Is the Pen Mightier than the Sword? I Don’t Know – But I Have a Pen

My Titles  are available to libraries nationwide via OverDrive and Smashwords.

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Pictured Left :

“Eiffel Tower Pose on Family Yoga Day”

Yoga family fun with grand kids and grandparents. In Paris!

Preview at end of post.

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Available via subscription, direct purchase, or library.

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“the intent of this blog is to incrementally build a body of thought that works toward integrating various topics, yoga, fitness, and the arts – it’s a process…”

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Is the Pen Mightier than the Sword?

I Don’t Know – But I Have a Pen

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Categories : Author Bio Info & Updates

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Setting a Purpose for Myself With the Arts

I’ve had the skeleton for this post a few weeks and this morning read an interesting post via Joe Konrath : The Opposite of Legacy. This is an excerpt :

I wonder if my blog isn’t just another form of validation. Have I traded my desire for acceptance by the legacy system for acceptance by the shadow industry? Has the thrill I once got from a PW review been replaced by the thrill of reading my blog comments, or being retweeted? Am I an activist for the same reasons I spent ten years trying to break into legacy publishing, because it makes me feel legitimate?

Maybe, just maybe, our time is better spent writing. By being the change, rather than bemoaning how others aren’t seeing the change.

We no longer need gatekeepers. Not legacy publishing gatekeepers. Not legacy media gatekeepers.

And we no longer need to keep telling them we don’t need them.

They don’t care. Neither should we.

And it prompted me to return to this post and finish it out.

I, like most people, care about a lot of things. And was finding myself spending more and more of my time commenting on various sites about the issues I cared about, and liking it more and more. Soon, I realized, very soon actually, I was spending more time commenting than working on my art, my writing. Stories.

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The Challenge

The usual big challenge, for me as probably for most writers, is integrating the social and personal issues deeply in well depicted characters and actions.

A good example, and a book I just finished reading, is Matthew Iden’s “The Wicked Flee.”

Human trafficking, drugs, teen prostitution, women’s issues.

It’s a powerful thriller-mystery well told.

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My Vehicle

Thrillers

Much as I finally gave up abstract painting in favor of a more impressionist style, because that was what I enjoyed viewing and seeing and having around me, so I am also working my fiction into the thriller genre.

Doesn’t mean I can’t still try to be stylistically challenging to myself: letting the dialog dapple the mind, descriptions tug at the heart and gut, craft river flow transitions – mixed with abrupt chapter changes creating counter-point and contrast, and characters that linger –

But I want the things that matter to me, to show up in my fiction.

And compel the reader to consider those issues.

Or, minimally, become aware of them.

As things people do.

And are.

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Thus, I wrote my first thriller, a novella, One Night in the Hill Country. (currently in PreOrder)

It includes issues about illegal immigration, romantic relationships, war, child abuse, family, and more.

But what I try to do is, show it, not tell it.

Short exciting chapters.

Multiple pov’s.

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Commenting, Swords, and Pens

Don’t get me wrong, I still comment. But more judiciously. Let’s hope I maintain that, and channel my very real concerns and interests into stories that will encourage readers into thinking more deeply about the problems they feel strongly about.

So, no, I don’t have a sword, but I do have a pen, and hope to put it to good use. (smiles).

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Preview, Eiffel Tower Pose on Family Yoga Day” – Courtesy of Scribd :

namaste´- con dios – god be with you

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