THE HOT MARBLE

You are important

2012-01-06T13:04:00.000-05:00

Have you decided that you are not important?
"Sure," you say, but not in a convincing voice, "I'm important."
"That answer is not good enough," Sir Thomas Forschwynn, the Bard of Bardia says. "Your life's story is part of a terrible war. The war's about your folks and anybody that'll be devastated if Saoma [Satan] - yes he is real - gets his way. Tell me again, are you integrally important in his war?"
You think, Me important? Har! but you think you should bluster and say what they want to hear. However, a gentle nudging in the back of your mind makes you sweat. You don't want to admit the truth.
Finally, you say, with your throat all knotted up, "Ever see a cockroach? I'm a stinking vermin. I've wanted to somehow atone for what I've done." The truth comes gushing out, "I don't have any amazing talent like you or any secret formula to make people want me."
Sir Thomas says, "You admit one truth but not the other." He angrily slaps the table and yells, "Keep talking. Who ARE you?"
Immediately a long-hidden insight gushes out from your deep places. You struggle to push it back, but words and sobs break through. "I'm a small red ruby. Not the biggest jewel nor the brightest, but still one of the adornments that beautify God."
You are important.
(pp.439-40)

Weird Game

2011-12-07T12:19:00.000-05:00

Normally, I don't hold with lying. However, I can see a scenario when it's truly necessary to save a life in the presence of an enemy.

Gracie gets into that situation. Her friend Mark is captured and accused of being a spy. He also really is a spy. What can she say that won't get him killed?

At first, Gracie's throat went dry. All of the Lanthran language she knew ran out of her mind like a dog bounding through an open door. There seemed to be a boulder in her chest, keeping her from breathing.

His hand tightening, the colonel demanded in a low, dangerous voice, "Little girl, what do you know about this man?"

. . . Gracie thought, How would Lewis have handled this situation? She knew, smart, complex Lewis would play chess with the colonel. Very well, she would play chess, too.

Gracie found she had control over her mouth again and could speak. Every word from here on was a lie, her own contribution to this weird game. In a barely audible voice, she moved her pawn. (pp. 368-69)

Go, Gracie! Brave girl!

Siding with your abuser

2011-11-30T13:01:00.000-05:00

Have you ever taken sides with an enemy with (what you think) is a noble purpose? That is, you think you can save somebody if you just go along with the abuser in your life? That's the mistake Lewis made; that's the mistake a lot of us make. Sometimes we don't have any other choice!

Lewis knew what was going to happen and what he should do. I'll go to Moorway. I'll join the Horned Edge. I'll excel and earn Charon's favor. And then - I'll take Barth's place at Lord Charon's right hand. And then - I'll rescue Patrick and Gracie and take us back to Earth. With one last flash of humor before switching sides, he labelled the moment of decision: "The Day I Became Anti-Matter."

After that, all humor was gone. He was no longer on the side of the angels, presuming that such entities existed. (p.318)

I highly recommend that you do NOT try to protect someone else by letting another person beat up on you. But I know that sometimes that appears to be the only choice at hand, and we just have to wait until a better choice opens up to us.

By the way, The Hot Marble is available on Kindle for only $2.99. Check it out.

Fat and Sexy

2011-11-23T10:27:00.000-05:00

People in the USA are enculturated to believe that slender people are more sexy than fat people. But that is not the culture in some other countries, such as the Philippines. Also, even in the USA, some people prefer their fat cuddly teddy bear partners than the more bony type.

One of THE HOT MARBLE's characters and friend of main character Fred, Sir Thomas Forschwynn, the Bard of Bardia, prefers fat cuddly women.

His love "was taller than he was and almost as wide as she was tall. She had at least six chins sprouting long black hairs, and Fred saw a mustache under her pert little nose; yet she was somehow very pretty. Her body moved powerfully, yet with a feminine rhythm. Her blouse, with a scandalously low V-neck, complimented her giant bosom. . . . She gave Tom a long look, and Fred could swear that her brown eyes darkened with attraction and there was a slight, sensuous smile playing around her full lips.

He glanced at Tom to see if he had noticed, and to his amazement, the kid was responding in a way he would have never guessed. Tom's eyes grew soft when he looked back at the woman, and his voice sounded like music at a beautiful senorita's balcony . . .

Bezubs

2011-11-09T12:02:00.002-05:00

They were spirits, noncorporeal; they'd just heard him calling.

. . . If the bezubs took him, he would be trapped with them in hell. And hell would be like watching Patrick's terrified face, a knife blade cutting into his throat, except the horror would be eternal. He would never get out.

Too late. In his mind he saw razor-teethed gremlins rushing toward his open mouth, his surrendered hands. Bezubs, coinhabitors of his own world, were taking back their own.

"No," he groaned. "It can't be true. That's just religion or folk tales."

But it was true. (p. 389)

When Lewis is mad enough to fight . . .

2011-11-01T11:20:00.000-04:00

One time, on Halloween night while we were trick-or-treating, some bullies threatened to beat up my little sister. I was fierce, all 5 feet and 110 lbs. of me. "If you try to touch her, I'll beat you into a pulp," I promised.

When my character Lewis has a chance to defend his little brother, he grabs a big stick, while one of his attackers pulls a knife. He says to himself, I will fight- no rules, no mercy- until Patrick escapes in the forest. To the men, Jack and Kut, he taunts, baring his teeth, "Aren't you afraid of a desperate man with a big, sharp stick? Let this rip up your skin if you try to touch me!" Kut's knife threatened to slit a nice space between Lewis's ribs. Jack's branch whooshed as it tried to brain him.

Well, the bullies left me and my sister alone.

Patrick the hero

2011-10-30T19:09:00.000-04:00

THE HOT MARBLE opens with 11-year-old Patrick. He imagines himself a hero: "He imagined goblins swarming out of the grass to seize Gracie and him. Suddenly, he unveiled his true power: He grew tall and lean and hard, wearing a black cloak, holding a magic sword. With great swipes of its razor sharp blade, he defended little Gracie against the wicked hordes, chopping the slobbering and gibbering things into bloody pieces of green flesh . . ." (p. 7).

I want to stay like Patrick, no matter how old I get.

Prohibiting electronic technology - A better life?

2011-09-13T10:39:00.000-04:00

What do you think . . . Would prohibiting electronic technology except in special designated areas promote a better life? (Note: the author does not think so.) The Lanthran magi, after the Great Rebellion did prohibit all electronic technology except in such places as the College of the Magi in Bardia, and they did this to prevent access to the forbidden planet - Earth.

Commitment

2011-09-07T10:34:00.000-04:00

It takes 100% commitment to get hard things done. None of the characters in THE HOT MARBLE were able to follow through with these except one: Gracie.

I think I need to access the Gracie in my soul.

Why Lewis got attacked by a demon

2011-09-02T12:46:00.000-04:00

When people get too close to the edge of prayer and the supernatural, they are usually attacked by evil supernatural forces. These attacks can come through situations, or relationships, or directly. I chose the direct attack on this young man Lewis. He had a huge loss when his girlfriend, Rita, broke up with him. The pain drove him into a discipline of journaling, and even sometimes reading the Bible as his mother had recommended. He was beginning to think thoughts that the satanic forces didn't like, so they distracted him with an attack.

Here are some photos from a retreat I just went to on spirituality and prayer.

The Kindle version of The Hot Marble is available for $2.99

2011-08-26T20:28:00.000-04:00

Hello, folks. THE HOT MARBLE is available in Kindle version for $2.99. Amazon added some keywords to the "theme" of the book: supernatural and occult. I had to step back, because I thought of it as primarily as sci-fi/fantasy, but I am definitely dealing with the supernatural here. Question: Do you think that the supernatural is separate from science, or part of it?

THE HOT MARBLE available through Amazon.

2011-07-26T11:29:00.000-04:00

Here's my book. I am so excited! In three or four weeks, you may see press releases in your local media.

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The next book: WESTWIND

2011-03-26T12:03:00.000-04:00

My next story, WESTWIND, waits to be written. This is about Patrick, who thinks himself a strong Christian young man ready to go to med school, but gets a big, bad surprise. The hot marble turns up again and drags him into yet another adventure on Lanthra. His picture of himself as a "good" person gets a rude shock even while he falls in love with a real Bardian princess but turns pirate.

The ship Westwind is a small clipper, fast, but with a tendency to wallow in high seas when stationary.

The Blue People

2011-02-18T17:14:00.001-05:00

Different worlds in THE HOT MARBLE are made from templates. The Blue People are from a world misty and marshy and their blue fur is fine instead of clothing, as there are no cold climates there. They have no shame, no crime.

The language of the Blue People doesn't have "spoken" word names, but gestures, since those human type people are nonverbal from behavior to brain. (They have no vocal cords. Their tongues are at least a foot long - great for grabbing underwater marsh grubs as well as for participating in their "conversations"or kissing.) They are just as intelligent as homo sapiens except for being profoundly linguistically challenged.

In fact, the two species can mate, though their offspring are sterile and definitely strange looking, but mating Blue People with humans is considered by most to be abominable as it must be forced. These were brought to Lanthra to be slaves when the Horned Edge ruled, several centuries B.C. (Earthwise). In Bardia, Eleaemana, and other countries, these are free people; but in the forthcoming book WESTWIND Lanthrans are enslaving them again.

Spiritual warfare

2011-02-01T12:24:00.001-05:00

A soul's warfare goes moment by moment. You have to live in the Now, doing what is good for you, even the simple things like eating on time, going to bed on time, learning how to communicate . . . and learning that you cannot rescue other people.

Lewis, the main character in THE HOT MARBLE, wants to rescue his brother and sister so much that he nearly destroys himself.

Location, location

2010-04-06T16:58:00.002-04:00

This story's Thingummy, the hot marble, is a neural network, a recording of the gravitational resonance pattern of Earth relative to the planet Lanthra (Horizon).

Today, these silicon sensors truly exist, except they are being used as interferometers, to get out "white noise" so scientists can focus on what they are trying to locate. In the future, these may be storage records of specific places in space to make observation and travel easier.

Here is how it works, in part: Trace elements in silicon, once "strummed," vibrate. Patterns of the vibration provide a map. The marble's spin glass's internal flow currents account for the ever-moving relative positions of Earth and Lanthra. To add complexity, not only the electronic structures of atoms may be involved in the recording, but the nuclear structures of each atom may account for the resonance template being stored.

Just a little explanation for the book title. The link at "current conversations" about "gravitational resonance" may explain some of the current thinking on the subject.