The Book of David: Chapter One read by Robert Kent

WARNING: This recording is for ADULT LISTENERS and packs profuse profanity:) 

Quarantine for COVID-19 has given me the unexpected gift of perspective and free time. I always wanted to record at least one audiobook, and I always figured I'd read THE BOOK OF DAVID... someday... when I have time. To keep from crawling the walls (for now), I've checked off this bucket list item.

I may yet record the entire serial novel in a studio and have it professionally produced, but I'd for sure charge for that. Me reading only the first of five installments in this tale of terror in my office while birds chirp outside my window and the bell on my cat's collar occasionally jingles as I do terrible accents... that, I'll give you for free. But I'd encourage you to also seek out my actual audiobooks narrated by professionals.

If you'd prefer just to enjoy the story without my voice (understandable), the ebook of Chapter One of THE BOOK OF DAVID is always free to download (you could read along to spot errors I made while performing my own book).

This might be a crazy thing to do, but it was also a very fun thing to do, and it's a crazy time. I hope you're taking care of yourself, Esteemed Audience, and I hope you dig this amateur audiobook of mine. Here's some more info about THE BOOK OF DAVID:

The Walters family has just purchased the perfect home if only it weren't located in the small hick town of Harrington, Indiana, and if only it weren't haunted. David Walters is an atheist now, but his minister father taught him from a young age that Satan would one day deceive all mankind by pretending his demons were extraterrestrials. The day the Walters family moves in, they spot a flying saucer outside their new home. Things only get stranger from there. David Walters is about to learn what it means to be truly haunted, forcing him to confront his past, fight for his family, his soul, and his sanity.

This is the first of five chapters in THE BOOK OF DAVID, a serialized tale of terror from Robert Kent, author of ALL TOGETHER NOW: A ZOMBIE STORY and PIZZA DELIVERY.

WARNING

This horror story is intended for a mature audience. It's filled with adult language, situations, and themes. It's in no way appropriate for the easily offended or younger readers of BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES.

An Afterword for THE BOOK OF DAVID Part One: "Inception and Autobiography"

Esteemed Reader, if ever there was a strange book to promote from a site traditionally devoted to middle grade fiction, it's The Book of David. But this is my site (I can barely be bothered to manage one website, let alone a second), so we're doing this thing:) 

As much as I love writing stories targeted to a younger audience, I also love extremely gory fiction with gratuitous profanity, and life's too short to worry what other people might think about the disparity between my loves. I am who I am, I love what I love, and as seemingly anti-middle-grade as it is to have published this bonkers book that's likely to offend a whole lot of people, I'm as proud of The Book of David as I am of Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees.

All that being said, although we're not going to discuss sex or violence in this post (just lost half its readership, I'm sure), and I'm not going to swear, I am going to discuss a story that contains all of those things and more. It also contains my only character (to date) who happens to be a middle grade writer. For that reason, I think some Esteemed Readers who enjoy this blog might also enjoy The Book of David, if you can get past all the swearing... and the sex... and the violence.. and the blasphemy.

The Book of David, which I will from this paragraph forward mostly refer to as BOD to save space, has a warning on its first page and in its book description for a reason. This book is not appropriate for younger readers. I wouldn't let my kid read it and I would never give a copy to your child. Should they obtain a copy elsewhere, this is me giving parents a heads up to use extreme discretion.

Don't write me an angry email or yell at me at a signing. Pay attention to your kids and what they're reading, dude.

Also, this is an afterword, to be read after you've read the book. Why you'd want to read this before and spoil the surprises of the story I've worked so hard to craft for you, I don't know. You can do whatever you like, but if I get a vote, I vote you read the book first. 

There are other non-spoiler aspects of BOD I've discussed elsewhere that I won't be discussing in depth here. So if you want to know my thoughts on UFOs, or why there are so many gosh darn cuss words in the book, or you just want me to admit I want to be Stephen King when I grow up, here are some posts related to BOD in which I discuss those things:

          An Open Letter to Stephen King

          Author, Year Two

          Author, Year Three

          On Using Naughty Words in Fiction

          On Conspiracy Theories and Flying Saucers

          Funeral for a Friend (in which I discuss my failed novel)

          On the Destructive Desire for Fame (And Ben Affleck)


For this afterword, I'm specifically going to discuss some of my experiences writing BOD and some of the personal autobiographical elements that inevitably make their way into every work of fiction (or at least, they do in mine). I'm also going to share with you some insights, including some photos from my son's nursery readers might enjoy seeing (those are in Part Two). I wonder about the wisdom of sharing too much as I think some things are better left to the reader's imagination. 

So let me preface everything by saying: regardless of the author's thoughts on his story, the reader's experience is her own.

If you thought the best theme song for BOD should've been "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden, I disagree, but that's a great song and it's your call. Over the year and a half it took me to write all five chapters of BOD, 200+ songs found their way into my writing playlist, many of them mentioned in the book. Favorites were "Power" by Kanye West, "Handlebars" by Flobots, "Reckoner" by Radiohead, "You Die or I do" by Hans Zimmer, "Imagine" as sung by Scott Bakula (naturally), "My Body is a Cage" as sung by Peter Gabriel, "When You See Those Flying Saucers" as sung by The Charles River Valley Boys, and "Soul on Fire" by Third Day. And just what sort of Hoosier would I be if I wrote an Indiana story without listening to John Cougar Melencamp's little ditty about "Jack and Diane?"

But in my mind the song that will forever be mentally linked to BOD is "A Blessing" by Max Richter. I've read that writing is a form of self hypnosis and I don't doubt it. I find it useful to have a theme song of sorts to begin each writing session to put me in "the mood" of the story. The somber, beautiful, hopeful, yet heartbreaking sounds of Richter's strings brought to my mind the sort of slow motion tragedy I intended to write. I didn't want to write just satire or horror, though I'll count myself lucky to have accomplished either; I wanted to move the reader the way Max Richter moved me. I can't imagine Miriam Walters wailing in the street outside her haunted house or David Walters finally telling his father, "I only ever wanted you to love me," without thinking of "A Blessing."

Right off the bat, it's a bit of a spoiler for me to tell you that of the many writers and works I drew upon to influence the creation of BOD, the foremost works my book is consciously modeled after are The Shining and, perhaps less immediately apparent, Stranger in a Strange Land. A great debt is also owed to the comedy of Bill Hicks, who I think would've got on well with Sexy Jesus, multiple articles published at Cracked.com, Hugh Howey's Wayfinding series, Vince Gilligan, as I've jokingly, but half-seriously thought of this story as "Breaking God," and the research and lectures of Richard Dolan, my favorite UFO historian, who was kind enough to email some words of support during the writing of BOD that meant quite a lot to me.

There are two quotes from Robert Heinlein about Stranger in a Strange Land that I kept in mind while crafting my own novel. When facing pressures to tone down the more controversial aspects of his masterpiece, he said, “If I cut out religion and sex, I am very much afraid that I will end with a nonalcoholic martini." As to the reaction of certain readers to his work, he said,  “I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers. It is an invitation to think, not to believe.” 

That pretty well covers it and I cannot improve upon Heinlein, so when it comes to my own novel, I'll just say, "what he said."

I can't always tell you where the ideas for my stories come from, but with BOD, I can: I was actively looking for an idea. I wanted to write a serial novel (it's a bucket list item I can now check off), I wanted it to be a horror story for adults, and I wanted it to be something I thought older fans of All Together Now would enjoy. Having recently become parents, Mrs. Ninja and I were house shopping to leave apartment life and the last of our extended adolescence behind. So a haunted house story seemed a natural choice and another bucket list item to be checked off.

I was debating whether or not there was anything new to be done with a haunted house I hadn't read multiple versions of already. I'd just about decided there was not when an only just barely original idea occurred to me: what if at the end of The Shining, Jack Torrance carried a Bible instead of a croquet mallet and instead of talking to ghosts to help him find Danny and Wendy, he had a whole church congregation saying, "right this way, brother, they're over here."

That idea made me laugh hysterically as the best ideas so often do (you can't fake love), and then immediately terrified me. "Don't you dare write that, Kent," I told myself. "You already ticked off enough religious folks with the zombie stories. Why would a nice Middle Grade Ninja like yourself want to upset your mother with such an offensive and outrageous tale destined to result in angry one-star reviews and emails and a general wishing of ill will upon you? Don't you dare write that story! Write something nice."

This was sensible advice, so I got back to work on Banneker Bones 2 and Zombies 3. But the thing about a great idea is that it won't leave you alone. Stephen King has said he never writes down his ideas as the good ones fight for a writer's attention, and I've found that to be very true. I was busy buying a house and living my life and the voice in my head that speaks up when my subconscious has worked out a story problem would every so often whisper tantalizing details to me: "the man's name is David and he has special powers because he's maybe/maybe not been appointed to be God's prophet. He believes he's an atheist and he's got a real sensible job, like a banker or something, but you can't fight destiny." And I would say, "No, the man's name is nothing, because I'm not writing that."

"It could end with a shocker like Stranger in a Strange Land--I mean,not exactly like that, but not not like that."
"Lalalala, I'm not listening."
"There's a painting on David's wall that talks to him. Guess Who the painting's of? Just guess. Sexy Jesus."
"That's even more offensive than the original idea! I'm not doing this. I mean that's pretty good, but... what would David even preach about?"
"The End Times, of course. And bankers, because seriously, f**k bankers. And David is himself a banker, so how deliciously ironic, right? Oh, and UFOs since you have to use all that 'research' you've done late at night on YouTube for something."
"Oooh, that's... that's... No, I'm not writing that. But if I did write it, could I call it The Book of David?"
"Absolutely."
"Crap. I can't not write it now. I'll spend the rest of my life wishing I had."

To understand why this idea so captured my imagination, I should share some personal information, beginning with where the title comes from. I was once a smart alec kid trapped in Sunday School who knew enough about the Bible to make my teacher hopeful, but was enough of a thinker to ask all the vexing questions that follow anyone compelling one to take something on faith. 

And sometimes I'd quote Bible verses that didn't, strictly speaking, exist, but which should've. On one such occasion when my teacher called my bluff and asked me to find the verse, I told her it was in "The Book of David." All the other kids laughed and it became a running joke when I spoke up and I laughed as well, but in the back of my mind I thought, "one day you'll see." So the title of my novel itself is its own bucket list item.

I don't write autobiographies. A novel about me playing video games while I listen to audiobooks after a day of spending time with my family would interest no one, not even me. Doubtless, some readers will ascribe qualities of my characters and their situation to me. No offense taken as this is a common experience for most authors and kinda goes with the territory. 

But for the record, I have (to date) never seen a flying saucer or a demonic alien (that I'm aware of), nor lived in a haunted house, nor been addicted to pills or booze or any of the other drugs in this book I had to research to write about, nor French kissed a baby (I once heard about a creep who did and have wondered about him ever since), nor had a conversation with any come-to-life paintings. My marriage is much, much better than the Walters' as is my relationship with my parents, which is much less compelling for a book. I have bumped into a couple situations of high strangeness, but I'm saving some of those for future novels:)

I have struggled with a cigarette addiction (I'm not smoking now unless you've got an extra cigarette) and I did grow up in a small Indiana town. I did buy a house not long ago and switch to part-time work so that my son wouldn't have to go to daycare (I would've never just quit my job without Mrs. Ninja's consent; WTF, Miriam!?!). None of those things is interesting enough on its own to sustain a novel, so I added a whole lotta lies to reveal some metaphorical Truths.

Here is something that is true: my grandmother lived in a house across from the park in the small Indiana town where I grew up and it really did have a white sign with multi-colored lettering on its front that read "Jesus Wants To Give YOU Eternal Life" (I added the exclamation point in the book) and it really was a local landmark. I love my grandmother and I miss her terribly (if there is an afterlife, she's the one I'm presently most looking forward to seeing), but I hated that stupid sign. When the school bus passed her house, not every day, but enough days, someone would mock me for it. That sign is present in many family photos and forever printed across my memory. To the best of my knowledge, the house that the sign was attached to is haunted only by memories, most of them good.

But over the years, the message of that sign, "Jesus Wants To Give YOU Eternal Life," began to seem to me less like an enticing offer and more like a threat.

This same beloved grandmother was once chased by a flying saucer. I believed her when she told me about it and I've never doubted her since. I also had a cousin who saw multiple flying saucers, which really ticked her off as she was a strict science teacher and extremely uncomfortable with the experience she probably would've never admitted to having if she'd been alone. The memory of her annoyance as she tried to tell me facts about the world and I insisted on asking her again about the flying saucers still makes me smile. Over the years, I've collected enough credible UFO stories from various sources that I find staunch non-believers tiresome and silly.

Here is something else that is true, though more difficult to discuss and less likely to be believed: I have, at different times in my life, experienced moments of extreme intuition and Déjà vu. I believe this is a common experience that folks mostly keep to themselves. To be crystal clear, I am not saying I have super powers or even a particularly practical skill. But at different times in my life, I've had flashes of insight that shouldn't have been possible for me to have in reality as I've come to expect it to behave; experiences that have led me to question the nature of existence and refuse outright atheism. Here is an account I wrote about one such experience. Good fiction reveals a truth inside the lie, and you can choose not to believe me on this point, but believe that I believe it, and it is a Truth I wanted to express.

I believe psychic communication is possible as are a whole lot of other wacky scenarios in part because of my own experiences, even though they've been mostly mundane stuff. Sometimes I'll recognize someone's future importance to me the moment I first meet them. When I met Mrs. Ninja, I knew pretty quickly she was the one. I've known when something tragic was coming and something good, but I can't decide what to know or when and I've had plenty of false alarms. I wouldn't pick a stock or place a bet based on my intuition, but when my sixth sense kicks in, I've learned to pay attention, and I've talked to plenty of folks who've had similar experiences. The world is an interesting place and there are odd things in it to be found by those who go looking.

When our realtor showed us the house we would buy, I knew it was the one as soon as we pulled up. I experienced flashes of our living here as though they were already memories (This is the place, welcome home). You can think I'm a crackpot (did I mention I believe in flying saucers?), but I've had similar experiences throughout my entire life and I'm just being honest because I have no doubt there are Esteemed Readers who know exactly what I'm talking about. I have often wondered if this sense of mine wouldn't one day come in handy when at last divine prophecies were revealed to me, because...

Here is one other thing that's true: I occasionally preached as an adolescent, though never at the level of David Walters. After one occasion of my speaking in front of our church, a respected missionary who was a man of great faith and integrity really and truly did pull me aside and told me that God had revealed to him that I, Robert Kent, future author of Pizza Delivery, would one day be a prophet of the Lord.

Honest. That happened.

It wasn't the exact scenario I wrote in my story, because, again, where's the fun in that? If Esteemed Reader wanted real life, they wouldn't be reading fiction. I didn't smack my head on a podium or see any bright lights or aliens. That's all bullcrap I added to show Esteemed Reader a good time. People like stories that are fun and full of conflict.

I remember the moment of this man telling me of my coming prophecy very clearly. He held my shoulders as he spoke the declaration with all the seriousness of Garrick Ollivander giving Harry Potter his wand. He went back to the mission field quickly after that, so I never got to ask many follow-up questions. But I've never forgotten our conversation and it has weighed on me heavily during different periods of my life. I've both longed for it to be true and been terrified at the possibility that it might be.

One last thing that actually happened: When I was first learning to drive, I was behind the wheel on a trip from Chicago back to small town Indiana and I really did have occasion to slam the brakes while traveling at 65 miles-per-hour. My father was in the passenger side seat, my brother was sleeping in the back, and we all screamed as the family roadster spun around in the center of the highway, cars passing on either side. Did God save us? It certainly felt like it at the time and I haven't come up with a better explanation in all the intervening years. Nor was that the only time I've been bailed out by Something greater than myself.

So am I God's prophet? Dude, I don't know. I hate to say "no" as it's a fun fantasy to indulge in. I will say that my prophetic status strikes me as an extremely dubious proposition. I can think of far more popular blogs than this one and more successful authors far better positioned than me for God to use as His mouthpiece for mankind (one would think He'd pick a filmmaker, or at least a writer with less of a potty mouth).

I can't promise that an angel won't yet come to me to reveal The Truth and command me to share it with the world. But I'm older than Jesus ever was at this point without having had even a single prophetic vision and should I start having them now, I imagine my credibility will be greatly undercut by my having published this fictional account of a man who does have such visions. This was one of the reasons I wrote the book; as an insurance policy:)

Tell you what: though I took most of the predictions David makes from actual doctrines, if some of it starts to come true, we'll know I called it because I was a prophet:)

What's important for our purposes is that I did believe this missionary when I heard him and for a long time after. While growing up, I used to fantasize about one day writing books or making movies (or both), then I'd remind myself that I really needed to be preparing for my coming prophecy.

When I got older and ditched my faith for a time, I laughed bitterly at the memory and concluded that this missionary was either a loon or worse, a liar (smug, young punk atheists are quick to write off large portions of the world as crazy).

Was it the missionary's schtick, I wondered. None of the other kids at my church had been told they would be prophets (I asked), but was it possible this creepy dude went from church to church and occasionally pulled aside the kid he judged most likely to be a sucker? I have a brother and two sisters who have all been missionaries, and two of them have been ministers, so obviously there's something to Proverbs 22:6, which was the key Bible verse that propelled my desire to write BOD.

While we're on the subject of Bible verses, I should mention that none of the verses quoted in BOD are actually replicated in any existing editions of the good book. It turns out Bible translations are copyrighted, which is gross and wrong and one of many terrible things about the modern world and possibly evidence of Satan's work in publishing (joking, mostly). But I don't want to be sued, so every "Bible verse" in BOD is my own translation, worded however I felt best suited the story. I remember my own disappointment in finding Ezekial 25:17 in the King James Bible is nothing like Jules Winnfield thinks it is:)

Esteemed Reader, that brings us to a discussion of the actual writing of BOD and the techniques employed, and as I see that this Afterword is quickly catching up in length to the book,  why don't we save that for next time? We'll be discussing the crafting of the story and the characters in Part Two and I'll show you some pictures of the animals actually painted on the walls of Little Ninja's nursery, if you'd care to join me...

NINJA STUFF: Funeral For A Friend (in which I discuss my failed novel)

It's a somber occasion, Esteemed Reader, so I hope you're wearing a black tie. Today I say goodbye to a book I once loved and still have some feelings for, even if I'm the only one. Actually, my critique partners and Mrs. Ninja also have strong feelings for the book, but not positive ones:)

I have a whole bookcase full of old manuscripts and screenplays, but most of them I promise myself can eventually be developed into better books. And why not? Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees took five years of revision before it was published and Pizza Delivery took 13. I have other stories that aren't ready for a readership yet, but may be revisited, even my 300-page screenplay about Batman. I've got a western that I would totally rework and publish if I could just get myself to change its inappropriate title (won't do it), an erotic horror novella that will never see the light of day, a story about a dying hooker that was good for me to write at the time and that no one should have to read, and some other stories that are actually pretty good that I hope to one day rewrite and make available.

But Straw Houses, my first epic adult horror novel about victims of alien abduction, has been picked over for parts and its ashes have been spread over my other works. All Together Now: A Zombie Story stole part of its ending, Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees stole some of its characters (Grandma Juanita was the only character in Straw Houses I genuinely liked, and I transported her to Banneker's world as an apology for first putting her in such a terrible novel), and now The Book Of David has stolen its best scenes and ideas. In fact, that last book is very much Straw Houses 2.0, and if I've finally written a decent long horror story involving UFO lore, it's only because I first devoted a couple years of my life to learning how NOT to write a long horror story involving UFO lore. 

So what went wrong? Like an athlete watching old games or comedians listening to past routines, I think authors should revisit their own works from time to time to assess their weaknesses and strategize for future victory. So this post will be a useful exercise for me and possibly interesting to you writers out there as well. And if it's not, next week we'll be back to interviews with authors, publishing professionals, and guest posts by the same. Plenty of useful archives for you to read if me mourning my dead book doesn't interest you:)

Here are the issues with Straw Houses as I see now them on this side of seven years past two years' writing and revising and rewriting and revising:

1. I didn't have a plan going in. Every writer has to decide where they sit on the spectrum between diligent, plodding plotter and fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pantser, free-spirited, I-just-write-it-as-it-comes-to-me-man-cause-its-my-art-man dirty hippie:) Through trial and error, I've learned I do better if I know the ending up front (or at least have a good idea what it might be). I leave open the possibility that the characters will change the ending, and they frequently do, but not by much.

With Straw Houses, I had a lot of passion because I was nine years younger, not yet married or a father, and more of a UFO enthusiast. I was evangelical in my suspicions of conspiracy. I've since mellowed and backed off, having learned the hard way that it pays to be cautious with overly-interesting theories:) But in my enthusiasm, I decided to take an interesting situation: a small town Indiana couple, interracial like Betty and Barney Hill, comes to in their car, parked on a country road, with no memory of the five hours that have just passed. Meanwhile, another man in town is menaced by a UFO late at night that appears in his backyard and speaks to him. The two stories converge because the men are coworkers who confess their separate incidents after a UFO appears above the Harrington courthouse and one of them snaps a picture of it that becomes world-famous.

It's a good set up for a novel. Even now, knowing how it turned out, I still feel the opening was pretty swell. It's got plenty of intrigue and I may yet write at least a short story in which a UFO shows up over the courthouse of a small Indiana town because that is just pure fun. Aside from a few other issues we'll come to, I think the first 100-150 pages of Straw Houses is one of my most gripping openings. Unfortunately, the book went on for another 700 pages and I had no clue what happened next:) I just assumed I'd figure it out as I went. I didn't.


2. The characters weren't likable or, worse, interesting. The main character, Charles Cavanaugh, was a jerk who whined a lot, treated his wife poorly, and didn't have a goal other than to stop being abducted by aliens. That's motivation enough for the protagonist of a short story (Brock Clouser's main motivation in Pizza Delivery is not to get murdered) but not a stupid-long novel.

Charles was a financial consultant at Mitchell and Reynolds Investments because I always thought it was funny that a straight-edge banker be abducted by aliens, which is why David Walters works at the same branch in The Book of David and meets many of the characters from Straw Houses, which is interesting only to me and the handful of other people who read my first attempt:) Charles' wife, Christine, is even worse, and the two of them together were deplorable. They were always fighting.

The couple wasn't fighting because I was ticked at Mrs. Ninja and looking for a place to put it, but because conflict drives stories and I hadn't given the Cavanaughs an actionable conflict, so they turned on each other to keep pages turning:) And, okay, I was contemplating getting married and chose to create a worst-case scenario marriage. Ultimately, the Cavanaughs fought so much I convinced myself and my few readers their relationship was doomed, so there wasn't anything at stake. The other characters were a little better, but not much because...


3. I never established a clear concept or overarching conflict to drive the novel. Whoops:) The number one thing I learned about writing my first long horror story about UFOs is that "realistic" aliens make lousy villains. Fictional aliens to which I can assign a motive and make clear their plan would probably be bang-up antagonists, and I'm sure I'll write about some eventually. But I wanted to incorporate as many details from modern UFO sightings and abductions as possible, and if you've done that research (here's a place to start), you'll notice there is no consensus about where flying saucers come from and what their motives are.

That's fine for an hour-long program of talking heads on the History Channel, but it's not's fine for a long novel. I had the same problem as the film Twister in that my villains weren't worthy villains with a goal that brings them into conflict with the "hero" in a credible way ("You've never seen a tornado miss this house and miss that house and come after you!").

About 300 pages in, after multiple UFO encounters and detailed flashbacks to suppressed memories of alien abduction, my characters began to suspect that the aliens were actually demons. The problem then is the demonic aliens still didn't have a clear plan or motivation other than to mess with our heroes, apparently by convincing one of them that she had alien babies being raised on another planet. Worse, the heroes could now pray the aliens away, which is not an exciting finale to a long novel.

My attempted solution was to hold off revealing that the aliens were demons until the end of the novel after Charles Cavanaugh attempted multiple means of fighting them off. But this just exacerbated the original problem of the villains being without a clear motive, leaving our hero without a real goal until page 750 or so. Even my mother isn't going to read a story like that.


4. I molded the story to serve its theme rather than allowing the theme to emerge from the story. In my mind, Straw Houses was destined to be literature read and studied for ages to come. What a fool I was. Only The Book of David and my other super important and impressive volumes of literature will be studied by future generations:)

About the same time I decided the aliens were demons, which is to say way too far along in the novel to reconsider, I decided they must be the big bad wolf. Oh my God, put on your tweed jacket with the leather patches and light your pipe, I've got myself a metaphor! I had two households being antagonized by a big bad wolf. If I had a third,  he could metaphorically huff and puff and blow two houses down, but then also the third, because in the end don't we all live in Straw Houses (Get it? Get it? I hate you, me from the past).

So I added a third house and a fourth major character about 300 pages in for the soul purpose of later killing him and showing that his metaphorical house wasn't built so good after all. At one point the demonic aliens called him on the phone and were all like, "Are you scared? We know your phone number!!!" And this happened because he wasn't tied into the main plot that was already going.


5. I ended a very long book with a total downer ending. This goes hand in hand with my previous mistake as missteps build on each other to lead a writer way off path.

I've always been suspicious of that third little pig in the brick house. Why's he so happy at the end of the story? Both his brothers got ate up and he's all alone. I mean, he's safe, so long as he never goes outside again. I realize I'm reading too much into an allegory, but I maintain that third pig is not a happy fellow.

So, after 800 some-odd pages of UFOs torturing our three households (or huffing and puffing) one character kills himself, one gets shot by a woman who is herself possessed by an alien demon, one character is killed when she attempts to flee the ritual suicide of a UFO cult, and our main character, Charles Cavanaugh, is left all alone to mourn his dead homies and never be happy again. Here's the actual ending:

     Only Charles remained. He was the smart pig who built his house of brick, the wise man who built his house upon the stone. The rains came down and the winds came up, and the wolf huffed and puffed, but he couldn’t get old Charles’s house down. Charles Cavanaugh was the wise man living on the rock. Charles Cavanaugh was the clever pig in the brick house and he was doing just fine, thank you very much.
     Charles filled his glass to the brim with whiskey and a dash of Sprite. He listened to the roar of the surf outside the kitchen window and the quiet stillness all around him. There were no voices, no other sounds of any kind. There was no one else here, only him.
     Charles raised the glass to his lips and began to drink.

Now, if I were Esteemed Reader, after dutifully acknowledging that I'd clearly just read the next Adventures of Huckleberry Finn penned by a modern master of the craft whose every brilliant sentence allows me to believe in a brighter tomorrow, I might be ticked to have read so much story only for all the characters to die or otherwise be miserable and no resolution to be had for any of them. I know all my critique partners were angry:)

Metaphorically, it's true that every character in the story had demonstrated the weakness that led to their undoing, but that just makes readers want to know about the characters who didn't screw up their lives and my 800-page tome would've been better off including some (even if it messed up the three-little pigs motif, which is really better left to James Patterson).

So, from this experience, I learned that as a rule: downer endings are more acceptable at the end of shorter works. Readers are generally more forgiving if they've invested less time with the doomed protagonist. Better yet is the downer ending that's still somewhat happy for at least one or two major characters. Conversely, a happy ending is better tempered with at least a little darkness.


One mistake I made with Straw Houses that is no longer a mistake was the length. The plot problems would've still been an issue had it been a shorter book, though I might've got away with a narrative poem:)  I like long horror novels and am convinced there is still a market for them. And there's a very good reason some of my most favorite horror novels have been long.

The most astute critique I ever heard of Stephen King came from a fellow Burger King employee many, many years ago when the Ninja was a teenager. We both agreed King's stories were amazing, and by far the scariest, but he remarked, "Doesn't it seem like if you shook hands with that dude at a party, you'd have to chew through your wrist to get away?" I have thought about that criticism ever since every time I reread King's works, but also when I read other long books.

I've talked at length about my undying love for Stephen King, but my coworker did have a point. There have been a few Stephen King novels when I've wondered if the editor just didn't feel comfortable asking Mr. King to please not review other writer's books in the middle of the book Constant Reader paid for (get a blog, man). And yet most of King's novels are white-hot reading experiences demanding to be read as quickly as possible that are still popular decades after they were written, despite large word counts. So either Stephen King is just super lucky every book (and no doubt, some luck was involved), or there's a method to his madness.

Many of Stephen King's books thrive on details. They have to. He's asked Constant Reader to suspend their disbelief by quite a lot on numerous occasions.

The Shining has a cast of four major characters in a straightforward horror story that can be boiled down to a few sentences or endless 2-5 minute animated parodies. King took 160,000 words to tell his version and it worked and continues to work. King is a master salesman who convinces Constant Reader that his characters are real people because Constant Reader will know everything that's relevant about them. King convinces Constant Reader that the situation those real characters are in is real as well.

Even if it takes King 444,000 words, Constant Reader will believe there is a killer clown in the sewers capable of transforming into their worst fear and Constant Reader will believe because every detail about that fantasy will add up to an argument convincing enough until the lights come on again.

Straw Houses at its longest draft was 182,000 words. A literary agent literally laughed in my face when I told her. Nobody was going to traditionally publish a novel that long by a debut author, she said, and she was right. That's not the same as saying there aren't readers looking for long horror stories. If they've read King (and what kind of jerk loves horror and doesn't read King?), they know those seemingly mundane details add up, like the passes of a hypnotist's golden watch, to convince the reader the story is real and that they should be terrified.

The compilation of all five volumes of The Book of David is 276,000 words. I knew going in it would be a long story because it asks the reader to suspend their disbelief about a whole lot of stuff, the least of which is that flying saucers and alien abductions are real and a practical concern for everyday people:) But I learned my lesson from previous mistakes and published this very long story as five books, which allows for marketing considerations. 

Because I only get paid for the fifth book if Esteemed Reader made it through the first four, this insured that I would be forced to keep the narrative focused with built in cliffhangers.

I did a few other things differently in writing The Book of David that I knew to do only because I'd first written Straw Houses:

1. I absolutely had a plan going in. I knew what the last chapter would be before I wrote the first one, while keeping the plot flexible enough to allow the characters to dictate their own actions (sometimes). I didn't have a full outline, but I did have a list of planned events to help me determine where each chapter needed to start and stop to get where I wanted to go.


2. I had a clear concept going in: The Walters family has bought a haunted house. From the first line of Chapter One to the last line of Chapter Five, this is a haunted house story. There are aliens and flying saucers, but the reader is told in Chapter One as well as in the book's description that those aliens may actually be demons. There's an alien with demonic horns on the cover. My cards are pretty much on the table from the start. And the aliens are prominently featured without ever bearing the responsibility of being the primary antagonist. This is a haunted house story with aliens in it, not an alien story with a haunted house in it. 

3. Because I knew the ending, I knew some of what the themes were likely to be and allowed them to emerge from the story rather than bending the story to serve the themes. If you read the whole story from start to finish and don't pick up that this is a story in part about addiction and in part about parenting, you won't be bothered because the plot moves right along without your needing to pick the themes up. If you don't think it's thematically relevant that every volume starts with "Do you believe? Do you have faith?" then maybe it isn't. I'm okay with The Book of David being thematically misunderstood so long as Esteemed Reader is entertained and kept in suspense. This is a for fun story, not homework.


4. David and Miriam Walters are both flawed characters, but they're also likeable and they have actionable goals. I know because I used critique partners' and beta readers' feedback to rewrite my characters until I knew they were likeable and I wrote out fact sheets about them to keep them consistent through five volumes of story. I know all kinds of details about them that aren't relevant enough to be in the book. It thrilled my heart when one Esteemed Reader wrote in a review, "The main character David is down to earth and likable which is a good part of what makes this book so enjoyable to read." I couldn't have paid someone to write a better compliment than that, assuring me the book was doing what I wanted it to do.


5. The ending is satisfying, whatever the author's opinion of it does for you:) I didn't write 279,000 words just to tell you the ending on my free blog, but I do feel it's my best ending of all my stories so far published. It makes me smile to think of how I hope Esteemed Reader will feel when they reach it.


There were many other mistakes made in Straw Houses, some of which I'm probably still making because I don't yet know they were mistakes:) But every story I've told since Straw Houses has been better because I wrote that ill-fated novel destined to sit on my shelf of manuscripts that are, sigh, not good enough. Straw Houses taught me the lessons I needed to know to write the manuscripts that are.

That shelf of old manuscripts isn't a graveyard of failed dreams. It's a monument to the heroic efforts made by the stories who went first so future stories could resonate with Esteemed Reader. 

"The Lord has appointed you to a special duty in these last days and given your life a unique purpose. Will you turn away from the myriad temptations of this wicked world and answer His righteous calling?"

The Walters family has just purchased the perfect home if only it weren't located in the small hick town of Harrington, Indiana, and if only it weren't haunted. David Walters is an atheist now, but his minister father taught him from a young age that Satan would one day deceive all mankind by pretending his demons were extraterrestrials. The day the Walters family moves in, they spot a flying saucer outside their new home. Things only get stranger from there. David Walters is about to learn what it means to be truly haunted, forcing him to confront his past, fight for his family, his soul, and his sanity.


WARNING

This horror story is intended for a mature audience. It's filled with adult language, situations, and themes. It's in no way appropriate for the easily offended or younger readers of BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES.

NINJA STUFF: On Conspiracy Theories And Flying Saucers

WARNING: Today's post has nothing to do with middle grade fiction, the reading or the writing of it. This is going to be an epic post I already regret publishing. 

Don't worry, Esteemed Reader. This isn't about to become a blog about conspiracy theories and flying saucers. There are plenty of those available already. I should split this post in two, but I'm going to leave it extra long because we're only going to do this once.

I've written a book with an alien on its cover (sort of), so at some point we have to talk about them:) The Book of David concerns a number of kooky, crazy crackpot ideas, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to write it.  I know writing about such things as flying saucers and a government cover-up will lead readers to question whether or not the author believes in them. The answer, naturally, is of course I do—but let me qualify that statement!

Admitting to a belief in a conspiracy theory is like admitting to a belief in religion in that some additional context is required for the reader to appreciate my position. People like to take an all-or-nothing position whenever possible, especially when it comes to conspiracy theories. All or nothing keeps things simple, but life is rarely simple. Children are allowed to see the world in black and white, but maturing means learning to accept that the world (and possibly the aliens visiting it) exists in shades of gray.

One conspicuously missing conspiracy theory in The Book of David is any reference to a 9/11 cover-up because that event is too fresh and raw and even I have a limit to what I'm comfortable exploiting for the entertainment of my readers. Many of you Esteemed Readers reading this have your own 9/11 experiences, as do I, and my bull crap tale of flying saucers and a corrupt government supported by greedy financiers has plenty of fun with less sensitive conspiracy theories. Also, my book takes place prior to the swearing in of Donald Trump, so I'm choosing not to deal with that craziness here.

My interest is in crafting fiction. I read about UFOs as a boy and the stories captured my imagination. More, people very close to me have seen them and so from childhood, I've known flying saucers were probably real. But I've never seen a flying saucer. There is no definitive, established narrative for where they come from or what they're up to, so beyond pondering the wonder of their existence, flying saucer lore is not particularly useful to me on a daily basis. I've approached the topic for years now with the explicit intention of crafting scary stories, so if it should somehow be definitively proven that flying saucers have never existed, I'll still have my stories, which are a pack of lies anyway. It's win/win for me, Esteemed Reader:)

That bears repeating: I've approached ufology looking for fun tidbits and without much concern for truth. There's plenty of truth in the actual news I read. When I read conspiracy theories, I'm looking for entertainment and instruction on what resonates with large numbers of readers by terrifying them with "alternative facts." I have no reason to think the moon landing was actually a hoax, but a story about it being one just captures the imagination, doesn't it? It's fun and interesting and I think applying the best elements of that bull crap story to your own bull crap story improves your fiction craft:)

In preparing The Book Of David, I didn't actually have to believe in haunted houses to write a haunted house story—but you better believe I read as many haunted house stories as I could before starting and while writing, because that's my due diligence. A danger in writing about scary things is you have to research scary things, and if you go looking for things that go bump in the night, believing they don't exist does nothing for you when you actually bump into them (or scarier yet, when they bump into you).

I've learned that lesson previously, so I do most of my research by reading books and interviewing people who have actually faced scary things, doing my best to stay out of harm's way. I've talked with multiple ufologists and several victims of alien abduction and religious leaders who take the issue extremely seriously. What I learned from them scared me badly enough to get me back into church (for a couple Sundays).

It's really best not to make up your mind about a thing until you've done your due diligence. It's my experience that most people who write off the subject of UFOs haven't read the research, and nothing annoys me more than a strongly held opinion by someone who hasn't qualified it. "Everyone knows something can't be true," is never a valid argument against contradictory evidence.  Everyone once knew the sun revolved around Earth, which was the center of the universe.

Do your homework. If there's nothing to this flying saucer thing, you'll be able to speak with confidence that it's all just as you thought: tabloid garbage used to sell budget-less programs on the History Channel that would otherwise just be about history (booooring!). And that will be a valid opinion as you've done the due diligence. Keep an ear out should new data become available, but you will be justified in your view.

The Ninja once suspected there was no Santa Claus. I've looked into it and though I keep an ear out for new data as I'm terrified it might be true (I don't want to live in a world where a guy breaks into the homes of all children every year). I feel confident in saying "No, Virginia, there's no Santa Claus. Your well-meaning parents have just introduced you to your first conspiracy theory. Now remember for the rest of your life that the people you loved and trusted most lied to you, as did many other adults in your community."

If, on the other hand, you should discover there is evidence for flying saucers, you'll have to reconsider your opinion. I'm not interested in converting anyone to a religion, but I am interested in spreading awareness of evidence. The more informed our population becomes about a phenomenon presenting as flying saucers, the more likely we are to find an answer to who these visitors are and what we might learn from them. 

Sudden subject change: to state that the government of the United States or of any country is always good or always bad is absurd. A government is too huge a body involving too many players to be said to be uniformly any kind of way. More, if you love America, it's your duty as a citizen to keep an eye on the government and criticize when it's being unfair. And if you don't think the American government would conspire against a group of its people, I remind you that we had a civil rights movement (still going) to try to get the government to stop conspiring against a group of its people.

A comparison between religion and conspiracy theories is a major theme of The Book of David as I believe both serve the same function of building a mental framework in which to accept otherwise in-congruent occurrences. Much of life is flat and straightforward: get up, eat, go to work/school, go home, eat, sleep, repeat. If I step on a tack, I will bleed, and it isn't a supernatural occurrence. The tack isn't out to get me. It was simply in my path. Had I walked elsewhere, or paid more attention, I wouldn't have stepped on it.

And yet, I believe I have experienced direct divine intervention at least twice (probably more often in subtler ways) that saved my life on both occasions (Update: as of March of 2023, it's three direct divine interventions). I don't want to get too far off course, so let me just say these events could be written off as coincidence or mental illness and would not convince the true skeptic. But I personally experienced the events and I know something greater than myself got involved to directly influence the course of my life.

And that's all I know.

I've talked before about reality being fuzzy around the edges. I'll assume many of you Esteemed Readers have had one or two events of high strangeness in your life. They're common enough that most everyone has at least one in a lifetime, even if they insist on denying it or calling it something else.

After a genuine supernatural event, life has a way of getting on much the way it did prior to the event: get up, eat, go to work, etc. And the event is just there, dangling, something that does not add up, does not conveniently fit in the otherwise logically structured narrative of life.

Just as there are incongruent events in our individual lives, there are such events in our nation's life that leave us struggling to fit them into the national narrative. America is the land of the free and the home of the brave and our leaders are the best and brightest selected by We The People. And those leaders are held accountable to us, except none of us really believe that once we get out of grade school. Nor should we.

As I write this, we've just gone through one of the largest wealth transfers in our history (still going). We've all watched as our government handed our money directly to bankers with little to no restriction and put none of them in jail as many of us little people lost our jobs and had our homes foreclosed on. We know the NSA is archiving all our communications and possibly reading this blog post right now. We know the Bush administration led us into a seeming pre-ordained oil war that in retrospect, appears largely unrelated to the events of 9/11, and the Vice President's company and friends of the Bush family made a whole lot of money, which seems to have been the point.

None of this suggests an outright conspiracy. There's no need for an Illuminati council of bankers to meet secretly for bankers in general to agree that it's an inspired idea to get their grubby hands on as much money as they can just as there's no need for sharks to meet and strategize before they go into a frenzy and attack a bleeding animal. Quick covering of my butt: I use Illuminati in the pop culture sense, not the traditionally racist one. Greedy bankers intent on stealing America out from under us come from all races and creeds and walks of life (being terrible is not the exclusive domain of any one culture).

Far more troubling to me is this study by professors from Princeton and Northwestern University that shows from 1981 to 2002, Congressional votes cast over those twenty years aligned with the popular opinion of average Americans less than 18 percent of the time. Now I'm no expert on such matters, but that sure sounds a lot closer to taxation without representation than I think our forefathers would be comfortable with.

We're still telling ourselves we live in a democratic republic (we light our fireworks every 4th of July), but I imagine future history books will correctly label this period in our history as the American oligarchy. Maybe you voted for Trump because you didn't want Hilary Clinton's homies from Goldman Sachs to be appointed to high-level government positions, but the joke's on you because Trump's been appointing Goldman Sachs folks almost as frequently as his democratic predecessor. Or maybe you donated money to the Bernie Sanders campaign and learned that the Democratic National Committee has more than a passing familiarity with conspiracies (#stillmad).

Looking simply at the facts of our modern  American lives suggests a system that is working against the majority of Americans. It could be market forces, it could be the technological revolution, it could be the amalgamation of a lot of factors and probably is, but just a glance at a chart like this one shows that something has been working against the majority of Americans:

And then there are the events and facts we just don't talk about and wish would go away. Remember when that handsome young President was executed in broad daylight in front of a huge crowd and the government officially said the event happened one way, but it was captured on a film that was released years later and we all watched JFK's head go back and to the left from a bullet supposedly fired from a window behind and above him? And the guy we were told did it told everyone he was just a patsy before he got shot and the guy that shot him died a short time later of a highly suspicious heart attack while in custody. I know it sounds like a bull crap story, but the stakes are really, really high on this one, so let's all just accept the magic bullet theory and put the whole unpleasant business behind us because if you go lifting up that particular rock, God knows what might come scurrying out.

It's possible Lee Harvey Oswald got off the world's most amazing three shots; not likely, but potentially possible, or so we've been told by official government sources. What amuses me is the vehemence with which some people insist that the official story is the only way in which events could've transpired and if you think otherwise, you're unpatriotic. And who can blame such folks? What are the implications of people within our own government covering up something like the murder of our elected leader? If it's true, do we really want to know it? They, whoever they may be, appear to have gotten away with it, so maybe we should just live and let live and not worry our pretty little heads about it.

Actually, I'm being facetious here, which brings me to another point: you can't always trust conspiracy theorists, especially when they're selling books:) I wasn't there (or alive at the time) and I don't know exactly what went down in Dallas, Texas on 11/2/1963 and you don't either (probably). However, I think the most plausible theory is that Kennedy was hit by friendly fire from his own secret service in an attempt to protect him, thus instigating a perhaps understandable and far less nefarious government conspiracy to save face. The fact that Kennedy complained multiple times that his security detail was overzealous and that Johnson insisted on reducing his own detail even after his predecessor was shot would seem to support the idea. Here's a book worth reading on the subject.

Or maybe Kennedy was shot once by Bigfoot and once by the Loch Ness Monster from an invisible flying saucer fueled by the top-secret cure for cancer. Who knows? But if you say to me that you're 100% certain that the official version of the Kennedy assassination is the only version of events that could've occurred, you're willfully ignoring an awful lot of suspicious evidence to the contrary that's not so easily dismissed and I don't know that I feel comfortable trusting your opinion on other matters—with the notable exception of Stephen King, who had a book to sell:)

I believe it's possible and perhaps preferable to bury your head in the sand. There are sports teams to root for and entire seasons of television to binge watch and novels to read and most of us are working more hours for less pay in the new economy, so there's no time to really worry about what's happening in the upper echelons of power where billionaires are buying our politicians wholesale and ensuring things only get more unfair from here.

We'll get to the flying saucers (we will, don't worry, or you could just read my book on the subject), but we don't need them to illustrate that our world is rife for conspiracy theories because our official reality so often doesn't match up to the facts. Every American has to walk around with the knowledge that an actor who later became a corporate spokesperson was elected President and appointed as his chief of staff the former chairman of Merryl Lynch, and then proceeded to cripple unions and champion the trend of tax breaks for the wealthy that brought us to our current times. Say what you will about Michael Moore, I frequently disagree with him and I think he's often played unfairly, but God bless him for drawing attention to this clip for all to see:

We don't need a conspiracy theory's explanation when the corruption in our system is this blatant.

And there are other facts that once you know them, you can't un-know them. For example, once you've read about Operation Northwoods, which called for the CIA to commit acts of terrorism against US citizens in preparation to justify war with Cuba, you can't ever again completely dismiss the notion of a government conspiracy to kill American citizens. This isn't some questionable document Alex Jones is waiving in the air while spouting psedo-science and craziness, this is a proposal signed by The Joint Chiefs of Staff and submitted to the President of the United States.

You could also read about how various black civil rights leaders were murdered and followed by agencies within our government. You could read about the Tuskegee experiments in which members of the US Public Health Service told black men they were being given free healthcare and were instead intentionally infected with syphilis. You could read about Operation Midnight Climax and MK Ultra in which the CIA dosed unwitting US Citizens (of all races and creeds this time) with LSD. Oh, and while you're bumming yourself out, make sure to bone up on how the CIA has occasionally sold drugs when it's of the mind to. And don't forget Robert McNamara admitting, on camera, that the Gulf of Tonken never happened.

Conspiracies have existed within the United States government to subvert authority and betray US citizens. Period, case closed, end of debate. We can argue about what is and what is not currently a conspiracy, but let's not waste time arguing that they cannot happen and have not happened.

The internet is abuzz with conspiracy theory articles and videos, so much so that I wouldn't be surprised to learn they're second in popularity only to pornography. The theories, especially the really crazy ones, amuse me to no end. They're scary stories and you know I love campfire tales told just before we have to go to sleep to keep our minds working on overtime into the late hours. 

I'm especially fond of David Ike's lizard people. Obviously, I DO NOT ACTUALLY BELIEVE there are lizard people wearing human skins and secretly running all governments (though I can't prove there aren't), but what a great story! I'm kicking myself that David Ike came up with that one before I did as it's the set-up for a fantastic horror novel. I think most writers are amateur sociologists at heart and a group of people who can be convinced of the reality of lizard people greatly interests me the same way people who run with the bulls in Papmlona interest me—I have no intention of joining them, but I think it's fascinating that they're doing it.

And before we write off the extreme conspiracy theorists as being "just crazy," let us remember that a huge percentage of our population has long believed that there is a dark prince of this world. What could be more of a conspiracy theory than the working thought model that there is a fallen angel presiding in Hell actively plotting the ruin and degradation of mankind? 

I'm not here to tell you there's no God or no devil. The world is a very strange place. Reality is fuzzy around the edges, and both could indeed exist in some form (do They read blogs, you think?).

No one knows for sure what happens to our consciousness when we die (if anything other than ceasing), but there's a lot of money to be made by saying you do. The folks in position to know what happens behind the closed doors of the powerful don't always talk, but there's lots of money to be made in pretending to know what happened. And in a field of unknowns, there's a lot of room to make things up, which is a constant problem in both religion and conspiracy theories.

Ufology is a scam artists' paradise as scammers thrive in fields in which many key details are presently unknowable. I can admit to a belief in flying saucers while still being fully aware that John Mack's (Harvard psychologist interested in alien abduction) research was sloppy at best, Erich Von Daniken, responsible for much of the Ancient Aliens lore, is a sketchy fellow, and Ed Walters (for whom David Walters is named) probably faked The Gulf Breeze Sightings.

Battlefield Earth is one of my favorite novels (never saw more than 10 minutes of the movie) and if L. Ron Hubbard went on to write some highly dubious stuff, it doesn't change the fact that there's a truth in that classic work that makes it still worth reading. I can appreciate the tale without signing up for Scientology. I can agree that Dr. Steven Greer is either a nut or a con artist or both, but it doesn't change the credentials of his witnesses in The Disclosure Project (do not watch the video unless you're ready to have your mind blown).

So what is some of this evidence I keep talking about? Esteemed Reader, I don't know where to begin. Maybe I should let my favorite UFO historian Richard Dolan handle this one. Incidentally, Mr. Dolan was kind enough to write me a few encouraging emails while I was working on The Book of David, which meant quite a lot to me. I told him privately that I consider him to be the Bill Hicks of Ufology, by which I mean his presentation style is extremely engaging, and while I haven't always agreed with his conclusions, I'm so grateful that's he's out there making an argument and bringing information to light that is too often ignored elsewhere:

Or, if that doesn't do it for you, how about some testimony from Buzz Aldrin:

Esteemed Reader, there is no end to the ufology-themed YouTube videos I could post here, but I'll let you stumble down the rest of that particular rabbit hole yourself. There's more pilots, former military and government officials, police officers, and regular people testifying than I could possibly cover here. But I hope that you'll look into this topic on your own. The battle for disclosure needs every able-bodied thinker it can get. Do the research and remember that evidence of SOMETHING is not evidence of EVERYTHING.

In other words, yes, there are controlled vehicles of unknown origin flying in our skies in a manner in which we are currently not capable and were certainly not capable of 70+ years ago or in ancient times. This is not a matter of debate. If you disagree, do the research and come back. We can debate what these craft are, but the argument of their existence is settled.

Update: As of July of 2023, the pentagon has admitted flying saucers are real and whistleblower David Grush officially let a lot of cats out of a lot of bags. But continue reading this post if you're enjoying it:)

Are flying saucers or triangles responsible for the crop circles not done by fraudsters? Could be, but that's a separate issue. Are they chopping up cows? Maybe, but I've heard convincing evidence that many so-called mutilations are a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and again, that's a separate issue.

Are aliens abducting people and probing them? This is the subject of another post I'll probably never write, but it's a separate issue. Although I will say I interviewed multiple abduction victims and what I learned from them terrified me. Whether they were abducted by aliens or are suffering some form of sleep disorder (and yes, some are attention-seeking liars and crazies, but not all), I know I wouldn't want whatever they experienced to happen to me and if it had, I wouldn't appreciate people making light of it.

The problem with many conspiracy theories, as I see it, is the same problem of many ideologies: humans have a tendency to apply a thing that's true in one situation to all situations. Ayn Rand is quite correct that an entrepreneur competing with other entrepreneurs is likely to produce a superior product; the issue I take with her is that she applies that same model to everything, and not everything in life is best done for a profit motive or in competition (like healthcare). Similarly, government officials lying about one thing doesn't mean they're lying about all things, one fake UFO photo doesn't make all UFO photos fake, and so on.

Esteemed Reader, I'm not the UFO ninja, I'm the Middle Grade Ninja. My focus and the focus of this blog has always been and will remain writing. My opinions on most matters ufological remain subject to change in light of new evidence and I accept there's a great deal about this topic I don't know and likely will never know.  I suspect flying saucers are not alien craft, but a far older and more frightening phenomenon that's likely been with us since ancient times, but the evidence so far presented doesn't allow me to draw any definitive conclusion (the beings inside flying saucers could also be whatever the heck those not-aliens were in Indiana Jones 4).

The outer-space alien hypothesis also makes sense. Our expanding universe is so big we don't even know how big it is and thus how small we really are. Give us another generation or two and we'll be colonizing space ourselves, probably with robot bodies if Ray Kurzweil is to be believed. Given that we're a young species in terms of the universe's age, it seems likely to me that folks elsewhere with a healthy head start might've already done the same. They might've been coming here before we started walking upright, and may even have had a guiding hand in that process.

Another possibility is that there are no visitors from anywhere and that agencies within our government are spreading rumors of flying saucer visitations as a psych op of some kind. Before you dismiss this idea, read up on Richard Doty and consider watching the absolutely riveting documentary Mirage Men. I suspect plenty of flying saucer evidence may either have been intentionally released or fabricated at an official level for purposes I can only guess at.

Whoever the craft occupants are, however long they've been here, wherever they come from, they're here now. It's always possible they're planning to wipe us out, but I remain optimistic. I think there's a lot for our species to learn and a whole new potential market for me to sell books to:) And it all starts with us, you and me, everyday citizens waking up and saying "There's enough evidence for it to be time for us to have an adult conversation on this topic." If enough of us agree, the focus of our mainstream scientific inquiry will change and rogue elements of our government will have to fess up to what they know.

We aren't likely to find an answer until enough of us agree that there's something here worth investigating. I just want to nudge you in that direction.

Or maybe it's all bull crap. I don't know, do I? Either way, The Book of David is available now:) Buy my book!!!

"The Lord has appointed you to a special duty in these last days and given your life a unique purpose. Will you turn away from the myriad temptations of this wicked world and answer His righteous calling?"

The Walters family has just purchased the perfect home if only it weren't located in the small hick town of Harrington, Indiana, and if only it weren't haunted. David Walters is an atheist now, but his minister father taught him from a young age that Satan would one day deceive all mankind by pretending his demons were extraterrestrials. The day the Walters family moves in, they spot a flying saucer outside their new home. Things only get stranger from there. David Walters is about to learn what it means to be truly haunted, forcing him to confront his past, fight for his family, his soul, and his sanity.


WARNING

This horror story is intended for a mature audience. It's filled with adult language, situations, and themes. It's in no way appropriate for the easily offended or younger readers of BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES.

Book Review: MY TEACHER IS AN ALIEN by Bruce Coville

First Paragraph(s): “Hey, Geekoid!” yelled Duncan Dougal as he snatched Peter Thompson’s book out of his hand. “Why do you read so much? Don’t you know how to watch TV?”
Poor Peter. I could see that he wanted to grab the book back from Duncan. But I also knew that if he tried, Duncan would cream him. 
Sometimes I wonder if Duncan’s mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby. I mean, something must have made him decide to spend his life making other people miserable. Otherwise why would he spend so much of his time picking on a kid like Peter Thompson? Peter never bothers anyone. Heck, the only thing he really wants is to be left alone so he can read whatever book he has his nose stuck in at the moment. 
That doesn’t seem like too much to ask to me. But Duncan takes Peter’s reading as a personal insult.

Hi there, Esteemed Reader. I'm going to call this a book of the week review even though I haven't reviewed a book here since almost exactly one year ago:) Truthfully, I've been turning down requests for book reviews because typically guest posts written by writers more talented than yours truly have drawn greater traffic, with the notable exception of reviews of classic books. The interwebs are drawn to this review of Bunnicula for some reason, and this review of The Indian in the Cupboard gets more traffic than this way more interesting interview with its author. I don't get it and I don't pretend to, but if Esteemed Reader's happy, I'm happy.

As an experiment, we're going to try a few "book of the week" reviews in the coming weeks. I never want to become complacent. If enough Esteemed Readers show me they like these reviews, I'm happy to write more of them. If y'all prefer the guest posts, that works too, and we'll have some more interviews with literary agents and other publishing professionals in the near future. Most exciting of all, author Bruce Coville will be here on Thursday to face the 7 Questions for writers. It's going to be a great week!

My Teacher is an Alien is an absolute classic of middle grade fiction and any ninjas wishing to write middle grade science fiction and/or horror should absolutely give it its due consideration. This gem was published in the eighties, which is why I have a cherished childhood memory of having to wait for agonizing weeks for the library's copy to be made available to me. Every student in my class was on the waiting list to check it out and so I saw that super scary cover staring back at me from multiple desks before I got my turn.

It's a mystery to me why some books become classics (why do people of sound mind read James Joyce when a gun isn't pressed against their head!?!), but there's no mystery here. My Teacher is an Alien is a killer concept well executed, which seems simple enough, but if it were every writer would be doing it every book:) The title beautifully lays out the conflict that's to be the subject of the story and it's exciting stuff. Between the title and one of the finest covers in all of middle grade history, I was invested in the book as a child before the first page and these many years later, children are still being intrigued.

More than a killer concept, Coville's is a great story well told, which is why it remains popular when so many other books with concepts and covers almost as good have gone the way of cassette tapes. Because the characters are well-defined and the concept is universal (who hasn't suspected at least one of their teachers of being an alien?), this story hardly seems to have aged and I enjoyed it as an adult as much as I once did as a child, even if I found myself muttering "or watch it on YouTube" here:

We were doing the greatest march of all time, “The Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Philip Sousa. (If you don’t know it, you should go to your library and get a record of it so you can listen to it. It’s great.)

And okay, I did wonder how it might change things if any of the students in Mr. Smith's class had a smart phone to film him transitioning to the alien Broxholm (such a wonderful name) to live stream to social media. Of course, UFO videos are everywhere online and folks who believe there's something to them like your beloved ninja are still thought to be kooks (it's fake news as our 100% trustworthy government would tell us if they knew of flying saucers!), so maybe a smart phone wouldn't make much difference.

My Teacher is an Alien is a short book that can be knocked out in a couple bus rides, or one long one, which has no doubt also contributed to its longevity. Because it's short and funny, it appears to have been written effortlessly, as the best fiction so often does, but look again. You long-term Esteemed Readers know I don't really review books so much as dissect them a bit, so let's start with that opening. Look up at the first paragraph at the top of this review once again.

Right away, Coville establishes the tone of his story and assures the reader that this book is going to concern itself with 6th graders and their conflicts. Peter Thompson has our sympathies and Duncan Dougal does not (or do you root for bullies, Esteemed Reader?). More over, the reason Peter is being bullied is because he likes to read, which will probably appeal to Coville's reader, who we know is reading at least one book:)

I'll never forget a critique session I participated in with an author who shall remain nameless who'd written a story about a protagonist who hated books. When the character didn't later reverse this position (it wasn't central to the plot), I and my other critique partners savaged the author and our number one critique was that although a main character in a book doesn't have to like to read, it's probably not a bad idea if she does. Your book has to appeal to readers and people who like books, so why not assure them that it's good that they're reading (link to your back catalog!). Bruce Coville knows what side his bread is buttered on:

I slid down the wall and sat beside him. He acted as if he didn’t notice me. Or maybe he really didn’t. He was one of those kids who could get so wrapped up in a book it would take a bomb to break his attention. I hated to interrupt him. Peter always seemed a little unhappy to me, like he understood that he just didn’t fit in with the rest of us. The only thing I knew that made him happy was reading science fiction. He always had a book hidden behind his school book. The neat thing was, it didn’t make any difference, because he was so bright that whenever the teacher asked him a question, he always knew the answer. I could never figure out why they wouldn’t just leave him alone and let him read. But that’s the way school is, I guess.

What really makes this opening work better than other middle grade books that begin with a bully menacing a likable character (including Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees) is that the point of this exchange is not primarily to introduce Peter or Duncan, though it does accomplish this, but to characterize our main protagonist, who is neither boy, but a particularly tough girl named Susan Simmons:

Peter had absolutely no idea how to deal with a creep like Duncan. Actually, neither did I. If I did, I would have stopped him. But the one time I had tried to come between Duncan and Peter, I ended up with a black eye myself.
Duncan claimed it was an accident, of course. “Susan just jumped right in front of my fist,” he said as if I was the one who had done something wrong. To tell you the truth, I think Duncan punched me on purpose. Most guys wouldn’t hit a girl. But Duncan doesn’t mind. It was his way of warning me to keep my nose out of his business.
As I watched Duncan squinting down at Peter, it occurred to me that sixth grade can be a dangerous place if you don’t watch out.

Our characters established, we move right along at breakneck speed because something is amiss at Kennituck Falls Elementary. I don't want to spoil it for you, but one of the teachers may be... wait for it... an alien! The reader knows something is up with the strange Mr. Smith, who does not care one bit for music or laughter or fun. He bans "radios and tape players" and presumably 8-tracks from the playground:) Coville gives us plenty of evidence that the new teacher who's replaced Ms. Schwartz is other worldly: 

Later, I remembered that he was looking straight at the sun. But right then I was too worried about the note to pay attention to the fact that what he was doing should have burned out his eyeballs.

But Coville doesn't drag things out. There's some drama involving a passed note that escalates until Susan is given a plausible reason to follow Mr. Smith home, where she discovers this in chapter four:

When I finally got up the nerve to sneak a look around the bottom edge of the door, I saw Mr. Smith sitting at a little makeup table, looking in a mirror. Stacy was right. The man really was handsome. He had a long, lean face with a square jaw, a straight nose, and cheekbones to die for. Only it was a fake. As I watched, Mr. Smith pressed his fingers against the bottom of his eyes. Suddenly he ran his fingertips to the sides of his head, grabbed his ears, and started peeling off his face!

Again, surprise, my teacher, as it turns out, is an alien (gasps and clutches pearls). Even if I inserted more passages from the text and walked you through the full events of each of the first four chapters, I wouldn't be telling you much that you don't already know from the title, the cover, and the back blurb. Coville can't not tell this part of the story, the way Michael Chrichton dutifully pretends there's a mystery as to what sort of animals are at Jurassic Park prior to the arrival of the heroes on Isla Nublar. Corville's establishing of the premise is absolutely exciting and fun, but there are 21 chapters here and the first four alone do not a story make.

What matters most is that by the time we get to the end of chapter four, we care about Susan Simmons and Peter Thompson and that we've bought into their situation. The story here is not that Mr. Smith is an alien, it's what Susan and later (despite what the cover would have you believe) Peter are going to do once they discover their teacher is an alien. Who can they tell? Who would believe them? And if no one believes them, who will stop Broxholm if they don't stop him? Does he need to be stopped?

I believe the rule of any great story is that a writer must begin with a great premise and build outward. Corville's prose is tight and fun and I laughed a lot along the way, especially toward the end as I'd forgotten how our heroes foil... nope, I best not say too much and spoil the story for the uninitiated.

But do take notice that Coville eschews most description save for what readers need to follow the story. There are no long, overly-written descriptions of fields of symbolically purple flowers here because Coville keeps things moving. And every chapters ends with either a cliffhanger or a question as to what will happen next, making it impossible for young readers to put down the book in favor of their intertelevision console controller:). Here's one of my favorite chapter endings that would be at home in a Stephen King novel:

“Oh, all right,” said Peter. He opened the door and started up the stairway. When he got about halfway up the stairs his head passed the level of the attic floor. I was walking so close that I bumped into him when he stopped. 
“What is it?” I whispered. When he didn’t answer me, I pushed my way up beside him and cried out in horror.

And so, once again, Esteemed Reader, upon revisiting an old favorite novel, I discover that the secret to creating a classic is a good story well told. Bruce Coville makes it look easy, but it's far from it. Rereading My Teacher is an Alien was like visiting with a childhood friend. If you've never read it, pick it up this minute, and if you haven't read it in the last five years, it's probably time for a refresher. As always, I'll leave you with some of my favorite passages from My Teacher is an Alien:

I sank back into my seat. Sixth grade was going bad faster than a dead fish on a hot day.

Of course, once we were inside, I had to go to the nurse’s office—even though I actually felt perfectly fine. Mrs. Glacka told me to lie down. I wasn’t surprised. That was her basic cure for everything.

I was as nervous as a marshmallow at a bonfire.

“An alien!” said Peter, his voice filled with awe. “Mr. Smith is an alien! We’re not alone!” 
“What are you talking about?” I hissed. 
“Intelligent aliens. Mankind is not alone in the universe.” 
“Well, I’m feeling pretty alone right now,” I said. “Are you going to help me or not?”

After supper I slipped out of bed and went to see my father. He was sitting in his den, building a model of the Empire State Building out of toothpicks. That’s his hobby—making famous buildings with toothpicks. If you ask me, it’s pretty weird. But it keeps him happy, which is more than I can say for most adults I know. So I guess I shouldn’t complain.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: All reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.