Sorry for my lapse in writing, if you aren't reading his I understand why, however, if you are flipping through, I thought I would share one of my poems with you.
It's taken from "The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Mim the Dwarf
( A song of Mim, petty dwarf betrayer of Turin Turumbal,
The First Age of Middle-Earth by J.R.R. Tolkien)

Stalward figure with a face of stone stood, Mim last of his house,

Not likened was his kind to the Thanes of old,

Though these were the days of their flowery youth,

Amon Rudh was the house of Mim,

A hill of bare and rocky stone,

Crowned by the Red flowering Sargon,

At its feet stank a large black bog.

Hidden in the eves of subtle stone were

the secrets of the Petty Kings of old,

All now gone and lost but a memory of

but the memory of smithed metal and chiseled stone.

In the halls of Mim dwelt the outlaws of Turin, there

the keen eyes of Mim led Turin

The muffled gloom of Bar-en-Dunwedh beset Turin's men,

Yet behold! In the muffled silence of snow a new figure came,

Beleg Cuthalion, elf friend of Turin. His light was a lesser light

Of the Eldar,

Yet he was a cool spring in the midst of a biting winter.

And so, the frozen hearts of the Outlaws melted in the light of the Eldar,

Mim's teeth set on edge,

His eyes cool and keen at the sight of Cuthalion,

Seasons passed, the snow cap melt,

Murmured were the weeping words of Mim at the edge of the wood,

His son in the iron grasp of the black skinned orc.

Silent slept the Outlaws watch, safe from the enemies eyes,

Dreams of the promise of spring, hope ever warmed their hearts.

Then netted as a bird, and skeward like a pig, the Outlaws were silenced,

Turin himself was dragged north, helpless in the black hands of Thangorodrim.

Mim entered his silent house to the sound of a bow sting

and a biting shaft.

With a shout he fell, a trail of blood to tell the tale.

Beleg limped slowly forth.

So it's November Firstish and the topic is Thankfulness. I am thankful that I got the promp that hey dude that was you on for writing November First. Oops! Really I try to make a list of things to be thankful for not only once a year but everday. Especially when I'm in a depressed or self pitying funk.
I'm glad I have love from friends and and church family around me. I am greatful to be writing stories today. I find I miss it if I go too long without writing. I'm thankful I have a God in my life that looks after me. I couldn't live life without him.
I have to say I find it really trippy that I cross the Golden Gate Bridge every Sunday and a lot of Tuesdays to go to Church and connect with my church friends.
If you had told me in 2000 that I would be living in California and going across the Golden Gate bridge every week I would have told you you have been smoking a little to much Prop 19.
I mean isn't California the land of Fruits, nuts and flakes? Yeah things are pretty loose over hear. Especially the San Francisco Bay. But you know it turns out God has a place in his kingdom for Fruits, Nuts and Flakes. After all he made them.
I find that while the Christian population is only ten percent of the population here meeting together with other Christians is not only nessesary it is also rich.
I think ahead, probably too much of going to Tel Aviv University in Israel. I read that the Christian Population there is about one percent. The time together must be really rich. A friend of mine just got back from there on a business trip.
She said the land and the people are just ready for a harvest. Wow, how cool is that?? We have so much to be thankful for.

Possible Zombie Apocolypse

It's not people I'm worried about, it's monkeys. Yeah people give me that look all the time like I'm strange when I say that, but I saw it happen man I was there! It started out with some rumors about monkeys getting out of a lab.
Hey who would believe in that stuff anyway? It's like AIDS who really knows how it happened but it did huh?
Same here. I heard of some monkey escaping the Berkley Labs. OK probably false but hey it could happen you know?But I saw it one night.
First I thought it was a cat jumping out of a tree or a squirrl or some thing.
Then I saw it man it looked at me and my friend.It's eyes were hollow and empty it's face dry and rubbery. It didn't even look real but I didn't see any strings.
That's when it jumped at my friend Doug and started tearing at his face. Hey you can call me a coward if you want, but I just ran. I can still hear Doug's screams.
It wasn't long after that, that I heard of more break-in's and not just Berkley. There was San Francisco State, and UCLA. It was an epidemic.
The dead monkey invasion had begun.

My fevered pitch.

Okay, here is my pitch in a nut shell, please give me feedback if you like. The idea origionally was to create a series of short stories that spanned the whole world we will see where God takes it though.


Alambraidria a world of superheroes, which was nearly torn apart by war that spanned their world and beyond 1,000 years ago.

Today heroes stand perplexed at the growing number of super villains in their world that threaten to overwhelm them.

Here: A hero fights to unite the varied factions of heroes, A public accountant dreams of becoming a superhero and a woman with an infamous past fights to survive.

My creative writing teacher Dr. James Tipton talked to us about using the five senses. He demanded using this tool made what he called a concrete scene.

Placing us in some place and time, even if it was fantasy, using the five senses could give you the feeling of really being there.

What's more I got a better sense of what he meant when I began reading his book Annette Vallon.

This is a historical fiction novel based on a read woman.

She helped save Lords in the French Revolution and smuggled people out of France who were enemies of Napoleon Bonaparte.

She seems to be a fascinating woman. What is amazing about his novel is the detail of the surroundings.

A sentience of description of people, even the feel of the fabrics of Lords coats and what they were made out of. But the detail isn't so overwhelming that it bores one.

Generally he likes to say, " You go from one concrete scene to another, there has to be purpose in a scene. One scene leads into the next and so on."

What he said he found out and I discovered on my own, is when you get into generalities in a scene, in a story, your story not only becomes boring to your readers but to you as the writer.

I hope this is useful to some of you out there.

Oh,and if I can suggest something, start reading poetry. In fact start writing it as well. Heck take a class on it.

I have found that when I write poetry, my short story writing blossoms like spring time flowers, when I stop it becomes rather bland. Just a thought.

As Paul Harvey would say,

Good day.

It's been some time since I have written, sorry about that.I'm finding myself dissatisfied with my writing. The world I have written is I find rather dull. Of course I have been reading Tolkien and frankly the man was much more well read than I am in the old myths and wrote the stories most of his life.
The advice I get from authors and also from books is keep writing so if you fell discouraged keep writing. I am. Even if you think your writing is utter excriment keep writing. Look there is only one way your going to get better practice. I'm writing this for my benefit as much as yours. Ok yeah, you've had some set backs, so have I.
Your setting stinks. Improve it. Heck use history. What are some of your favorite places and time periods? Ever thought of mixing them up? Would they fit with the genre your writing?
How about praying and telling God about it? That just came to mind. It's amazing how that is the last thing that comes to me when I'm in trouble.
I need to practice less self reliance. God call you to write? Guess what he won't call us to do anything that we can do on our own. We need to rely on him. And if you know he is calling you to write guess what? It's going to be the very last thing your going to want to do.
That has been my experience. Like the old Hymn " Fightings from without and within."

The enemy doesn't want to see your work suceed especially if its meant to help someone or point them to God. Keep the faith and remember what Philipians says,Phil. 3:13 Brothers,
I do not consider myself to have yet taken hold of it. But this one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead., I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which
God had called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
And also," Phil.4:8 Finally, Brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think on such things." (Moreover.) Whatever you have learned or recieved or heard form me, or seen in me- put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Epiphany

I talked to a friend at church the other day, he said the thought I should write about what I thought heaven would be like. I explained I was really trying to do backdoor evangelism with Sci-fi/Fantasy. He said I ought to do it just for me. You know he had a point. I think This is the beginning of something soon.