I've posted a brief article under Author for everyone to read.

Have a great weekend.

John

Robin of the Woods

Just posted a short article under New Work which explains a new story I've written. I think you'll enjoy reading it.

Best.

John

There's different kinds of ways of looking for ideas.

1. You can sit down and close your ideas and hope something comes to you.

2. You can play different kinds of music.

3. You can read other stories and books to inspire you.

4. Sunsets are good.

5. A good night's sleep is great.

6. Dreams are an asset if you can remember them. I mostly do.

7. A vigorous discussion can stimulate ideas.

8. Anger at a policy or belief system that doesn't feel right can jar a few things loose.

9. Feeling loved is always good for a few jolts.

Myself, I usually go through most of the above, but for the most part my ideas come spontaeniously as I sit to write. I don't force them though, as that tends to be more intellectual and dry,
and most unpleasing to me. If I don't like what I write, I don't want to put it out there.

I don't personally believe that every writer will become known in their life, or maybe even at all. That's because there are many circumstances that can add or substract from a writer's popularity, despite poor writing or lack of publicity. Namely, it's just not their turn to be famous or known.

I happen to subscribe to the wheel of karma idea of things as Shakespeare hinted at in his own writings, being as he was a man of spiritual cloth in so many ways, as well as his friends.

That being said, it doesn't mean you can't just plain sabotage yourself, but even that is karmic. Patterns created perhaps by being put off by hard work, not wanting to pay attention to details, being lazy and so forth. But even those patterns subscribe to the Eastern thought of reincarnation and man repeating patterns of behavior over and over until he's learned his lessons in the school of life.

Just look at the world around us, and how the greatest nations of history and the present have fallen again and again and always because of the same patterns: exploitation of other countries and peoples, exploitation of its own people. Even of that sound familiar? It should. Great Britain fell prey to it. Rome fell pray to it. Greece. India. Japan. China. And now in current times America. Greed and avarice for power are the greatest reasons why nations fall.

Ideas are built from these histories all the time. We can call them group patterns, or karmas, collections of people who perpetrate or perpetuate karmic actions that bind and hurt others, as opposed to helping and uplifting.

And so again, we come to writing and its true purpose. Not just to entertain the masses and make its author filthy rich, but to uplift as well as entertain them. To help the souls affected by the writing to reach a further shore of self development and spiritual upliftment.

Enough said.

Back to writing. Got another karmic wheel to spin!

John

Ideas are like fish. If you cast your fly often enough times eventually you'll get a bite. I tend to catch a lot of them because I have created a habit of doing so. Even as a child I often sat for hours visualizing what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be, and what the world could be like if I did certain things or others did.

I read from time to time articles by successful entrepeneurs and artists and writers, as well as actors and politicians who spent many hours visualizing their goals and thus achieving them. It's not magic really. Though it can feel like that when doors suddenly swing wide that once were closed. But remember, even when a door opens you still have to be prepared for the journey that's going to happen on the other side. An artist who hasn't learned his craft may attract viewers of his artwork, but if he expects to make a living from it, he still has to deliver work that is of the appropriate level of craftsmanship that a paying audience would expect.

So all of the above being said and being true for most, then the logical thing to do would be to have lots of ideas, then to hone them to a state of polished craftsmanship. The ways in which people do so vary in as many ways as do snowflakes and grains of sand on the seashore. I had a friend at one time from India. Quite a good astrologer. He believed that all roads led to God. He called his belief system Ahimsa, which means "to do no harm."

So the idea was born for one author that if religion or spirituality could be a very powerful force of good, couldn't it also be one of evil or destruction? I just finished reading a great book by Mark Frost, "The Six Messiahs," which digs deeply into the ramifications of good and evil and how a man might start on the road to redemption and fall because of human frailties, such as self guilt and blame.

In this world people are not just good or evil, but usually shades in between. There are exceptions such as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, and so forth, but they are the rare soul, not the average. The average male or female struggles to create an identity for themselves an oftentimes spend the rest of their lives trying to understand how they could have gotten it all so wrong.

I recently joined a spiritual writer's club and find that the people in that organization fight as much over nuances of words and meaning as most people do, who don't claim to be spiritual. This is a good example of how sometimes the identities we create are flawed, not because they are necessarily bad or evil, but because they become inflexible. And we all know what happens to inflexible trees in a blasting wind. Snap!

As a story teller I'm not interested in punishing my characters for the way they think. It's not my stick. I don't think that way. I think anyone can be redeemed at some point in their evolution. Whether it's today, tomorrow or sometime in the distant future. It will happen.

And thus I am brought to the next phase of this brief article. I've got a great idea. I have a theme. Redemption. I now have a great villain. I need equally as strong a hero. Whether he's flawed or well rounded already, the villain has to be his match on many levels. When a person wins or loses it's not always by their skills alone, but as often times happens in our world, there are circumstances beyond our control. Weather, another person's intervention...or karma if you believe in reincarnation.

So now I've got all my ideas swishing together in the blender of my mind, tempered by my own emotional nature, and voila, what comes out is a story. Hopefully one that people will relate to. I only write about what I love. So if others don't love it, that's not a problem. Different strokes for different folks. Not everyone likes apples. Not everyone likes oranges, but...I laugh here...if I'm good enough, maybe I can get them to like an apple-orange.

Best to everyone.

The Author

Cartoon

I thought it might be interesting to dig into my concept of Cartoon a bit.

So many of us have a strong need to escape the world we live in. It's not the prettiest of worlds at times. And sometimes it can be darn hard to live in, let alone on, as the recent earthquake in Chili proves for those misfortunate enough to live on their coast.

The truth of life is that anything can happen. So the concept that perhaps there's a real world out there somewhere...a pocket universe, another galaxy, parallel universe, or alternate reality where cartoons really have individual existence was an idea I couldn't let go of.

Cartoons are used in the political arena on a daily basis as a weapon of humor and pathos, being as capable of uplifting a person as stripping them of their dignity.

What if our own sense of inadequacies also created a world or dimension where those ideals and inadequacies took root, and evolved and mutated into real beings of feeling and depth?

How would those Cartoon people view us? Would they like us? Would they fear us?

Hell, we even fear us. Look at all the armed people and nations around the planet, just waiting for something to trigger that fear into an action that is targetable.

So what if Cartoon existed? A beautiful young woman who saw the good in one teenage kid and wanted to nourish and help him, while at the same time saving her own world and maybe even our own as well? How would all those cards fall in the greater scheme of things...and especially when complicated by love and hope, and confusion...the territory of many teens in our present day world...past, present and future, I imagine.

So today we feature Cartoon on this page for the very reason that she exacts a hope and a primal desire to overcome our limitations and to become something greater and more positive than we are today.

Nano Kid has arrived on Smashwords! Buy it here!

The second story in the Escape to Elecktron series has been published on Smashwords: Buy it here!

Good night to everyone!

Added a new feature

Added a new feature, which I will comment in from time to time. It's called The Pen's DeLight. I will be writing about anything that comes to my mind at the time, but hopefully little goodies your heart and mind can fancy and digest. I'm still experimenting, so intend to watch how people respond, and then will either continue or discontinue, or upgrade if I can. I'm hoping to build an active community of readers and writers here, as well as on my other webpage: www.goldenrealmstories.com, which by the way, is where you can see all my current writing projects and purchase them, as well as other little tidbits I throw in for fun. Best. John

Still modifying this blog.

I am going to keep tinkering with this blog to make it more interesting. I won't be posting quite as often as I did when I wrote novels here, but there will be new things at least once a week, if not more often. Stay tuned!

Updating blog with newest work.

I now have 43 e-books published at Smashwords. Looking forward to writing many, many more. My one hope is to light a fire in the imagination of all who read my work and bring some form of peace and happiness to their souls. In a world as troubled as our own, it's nice to have a place to escape to that opens our hearts and our minds to the possibility of greater things. Best. John

New Blog!

It seems like a million years since I've had some really good news, but here goes:

http://www.goldenrealmstories.com/

Above is our new site. It contains a blog, which I will update frequently with information on new work and other surprises.

You can also see all my published books there. I will be posting my new work on the site as I complete it. And believe me I have lots of it rolling in. I still am way behind on getting my work up. A lot of things have to be done behind the scenes before I can publish and even that is a long process.

Hope to see all of you there.

Wishing you the best always!

John

Blog is going to change its look

For those who have been following me, I have been sick and unable to keep up with my posts. I also have been rethinking the nature of my blog and so sadly I am announcing that this blog as it now stands will not be continuing as a post a novel by the day blog anymore.

I will return with a new format, which I hope you will find to be as fun to read and follow as I will have making it.

Most sincerely,

John

Wells pounded a fist against his nightstand, causing the candle there to shake and almost topple over, spilling hot wax across his lap. Wells scrunched his face in pain for a moment, then nodded. “But we could try maybe one small thing.”

I shook my head. “Sadly, we don’t know how that would affect the chain of time events that streams from that one action. You squash a worm yesterday that you didn’t before and that worm might have been the meal of a starving bird, who if it hadn’t eaten the worm, would not have had a clutch of eggs, which would have hatched into more birds, who would have spread seed across a portion of land that people needed to cultivate. The land might have remained fallow. People might have died that would have lived. Perhaps even you or I would not exist now.”

Wells considered that. “But what if we went into an alternate dimension instead, then it wouldn’t affect us.”

I thought about it. “True, perhaps, but we would have to grow old with the concern in the back of our minds that we could have doomed another world, another life form because of our weakness and poor choices.”

“And…” I paused ominiously. “What if the changes we precipitated by our selfish actions caused a vehement and violent attack on us in the future by those we had affected.”

Wells suddenly understood. “My God! Our War of the Worlds could have been caused by just such a blundering then.”

I nodded my head and sadly answered. “The more this continues. This so-called war of the worlds, I have to wonder if somehow we didn’t create this war as a result of our meddlings with time and space.”

It was a gloomy thought and though both of us felt oppressed by the loss of our loved ones and by the possibilities of suppression by the Invaders that could yet happen, we still came out of that night in a happy manner.

Wells sighed, then propped his chin in the cup of his hands on his nightstand. “Somewhere out there. Somewhere, there must be beings who are more sane than our own species and the ones attacking.”

I put an arm around his shoulder and squeezed. “And someday, I promise you, we will find them.”

A month later I stood on a lonely pier that overlooked the Seine. Across the sparkling waters that were silvered by a full moon stood what was left of the Eiffel Tower. Its top half that had once looked like a might sword piercing the heavens now lay sagged across the bottom half, a sad sculpture made from happier times. I shifted my feet uneasily, for the Invaders were now coming more into the open. I saw three of their ships hovering near the Eiffel Tower, search lights stabbing right and left beneath them.

I could just imagine the terror and consternation of any who might be alive and sheltering there now. Hard to imagine in some ways, because the adults were all gone, as if vanished from the face of the earth.

Wells looked despondent at that moment. I think he felt my own sadness. In many ways it was like we were joined somehow mentally, almost like one soul in two bodies if that were possible. It would explain how I knew where to find him that momentous day I destroyed our first Invader.

“Wells,” I think we need to change the way things have been done on our planet.”

“I agree wholeheartedly.” He responded immediately, his spirits lifting as we moved away from thoughts of our family. “This whole war between worlds is a bunch of nonsense that should never have happened. If we survive this war, we must construct a society, a government of common good such that we are never divided again as peoples, nor in thought, word or deed.”

“I wonder if that is possible.” I replied, having already come to that exact same conclusion. “Look what happened when our first settlers went to the Americas. They were wiped out to a child. Everyone. And why? Because their skin was red, and not white like the Indians who live there.”

“Or the African people with their brown skin and golden eyes.” Wells added. “Everyone fears them because of their color. It’s ridiculous. How can the color of a man’s skin determine whether they’re mean or nice!”

“But how do we go about changing that?” I asked. “We can’t legislate morality…the way that a person believes in his soul.”

“No. But we can start with the children. Let them be together. All faiths, all colors. Let them grow up together. That will change much that needs to be done.”

“But that’s unheard of!” I stuttered. “My father would have been totally against the idea of our going to school with white people. Everyone thinks they’re low class and mean-spirited. Violent and short-sighted. Look what the Atlanteans did to the third quarter of our continent. Blew it right off the map with their stupid weapons of mass destruction.”

“But that was a long time ago, Jules.” Wells protested.

“True. But wasn’t it just a few years ago. Before we knew of the Invaders that the Germans were attacking the Swiss, the Swiss the Czechs, and the Russians the Chinese, the Japanese the Australians and so on?”

Wells sighed. “You’ve made your point, sorry to say. But I still believe it is the young ones who will change everything.” Wells said, then brightened. “Couldn’t we use your string ship to go ahead in time to see if it works?”

I grinned. “Wells, that would create a paradox. If we knew the future, it would alter it. We must never leave our time ships in any time period or it would alter everything. We can’t even go back to use it to defeat the Invaders.”

Just a quick note. You can download my short story taken from the Lord When combo, Time Swirl, for free on Amazon this November 23 for twenty four hours. It's a very lovely introduction to my new time travel series.

Also, I am running a countdown on my combos and novels from Friday through Sunday. All are discounted steeply. They are also available on Amazon: Lord When's Time Folds, The Baker Street Adventures Combo, Young King Arthur Combo, Into the Great Wonderful, and Samuel Light, Spiritual Detective. Tons of great reading.

Happy Reading.

John

Now back to War of the Worlds, Volume Two: The Nest.

Finally, I led my friend into a very spherical chamber. I called it the processing plant, because all our test vehicles were run through every kind of endurance test we had devised in this space.

Wells and I stopped behind a large silvered glass window, which had a metallic tint to it. Wells touched it. A slight tingling greeted his finger tip and he jerked it away. “What’s that?” He exclaimed.

“A slight charge. The whole window is nothing more than an elaborate optical illusion; it is actually a very finely tuned force field that keeps everything above the atomic level out, and if need be, even the subatomic level.”

Wells frowned. “Subatomic?”

I blew on the fake window and a slight mist covered it. I drew what could have been interpreted as the design of our solar system, but it wasn’t. “This is what Tesla and Einstein with the help of Madame Curie have figured out, with a bit of input from yours truly of course.”

Wells laughed. “My dear friend, I do believe your ego is threatening to break this glacier.”

“Ah, were it only so powerful.” I sighed, and then pointed to the sun shape. “The atom, and these planetary shapes, subatomic particles. They are the offshoot of the atom, and just like our sun, the atom flings portions of itself outward to form miniature orbits.”

“I see.” Wells said, his eyebrows threatening to break off his forehead. “In other word it’s like wheels within wheels.”

“Exactly!” I said happily, pounding him enthusiastically on his back. “I knew I did the right thing by showing you this. I think that together we can overcome any kind of physical obstacle these Invaders have thrown against us.”

“In time.” Wells added.

I sobered at those words. “Sometimes a very long time.” I smiled again. “But time is on our side. It’s our planet. Not theirs. They have to live in their artificial shells to survive, we do not.”

Wells frowned at me. “I suspect you have overlooked something, Jules.”

That time again. But check out Nuggets and free books for some goodies.

Best.

John

Wells, a bachelor now, as then, never found it in his heart to marry anyone. Sometimes I think it is our friendship that has ruined that part of him, for I sense within him a kind of satisfaction that we have such a close bond even after all the years of marriage with my beloved Jennifer. And I would never exclude him from my love and heart for anything, for even if a man might not love another man in the physical so dearly, he can still love him as dearly in the heart, mind and spirit, and so it was with Wells and I. And so it shall ever be, no matter which incarnation we experience across the necklace of time.

But you are probably wondering what happened after the first battle with the Invaders that took place. So forward, or rather backward into what proved to be a very long and painful climb to freedom for many and descent into madness or death for many others.

I  and Wells had many things to ponder after that fateful encounter with the Invaders. Most of it was philosophical at first. The first question being how were we to unite the remaining survivors of the conflict, to find them and then to heal their suffering souls.

That turned out to be far easier than I would have thought. For news of the victory spread like wildfire and even as I had spread notes across France with my wonderful machine where to find me, news spread further and wider through a network that was so hidden and deep that not even the devious Invaders could corrupt or pervert them.

So on that day that the first survivors found us, I amazed Wells even further. We stood on the porch introducing ourselves to the bedraggled remainders of humanity. Men, young and old, women, children. People of Europe and later the Americas as well.

Wells couldn’t understand how so many people could fit into his, though not tiny, still not adequate to the multitudes streaming inside his home. I took him aside when time allowed to explain that I had developed a way of shielding his home from the Invaders’ probes, as well as a unique conduit to our sanctuary. The work was a combination of ideas spawned by Madame Curie and Sir Nicholas Tesla, with a helpful nudge by myself and a buddy I had met at the Lourve, Al Einstein.

Al was leading the resistance in Germany, as Tesla was in Czechoslovakia and Madame Curie in Rusia.

I led him to the back of the home where the people were gong, led by several assistants I had stationed in strategic positions throughout the home. As Wells and I neared the kitchen, Hans, a rather large and intimidating Swiss stepped into view and gestured towards the Kitchen Pantry. I smiled. “Hans, this is my best friend Wells, and this is his house, so whatever is good for me is also good for him.”

Hans smiled, revealing one very large gold tooth that sparkled brightly. “Gut to see you Mister Wells, Jules speaks highly of you. I hope some day to be half as good a writer and visionary as yourself.”

“What is your full name?” Wells asked, shaking hands. “Olaf Hans Stapledon.” He replied, smiling even wider.

Mars, a barren world, old and abandoned. Why? Was there life once upon a time, and from another time? Will man find the answer to his quest for knowledge about where life originally came from, or will it come seeking him instead?

Tomorrow, Jules and Wells discover a bit more than they anticipated in their struggle with the Invaders. Questions are answered, but more are asked in Volume Two of War of the Worlds: The Nest.

I thought I'd drop off a couple links to Jules Verne and H.G. Wells for you to check out with some of their work and a bit of a biography about them.

H.G. Wells

http://www.wondersmith.com/scifi/wells.htm


A novelette and a story "A Dream of Armageddon" and "The Star."

Jules Verne

http://www.wondersmith.com/scifi/verne.htm

Short story "In the Year 2889."

 Meanwhile, with more tinkering around with the blog, I'm finally finishing for the night. A few more trinkets have been added to my children's story blog: http://writejohn.blogspot.com/p/author.html. Check it out.

I also revised my bookstore so it's a bit easier to look through. On the right side there's a link back to this blog under  browse by categories: Golden Realm Stories.

Meanwhile,

Have a peaceful weekend.

Best as always.

John

War of the Worlds Volume One, The Forever Friends comes to a close

CHAPTER EIGHT: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Jules and Wells sat inside the home of Wells, silently stirring cups of tea. Wells offered a lemon slice and Jules too it, squeezed it into his tea, then made a face and tasted his tea. “Bitter.”

Wells nodded. “But good for you. The military doctors over at Dover claim it aides in the body’s defense against illness.”

Jules smiled. “What a wonderful idea. Healing fruit.”

“Lemons are not fruit.” Wells responded.

“They most certainly are. “ Jules insisted. “And with a dash of honey, they become a nice glass of lemonade as well. I have one every morning after I get up. Have a hard time getting oranges these days, you know.”

Wells nodded, then added. “Hard time getting anything these days for that matter.”

Wells suddenly slammed his fist down on the table, startling Jules into spilling his tea into his lap. Jules jumped up and wiped at himself.

Embarassed, Wells got up and grabbed a towel for him. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what made me do that.”

Jules wiped and grinned at his friend. “I know it’s all kind of overwhelming,  isn’t it?”

Wells sat back down and put his chin on the palm of his hands and watched Jules silently, then spoke. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have believed me then, when you didn’t even believe me before?”

Wells shrugged his shoulders. “Guess not. Sorry, my friend.”

“No apologies necessary.”

Wells waited until Jules reseated himself, then added more tea to Jules’ cup from a beautiful ceramic pot with golden flowers embossed on its sides. “It’s just damned strange that so many are just up and gone. It’s as if they were pieces of iron drawn by a magnet to some destination only they know.”

Jules creased his eyebrows in thought, then nodded. “I still have no idea where they are either.”

Wells looked at him. “How long?”

“The ship?”

“That too.”

Jules smiled and Wells felt his warmth. “For a long time. Maybe five years.”

Wells stood up, astounded by the words. “And all this time you’ve said nothing to me?”

“Or anyone else quite frankly.” Jules replied. “Look at it this way. We both knew the world was coming to a turning point. But the British, give it the old stiff upper life attitude wasn’t going to save our butts, and the French, let’s toast to success wouldn’t either.”

Wells sighed. “What a dismal world this is.”

“Was. Wells. Was. That’s all going to change.”

“If we live long enough for that to happen. You’ve destroyed one of the ships of the Invaders, but they have many, many more.”

“Yes, but when I find out where…” Jules responded. His eyes hardened and his lips compressed. “When I find out where…” He left an air of malice in the air.

“How do you know they won’t come looking for you now that you’ve destroyed one of them?”

“They haven’t the ability to find where their ship is now.” Jules stated matter of factly. “And quite frankly, neither do I.”

Wells gave his friend a look of astonishment. “But Jules, how in the world can you invent something like that weapon without knowing what it does?”

Mysteriously. “It wasn’t my weapon.”

Another time to be shocked. Wells shook his head. “I am merely a humble writer. This is beyond my experience and imagination.”

Jules put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. “Dear Wells, nothing is beyond you and even less beyond the both of us. We will fight this war together…in our own ways.”

Wells turned to look into Jules’ eyes. “But we don’t know the enemy, where they come from, what they look like, how well fortified they are, how many of them there are?”

Jules laughed with a hint of amusement. “Then we will need friends won’t we?”

Jules nodded his head and Wells turned to look where he was looking. From many directions, young people, just like themselves were stealthily converging on Wells home.

“You see, my friend, we are not alone.” His eyes hardened again. “Our parents may be gone I know not where. Our armies may be vanquished. Our air and our navy, but we are not. As long as one of us is alive, the human race shall not perish from the face of this earth. And one day. One day soon we shall find our enemies and…”

Jules crushes his right hand into a fist. “And then it will be our turn to take the war to them!”

And thus ends "War of the Worlds: Volume One, The Forever Friends

Beginning on Monday: War of the Worlds: Volume Two, The Nest