Confessions of a Starving Mystery Writer

There’s this place I used to frequent just across the street from Yale in New Haven, Connecticut – its name is Bar. That’s right just Bar. Future Presidents, Congressman and women, Senators, and power brokers congregated there on any given night to kill brain cells. I spent many nights there many nights doing the same. In the spirit of the Bunions and inspired by Jaye, I will heretofore attempt to create a fictionalized version of that bar populated by the blog characters that I know and love. Hopefully I will not insult anyone to badly. So there’s this place I go for a drink, conversation, and to ogle the mental musings of some pretty exception folks and the also ogle the asses of beautiful women. Quirky, yes. Opinionated. I’d say so. It’s not the place for the weak of heart. It’s a dirt floor, sock ‘em in the eye, bar where intellectuals, writers, politicians, poets, artists, want-a-be’s, never was’s, never will be’s, the famous, and infamous, all drink from the same trough. The Blog...

Tides roll, as prisms reflect unseen hues, Winds whisper and hint, of dreams that batter shores and shoals, with a journey beyond conception, Fate fades, precious reality rests where the Sun sets Thoughts of youth subside, reside and resolve the ultimate, the inevitable, will occur, as tides roll, sun sets, changes, reflects, and fades. . . by RJB

Once there was a cat in my life and now there is none. The once was a woman in my life and now there is a new one. The cat was one its ninth life when it entered my life, the woman was, well… Mystery writers seem attracted to cats for what ever reason. Perhaps it’s their independent nature with uncontrollable personalities that border on neurotic. My cat was originally revived with an oxygen acetylene torch at the manufacturing plant I was running at the time, after a young child had flung the poor kitten from the hayloft at a nearby barn. I thought if it had the spirit to survive it deserved a good home, so I had it for the last seven years. I had a love hate relationship with it. Its name was Dino after Dean Martin, though I mostly called it Honey. A mutt, orange and white, with the temperament of a pit bull. Honey began as an indoor cat until I was held over in China a week and I came back to a very pissed off cat that had torn up parts of the basement where I had left it. So Honey ...

Why does life seem to get in the way of all plans? I had intended to be well on my way towards completition of my novel, have several short stories submitted for publication, have the business book that I am co-authoring nearing completion, finish a play that I'm in the second act of, etc., etc., etc. Life interviens. Work. Dating. Career. Pursuit of love. Dissappointments. Triumphs. The creative flame that was once burning brightly is flickering, the heart still beats, but the hand no long writes. The interest and passion is still there and my mind turns to it briefly during the day but demands for other things sidetrack me. I can see why Raymond Chandler was not too prolific. To live to write, you must live. The life I wish to live is no longer nine to five, punch the clock, get the pension. Money, for sure, is very important but relationships are more so. The American dream, as advertised, no longer holds any interest. So, off I go, chasing dragons to slay, damsils to save, and ...

"if i love you with all of my heart, she said what will you give me? and then she stopped and said i didn't have to answer that because she was going to do it any way." -kahlil gibran, the beloved "the thought of you sings, smiles,shines, and dances like a joyous fire that gives out a thousand colors. and penetrating warmth." -gustave flaubert "...love was just saying ah what the heck and letting go, and accepting,...yes, love was accepting." -rick bass, the watch "once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see...

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life. Leo Tolstoy Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress. Charles Dickens For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life - the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value. Claude Monet Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions. Pablo Picasso

Insanity

Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time. Pablo Picasso The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense. Pablo Picasso

Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies. Aristotle There is no remedy for love but to love more. Henry David Thoreau

Click. “Son of a bitch!” Trevor Barrow removed the cold gun muzzle from his temple and let his pistol hand fall and began to sob. “I can’t do anything right.” He leaned back against his late model, dark blue, Mercedes. His double-breasted suit was rumpled, a silk tie hung loose around his thick neck. He drew a half empty fifth of Glenlivet Scotch to his lips and gulped. Wiping his lips on a shirtsleeve, he smeared Scotch across the raised monogrammed cuff. Trevor’s car sat under a bridge in a seedy part of downtown Detroit between two abandoned factories. The cars exhaust fumes commingled with the wafting sewer steam to create a toxic fog that enveloped him. The acrid smell of rotting garbage, urine, and sewer gas made him cough as a chill went through him. Flames licked out of a nearby rusty 55-gallon barrel. He sat the bottle on the roof of the car and steadied it. In a quick movement, he racked the slide to chamber a round. Shadows danced in a se...

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy. Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Friedrich Nietzsche

Life has gotten busy of late, in very good ways. Blogging, unforunately took a back seat. I have decided to get back into the dating world and restart my career in consulting and law. I've found an office, started wearing a suit, tie, underwear, and socks and re-entered society. I'm working out daily, eating right, and consuming less alcohol. This past week I've returned to court, the art scene, and smoozed past and future clients. I've been out on an excellent date with a beautiful, intelligent, woman and traveled a bit. These distractions were well needed and long in coming. Writing and blogging are now back on my agenda and you should see a notable difference in the topics I choose to blog about. Thanks for stopping by...

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it. Anais Nin It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country. Anais Nin

To be published, at what cost? The end game is getting published, but with the current proliferation of e-publishing, vanity publishing and the like ,what does a writer gain for being published at any cost? As some of you know, I am in a mystery writers critique group. A recent potential new writer came to our last meeting and was so distraught over her recent publishing experience that she had been unable to write since publication. She received no advance, no editting, and no marketing, advertising, or distribution of her book. She did give up the rights to her book and the characters involved thereof. I was wondering why the hell she would want to be published this bad, but really you and I know why. In the pursuit of publication, authors give up too much, with little in return. Preditors and Editors Website is supposedly a watch dog but I have heard horror stories from writers that have published with houses that receive passing marks or negative marks and authors had an opposite e...

What is past is prologue. William Shakespeare I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. William Shakespeare The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different. Peter F. Drucker The best way to predict the future is to create it. Peter F. Drucker

For some unknown reason, creativity courses again through my mind. After a prolonged fallow time, writing creatively has returned in full force. Why now? Personal resolution? Dark clouds passed? The storm has moved beyond me? I have no idea why, it just happened. How do you spur creativity? Go to a special physical or mental place? Is there an exercise?

The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense. Pablo Picasso Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. Martin Luther King, Jr. The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousand accidents. John Updike

Detective Harry Beam sat way outside his jurisdiction in front of a disheveled house in rural North Carolina. As he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray of a non-descript black sedan, he opened the door and stepped out on the gravel-strewn driveway. He walked and entered the disintegrating side door of the house without knocking. The air was thick with grease, cooking seafood, and cigarette smoke. A one-eyed black pit bull lay motionless on the floor in front of the kerosene heater. He stepped over it. An older woman slowly breathed oxygen through the airlines fished throughout the door casings of the decaying house from an oxygen machine that wheezed silently with every breath. She sat at the Formica kitchen table in a well-worn nightgown, aged glasses, no teeth and a complacent look. Very pretty at one time, now her hair was black with gray streaks, matted and hung in sweaty stringy clumps. Now she was just old. Beauty remained but very faint, hidden, subdued, and masked by old ...

"I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe Where I'm bound, I can't tell But goodbye's too good a word, gal So I'll just say fare thee well I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind You could have done better but I don't mind You just kinda wasted my precious time But don't think twice, it's all right Bob Dylan

The Earth At Night