The Pen's DeLight

July 23, 2014

Well, I'm back for another shot at this.

Now we are almost two months later and so far everything in the world appears to be going to hell in a hand-basket in many ways.

Fighting in the Middle East. Nothing new there, except more useless deaths for ideologies and beliefs that don't put food in anyone's mouths, but certainly cause a lot of people to die without anything to show for it. This has been going on since 1948. Almost a hundred years.

Plane shot down out of the sky and neither the Ukraine Bullies fighting there or their Russian allies willing to face the error of their ways.

Not the first time it's happened either. Death is much easier to deliver when you don't have to look at the faces of those you murder.



These days it's much easier to just say I didn't do it, then to ask for forgiveness and try like hell never to do it again.

Everyone makes mistakes.

Nations make bigger ones.

 "For those who do not know, these were the victims of our Napalm bombs in Vietnam. Another war that showed a lack of maturity on the part of our country as a spiritual and civilized nation. It's much easier to bang the war drums, when you don't have to account for those who are lost and harmed by your actions."

Sometimes a person dies from individual mistakes.

But when Nations make mistakes....hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands die.

Children are harmed.

Needlessly!

I can't think of any war ever fought that couldn't have been settled in a much easier way if both parties had been willing to compromise in a fair way.

But war is usually not about compromise, but about control and domination...the last one to get a word in is the winner. But in this case, it's the last bullet, bomb, or nuclear device.

Good science fiction books  have told tales of the horrors of war for decades now, even predicting some of the scenarios that we experience in modern times...mind control, using advertising to control people's minds, torture, massive weapons of destruction, missiles from space. On and on.

I remember in my history class Mister Menzies, a short chubby man with an incredibly good sense of humor when I asked him how come history keeps repeating itself, he told me, "Because those who don't learn from history are doomed to relive it over and over."

It's like a Twilight Zone episode or the movie with Bill Murray where he keeps reliving the last twenty-four hours over and over....Groundhog Day. In the Twilight Zone people usually cock up and stay cocked up, but in the Groundhog Day movie Bill Murray actually learns from his mistakes and becomes a better person from it.

In other words he keeps reliving history, but instead of doing the same thing, he asks what could I have done differently, better.

In the interests of the evolution of our planet and its peoples, I'd like to hope that someday, not only as individuals, but as collections of individual we could earn our Groundhog Day Graduation.

Otherwise those who repeat history are doomed to relive it over and over.

Time to grow up as a nation and as a planetary society.

People often, naively, ask if there are aliens out there, smarter than us, than how come they don't land and help us.

"Why should they?" Look what Americans did to the Indians, the Chinese, the Black Race and everyone else that got in their way of expansion. Oh, did I forget the Hispanics?

It's extremely silly to think that an advanced civilization would want to mingle with us when our planet is so warlike.

America has one of the highest murder rates in the world and we're a free nation! If we're the height of civilization, then what hope do alien civilizations have of a safe landing?

If they were even allowed to land safely, they'd more than likely be dissected and every idea they had stolen or forced out of them in the name of scientific progress and military strength.

I can see now why John Lennon was so wistful when he made the song, "Imagine." Because if we don't imagine a world where everything can be good and healthy for all, then how can we ever create it?

If you haven't read my War of the Wars version of H.G. Wells thriller, then you still have a chance to. It's available at both Smashwords for free and Amazon for 99 cents now. Both sites offer it in a digital versions only. In the very near future I will be putting the trilogy together into one novel. Keep an eye open for it.

In my version we get to see how Jules Verne and H.G. Wells handle war and how they resolve it and what the true roots of war are as they explore a horrifying confrontation with the unknown!

May 24, 2014

I just published a comment to a national teacher's newsletter. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts here as well, since science fiction and fantasy have their same roots...readers.

There has been a growing trend in America, which began after World War Two, intensified after the Vietnam War and has rocketed since the eighties. That trend is to put commerce ahead of value, product ahead of quality, and to see the consumer as a number, not as people with real needs and human conditions.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that people have become more and more trivialized. Our school system no longer functions as a path to enlightenment for our children...a means for them to gain meaningful insight into themselves, as well as the world they eventually must merge into.

I believe the fall of education in our country parallels the growth of consumerism. That the individual has become a means to the end, rather than a path of service for improving the common good. I think and strongly believe that our current day worship of corporations, making lessor gods of them, has elevated them to such a high status that they no longer have to be accountable for their actions.

They can pollute the earth, the sky, our waters and even the minds of ourselves and our children with no actionable means of holding them accountable.

Our present day Congress appears to be held as tightly in the grip of monied interests...read that as corporations, millionaires and billionaires...as it is politics. The path that our founding fathers created for perpetual freedom in our country has been subjugated to the search for making a profit, whether it means the destruction of the planet or an individual.

Even as Wonder Bread was once touted as builds the body in 7 different ways, cigarettes are cool, now we are faced with food that is fashionable, but not healthy...McDonald's, Burger King, Ice Cream, Candy, Cookies, White breads...food that is basically so processed that we are in essence pickling our insides and degrading our bodily functions.

More people are dying now from diabetes and obesity than ever before. Our children are falling prey to the allure of candy and quick food...pizzas and sugar candy.

So in that fall of man to the seduction of the false gods of money, power, fame and fortune...also parallels the fall of education, wherein the individual becomes a quick wrapped package to be delivered to the gods of commerce for their usage, not their upliftment. The industries running our country see people as objects to help t hem balance their books, and create gigantic bonuses and salaries, while the majority of people fall into a zombie like state of dullness and self interest because of lack of proper development and proper nourishment.

We always complain about the countries that subjugate their citizens to despotism, but what could be more despicable than to pray upon  your fellow man just for money?

You can't take money with you when you go. If you believe in a Higher Source, Power, Force, God or afterlife, wouldn't you want to cross over to that Higher Plane with a slate of good thoughts, good deeds and good actions towards yourself, as well as your fellow man and children.

As we treat our children, so we treat ourselves.

As a teacher I see fewer and fewer parents engaging the school system to uplift their children. I see them withdrawing their support, but expecting teachers and administrators to keep schools running at the same high quality. This is lazy thinking and uncceptable action.

America needs to reclaim its individuality and redefine government with a system that is responsive to everyone...the Internet makes that possible (and I shall deal with that in another pen column)...and an educational system that encourages individuality and growth in its children, not shooting them out of cannons into the marketplace as fodder for making a profit.

My thoughts.

Best to everyone.

John

May 1, 20143

It nears Midnight as I write this brief message.

I had a dream the other night and I saw a world all lit up from within. It was like our world, but more beautiful. There was no pollution. No one died. No one was diseased. No one hurt another.

Not heaven. But  a world where each individual lived for all the others. A world where selfishness was not in existence.

I'm not John Lennon, who wrote a beautiful song with a dream similar to this, but since I was a child I've had this recurring dream of a world unsullied by politics and hatred, arguments and starvation.

A world where the animals didn't have to fear us and where we could greet our friends from the stars at last with an open hand, instead of a guided missile or a machine gun.

Does that world exist somewhere?

I don't know, but it'd sure be nice if it did.

April 15, 2014

Been having some trouble loading new images into my New Works page, but they will show up on my front page at least.

I've been reading a number of exchanges on the concept of God, and how some see God as He and some as She. This concept can best be dealt with on the level of Physics I suspect, which many of the greatest scientists have.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It always has been, is and will be. Sound familiar?

One of the duties of writers is much like the legendary court jester, which was to utter the unspeakable truths to the King that no one else could speak without losing their heads in the process. A good writer will often times dummy down a universal archetype or concept so that everyone can get something from it. It's calling nuancing. If you nuance the truth, then more people can accept it. It's that old spoonful of sugar concept again.

In Field of Dreams, the movie, if he builds it they will come. So for the writer, if he writes it, then the hope is that the reader will come out of the fields and play with him on a level playing field, be able to handle the concepts he's trying to get across or teach.

Just some thoughts to consider.

Best to all.

John

April 7, 2014

The best writing has always been a commentary on the world as we know it. Dealing with politics, morality, religion, spirituality, humor and so on. It strives to awaken readers to new worlds
of understanding as well as new fantasies.

As Mary Poppins said, "A spoonful of sugar..."

And that sugar is good story telling that wraps up powerful ideas in sugar wrappings, horror, suspense, terror, science-fiction, fantasy, adventure. You name it. If it can get us to look at
ourselves in a new light, to perhaps step up our game to a higher understanding of what is really true and good in our world...that writing is a success, if not always popular or famous, But we have the novels of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells among others that have brought many visions of the future to us in the past, which are now happening.

Just a few thoughts.

Night all.

John

April 4, 2014

I've been working hard this weekend to put together my first collection of Golden Realm Stories. I'm hoping to have it completed by next weekend.

Look for a burst of work over the Easter holidays period as I have a week off to work on a lot of things that need editing and can be published.

I'm looking to create more page views on my site and hope that if anything strikes your fancy, you'll let me know so I can do more of it.

Take care. And best to everyone.

Meanwhile, I've posted the cover for Land of the Lost Kingdom, a two part epic I've finished. More on that here

John

March 31, 2014

A lot of people, maybe not as many as one would hope, believe that there were very advanced civilizations that once inhabited our planet. There are many unexplained incidences of monuments, writings and relics that don't make any sense at all if past man was not much more than a neanderthal.

Even if you look at Noah's Ark which was supposed to contain two of every living creature, one has to ask the Big Question, was the ark really that simple, or were there advanced sciences back then that used genetics to reseed the planet?

While some of the above questions seem more the stuff of fancy, let us not ignore that almost all of the science fiction of yesterday is coming true today.

I remember as a kid watching Star Trek and envying their communicators, but right now I carry in my pocket something so far in advance of their communicators that it's ridiculous. And let us not forget the communicators of Star Trek were the twenty fifth century and we're only the twenty-first.

So an open mind to the past keeps an open heart to the future.

Best.

John


March 29, 2014

One of the greatest pleasures I get from reading is the sense of escape for a time. Being taken somewhere I've never been, or some time I never experienced. I suppose my fancy towards all of that began when I sat in my parents laps and they read comic books to me.

I also remember the old movies and serials my father took our family too. And ironically some of the best viewing we got was during Tornadoes. He would wrap the family up and take us to the local theater where we would watch King Kong, or some such golden oldie and weather the storm, then return to pick up the pieces if there were any. I still can see our picnic table scattered across acres of property. What a time that was!

And thank God for the fantasies that writers and movie makers put together to entertain us and take our minds off the tragedy happening around us.


March 28, 2014 I really enjoy taking old ideas and giving them a new twist, or new ideas and giving them an old one. I am such a huge fan of the golden age pulp magazines and much of my work is influenced by them. If you haven't had a chance to read any, you should. Many are still freely available on the internet if you do a Google search for them. Writing a new character can be as spontaneous as walking down the street, or as hard as bumping your head into a steel post. Either way, the idea comes. The biggest problems with coming up with ideas is just the act of writing them down. Doing this on a religious basis. Meaning every day and each and every time they come up if possible. With modern phones it's possible to just do a quick voice dictation and then write it down later. Whatever works is what is best for you. Myself, ideas come in so many ways, I can't categorize them. I just accept them and go with the flow.