In Henry’s eyes then, his father was granite, solid rock, unbreakable, unchangeable, and strong in the way of a proud mountain. The lens of hope and faith filtered out the cracks and fissures, the broken blood vessels on Papa’s wind burned face, and the hurting eyes of a man eroded, but not yet completely worn smooth. Blasted by hard years, bad luck, and the love for the wrong woman, Papa was undefeated.
It’s two AM and you’ve got a body in your trunk. Now what?
Some folks would immediately say, “well, we go to the nearest police station and turn ourselves in.” And I say to those gentle people, good for you. But You guys should stop reading now. For everyone else, it’s a fair question.
There are three people on earth I’d walk out into the swamp with, or take a trip out into a foggy sea armed with cement blocks and unanswered questions. I’d do it for them because I trusted them. I’d risk my future and my happiness and that of my children for loyalty and honor. That’s not smart, but that’s me. And maybe they wouldn’t do the same for me. I think they would, but, really, it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t blame them if they didn’t. I hope I never find out.
I have discovered I’m lucky. I’ve got a few good friends.They’ve chastised, advised, cajoled, pontificated, and sacrificed. They have made me a better man. They gave me hope when I was desolate, a smile when my own was lost, and all three of them grabbed me by the wrist when I was drowning and pulled me toward the light.
These are friends. The people in the trenches and quagmires next to you, and sometimes you lift them up and sometimes they lift you, and when the mud is gone and the years haven’t quite washed it all away, that’s how you know.
Through the mud and the crud and the years. I’ve got three friends I’d bust out a shovel for. If they wouldn’t do the same for me, then, that’s all right, I understand. But they know who I am, and they know, that if they banged on my door in the middle of the night they’d greet a death eating grin and strong back
It’s two AM and you’ve got a body in the trunk. What would you do?
Wrath is coming….February 25 from Permuted Press
Paul Mannering, the highly acclaimed Australian author of Tankbread calls Objects of Wrath
“A nuclear apocalypse coming of age story that is destined to be a classic.”
Thank you, Paul, Craig, and James!!
There is some wisdom here. I love Hemingway, and this is some insight into the mechanics of his work.
This is a copy of the style sheet Ernest Hemingway used while working at The Kansas City Star early in his career as a writer.
It’s a little difficult to read. But if you can read it, there’s still a lot of good, relevant advice in there–especially considering he used it in 1917.
Hemingway said he was heavily influenced by this style sheet throughout his career.
Notice the first few sentences in the top left of the page: “Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English.”
Yeah, that’s definitely Hemingway.
Some other excerpts:
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When the world gets close and mean and hard, hope is what gets us through. Without hope, we succumb to depression, have the urge to curl up and crawl into an even darker hole. If we can’t envision a way out, then we stay and die, either slowly and metaphorically in a life of quiet desperation, or in an ultimate surrender to the abyss. Darkness will win if we let it.
We battle the darkness with hope, and the struggle becomes most important when it is the most intense. When the rough patch appears to be endless and all we see are hard times ahead, that is when we must stand up and fight the hardest. A man without hope is already dead.
There is no easy solution, no silver bullet. The path will be different for each person, but there are some things that will be universal. To feel hope, we must acknowledge it and seek it out. By focusing on what is good and true light rather than the evil and dark. Desperation and depression can have a gravity all their own, can pull in our will to survive and ability to smile with the force of a black hole, sucking all that is decent from our world. But if we battle the darkness, we can overcome it.
Connectivity is vital. We must feel connected to the people and the world around us. If we focus more on the real love we feel for others, and for the love reflected back upon us, we are less likely to feel isolated, alone, abandoned. Committing a random act of kindness for another helps, too. I stopped the other day on the interstate and helped a family whose car had broken down. It turned my bleak mood around.
Faith moves mountains. I believe in God, and I lean on Him. But for those who do not believe in a higher power, faith in loved ones, faith in humanity, faith in self are better than believing in nothing. When I find my faith faltering, I know I’m losing hope and darkness is winning. I try to regain my faith through prayer, interaction with others, and time outdoors. A walk in the woods or a stroll by the ocean can help me to feel restored.
Life is hard, too short, and often not fair. But it can be beautiful, too. I try to remember that when things get the hardest. I often don’t take my own advice, because knowing a thing and acting upon it are two very different things. But in the end, light is more powerful than darkness; light can always penetrate, defeat, and banish it. I am doing my best to look for it, and to be a light myself, lest the darkness consume me.
People are always saying “gee, maybe your book will get made into a movie!” Well, it used to rankle me because, in my mind, the book is the goal, the final product. But then I succumbed to the insidious lure of dreaming about my characters on the big screen. And, I’ll admit, coming up with this dream cast was a lot of fun.
William Fox: Played by Liam Mcintyre
Ryder Fox, Jeffery Dean Morgan.
Elijah, Morgan Freeman.
Abraham, Anthony Mackie.
Colonel Duke Masterson: Robert Duval
Crtstal: Abigail Breslin
Angela: Saorise Roman
Chilli: Max Martini
Hawk: Jeremy Renner
Evelyn Masterson-Fox: Nicole Kidman
Gunny: Denzel Washington
THE BORDER BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL HAS ALWAYS BEEN BLOODY
After The Fall, the entire world is an open wound.
William flees with his family to Magnolia, a farm in Tennessee, while America descends into madness, anarchy, and despair. With help from Special Forces units and 101st Airborne troops, Magnolia emerges as beacon of hope and stability. But when a deadly biological weapon is unleashed, a new darkness stalks the Earth.
Is humanity doomed?
After The Fall, nothing is certain.
WRATH IS COMING!!! February 2014
Some great post apocalyptic art work, and some in-depth analysis as well.
An enormous number of artists, urbanites, and even archaeologists have begun to focus their attention on the aesthetics and materiality of ruin in a discourse commonly dubbed as “ruin porn.” The pornography metaphor invokes the focus on a purely self-centered gaze and seeing urban and industrial ruination for sensationalistic if not purely emotional and instinctive reasons. Some commentators are unnerved by the implication that the mostly visual documentation of ruination simultaneously shares with pornography the un-expressible and purely self-centered satisfaction of voyeuristic viewing. Yet artist Matthew Christopher thoughtfully defends his photographic “autopsy of the American Dream” as a “sort of modern archaeology,” making a truly persuasive case for the political might of documenting urban devastation with images and archaeological analysis alike.
The story of urban America is undeniably one of dramatic post-war decline that could truly be likened to social and material apocalypse in some communities…
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My fourth novel, The Tears of Abraham is speculative fiction, and I pray it stays that way. The first American Civil War cost more than six hundred thousand lives. The next one will be far worse.
I’ve been kicking this idea around for about six months, while working on the final book in my Wrath series. I read some articles about Texas wanting to secede from the Union, and at first I chuckled to myself. Folks in Texas are tough, and they’re already just about a country to themselves. They have the agricultural base, heavy industry, military assets, and fiercely independent mindset to make themselves a Republic, should the general population actually be in favor of it. What I dismissed at first as pure apocalyptic nightmare began to seem possible, though no less insane.
But what if the recession does not end? What if the cultural, racial, economic, and religious divides within the United States get worse with time?
What if the Republican Party does not heal itself, and the schism within the Party of Lincoln leads to an even more powerful Tea Party? With both sides gerrymandering districts to protect their power bases, there would be small incentive for moderation.. But on a national level, the Democratic Party would command more of the general vote, and maintain control of the White House, and probably gain seats in the House of Representatives. Much of the country would continue to feel the Federal Government did not truly represent their interests. The shrill rhetoric from the media on both sides of the political isle would increase, finding conflict and scandal to sell advertising.
The war will be about money, race, religion, and a deep difference of opinion of what government exists to do. The seeds have been planted already.
What would happen if Texas really left the Union? Much of the South might follow suit, along with chunks of the far West. To what lengths would the Federal government go to preserve the sanctity of our country? I love America, and the idea of a civil war terrifies me. The more I’ve researched the topic, the more worried I get. There are a whole bunch of angry people out there. Some of them seem to actually yearn for war. I don’t think it will come to that. I have faith, not in politicians, but in the innate common sense of the American people. I hope that in the coming decade, this decency wins out over hatred.
Lincoln was willing to fight to preserve the Union. I wonder what will happen the next time. I don’t know yet, but there will be tears. Of that, I am certain.
The abandoned town of Pripyat, the Chernobyl reactor in the background.
There has been an exciting new biological discovery inside the tomb of the Chernobyl reactor. Like out of some B-grade sci fi movie, a robot sent into the reactor discovered a thick coat of black slime growing on the walls. Since it is highly radioactive in there, scientists didn’t expect to find anything living, let alone thriving. The robot was instructed to obtain samples of the slime, which it did, and upon examination…the slime was even more amazing than was thought at first glance.
This slime, a collection of several fungi actually, was more than just surviving in a radioactive environment, it was actually using gamma radiation as a food source. Samples of these fungi grew significantly faster when exposed to gamma radiation at 500 times the normal background radiation level. The fungi appear to use melanin, a chemical…
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Author Sean T. Smith 