Authors–most of them, anyway–work very hard to promote their books and enhance their sales. They go to events around their community, their region, and, sometimes, nationally, travelling cross-country in planes, trains, or cars, boxes of books in tow. They hold readings and book signings at stores, in their churches (if they belong to one), virtually, and at every “dog and pony” show they can get into. In short, they promote, promote, promote…for pennies on the dollar if one measures time as money, never mind the cost, which usually far outweighs the income gained…if any. This goes for both traditionally published authors and self-published authors, and, personally, I think it’s an exhausting, life-sapping set of activities: authors as sales-persons, marketers, and promoters.

Is this why authors began writing? Because they wanted to become a marketeer? I don’t think so. So why do they do it?

They do it, of course, because they want to be successful: every book sold is another feather in the cap and money in the royalty jar; every new reader is a potential fan (they hope).

Unfortunately, most good writers are not cut out to be salesmen/women, marketers, or promoters. They are gifted at writing, not persuasion. And, of course, devoting themselves to sales, marketing, and promotion takes time and energy away from life responsibilities to family, never mind writing and the required solitude needed to create a good book.

Perhaps the new definition of “author” is, in fact, marketeer. And, of course, the same can be said for artists, musicians…any creative endeavor.  It isn’t the talent or genius…except where it really matters now: genius and talent for promoting. So, the new definition of writer/author is? Successful marketeer and promotional maven.

Guess I don’t qualify. Oh, well.  Back to the keyboard.

Writing a novel based, even in part, on true events or real people is a very tricky affair.  If a novel is based on facts, the facts are never good enough as they stand, simply because the motives behind the acts that made the facts rarely make sense, at least to rational people. And the people who made the decisions, whether spontaneous or premeditated, that brought those facts into being can get really upset if they suspect they might have proved a role model for a character in a book.

Of course, every person in the world could suspect themselves as a role model for some novel’s character, given, A) the number of people in the world, and, B) the number of novels published, especially today.  Somebody somewhere will, should they read the right novel, identify themselves as a character portrayed.  The trick for the author is to make sure that notes and records are kept, their clippings, their research, and their resources well-documented, whether their novel characters are, in fact, based on a real set of incidents and real people, then modified to fit a completely fictitious story, or whether the entire novel is a completely fictitious creation. That way, if someone somewhere reads the novel and decides, “Hey, that’s me,” the author can prove that, “No, that isn’t you.  This story used no facts at all, and was complete fabrication, and here’s my drafts, outlines, and plot maps to prove it,” or “the facts and incidents came from these newspaper stories, these psychological profiles, a framework based on completely contrived posits jotted by me in a plot scheme here, and work-throughs conceived after a critique or brain-storming session here.”

“But that’s me in that news article,” sputters the accuser (in the case where the author used real life incidents rather than complete fabrication).

“But this isn’t you in this news article, is it?” responds said author.

ACCUSER: “No.”

AUTHOR: “And this one?”

ACCUSER: “No.”

AUTHOR: “And what about these?” (Author waves another thirteen articles in front of the accuser.)

ACCUSER: “No.”

AUTHOR: “Well, since my character and story is a sifted composite, not just of these fifteen non-related newspaper articles, along with anonymous psychological profiles compiled in [research book titles], as well as a completely contrived time, setting, and set of circumstances, how can you claim that this character and story is all about you?”

…In short, they can’t.

Nothing seems to get writers butting heads so much as suggesting that they might need to brush up on proper grammar and punctuation.  Mention the “right” way–traditionally speaking, of course, as per The Elements of Style–and the fight is on. On one side, you have those who know enough about good grammar and punctuation to be able to use it to advantage, breaking those rules when appropriate. On the other side, you have those who don’t know the rules and don’t want to be bothered with learning them–individuals who break out in fervent, even vitriolic, tempests on how and why traditional grammar and punctuation should be ignored and abandoned, condemning those who use it as anal-minded remnant perversions of the 19th Century.

I used to get into arguments with these anti-good-grammar/anti-good-punctuation radicals, but, over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re only defending their ignorance and laziness, and, since there are more of a majority of those who don’t know good grammar and punctuation than there are those who do know it, to even engage them in conversation is like inviting attack by a mob of rabid rats. So now, when a battle begins to rage, I might drop in a relatively neutral comment, but I mostly just watch and titter at the antics displayed by the ignorant as they parade their stupidity with oh such puffed-up pride.

It’s scary the number of young writers who, though they may never publish, write extraordinarily gruesome stories and novels.  Pain, torture, and cruelty seem to be, not just acceptable, but celebrated.  Purposefully sadistic and, in some cases, masochistic, as well, the writing demonstrates, not just a disregard for decency, but a willful, even joyous delight, in the suffering of self and others.

Am I alone in considering this an extremely disturbing phenomena?  To me it seems, if they can write this sadism/masochism, not with condemnation, but with such a sense of acceptance, delivering this as if it were a just and normal, approved and even satisfying, state of being and living, that we have a very large proportion of very disturbed psychopathic and sociopathic individuals populating our nation.

Now, I’m sure that conservatives and fundamentalists, especially the sort who embrace Limbaugh and Palin, might point and cry out that this is the fault of the decline of family values, the decline of religious influence, and the influence of liberal perspectives.  However, many who are creating these startlingly gruesome treatises embrace both the neo-conservative perspective and Christian fundamentalism.  Not all, but certainly a provable great many.

Fiction carries its author’s overt or sublimated perspectives, views, philosophies, and ideologies.  If gruesome treatment of others and self is considered acceptable behavior, not condemned, but expected and delivered as normal, what does this say of our culture? I shudder to think what it means to our future.

CHAPTER TWO

Mog stopped at the second floor landing, squatting on the railing.  Rowan stopped, too, just out of sight as she waited for the boom of the door knocker.  Within moments of hearing it, she saw Miss Emily cross the entry hall and disappear inside the foyer.  She heard the grate rattle, then the gears begin to roll.  Miss Emily was opening the great doors to admit young Carrick and his companions.  It was the stranger who would be a problem.  Rowan’s marrow told her so.  And, once inside, where strangers seldom were allowed, this one would prove trying.

Rowan waited until the great doors closed again.  Then she waited just a little longer before descending.  Her eyes were on the boy as she left Mog’s company.

As she descended, the boy looked up, his eyes locking to hers.  There, for just a moment, she saw the fires light.  They were gone just as fast, and his eyes dropped.  He knows to hide himself.  Good.  At least some practices were known.

The stranger was female.  Her arm hovered near young Carrick as if she were about to grab him back.  Her face stared upward into Rowan’s, wide-eyed and round-mouthed.  There was horror written there, not fear.

“Hello,” Rowan said, forcing warmth into her voice.  “Welcome to West Gate.”

Again, the boy cast his eyes up, lights dancing.  He smiled a quick, fleeting glimpse of dazzling teeth, then again dodged back to hiding.

“Are you…are…ah…Ms. Grove?” the woman stammered.

“My name is Rowan Grove, yes.  The Sixteenth.”  She descended the rest of the way and held her hand out, expecting civility.  The woman backed a step, her arms-both of them-now reaching to engulf Carrick’s shoulders.  He ducked away from her, slipping sideways toward Mark.

Rowan knew Mark, or at least knew of him, though this was the first time she’d actually seen him.  To the woman, who stood a good head and shoulders shorter than she, she inclined her head and smiled a generosity she did not feel.  “I hope you had a pleasant journey down from Portland.”

* * *

Abigail had run until she couldn’t run anymore, trying her best to stay up with the car.  But, despite her best efforts, the car disappeared into the darkness ahead.  The lights went with it.

Suddenly disoriented, Abigail tripped and fell, the jolt so stunning, so painful, that she heard herself cry out as if she were someone else, far away.  She felt her hands and knees, then face hit cold, hard, lumpy stone.  Then the darkness swept her gone.

It could have been hours later, though it was actually only minutes that Abigail’s eyes came open to a gentle light.  Globes above and all around twinkled, and she realized that they somehow sensed her need and presence.

Groaning, she rolled over on her side and tried to rise.  Her hands hurt.  Her head hurt worse.  And her knees.  It was her ankle, though, that made her cry out when she tried to stand.  Crawling over to the wall, she used it to help herself up.  Shaking with the effort, she felt her stomach lurch as the lights around her began spinning.

“No,” she begged.  “Don’t pass out.”

Her body betrayed her, though, and, again, darkness took her.

The next time she woke, she managed to get as far as the next curve, but there seemed no end of the tunnel.  Her head spinning and her stomach lurching with nausea, she sat down.

“You can’t stay here,” a voice said.

Panicked, Abigail looked around.  “Who said that?!”

A young girl, dressed all in white-white, flowing pants and a tunic that came halfway down her thighs-stepped into view, her movement causing more light globes to shine.  “This way,” she said.  “I’ll help you.”

The girl touched the wall and, with a grinding noise, a hole appeared beside her.  She waved her hand, and light came on within.  “This goes to the walk-through.  You shouldn’t use the causeway.  Someone could run over you.  Besides, cobblestones aren’t meant for feet.”

Scared, Abigail just stared.

The girl waited, her head tilted to one side, a gentle smile on her too white face.  Then she turned, and disappeared through the opening.

“Wait!”  Abigail struggled to get up.  “Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m waiting,” came the voice.

Hobbling over to the opening, Abigail peered in.  Low rising steps led upward.  Behind her, the lights went out in the big tunnel.  Abigail stepped through, and, immediately, the door behind her rolled shut with a grinding boom.

* * *

Scars and skeleton was Nancy’s first impression.  The woman has both feet already in the grave, she thought.  Carrick can’t stay here.  Not with this walking corpse.

That’s what Rowan Grove seemed to Nancy-a cadaver.  Tall, skinny beyond emaciated, with skin so pale that Nancy swore she could see straight through it right to bone and sinew, the woman had to be somewhere in her nineties.  She might be Carrick’s aunt-great aunt?  Great-great aunt?-but this was a terrible mistake.  Kin or not, this was not a woman who was fit to raise a healthy, growing boy.  And the house-mausoleum, actually-no.  There was nothing normal here, nothing wholesome.  Nancy wouldn’t…couldn’t leave this fragile child to waste away here.

“We had a good trip down from Portland, yes,” Nancy said after what she knew was far too long a pause.

She had to broach it.  Best to do it now, before social niceties clouded out practical necessity.  “I’m afraid, Ms. Grove, that there’s been some mistake.  Not to seem rude, but you’re just too old to raise this child.”

Nancy expected either acquiescence or an emotional storm.  She was prepared for that-ready.  What she wasn’t prepared for was laughter.  But that’s what the cadaverous woman did-laughed.  Outright.

“I-I don’t see what’s so funny,” Nancy said.

“Of course you don’t,” the woman answered, still chuckling.  “Please.  This way.”

Again, the woman indicated to her right.  “No.  You don’t seem to understand, Ms. Grove.  You’re too old.  The State of Oregon-”

“Ms. Rutherford, is it?” the woman barked, her voice suddenly and precipitously thunderous.

All around, lights blinked and glass chattered.  Somewhere off to the left, something crashed.  Nancy gulped.  Her ears were ringing.

“Follow Deputy Mark Sutter,” the woman commanded.

Nancy tried to object, but Mark and Carrick were both smartly marching off toward a line of pillared arches.

“Now, please,” the woman said.  Then, haughtily, she nodded, like a queen commanding some servant.  Reluctantly, against her will, Nancy followed Mark and little Carrick through the most central of a set of seven archways set within a wall of wood and stone.

* * *

Mog watched them go from his perch atop the banister.  An agonist had come to West Gate, but it was the only way to get young Carrick freed from the clutches of the interlopers.  He agreed with Rowan that to abandon the youngster was profane.  That the West Gate should be jeopardized to right the error of Pyridian arrogance was, however, unacceptable.  Better that the Pyridians themselves should have chanced the consequences.

The neuman’s coming proved less troubling, though it, too, brought gamble.  That the two events should coincide in simultaneous breach seemed too convenient to be happenstance.  Mog sincerely hoped that Rowan wisdom proved itself, but, should it fail, he had the means and liege, and he would not shy from using them.  This Rowan knew.  She was forewarned.

Behind him, rustling, and, without looking, he nodded once, a burst of wind battering him.

* * *

Carrick had always wondered about what his mother called the outkin.  Meeting one, he decided that he liked them, and he really liked this house.  If all outkin houses were like this one, he’d like to meet them all.

Running down the length of corridor, lights blinking on as he went by, he felt like he could breathe for the first time since Mom and Dad-.

He stopped, suddenly and completely.  Why had they left him?  Why hadn’t they stopped those men?  They could have.  He was sure they could have.

A glimmer above caught his attention, and he cast his head back, his eyes searching for the ceiling.  There didn’t seem to be a ceiling, though.  But there were sparkles, like stars. What was really neat was that the big rounded pillars that rose upward like tree trunks didn’t seem to end.  They just disappeared up and up into  where darkness met the sparkles.

“Carrick, come here.”

He glanced back.  It was the woman.  He took off again, running faster and faster toward the light at the end of the long hall, feeling freer and freer the farther he got from her.  He felt safe and maybe even happy for the first time since Mom and Dad had gone away.  He never, ever wanted to feel sad, scared, and smothered again.  Especially smothered.  Here, he could breathe.  Here, he was sure that he could be free forever.  If he could just lose the blinky woman.

“Carrick!”

* * *

Mark Sutter watched the boy’s exuberance and smiled.  He remembered feeling just that way-like he’d finally found home and safety.  Sheriff Kinney was right, though.  Social Services was bound to find these folks just a little too much to swallow.  Rutherford was going to be a problem.  He hoped she’d surrender gracefully, but, just like Kinney, he felt it doubtful.

~ ~ ~

To the book store that wanted to order copies via the form on this website, the form is fixed, now. It seems that new security patches disabled the captcha, but that’s fixed now with a more user-friendly, supposedly unbreakable version in place.

With all that’s going on in our family with Mom suffering continuing medical crises, one would think that my brain would be too preoccupied to conceive and organize a new novel. It seems, however, that novel writing is my brain’s way of coping. So, even with Deborah’s continuing nightmare with William cooking away in the sequels to To Inherit a Murderer, here’s the beginning of yet another novel about an orphan boy with special “gifts,” a single-parent teen with special “needs,” and the “family” who takes them in, and, yes, it’s another “weird” one.

Chapter One

Nobody in town much liked West Gate or the Groves who owned it.  Encompassing all of Gate Creek from its source to something the locals called The Plunge, its northern and eastern boundaries were the high water mark of the opposite bank of the North Gate River; its western boundary was the ocean.  The southern perimeter was Highway 138, the only place where you could drive along the estate’s intimidating boundary, your car dwarfed by steep basalt cliffs.

Abigail Nelson lived directly across the highway from the estate’s only known entrance, but, in the two years that she’d lived there with her dad, she’d never once seen the massive metal barricade come open.  Today, that changed.

It was 9:00 A.M. on a bright, cheery June 15th when what sounded like thunder and felt like an earthquake tremor made her, a native Californian, dash to the window.  Her heart pounding in her ears, she was startled to see a white police car parked before West Gate’s entrance.  Within moments, the tremors stopped, even as the rolling sound of thunder got louder.  Amazed, she watched the huge, black, metal barrier began to split in two and was out the door, bounding across the highway with not so much as a glance to check for traffic.

*     *     *

It’s a prison.  We’re taking him to a prison, thought Nancy Rutherford as, wide-eyed, she watched small explosions of dust and pebbles break loose from where black, banded metal seemed welded into stone.  Then the huge metal arch before them began to form a center seam with a deafening crack and rumble.  Her right hand tightened its grip on the passenger door armrest; her left now grabbed the center console.  Next to her, Deputy Mark Sutter’s hands rested lightly on the steering wheel.  He seemed unconcerned.

She took a breath, trying to calm her pounding heart before looking back at her silent charge.  “You okay?” she asked the black-haired boy strapped in the back seat.

The boy’s eyes, as black as his hair, were riveted on the gate.  He ignored her except to nod just slightly.

“We’re almost there,” she said, her voice encouraging.  She hoped he’d finally speak.  He hadn’t said a word-not that she had ever heard in the three months she’d known him, except for the most hesitant ‘yes’ or ‘no.’  He’d read for hours, though, curled up in a chair in her office during his monthly visit for reevaluation.  And he’d write.  But he never wanted her to see what he was writing, so she had to sneak looks when he left to use the bathroom.

Carrick Ainsley wasn’t slow.  In fact, for a mere eight years old, he seemed to far out-flank his age group’s literacy level.  He was also very good at math, testing four full grades above his third grade peers.  What he wouldn’t do was talk.  Not a single sentence had ever passed his lips in all the time he’d been in foster care or public school, a new experience for him.

The thunder abruptly stopped, and Nancy turned back to see the gates now set at almost perpendicular angles.  Before them, the road surface turned from pavement to something akin to a very broad, heavy livestock grate.  Dark water swirled and rippled just beneath it, sparkling where the morning sun touched it’s surface.  Directly in front of that was what appeared to be another wall of stone. That wall curved left, the grate meeting what looked like translucent, rounded black brick.

Mark eased the car forward, the tires rumbling on the grate.  Something squeaked.

“Is it safe?” Nancy whispered.

“Seems to be fine,” he said, glancing over at her.

The road-a tunnel, actually-curved left and upward.  Small light globes anchored to either side winked on as Mark followed the narrow track upward through the pitched darkness.  “This is scary,” Nancy whispered.  “This tunnels right through the cliff?”

“I’d say so,” Mark replied, his voice nonchalant.  “Relax.  This place has been here since before Grant Haven was a town.  The Groves are well-known around these parts, if not particularly well-liked by some.  They’ve never, ever been a problem to local law enforcement.  More the opposite.”

It was an odd statement, Nancy thought, but, when he didn’t say more, she didn’t pursue it.  Turning her attention back to the boy she was assigned to protect, her eye caught the barest glimpse of shadow dart past the backend of the car.  “Mark!  What’s that?”

“What?” he asked.

But it was gone now.  “There was a shadow.”

She heard him chuckle.

“Yeah.  It’s pretty dark in here.”

The boy was watching her, his eyes glinting, almost predatory, and, though unnerved, she smiled.  “Are you okay about this, Carrick?”

His eyes, suddenly neutral once again, moved to the windshield, but, this time, he didn’t nod or shake his head.  This time he spoke-”West Gate.  I remember.”

Nonplussed, Nancy stared at him.  He’d spoken.   Gathering her wits, she asked, “You’ve been here?”

“Not this side.  The other.”

He’s talking.  Finally. “What other?”

“The other side“-anger.

“The river?” Sutter asked.”

“Uh-huh.  Across it is the place where Mom and Dad went when those men attacked them.  That’s where I come from.”

Beside her, Deputy Sutter gave a short, strangled chuckle.  Despite the boy’s fantasy concerning his parents’ murder, Nancy was thrilled that Carrick had finally found his voice.  Maybe the damage wasn’t as bad as the psychologists originally thought.

*     *     *

Rowan watched them from her balcony, her green eyes steady on the car as it emerged from the entrance tunnel.  She heard the ravens call alert and saw a great horned owl take flight.  Within moments, tires screeched, and the car come to an abrupt halt as both the ravens and the owl swooped down to challenge the intruders.  “They’re here,” she said, though no one stood near.  “So is the newsome.”

A breeze shifted the delicate, white voile curtains behind her.  Leaves rustled, scent rising from the wild honeysuckle that grew on the railing and around the double eyebrow balcony doors, new tendrils reaching upward toward the roof.  With a sigh, Rowan retreated backwards through the curtains, her eyes never leaving the car.  Moments later, the balcony doors closed.

*     *     *

The woman screamed and ducked; the car swerved and stopped.  Awestruck, Carrick just stared in wonder at the huge birds that dove down and seemed to stare in at him for longer than it took to blink.   The woman was still screaming when the birds angled off to disappear into the big trees.  Carrick wished she’d stop.  Moments later, she did, but it wasn’t soon enough.

Carrick Ainsley didn’t like the woman called Nancy.  She asked too many questions.  He liked the policeman okay.  But not her.  She was fluttery, not solid.  She was blinky.  She wasn’t really real, and Carrick had decided that the only things he wanted near him were the things that lasted, not the things that didn’t.  If he couldn’t treasure them forever, he didn’t want to see or know them.  That included Mom and Dad.

The car started up again, and he watched out the window now that there was something interesting to see-big trees and boulders, moss and giant ferns.  He really liked the places in between where he could peek through to see that the big trees went on and on.  Just like home.

“Oh, no!”-the woman again.

Carrick looked up to see what she was upset about now.  Ahead was another tunnel, only this one you could see through to the other side.  Even bigger rocks and huge, gnarled tree roots made the opening.  He grinned.  Neat.

“It’s all right,” the cop said.  “This one is short and level.”

The car slowed down, and, just for a second, they were inside a really old archway whose insides were covered with dripping moss and shiny, sparkling things.  Then they came out the other side into a rock-paved oval that had a fountain with a dragon in the middle.  He couldn’t help himself.  “Cool!”  He didn’t notice the house until the woman said something, and, again, he couldn’t help himself.  “It’s a tree house!”

The cop turned around to grin at him.  “Sure looks like one, doesn’t it?”

Carrick grinned back.  He liked Mark.  A lot.  He would remember him.  Not Nancy, though.

Having mostly ignored Twitter, though I signed up months ago, I happened over to the place to block a hussy who was advertising her “wares” from following me…not that there’s much to follow, mind you. In the process, I happened upon some old, unread messages from authors directed at me and checked out a couple of their novels. Lo, many were quite good. Others were well-written, but too obviously a very visceral kind of horror.

I do not understand people who enjoy reading gore, explicitly violent, and visceral novels–graphic cruelty, gore, sex, or perverse violence. I mean, okay, graphic scenes are part of a book when needed, as is the intimate sex scene…when the story calls for it. But this stuff was uncalled for, in my opinion, because the violence wasn’t an integral part of the plot and story, but rather added for titillating the reader’s senses…if one can call gore and cruelty titillating (which I can’t).

If something happens in the violent scene that is key to the story climax or subsequent crises, then the scene belongs. But does the scene–any scene–belong when nothing happens in it other than graphic incidents, incidents that don’t have any pertinence to anything later in the story?

I don’t think so.

So, when applying the rule of “Cut everything that doesn’t forward plot and story” in writing and editing fiction, why are these scenes populating so many books? Are readers that hungry for blood, gore, and perversion?

I really don’t think so. Those who do aren’t the fiction reading majority, else these sorts of books would top the best sellers lists, and they don’t.

(…And, no, Liz, I’m not talking about Under the Bridge, which is very tame by comparison to some of this stuff.)

Coming back after a long summer hiatus, the first thing that strikes me is The Net Hasn’t Changed. At all. The second thing that strikes me is that writers haven’t changed…at all. (The industrious ones are still working hard, more than willing to hone their craft and perfect their manuscripts; the lazy ones are still posting their unedited crap, then asking others to edit, grammar- and spell-check.) The third thing that strikes me is that, hmm, maybe I need to update this website…make it better.

I have a searing record for disdaining self-publishing. Now, I must recant my previous position.

One week in, and the relief is palpable. No longer must I sit on manuscripts and stories, no longer must I think about pleasing editors, marketeers, and literary agents, no longer must I suffer spending an entire day composing yet another query letter, only to have a literary agent say, yes, they’d love to read it, then turn around and tell me that, yes, it’s very well written, intense, engaging, riveting…BUT. But what? But they can’t figure out how to place it or market it.

I’m FREE. I can write for readers, not traditional publishing moguls.

This is the very best thing to have happened to me when it comes to my career as an author.

Why? Because I call the shots, now. And that’s a pleasure. It means I can say what I want, how I want, when I want, and, if someone doesn’t like it, they can say so, but it’s not going to come back to me via frowns from my literary agent or house editor.

Thank you. And apologies to all you independent authors out there who are worth your salt as novelists and short story writers. To you I own a bow and beg your forgiveness for my previous attitude. HOWEVER, to those independent “authors” who write tripe and trash and stuff that should never see print, I wish you’d all go play with your cell phones and your various sex toys instead of pushing your pulp on the fiction world.