tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75202761605832587772024-03-04T21:09:39.918-08:00Daniel Quentin Steeledqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-2920272509053864112021-10-06T20:33:00.000-07:002021-10-06T20:47:15.580-07:00 DIAMONDS IN THE MUCK<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: Algerian; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Diamonds in the
muck<o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Things grow in shit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Modern gardeners use processed cow shit to ,make their
greenery bloom. Bat shit known as guano has been harvested and sold for
centuries as fertilizer for farmers. In many countries human shit has been
saved and harvested for use by farmers as long as farming has existed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What – if anything – does any of this have to do with
writing?</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Everything.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Shit is a vital part of farming for
chemical/biological reasons. But there are equally true reasons why ephemeral
experiences/trash from a cultural viewpoint are just as vital to a writer’s
development.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ray Bradbury, one of the greatest writers and
definitely one of the greatest fantasy authors of the twentieth century, wrote
about his childhood in mid-western America during the early part of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century. He <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>said everything he
experienced – comic books, comic strips, movies, action/comedy/horror - settled
into his subconscious, became part of the underlying sub-strata or ‘muck’ that
resides in every human being.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Everyone in this psychologically obsessed age knows
without needing elaboration that the emotional events of our life affect our
lives, can scar us in ways that may last a lifetime. The transient cultural
world in which we live affects us – maybe not as dramatically but it provides
the soil in which our dreams, our ideas, our inspiration grow.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A long time ago I read a brief wire news story about a
man piloting a small plane that crashed in a forested area only a few hundred
yards from a highway in Georgia. With both legs broken, he crawled for two days
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to the highway and flagged down help for
his wife, whom he had left in the plane. When they found her she was dead. What
haunts me to this day is what happened to the man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does anyone survive something like that?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ve read and loved comic books most of my life. Of
all thousands of comics I’ve read, one sticks in my mind. I think it was “King
Conan” or it may have been “K</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">ull” It was a short story about the barbarian Conan
or Kull leading a group of mercenaries to sack a ghost ridden castle</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">rife with riches – and death. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">One mercenary,
brave and smart and fearless, fought his way to the central treasure chamber. When
Kull gave the word to retreat with their riches, everyone fled. Except the one
man who knew the value of petty things like riches and gold that could always
be replaced, but did not know the value of important things – like his life
which could not be replaced. And so he slept the sleep of death surrounded by
treasure he would never enjoy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Recently I’ve acquired a firestick for access to all
kinds of television programming through some eclectic viewing. One of the
programs has been a gritty British cop drama about an undercover Irish cop. It
has the required tension and good writing to make it compulsively watchable.
But its lure is so much more. It illustrates the way the undercover life he
leads literally strips away every reason he has to go on living.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This cop is the good guy dealing with cold blooded
murderers, But, he smokes constantly, drinks enough to pickle anyone’s liver, and
has sex with any woman he finds attractive and some any decent cop – any decent
human being – would leave alone. But he smokes and drinks and beds women<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>because it is the only way he can keep going.
His young daughter had her throat cut in front of his then-wife by Irish
terrorists. He gets his best – and only true friend – killed by involving him
in an undercover case. A female undercover cop he’s had a relationship with is
kidnapped, raped repeatedly and driven insane in a case involving police
corruption. And then there’s his mother he's losing to dementia and his father
who’s been worn down and likely to die sooner than his wife.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>other words,
he has no one and nothing worth living for. Except his job, which he’s lost
faith in. The last scene in the series shows him alone in a car putting<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a revolver to his temple, then sticking it in
his mouth as if he can’t decide which way he wants to go out. I’ve never been
able to watch the last few minutes. To show him surviving seems fake. To see
him put a bullet into his brain would be the ultimate – what the hell is the
point<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of it all – depressing end to a
good man destroyed by a job we asked him to do. I don’t see any, happy ending.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And then there’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Storm”, another<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brit show- I
love Brit television and its cop shows and mysteries. If the Irish undercover
cop show is depressing as hell, Storm is the ultimate feel-good viewing experience.
Its star is the big Norwegian type actor who’s made a career playing a
scientist in the Marvel’ “Thor” movies and later the first Loki tries to
conquer New York Avengers flick. So I didn’t expect too much from him. Here, he
is a stolid unemotional cop who seems to be going crazy talking to the ghost of
his murdered partner. He talks to someone no one else can see and insists on
investigating the murder of the cop who has ties to a powerful criminal family.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But he can't or won’t stop investigating even when his
job is at stake and his questions lead him to his partner’s family for answers
– even though he desperately does not want to go there. It’s a limited run so
he solves the case and finds justice for his former partner and friend. But
that’s only the traditional who-dun-it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The true ending occurs when this hard nosed cop dances
with his dead partner in the middle of the street. It’s elegant and lovely and
then the camera pans back to show him dancing with no one in the street,
smiling at thin air – it could make a hard man cry. Then we see through the
cop’s eyes and he is holding the woman everyone knew he loved and tells her for
the first and last time what he should have done long ago – that he loves her.
And whether true or a figment of his mind, she smiles at him and tells him she
loved him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, some of this has slowly become part of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being a hero and doing the right thing
doesn’t mean you get that happy ending; sometimes there are no happy endings,
Sometime there could be a happy ending, but you say the right thing too late
and now it doesn’t matter anymore. And perhaps most important, you have to know
what matters in this life. You have to get your priorities straight.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> A SMALL NOTE:</o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p>Two weeks ago my wife of 42 years died in front of me. She had been dying for six years, dying hard for two years. she has been lost to me for a long time. And yet, I have to keep reminding myself that she is gone. I have seen her standing by my bed. And while she had not smiled in two years, I saw or dreamed that I saw her smile at me like she once did. It matters naught to the world, but it matters a hell of a lot to me.</o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">`<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-82555268328306606682021-03-16T11:14:00.000-07:002021-03-16T11:14:28.063-07:00I DON'T GIVE A DAMN<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">BLOG -MARCH 2021<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t care.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Or, more to the point, I don’t give a damn.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I may have lost some readers with that. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I hope not.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But as I start this latest blog outlining some future projects,
I thought I should put a little personal stuff here. Because, while I may not
have spelled it out in great detail, what this really is, is an author’s blog.
It is more about who and what I am and why I write what I write than a
traditional blog.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As you probably know if you’ve followed my work, I haven’t
made any secret of writing what I want to write. In a very few cases I’ve
followed readers advice or tips. But mostly whether it is editorial direction
or reader input, I listen but unless I have to, I general ignore comments from
anyone. When I was sending out short stories I got one detailed editorial critique
of my plot from an interested editor. I might have sold, but I didn’t <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>like his take as much as my own so it never
sold. UNTIL decades later when I included it in my Zymmerian anthology.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When I was writing for an adult sex site a lot of people
loved my stories. More than a few people hated them. Not only did I get fairly
honest criticisms, but I got a lot of personal shit like<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘you’re gay, you’re a cuck, you’re not a real
man.’ That rolled off my back until years later when a few assholes that seemed
to really, really hate me made me a little uncomfortable when it appeared that
they had made semi-serious efforts to track me down, find out where I lived. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not to come off as too macho – and no matter how tough you
are – when a guy shows up at your door with a .38 or .45 you are probably
history. BUT…while I didn’t have the sense to be afraid for me… when you have a
family who didn’t ask for any of this shit, they are literally hostages to fortune.
At one time that would have seemed impossibly melodramatic, but over time it’s
been proven that fans with a grudge or a crush are the greatest danger any
creative person or person in the public eye can have.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It doesn’t have to be THAT dramatic a reaction to have an impact.
I know I’ve written about this before, but it stuck in my mind. When I had just
started writing for<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the adult sex site,
I read a novel by a female author. It was about a woman who was seduced by a
low life, cheated on her good husband, and then left him. Her lover got her
into using and smuggling drugs and her life went into the toilet. BUT, she was
eventually able to pull herself out and made a new life for herself. She met up
with her husband again, they turned the low life over to the cops and the woman
and her husband had a second chance. I thought it was a good story.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But a lot of fans of this site are men who have been hurt by
women or just plain don’t like women. A cheating wife or woman has to be
punished, a lot of times death is the penalty. When the above story came out
they deluged the writer, constantly attacking her and her real-life husband. So
she vanished. As far as I could tell she never wrote anything for the site
again. You don’t have to kill or physically attack someone to drive them into
the shadows.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Which is why I don’t give a damn.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are welcome to love or hate anything I write.
I’d rather they love my writing. When I first started writing adult stories, I
received responses that literally brought tears to my eyes. From these messages
I know that stories can literally lift people’s spirits. I hope that at least a
few of my stories and novels have helped or inspired human beings I will never
have the chance to meet in this life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A FEW PERSONAL SECRETS;<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a little bit I’ll give you an advance look at what I have
coming. But first:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>I was a virgin until I was 22 years old. Introverted, shy,
never dated, never had any relationships of any kind. And then I graduated and
went to work for a newspaper.<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>AND LEARNED THE GREAT TRUTH OF LIFE.<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Women, particularly when they get beyond their teen years
– WANT TO HAVE SEX!!<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>And particularly, if you can learn to talk, the world
opens up to you.<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are a few other great truths of life that I will
probably relate at some future time but that’s enough for you to process right
now.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">AS TO THE FUTURE:<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlmPu50W0rCWEOszgtqB6dU3MdFqccbgwMdFUz7_bW04q0AVzlheOENIqegB9ApfcaU05j9CxbwtS-5VAxJFNe4-fgUsboHWzrFND6nfnacmSBvg9ReNGLX-a8CJxyBbWRTbNHILREef1z/s792/We-Went-Out-Last-Night-2+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="612" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlmPu50W0rCWEOszgtqB6dU3MdFqccbgwMdFUz7_bW04q0AVzlheOENIqegB9ApfcaU05j9CxbwtS-5VAxJFNe4-fgUsboHWzrFND6nfnacmSBvg9ReNGLX-a8CJxyBbWRTbNHILREef1z/s320/We-Went-Out-Last-Night-2+%25281%2529.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwtKNu0ZbepXUE34nIPyehpWL_80CEF59RAYUmGy-1vAccyqmbv_gOZgddjmMwF2LtKb2-fuKNiPciR49cdbii05fd2uw2FP0WUMzuoMwqcTN4WYnTSwy3upw-WrwwQiUNjedRXrP-E79X/s792/The-Last-Goodbye+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="612" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwtKNu0ZbepXUE34nIPyehpWL_80CEF59RAYUmGy-1vAccyqmbv_gOZgddjmMwF2LtKb2-fuKNiPciR49cdbii05fd2uw2FP0WUMzuoMwqcTN4WYnTSwy3upw-WrwwQiUNjedRXrP-E79X/s320/The-Last-Goodbye+2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVTuXL9YJKlngz06h9f6zhPESqH8VKJRTsLZvkDsV76rhcLYmWEod-tX3DVo8BrTnmkye7xVo_dzpge6L88HbN-J4nJx_odSDvPPbcIYi5_4LL5c9ys-mbu0vycFlShJEK-AFSz0cJPrbj/s792/fortune-cookie+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="612" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVTuXL9YJKlngz06h9f6zhPESqH8VKJRTsLZvkDsV76rhcLYmWEod-tX3DVo8BrTnmkye7xVo_dzpge6L88HbN-J4nJx_odSDvPPbcIYi5_4LL5c9ys-mbu0vycFlShJEK-AFSz0cJPrbj/s320/fortune-cookie+%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>These are only stories i have done and ready to post on Amazon. 'We Went Out Last Night" has already had its first part published.Some people like it. I hope some will like the second installment.<div><br /></div><div>"The Last Goodbye" has already been published on Literotica but i assume a lot of people never saw it. i think its a good story.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Message Found in Fortune Cookie" is a darker piece. The fortune cookie is real. I actually got it with a Chinese meal. And unlike most of my writing, it actually has a theme or moral. Most of my writing can really be boiled down to that 70s piece of wisdom titled "Never Marry A Pretty Woman." I never really aspired to DEEP writing. But i think this one has a true message - one that applies to men and women alike.</div><div><br /></div><div>A FEW NEW ITEMS.</div><div><br /></div><div>When you see this blog you may notice some differences. First I'm sending it by G-mail to a lot of people. There's a button to respond and leave your aol (preferably) or g-mail email address. I've been writing for long time, It would be nice to have an updated mail list. Secondly, feel free to leave any comments about anything. I'd like to for once keep something going and get a regular blog running.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally I'm going to try to be more responsive and a hell of a lot more productive. i've always pretty much assumed I'm going to live forever. As you may know I recently learned that I'm not going to. And the woman I've spent my life with is dying by inches. It's not fair or right, But, that's life. If you're with someone you love, hold them tight. They'll be gone one day..<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p></div>dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-27443957719450670982020-02-25T13:47:00.000-08:002020-02-25T13:47:41.875-08:00A FREE LOOK AT HOW BETA MALES IS BEING WRITTEN<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDQJBWJTD2yVvRg-AAGA6Vteb74Hrj0M6-jWzykbYnxYPGYNxQphtUajgwIlhA3NRGdM6lPy6wqS1y5cwCuIVYUhAYZjHBAb3Jxb2qeW_K7sgFhl3YIu2aVvDEVIxW_ndx4eQRj1Zxgu39/s1600/book-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="612" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDQJBWJTD2yVvRg-AAGA6Vteb74Hrj0M6-jWzykbYnxYPGYNxQphtUajgwIlhA3NRGdM6lPy6wqS1y5cwCuIVYUhAYZjHBAb3Jxb2qeW_K7sgFhl3YIu2aVvDEVIxW_ndx4eQRj1Zxgu39/s320/book-1.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">II’m giving readers an inside look at how one
of my next series is being written, and why it’s being written that way. This
will be a five volume series titled “There Are No Beta Males, Only Losers.”
Overall then length should be only a little longer than the first “When We Were
Married,” volume. So I’m assuming that each volume will be 40-50,000 words</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">This is, to put it mildly a multi-theme work.
It’s partly about the way that Alpha Males and Beta Males exist and work
together. It’s also in the first volume a pure out adventure story about how
two very different men survive on a plane bombed out of the air over the
Atlantlc that is being swarmed by hungry sharks</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">As the series goes forward, the central
characters will learn that living through a nightmare doesn’t mean leaving it
behind and that for at least one of them, there are worse things than being
eaten alive by sharks.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">At least that way the pain stops; If you lose
your heart, the pain is with you forever and you can’t escape it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">The story is written so the first volume
introduces most of the five main characters. There are Bobby Blue and Bobby
Black, childhood friends, Susan Sheridan who is the love interest of the
series, although. She takes a long time
to decide how she feels about Bobby Blue, and the Alpha superhero, Callan
McNeil.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">It will be obvious that Blue will be the focus
of the series, but it carries over five
volumes and Blue won’t make it out of the first book unless Callan does
something heroic to keep him alive. Now if you read closely it’s obvious that
although Blue and Callan share a good relationship, they are not close friends
and Callan will be called upon to do something that makes no sense from a
friendship/employee perspective.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">Which is why I added the following 3000 word
section before Callan appears to lose his mind, to explain why he does what he
does for Blue. His actions will set the relationship between the two men. For
the rest of the series.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">Blue burst into another fit of shivering. He
seemed to be closing his eyes as tightly as he could. McNeil felt his forehead,
He was still burning up. Fluids would help, but what he needed were some strong
antibiotics. And in the short term:. A clotting powder that could be sprinkled
on the worst bleeding sites and a wrap that contained an even stronger
concentration of similar medicine Together they might slow blood loss enough to
give him chance at survival.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">The ONLY Problem was that all the medicines
were near the pilots on the main level
below his feet – under three to four or more feet of sloshing salt water,
guarded by God knew how many hungry sharks.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">He could re-load the Desert Eagle, And climb
down to the flooded main level. but with
only one good arm and crappy vision, he probably wouldn’t ever make it back up,
or down.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Castellar",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">******* ******* ************* ******************</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Callan
squatted on thighs heavily laced with muscles he’d worked on for decades,
accenting an already thick midsection. He was a very big man, but it was the
core, the abs, the thighs, that had made him harder to put down in fights than
his opponents expected. And it was those
muscles that allowed him to balance
swooning females who screamed out orgasms balanced on his cock in mid-air, or
to pound them into incoherence under him.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Even in
this position he was able to maintain his balance as the floor shifted and
rolled underneath him. He couldn’t afford to fall against his left shoulder or
arm. As it was, it throbbed inside his
chest so fiercely he was afraid at any second that his heart might burst out of
his chest, And each throb resonated in his head like a second echoing gong.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The pain made it hard to think, but it wasn’t
hard to know what he should do.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “It isn’t
hard knowing what to do .It’s hard doing it.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The old black man who’d told him that – he
was old to Callan at the time but was
probably only in his 40s – had died fighting a fire on a rig in the Gulf of
Mexico on one of Callan’s first jobs. He’d raced without seeming to think about
the options as the fire erupted. Callan had been a little behind him so the
fireball that had engulfed the old man only blew Callan across the floor of the
rig and into the ocean.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The men
who’d plucked him out of the ocean had called him “Scrap Iron” after that, believing
he was as tough as his nickname implied. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> But the
nickname had only been a nickname. He’d
been 14 when he’d learned what he wanted to be for the rest of his life and it
had changed him forever.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> He’d run
away from his home and his crazy father and his crazier mother and found a
crazy and cheap old man who was paving parking lots in small Texas towns
cheaper than any of the other, bigger paving companies could afford to. He’d
done it the old fashioned way: load a
dump truck up with a few tons of hot tar steaming at 350 to 400 degrees, get a
couple/three desperate or ignorant men,
give them shovels and tell them to shovel the hot tar out and get a grader in
to smooth it out when they were done.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Callan had
walked into his future ignorantly. He walked into the yard that housed two dump
trucks, one empty and the other steaming with black tar and approached an old
man with white hair longer than a woman.
The white haired old man was built like a football linebacker and was
putting the boots to a slender white man who lay on the ground curled up into a
defensive position.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “You
miserable son of a bitch, you goddamned,backstabbing bastard. You cocksucker,
you think you can come in my yard and blackmail me for more money than I’ve
ever paid for a paving job and I’m just going to sit here and take it. You
expect to walk out of here alive?” </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The man on
the ground spit out blood and a tooth and lisped, “Look around, Honey. No
one’s here, no one’s gonna work for you.
You down to one truck and no help. You screw this job up and you’re done. Don’t matter the sheriff’s your cousin. No
one will hire you.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The old man stopped </span><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">kicking and
spit on the man on the ground. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“You think you're the only
pissant that I can hire. There’s plenty other idiots with strong backs who
wwould work for me.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The old man noticed Catlin standing behind
him.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">" What you want
boy?"</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“a Job if you got one.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"> the old man
stepped closer to Catlin and looked him up and down. He had to look up a ways. At 14 Callan stood 6 foot 2 and weighed a good
200 pounds.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">”how old are you boy?" </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“17 … going to be 18 in under a month".</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">After looking at him for a moment: “you ever
shoveled any tar, boy?"</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Worked with my cousin near Austin last summer. We
worked a couple months out of trucks pretty much like that."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Think you could handle a little country convenience
store parking lot? Without needing five guys to hold your hand while you do it.
I need this done today and most of my help is showing their asses. Think you
can do it by yourself. I can't get anybody else to help </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “ Yes or
I can do it. If you got help I can work
with them or if you don’t I can do it
myself." </span></span><br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">"do you have a drivers
license?"\</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“yes or." </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> He pulled the wallet out of his pocket,
handed the wallet with fake ID he’d only gotten a week before. He could
probably pass as legal.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The old man looked it over and threw it
back to him.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “good enough,” he said as he handed Callan a slip of paper with an address and a
receipt and order form. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Show this to the owner or the clerk and
get to work,” he said, “I need this done, finished by 5 PM . I’ll<i> </i>come
by about three to check on you. Got
that?` </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> ‘You have my word on it Mr. honey I'll get
it done and on time. You got somebody else to send out , send them. Otherwise I'll do it myself.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Big talk,
but you're a big fella. I hope
you can do i. If you can, I’ll put you to work more later. Now take the keys,
get out here and get started.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> It took 15 minutes to get to the store. He
drove carefully within in the speed limit without running red lights. First
thing he had to do was get there without cops stopping him for a ticket. He
needed to get this job. He needed to make some money and he needed more than
anything else never ever to go back to the small house where his crazy mother
and crazy father and three helpless siblings lived. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “When he got there he pulled into the parking
lot which already had barricades up. He
showed the job order and the address and
the Old Man Honey truck to the clerk a, tall,
raw- boned man.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Keep the barricades up andmake sure no one comes in, the clerk
told him. II'll be inside with the front
door locked from the inside doing some inventory work. You need to drink,
bring me a dollar and I’ll get
you a drink. Okay, that sound good to
you." </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Callan just nodded and went to move the
truck into position, where he could maneuver it round and hit most of the lot.
Since the tar was kept boiling, there would be time for a professional grader
to get there and put the finishing touches to it. He kept his shirt on for an
hour or so, but finally had to get rid of it.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> As
he worked, he trie to keep his
mind off his feet. He wore only tennis shoes and the old man had made no move
to provide him with boots. At first they burned, then they hurt, then he saw
the smoke rising. It finally got to where he cou ld look down and see that the
soles had been burned clear away. When it got too bad, he ripped his shjrt
apart and stuffed the fabric inside his shoes although it hurt like hell to
place them against the flesh of the soles of his feet.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> When it got to the point that he couldn’t
stand it any longer, he stepped across the hot tar and jumped trom the front of
the truck to the pavement he hadn’t reached yet. He hobbled to the front of the
convenience store and knocked on the door.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The clerk opened the door and said. “U got
a dollar for a drink?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Not really. But I have five if you can
sell me anything that rubber or plastic
or thick cloth. Like insulation? You sell anything like that?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Some old insulation we threw away
yesterday and a coat I was getting ready to give to Goodwill. But I can’t give
you all that for $5. Come up with $15 and we can talk?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “I only got $5.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Sorry, maybe some of the throw-away
insulation?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Please, mister I gotta finish this job
before old man Honey gets here. Can I do something to get the stuff for $5?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The clerk thought about it, then pushed
the door open and told him, “Follow me.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Even walking on the floor hurt but he
hobbled behind him to the back freezer.
Inside was a long, three foot high portable freezer.</span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “I need to
move that to the other side to clear the area behind it;. It hasn’t been
cleaned in10 years, But the bastard must weigh a thousand pounds. I can’t
handle it myself. Think you can shove it over there?”</span><br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Caallan just nodded and got to one side,
bent his knees and straightening, half
shoved and half lifted. For a long few
second he thought it wasn;t going to move, but inch by agonizing inches he shoved
and it moved. Apparently it had been there so long it had almost rusted into
position. But it moved.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The clerk stared at the freezer and
whistled. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “By god, kid you got some arms there.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> When the clerk said it had gotten where he wanted it, he motioned for callan to
follow him and led him to the back of the store where the insulation and old jacket was kept.
Callan started ripping up the material. He had to hold onto the wall as he felt
himself grow dizzy. He’d already given the clerk his $5, but he asked the man
if he could havea bottled soda anyway.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Sorry kid “ the clerk said. “The $5 went
for the insulation and the coat. There’s a hose out back. You can drink as much as you like.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Callan spent thirty minutes ripping up
the insulation and fabric and stuffing it into the bottoms of what was left of his
shoes. Then he hobbled over to the water hose and turned it on. The water that
came out warmed by the Texas sun burned his mouth so badly that he couldn’t
breath for a ,moment. He let it run
until it reached the temperature of hot coffee and he gulped until his stomach
couldn’t; hold any more.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> But, this had wasted time so he hobbled at
the best speed he could make until he got to the front of the store and the
dump truck. He checked his wrist watch
he’d found in a dumpster near his school
and saw that it was noon. He only had three hours to finish the job. He got
back into the rear and started shoveling again. For a minute he didn’t know it
he could. It felt like he’d sprained something – a rib or maybe pulled a
muscle. But he couldn’t stop. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> And so he kept shoveling and maneuvering
the truck round and kept shoving while the fabric and insulation burned and
then the cloth began to smoke and eventually he had to stop long enough to
clean the cloth out of his poor pitiful remnants of shoes.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> And the lot was covered and the grader was
pulling up..</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> His head was spinning and he had to keep
taking breaks that he thought were only
30 seconds but turned out to be five minutes. But finally, he finished. The
truck was empty, And the grader was pulling up.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> He knew Honey would be along, so he
grabbed the front of the cab to swing himself over and not fall onto the hot
tar. HJe missed the step up and fell like a rock onto the concrete entrance to
the store. He didn’t burn in the asphalt, but it seemed like the inside of his
head rang with the impact. He tried to hold on to consciousness, but the
darkness swept over him.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Someone was kicking him. They worked on
his ribs but it was the kick to the bottom of his feet that brought him out
screaming.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Stupid son of a bitch.“ was th first thing he heard and he
knew it was Honey. He opened his eyes and saw Honey glaring down on him. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “You stupid son of a bitch. I hire you to
do a simple job and you screw it up royally.
I’ll probably have to redo the lot and you’re probably going to expect
me to pay you and pay your hospital bills. LIKE HELL!”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Mr. Honey, don’t you think we ought to
call rescue?” the clark said. “He looks in pretty bad shape.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “To hell with him. I didn’t hire him. No
matter what he told you. I told him to come out and shovel for awhile and
I’d see if I wanted to hire him. He’s
got no contract, no papers. I don’t owe him anything. No worker’s comp. No nothing. Let him walk to the
hospital.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> When Honey had walked round the edge of
the lot to talk to the grade operator, the clerk leaned down and whispered,
“He’s one prime son of a bitch. But I called rescue. They’ll be here in a
couple of minutes.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> As he lay on the concrete listening the
booming of his heart, he thought this just be what it felt like to die. He was going to the hospital which meant his
crazy parents would be notified. God
knows how bad the damage to his feet was or if he would walk again, or if he
would survive his parents’ rage this time.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Sometime later an ambulance pulled up and
two EMTs approached him.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “What the hell did you do, boy? Smells
like cooked pork.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> It took too much time and energy to answer
him so he just lay his head back on the concrete and concentrated on breathing
between pulses of pain that ran from his feet to his brain and back, like
spears being thrust into his feet and all the way up his body.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Sometime later he was on a gurney in a
crowded emergency room. As he glanced around he wondered what the hell could be
so much more urgent than a kid who’d burned his feet off, He got his answer: a
woman whose child had a metal spike rising from his abdomen, a man holding a
bundle of what looked like his fingers on the other hand, a man whose every
breath sent blood gushing from his ,mouth.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Finally he was back in an examining room
where a young bald doctor examined his body and then focused on his feet. He
didn’t asked any stupid questions.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “You’ve got some bad burns down there. How
in the world did you do that?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Fortunately, the doctor took pity on him
and gave him a couple of shots that reduced the pain from a burning inferno to
merely, intolerable. He could think and speak.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “I was shoveling hot tar for old man Honey
at a parking lot job.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> He stopped to catch his breath.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “I only brought tennis shoes. Only other
time I did It I had boots and there were three other guys helping.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “When It got bad, why didn’t you quit or
wait for help. I’ve heard about Honey. I’m surprised he could find anyone –
foolish – enough to work for him. Why did you keep working?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “I gave him my word. I promised I’d get the
job done.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The bald doctor told two nurses to get
Callan’s his jeans off, put some salve on the burns and check his vitals to make sure he didn’t go into shock.
Then he walked out. Callan never saw him again.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Forty minutes later another EMT crew
showed up. Talked to a few med types, and rolled him out on a gurney to a newer ambulance
that looked and smelled better. The next hospital had a waiting room not nearly
half as full and he didn’t spend more than a few minutes before he was taken up
to a private room.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Doctors appeared almost instantly, took
his vitals, did some things to his feet that had him screaming in agony while
they told him they couldn’t give him
anything for pain to assess the extent of the damage from burns.. It seemed to
last forever, and then it got worse. They only told him they had to do things
to the burned skin to help in the eventual healing.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Finally that night, he lay in a clean,
soft hospital bed. It still hurt. But it
wasn’t in the same hemisphere as the previous agony. This he could stand.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> He noticed a man sitting by the bed. He
didn;t look like a cop, or anybody he’d ever seen before. Tall, in his 50s or
60s – it seemed old to him – he wore a dress shirt but blue jeans and he was
studying Callan.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Please, please don’t call my parents.
Whatever the bill for my treatment is, I’ll pay it off. But don’t call them.’</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Then: “Callan, Tell me what happened.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> His name
hadn’t been on the fake driver’s license.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “You’re not in trouble and your parents
haven’t been notified. You’re okay. Tell
me what happened out there and how you got injured.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Figuring there was no point in lying if
the man knew who he really was, he told him. The whole story. The man listened
without speaking, rubbing his chin from time to time. After while he took a
cigar out and lit it, despite the hospital signs saying smoking was a non-no.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> A nurse came by and stared at him but he
just shook his head and she kept walking.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The tall man rubbed his lower lip and
then said, “I’ll ask you what the doctor at the previous hospital wanted to
know. Why did you do this? Why not just quit. Walk away. You had to know you
were injuring yourself, maybe permanently… for a one-day job.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Callan was getting sleepy again but he
felt like the question was important.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Because I promised Mr. Honey I would do
the job. I gave him my word. And that is important. I can never count on
anything my mother and father tell me, or promise me. They lie. I don’t want to
be like them.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The man reached out to touch Callan on the
shoulder.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “Okay. That fits the facts. Don’t worry
about the hospital bill. It’s being taken care of. You’re going to need treatment and rehab, but
that will be taken care of too. The doctors say it may take a couple months to
completely recuperate, but you will walk again.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> He looked into Callan’s eyes and said, “It
will take a few years before you turn 18 and get out of their grasp but they
won’t be bothering you. There is enough dirt on them they’re going to walk away
. You will be going into a group home where there won’[t be anybody abusing
you. I expect you to graduate from high school with honors and then go on to
college. I’ll cover your expense and college tuition and I’ll expect you to
work for me for five years after you graduate.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “You understand what I’ve told you?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Callan could only stare as if he’d
forgotten how to speak. </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Finally, “Why? I don’t know you. I’’m
nobody and you’re obviously somebody. Why would you do this for me.?”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> The tall man stood up and he seemed bigger
than he looked sitting down.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “My name is CK Westland and. I run one of the biggest oil companies
in Texas.. I’m not doing any of this because I feel sorry for you or I’m feeling charitable. What you did today was
one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard of. But…you’re young and you gave
your word and you weren’t willing to break it, even to a piece of Texas trash
like Honey.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Westland walked to the front of the bed
and stared down at Callan with,an expression Callan didn’t understand and
wouldn’t for many years. Later he realized it was a look of respect. And he
would never forget it.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> “What you did was stupid. And it nearly
got you permanently messed up. But there
are a lot of smart guys out there,
clever men. A lot of them work for me. There aren’t many men who would have
done what you did to honor a promise. You’re the kind of man who if he gives
his word, would die rather than go back on it. You’re the kind of man I want
working for me, if only for a while. Youre going to go places and you’re not
going to be willing to keep working for me. But if I can have you for a few
years, that will be enough.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> He stood for a moment as if deciding
whether to stay or go.</span></span></div>
<br />
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<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Finally, he said, “you - Callan McNeill -
are a man of honor, and there are not enough guys like you around. For now, get
some sleep and get better.” </span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> ***************************** </span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> CK
Westland walked out of the room and
everything he had said came true. There were no false promises and he never saw
his parents again. Callan would never forgive himself for abandoning his
rothers. Ck had used his influence to
try to get them removed from his home, but his crazy mother and father had
fought like hungry wolves to keep their family together.</span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Until two years later his crazy mother
stabbed their father to death in his sleep, then stabbed all three little boys
and set the house on fire; not to hide what she had done which she told cops had been to remove the
demon seed ‘things’ from this earth, but to make sure they were really dead.</span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Callan had never seen her again. Nor
wanted to. She still lived in a hospital for the criminally insane and Callan
had never stopped spending whatever was necessary to see that she never
breathed free air again. When he had made his first million he’d gone back to
the little Texas town where his brothers
were buried in graves provided by a local church and had their poor
scorched little bodies removed into graves with beautiful headstones giving their names and ages at the
time of their deaths. And he paid to make sure no weeds ever grew anywhere
their graves, only beautiful flowers that changed with the season.</span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> It wasn’t enough. it never would be. He
would never forgive himself for what he hadn’t done. So he went on with, his
life.</span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> As a man of honor. He had been a hard
businessman and he had ruined rivals, bankrupted those who made themselves his
enemies and for those who used violence
because they thought he was just another soft businessman, he made sure they
died hard. He had never extended compassion to those who lacked it for him or
others.</span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> It all went through his mind as he
stood looking over the shivering form of
Bobby Blue. Blue had risked his
life to save him twice. And you couldn’t pay a man enough to do that. Now Bobby
was dying and he would die unless Callan risked HIS life. </span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Looking down at the opening that led to
the top level of the craft where the pilots had flown and a lot of the medical supplies were kept, he
saw the sloshing ocean waves. The plane wasn’t submerged. But It looked to be
about four or five feet deep.</span></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> But he saw movement in the water. Damn his
eyes. He had no idea what damage had been done. He couldn’t be sure what he was
seeing. Still, he was pretty sure it was sharks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">******************* </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> He probably had a way of dealing with the sharks – for a
short time. Even with a technological trick up
his sleeves it would be a BIG gamble to go down into the sloshing
waters, even if he could handle the sharks, and reach the medical supplies.
That was only half of the problem.
Before the plane had flipped, stairs below led up to the top level and down to
the passenger section, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> Flipped upside down, it meant he had to
pull himself up and into the passenger compartment. The real problem was that he was right
handed, but the damage to his left shoulder was so bad that putting nressure on
the right caused screaming, intolerable
pain to his left. He wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to get back to Blue.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> But what choice did he have? He could sit
here and watch Blue die slowly. Or he could take a suicidal risk and if he did
meet CK Westland in the afterlife, if there was an afterlife, he could face the
man who’d been more of a father to him than anyone else. He could meet Westland’s
gaze and know he had done the honorable
thing, that he’d died a man of honor.</span></span></div>
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<br />dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-42208501722503862582019-08-29T05:45:00.000-07:002019-08-29T05:45:57.675-07:00ALL ABOUT DEBBIE #3
<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who are you? </span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am Debra Bascomb/formerly
Maitland. I am the administrator of the Public Defenders Office in
Jacksonville, Florida, covering the three county circuit of Duval, Clay and
Nassau Counties. I was formerly Associate Professor of Business at the
University of North Florida until my asshole ex-husband destroyed my career. </span></div>
<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Are you the hero of your own story? </span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">From where I’m standing, yes. The
author gives that position to my ex, Bill Maitland, because he’s got the sexy
job of prosecutor with the State Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville. But his
story is my story, and if there was any justice, it would be my story because
I’m the best thing that ever happened to Bill. And he’s the one that destroyed
our marriage and blighted my life, no matter how sorry for himself he’s
feeling. </span></div>
<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is your problem in the story? </span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I fell in love with a short,
insecure guy who has never trusted me, not really, in 20 years. He may say he
has, but deep down I know he’s just been waiting for me to go to another guy to
walk out on me. And when he did walk out on me, and destroyed my career at the
same time, I gave him what he’d been wanting. I found a young stud and I
didn’t regret one minute of it. So I divorced him and what did the sorry
bastard do but slim down and get hot and start having women all over the
courthouse and hook up with this gorgeous French bitch who drives me crazy. It
is not fair. He’s moving on, and I thought I was too, but he’s still messed up
my head so bad I’m seeing a psychiatrist to find out why I want to kill him.
That’s my problem. I want to move on and make a life without him, and it’s so
much harder than I thought it would be. </span></div>
<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How do you see yourself? </span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m a good person. I was a good
daughter, even if I was screwed up royally as a teen. But getting 38 d breasts
when your friends are in training bras has a habit of doing that to you. (They
grew to 38dd). I am a good mother. I was mother and father to our two children
for most of their lives. St. Bill was nowhere to be found. I met an awkward,
nerdy guy in college and chose him over guys that were better in bed and better
looking and better life choices because I fell in love with him. I saved his
ass from being kicked out of school because he’d lost weeks from injuries he
suffered coming to my rescue. I gave up my dreams and worked to put him through
law school because he came from genteel poverty and he never had to worry about
money when I was working for the Hunt Bank. I saved his college career, I gave
him his legal career and along the way I gave him the best sex he’ll ever have
in his life, even with that bitch Aline des-Jardins. I was a faithful wife way
beyond what anyone who knew what our bedroom was like would ever expect. And
when I finally reached out to find some happiness for myself with a gorgeous
young Assistant Professor Doug Baker, Bill destroyed my career and Doug’s in
one night. Without even trying hard. And the asshole had the nerve to feel like
he was the one that got screwed over. </span></div>
<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How do your friends see you? </span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t have many friends. Men can’t
take their eyes off my boobs and can’t stop trying to grab a feel. Old guys.
Young guys. Friends of my son and daughter. If they have a penis, they’re
making moves on me. The best male friend I ever had wanted me and had me, but
he saw me as a person instead of a pair of big tits. He saw me as a
professional who had made a career for myself and had the right to break away
from a marriage that was killing me. He just thought I had made mistakes in the
way I went about it. He’s gone now and I miss him more than anyone I never
loved. Maybe I did, a little. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t have many female friends.
None of them trust me with their husbands or boyfriends. As if that’s my fault.
If they can’t keep their men happy, that’s on me? The entire time I was with
Bill I never cheated on him. Well, that’s not EXACTLY true. But the two times I
touched another man I never….did anything girls don’t do in junior high. And the
one man that I almost made a mistake with that I would have regretted, I was
able to stop and walk away from. And trust me, there are not many women in
Jacksonville that could say that. But, I do have one good female friend. Evelyn
Criser is almost as hot as I am, so she’s not jealous and she understands what
we go through with men from 7 to 70. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Flat chested ugly bitches see me as
the evil seductress that lies awake plotting how to steal their old, bald, fat
lovers. As if. Men I wouldn’t have looked at twice get their feelings hurt if I
don’t drop and beg them to let me given them a blow job. As if I owe them sex
just because they want it. Take it from me, being beautiful and hot is
something I’d never give up, but it can be a royal pain in the ass. </span></div>
<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What are your achievements? </span></li>
</ol>
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<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am an Associate Professor of
Business at a major state university. Starting later than anybody I work with,
I still made it up the ladder, played the political game, wrote the papers, did
the research on corporate organization and almost made to full professor status
before Bill blew me out the water. I was a good teacher, better than most
around me because I knew what life in the real business world is really like
and I did my best to prepare students for what they’d face when they walked
into working offices. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I helped my ‘friend’ Bill get his
undergraduate degree, worked my ass off to pay for his law school education,
married him, gave him two children, went to their activities and cheered for
them and played mother and father when they really needed two parents. And I
tried, I really tried, to talk to him after our split, to ease the pain that he
had to feel because he still loved me. But he wouldn’t talk to me, and he
wouldn’t listen. But I reached out to him. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">9. Who is your true love? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There’s only been one – Bill
Maitland. And there probably won’t ever be another one like him. Maybe that’s a
good thing. Because I think sometimes he almost killed me, even though I dumped
him. Maybe we ought to settle for comfortable friendship and convenient lust,
because love hurts entirely too much </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">10. If you were stranded on a desert
island, who would you rather be stranded with, a man or a woman? </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If it was going to be for a month or
less, a woman. It would be relaxing not to have to go through the whole
man/woman thing for a while. More than a month, a man. Hot hopefully. I’ve gone
too long without sex and I don’t want to make a habit of it </span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">11. How do you envision your future?
</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hopefully I’ll find another man to
love and share my life with. Hopefully I’ll finally be able to shake off the
anger and rage and emotions that Bill still rouses in me and realize he’s not
the most important part of my life anymore. He’ll always be important, because
of our children. And because he is a good man and truly one of a kind. But I
don’t want him to be my heart. I want to be happy without him. And I want to
raise our son and daughter to make good marriages and make Bill and I proud
grandparents. And most of all, I never want them to read the emails between
Doug and I before my marriage to Bill crashed and burned. </span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-18701562325473512702019-07-31T20:27:00.000-07:002019-08-02T20:47:19.645-07:00ALL ABOUT DEBBIE - PART 2<ul class="tr_bq"><ul>
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<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">ALL ABOUT DEBBIE MAITLAND-BASCOMB</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I'm not a bad person, no matter what
you might think if you're reading Daniel Quentin Steele's epic of marriage and
divorce and love and loss and courtroom intrigue in "When We Were Married." My saintly ex- prosecutor Bill Maitland - is portrayed as basically walking on
water when he isn't going around healing the sick. Me they're portraying as a
cruel, shallow, sex-crazed slut. It's not true. There are two sides to every
story,. And this is mine. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My name is Debbie Bascomb. It was
Debbie Maitland for 18 years. I have a dynamite body and a beautiful face and
an ass, as one male admirer once said in a unsuccessful seduction attempt, that
“I don’t have to twitch. It twitches itself.” Men are always hitting on me and
I couldn’t go to a dance or anyplace where my ex-husband left me alone without
having guys – old, young and in-between – trying to rub up on me. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s not that I don’t like it. It
gets me hot, but it just gets tiresome sometimes. I had 38DD breasts when I was
13 and I’ve been having sex since I was 13. When I was 15 I had sex with one of
my father’s 40-year-old friends when he gave me an album by the hottest band
around. We did it a couple of times. If my father had ever found out about it,
he would have killed the guy. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjs5wxKFAIo2cDBd5QW1Rp0_JI9owfrlWj0FmE6p_RaEjTYrYd9JnAF_T3QzcH9tLVcin4lggeCaJHYsZtyAshCpnCupurrHqn1JHatBP6I3B_swc1OSB_4Zj2E9CJawShYxQD8Kgcz6XM/s1600/girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjs5wxKFAIo2cDBd5QW1Rp0_JI9owfrlWj0FmE6p_RaEjTYrYd9JnAF_T3QzcH9tLVcin4lggeCaJHYsZtyAshCpnCupurrHqn1JHatBP6I3B_swc1OSB_4Zj2E9CJawShYxQD8Kgcz6XM/s320/girl.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was pretty wild in my teen years.
I like sex and I like men. And I found out that when you look like I do, and
like sex, there’s almost nothing in this life you can’t have. Fortunately I had
an aunt I loved like a second mother, Clarice, who was as hot in her day as me,
and she gave me the upbringing my poor ignorant mother never could have. Not
that Mom wasn’t hot. Where do you think I got my body and face? But she’d never
wanted any other guy except my father and she wouldn’t have understood me. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And then I got to the University of
Florida where the opportunities for sex with rich and hung and interesting and
pretty boys was so much greater. It was like being a kid in a candy store, and
I sampled the candy. But along with a great body, God gave me a very high IQ. I
could do the work and still party. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then I broke up with my heart throb
Ramone because he couldn’t keep it in his pants and my next boyfriend got me
drunk and drugged and in a back room at a Frat house where he and some of his
friends were using me as a party toy. They were rough and they hurt me. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Until this figure swinging a sword
like something out of a movie showed up (actually it was a fireplace poker) and
started breaking bones and created a riot that brought the cops and sent me to
the hospital where my parents discovered how I’d been drugged and torn up
inside by the assault. And my dashing hero was a nobody I’d never seen before
swathed in bandages and tubes because he’d been beaten so badly that his brain
swelled in his skull. He’d been beaten, as one Frat brother pointed out,
“because he wouldn’t stay down.” </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And when I went to his room to see a
guy that had risked his life for a stranger, his mother called me a “miserable
slut” who wasn’t worth her son’s life and threw me out. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And that’s how I met Bill Maitland,
the love of my life and father of my two children, before he gave me up for a
stinking job and decided everybody else was more important than myself and our
two children. It was before he left me too many nights using a vibrator for
relief, before he let himself get old and fat and flabby to the point that his
touch disgusted me. I finally got tired of propping up his self esteem because
he was shorter and not as well endowed and good looking as the guys I’d gone
with in college. I got tired of telling him he was the one that I walked away
with. There comes a point when you want a guy to just get over it. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And Clarice, especially after her
husband Frank left her for some young secretary he’d knocked up, always told me
that Bill was cheating on me, that he had to be cheating on me. He was a
powerful man and powerful men will always find women to bend over for them, no
matter how fat and flabby they get. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“He’s not pushing you for sex
because he’s getting all he wants at the office,” she kept telling me. I
couldn’t imagine any woman being excited by that flabby body, but I could never
get her words out of my head. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And so we rocked along until I met
Doug Baker. Doug Baker was six-feet-three of solid, young male who had a rock
hard midsection that I couldn’t help thinking about on nights when Bill pushed
his flabby gut on top of me for his monthly mating. Five minutes of grunting
and he was through and I lay there awake while he snored. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I never cheated, seriously, but I’d
made up my mind to leave Bill. What we’d had was long gone and I felt like a
17-year-old around Doug. I wanted that feeling again. I was getting ready to
turn 40 and I wasn’t ready to become my mother. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And then I said those four words.
Our marriage crashed and burned and everybody made me out the bad guy and Bill
the saint. Never mind his ignoring me and our kids. Never mind the fact that he
was probably cheating on me for years. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And while he was making a new life
for himself and slimming down and looking younger I was losing Doug and in the
process of losing my kids and I lost my job and my career. And it was all his
damned fault. And now I’m going to a psychiatrist to find out why Bill is
literally making me sick. I’m throwing up all the time, and I have anger and
rage at Bill that even I don’t understand. And all these damned people keep
telling me that I still love him. They’re so full of shit. But I can’t get him
out of my head."</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>POSTSCRIPT:</b> In the first part of this three-part examination of one of the most important characters in any of my books, Debbie Bascomb Maitland, I failed to find a telling quote, I remembered but couldn't locate. Fortunately some faithful readers found it. I'm including it here because part of the secret of Debbie's power over men has never been purely sexual.<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">After her break-up with Bill Maitland, she meets and is befriended by visiting novelist Clint Abbott. She is at a low point and she and Abbott haven't yet become lovers. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">She is at a low point and she and Abbott haven't become lovers yet. She asks him. "Tell me i'm beautiful"<br />
<br />
</span></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">A</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">nd he responds:
</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></span>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0.5in; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But it’s not just
sex, Debbie. Your smile lights up this room. If I knew I could never have you,
that smile would make me want to be your champion. It’s the lips and the eyes
and those cheekbones. I want to be a hero for you, to be better than I am. I
know that’s what other men feel for you. It’s the reason why guys fall all over
themselves to do whatever you ask.<br />
<br />
“Even if they’re old or young or fat and know they’ll
never in this lifetime have you. They want you to smile upon them.</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "quot"; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
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dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-39142304701562889812019-07-15T08:03:00.000-07:002019-07-15T08:03:16.109-07:00The First Part of Debbie
<br />
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmU0twDpuhuTwU4fB7nZFrS9mktG75PehGWA2PiprxtoiHp1iSNVFTg_Ugj5gBVX0l3SsGv5YQq2H7fezF8hicC0CkDlcgGxIEoNy7SJavk7xbZJqEGXL_0PttC1251i-b82-peXgQEW-n/s1600/girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmU0twDpuhuTwU4fB7nZFrS9mktG75PehGWA2PiprxtoiHp1iSNVFTg_Ugj5gBVX0l3SsGv5YQq2H7fezF8hicC0CkDlcgGxIEoNy7SJavk7xbZJqEGXL_0PttC1251i-b82-peXgQEW-n/s320/girl.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>
<b><i><u>Debbie Bascomb</u></i></b><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have always liked
and wanted big breasted women in my personal and fictional life. No apologies.
There’s a reason<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>why tall, dark and handsome
– not to mention well hung – shows up over and over in fiction and real life as
the iconic male sex symbol. <br />
<br />
Probably the most ubiquitous of the bombshells in my writing
has been Debbie Bascomb. She is one of the most important figures in the
ongoing “When We Were Married” series but she has and will pop up <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in other books as well. <br />
<br />
She is, of course the ex-wife and love of Prosecutor Bill
Maitland’s life. Following a painful divorce after 20 years of marriage, both
she and Bill are trying to figure out what a life will be like without the
other.<br />
<br />
Thanks to the efforts of some friends, Debbie has been given
a visual identiy. I had<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a nebulous vision
but when fans showed me what I’d written, I realized what I’d created. She
appears to be a pornographic male fantasy. But I have met Debbie, and not on
the silver screen or porno films either, but in the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>office of a Florida high school. Not exactly
as I’d written her, but possessing the same sexual charisma and the ability to
enchant men without trying. And I’m sure there are more Debbies.<br />
<br />
(Sidenote) When I met her husband, or boyfriend, because he
had come in to discuss his son’s progress, I told myself that it would be interesting
to see if she came in with him the following year. He was a young, good looking
guy. But even though this was real life, not the pages of fiction, I wondered if
a normal guy could hold a Debbie. AS it happened, I met with him the following year
and she was not there. And he made it clear to me she wouldn’t be coming again.<br />
<br />
When I first started writing WWWM, I wrote it from Maitland’s
perspective and didn’t get into any third person perspective from Debbie’s viewpoint
until a few chapters in. Which meant that from Maitland’s perspective <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>she was a cold-hearted cheating bitch and most
readers adopted that view of her. It isn’t until later in the first book that
it’s possible to see there are TWO truths about what is happening – and why.<br />
<br />
Maitland is THE central character and the entire series revolves
around him. Which makes it possible to underestimate who and what Debbie is.
She liked a lot of sex with a lot of different men, but she was the smartest
woman – the smartest person – Maitland had ever met. And after<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>he saved her at the Frat House party, she stayed
with him – on and off – for two years when almost any of the men lusting after
her could have given her a life Maitland could only imagine.<br />
<br />
Debbie went to work at the Hunt Bank in Jacksonville and kept
up her studies while supporting Bill financially getting through Law School.
When he graduated and went into private practice, she resumed her academic
career and eventually became an <span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Associate Professor of Business at the
University of North Florida in Jacksonville. </span> Along the way, she made time to give Maitland three children,
two of whom lived, and she raised them.<br />
<br />
It wouldn’t be fair to say that she raised them alone, but
especially after Bill went into the State Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville in
Florida’s 3<sup>rd</sup> Judicial Circuit, his work took up more and more of his
time – and his life. That is one of the Big Hurts that destroyed their marriage,
which she refers to over and over in WWWM. He spent one of their anniversaries in
Paris – without Debbie -working a case of human trafficking of Muslim girls
from Paris to Florida for prostitution. You can look at that as either a very
good thing, or a very bad thing.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Of course, their marriage
eventually goes down in flames. Bill is
free to sample the delights of the women he’d stayed scrupulously away from for
20 years. Debbie begins a torrid affair with a younger, very hot professor she
has been mentoring. When that affair burns out and he moves on, she is more <span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">selective about the men she takes into
her bed.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span>After Bill crashes a gala at the University and gets
both Debbie and her lover <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fired, she
moves on to the Jacksonville Public Defender’s Office, headed by a friend of both
her and Maitland, the blind Attorney Johnny August. She talks herself into a
number two position under August as Director with the job of managing a corps
of young, ambitious attorneys, which August refers to as “herding cats.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the end, while Debbie possesses a lot of positive
qualities, none of these really detract from her overwhelming sexual magnetism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Bill describe her <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in many places as being almost inhumanly beautiful,
that assessment has to make allowances for the fact that he is in love with her
and probably will be until the day he dies.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So to really get an idea of her appearance and how it
affects men, you have to look at other places.</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Look At
“The Currency of Time” in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1999.</span></b><br />
<br />
Oil man Michael McCarthy has attended a Christmas Gala at
the old Jacksonville Train Station with Deirdre Lancaster, heir <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to the $150 million OIL Inc. fortune, the woman
he’s fighting against falling for because he already knows she’s in love with a
Mafia thug. As he turns his gaze from the flame-haired Deirdre:<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Could you grab a
champagne for me?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I turned and
momentarily lost the power to speak.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She was tall, as
tall or taller than Deirdre. Blonde as sunlight, a face that could have come
from a frieze of an ancient goddess, full red lips, eyes that could pin a man
like a butterfly pinned to a page. My eyes dropped and her body was better than
her face. Big breasts, a woman’s full hips. She wore a low cut dress that drew
the eyes of the half dozen men who swarmed around her.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’ll walk with
you if you need someone to keep you company,” she said, smiling at her posse to
take the sting out. To make it more obvious that she was going to be with me,
she slipped her arm inside mine and tugged at me to move me forward.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I let her walk me
away from her admirers.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“What just
happened,” I asked when I regained the power of speech. “I know I’m catnip to
women, but I usually have to work it a little bit.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She grinned.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You are an
attractive man, but I was honestly using you. You may not have noticed, but men
tend to be attracted to me. Normally it’s fun, but once in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a while a woman wants to be able to walk
around without a pack of horny men sniffing her.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Glad to be of
service.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>came in with Orion Lancaster and the tall
redhead. Are you with them?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I work for him,
for both of them, actually.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You’ll pardon me,
but you don’t look to me to be a paper pusher, an executive type.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“What do I look
like?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She looked me up
and down and the thing that really puzzled me was that my dick didn’t
immediately spring to attention.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“A roughneck oil
rigger, one of those men who work in the muck and oil, guys that actually work
with their muscles.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You have a good
eye, as well as good everything else. I do physical labor, but I also push some
paper once in a while.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I found an elf and
grabbed two champagne flutes. As we both drank we made our way through the
crowd moving toward the entrances at the rear of the ball room. When we got
close enough to the rear entrance that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>we could feel the cold breezes from the outside I watched the goosebumps
rise on the gilded flesh of her upper breasts.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She noticed where
my gaze went and smiled.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Why are you in
here alone?” I asked. “I noticed your wedding ring. I can’t imagine a husband
letting a woman who looks like you wander around unattended.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“He’s here. I just
lost him but we’ll hook up in a little while.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“That’s dangerous.
I honestly don’t know why I haven’t put the moves on you. You’re exactly the
kind of woman I’ve always gone after.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’m married?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“That’s never
stopped me before, to tell you the truth.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I could tell she
wasn’t shocked.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You think there
might be a reason why you’re not trying anything with me?”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I shook my head.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I saw you when
you came in with the redhead. You never took her eyes off her when she went off
to dance.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You’re wrong.
It’s not like that.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“She’s a beautiful
woman. And there was something in your expression when you watched her walking
away.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“We’re not like
that. I’m not like that. She’s the daughter of my employer. I like my job.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She shrugged.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>never going to happen,” I said, dismissing the
fantasy.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She searched the
crowd.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You never can
tell. Fifteen years ago I could never have imagined being married to my
husband. Nobody else could have either.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She saw someone
across the room and stepped away from me.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Thank you for the
company. That tall, white haired man over there is State Attorney Austin
Edwards, my husband’s boss. He invited us both to this party to celebrate
Bill’s being promoted to the number two prosecutor in his office. Bill will be
somewhere around him.”</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As she swiveled
away from me I thought that Bill -whatever his name was- had to be one of the
luckiest assholes on earth. And I wondered again why in the hell I hadn’t tried
for her. And I told myself there was no way in hell I could possibly be
thinking of anything serious with Deirdre Lancaster.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AND LASTLY:</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I had another
snippet about Debbie that I was going to put in here BUT…</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">SIDENOTE: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Burt Reynolds was
at one time probably the country’s biggest male sex symbol. And a major movie
star (Financially but not critically. Check out “Smokey And The Bandit” and “Deliverance.”)</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In 1974 he made a
movie called “The Longest Yard” featuring a football game between prison cons
and prison guards inside the prison. Reynolds was a football./NFLsuperstar sent
to prison for some bad life decisions.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One of the other
cons is trying to cheer him up by telling him all he has to do is “get his shit
together.” And at that point Reynolds utters the quote that is my favorite
quote EVER.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’ve got my shit
together,” Reynolds says. “I just can’t lift it.”</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Which has been my
problem for many years. A friend of mine tells me I’m the most disorganized
person he’s ever known. And he’s right. I’ve<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>been writing for many years. And I can’t tell you exactly how much I’ve
written. I know there are stories I loved that I can’t find any more and I doubt
I’ll live long enough to find them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Now that I’m working
electronically, it’s even worse. It’s hard to realize this, but I’ve been
writing as DQS for almost a decade. You write a lot of stories and novels and
partial novels in 10 years.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve got hundreds of copies of the same story,
that I’ve made changes to. Where it gets bad is finding ONE copy in the forest
of similarly tagged files. I’m stuck right now on my “BETA MALEs” two-part novel
because I wrote an important section I can’t find..</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ENOUGH RAMBLING</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The reason for
this sidebar is that I;m going to turn to the great resource of all disorganized
authors – my wonderful readers </span><span style="font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol-ext; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji";">😉</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is a short
section in one of the WWWM books – I think it’s #3 – when a man is trying to
console Debbie. I think is the Public Defender Patrick Leary.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And he tells her “You’re
a beautiful woman. Even men who are too old and fat to believe they can ever
have you, want you to smile upon them!”</span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s it. Roughly.
I think that one quote explains everything you need to know about Debbie and
the effect she has on men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">NOW, what I’d like
is for my intrepid readers to FIND THAT QUOTE and let me know where it is, page
number and volume.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My mail list is not
set up yet so I’ll be relying on Facebook members and Twitter-ites to do the
heavy lifting. UNLESS I HAVE A HUNDRED READERS MEET THE CHALLENGE you can have
your choice of both volumes of the BETA MALE/SHARK duology or the upcoming “Stay
She Said” volume 5 of WWWM – FREE!</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AS always, I’d
prefer you to email me at <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">danielqsteele1@aol.com</a>.
Although I don’t mind info in facebook or Twitter comments, I’m more like
to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>see it in the emails.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Disorganized, you
know. But I always read my emails.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxHIwqorH5iB9ipIKbgSsMRhpmG4f07UsdX12But2GH0giilwo0n0w20NrxRlalujkLezxsHxAyg3zKSzBlm3fJZDUh8syusp7uk_3wCjvpV4wRLJ9FygQeuOFk3YhA_PzhkFtSxp5EhNr/s1600/girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxHIwqorH5iB9ipIKbgSsMRhpmG4f07UsdX12But2GH0giilwo0n0w20NrxRlalujkLezxsHxAyg3zKSzBlm3fJZDUh8syusp7uk_3wCjvpV4wRLJ9FygQeuOFk3YhA_PzhkFtSxp5EhNr/s320/girl.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-38520442316875381572019-06-02T07:40:00.000-07:002019-06-02T18:23:55.115-07:00THE MAGICAL VEIL<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;">I TELL MADE UP STORIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT. YET ALL OF THEM. NO MATTER HOW OUTLANDISH, CONTAIN A NUGGET OF TRUTH. SOMETIMES I DON'T REALIZE IT WHEN I'M WRITING. BUT THEY DO.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;">LET ME TELL YOU A STORY ABOUT BOY NAMED BILL AND A GIRL NAMED DEBBIE.:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> The summer went by and we went out for
pizza, went to a couple of campus plays, took in some movies on campus and off.
Mostly we just hung out at my place, helping each other with our classes
because we were both going full time all year, watching TV, talking about girls
and guys and sex and life and what we wanted to do with our lives.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> The summer went by even though I wanted it to stop, to stay. I loved every
minute I spent with her and she seemed to enjoy my company. I knew this was
going to end sooner or later. She could have been going out with a different
guy every night, being wined and dined and having serious money spent on her.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> it was Friday, July 19. As usual, we didn’t make any plans. She popped in
on me whenever the spirit moved her. This time, I decided, I was going to be
the one popping in. Let me take her out for once. Even if it wasn’t a real
date, it would feel more like one.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I had a 1969 Volkswagen Bug that my mom had bought in ‘80 and I had kept
running. I thought it would probably be the only time Debbie had ever had the
experience of squeezing into a Bug. </span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I was walking toward her sorority wearing my best jeans and a short sleeved
shirt and clean tennis shoes, thinking what it would like to walk up like a
real date when I saw her walking out of the front door. She wasn’t alone.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"> A tall black guy had his arm around her waist and as I watched, he leaned down
because he must have been 6-6 or 6-8. She leaned into him and kissed him</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I stood there in the rapidly dying sunlight,
blinking like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming 18-wheeler.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I couldn’t think for a minute. Why was I so surprised? Not surprised, stunned.
Why shouldn’t she be going out on a date on a Friday night? I hadn’t called
her, hadn’t asked her if she was free. I’d just assumed that she was waiting by
her phone for the pleasure of my company.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I found myself walking back to my
Bug, starting it and heading after them. It was stupid. She was out on a date.
What the hell was I doing? But I followed their tail lights as they drove away
from Sorority Row toward the city’s Restaurant and Nightclub Row.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I drove back to my apartment. It was 3:30 in the morning. I’d stopped along the
way and bought a bottle of Scotch. I sat in the dark, filled a shot glass and
started sipping.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> Why the hell had she come to see me? Why the hell had she played at being a
friend, joking about blow jobs and masturbation and keeping me constantly
revved up, knowing she’d never touch me the way she’d touched that black
bastard.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> Half the bottle of Scotch had vanished and Mark and one of my other roommates,
Dave, were holding me down while two girls shouted in the background. My right
hand hurt like hell and my head was hurting from all the yelling. I didn’t know
what the hell was going on.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> “Mark...what....let me up....let me up...”</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> “I will, Bill, as soon as you relax. Stop fighting us. Can you relax?”</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I lay back and realized I was on my bed. After a moment, Mark and then Dave
eased up and somebody turned on the overhead light and I looked around numbly.</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> It looked like a tornado had swept
through the room. The chairs were snapped and lay in pieces, the dresser had
been overturned and the contents strewn around the room and there was a big,
big damn hole in the wall next to the bed.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I realized my hand hurt so bad I wanted
to scream. I looked down at it and it looked like I was wearing a red catcher’s
mitt.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> “What-“</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> Memory flooded back into me</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> “Get me to the emergency room, Mark. I’ll
pay for all the repairs. I’m sorry.”</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> “What happened, Bill?What in the world
happened?”</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span> “Growing
pains, Mark. I just grew up tonight. I’ll explain it to you someday.”</span></span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"><br /></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> Despite all the booze I’d had during the
night, I was feeling stone cold sober, mostly cold. I wanted to shiver, despite
it being in the 70s. After a few tense minutes, Mark and Dave helped me up and
I insisted on driving Mark back to our apartment. It was 9 a.m., the sun was
shining and Gainesville was green and beautiful. </span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> He got out and was getting ready to come
around to my side when I said, “I’m not coming in, Mark. I’ll be back in a few
days, but I think I’m going to go home.”</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> It felt good to be alone and on the road
from Gainesville back to Jacksonville, driving through the small towns and
rural countryside of Alachua County. Then I was back on Jacksonville’s west
side and pulling into the driveway of the small, two bedroom house that had
been my home for more than a decade.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> I was turning the key in the front door
when it opened and my mother took one look at me and gasped, then wrapped her
arms around me. She was a small woman, but she seemed to envelop me.</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> “Oh, Bill....”</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> “It’s OK, Mom. I just want to sleep.”</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white;">From <i>"When We Were Married
#1 -The Long Fall</i></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> </span></i></div>
<span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"></span><span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> NOW, this is a fictional story. None of it is true.
Not the people. Not the events. Not the time. Not even the place where all this went down. And yet, it is a true story. It
is more true than any of hundreds of newspaper stories and magazine articles
I've written over the years. </span></div>
<span style="color: black; margin: 0px;">
</span>
<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> It is a story about that moment when you leave childhood behind, foolish dreams and the belief that if you do all the right things, life will treat you kindly. It is the moment when you realize that loving someone - despite all the romance novels - doesn't mean they have to love you back, the moment when you realize that The Happy Ending is a literary construct..</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;"> Because it is a true story, it has weight and consequence. It left scars and has affected the way I look at life, the way I've lived my life. There's a reason I think the painting that will define my life will be two people trying to crawl their way to each other throu</span><span style="color: black; margin: 0px;">gh barbed wire.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> Since blogs are supposed are supposed to teach: here is ,my nugget of wisdom. You don't need any other resource than the one that stares back at you from a mirror. Whether young or old, black or white, able bodied or confined to a chair or bed, your truth is in you. Whether your story takes place in outer space or ancient Greece, you use your imagination to get there, but when you get there use what you know to make the story resonate with readers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; margin: 0px;"> OR, face unpleasant or terrible truths you can never discuss or deal with. Don't worry. Just lie about it, use the magical veil of fiction to transform it. And people may even pay you!</span></div>
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<br />dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-70083240253786337042019-05-04T14:07:00.000-07:002019-05-04T14:07:04.368-07:00WHEN YOU COMPLETLY SCREW THINGS UP<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The above title as usual may confuse readers and I confess I could have stated it lot more elegantly and writerly. I have read columns and blogs on how to drill down and find the central core or theme of your work/your book. In other words, WHAT ARE YOU REALLY WRITING ABOUT? WHY ARE YOU WRITING YOUR BOOK?<br />
I will confess that I've always enjoyed reading about writing, the tricks of the trade, so to speak. And I have learned things in the books and magazines and e-posts. Not much that I've actually used, but that's my fault.. I am hard headed and conceited. I like to visualize myself as a Grandma Moses or Primitive Naturalist of literature.<br />
Part of it is that writing has always come easily to me. And when you've done it as long as I have, not sold but written, writing is no big deal. "WWWM" has attracted readers and I hope will attract readers after i'm gone, but it follows virtually NO laws of commercial or literary fiction. I like to think of it as a literary Bumblebee. It should not work, not be able to fly, but for some readers it does.<br />
I have no idea why it works, or what it's about except the great adage: NEVER MARRY A PRETTY WOMAN.<br />
HOWEVER...once in a very rare while I completely misunderstand why I am writing a book, the point or moral of it. And it matters.<br />
Consider "Tis A Far, Far Better thing" with the cover of a guy on the gallows. It didn't sell much, aroused some interest but not much. I know there are valid reasons for that. It had an unusual hero/protagonist: an emotionally stunted guy who has never been able to love or trust any woman since the deaths of his family at an early age.<br />
Killing any chance of a millennial readership- he makes his living firing people and destroying dying companies. He is a Capitalist in capital letters and believes he's the Good Guy in the story.<br />
And he's hooked up with an attractive artist and New Age Obama follower who has used sex to claw her way out of poverty and is still having sex with other guys. She's a lot more liberated than even your usual Chick-Lit heroine who lives free and wild until she meets The One.<br />
I've always loved Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" and since this story is about a man who's never experienced love finding it for the first time and learning he can't have it, it was a logical step to have him make the ultimate sacrifice and give up the woman he loves so she can have the man she loves.<br />
Therefore: the title and the cover.<br />
Unfortunately, the "tale of two cities" motif only occupies the last 10 percent or less of the book. If I hadn't fallen in love with the image of the guy on the scaffold I would have realized it sooner.<br />
Self sacrifice for love is NOT what the book is about. I think if you read the book and don't look at the last tenth, it's easy to see what it's really about. You have a good looking, sexually active guy who falls into what he assume is lust. It's the only thing he's ever known. He pursues the girl to get her into bed, does get her into bed, and she meets his friends and they have a fairly enchanted sexual holiday until they both have to go to work in different states and different time zones.<br />
But they keep coming back together. For weekends or vacations or one night stands - in Ponte Vedra or Miami or Paris. And their time together gets longer. Until it's three years later, They see other people but like two magnets they keep being drawn together. It frightens his friends who see what's happening and know that he has never been crushed by a love gone bad.<br />
Eventually for purely practical reasons he asks her to move in with him. AND IT HITS THE FAN. She vanishes for awhile and when she returns he has to face the fact for the first time when she's not with him, she's having sex with other men. He's always known it. just like he can have sex with other women, but he's never had to face the truth. And he finds out he doesn't like it - AT ALL!<br />
The story keeps going with some ups and downs and twists and turns. But it's not about<br />
sacrifice. It's about HOW MEN FALL IN LOVE.<br />
There's an old saying that women trade sex for love, and men trade love for sex.Which fits in with my beliefs. There are billions of men and women on the planet so if you want to argue that men can fall into love with the exchange of glances across a crowded room,<i> </i>I wouldn't argue. But most men, I think, fall in lust first and if they can indulge in a sexual relationship, love usually sneaks up on them.<br />
So... the title is misleading,the cover is misleading, and the sales copy is misleading.<br />
Which is why I'm bringing it out with a new cover, a new title and new sales copy. But, as far as I can tell, I'm not changing a word in the book itself. I never spell out the core of the novel, the theme or moral, but I hope most readers will pick up on this if they're not distracted by that damned hangman cover.<br />
All of which is to say unless you're a completist collector of my work - Pray God there is at least one such creature in the universe -and you've already read the book, don't bother to buy the new version.<br />
Below is the new title and cover, I'm putting it out on Amazon this to see if I get a different sales reaction this time.<br />
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<br />dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-14959138533682769012019-01-03T05:58:00.002-08:002019-01-03T07:01:35.332-08:00THE BiG REVEAL<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I thought about titling this Blog entry "out of the closet" but because the gay connotations it might confuse things, I decided to go with the 'The Big Reveal' instead. This is my second blog entry and while I promised one every week or so, it's more like a month. Still I'll try to be more regular from here on out.<br /><br /> The subject of this blog will be big news to me, not necessarily that big to others. but it will answer some questions for the future.<br /><br /> I've been writing for a long time. In fiction I've written science fiction, fantasy, horror, epic sword and sorcery, crime and mysteries.- nearly 200 short stories, novellas and short novels.<br /><br /> I'd never read much in the field of romance or general mainstream fiction. In about 2010 I discovered a web site titled Literotica and discovered stories about sex and relationships. <br />It's a porno site but it also contained a number of actual STORIES about women and men tearing each other up.<br /><br /> I was drawn to this and starting writing a few of my own. I started writing a long story about an epic divorce and the impact it had on the two people involved, their family and the people around them - When We Were Married. <br /><br /> At about the same time I discovered the existence of e-novels, and outfits like Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble and started thinking about publishing on these venues. After I started, I ran into a problem and it kept getting in my way.<br /><br /> When I wrote science fiction, or fantasies or mysteries, I knew what I was writing. When I started writing as DQS I had to try to explain to readers what I was doing. My stories had elements of romance, but they weren't romance. They had sex but they weren't porn. I finally had to describe them generically as 'love stories' which is a crappy description.'<br /><br /> THE BIG REVEAL: What I write are STORIES OF THE WORLD, SEX, LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF MEN. Most everything I've written as DQS follows this framework. I like to think I've written some strong female characters, but they aren't the main focus of the books and stories: with a few exceptions<br /><br /> If you look below the two blog entries you'll see a list of my novels which will give you an idea of what I do.<br /><br /> Whew! I feel better getting that off my chest!<br /><br /> Since this is the first blog of a new year, this is a good time to bring you up to date on current and future plans. <br /><br /> '˜The 'Currency of Time' which has already been published in a limited form is finished and has an ending. It just needs a 'little' proofing before being published. (little = a week or so) Unless I throw in a short story or two which will take a little longer.'<br /><br /> <br /> There are two novel/anthologies coming next:<br /><br /> 'A Good Day' a comic book super hero/sf with a few super hero stories thrown in<br /><br />AND<br /><br /> 'The Winter Road' a fantasy novella with a few fantasy stories thrown in.<br /><br /><br /> About 95 percent of everything in these is already written, which is why I'm going to try to move these out next;<br /><br /> I'm finishing two related novels, 'There Are No Beta Males, Only Losers' and 'Lady Or The Shark' I love these because they have SHARKS: a first for me. I also like Lady Or The Shark' (LOS) because it takes a bite out of the Me2 movement. These have different plots and themes but they're closely related. I'm guessing End of February: maybe.<br /><br /> The next novels I'll publish 'because they're already written and have been scanned in pieces will be 'Hunter's Prey' and 'The Best Dead Detective Around' </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Detective was my homage to the great Mickey Spillane and 'Hunter' at 210,000 words was the longest thing I'd ever written until WWWM, it took me the longest to finish (18 years), and it is the favorite of all my books of any genre.<br /><br /> Along the same lines, I'm republishing and re-packaging a previously released novel. 'Tis A Far, Far Better Thing' with a new title, 'NoTime For Love', a new cover and a new description. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />I'm doing this because the title and cover were wrong for this book. Only the last 10 or 15,000 words related to sacrifice for love. The bulk of the book is about HOW men fall in love. Again, this will be very easy to turn around and re-release. <br /><br /> The book I'll probably spend the most time on this year will be WWWM5, 'Stay, She Said.' This deals with a major change in William Maitlandâ's life and the re-introduction of one of the most important characters in the series.<br /><br /> So, there's lot of stuff coming, but very little writing to do.<br /><br /> On a few other matters: if anyone feels like logging onto my facebook DQS page and leaving 'likes', that would be appreciated. https://www.facebook.com/danielquentin.steele I've never much cared about Facebook at all, but people do keep track of your image on Facebook.<br /><br /> I recently received an e-mail from a reader who noted with amazement 'you;re not even on Wikipedia!!'<br /><br /> I don't know that it's possible to be MORE INVISIBLE! than that<br />.<br /><br /> So if anyone wants to let people know I exist by leaving a 'like', I'd appreciate it.<br /><br /> And if anyone would like to leave an entry on yours truly on Wikipedia 'making me a real person' I would not mind making you a real person (sort of) by introducing you as a character in a future book or story. I've done it before and it worked out well.<br /><br /> Last but not least. I've appreciated all the reviews I've gotten for my books. I'd like more. short or long, concise or a treatise, whether or not you like my work, please leave reviews.<br /><br /> PLEASE! </span></span>dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-47226104743378762762018-10-22T11:12:00.001-07:002018-10-22T11:12:14.788-07:00LOVE IS A WAR ZONE<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Daniel Quentin Steele (DQS) / William Edward Marden (WE</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">M)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hello to all the readers who have followed me since 2010 and those of you who have never heard of me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I want to tell everyone who knows what I write that I have been a truly crappy example of a writer who responds to fans. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">What you're reading now is I hope the first change in that pattern. I intend to put this blog out once a week. Sometimes, there will be bombshell developments, like the one above, other times just updates on what I'm working on, pieces that will probably always be fragments or pieces about what I like and don't like in the media.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I will also try to include from time to time my thoughts on writing and tips I think will help younger writers who haven't spent 40 years writing and selling almost everything, I don't think I'll have the answers to many questions because I honestly don't have many answers - I don't even have many questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">As to the above: I really wanted to call it LOVE IS A BATTLEGROUND ( I LUV THAT SONG) but for obvious reasons and to avoid legal hassles I decided to go with WAR ZONE</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Why is that important? Because it distills the essence of my writing since 2010. I visualize the world as a vast, teeming hive of men and women of all shapes and sizes, nationalities, culture, ages. I exclude lesbians, homosexuals and LGBT types. Not because they are unworthy of writing about, but they are not MY interest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">As to the vast majority of the heterosexual population, I see them as imprisoned on either side of barbed wire fences away from each other.Take away the symbolism and we are all imprisoned in our own heads. Some of us are lucky and gifted with looks or charm or fame and they make it over the fences easily.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">For many of us, making it over to the side of love and sex and marriage and friendship and companionship is fraught with pain and embarrassment. The people we love betray us, we betray those who love us. There is divorce, adultery and death. No marriage is ever rock solid. No woman can be trusted, there is no woman who will never stray in the right circumstances. Women already know that about the men in their lives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">AND YET, the broken hearted continue to hope, to trust that one day... WE clutch the sharp barbed wire strands between our fingers, press the points into our flesh and watch the blood drip around us. WE do not let the barbed wire fall from our grip.</span><br />
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W<span style="font-family: Arial;">e re-marry again and again and the Millenials who are too smart to fall for </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">all the traps that snared their parents and grandparents live together, and believe SOMEHOW that ending a 10 year relationship won't hurt every bit as much as a divorce blooded their parents. We date in person and on-line, praying that the Telecommunication God will be more merciful</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">than the God Jehovah, or Allah.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">"LOVE IS A WAR ZONE" will be the cover of an upcoming anthology and probably my logo for Twitter and Facebook.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">.I can't change my past. But I intend to change the future. In the past eight years Ive had 10 novels published on Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes and Noble. Which is not really a terrible track record, but for writers of e-books it's pretty pitiful. They're all listed below on this blog.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">For starters, I have launched the Daniel Quentin Steele Blog. I'm going to post this regularly and I'm going to try to contact ALL my fans because it will be a lot easier to stay in touch with everybody through a Blog.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I can't use my website, because much as I love the graphics. it's been taken over/invaded by a similar website and most of the comments are about ads for narcotics, health foods and high priced tennis shoes, mostly in Russian. Apparently none of my old fans have ventured onto it for years.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">('m in the process of trying to get all my books out as POD paperbacks and I'll notify you as this goes along, plus you can see it on the book purchase pages.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">For the near future, "The Currency of Time" is finished and still in the editing process.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I've started on Book 5 of the WWWM series. I could actually, <b><u>USE SOME HELP FROM READERS.</u></b> The title will either be "Stay, She Said," or "She Said, Stay." They both say the same thing, but they feel very different. To me. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">My shark story, "There Are No Beta Males, Only Losers" will be finished shortly to be followed as soon as possible by Part 2 -" The Lady or The Shark." This will be the most controversial story I've written, That will probably keep me very busy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I hope those of you who have followed me will check out my new work, and those who are new will be me a chance.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">DANIEL QUENTIN STEELE/WEMARDEN</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">PS. I love comments. Feel free to leave them on this blog whose address is above or send comments to danielqsteele1@aol.com.</span></div>
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<br />dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-75436542593757213992018-10-15T06:43:00.002-07:002018-10-15T06:43:22.742-07:00Tis A Far, Far Better Thing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-16591297184607388622018-10-15T06:41:00.001-07:002018-10-15T06:41:10.429-07:00Ghosts And Shadows<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-64195237331948148582018-10-15T06:38:00.001-07:002018-10-15T06:38:05.775-07:00When We Were Married Book Four<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-84774226871494369252018-10-15T06:36:00.000-07:002018-10-15T06:36:04.344-07:00When We Were Married Book Three<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-61667706589712307262018-10-15T06:31:00.000-07:002018-10-15T06:31:00.144-07:00When We Were Married Book Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />dqshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17016502641873781221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7520276160583258777.post-15332149045603899932018-10-15T06:27:00.002-07:002018-10-15T06:27:11.411-07:00When We Were Married Book One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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