The Diamond Island

This is the last post you have been waiting for.

There was a commenter five years ago who asked me what this was all leading up to. Good question! As if I knew.

It’s been leading up to this. I started this blog with the intention of it being a creative writing outlet for me that other people would find interesting. However, the traffic on this blog has been nearly non-existent for five years.

I have little sense of the energy people find in what I do here.

I can do creative writing without having to post it in public, so I’m going to retreat to the innermost sanctum of my workshop and do the labor there.

There will still be stuff. This is the Transmutation phase. That means I’m changing the way I do things here. What I will likely focus on are reviews and the occasional episode of some kind of artistic creation I put out. I’m going to change the format and design of this website in a little while.

What brought about this change in attitude?

About a year and a half ago I felt the website had done all the work it was going to do for me. I’ve been working on thoughts and prayers that might help me figure out what comes next. All while I was going on the biggest adventure of my entire life.

That adventure is now done.

I have plucked the onion from the ashes of the Gingerbread Witch Spider and received the treasures within.

I am just myself.

I put my first book up on Smashwords, which is an online publishing site that lets you upload your electronic files and convert them into every conceivable ebook format for downloading.

You can go get yourself an ebook copy of Diamond of Darkness there now for free.

All told I moved about 17 copies of the Kindle version and 15 of the print version. Not bad considering I’m nobody, and hey I made some beer money—about 2 bucks per Kindle version and 5 bucks per print copy in royalties. Fun!

Though I figured with as many friends and family as I had I would have sold closer to 100. I didn’t aim low enough!

I did an official giveaway of 2 print copies, and I gave away another 12 print copies in the hopes of reviews.

Despite positive reactions only 1 family member and 2 friends wrote reviews. I was hoping for more feedback, even if it was poor—how else can I improve or have evidence there’s no hope? Still, all valuable data just the same.

So the hek with it, I lowered the print version from $20.00 to $14.99 which looks nicer than the $14.05 that would be cost. I tried making the Kindle version free (Seth Godin recommends it!), but you have to do a minimum of $0.99 for pricing. So that’s where it is now.

However! Smashwords allows you to do the freebie dance, so there I go. Actually, the interface was smooth and the instructions were pretty thorough and clear. Much better than the crummy Amazon no-help guide I used last year. I hope the Amazon hosers have improved since then because that bit the big one.

I’m busy working on Book 2 of the series, so I think as it comes into being this first book will slowly be moved aside for the fresh meat. There’s not much more I can do besides an audio file.

In the meantime, enjoy your free meal.

The creative writing posts are on hold for now; too many other projects in the workshop to maintain a development schedule.

I am working on a script for something in the Secret Door page for Halloween. The adjustments in the background on the other pages will continue.

In the interim, consider this post a placeholder until the new form of posting emerges.

Need an appropriate soundtrack while you wait? Listen here.

The UFO is built and I’ve learned how the controls work. I pour myself a dark cup of pirate cider and have a trance-like out of body experience just sitting at the command chair, taking in the enormity of what has happened.

The psychological cauldron is bubbling and boiling. Something is cooking in the kitchen of my brain, an idea forming and coming into being which will require digestion of the multi-human level of experience: spiritual, physical, mental, emotional.

I realize then that I hypnotized myself into building and learning this magnificent Karavos of exploration. I’ve also been doing work in the valley of the skeleton trees with the sleeping sphinx while the rains fall in the desert of the farthest reaches of inner space. Killer bees are buzzing.

Now the time has come to fly this thing; to complete the journey and return to the real world so that this UFO may know me living in the ordinary world in a non-ordinary way. I intend to see this voyage through for the sake of all beings.

So I check out the message on my answering machine from the Dark Goddess. She reminds me to watch out for being a gross persecutor. I take this point to heart, knowing I have in the past been this very thing to her.

She then reminds me to look in my backpack. Everything I need is there, but I forgot they were there. Hurriedly, I open my backpack and find a glowing crystal star I’d found a while ago but forgotten, and a huge key; like a ceremonial city key perhaps.

This key is necessary to start my UFO, and the star is part of the power source for the navigational array. You kind of need a central operating unit to power this critical feature. I had not even considered this!

I regard the star, remembering what it cost me to recognize this marvel; the double broken heart, the traversal through the horrific sewers of human existence, and the impossible healing of monstrous wounds. Time to do this; I know where it goes now and why.

The key is inexplicable to me, being a combination of inner imagination and outer consolidated form. Gorgeous and intricate, but so small and light—I didn’t expect that. It comes off as huge and gilded, yet in use it has a dimensional quality of being very useable.

Indeed, I use the key and realize what a tremendous thing it is we all do when we put a key in a lock and turn. This is a bottom up symbology with great power that reaches the elemental core of how things work in space and time, as well as the complexities of psychological reality.

I think about the time the Tom Baker Doctor Who put the key to time in the time cannon.

There is a moment of profound night-tide belonging, and then I realize the time has come to name this UFO. It’s a moment that has been on my mind in its approach since I sensed it coming. How could I possibly know what to do?

The Sticker Stasher comes to my rescue. A sticker of a brontosaurus falls out of a book I momentarily move to the side. I recall briefly this dang thing traveling around my possessions for some time and never managing to find its way into my sticker box.

I name this UFO Brontosaur.

It comes from the greek word bronte, which means thunder, and has connotations of growling and roaring. Saur comes from the greek word sauros, for lizard.

Yesterday it rained for a few minutes for the first time all summer, and there was thunder. A week before that I heard thunder, and the clouds obscured the sun for an hour.

The time has come for departure from the valley of the skeleton trees. The killer bees are already swarming into the bulkheads and Lucerna is on deck, waiting to see how well my meager knowledge holds up now that the moment has come to put me to the trial.

The gigantasaurus Sphinx is in the hold, moved by mystical means I barely understand; the transposing of thoughts with methods of play that transcend our limitations of vision.

Here we go.

The valley of the skeleton trees is left behind, through a storm of rainfall in a desert at the edge of inner space. The emerald avenue is no longer needed. Instead, passage is through the ruby avenue. Now the task of flying this UFO falls to me.

The balloon is filling with bubble cola; liftoff is ON.

See you on the other side this journey!

The five year anniversary of this website was August 1st. I spent all of the month of August meditating on the meaning and my next course of action. I find it difficult to put in detailed words how this represents a closure and a new beginning.

The UFO is the end result of this five years of work—if you have been wondering where it all leads, there is your answer. All I can say is wow what a long-winded and intensely personal artistic endeavor!

Part of me wants to chuck everything into the furnace and burn it down to the ground. I have a strong urge to destroy artistic projects once I’ve accomplished them. Yet I feel this time is different. I have a new task to build upon using what I have created.

I’ve been examining the past material and reckoning with the urge to change and adapt. A new expression must arise as I take flight in this UFO. To mindlessly repeat seems inappropriate. To continue on without some response feels wrong.

Yet I have limitations. I feel right up against them. Is this where I push them aside? Or push aside what I believe them them to be? I don’t know!

I’m ready to throw in the towel if that’s what is required of me. Though, I can’t help but feel now that I am finally here maybe something amazing will happen. I’m back to the beginning of where I ran away.

This website will continue. In the meantime I will strive to figure out what it needs to be in the years to come, now that the foundations and groundwork have been laid out and put into action.

Another one of my friends has had a short story published. John Costello is a writer with kung fu literature skills he’s been practicing in secret coves for some time. He has finally started to come out of hiding to show us his unstoppable technique!

Check out “Giants” in issue 5 of The Quotable. I would characterize the story as daily life interpersonal conundrums with brutal honesty.

I am so happy to see my friend taking the plunge and putting his work out there! Holy cats what an exciting development. Yes, my wonderful friends, put your stuff out there so we can have STUFF!

Go John! Now is your time to show us what you can do; keep on shipping us your insights and passion from the far seas of the mind in which you’ve traveled.

A while ago I decided to explore my own Tomb of Horrors, thanks to some helpful exposure osmosis insights from my trusty Chimera friend Shanna Mann. After some meandering about with various ingredients I am starting to build a formula of exploration.

I was going to put out an ad for a psychological being to handle the specifics, but this dude came knocking at my door as soon as the commitment formed in my brain. After some dialogue of a sort using mysterious hand signals and lip reading apparatus I believe we have come to an accord.

We’ve leased some imaginary property from a psychic patron in a settlement suitable for our needs. I had no idea such a town was located near the Diamond Island! Hidden treasures everywhere you look, if you see with the eyes of joy.

Of course, the inhabitants are going to be mighty surprised to see all this sudden activity in their accustomed unconscious existence. What can I say, I am shining a candle in my own individual way and this is where it has led me. There may be benefits as well as difficulty.

I have decided to explore, through the exploits of my new found friend, the role of horror host. He will be doing this in his own particular way, according to his own individual stance. I will, of course, be responsible for his actions as his conscious manager.

To this effect I have created a secret door to our mutual venture. The password will be most easily obtained by those with the secret decoder wheel, which is part of my Sooper Fun Pak currently only available on my Facebook fan page. by request.

So stay tuned for more tidbits, and if you are one of the fortunate folks to have a password wheel at your disposal (or have a small microchip brain for ciphers) you may be entertained!

Bringing the UFO into materialization.

As a result the website will be very unstable and some pages will not work.

Things should stabilize in the next 24 hours.

For now, hold tight and chow down some popcorn—it’s about to get darn interesting!

03-14-2012 Edit: Website should be mostly good, though there might be a couple of bed bugs around.

And the stuff keeps on arriving! The paperback version of Diamond of Darkness is now available at Lulu.  That’s a 6 x 9 format, 452 pages, for $20.

Considering that you’ll pay $14.95 to $19.95 for half that many pages of a comparable book in most stores, that’s a whole lot of pure reading enjoyment for the cranium. Having the actual physical object in my hands, I kind of got the shakes there for a while.  The real deal, folks.  No fooling.

Although, to be honest, my friends are chewing through that page count frighteningly quick.  Then come the questions about Book 2.  Still working on that! But re-read the book, I’ve packed it full of repeat value contemplations and secrets.  Or check out my Lulu author spotlight page and ooh-ahh.  Stay tuned!

At long last, after deciphering arcane instructions on the website and fiddling with settings on ancient programs I have managed an Amazon Kindle version of Diamond of Darkness. Woo and hoo, go me!

You don’t need to shell out 100+ bucks for a Kindle. There are free apps so you can just get the goods and start reading.  Believe it!

Now time to get started on the Lulu physical version. Back to the laboratory to study forgotten mixtures and play with strange settings on the abacus we call a computer. Stay tuned, folks.