The clown and the psychic say their goodbyes.

As fall sets in and smothers over what summer had left to linger, I feel a chill in the air, an early harbinger of what will surely become a long cold winter. The leaves are turning, losing their green summer luster, leaving behind striking colors that were mysteriously already there but hiding under lush chlorophyll as the wooden giant attempted to maximize it's solar exposure.

Sitting here on the water on a gorgeous October morning with the sun warming my cheek through my starboard window it's hard for me to remember that rain and snow, frost and all the accoutrements that accompany the approaching Winter will soon be upon us, bringing with them a darkening gloom that will make us all retreat for cover, to our warm houses and hearths – our hideout for the season. One can hardly blame us, it's warm inside and we all want to be comfortable.

Fall has officially been upon us for a month now and I'm still wearing my sandals. I don't want to admit that soon I'll be wearing socks everyday and wrapping a hat around my head. But as water seeps between my toes and rain soaks through my hair it begins to wash away the warm summer feeling that I had grown so used to, grown so fond of. I know that soon I'll have to follow suit, along with everyone else and get used to being inside more, wearing slippers instead of bare feet, eating soup instead of potato salad.

As the season changes I know there is no need for regret, there is only cause for celebration. Though we may miss the warmth of Summer, we need to realize there's no reason to dread Winter. Just because we miss something because it's no longer around doesn't mean we can't learn to enjoy what we do have and be happy in the moment. What once was will return, perhaps stronger than ever, we just have to be patient and trust in the future.

As we duck the rain with our big umbrellas, don our boots to trudge through the snow or stoke our fire to fend off the cold, we can enjoy the warmth that we create ourselves – the warmth that is generated by our heaters, by our stoves, by our cars, and by those around us, warming our hands and warming our hearts. Happiness truly does start from within, and home really is where the heart is.

Enjoy Fall with a smile on your face. It only comes but once a year.

An elephant never forgets, but can be easily pacified by a few peanuts and a warm shower.

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately. In my adult life I've realized their importance and have tried to understand their power to help me form the life that I want and achieve what I put my mind to. A close friend of mine recently achieved one of hers. And I'm very proud of her for it. It reminds me that I need to refocus on mine.

A quote by the writer J.A. Jance I read recently stirred something inside me. She said, “A writer is someone who has written today.” It's been a long time since I wrote. I keep telling myself that this winter is when I will continue on my book. Yeah, the one that I thought was finished. Turns out it needs a lot of work - at least if I'm to believe the “expert” book reviewers I sent it to.

It's been a busy summer for me and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't having the time of my life. People keep telling me that I'm living their dream, spending the summer in a marina with no significant responsibilities, no real worries, save for getting to work on-time and paying the bills. It truly is a blessing to be living in such a city as beautiful as Olympia and to know the people I do. Yes, the life I'm living right now one might say was one of my goals.

But have I forgotten about my other goal? Yes I remember now, the one where a short eight months ago I set out to become a successful writer? Have I lost sight of that?

No, I haven't. I would however say that I've been happily sidetracked enjoying life. Turning good friends into great friends, learning the innocence of a child's laughter, realizing the stark beauty of a sunrise, feeling the warm sunshine and soft afternoon breeze on my face - yes, these are a few of my favorite things. These are things that make me smile and make me happy to be alive. These are things that warm my heart and create not just pleasure, but happiness.

Happiness is what I've always felt life was really about. We all find it in a different place and in different ways. If one can achieve happiness then he has truly achieved something great. Happiness has always been for me at least partly rooted in achieving my goals. Perhaps though instead of wondering if I've lost sight of some of mine I should focus on the ones that I have achieved and be happy in the moment that is now. After all, it's taken my whole life to get here and who am I to waste any second of it. Life is not a race, it's a journey. And the path we take to get there makes all the difference.

The Circus Director isn't allowed to get sick.

There are moments in your life that you know you will either look back on with a smile or a wince. I have recently had two such events in my life and have been lucky enough to know that I will definitely be smiling when I remember them both. The first was health related. After many weeks of playing a guessing game about whether or not I was sick, the results are in and I am most certainly not sick. I was finding it pretty hard to accept that with my diet and my attitude that it could happen to me. But I know that in the end, we are all only human.

The second event in my life was of a much more personal nature and while it won't be discussed in detail here, it will suffice to say that I have never been happier.

It's times like these that we realize our own mortality. Times like these can test the fabric with which we've woven our lives, making it feel like the world is closing in on us, like driving between two semis on the freeway at high speed. When your health is brought into question everything else can become a guessing game. That alone is enough to bring some people to their knees and hang a black cloud over their heads. After all, without our health what do we have?

As much as I'd like to believe that without our health we have nothing, I'm not sure I entirely accept that. While it's true that without a healthy body we will find it very difficult to live our life, it is also true that without those around us who care about us, one can find it hard to cope when something like ill health rears its ugly head. Getting through trying times alone, though not impossible, can be difficult and can make us question ourselves and our own direction in life.

Letting yourself trust someone else is difficult as well. Some of us, once we have lost trust in one person find it extremely hard to trust another. Some of us just have trouble trusting ourselves. We find it difficult to accept that our heart may actually know the right direction to go. Perhaps because it's led us astray in the past. Or perhaps it's because we just don't know how well we actually know ourselves deep down inside.

As strong as we may be inside, we are still only as strong as we let ourselves be. Having your health is a blessing. Having someone who cares about you is also a blessing, and one that many of us take for granted in our lives. Our hearts and our health are intertwined. Times when our health is brought into question remind us that we're mortal. Times when our heart is brought into question remind us that we're human. These times help us realize that our bodies are vessels which need to take us all the way through life and deserve to be taken care of. If only for the simple fact that they contain our hearts. And our hearts may be what makes life all worth living.

The Human Cannonball never had any regrets.

At a young age I decided to live life with no regrets. Before the age of ten I realized that I wouldn't be happy knowing there were things I had left uncompleted, undone, unlearned. I remember as a boy looking forward to the future and projecting myself back, often wondering what I would think of myself in ten years, in twenty years. Even now, at thirty-five, I find myself doing the same thing.

In case you're wondering how I've fared in the twenty-five years since then - yes I do have regrets. Are there things that I wished I would have done but for some reason decided not to when that given moment in my life arrived? Of course. Are they big regrets? No. But I think that's what makes us human and enables us to grow, our innate ability to learn from our mistakes and to accept the one thing that we will never be able to change in our lives: our past.

Today is my birthday and for some reason the annual anniversary of the day we were born often makes us reflective of our past and remembering of things we've done, or more importantly, of things we haven't done. Sadly this can easily preoccupy much of our time, easily consuming us and creating an air of doubt in our lives, almost prohibiting us from experiencing new challenges, new directions. Some people let their regret transform into self-doubt and let it cloud their vision of the future, figuring if they've missed that particular opportunity then they have surely already missed the boat and will forever be stuck on the shore, watching their dreams sail away without them. At that moment in our lives it's important we realize that there's no such thing as “missing the boat”. Grab your binoculars, you'll see lots of them out there. Your future is sailing along and your boat has your name on it. Can't see it? Maybe it's time you looked closer, or got some better binoculars.

On our birthday our age feels tangible, tactile. It's the one day we allow ourselves to think about the bigger picture, about our future and our ever-growing past, about any regrets we may have. It's the one day we feel our age for what it really is: a culmination of all our memories, strung out behind us like kite strings, all leading back to where we've been, all leading down to the clenched fist of a ten year old boy in the park, holding on tight, hoping the wind carries his kite higher, farther, faster and desperately hoping he has enough string when the wind picks up and carries it high up into the clouds and straight into the future, knowing full well he won't regret flying his kite in a windstorm.

The Bearded Lady and The Lion Tamer never knew they had so much in common.

The nature of human relations interests me. It seems we all find ourselves at some point, drifting through life looking for someone to relate to on some kind of intelligent level – about something, about anything. Whether we're talking about the latest movie, our hobbies, our jobs, our music, our anguish or our love, we all want someone to listen and to understand what we mean. Sometimes we find them, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we stop searching momentarily and sit back and relax in the wonder of the world around us, hoping that just around the next bend, someone will understand what we're talking about.

As many of you know I recently had the chance to take a ten day trip down the west coast in my van alone. When I hit the road in Washington I had no expectations of the trip, no expectations of what I would see, no expectations of people I'd meet, if anyone. My only small expectation was that I expected the van to run well; and for the most part it did, it likes traveling too. 

Now, from the people I've talked to, not everyone likes to spend days and hours alone. Some people don't mind, others get lonely and would rather have someone to talk to, others just get bored. And yet others, like myself, are willing to sacrifice the hours of solitude for the chance to explore new roads, the chance to seek out places that I may have missed before, the chance to adventure, the chance to meet new people.

Some people have an aversion to making new acquaintances. I could see it in the eyes of the people I would meet passing through little towns, at gas stations, at grocery stores; the distrust in their eyes preventing them from saying too much. After all, you wouldn't want to expend too much energy on a stranger whom you'll never see again now would you?

Sadly many people feel this way, instead of realizing that we are all living on the same planet, all for an exaggeratedly short period of time, all walking around bumping into each other. It seems we'd all be in agreement that acquaintances are agreeable to have, friends are fantastic to keep and that strangers present an opportunity to have either. They present an opportunity to connect with someone on a level, any level, that both can see eye to eye about, an opportunity to learn someone's name, an opportunity to share, an opportunity to create a relationship, short-lived as it may be, and an opportunity to leave a smile on someone's face.  

Relationships may seem complicated but let's not forget the root of that word, relate. That simply, is what it's all about, relating, relating to one another. Whether you're talking about the price of gas with a station attendant, asking someone for directions out of town, or taking a walk with your spouse of twenty-five years, one of life's greatest rewards are relationships, our exclusively human ability to relate to one another on many levels and about many things. Things that bring us joy. So the next time you catch a stranger's glance, driving or strolling past, shoot them a smile or a wave. They may not return the favor, but they may not forget it either.

The Traveling circus

We spend alot of time waiting.  We wait for the coffee to brew.  We wait at stoplights.  We wait for our computers.  We wait for test results.  We wait for the mail, the check, the phonecall, the weather, the dinnerguests, the pizza, the battery to charge, the movie to start.  These are the often mundane but necessary things we wait for that occupy our everyday lives, things that make our life a little bit better in their own way.  These are things worth waiting for, otherwise we wouldn't be waiting for them in the first place. But how many other things in life do we wait for and not even realize?

I'm in the loft at my sister's house in central Oregon.  Stop one on a ten day journey down the west coast.  I waited today.  My bus broke down this morning and after spending the entire day underneath, inside and around a rear engine compartment, I finally broke down and sought a mechanic.  That's when I waited.  I waited for the news that the parts wouldn't be in until next week.  Waited to hear that my vacation would be cancelled before it even had the chance to begin.  I waited to hear that it would cost three times more than I expected.  Then the call came.  It was fixed.  Forty bucks, forty minutes and a firm handshake later I was driving away, smiling and knowing that my trip could continue as planned.  The trip that I had waited so long for.

As I see it, traveling is a matter of waiting even though you're actually doing something.  Traveling is accomplished in one of two ways.  The first way is to get there.  You know where you're going, have a specific reason to go there and want to get the traveling over with as soon as possible.  The second occupies a different methodology.  You know where you're going but you also know that you'll get there soon enough.  And you know that whatever is waiting for you at your destination doesn't know exactly when you left, doesn't know your exact route, will be there when you get there and may not exactly holding their breath for you to arrive.  But they are nontheless, waiting.  

Getting where we're going is always a journey, whether we're making the trip in our car, an airplane or just in our own mind.  Though we may be driving, reading, riding, talking, hoping or dreaming, we are all invariably waiting at some point.  Maybe waiting for life to take us to where we want to be, maybe waiting for the chips to fall where they may, maybe waiting for the dominoes to fall in line, maybe waiting for something specific, maybe waiting for our coffee.  We all hate to wait, but sometimes waiting is worth it.  Some things are just worth waiting for. 

Bennie the Circus Elephant

Beginning a new novel is a bit like watching Jerry Springer. One minute everything is calm and subdued, Jerry is sussing out the necessary information from the guests to set the crowd ablaze and you're wondering why you're even watching the stupid show. But the next minute – bam! – your fingers are whipping out a story like a blood thirsty cheated-on wife who is up out of her seat, tearing the stage to shreds, hell bent on exacting revenge with her fingernails as she claws her way to the woman she holds responsible for her husband's infidelity.

I told myself that I wouldn't start another book until Spring and I'm beginning to think that for once I should have listened to him, that part of me that seems to know what to do, always correcting my choices as I invariably choose the opposite. Luckily I'm not yet making money from this writing venture so the time at which I begin my next book is of little consequence, and moreover, I don't have to listen to anybody, especially not myself.

Yet I almost startle myself with my absence of conviction as I struggle to find a way to piece these developing fragments of a story into a coherent plot, at least one interesting enough to read. My complacency may derive from the uncertain future of my first book. My latest manuscript is out there and sitting in the New York offices of book publishers and literary agents, floating as though it's on the open water like a ferry boat ripped from its own pages, drifting uncontrollably and completely at the mercy of the wind and waves. And I watch from the shore helplessly, hoping someone pays it notice and picks it from the water before it drowns. 

Glancing out my window at the mailbox has almost become a nervous habit, ticking my fingers on my desk as I wait for the red Jeep that will without doubt bring no news from the Eastern front.

I suppose hearing nothing is better than hearing “no”. I theorize that they must be seriously “studying” my work. Right - it's sitting in a pile with the rest of last weeks unsolicited submissions, unopened and unnoticed, waiting to be carried home in the backpack of an intern who's dissatisfyingly been assigned the daunting task of weeding through the slush pile.

I can imagine the tiny mid-town studio apartment and the intern, who despises the idea of spending a weekend poking through unwanted submissions, and my manuscript, buried halfway down in a pile underneath a story about Bennie the Circus Elephant, and on top of an autobiography of a would-be American Idol star who maintains he just wasn't given a fair shake while ranting on and on that the whole sha-bang is rigged.

I just received a heartening letter from the Editor at one of the publishers which I sent my book to. It was surprisingly good news, not a “yes” but certainly not a “no”. He says that I couldn't have picked a worse time to try to publish a book, mainly because of the economy and “mass reader estrangement from the written word.” He goes on to describe me as a “very talented young man” which definitely feels good. But point taken, in this economy its the crème de la crème or “finish your coffee and get out.”

Meanwhile, I have work to do. I trust that the aforementioned floating manuscript will eventually find itself a home and for now I sit at my computer, staring at a blank page on my screen, dreaming of success and eagerly waiting for Jerry to get the crowd whipped into a frenzy so the cat-fight can finally commence once again.   

There'll be dancing elephants and midgets breathing fire!

So...
don't all great blogs begin with so? Don't ask me. I've only ever read two others. But I thought I'd start one myself to allow others to follow along in my struggle to get my words into a book, allowing you the reader to laugh behind my back as I send my work off to publishers, struggling to gain some kind of hard earned self-respect only to be rejected time and time again. Follow along, it'll be great.

You can chuckle with your friends as I receive each and every form letter that state things like, "We're sorry for the impersonal response but we wanted to get back to you quickly. Unfortunately, we don't think we're the ideal champion of your manuscript." It's going to be great fun.

That quote above was from [name withheld] Associates, literary agents in New York City. I can't blame them for not liking the proposal or the manuscript. At 23k words. the first book I sent off would be hard to sell, if not impossible. Unless it were a children's book maybe, which it most certainly is not.

A little about me: I started writing this past November and have written two books. The first called False Destiny and the second, Terminal. They are both thriller fiction and works I don't consider half bad, though I admit I may be just a little impartial with my opinion. I've sent off False Destiny to eight different literary agents and received polite but succinct responses, "No thank you." Like I said, I can't blame them.

But my newest book, Terminal, is a whole different anomaly. At 36k words it still isn't a long book. Categorically it's considered a "novella". Now before you think, "Oh, a novella, good luck chuck!" let's consider some great novellas in history. Ever heard of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens? Or Animal Farm by George Orwell? The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka? How about Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck? You guessed it, all novellas. Now, for the record, I'm not comparing myself to these greats, far from it. My writing I would consider highly commercial, contemporary genre fiction without much literary quality. Really. But that's about a third of what I see on the mass market paperback section at my local bookstore, so I think I'm in pretty good company.

So take a seat, if you haven't already, (I wouldn't expect you to be standing at your computer), and get ready to revel in my failure. I mean really, we all secretly want to see someone else struggle while we sit comfortably and point at them. It's been human nature since were were apes runnning around the forest. But the first one to pick up a stick and make a mark in the sand, I think may have been on to something.