The Novel As My Best Friend

For twenty years I created a world of goldseekers, Indians, adventurers, and a few very bad hombres. After that I created another world where a young man disappears into the tunnels beneath Vietnam and discovers the reasons why they will never surrender. Now I am done working with them, carving and shaping mountains and streams, now I miss those worlds, those heroes terribly. I am lonely for my friends of ten thousand days and nights. The modern world holds nothing and no one to compare to them. Yes I can still walk the canyons where the goldseekers toiled in stone and water searching for the earth's rarest treasure. And still I can sense their ghosts laughing and crying in the shadows of this world. But they are all gone, except as I recreate them, call them, conjure them, to live again in the world of stories.
The truth is, I belong more to their world than to this one. The truth is, I do not belong to this century at all. I was fairly able to navigate the 20th century--all the while wondering where all of the people, cars and buildings came from. I am barely able to navigate at all in the new 21st century with all of its gizmos and wizardry. Who are these modern people? I do not know them. I have nothing to say to them they would not regard as quaint or antiquated or out of date. For one thing these new people talk too much and have no knowledge of the power of silence. I prefer the quiet whisperings of streams to the constant yakking of men and women who have nothing to say. So you see I am a hopeless case.
So if you meet a stranger who does not care to talk, perhaps you may understand that he is not really here.

The Writer as Clown

For over twenty years I gave my all to writing novels in my spare time. Two novels given with heart and soul, what I intended to be my gift to the world, the meaning of life borne from the crashing sea of life. All of it was joy. On the other hand: Studying writing, I paid little attention to thoughts or articles about marketing. Now, wonder of wonders, the hard won novels finally finished, comes marketing day to try and sell the fruits of my creation. But this isn't wonderful. In fact it's awful.
Over the years my mind fogged over when I read writing manuals that included pieces on marketing: Practice speaking in front of a mirror; cultivate editors and agents for friends; publish short stories in literary magazines. I did get a story published in CrossTIME VII (2008). But I do not want these other things. I find myself whispering, "Oh, God." What I want is writing, not speaking.
I come from a family of quiet men. I had a great uncle, a farmer, who seldom spoke. I became a writer because I have virtually no small talk within me. My brain is fortunately (or unfortunately) wired for big ideas, big concepts, big philosophy. Why are we alive? Why do we die? Why war? Why greed? Why need? I also love geology and any sentence that begins with "Plate tectonics is..."
I wrote two big novels creating action and adventure that were drama platforms for explorations of these big ideas, of the deep mysteries of life: The Goldfinder and The Black Butterfly Woman.
Now I'm supposed to get on a stage and bounce around like Bo Jangles? Like a street barker selling elixirs in a bottle--I am supposed to conjure an audience from thin air.
It is not enough that I have done that impossible thing, creating worlds and living beings with only the force of my mind. It does not feel right but now I must become a lively clown to get my notice for the children of my mind. I do not know.
I think I will not become a clown.