Oh brother.

Hey you! (...yes YOU!) You must be wondering.. what the &%$#@ am I doing here?

That's the way I approach life.

I mean think about it. Life's too short to take it seriously anyway.
And if you live life like you're afraid to die then when you die,
you'll realize you haven't live at all or something like that.
(I'm trying to sound smart so bear with me.)

Or by the time you're through, you'll just look like an old hag.
Seriously. You don't wanna live life looking like that.

This is err, a place I call home. My comfort zone.
A place where I can do stuff without anyone nagging me about it.
Here in a loosey-goosey environment, I write. I listen. I speak. I draw.
I curse. I play. I flirt. I dance. I party. I try to entertain. I...

just do. 'Coz I want to. And you can't do anything about it.

Well, what are you doing here? Believe it or not, destiny have brought you here little one..(and serendipity perhaps?)
Everything happens for a reason. At this very moment. YOU should be here. "COINCIDENCE happens."

Since you are here just the same, please take the time to look around. I'm sure you'll find something interesting to read or look at. This thing you are reading right now won't tell you what I'm all about. See the pictures below?! (..those are navigational things and have some purpose)
So use your mouse to accomplish something..

And, oh yeah..
Make the most out of your stay

Welcome.

Monday, November 26, 2007

New Fiction

I was watching the telly when suddenly there's this special on some award winning author while she was talking about her novel. Then it came to the part where she was asked if there was any advice she could give to aspiring writers out there. She said that as long as you believe that there's a story in something, whatever that may be, continue writing.

I thought that this was it. The end. I would gladly quit. It has become to repetitive for good measure. It wasn't as fun as it was before. But just as what she said, just write. Not writing in general, but if you have a dream, go for it.

Here's a story I found that woke me up.

------------------

Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but I also explain that there's a big difference between "being a writer" and writing. In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the long hours alone at the typewriter. "You've got to want to write," I say to them, "not want to be a writer."

The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor- paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune, there are thousands more whose longing is never requited. Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty. I did.

When I left a 20-year career in the Coast Guard to become a freelance writer, I had no prospects at all. What I did have was a friend with whom I'd grown up in Henning, Tennessee. George found me my home - a cleaned-out storage room in the Greenwich Village apartment building where he worked as superintendent. It didn't even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom. Immediately I bought a used manual typewriter and felt like a genuine writer.

After a year or so, however, I still hadn't received a break and began to doubt myself. It was so hard to sell a story that I barely made enough to eat. But I knew I wanted to write. I had dreamed about it for years. I wasn't going to be one of those people who die wondering, "What if?" I would keep putting my dream to the test - even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure. This is the Shadowland of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.

Then one day I got a call that changed my life. It wasn't an agent or editor offering a big contract. It was the opposite - a kind of siren call tempting me to give up my dream. On the phone was an old acquaintance from the Coast Guard, now stationed in San Francisco. He had once lent me a few bucks and liked to egg me about it. "When am I going to get the $15, Alex?" he teased.

"Next time I make a sale."

"I have a better idea," he said. "We need a new public- information assistant our here, and we're paying $6,000 a year. If you want it, you can have it."

Six thousand a year! That was real money in 1960. I could get a nice apartment, a used car, pay off debts and maybe save a little something. What's more, I could write on the side.

As the dollars were dancing in my head, something cleared my senses. From deep inside a bull-headed resolution welled up. I had dreamed of being a writer - full time. And that's what I was going to be. "Thanks, but no," I heard myself saying. "I’m going to stick it out and write."

Afterward, as I paced around my little room, I started to feel like a fool. Reaching into my cupboard - an orange crate nailed to the wall - I pulled out all that was there: two cans of sardines. Plunging my hands in my pockets, I came up with 18 cents. I took the cans and coins and jammed them into a crumpled paper bag. There Alex, I said to myself. There's everything you've made of yourself so far. I'm not sure I ever felt so low.

I wish I could say things started getting better right away. But they didn't. Thank goodness I had George to help me over the rough spots.

Through him I met other struggling artists, like Joe Delaney, a veteran painter from Knoxville, Tennessee. Often Joe lacked food money, so he'd visit a neighborhood butcher who would give him big bones with morsels of meat, and a grocer who would hand him some wilted vegetables. That's all Joe needed to make down-home soup.

Another Village neighbor was a handsome young singer who ran a struggling restaurant. Rumor had it that if a customer ordered steak, the singer would dash to a supermarket across the street to buy one. His name was Harry Belafonte.

People like Delaney and Belafonte became role models for me. I learned that you had to make sacrifices and live creatively to keep working at your dreams. That's what living in the Shadowland is all about.

As I absorbed the lesson, I gradually began to sell my articles. I was writing about what many people were talking about then: civil rights, black Americans and Africa. Soon, like birds flying south, my thoughts were drawn back to my childhood. In the silence of my room, I heard the voices of Grandma, Cousin Georgia, Aunt Plus, Aunt Liz and Aunt Till as they told stories about our family and slavery.

These were stories that black Americans had tended to avoid before, and so I mostly kept them to myself. But one day at lunch with editors of Reader's Digest, I told these stories of my grandmother and aunts and cousins. I said that I had a dream to trace my family's history to the first African brought to these shores in chains. I left that lunch with a contract that would help support my research and writing for nine years.

It was a long, slow climb out of the shadows. Yet in 1970, 17 years after I left the Coast Guard, Roots was published. Instantly I had the kind of fame and success that few writers ever experience. The shadows had turned into dazzling limelight.

For the first time I had money and open doors everywhere. The phone rang all the time with new friends and new deals. I packed up and moved to Los Angeles, where I could help in the making of the Roots TV mini-series. It was a confusing, exhilarating time, and in a sense, I was blinded by the light of my success.

Then one day, while unpacking, I came across a box filled with things I had owned years before in the Village. Inside was a brown paper bag.

I opened it, and there were two corroded sardine cans, a nickel, a dime and three pennies. Suddenly the past came flooding in like a riptide. I could picture myself once again huddled over the typewriter in that cold, bleak, one-room apartment. And I said to myself, The things in this bag are part of my roots, too. I can’t ever forget that.

I sent them out to be framed in Lucite. I keep that clear plastic case where I can see it every day. I can see it now above my office desk in Knoxville, along with the Pulitzer Prize, a portrait of nine Emmys awarded to the TV production of Roots, and the Spingarn medal - the NAACP's highest honor. I’d be hard pressed to say which means the most to me. But only one reminds me of the courage and persistence it takes to stay the course in the Shadowland.

It's a lesson anyone with a dream should learn.

The Shadowland of Dreams by Alex Haley
From Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work
Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Maida Rogerson, Martin Rutte & Tim Clauss

-----------------

I tried. Now I guess I have to try harder.

Regular programming will resume in a couple of days.

badly drawn boy was stoked at 10:14 PM :: ::

Look out! Smart-ass coming through!

Mr. Poe is a paradox. He is young yet he is old. That is from his age and his responsibilities.
He has a day job and what does he do at night? Nobody knows yet.
Whether he is a Casanova, a dead ringer for a celebrity, or a ninja, only a few people will know.
Sometimes he can be generally boring or a walking time bomb. Spontaneous.
Some sources thinks he is like a riddle and he to likes being mysterious with that poker face of his.
And he likes it that way.
If he is inspired or compelled by necessity, he likes to and writes forgettable pieces of poetry and songs or draw undecipherable works of garbage err.. arts.
Otherwise, the rest of his time is consumed by web design, painting, and sports.
Apathy. That's what he feels most of the time but wants to go to heaven. Still Optimistic.
He still believes he is a prodigy and secretly hopes he has traces of the Godfather, Beatles, and Da Vinci in his soul.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions on this website may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Mr Poe.
It is those of that stupid monkey behind the keyboard. Don't worry. He's trained and domesticated.
If you happen to disagree with some of the views and opinions in this website, don't worry.
I maybe wrong but I doubt it.

Warning: Although Mr. Poe has taken reasonable precautions to ensure no irresponsible pages, inappropriate language, or indecent behavior are present in this website,
Mr. Poe cannot accept responsibility for any loss in knowledge or damage to the brain arising from the use of this website.

Monday, November 26, 2007

New Fiction

badly drawn boy was stoked at 10:14 PM :: postCount('1349973906464970677'); ::

badly drawn boy was stoked at 10:14 PM :: ::