had a pen fit for royal ducks and I now know they don't really need a pond, just fresh water. We can manage that. And our littlest dog, a cockapoo, has taken on the rule of surrogate mother even annoying my middle daughter (Bambie's main caretaker) with waking her up in the middle of the night so Bams could go check on the peeps in the front room.

As always, we've adjusted. We're so very good at doing so. Onward and forward - as always no matter how muddy the road ahead.

I'll forget we have no wood to burn and the furnace quit. I'll forget that allergy season is in full swing, work is slowing way down, and the checkbook is nearly empty. Life is much better when you just focus on the good things like the joy a 9 year old gets from holding a fluffy yellow duck or the fresh new leaves uncurling on the trees.

Why Writers Write

I've been doing this "writing thing" since the early 1990s. I've been online since 2002. In that time, I've worked and networked with more authors than I can count. I've also learned a few things about writers.

Generally there are two categories - those who write for fame and fortune (who are quickly and completely frustrated right from the start) and those who write because they have no other choice.

Today I took another blow to my writing ego. I shared the devastating "returns" syndrome with so many other writers and the thought "why the heck do I even bother" screamed through my mind as I unpacked the unexpected boxes with the unexpected bill. Yet, here I sit at my computer, another window up behind this blog, one with the first three chapters of my next book. Crazy - yeppers. I would like a room with a window please.

I slave over my writing, getting lost in the characters' lives, making sure every word, sentence, paragraph and chapter has a purpose and the right emotional punch. Why? I do not, nor did I ever, expect fame or fortune. In fact, fame would flat out terrify me. Fortune would be nice, but I'm not delusional - I know how the book business works and the author is at the bottom of the totem pole after everyone else (printer, wholesaller, stores) has taken a huge bite.

So, what do I write for? I suppose the answer to that is I write for my characters and for the handful of people who I know will enjoy my tales as well as for anyone else who should find one of my books. And I write because I must.

I fit squarely into the category of writers who need to put stories to paper as much as they need to breathe. Sure I can "not" write. In fact, I have gone for long periods of time being busy with other things, but a really odd thing happens. My head jams full of scenes and characters and I get really cranky. I know that's true because this week, after sitting at the computer for two hours and writing out 6,000 words straight, my kids said "PHEW - no more grouchy mom now." And I sink into my chair and wonder if I was really that bad.

Here looms another night well into the wee hours of the morning spent with two new characters who are a lot more fun than my "real" life right now because I know what the next several chapters are going to be and won't be able to sleep until they are purged. I get a lot of enjoyment out of that just for the experience of it. I get to escape into creation with the hopes that others will escape with the characters when they are released and ready for order. Whenever that might be.

Ponderings and Challenges

I look back over the last few months and wonder how one person can feel so beaten and exhausted from constant work yet show so little for it. And my husband thinks I don't understand. *sigh*

I've worked and worked on everything from my art and writing to others' books to keeping my publishing company Star Publish LLC running yet very few things have landed on my totally "finished" list for anyone else to see. Still, I know what I've accomplished, the bills that I've managed to keep paid, the house I've managed to keep from becoming a barn, the book I've managed to write a few chapters in, the covers I've designed, painted and finished for myself and for others, the formats I've done, the proofreads, the hours spent helping with homework (don't get me on the homework subject unless you want to read a book in a blog). And it's not even summer yet - ack.

Yet, I come in here and here sits my blog as if I've drifted from the face of Earth to be sucked into the void of space. And I wonder —why can't I do it all? My intentions were to keep up with the blog and to more quickly pursue all the other things on my "want to do" list.

And there sits spring, right on my front door step with the garden work that needs done and a need so thick and pressing sitting in my gut that my back and shoulders already ache just from the very thought of what my mind wants to do with everything. I really must get my acre and a half of yard under control again this year. It's been out of control since we replaced an old trailer with a newer double wide in 2004. Been a while.

So I struggle with the frustration of not knowing if I can do everything I want - I'm not 25 anymore like I was the first time I landscaped this yard and I've sat in a computer chair too long instead of toting kids on my hips like I did back then - add in the frustration of knowing days are still only 24 hours long and I'm still in need of 8 hours of sleep - and well, it's not the most pleasant of things. Of course my only choice is to plod forward, knocking things off my to-do list and my want-to-do list and hoping to fill up my finished-doing list real soon.

Wish me luck. I'll need it :)

Breaking Novel Writing Myths

Myth #1 Authors work on one book at a time.

In 2005 I started a book that fell to the wayside, Among the Ancients. It was the rough time, right after I finished my Manipulated Evil Trilogy. That trilogy had characters and a story so big, everything I wrote after it felt flat to me. The second book I started after it, Rise of the Arcadians, had ties to Global Climate Change that helped me keep it going to the end but was a simpler story. I wasn't sure about it, but many have told me now that it's their favorite of my titles so far. So I learned not to judge my own work by what I felt about it. I picked up Rise a few months ago and was shocked to find it really is very good.

Fall of 2008, I finally finished Among the Ancients. Only took me five years. (Can you hear the sarcasm there?) It will be released by summer 2009 - my fingers crossed -, and I must admit, it's turned into an exciting tale. I simply had to work through some plot glitches.

In late 2007, with the other two lingering as Works in Progress, I started on another series, different than the trilogy. It has developed into the Disillusionment Series with Daughter of Gods: Book one, finished and due out this year, 2009. It was a breeze to write in just about 7 months, the characters practically dictating their story, much like the characters of my trilogy did. The third book of the series is also written - Starlight and Judgment.

Now, I have to write the book linking the two of them together. This series is nothing like the trilogy. Each book stands alone, happening years after the previous but with a family who grows through the years. Starlight, Kira, 23 years old in the third book all about her trials, is the 6 year old daughter of Cedrik of the first book and his reason for taking the steps he does. In the middle book, yet untitled, she shares center stage with her parents as a 16 year old.

Does it sound strange that book one and three are done and two isn't even titled or past chapter 3 yet? I really tried not to do it that way. I was unwillingly driven to write Starlight and Judgment, leaving book two with only three chapters done. It all happened because of an annoyingly nagging character. Every time I tried to sit down and write 16 year old Kira, 23 year old Kira would butt in and sketch out her adult scenes in my head. Now I know what events happen to her in the second book to turn her into who she becomes. Now, book two is ready to be written. It's the first time I've ever developed a character backwards.

I have to admit I'm enjoying the character developments happening in the Disillusionment Series and looking forward to moving ahead with their lives as well as the conflicts as the indigenous people of Earth fight against their creators to keep their planet whole and well, not broken and abused. I have at least 5 books planned for the series based on the characters I want to focus on.

So, at one time, I had four books in different stages of development. Not something I would suggest, but whatever works it what an author has to do. Follow the muse :)

Until next time...

What harm we do...

I recently came across some images online where people held signs saying not so nice things about our troops. I've also had the pleasure of corresponding with a veteran from a war long past who lived through the pain of not being welcomed with open arms when he returned.

Are we really that blind? It gets under my skin to hear and see of such things, people treating another badly, someone who gives up so much for us. As I look back through history, I wonder just how different things would be if everyone took the stance that war is always wrong and that no one should fight.

As long as there are people wanting to rule over and take from others, we can't stop the fighting. For whatever reason some leader thinks he needs to take more from the people, I don't know. What I believe is that government should be more open about it, show that they are helping the people, not lining their own pockets - but can they do that? Or do they not want us to know?

We are now on the path of bigger government. I hear people screaming "Take away the guns! Stop the violence!" and again I find myself thinking are we really so blind? And there are days where I don't care if people are so blind anymore. What can I do about it? They will argue until they pass out from lack of air that they are right. Guns cause the violence, not frustration because our young people are being pushed harder and harder and parents are working harder and harder and no one has available time to actually spend with the frustrated child to teach them how to handle that frustration properly. Noooo, just take away guns from everyone, then take everything that could possibly be used as a weapon (chain necklace, a cord on a bookbag) - what? Put us all in a big bubble. Last I heard, everything from a pencil to a fist can be used as a lethal weapon. How do we take away their fists?

Why not attack the problem at the root? Pay attention to our kids, teach empathy, respect of other people whether we agree with them or not. It's not all boiled down to God but to values and morals that encourage more decent behavior.

Let's stop listening to the media as if they are the information gods and deserve our complete worship. They report what is written and as a writer, I know one change of a word can make something seem to lean one way or the other, whichever way they believe they will get more ratings.

Let's stop looking for an easy fix to all the problems (government will save us - not) and look deeper to the root. I see the foundations crumbling. I see people refusing to take responsibility for their actions. I see people forgetting why we have so much freedom and taking that freedom for granted. It's freedom that has been won for us on the blood and emotional turmoil of many - many that don't get a thank you from some of us.

I appreciate the hard work and total sacrifices our American troops give to their country so that I can live in the way that I do and raise my girls as I can. I may not agree with every war, but I know sometimes there is no choice. And when there is a choice, it can't be made only by what the media tells us.

As the 2008 holiday season comes, my wish for Christmas is for people to see the truths and be bigger than their opinions. See deeper to the people you are thinking badly of. What do you really know about them? Why must you make their job all that much harder? They are fighting for us, trying to save what's left of our great country, a country built by people who had nothing, who fought impossible battles to gain their independence and who built their businesses and livelihoods from dirt and sweat. They knew where they wanted to go and they worked hard to get there. Why have we stopped doing that on a grand scale?

I'll never know, and I mustn't think about it too long or my own frustration sets in...

Until next time.

Pennsylvania - STOP - THINK

I love my state. I've lived here all my life and have roots going deep into these mountains back into great grandparents and beyond. My heart and soul is in the trees, the terrain, the wildlife and blocks of untouched nature.

With that said, I get sick every time there's an election of any kind. Pennsylvania isn't a tiny state, but it seems to me we are deeply segregated. There are the cities and then there are the rest of us. Unfortunately, for as far back as my memory goes, the cities have dictated where Pennsylvania goes with government. It makes me very sad.

I can't really pinpoint why there's such a distinct difference, but I have my theories. Where I live, we count on ourselves, our neighbors, family and friends. The power goes out, we pull out our generators and find ways to dig ourselves out of the ice or snow or whatever it is we're dealing with. In the cities, is it possible they count on government and other officials? Is that why they vote the way they do? They always seem driven by money and what the candidate promises to do for them without thinking of the deeper consequences.

Out here in my area, money is great, but it has never come easy and it's certainly not everything. What we want is work, a way to earn a living. A way to run our small businesses without red tape and government butting in. That's very important as we have a high rate of self employed people around my home town. We're independent and we look at things with a more open attitude, not judging someone by what they feed us in some line of bull.

My opinions I usually keep to myself, but I'm going to reveal some of them here in the hopes to make someone think beyond the surface of what they are being fed by a candidate or the media.

Some people say Clinton was one of our great presidents - the man who nearly got impeached due to his sex drive. Really?! I nearly vomit every time I see that statement. What about his terms was great? It was a time I hated to let my girls watch the news. That is not the type of person I want representing what my country stands for. Come on! It's my opinion he was riding on coat tails of presidential greatness that happened several terms before him.

Some say the Iraq war is drowning us in debt. Is it? Have you looked at all the facts in where the government is really putting tax money? Don't let some newscaster who gets paid to make ratings for their news show tell you what's going on. Look it up for yourself. Do you really think we'll be safe and left alone here in our own country if we back down? How in debt will we be with attack after attack on home soil?

Don't believe everything that comes out of a candidate's mouth. Heck, in one instance locally, a candidate has even stooped so low to change what he's calling himself after he managed to alienate quite a few hard working "rednecks" here in western PA. Is anyone really falling for the switch, Jack? I sure hope not.

This country was built on blood, sweat, and pure determination for independence. Now, it seems no matter where I look, people are looking to the government to fix their miseries - no independence about it. If we could go back in time to those beginning days, what do you think they would say if they knew what would happen in the future - our current time? Are we honoring the memory of the great people who stood up and were willing to lose everything including family and life to make our country great - a place free, safe, and for the people.

We need principles. We need a code to live by and I've been watching people whittle away at the code that had served so well since the beginning times. We allow someone to change something just because of their opinion or because of things like the "In God We Trust" on our paper money offends them.

Well, America was built on "In God We Trust" and if you don't like it, then maybe this isn't the right country for you. I don't push any religion on anyone. I don't say one person is right or wrong over another or myself. We are all entitled to our opinions and who is to say who is right? But I wouldn't expect a country to change its code of conduct or what's on its money because I didn't agree with it. Again, I say, it's what the country was built on and when you start tearing that foundation down - it's just like a house - air can't hold it up.

I have my opinion about the upcoming election just twenty four hours away and I feel my heart breaking because I'm afraid the people have lost sight of the really important things, the foundation of importance, not just the surface junk. We've been operating on the surface for too long, we need to take care of some foundation maintenance or things are not going to be pretty.

I'm prepared for and even expecting the unpretty, but I'm not liking it. I just wish there was some way to truly open the people's eyes to actually see - not just assume at a glance.

Look deeper, think harder, think carefully because our future and our children's future are truly at stake if we can't get things fixed. Think about the country as a whole, not just your family or your city.

Stop. Look deep. THINK!

Think deeper

Think deeper - beyond the obvious, beyond today.

That's what popped into my head this morning while I was watching television. You know, the election commercials, the news on the economy, all that "stuff" for lack of a better word.

I've never been a true day to day thinker. Some things have happened lately that made me realize just how far ahead I look before making decisions. I don't look at tomorrow or next year - twenty years, thirty, maybe. And I've come to realize that's why I don't stress as much as my other half does over day to day decisions. No, I stress over what people are doing to the world and what effects it's going to have on life for my kids, grandkids and so on. I worry about what we're going to live on in twenty, thirty years. Not just today. And I never count on government or any other entity to bail me out - just me.

Is it a side effect of writing the books I do? I don't know. I wasn't always this way. As a late teen and even in my early 20s everything was so devastating and day to day. Then life smacked me in the face and I had to straighten up or give up. I took the first path but it sure was not easy. It must've been somewhere around 1998 that I heard something along the lines of this:

Ask yourself if what's bothering you is going to matter in five years. If not, don't let it worry you too much and ruin the current day, if so, fix it now.

That's how I judge the decisions I have to make now. Of course there are more dire ones that don't have the luxury of not being worrying - car payments, mortgage - how to fill up the gas tank when you live in an area where you can't just walk to the grocery store or anywhere really. But in the back of my head I know those things won't be what defines me (unless I'm totally irresponsible and leave debt to haunt my family later). So those things don't dominate my life.

Anyway, my point about the think deeper thing is this, I wish everyone would stop worrying about only what's good for today and think about what's good for many tomorrows later. Any decisions that are made by us on who we vote into office and by the one who gets that privilege can't be made with such a short view of things. Not if we want what we have to continue on for our children and their children.

Oh, and you might be surprised after that statement that I believe drilling for oil and natural gas should be done here in the USA. I love nature, we need to take care of it. But we can do what we need and still be kind to nature. Honest. And here's another wild idea - ah - HELLO, we don't run Mother Nature or this planet, we're simply blessed enough to exist on it. Species have been going extinct and terrible things like drastic climate changes have been happening for much longer than recorded history.Sometimes it seems to me, from the things I hear and read, that we've elevated ourselves and our species to some godly level where we control the above. That our ignorance has caused the coming extinction of animals or what not. I don't dispute the fact we've sped things up. But I'm not able to think that without us, these things wouldn't happen.

Just something to keep a mind off the cold today...

I've done it!

Some of you know I've been working on my novel, Among the Ancients, for a few years - I believe it was started in 2005. I lost interest in it because I couldn't find the research topics I needed to strengthen the plot. I moved on. I wrote the now available Rise of the Arcadians and the upcoming Daughter of Gods. Daughter of Gods is the first of a series, but this series is different from my Manipulated Evil trilogy. It's characters are different from book to book only related to the other characters in each book. I also wrote most of Among the Ancients after finding the research I needed while writing Daughter of Gods. Then I got to the climatic scene and hit a stone wall - quite literally. I couldn't get my characters around that wall to the next step the final one.

Yesterday I took a half day of my style of rest and relaxation. It has to do with resting the mind and working the body to sore misery. I tilled up half the veggie garden of what plants were already harvested. I weeded my back flower garden, some of the front flowers, did laundry, did everything but read or think beyond what weed to pull next. While cleaning up from my outdoor escapades and getting ready for supper, an idea drifted into my head, free and simple like I'd always known it but couldn't find it. It was THE idea I needed to get past the last hurtle of the story. Last night, I finished the last little bit of Among the Ancients.

Now, to get my sore muscles moving throuh today. Then to proofread Among the Ancients, edit it, then proofread again. Then I'll send it in for publication. Phew!

If you want to know more about my novels, I invite you to www.tcmcmullen.com to read the excerpts, reviews and all the goodies.

Technology nightmares

Computers, cell phones, satellites, home phone, game systems.... Something in the air is causing interference when it comes to me and working with anything of the above lately. I've not had a Monday like this for many weeks. Thank GOD - because it wouldn't take many of these days to have me committed to the insane asylum my daughter's ring tone proudly announces instead of ringing: "welcome to the mental health hotline, if you are an obsessive compulsive press one repeatedly"... *sigh* Most of today's frustration is related to my internet/wireless/phone service provider. The satellite thing is all about the hubby changing the channel on the television without realizing it.

It once took me 6 months to realize no lines were goofed up or chewed through by some unruly critter - it was just my husband smacking some number on the remote and the television getting "misaligned" with the signal. He assured me the second time it happened that he had not done that. After looking through everything I went in, punched in the correct channel and WOW - it worked.

My DSL apparently has "bad days" here in rural Pennsylvania. Ever since the small-town ball park up the road had some excavation work done which resulted in phone lines that weren't properly marked being sliced through by a skidsteer's sharp metal bucket, we've had problems. Every time it rains more than an inch, the phone lines get full of static and the DSL runs molasses slow. A thunderstorm comes anywhere within 8 miles, I loose connection totally. Today it wasn't storming or raining, but apparently the cloudy conditions were enough to screw it all up despite the fact I don't have wireless. I've tried to tell the phone company, but each time I contact them I hear "Your computer..." even when I know it's NOT my computer. And I don't have two hours to run through all their "troubleshooting" which requires I download things, move files and in the end, screw up things to where it IS my computer and I lose days worth of time trying to get everything back in working order. So I just deal because around here, you have but one or two choices. I think come January when the sign up is due, I'll be looking at option number two and hoping they have come to availability on my road.

My other huge gripe about my current provider who is also my home phone provider and cell provider is this: I have three user names and three or four passwords written down in my little black book of user names and passwords. I put each site on an index card and have it all organized. I never have trouble with any of the other sites I deal with - which is a lot. I NEVER get into my provider's sites. I try and try, but I swear they must have fifteen sites for different things and they take great pleasure in saying "sorry, that username or password is not on file for the phone number provided." I'm the first to admit, I can screw up. I mean, I do work several jobs, run a household, and am raising three girls, two of which are teen-agers, of course I get things mixed up sometimes. I am only human. But it can't be every time and when I write it down, I'm very careful, especially with this place. And no, I don't use caps or punctuation that I miss when I try to sign in two weeks later. *humph* And what's even worse was the time it kept telling me the answer to my secret answer was wrong. HELLO, I know my mother's maiden name!! And it's not as if I could misspell it ten attempts in a row. So what the heck is going on - not a question, just a thought.

Today, I'm to the point where I can't care, I just have to deal. I scoff at their commercials that boast excellent customer service and manage to restrain myself from throwing something at the TV when I hear how "great" they are only because I like my television and couldn't afford to replace it.

Then, my daughter comes home and turns on our game system and every disk she put in came back with "disk not readable." So, did we get a frying power surge this weekend when we weren't home to scramble all our electronics? The moon isn't full, though I know 11:44 this morning was the shift from summer to autumn. Hey-maybe that was it. Whatever it was, I'm ready to throw it all out the back window (a 12 foot drop to the back driveway) and live in the dark ages again. I don't think I'm going to try turning my laptop on. Better not push my luck this Monday. If not for the ragweed and my allergies, I would sit on the back porch and read. My rocking chair will just have to do.

Signing off of everything electronic...until next time.

Rearview Mirror

One more month in the rearview mirror. Oh, August still has 3 days left but the moment school starts, it feels as if it's over because the whole routine of everything changes and it seems fall is fast approaching.

This is the first year where it seemed to change for the better. I've never been one of those parents who can't wait for the kids to be back in school. Odd, I know, but odd's not unusual for me. This year though, the day they started school, I got more work done in seven hours than I had all the previous three weeks. And it wasn't really due to the kids. It was the places they had to be on times they had to be on. It was running to get them prepared for school. It was running to escape the noise of the sawmill that moved in right next door. Maybe it was just the noise and running as a whole.

For the past four days, I've had nothing on other than the computer and a light (and the noisy constant fridge) until the girls get home. The sawmill has been quiet. All has been quiet to where I could hear the birds and wind in the trees again. And I discovered I can think in full sentences again. Silence truly is golden, I realize now after two weeks of constant saw noise, where I sat in my living room and heard roaring and shredding of logs even with windows and doors shut tight and the television on extra loud and even if I wore earplugs in the house.

It reminded me of some research I did for my second book. Noise has been used as torture along with some awfully cruel devices and tactics through the years. I've studied it a bit from as far back as they have records but I never really understood. I sure understand torture by noise fully now. And I have to wonder, is there really any getting used to it like some people say?

All I know is I'm treasuring the quiet and getting much work done from gearing up writing courses I'm preparing to teach through Long Story School of Writing and their affiliates to finishing some books for publication through Star to working on my own books and just all around getting a grip on things that seemed wildly out of control before.

Within another week, if the sawmill doesn't start its roaring 6 days a week again, I should have my life pulled out of the pit of utter chaos and back into the "normal" chaos range.

Hey, I can hope, right?

Around and Around We Go

It just hit me today that it's been a while since I posted anything here. Things have gotten a bit crazy from computer glitches to household messes and its funny how fast time can fly even when you aren't having fun.

It recently hit me that some are eagerly awaiting publication of my Among the Ancients so I'm working hard on finishing the final chapters. It's another of those story ideas that got pushed into the closet after I finished the Manipulated Evil Trilogy. I couldn't top that story or those characters from the trilogy. It took me two years to be able to move beyond that and realize I didn't need to top it. Match it - absolutely.

So, while I'm getting my girls ready for school (one a junior, another a freshman but my youngest still in the lower grades) I wonder where the time has gone. I'm reading the Earth chronicles from Zacharia Sitchin and shaking my head. Honestly, I have finished my book, Daughter of Gods - it's been finished for a few months now. Somehow, the circumstances I used to support my story seem to be in full agreement of Mr. Sitchin's hypothesis. So, since I won't be needing to change anything, Daughter of Gods is slated for publication now - as soon as I have the time to put all the finishing touches on it (I'm on chapter 12 of my read-through).

All the while, there's dozens of loads of laundry to do, school clothes to sort, corn to freeze, spaghetti sauce soon to be canned and the continuous tasks of house cleaning and my "day job" of running Star Publish.

Don't ask how I do it all - I really can't answer that, and to be honest, some weekends I best be left totally alone lest I go screaming insanely that I need silence and to do absolutely NOTHING. A person needs that once in a while I suppose :)

Mysteries and questions

I'm doing this research into ancient cultures for my latest series, Disillusionment that starts with my soon to come novel Daughter of Gods. I'm hanging onto the book just in case I stumble across something I want to add to its plot line with the reading of a few books I've finally been able to get my hands on - and possibly a couple others if I can find them and time to read them soon enough.

But I want to throw a few things I've found in my research out there. Global Climate change isn't laughed at anymore. I've also researched enough to know it happens even without the human element (we're just adding speed to it). I also know many of the oldest myths - no one knows where they came from or what influenced their creators to make them - speak of great disasters all over the world in human populations who never knew the others existed yet their stories echo some very similar ideas. It was the ancient Sumers who recorded the first "Noah" story of great floods. There are so many others from so many different areas that have pretty much the same idea. Why? Where did the tales come from?

In all of our historical record, from the rise of the modern human, we've not been threatened with extinction or anything close. (That we know of.) So why do we have so many stories about it?

Then, would someone please tell me why the great Pharos builders of the Giza Pyramids thought it necessary to create the pyramids to such precision in angels that can't be done without extreme effort even to this day? This fact is totally outside the fact that moving the stones used in making the pyramids was a feat in and of itself - then to do such precision in angles and in such a line up to match Orion's belt in the stars. Why?

Then, would someone please tell me why the Mayans had such a magnificent calendar that far surpassed any and rival the one we use today, yet theirs went far far into the future from what they ever needed? And myths about wand waving Dwarves building the temple of the Magician in one day. Why?

Why would farmers take time out of the fields to drag monolithic stones miles to set them in a circle lined with the rise of the sun at certain times as is the most common accepted explanation of Stone Henge? I've been around farmers all my life. Even with today's technology on a small farm, it takes from dusk till dawn to care for the fields. It would have taken more men and man hours to do without tractors and all the other equipment available today. Why would they have stopped to drag dangerously huge stones? Just so they would know exactly what time of year it is? As a story writer, that's far out of character for any farmer to me.

Why would these people, the builders of the pyramids and Stone Henge and many other things around the world, need such precision?

My theory - it comes back to climate change if you ask me. I had the "epiphany" last night.

If you stop regurgitating what we've been taught by experts all our lives and think with a completely open mind - envision humanity is much older than previously thought (which they are discovering clues that support this) and think that maybe, maybe mankind was around in the last upheaval (the big ice age) and survived through the turmoil the earth went through, well, that could very well explain the myths of terrifying destruction all of the cultures have despite the cultures not having contact - wouldn't it? And if humanity had survived through such destruction, what if they had been advanced, as much or more so than we are today? Maybe they would have wanted to track what made the earth fall apart so they would have warning next time, or possibly to warn their descendants. And the changes that happened on Earth were closely related to its natural changes which could be tacked by time - so using the zodiacs, the sun, all of that to precision makes more sense then, wouldn't it?

Even today, with the setting of our clocks and such, as long as we are close to the businesses, schools, doctor offices, ect. we don't really concern ourselves too much with precision, do we? So why would the ancients have done so?

I'm not one of those people who think we rule the world. We are along for the great ride on this planet. Whatever Mother Earth throws at us, we're stuck with. It's our job to cope or....well...not to cope.

Some of the old "time keepers" such as Stone Henge confuse people to their importance because they seem misaligned. But in my research, they would not have been misaligned far back in history. We just have to step further back in time than we thought possible before.

The change in Earth's precession of the equinoxes is coming soon. I've not researched that enough for the details to stick in my head yet. But maybe, just maybe the Mayan calendar ends because the known line-up of things from the Earth would end. And so maybe life as we know it changes. The climate is a touchy thing. One volcano blowing its top drops the temperatures around the world. A slight little change in tilt or orbit or lining up will do...what? And are we being stupid and blind in not looking at the great stone time tables of the ancients just because we believe they couldn't be as advanced as we are?

It's now proven that we did not evolve from Neanderthal, we actually shared the Earth with them for a while.

We've lived in a great quiet in the Earth's history for the thousands of years we know about.

Sumerian civilization just "appeared" with a fully civilized way of life that included schools, law (divorce even) and a working system for business. They also had a higher belief system. Just like that - Poof there they were. Uh-huh.

The Kings List that was once thought total fiction now has a few names that are known as true and once living beings. - Why would the other names with them be fiction? Just because we can't yet explain it?

There is study into collective consciousness. A whisper shared in all minds. In my business, shortly after I wrote my trilogy, poof there they were, books in all shapes, sizes, genres with similar topics and people wanting to read them. Even authors who never thought to write a fantasy or a book on ancients or on the understanding of life are being driven to do so.

Believe or not believe - but do so with an open mind and make your own conclusions, not from what "experts" have taught you. Even experts don't know everything.

And even if you don't believe, reading the fiction fantasy inspired by it all can be loads of entertaining fun :)

I am what I am

"You don't have to be super mom" -- my oldest said that to me one day after I had worked in the garden, answered several hours worth of emails, phone calls, set up a couple orders, worked on an author's book, cleaned the kitchen, helped with laundry and stood up to look around as if all my effort for the day had accomplished absolutely nothing because nothing was anywhere near the "done" stage yet.

That's pretty much how it goes around here. I have many people ask how I do everything that I do. And then I wonder if I do anything that I do well enough until something does reach a "done" stage and people start telling me how great of a job it is from neighbors driving by to see the landscaping to those who read my books. Yet I have snapshots I haven't yet developed from Christmas (2007) or the final painted stripe on my youngest's bedroom wall that was painted last summer or the border put up in my bathroom painted in February. I have piles of "gotta do that yet" things that have grown in the last several months. But I also have another book nearly finished, a growing garden, a newly organized office and a business that is keeping its head above a watery sea of bills - even though its just barely, it is only just begun.

I may not be the speediest person with some tasks, but what I do, I pace myself to do well. I don't rush for the sake of meeting deadlines. I let ideas simmer to create the best art designs possible. It's the way that I work, slow and steady, paced out and available to ponder things to find the absolute best in everything that I do that deals with design or creation, from books and writing to the landscaping of my yard or finishing of my basement (not even close there yet).

Yes, I handle a lot through the days. Mostly because I can delegate some jobs like doing the dishes, laundry, sweeping, cleaning bathrooms to my teen-agers and my now nine year old who I'm very thankful do so just to help me out. I guess you can say we are a household of multi-taskers and most days everything works out just fine in the end.