Political Platform
I wrote this a decade ago and recently came across it on a jump drive. Typically I have to resist the temptation to George Lucas-like tamper with my old writing, but not this one. I still enjoy it for what it is.
History is written in the tears of children
The cycles of tradition always break
Follow the footsteps of your children not your parents
The innocence of the young is joy and love
The wisdom of the aged is jealousy and regret
Do as I say, not as I do
How much elation was stolen from the world by those words
To teach right from wrong
Imagined concepts to spread segregation and fear
The children are born with the truth, we replace it with our own reconstructed version
War, Hate, Poverty, Hedonism, Racism, Sexism
Concepts of the wise?
Relearn to love
Break the cycle
Write history in the laughs of children
I have little to say about politics. If I can’t sit down and speak with a man or woman, face-to-face, I tend not to form much of an opinion about them and what they would or would not do. But, political platforms in the USA are really just a wish. A candidate is elected on their platform (a set of changes or issues they plan to address and implement if they are elected) promises and assurances that they can never make good on, and rightly so. It’s a rather tragic idea really. I mean, a political platform can only be implemented if said “elected” official were given dictator-like power…not very democratic. I only toss this out there because, since it is all promises never meant to be kept, I may have more faith in politicians I’ve never met if they ran on a platform like my tiny decade-old free verse above, instead of plans for taxes, medical issues, and opinions on social institutions and actions that only affect the individual, not the state….but hey, That’s just me!
Sexual Currency
I write this as a father, as a husband, and as a son; not as an author. Please, remember that throughout. I am not offering a professional critique or judgement about style or stilted dialogue.
I write this because I hate seeing women being taken advantage of. Historically speaking, empire after empire has proven just how easy it is to subjugate, suppress, and enslave women. That is nothing new. Appalling and immoral? sure, absolutely, but it’s still the case. What I see now, and have been seeing culturally over the last few years in our media, I find even more appalling because, you see, mankind is now using that very sexual repression as a tool against women.
This may come as a surprise to a lot of men, but women are people, too. What a shocking concept! Women are living, breathing humans with sexual needs and desires? Wow, I never would have guessed it!
Here’s what has me saddened – instead of women finally having those sexual shackles removed, they’re now being financially taken advantage of, a molestation of their finances just for a chance to slacken or excite those desires. It is happening on TV, at the cinema, and in the book world. Erotica as a sub genre of romance, is fine, healthy even. Most women want their sexual excitement to be subtle and building, not the in-your-face aspect of pornography, “I’m here to fix your cable. Oh, you can’t pay, but your nymphomaniac bi-curious roommate just came home? We’ll work something out.” Please add the cheesy porn music of your choice.
Most women don’t want that. The greedy forge of MANkind knows this. I wish that the world was run on a currency system backed on the milk of human kindness and not gold, silver, oil, or entertainment. But, we don’t live in that happy world. So, all that female sexual repression, dating back the length of human existence, is now a nice shiny new collar for women to wear.
I don’t want that for my daughters, for my wife, or for my mother.
Throughout any of this media frenzy of female sexual predation have you heard women say, of said book, show, or movie, “It is a well crafted story of the trials of a girl transforming into a woman.”?
No, you hear some variation of, “Naughty, raunchy, or sexy.”
New millennium, new versions of vices and temptations; same old greed based repression and advantage. Only this time women can choose to wear that collar of repression or not.
I suppose all I can do is pay attention to the women I care about, so they don’t feel that pressing need of transference. Love and play with my daughters, so they don’y have Daddy-issues later in life. Love and care for my wife, treat her with compassion and trust. Love my mother for all she has done for me… and hope that the strength of a real man is enough.
Ghost Buster!
Ghost writing is at an all-time high in the publishing industry. For those of you who may have heard the term but never looked into what it meant, simply put, Ghost writing is when somebody writes a book, article, or what-have-you for somebody who cannot write. The Ghost writer gets paid but they are allotted none of the credit. They now have to sign non-disclosure agreements before the publisher will tell them who it is they are to write for (trust me, I’ve had two offers this year)
Sounds kind of like fraud, right?
In any other field that’s what we’d call it. Can I get a Milli Vanilli from the congregation? Amen!
But in publishing? Oh well, that’s just the way it’s done. If some celebrity wants to write a book about weight loss, in steps a Ghost writer. If a tired industry dinosaur that has written twenty, thirty, forty, or more novels already and just doesn’t feel like it? Why retire when their publisher will bring in a Ghost writer to pen some generic story for them? People buy it because, “I just love books by So&So!” No matter if it’s the same old story rewritten, over and over, and over again.
Why would anybody do this, you ask? Money. Pretty sad how often history gives us that answer, huh? No matter how unethical the question those 30 pieces of silver always seem to win. The young writer that wants to break into the dying industry of publishing will take their 15 grand (tempting, again trust me, I know) and hope that they will make the connections to eventually receive the credit for their own work. The publishers win because with so few people reading it is easier to convince those few readers to buy a book by So&So (who they just Love!) than a book by Joe-blow No-Name.
I mean honestly people! There are books being Ghost written by that fictitious TV show character and ”Murder He Wrote” knock-off “Castle”! And they sell like hotcakes! Nathan Fillion seems like an alright guy for an actor, but a real Nikki Heat novel? Come on, by buying that you just helped crush the dream of an aspiring writer who could have been the next Hemingway. Nice.
What do we blame this phenomenon on? Is there anything we can point at and say it’s at fault for Ghost writing? Because we have to blame it on something. Oh, I know, let’s blame it on the rain, yeah, yeah……
The Typo Monster
If there is one thing I’ve learned over the last few years of the Social Media Revolution it is that the Typo Monster believes in Karma.
How many times have you seen a person have a typo in a post on any social media sight and one of their friends or followers feels the need to point it out? I see it constantly, and I was guilty from time to time myself when I first opened my personal Facebook account. But after a while the Too & To and the Your & You’re all start to blend.
Not to mention every time I see someone correct someone else, the Typo Monsters strikes. I have even seen people mess up in their correction post. There they are pointing out another’s mistake and screwing up at the same time. Proving how swift the monster can be. My fellow authors seem to be particularly bad about this. I screw up, I get to typing so fast about something that I don’t proofread, so what? I’m human. Then a fellow author points it out…but the punchline is I have seen typos in their posts that I ignored, and even more karmic…in their books.
The moral, friends, is this: Don’t correct someone on their social media posts. You didn’t pay for it, it cost you nothing, and it will bite you on the ass one day. If you see a typo in a news article, paper, or book then you have every right to play English teacher, but if it was free…see Nick’s number one rule for world peace and shut the fuck up.
“Excuse Me While I Whip This Out.”
I have some imagery for you. Now, don’t worry I love both Hot Dogs & the USA, this is not an anti-either post……..it’s more of a, Hey can’t we switch to a different unofficial food type thing.
(Warning this may be graphic! But, then again in a country that thinks “50 Shades of Grey” is a good book and “Magic Mike” a good movie, who knows?)
Why must we celebrate our country’s birth by jamming a phallic shaped mystery meat into our mouths? Sure, we bite down, we’re Americans damn it, we’re nobody’s bitch…but we do swallow, so maybe we’re just a nation of sluts, I don’t know. I love a good hot dog, don’t get me wrong. But today it’s just kind of difficult not to picture Uncle Sam with his star-spangled trousers around his knees, pushing all those wieners into the mouths of Americans at picnics and backyard BB&Qs. “That’s right, Oh yeah, take it. The whole thing, hey, hey slow down, slow down. That’s it. There’s plenty more where that came from, no, no, no, that’s just the special sauce! It adds to the flavor….”
Social Collapse
Listen up boys and girls. This is a hard cold scary truth, but society is falling apart. Call it entropy if you like, there is no one cause to point the finger at, but it is happening and on a world-wide scale, too. Take it from an old outsider. I’ve seen people arguing over Reality TV shows, fist fights over professional sports, friendships ending over one person deriding Lady Gaga, and a populace so obsessed and distracted by celebrities’ sex lives, diets, marriages, half-baked political views, and drug addictions that they don’t care about anything else. That is not how the world was only a few decades ago. People care more about pointless entertainment than their fellow man, random acts of kindness are only for celebrities tipping waitresses, not the unwashed masses.
I’ll stick my hand out to those who need it where I can, but again, I’m an outsider. I have no hope of stemming this collapse. I can only stand and watch things fall apart, keeping my feet under me as long as possible, reaching out to help where I can, but even folks like me will be swept away in the collapse eventually – until all that is left is a callous uncaring apathetic void. “Welcome to the human race.”
Dreams
Dreams are never easy to accomplish. If you believe otherwise then you have only had ideas, not dreams. Dreams test you. They drag you trough pain and anguish, burn you, break you, destroy and elevate you. And win or lose, succeed or fail, dreams teach you who you are. That kind of illumination should never come easy.
Fan Mail
I received this letter from a reader and I wanted to share it with everyone.
Dear Mr. Shamhart,
I just finished reading Raven and I liked it. I like what you’ve done with the series so far, but the reason I am writing to you is the beginning of chapter 18 where Raven talks about soldiers going through hell.
I served in the Gulf War with the 3rd Armored Division. I did my time, served my country, got my education and got out. I still read a lot of military fiction though, but most of it is just people being shot and tanks blowing things up. That’s war; sure, I’ve been there and done that. None of it seems to get into what it’s like to be a soldier like you did, or maybe it’s just the books I have read haven’t. Those few pages in Raven did more to describe what it is like to have fought in war better than any of the other war novels I’ve read. Just a few pages! Thank you for that. You are absolutely right, soldiers will see hell and it will never leave them. I still hate it in the summer when my lawn mower overheats because it makes me gag smelling that stupid burning oil smell. It’s been over twenty years but it still reminds me of the oil fields burning.
I don’t know if you ever served, but anyone who has in the military or police, anybody who sees the shittier side of people, should be able to identify with Raven’s words. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Brandon
Why did I share this with you all? Because this is why I write. This is what separates and defines the differences between artists. I don’t care one lick for awards, rankings and bestseller type nonsense. Those are just marketing labels and handles used to sell people a product. I do not want to sell the world a product. Everyone is trying to sell you something nowadays. I just want to tell stories that readers can identify with, and if Brandon enjoyed just a few pages so much that he took the time to write me a letter, then I have done my craft an honor. Thank you, Brandon, and thank you all.
**I contacted the writer of this letter and he was flattered that I wanted to share it with the world, but he asked that I remove his last name and military rank for his privacy.**
Wobble Wonkers!
Language is inherently fluid, but I see generational and cultural slang as a sort of dam to that flow. Instead of allowing myself to be swept away in the asinine argot I plan to invent my own slang. Who knows, perhaps in another year your teenager may be saying some of Nick’s new words?
I find “lol” and “lmao” to be truly representative of our culture’s lassitude. So, from now on if something is funny I shall say, “Wobble Wonkers!” which in a few months will devolve into “W Wonkers” then “W Wonk” perhaps an urban revival into “Wobbizzle Wonkshizzle” but eventually it will be just like the half-assed aforementioned slangs and be typed “WW!”
Math Sucks!
There are currently around 311 million people* residing in the USA. That’s a hard number for a person to perceive, so let me help. If you could say, “Hello” to everyone of them, on some sort of revolving conveyor belt, as they passed you – one “Hello” per second – it would take you almost 10 straight years just to get through the greeting process…and that’s not taking into account your need to eat, sleep and go to the bathroom.
My countrymen and women are not doing so well on general knowledge tests and as each year passes they do worse and worse. Let’s just take a look at some more numbers shall we?
- 1 in a 1,000 Americans say they read. But this is generalized, mind you. When pushed as to frequency and quantity of reading this one in a thousand gives vague responses like newspapers and magazine articles.
- 1 in 10,000 Americans are classified as Avid Readers. Keep in mind you are now an avid reader if you can manage to read one book for pleasure a month.
So that means that 31,100 books are being read per month in the USA for leisure purposes. But, I have to add a little here, because, though I’m not polishing off the five a week I could in my twenties before I had kids, I’m still reading more than one book a month. I say there must be others like me out there. Maybe half of the avid readers are consuming more than one? For an even number let’s say 50,000. That looks better, more impressive, huh? Americans read 50,000 books per month for fun.
Now our good friends at the Bureau of Labor Statistics claim the average American watches 2.7 hours of TV a day. This number is down actually thanks to social media like Facebook and Twitter, because more folks are scrolling stalker-like through their Ex’s profiles and posting pictures of their lunches. I remain dubious as to if that is better than Survivor and Sports Center.
But let’s compare that 50,000 we felt so pleased with moments ago to the number of hours spent watching TV. Though we know better, I say remove those 31,100 pesky Avid Readers from the equation. If they have time to squeeze in a book a month, how much TV can they be watching? *Wink Wink*
That leaves 310,968,900 average Americans watching 2.7 hours of TV per day = 839,616,030 hours of TV watched per day! Then per month = 26 Billion hours of TV! or 26,000,000,000.
Anybody else feel that 50,000 books per month just took one hell of a pride nosedive?
*All the statistics in this article are averaged from multiple sources. Welcome to the digital age where every organization – private and publicly funded, runs polls and surveys with varying results and accuracy. The mean results are not meant to be mean (oh the wit), but for your eye-opening edification. Besides if you want an APA bibliography it would be longer than the bloody article, so just enjoy. Oh alright at least one link http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm
It’s a good thing Bill Joel stopped at the 90′s
The scariest aspect of living in this day and age is not that mental shock of, What the hell happened to the world!? No, what’s really terrifying is the answer, not the question. Go to Yahoo.com, don’t click on anything, just let it sit there on their homepage, and look around. What do you see? A visual assault of commercials and the most asinine news coverage as it scrolls through ludicrous headlines.
What’s in a Name?
Memorial Day, I have to be honest, as a boy – no, even to this day – that term did and does not really hold much significance to me. When you’re a child the value behind it is that long weekend preview feeling of summer that is right around the corner – barbecues, picnics and parades. It’s a dalliance or perhaps a diversion at best.
After the Civil War when individual communities held their own memorials to the fallen on different days…well, that certainly has some poignancy behind it – even for the youth of the time. Imagine standing on the same late spring weed-chocked ground that your father or older brother bled out on. But even for those souls nigh approaching two centuries gone Memorial seems such a paltry misnomer, to me.
Sacrifice Day, has too much of a Shirley Jackson feel. Day of the Fallen, would exclude those fortunate souls who serve and then return. Yet, both would be better descriptors to delve into the meaning of the day. Sadly the term I feel is most fitting allows for one of our few minimally capitalized holidays to be commercialized like all the rest, Honored Warriors Day. It truly covers the significance, but I can already see the UFC banners waving high, can’t you? Sad.
I suppose my best advice is to honor the fallen warriors who sacrificed so much for you everyday, and not just once a year. To my grandfathers, to my friends, and to all of yours who serve and served have a wonderful Memorial Day.
Smut vs Novels
Steven Spielberg makes movies, right? But by that logic, so does the pornography industry. Would anyone be audacious enough to group Spielberg flicks in with pornos? I wouldn’t.
So I’m asking the book world, as both an author and a reader, don’t group smut in with the real novels. It’s insulting to those who put their hearts, minds and souls into their work.
For the Wolves
It is very difficult to be a writer for the wolves. Not the literal Canis lupus or some overdone werewolf lycanthropy nonsense, no. I write for the figurative wolves. My fans and readers are the wolves out there among the sheep.
As a fellow wolf I understand that wolves want to think for themselves.
Wolves have a hard enough time listening to the advice of other wolves, let alone trying to shut out the blather of the sheep, “Bah bah bah boobies. Bah bah booty. Bah bah boom!” It’s the hardest, coldest truth in business - sex and sadism always sell.
Silly sheep saw sex sold said surely sounds like a seller.…..try saying that five times fast!
So, as a wolf I applaud all of the wolves out there that want to make up their own minds. Please, keep thinking for yourselves and I’ll keep writing stories that make you think.
On the Horizon
Balance series fans, I’m glad to note that Zeus The Balance: Book Three is currently in the editing/test reading phase. I don’t believe in that whole line it up in a good week when other new books in the genre aren’t coming out. The books are done when they are done, I’m not playing games. So, I hope to have Zeus in stores by the end of summer.
Now, there will still be eight Balance books, but I needed to work on something else between books three and four. Something lighthearted. Believe it or not, I’m working up an outline for a romantic comedy. Don’t worry that is not a capitulation to the market masses. I do have a fully entertaining story, told in my style and not just some attempt to pull in a different demographic. But, I know many of the readers have sent me emails saying, “I told my friends they have to read the Balance books, but I get, ‘Oh I don’t read that type of book’.”
I know the world now judges a book not only by its cover but by its genre as well, sad but true. Alas, readers, now when you hear that response you’ll be able to rebut that Nick Shamhart also has a romantic comedy available, too. Hopefully that will be in stores by the holiday season ’12.
Dear Hollywood, Please Stop!
I take it as a compliment when readers tell me The Balance Books should be made into movies.
I realized today when I saw a commercial for “Battleship” the movie that it may be less a compliment and more a cry for help. When Hollywood starts turning board games into movies it is time for a pop culture revolt! Please, movie fans if you keep encouraging this kind of cinematic disrespect then………….Jerry Bruckheimer presents “Chutes and Ladders” in 3D!!! Cannot be far behind.
May the Fourth Be With You
Despite the much lamented addition of Jar Jar Binks to the pantheon, my inner 80′s child would like to wish you a Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you all!
Rainbows & Rocks a.k.a. Life with Autism
When you have an autistic child you learn to time your excursions to the opposite of most people. You can say it is wrong that parents of autistic children feel the need to go out to parks and stores when the crowds are low, but I’m a realist and “awareness” just doesn’t cut it when you have a child like mine.
So, when Paige was around three we went to the park right after a heavy thunderstorm. Most people had yet to venture forth and we had the place, though soggy, to ourselves. The park had a well manicured garden section, lined with a neatly trimmed rosebush hedge. Paige plopped herself down near a fountain and grabbed a pair of rocks that had caught her eye and started playing with them. It was quiet and peaceful. I looked up to see a full arch rainbow and tried to draw Paige away from her rocks. She could care less that the sky was shining like a Christmas tree. She was focused on the rocks and ignored the rainbow. She wasn’t sucked into her world, mind you, she was more than willing to show me her rocks, but the beautiful trick of refracted light gracing the sky went ignored. You get used to that sort of thing as the parent of an autistic child, it’s disappointing, but you move on. Only this time I heard a child’s voice yelling, “Look Mommy a rainbow! Look Daddy! Look Billy! Look Sally a rainbow!” I turned to see we had been joined by a family and their youngest – around my child’s age – was skipping about and shouting for all the world to see the rainbow my kid could care less about.
It was one of those depressing, soul wrenching moments that you have from time-to-time. Why couldn’t my kid look at the rainbow and be excited? I could taste my resentment, burning and bitter, climbing up the back of my throat…until I heard the little boy screaming as if he was being tortured. Apparently in his excitement over the rainbow the little fellow had run headlong into the rosebush hedge. As his parents attempted to gently extract him, to a chorus of bloodcurdling screams, I looked down and Paige smiled at me, holding up her rocks.
Anger gone, I realized that life gives you rainbows and life gives you rocks…it’s up to you to watch where the hell you are going.
Autism Awareness Fundraiser
April is Autism Awareness Month. As the father of a severely autistic child I wanted to do something to help, not just to help my daughter, but all those – adults and children – with autism. I wanted to help them get in touch with the support and resources they need and inform the public about the spectrum of autism. So please check out this site I have created for my fundraiser of which 100% of my book sales proceeds for the month of April will go to the Autism Society of America.
Raven on Kobo
Kobo has Raven up!! http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Raven-The-Balance-Book-Two/book-RLBOsPi0R0y7Qi9oI58Tng/page1.html
