Borrowed Life

Ethan Hawke told his superior brother, genetically designed to be better than the godborn child of the might not live as long or have a perfectly strong and effective heart
same parents who chose a genetically perfect the second time around, one who wouldn't die of an imperfect heart, one who would use his genetically perfected DNA to rise to the top of the heap not by chance but by choice. And yet godchild's brother never bested him at swimming -- or caught him before he blasted off into space to live among the stars. He had dreamed of navigating the imperfect system on planet EARTH, studying space mechanics and working hard to perfect his imperfect body. In the end, even without the perfect genetically designed life, he made his dreams come true, not only with his hard work and dedication to his dream, but with a borrowed ladder, the designer DNA that wasn't good enough to earn international swimming star, Jerome Morrow, more than a silver medal at the Olympics. Second best in all the world, but the fault wasn't in his genetic profile. The fault lay in Jerome's actions that kept him from being the best in the world, gold medal swimming star, and in Jerome's entitled attitudes and over arching arrogance.

Relying on genetically designed DNA is one thing, but it all falls apart without the hard work and mental/emotional fortitude that can turn a faulty body with a fate chosen through determination -- or mother and utopia planned -- results. Unlike the valid Jerome Morrow who threw away his future with drink and sybaritic excess, Ethan Hawke, the borrowed ladder who focused his whole being, dreams, and hard work on the stars, disproved the efficacy of a system designed to improve on the lottery of love and caring for someone else. Once again, natural talents and gifts are no substitute for plans, schemes, and scientific promises. The best laid plans of mothers and men will always be undone by hard work versus entitlement and scientific design.

The same is true in the end. No matter how much Russian money and misguided rich girl dreams, the gods of hope and change will stand -- and fall -- when balancing on clay feet.

Here in the real world where Hollywood remains a dream factory and the reality is as tenuous as tinsel and the golden glitter on the Xmas tree, it is all garbage that will end in the after holiday bonfire or mingled with the trash of wrapping paper, tangled ribbons, and dried out fir tree twigs and branches accented with the detritus of too much eggnog and booze and sprinkled with cranberries and used condoms -- or cigars. Not even the gold and silver of shiny ornaments and tinsel can survive long after Xmas day or New Year's eve.

Actors may gain fame from their heartfelt portrayals of other people's dreams and visions of fictitious reality, but only while youth and energy last. It is unfortunate that youth and energy are limited commodities, especially when limited by entitlement and sybaritic excess. An actor can learn his lines, but exists only on the screen, captured digitally or on fragile celluloid, and is ephemeral at best. Even in real life memories remain as long as someone exerts the focus and concentration, often aided by photos where youth and energy were captured for a brief moment in time, and more than often undone when excess overrules the strength of the borrowed ladder -- or life.

You may have fond dreams polished and bright in memory and ultimately undone by the foul taste of fact and reality. One can live in a dream only so long as viewers are willing to lose themselves in the dark for as long as they can afford to keep the movie running and the film stock intact. Too bad for most the time runs out. Biology forces us all to bow to the results of drinking and eating so much. Inevitably, nature beckons and the call cannot be ignored long or urine and feces must be wiped and flushed down the plumbing or scraped and dried off before laundering out the clothing and linens. Oh, the ignominy of nature intruding where dreams and promises, once so bright and shiny and new, become just another layer in the landfill or ashes on the winds.

No matter who good the borrowed life and no matter how much money you throw at the fake, all is for naught in the end. The day after Xmas will dawn and the sun will come up after New Year's eve. Time marches on and so must shattered dreams no matter how long one believed Xmas and the party would last.

That is all. Disperse.

Does Love Trump Hate?

Throughout the latter part of the campaign season just past as Hillary and Trump stumped for votes, Hillary's Stronger Together message took on another slogan: Love Trumps Hate.

Hillary lost and the message that Love Trumps Hate continues as tens of thousands of people, many who never voted for Hillary or Trump, continue to carry signs and chant the slogan: Love trumps Hate.

These activists protested up to December 19, 2016, begged electors to change their votes to Hillary and declare her the new President of the United States (POTUS), abandoning their sworn oaths as electors to do their duty to their country by declaring Hillary the winner. There were claims that electors were offered money to offset the fines in those states that impose fines for faithless electors. I watched video of two electors already pledged to Donald Trump state they would not cast their electoral votes for Trump because of the claims that Trump was a hateful person who disrespected women, threatened them with grabbing their pussies, and in general was a reprehensible demagogue who was unfit for the office of President and unable to steer a straight course for the American ship of state.

Out of the 306 electoral votes Trump won during the election he ended up with 304 after the electors in all states had cast their votes, clearly well over the 270 votes Trump needed to win the election fair and square. When the Electoral College votes were tabulated, 7 electors voted against their pledge candidate: 2 against Trump and 5 against Hillary. According to Wikipedia,"A further three electors attempted to vote against Clinton but were replaced or forced to vote again. Ultimately, Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton garnered 227, while Colin Powell won three, and John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Faith Spotted Eagle each received one."  Though Trump did not win the popular vote, it was the Electoral College votes that handily resulted in declaring Trump President, which is the way the United State Constitution set up the voting process because, as Thomas Jefferson stated, pure democracies are doomed to failure. 

The Founding Fathers chose a democratic republic for the their brand new country and set up the Electoral College to ensure the USA would not end up at the mercy of the mob -- the popular vote. As Hillary ably showed, Trump won most of the country's votes while Hillary cleaned up in New York, California, and Wisconsin, states with the largest population centers in the country. Had Hillary won, the future of this country would have been determined by the majority, the mob. The Electoral College votes, even with 7 faithless electors, was determined by 538 electoral votes that spread the deciding vote across all the states and not just the states with the highest population. The 227 electoral votes Hillary won wasn't even close to the 270 electoral votes needed to win. 

The anguished cries of "Hillary won the popular vote" crashed against the solid bulwark of the Founding Fathers' foresight in instituting the Electoral College. It is the same mistake when Hillary campaigned against Obama in 2008, failing to garner sufficient numbers of delegate votes to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. She won the popular vote, but in the end lost the delegates to Obama in the same fashion that Bernie Sanders won the popular vote and failed to get enough of the delegate votes to capture the Democratic Party nomination.  

Disgruntled Hillary supporters, as well as disenfranchised Bernie Sanders's supporters still smarting after being summarily handed over to Hillary in a demonstration of Democratic Party solidarity, howled and screamed their rage when it became clear Trump had won by a narrow margin. Trump was not their president they declared, shouting "Love trumps Hate" as they marched, demonstrated, rioted, looted, burned, and impeded even emergency vehicle traffic. Holding their placards and banners high, "Love trumps Hate," these supporters assaulted everyone they believed had betrayed the country by voting for Trump, often without listening when their victims declared they had voted for Johnson or Stein or abstained from voting. The "Love trumps Hates" gangs took their rage out on everyone and anyone they believed had allowed Trump to triumph over the people's choice, Hillary Clinton. 

The violent mob mentality continued until Thursday, January 19, 2017 when Donald J. Trump took the oath of office and was sworn in as President of the United States in spite of boycotts, marches, demonstrations, burnings, looting, violence, and assaults on civilians and police still chanting "Love trumps Hate"! Many members of the mob admittedly never voted for Hillary or Trump during the election. They didn't vote for Gov. Gary Johnson or Dr. Jill Stein either. They chose not to make their choices known at the ballot box, but they were determined to make their voices heard loudly and clearly right up to and beyond Inauguration Day. "Love trumps Hate"!

The "Love trumps Hate" crowd have made it plain that President Donald J. Trump is not their representative and have vowed to make sure the next 4 years they will obstruct, impede, and refuse to obey whatever President Trump does and says during his tenure in the White House the same way that those voters who declared President Barack Obama was not their representative when he entered the White House after he was inaugurated in January 2009. The difference is President Obama's opposition created the Tea Party Movement to voice their opposition to Obama's tenure and held Obama's feet to the fire on every issue. The fact that the Republican Party candidates took control of both houses of Congress (House of Representatives and the Senate) in the autumn of 2009 is proof of their opposition to Obama. Even though Trump failed to win the popular vote during the 2016 campaign, the Republican Party candidates won at every level of government: local, state, and federal, a resounding defeat for the Democratic Party across the board. Both houses of Congress picked up more Republicans during 2016 delivering a stunning defeat to Democrats throughout the country, not only to Hillary but to outgoing President Obama.  

Amid unsubstantiated claims that the Russians and President Vladimir Putin tampered with the presidential race, disaffected voters (and nonvoters protesting Trump's election) cling to that hope that some shred of evidence will prove that Trump cheated to win in the same what opposition to Obama claimed that Obama was not born in the United States and was not an eligible candidate for President of the United States. The fact that Obama's much publicized State of Hawaii birth certificate posted on the WhiteHouse.gov website was proven to be a fake has been lost in the claims that Trump has never held public office and is therefore unsuited to hold the highest office in the land. It does not matter that Obama's experience in public office is in a term as an Illinois state senator and an uncompleted sophomore term in the U.S. Senate are not much more experience than the 40 years Trump spent as a businessman and real estate mogul. 

We, the people, tend to forget the men who first took office in the United States of America's fledgling government were not politicians but printers, publishers, ministers, soldiers, silversmiths, farmers, and business owners, men who had no experience in politics other than what they learned as they broke away from England and set up their own government, sending farmers and lawyers and publishers as ambassadors to European countries to make treaties, make loans, and make peace or ready for war, the same farmers, ministers, and businessmen who took their muskets and fought the trained soldiers, the Red Coats, sent by King George (mad King George) to put down the colonists' rebellion and restore British order. 

We all start from somewhere, often choosing a path different than the one we originally set out on, learning as we go. The future is a not set in stone and often seems to be set in water beginning down the mountains as snow melts into rivulets, creeks, and streams, joining the rushing rivers and cascading in torrents, picking up stones, pecking away at mountains, eating the sand and soil along its path until it ends in the sea, frequently widening river banks, cutting new streams, and changing the course of rivers along the way. Nothing stands in the way for long and few things remain unchanged by the relentless headlong dash to the sea. 

We have seen frontiersmen like Daniel Boone, and soldiers like Andrew Jackson and Ulysses Grant, slaves like Fredrick Douglass, and men and women of different backgrounds take their place in the U.S. government to contribute their time and talents in service to the people. Not until more recent times have we seen men and women graduate from school to take their seats in government, not for a term or two, but for 30, 40, and 50 years, no longer serving the people, but serving themselves at the expense of the people. Maybe it is time for a change, a chance to go back to the roots out of which this country, the United States of America, grew and give the people the chance to speak through their elected representatives, men and women who have worked in the world and are not merely the latest generation of a long line of lawyers and politicians who work for themselves. 

We may see disaster over the next 4 years or we may see a brighter future. The only thing we will know is by keeping our eyes, the peoples' eyes, on what proceeds from President Trump's policies. Only that way will we, the people, know for sure whether this President, like so many others before him, are speaking for the country or are merely a mouthpiece for the Powers That Be. Only then will we be able to decide whether to love or hate Trump. 

That is all. Disperse. 

Of Mice and Men

While checking stats on my blog I noticed that I get a lot of traffic from Russia which reminded me of something a Russian told me. "You write like John Steinbeck. He's very popular in Russia." At the time it seemed appropos of nothing. I admire Steinbeck and have read most of his books, even some of the lesser known books. Steinbeck wrote about the everyman from people displaced from the once fertile middle of the USA that became the Dust Bowl and spawned black hurricanes and a black death unlike anything that came out of the coal mines to privileged brothers brought up by their father when their mother ran off and either became a whore or returned to prostitution, and wealthy in her own right. East of Eden was Steinbeck's version of Cain and Abel and very effective, stirring up quite a brouhaha because of the sex and violence and shattering of middle class morals.

As I looked for a picture of Steinbeck I was arrested by the way he reminded me of Ward Bond, a famous actor that starred in several movies directed by John Ford and a close friend of Marion Michael Morrison AKA John Wayne. Bond left Wayne his shotgun in his will.

Looking for photos of Ward Bond made me aware of something I didn't realize growing up. He purses his lips a lot, rather like Betty Boop or some pinup girl but with a rougher, tougher, more masculine purse. (No, I do NOT mean a man purse. A manly purse -- of the lips.) 

I could not find a good photo of Bond with a mustache, but the similarity is obvious -- at least to me. Steinbeck was rough and tough without the pursed lips. Bond and Steinbeck were contemporaries and were some of my idols growing up.

It's flattering to be compared to Steinbeck, even from Russians. I do like his clear, straight forward prose and the way he handles writing. I even enjoy his form of rabble rousing and the thread of brutal truth that runs through his stories. You don't get much more brutal than a mentally retarded behemoth who likes to kill rabbits guided by a much smarter and smaller man that keeps his feeble friend out of the worst of trouble while they drift from place to place eking out enough to live on during the Great Depression. Of Mice and Men was a subtle and brutal picture that could almost happen nowadays, except without the gloss and glitter of technology in the background. Life for drifters and bums and alcoholics and the detritus of society was lived in a more rural landscape and often far away from the concrete alleys of Skid Row and downtown New York City before Giuliani got rid of the homeless -- or at least off the streets.

Every society has its homeless, people who can't or won't fit in, feeble-minded no one wants to take care of (not even the state), addicts and alcoholics, and the budding serial killer or soul drawn to the gritty reality of taking life, be it animal or human. It's in the DNA and probably bred in the bone by some outside force of the ever spinning roulette wheel of genetic legacy. We were not all born to be peas in Mendel's garden -- or the unfortunate souls caught up in Mengele's grasp.  Steinbeck saw it all and carved out his landscapes and people them with those from different walks of life in all their brutal and angelic and commonplace glory.

When I think of Steinbeck I remember something his wife said about the look he got in his eyes sometimes when he stared at her. It was a 50-mile stare where he didn't seem to see her except as a character in one of his books. She said she felt like he was dissecting her and putting her back togeter in very different ways, memorizing looks and gestures, and not seeing her at all except as a tool for his books. Most writers get that look and it usually means something is beginning to boil to the top of the stew constantly fermenting in the mind. I'm sure I have it, though I try to be more circumspect when vivisecting people for stories or remembering them to jot down later in my paper journals where I can sprawl and conjecture and let off the brakes of grammar and rules and styles just to let the words flow from an oft opened vein. I've always been that way so it wouldn't do to quantify my habits because they are as much a part of me as the color of my eyes and thick ankles. They are born in the bone.

Even though Ward Bond pursed his lips to appear however he wanted to appear or give in to the tics and twitches so few of us are aware of or feed the mirror the latest look in progress, I still see him as the everyman, a tool for writers to guide and use to give life to their words. Whether he was a wagon train master or a village priest hip deep in the rushing waters of a stream hunting trout, he was -- and is -- the kind of man I grew up believing was the norm. John Steinbeck put the words in Bond's and other actors' mouths and fashioned a window for the everyman to see himself at his best and worst, vulnerable and unguarded, and for that I am indeed flattered to be seen in his shadow and reaching someone out among the masses fashioning new windows.

That is all. Disperse. 

Review: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

I've been on this whole science fiction/post apocalyptic kick lately and Alas, Babylon was the second such book I tried because I'd read about it in the after word of another book. Isn't that how you find new books?

Another book suggested was Neville Shute's On the Beach, which I read about 8 or 9 years ago when the guy at the post office suggested it. Alas, Babylon and On the Beach both deal with the world after a nuclear strike, except in Neville Shute's world, based in Australia, all human life was annihilated and Australians would soon be dead of radiation poisoning, saved on by their lower position on the globe. In Pat Frank's post nuclear holocaust world, specifically America and Fort Repose in Florida, many people died from the nuclear blasts and more of radiation poisoning, but many survived in a world without technology, electricity, and most of what modern people consider necessary: salt, medicine, antibiotics, doctors, etc.

At the beginning of Frank's novel, Randall Rowzee Bragg is on the super highway to dissipation. Randy begins with a bit of liquor in his coffee and runs around with women, many of which come from Pistolville, the other side of the nonexistent tracks in Fort Repose. His family name is old and distinguished, but Randy spends more time in the red at the bank than in the black. He's friendly and well liked, but not what one would consider a pillar of the community unless the pillar is leaning drunkenly to the side and about to topple over.

Randy gets a telegram from his brother, Colonel Mark Bragg, to meet him at a nearby Air Force base as Mark is on his way back from Puerto Rico and will touch down there to refuel. He is sending his wife and two children to stay with Randy in Fort Repose, signing his message, "Alas, Babylon," so Randy will know it's serious.

Randy goes, meets his brother, gets the bad news that there will be war with Russia, nuclear war, gets a check for five thousand dollars, and drives back to Fort Repose to the bank where he has some trouble cashing the check, but walks away with the cash and a remark to the manager of the bank that cash will be the only thing that matters in a very short time. Randy gets most of the supplies on his list and drives the next morning to get his sister-in-law, Helen, and Ben Franklin and Peyton, his nephew and niece, all of whom were reluctant to leave their father in Omaha at the Strategic Air Command (SAC) base.

Nuclear war comes with a double blinding dawn and soon the cessation of electricity amid panic and a world turned upside down where Randy becomes the strongest pillar of the community, coming alive with deadly purpose to preserve his family and his town.

Alas, Babylon was published in 1959 at the height of fear of pending nuclear war with Russia -- and Cuba -- and amid racial segregation and the struggle for civil rights. Randy Bragg lives next door to the Henrys, a black family of modest means who were once the Bragg family's slaves. The Henrys bought the land on which they live and are a major asset in sustaining life and purpose for Randy and the extended family he gathers around him. The Henrys are the difference between life and death.

Frank was writing at a time when he had intimate knowledge of politics, nuclear capabilities, and civil rights, having written about them as a war correspondent, reporter, and chief of a couple of newspapers. He knew first hand what life would be like in his family's home in Florida and the struggles he -- and indeed the country -- would face. Alas, Babylon is as true today as it was in 1959.

I found the characters engaging and amusing and wonderful in their differences and their similarities and enjoyed the change especially in Randy as he squared his shoulders and took charge. Dated though some of the information seems at a glance, Frank pegged human nature, which seldom changes. People rise and fall in times of adversity and those that surprise us the most are the people we often discount before disaster hits. I highly recommend Frank's view of America after a nuclear holocaust, not only for its insights, but for its humor and its pathos.

Since I read the Kindle version, I will warn you that there are many mistakes throughout the text with wrong words, doubled and missing words, and typos with most of the mistakes coming at the end of the book. It will take a few seconds to puzzle out what is supposed to be there, but it shouldn't slow you down too much. That is the reason for 4/5 stars when the book itself deserves a hearty 5-star review. This book stands the test of time.

Russian Piracy

Yesterday, I was approached by a couple of writers from the Russian Federation about e-books and copyright infringement. The discussion began because of my recent posts on e-books and publishing. It seems that things in Russia, the former Soviet Union, are very different than they are here in the United States. It's all about getting what you can and getting it for free.

Young Russian authors usually get from $800-$1000 per book, not enough to live on, but enough to keep them plugging away, and e-books are not great sellers becauseit is far too easy to crack the codes and get it for free. It could be a matter of economics or it could be perceived value.

As it was explained to me, trying out songs from an album on MP3 or getting a bootleg copy of a movie to check out production values, acting and story line is the usual practice before deciding to buy. After all, I was told, why pay good money for a lousy movie or buy a whole album if only one song is good? The movie ". . . must be out-of-scale good . . ." to be worth the money. Some movies aren't worth the price at all because ". . . they really suck."

According to my sources, the authors who complain the loudest write ". . . shitty love-novels . . . no one wants to read twice. And they are printed on the cheapest paper ever, so there is no way you could read it twice, even if you wanted to." These authors purportedly churn out two novels a month, so at least romance books are alive and well in the Russian Federation. E-books are another kettle of fish altogether.

Buying a movie or CD that has been downloaded for free or from a pirated copy that is not nearly as good as the original is a good investment, especially when money is tight, but buying the e-book after getting the pirate copy is redundant. With the file already on the hard drive, why buy another copy? Pirated or original, the file would be about the same. It's hard to encode an e-book the way CDs and movies are protected. In that sense, hardcover and paperback books, at least those not printed on the cheapest paper, are tangible and cannot be pirated.

Do I still believe in e-books? Yes. I think they are the next step in publishing evolution. Am I having my ups and downs with the system and getting my e-book recognized? Yes, again, but it's a learning process and I'm still learning a lot.

Copyright infringement of e-books in the United States is not unheard of, but I think there are fewer chances to get something for nothing and finding my e-book pirated. Someone would have to find it first and read enough to want to crack the codes and get it for free. At least, if my book is being pirated in the thousands or tens of thousands, I would be secure in the knowledge that the word is spreading and my books are being read. I wouldn't make much money from the pirates, but -- who knows? -- I might find myself with a whole underground group of fans avid for my next book. Not an ideal situation, but it's a start.

Living up to expectations

I am humbled by all the people who have visited my journal from Russia and the surrounding territories. I hope you found something interesting to read. Thank you so much for visiting and reading.

Я смирил всех людей, которые посетили мой журнал из России и прилегающих территориях. Надеюсь, вы нашли что-то интересное для чтения. Большое спасибо за посещение и чтение.

YA smiril vseh lyudyeĭ, kotorye posetili moĭ zhurnal iz Rossii i prilegayushchih territoriyah. Nadyeyusʹ, vy nashli chto-to interesnoe dlya chteniya. Bolʹshoe spasibo za poseshchenie i chtenie.

I know I have been gone for a while now. I have been busy doing a lot of other things, among them working and revising one of my books to get it read for an agent and publisher. There are times when I have to choose among the things I want to do and the things I have to do to further my writing career. Writing is and always will be my first priority, and things have been very interesting over the past few weeks. The biggest surprise to me is how many people actually read my ramblings here on LiveJournal, and how many of them come from Russia. I even picked up a few new readers from Russia. That is always surprising. A writer never knows how their ideas and characters will translate to different cultures. Finding out there have been hundreds of readers just this morning was surprising and gratifying. One reader from Moscow likened my writing to John Steinbeck. I like Steinbeck's work and have read his books many times, even when I didn't have to read them for school. I find his characters true to life and interesting even when they don't seem interesting to each other. I had no idea Steinbeck was so popular in Russia. It just goes to show that there are more similarities between people than there are differences, no matter where they live.

After the Nobel prize committee chairman criticized American and British writers and enumerated the reasons why they were not good enough to be honored, it seemed as though the countries where English is the first language and where the language flowered, grew and evolved were no longer in the literary loop. There have been criticisms of American literature, which some British writers and publishers have likened to generic, formulaic writing that panders to labels, brands and the semi-literate, but I've found some British literature that is just as generic, formulaic and label-conscious that barely gets to the sixth grade level. I have found that many editors and writers continue to push the belief that all writing should be accessible, which is publishing speak for dumbing down (4-6th grade level). I've found that people will live down to expectations if they can, but that they will also live up to expectations if offered.

I have spent a good deal of time reading and reviewing and critiquing writers from all around the world, most of whom write in English as a second, third or even fourth language. But, the Nobel prize committee chairman aside, English is becoming the universal language. Since I don't write in Russian, except for the translation above, it must have been something in my English writing that has attracted so much attention. I also don't include a lot of pictures or art work, so the writing has to be the draw. For all I know, people are visiting in droves because they heard on the grapevine I mentioned something worth noting, or they have gathered to laugh at my use of language as proof the Nobel committee chairman is right and Americans do not have a clue about what life and living is all about.

Americans have been called clueless when it comes to the problems of living and in some places that is true. I don't think it's true for every American writer because our experiences are just as valid and just as universal as anyone's anywhere in the world. That is nowhere more evident than in the polyglot of books and writers I have recently read. I often search out books from other countries -- France, England, Australia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, India, Russia, Germany, Greece and Africa, among others -- and I am getting to know Chinese and Japanese writers as well. I don't care where a writer is from only what he has to say. I don't always agree, but I find it fascinating to see how they express themselves about mundane topics like love, family, war, poverty and living. Some of the best books I've read have been from Indian writers and I find their close ties to their religion and how they integrate that into their characters' lives and the story wonderfully refreshing. Their religious beliefs and mythology are an integral part of who they are and how they view the world, and it's not the Bible bashing, proselytizing, convert or die writing that often characterizes other writers including religion in their writing. It is much more subtle and intricately woven into the warp and weft of the fabric of their lives and their writing. There is nothing I dislike more than being beaten over the head with religion or preached at. Like sex, with religion, I don't care what you believe, but don't force it down my throat. I'll respect you and your beliefs as long as you respect mine. Once again, it's a matter of living down to expectations. Writers and people who force their beliefs on others do so because they are afraid people are too stupid to make up their own minds and, like children who refuse to eat, must be force fed.

Not preaching when making a point is a balancing act I am very aware of in writing Among Women. I have a lot of points to make, but I can either tell the reader what to think or allow the characters and the story to do the talking for me, and for the women who shared their stories with me. I've chosen to let the women speak.

It seems strange that after nearly 30 years, their stories are still so fresh and clear in my mind. It isn't as if I think about them every day -- or at least I didn't until I decided to attempt writing our story again. In the past few months, it has been on my mind most of the time because I am still working to get it right -- the balancing act again. I have had a lot of input from first readers who have pointed out areas where I've repeated myself or where things are not as clear as I thought and I take it all under consideration. The story I posted here two years ago is very different from the book that has evolved and continues to evolve. I wonder if it will ever be perfect, but I know it will be the best I can do when it is published. This is a book I am making available to European markets and it is a difficult undertaking because of the jaundiced view Europeans have of American writers. It doesn't matter. Many European and Eastern writers have had a go at the book and the comments have been favorable. Who knows? Maybe it will finally happen that an American writer will be able to stand up and say their book has a universal appeal and not be laughed down by the entrenched international writers who believe only they know how and what to write about living on this planet. I guess they forgot about Steinbeck and Mark Twain and all the writers of note in America and Britain that blazed the trails they now follow with dogged steps.

After all, I am nobody outside of the United States and yet even I have found an audience or two that appreciates what I have to say. They have decided to live up to expectations and give others a chance to share their stories and lives. We are all the same no matter the language we speak or the customs and religions we follow, because at the heart of things we are in the end just people looking for a connection.