Confessions of a Starving Mystery Writer

I have developed a renewed interest in writing and blogging so I am working on a new look for this blog. Please bear with me as I figure out how to migrate all the headings, settings, and links to the new template. Thanks for stopping by. New substantive content will be posted very soon. RJB

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. F. Scott Fitzgerald

Katrina August 28, 2005 at stongest point NASA sat. 

A man lays prostrate before his God. The man is neither young nor old, fat nor thin, attractive nor ugly. His life is passing him by and he is not fullfiling his life's purpose nor does he realize what his purpose may be. He cries out to God "I have nothing left, I have nothing to give, to be, to aspire. Please give me talent." God is silent. "I look back and my best days of youth are gone, I look forward and all I see is infirmity, old age, and decline. I have yet to accomplish a thing and know not what to do next. Please help me." God is silent. "I dispare, I pray, I drink, and still talent eludes me. What must I do?" God remains silent but stirs and a breeze blows upon the man. "Dear God, if you will not answer, please at least give me a sign." The man becomes aware that he is not prostrate but sitting at his desk. His face is down on a crisp piece of white paper. In his hand is a fountain pen. Written on the page in his script is "Wr...

The hardest thing in the world to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn… Ernest Hemingway

Selling out. I've resisted it my whole life, beat of a different drummer and all that. Path not taken. Yada, yada. Selling out has different levels and each industry has its pinacle. I could mention a few bestselling authors but... I have never worked for anyone for very long but lately I've been tempted by the Devil. The illusive big money job. Offered. Sike. No deal. But, God how I wanted it. There seems to be rules to life that I can niether figure out nor adhear to. After months of anticipation I am back to the drawing board. I think I'm going to write about it...and then drink about it. Maybe not in that order, maybe simultaniously. "They" say for ever closed door, several open. Is there a selling out window, or do I just get on my knees?

For anyone still visits this blog, as you have seen, I have been in the slow slide away from posting with any regularity. Unfortunately, my writing has suffered the same fate. This wasn't exactly by design. A few things occured that shifted my focus away from writing and back towards life and the "real job". Wandering. I guess that's what the last few months have been. As Moses did for 40 years in the dessert, I, between projects always, and I mean always wander the tortures of the damned. Like a pinball I bounce between conflicting and often diametrically opposed vocations and eventually something pops or smacks me in the head as to the appropriate direction my life is to take. Well, as of today, I have many balls bouncing - in that pinball machine - with a possible tilt in the offing. I continue, futilely, to pump more and more quarters into the damn machine with little hint of the end game. Life, as I know it, will definitely change... But, where will it all lead?

Jason Evans had a pretty cool contest last week to write a 250 word story about the below picture. The 250 words that follows was my entry.... I lay, gasping for breath, bleeding from a sucking chest wound, face down on the floor, just below my favorite Monet painting. I felt the cold wood floor against my cheek and tasted something bitter and metallic as the puddle of blood reached and surrounded my face and lips. Bathed in the dim light by two antique Victorian lamps, my vision blurred as life began to leave my body. The painting had been purchased at a Sotheby’s Auction in New York after I had won my biggest divorce case several years ago, my lover’s case. This pleasant memory ebbed and flowed as my breathing became more ragged and I started to loose consciousness; I struggled to take in air but my lungs wouldn’t cooperate. I tried to stand only to feel the icy steel of the blade that had been shoved into my chest only moments before against my neck. I slumped back to the floor, res...

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...