Added new author to the free novel section.

Go to Free Novels.

The sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth is named: The Invisible Lands.

Another concept piece for my Journey to the Center of the Earth series.

I am making good progress on the sequel to the first story. This one follows the Special Forces as they make progress towards their goal, finding the culprit behind the destruction of most major cities on the planet.

More time will be spent with the characters to see what's going on in their heads, as well as to establish more comraderie before the crap really hits the fan!

Remember, this is all parallel to what Jules Verne wrote, so somethings will intersect with his vision of the journey and the center of our world, but only in places, for the larger portion of the story now is on the bravery and stamina of so few against such tremendous odds as they race to save their homelands and their loved ones.

Concept art for cover of Journey to the Center of the Earth

Only 99cents on Smashwords: "Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Advent."

A concept illustration I rendered in 3D for my latest story "Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Advent."

I'm working on the next part of this miniseries now. Hope to have it finished by the end of next week.

And don't forget to read the entire story that began the Baker Street Adventures here. It's free and fun.
Did I mention it's....free at Smashwords in many digital formats.

Or you can read it here on my site.

Stay tuned.

Best.

John

Just published on Smashwords. Journey to the Center of the Earth. Hours of great reading. And only 99cents!

They thought this day would be just like any other day. They were wrong. The Eiffel Tower was the first to fall, then the Tower of Big Ben. Boulder Dam broke, then the Hoover Dam. New Orleans was flooded. Tidal waves rolled over Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York. It seemed like the end of the world and it almost was!

?His sister and he were about to be crushed by a huge piece of the temple, so Chandra did the only thing he could thing of, he grabbed her and flung them both off the cliff into the freezing cold Ganges. He felt the cold and then nothing!"

What caused everything to go to hell and back was a puzzle only a special team of  investigators, who had experienced the horrors first hand, could discover the truth. And they were heading for the Center of the Earth!

Posting free story: The Death of Conan!

Hi everyone,

Today I'm starting something new.

I will be adding a free story to my site once a month. It is one that would normally be sold at Smashwords, but for one week only will be free on my site.

This week I am presenting how it all started for my Baker Street Adventure series: The Death of Conan. Click here to read it!

How far the Mighty have fallen! From the ending of the Planet of the Apes starring Charles Heston. An eye opener.

May 3, 2014

I could call this a call to arms of sorts, but I won't.

Writers are probably for the most part more engaged in the mechanisms of society than most, and for good reason, they care about the world they live in and if it works or not. I think most people care, but they just don't put out the energy to make a difference. Perhaps they're in overwhelm, denial, or withdrawal for whatever the reason.

A good example of this is the current state of education in the United States. We have fallen so far behind other countries in the quality of our education, even though we  have far more money to spend than most countries put together.

Why is this?

Are we going through some kind of evolutionary change where stupid is in and enlightenment is out? One could certainly make a case for stupid when one reads the newspapers, follows the new on radio and TV and listens to the craziness of politics and some might say religion.

Global warming, garbage overflowing our oceans and lands, food that is not fit for an animal being prosletized as healthy to eat when it's not, failure of government to regulate monopolies, to safeguard liberties...it goes on and on.

In George Orwell's 1984 he postulated a time when society would be ruled by conformity, massive telecommunications would program people with how to think, speak and act.

One has to wonder if that is some kind of prophecy, as TV has millions, even billions mesmerized by food that will kill us, cars that are not safe, politics that is not for the people, but the elite. I could go on and on about this, but I think the point is clear.

Storytelling is often times a barometer for what is occuring or about to occur if we're not careful.

So are we going through a major evolutionary change in America? Or are we failing as a nation just like Britain, France, German and so many other once great nations did?

I leave you with those questions to ponder. George Orwell did. And 1984 was written in 1949. We've been living that story now for decades. Will we still be living it in the next century? Or will we become the Lost Continent of America, even as Atlantis dwindled into the mists of time and history, shrinking from a mighty continent of enlightened beings to a shrunken island barely able to stay above the waves and finally vanish.

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.