Dear friends, I just wanted to post this short note explaining why
I've canceled most of my visitors lately. There are two basic reasons—my lack
of energy, and my selfish focus on my writing.
Over the last year, I found that my ability to carry on
conversation has become limited. The desire to converse, to laugh, to visit
with you, it is still very much there inside my heart, but the energy is not.
After visitors, I always feel boosted spiritually, but totally drained
physically. This leads to various symptoms that are quite unpleasant, and
perhaps dangerous. So, reluctantly, I have tried to limit my visitors. I
sincerely apologize. I hope that you understand. I love all of you dearly... I
appreciate your sincere prayers, positive thoughts and caring deeds. I promise
that after my stomach tube surgery, given that I presume with better nutrition
my energy level will come back – I will begin to contact each of you
personally, and I will ask you to make some time in your busy schedules to come
visit.
The energy that I do have, I selfishly plow into my writing three
or four hours a day. I seem to be most productive from around 11 AM to 2 PM.
I've got so many stories crashing around in my brain—they fight each other to
come out on to the computer screen. As I've said before, when I write I escape
to a completely different world – ALS is left far behind. The time goes quickly,
my thoughts go on to the page in short phrases, but combine together to create
stories that I love to share.
I have two projects that I'm focused on at the moment: Scarlett's Fire, a sci-fi fantasy about a
terribly huge, ferocious Kraken from a far-off galaxy that is rescued by a tiny
red and white banded cleaner shrimp named Scarlett. She works for the Great
Creator as a curator for the Intergalactic Zoological Preservation Society.
Eventually, after sharing many adventures together, the two very different
species fall in love. Will they be able to live happily ever after?
The other book that I'm working on is tentatively called Broken Spirit. I'm working with a friend
that I met, through cyberspace while taking an online writing course last fall.
Karen Lilly is an aspiring writer like me. I gave her some assistance with her
first book, Family Secrets. Over the
thousands of miles, we make a great team. Broken
Spirit tackles the very tragic history of Indian boarding schools—a part of
the government plan to break up the Western Native American tribes. It's a part
of the history of the American West that we were not taught in school. We are
trying to share some of the tragic history, while showing the terrible
consequences the schools had on the language, culture, and lives of Native
Americans. It's a sad story, but we are mixing in suspense, crime, lots of
interesting characters and the central theme that you can massacre a people,
but if they keep their language and culture alive, they will ultimately
survive. It should be a real page-turner.
Thank you as always for your support. I'm slowly starting to think
of contacting a literary agent. So far I haven't done this, don't want to waste
precious time writing inquiry letters, but the financial situation is slowly
deteriorating. I'm beginning to think that I need to see if my books are
marketable to a broader audience. What do you think? Do any of you know of a
trustworthy literary agent that might like my work?
PS
– I hope you like my most recent photograph taken without my ventilator mask so
that the photo could be used for my new Hawaii's State ID (that's a whole
another story...).
