A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats | Fiction Writing of Steven Konkoly.
A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats | Fiction Writing of Steven Konkoly
Reply
Never Trust Anyone Who Hasn’t Been Punched in the Face – Taki’s Magazine
The Last Thing I’ll Ever See
Her face was the last thing John saw there in that hospital bed with the beeping sounds and sad thin sheets. Her eyes were the placid blue of the reef in the afternoon, a kind of wistful hope shining from her while she held his hand at the end. Her hair was close cropped and grey and her oval face lined with worry and years and the love of a man she’d walked through hell and back with.
John’s eyes remained open, and he saw her for who she was, for who she had always been, and he perceived this not with his eyes but with his soul, floating, unfettered now and able to walk through a door to yesterday, lingering above each memory, tasting the truth of each moment as though for the first time, savoring the fleeting preciousness in a way he wished he had before.
A tumble of long dark hair falling over her shoulders the first night they’d met so long ago, sultry and whispering, her skin smooth and pale in the night, an eager vulnerability about her which seemed to fill a deep need in John, a missing piece he hadn’t known existed until he met her. The rush of falling in love, the wedding down in the Keys beside the ocean, when she put on his ring and life stretched out before them full of possibility.
He saw their first child born, her lying on the table of this very hospital, on a different floor, a happy place of life and rebirth. Her face shimmering with sweat and the tears in her eyes when John placed the infant against her breast. He saw her on the beach, the waves surging while she held a small child’s hand, giggling and laughing, the sun bright and warm and good.
The journey darkened then, and John found himself drifting through a murk he would rather not face, a certain truth which makes a man hurt. He saw her anguished tears and heard her sobs and felt a deep pain emanating from her wounded spirit. There was a bitter taste to that time, to those memories which wrapped around each other until they became years interspersed with moments of light, but which were not well lit, and there was a heaviness in that time, and the darkness had a kind of weight. There were demons there, and they were mean and bent upon destruction.
He heard the angry accusations, the shouting and the denials and felt a loneliness creeping cold into his bones, for it was in both her and him back then, and now it felt worse than it did at the time. Perhaps because it was done and there are things a man can’t take back even though he wishes he could, and sometimes it’s years and that’s a hard thing to face, there at the end. There was an eroding of the soul, a depletion of spirit which caused her to retreat into herself, and neither of them knew it until it was almost too late.
The journey was not yet finished.
There was rebirth and renewal, and he saw her shedding the weight she’d gained over the course of four children and a decade and she was emerging again like a rose which has lain dormant through the cold hard winter, only to blossom once more under the kiss of the warm spring sun. She laughed and sang and danced and looked upon him with eyes bright again. Her canvas was fulll of color and swirls of crazy dreams and she found a truth and validation in her art because it was meaningful and good and true and there was healing in it.
Her childish nature radiated from her, not in a petulant way, but in the way of wonder and glory, and she grew, becoming herself at last, transforming into the woman she’d always wanted to be because she was finally discovering who that woman was. He watched her gaze in awe upon the streets of Florence, a glass of red wine in one hand and her head tilted back to embrace the gentle sun. He felt the wind rushing at his face, top down, her singing beside him as they crested the Golden Gate Bridge, driving without a destination in mind for the journey then was the purpose, the little things and shining moments of glory. The years were happy and tinged with a sort of golden light and they went by too fast.
Her face was the last thing John saw, and that was how it should be.
A Life, Well Written…Heroes, Villians, Lies and Truth. One Draft.
I used to scoff at regrets, probably because they hadn’t yet accumulated enough mass. I was confidant and convinced, in the way young men are, that regrets are for for fools. I believed I could fight my way through life without the deep wounds and scars born of mistakes, and I charged with unswerving abandon and careless faith and speed straight into middle age. The truth hurts when it comes crashing. I’m an author, but I haven’t written my own life the way I should have, the way I would if I were a character in one of my own books.
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show,”
Charles Dickens opens David Copperfield with that poetry, my favorite first sentence in literature. Not only would I like to write like that, I’d like to succeed in living that great commission. Heroes fall and fail and triumph in the end because they learn from their mistakes, because they are able to feel the sting of regret and overcome great obstacles and great odds. There is always adversity, the thing is to defeat it.
I write heroes in my books that would despise me if they knew me, because they’re better, these characters and constructs who are more brave and good than I am. I’m just a writer, not a hero. I’ve been writing and dreaming and lost in words and acting as though I had an editor for my life. Someone to excise the mistakes, cut the fat, correct the regrets. I’ve got just one draft, though, here and now, which is my life here on this earth. No auto correct, no edits, no way to change the character arc or tweak the ending. One draft, all the way through, is what I’ve got, and if it sucks, then it does. It’s a lowsy story.
I think there’s a bit more to it, though, than that. I’m far from figuring it out, and I’ve got my scars and regrets. I’m writing this interactive video game, where the characters make choices that impact the ending, and I think the universe is like that. Sometimes there are no good endings, no matter what, not here in this mean world. Mostly, though there are endings which could be satisfying when we, the actors in the play, the characters in the story of our lives, listen to the wrong things. I know I do.
Paul says in Hebrews 12:2 “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” I’m an author, but I haven’t been the author of my fate, not in the way I’d like to believe I’ve been. I certainly haven’t kept my eyes where they were supposed to be looking. One draft, one chance to get it right, and my choices make a difference, and I’m still hoping that my life will be written well, both by me and THE author.
Don’t Hold Your Breath
Don’t hold your breath unless you’re under water, because while you’re waiting for the next thing, life is drowning you and all you end up doing is choking for air.
It’s the quiet that defines a man, not moments of fleeting wonder and raucous triumph, for the real glory lives in the little things we overlook and forget, the mundane and true. It’s in the Sunday sigh of a woman in love while the rain comes down outside and the moan of the wind and the lazy smiles and wrinkled sheets. Walks in the woods when the world is still and the air is sharp and right and the leaves are turning with bittersweet autumn, death and renewal and the promise of spring, possessed of a magnificence all its own.
The glory in life is found in the simple things. Changing diapers at two in the morning, dancing around the living room with your baby to sooth him back to sleep, walks to the bus stop at dawn, tying shoes and bed-time songs. The laughter over silly things and inside jokes, late-night trips to the hospital.There is glory there, There was. We often miss it along the way, for our eyes are on the wrong things, and then we ache for it when we remember to remember.
We’re constantly bombarded by images of success, and what it means to be happy. It’s the bigger house, the newer car, the promotion, the vacation, the next thing. We live in a world of instant gratification which seems largely bereft of true happiness and contentment. Our technology is miraculous and gives us the ability to talk to friends around the world with a few clicks, yet we are lonely, for the cell phones and ipads, video games and social media which provide this so called “connectivity” lead to a disconnect with our souls. It’s a hollow feeling.
It’s hard for Christians, who are exhorted to be “in” this world but not “of” it, for the lessons Jesus taught go completely against what the world continues to tell us. Christians are supposed to surrender to be victorious, lose in order to win, give to receive joy. It’s hard to keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus when the world comes crashing in, howling and loud, tempting and insidious.
The lasting, true glory is there, though, in a relationship with the Creator, and in those mundane moments, if we listen, he is whispering to us. I admit I’ve been holding my breath my whole life. It’s time to breathe.
America’s Second Civil War
A storm is building on the horizon, one which threatens to smash this great country. As the nation becomes increasingly divided and the level of rhetoric reaches new, jarringly painful levels, a thing which once was unthinkable is now a real possibility. The United States faces very real threats from an increasingly pugnacious Russia, a surging China, and the insane ISIS movement, yet the greatest threat may well be from within.
Last week, former Senator Ron Paul, father and mentor of leading Presidential candidate Rand Paul said this:
“I would like to start off by talking about the subject and the subject is secession and, uh, nullification, the breaking up of government, and the good news is it’s gonna happen. It’s happening,”
Good news? What? The first Civil War killed more than 650,000 Americans. More American boys died at Antietam in one day than in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Ron Paul is not alone in his thinking.
In Texas, which has the world’s 15th largest economy, a petition to secede from the Union several years ago garnered 60,000 signatures. Texas Governor Rick Perry said “When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation,” adding, “And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.” Governor Perry later attempted to clarify his remarks, stating that he never mentioned the word “secession.”
Last April in Wisconsin, the state’s Republican party voted on a resolution which would give the state to secede from the union; it was opposed by Governor Walker, who has his eyes on the White House. The fact that so many lawmakers were even considering this possibility is chilling.
The country itself seems to be broken. Our federal government does not function in the way it was designed to do, for compromise is the essence of democracy. This Republic, with all it’s brilliant checks and balances, breaks down when the political parties refuse to compromise. The founding fathers were very conscious of the danger of tyranny by the minority or majority. Congress isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. The executive branch has increased its authority by using executive orders to circumvent congress, and the nation finds itself on the brink of disaster every time a budget issue comes up. Right now, it’s Homeland Security, and House Speaker Boehner is blowing kisses at reporters.
The polarization of the nation is insidious and potentially lethal. For some reason, both parties have become ensconced in their positions, and have convinced the general populace that to be a Republican, one must think one way and that to be a Democrat, another set of opposing beliefs is the gospel. The media pours gasoline on this inferno of lunacy, and helps frame the debate in the most divisive way possible until there is no reasoned discussion, only howls of rage and pain on both sides. When people only hear one side of the story, whether or not it’s true and balanced, eventually we accept it as reality. Politics and morality are not so simple, the talking heads only want us to believe that.
We, the people are allowing others to define our beliefs for us, rather than thinking for our selves. As Thomas Jefferson said, “The sheep are happier to themselves than under the care of the wolves.” We have become a nation of sheep, and the wolves are hungry.
I find problems with both parties, which is why I don’t vote a straight ticket, and why I wish I had more choices, more moderates to chose from. I’m a firm believer in the Second Amendment, a strong military, and less government intrusion. But I think regulating big business is a good idea, though and have no desire to return to the 1800s, when robber-barons ran amuck, when labor laws, environmental and anti-trust laws did not exist. To me, less government intrusion also means that a woman should be able to choose what to do with her body, and gay people should be allowed to marry. It doesn’t mean I agree with those choices, but that the government has no right to decide for them. That’s what limited government means. There is a big dichotomy there for the GOP.
I’m dreading the next election cycle, which is certain to break records with the money spent on television and radio ads, and which will be the nastiest Presidential election in history. I consider myself an Independent, and I’ll weigh my choices between the lesser of two evils carefully. I talk politics with my friends on both sides of the isle all day long and sometimes they convince me I’ve missed something, or that I’ve viewed a specific issue wrong, and I’ll agree that they’re right over a beer. That’s what’s missing in the country now, I think, on a large scale. Our politicians and the media machines which drive this nation are intent upon taking us off a cliff, firmly believing that there is only one right way. The American People are better than that, smarter than that.
So what will the next Civil War look like? be on the lookout for my coming novel, The Tears of Abraham. In the meantime, check out SUNSHINE PATRIOTS, a prepper-themed novella about liberty and freedom under siege.
adding, “And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”
Author or Salesman part II: How to show an author love…
We writers are an odd breed. We drink coffee into the wee hours, hunched over computers in small rooms and carved out spaces, getting up early to work day jobs and burning our candle at both ends. We leave our blood and heart on the page, dreaming characters, plot, and conjuring worlds in our minds. That’s the fun part, the creating, the honing, the story-telling. At some point, we set our work free to roam cyberspace, hoping that someone reads it and feels something true.
After it’s live on Amazon, then comes the anguished part of the process. We log onto our author page and check our sales rank, and we look for reviews. Good reviews make our day, and a bad review can cast a pall over a week. I’ve been told many times not to read bad reviews, but it hasn’t stuck yet. I read them, and I try to learn something from them. The general thinking amongst the author community is that 4 and 5 star reviews are good, and anything less is bad. Potential readers will often read the negative reviews, too, looking for a common thread. Also those 3 stars tend to give a little more credibility to the other reviews on the page. It’s a numbers game; the more reviews an author gets, the more books he or she is going to sell.
Indie authors must promote themselves, which is a nuisance for both the writer and for their friends, who grow weary of chest-thumping and begging and pleading. Writers don’t like doing it and people generally don’t like to hear about it. I understand. I apologize. There is no other way, unfortunately, for a writer to break out among the millions of other voices, attempting to be heard. So we blog, and we tweet, we Facebook, we Google Plus, we join groups on Linkdin and we post on Tumblir and Instagram, doing what the industry people who are far more savvy at marketing call “building your brand,” and equally important, “building your platform.”
An author’s brand is essential. If someone says, “I’m about to read a Tom Clancy book,” I know what they’re talking about. Clancy built a brilliant brand of military techno-thrillers. The brand is the author’s name in association with the books he or she writes.The reader has a certain expectation of the kind of book the novelist has produced, and will decide to buy based upon that prior knowledge.
The platform is just as important, if not more so. An author’s platform is how we are able to reach people. Social Media is the foundation of this platform, but it also includes book signings, radio show appearances, press releases, networking with other writers, and anything else we can dream up to find readers. For new authors, it’s maddeningly difficult to build a platform.
As a relatively new novelist, I’m familiar with these woes. There is the feeling of a tree falling in snowy woods when a book is released. A muffled, quiet sound at best. My publisher is a big believer in “soft releases” which lead to a “long tail.” I’ve not yet quite figured out exactly what that means. I guess that the hope is word of mouth makes a novel or a series take off, and this takes a long time. In the meantime, authors have to keep writing, keep producing, not relying on one book or three.
Here’s where our friends are so important.
If you’ve got a friend or family member is an author, please buy their books. (Hence the begging!) For less than the price of a Starbucks Latte, you get eight hours of serious entertainment. Less than the price of a movie ticket. And folks, the book is always better than the movie.
After you read the books, please leave honest reviews. (more with the begging.) Reviews matter because they drive sales. The more reviews we receive, the more Amazon does it’s thing promoting our books to a wider audience. We’re more likely to qualify for promotional tools like Bookbub, which can potentially make or break a novel. I know it’s a pain to log back onto Amazon and crank out a review. But it really makes a difference to all of us who are striving to entertain a wider audience, those of us who dream of quitting that day job and sitting down at the computer both during the day and in the middle of the night.
If you enjoyed the book, tell people about it! Share a post every now and then, pass out a business card, or simply mention the book if you’re having a conversation about books. If you’re in a book club, throw it in the ring. People listen to what you have to say, and that word of mouth recommendation is crucial. It means more to us than you know.
No one told me I had to be a writer, no one insisted that being an author was the only right path for me, and that’s how it is for all of us, we crazy writer folk. We chose this path because we felt drawn to words, this need to create, and deep down we believe that we have something worthy to say, and emotion to impart. Whether it’s pure entertainment or something profound, we want to move people.
If we have moved you, please leave us reviews! And you will have succeeded in moving us.
amazon.com/author/seantsmith
understand.
Ukraine, Russia, and NATO… World War Three in the Making
On February 9 a massive explosion, rumored to be a tactical nuke, detonated in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk. There are conflicting reports, with officials stating that an artillery shell hit a chemical plant, while others claim that it was a munitions factory. Witnesses report that the blast shattered windows and shook houses miles away. It is interesting that the media in the U.S. did not pick this story up, especially given their penchant for explosions. Here’s a video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQ5EPnSE_4
Maybe it was a tactical nuclear device, and maybe it wasn’t, but either way, the conflict in the Ukraine shows no signs of letting up, and as the U.S. gets more involved, the stakes are getting higher by the minute. Russian convoys move into Eastern Ukraine with impunity, bringing relief supplies to civilians, and also heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and special forces ground troops. Russian-made rockets and mortars are smashing civilian areas in the Ukraine, killing innocent people, while Ukrainian forces shell rebel-held strongholds like Donetsk, with rounds dropping on schools and hospitals. It’s a bloody, terrible conflict, and not quite as black and white as many here in the States would like to believe.
Many Eastern Ukrainians do in fact feel allegiance to Russia, and remember the days of the Soviet Union with fondness; they speak Russian and have more in common with them than their own countrymen. They are rebels who desire closer ties to Russia than the western Europe. Both sides are waging a bloody war, trying to gain ground ahead of peace talks which seem unlikely to resolve the issue, with rebel forces currently on the offensive to seize key rail yards and rail lines.
On December 23, 2014 the Ukraine renounced its non-aligned status with NATO, which makes the current debacle all the more dangerous, and outright involvement by the United States a frightening and somewhat hypocritical possibility. Here’s why.
In 1823 the U.S. adopted the Monroe Doctrine, which simply put, stated that interference by European powers in South America would be considered an act of aggression. The U.S. doesn’t tolerate other countries bashing around in our back yard. The Truman Doctrine, which became the bedrock of American foreign policy for decades, dictated that the U.S. would pursue containment of Soviet expansion, and this led to proxy wars in South America and Eastern Europe. As the cold war has begun anew and tensions with Russia have reached new heights, the Ukraine conflict threatens to become a new battleground between nuclear superpowers. I for one, would rather avoid that!
There is a compelling argument that appeasement does not work, and that Russian aggression needs to be stopped now. Various pundits compare Russian president Vladimir Putin to Hitler at the start of World War II, when Europe wrung its hands in the face of the Nazi advance. Russian armored divisions are poised to move into Ukraine, and NATO is woefully unprepared to halt the attack, should the Russians choose to roll in. Most of the Abrams tanks are gone,Western Europe is largely toothless. NATO relies on air power and the United States to deter further incursions.Should peace talks fail, it is easily conceivable that Putin will order Russian forces into the Eastern Ukraine. The only way to stop them would be with the use of tactical nuclear weapons, targeting the armor and infantry divisions. That’s how the end of the world begins.
So, here’s to hoping that clear heads prevail. Perhaps a peace can be brokered, one which appeases the rebel forces who wish to align themselves with Russia, but also keeps the Ukraine intact.
What does it look like after a global nuclear war? Check out the WRATH trilogy.
Interview with Sean T. Smith
Steven Konkoly interviews Sean T. Smith
The Perseid Collapse Kindle World Interview Series:
Sean T. Smith—author, songwriter, family man.
Did I mention Sean lives in Florida? I’m a little focused on Florida these days, thanks to the five feet of snow accumulated on the ground in my yard, so I particularly enjoyed the setting of Sean’s Perseid Collapse Kindle Worlds novella—The Florida Keys. Not the Keys I remember from Spring Break, but the descriptions of the mangrove swamps, sweltering heat and lush vegetation took me away from a harsh New England winter for a few hours.
Sean T. Smith
Of course, Sean’s novella was not a peaceful Margaritaville interlude. Set several months after the “event” that paralyzes the United States in the original Perseid Collapse Series, things are vastly different. Sprawling FEMA camps dominate the landscape, providing the only refuge for the vast majority of Americans caught off guard by the “event.” Not everyone lives in…
View original post 1,924 more words
UFO sighting in Jacksonville, Florida, and I’m not crazy!
Let me say first of all that I don’t wear a tin foil hat, think Elvis is still alive, or that we didn’t walk on the moon. I’m an avid outdoors person, and I’ve hiked all over the United States. I’ve never seen anything like what I saw this afternoon. I don’t know what it was, and I’ve wracked my brain trying to come up with a plausible explanation. I was hiking with my father and son at Timicuan Preserve, a sunny, beautiful day in North Florida.
Here’s what we saw:
A single point of light that looked like a star. In fact that’s what my ten-year old called our attention to. He said “look, it’s a star in the middle of the day.” We stared at it. Just above and below that bright light were two dimmer objects, grayish against the blue sky. These then moved, and a third dim object appeared, and they formed a triangle around the bright point of light. After a minute or so, three more objects showed up out of nowhere, seeming to circle that point of light. The light itself was not moving relative to the trees around us. We observed these things for about ten minutes until a cloud obscured our view. When the clouds passed, the objects were gone.
We spent the remainder of the day speculating on what we’d seen, going through the usual suspects that might explain the odd event. If it was a weather balloon, then what the heck were the smaller objects? If the bright light was airplane, then why didn’t it move? If it was a group of helicopters, number one, how were they at such a great altitude, and number two, what was the bright light? And also, what were they doing? If it was a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, then what were the smaller objects, and why did all of them disappear? If it was a drone, then what was it doing, and again, what were the other aircraft? They definitely weren’t birds; birds neither move nor look like what we saw. They weren’t flairs fired from a military craft. The bright light never moved, and the dimmer objects weren’t bright enough, and also remained visible for longer than flairs would have.
I’ve never seen anything like that before, but it certainly made for an interesting hike! If anyone has theories that explain what I saw, I’d love to hear them.
Author Sean T. Smith 