At Last, I have Found the Fountain of Youth!

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Ponce de León is alleged to have “discovered” Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth. I don't know if he was really searching for the fountain or not. Some historians believe that was a posthumous attribution. I don't know that either.

Logically, it would seem like a waste of time to go rooting around in the jungle for a “secret” fountain rumored to possess youth giving powers. It seems to me it would have been much easier to ride through the villages. When you notice a village has no old people … voilà! The fountain of youth has to be nearby.

Yet an easier way to search would be to Google it. I realize good ol' Ponce may have forgotten his password in all his wanderings. But surely he had some fourteen-year-old servant that could have hacked his iParchment and gotten him back in.

Considering his level of technological challenge, I suppose Ponce did alright. They probably would have burned him at the stake for pulling out a laptop anyway. Go figure, because they surely would have basked in the magical powers of the fountain.

Well, enough picking on people who have been gone for half a millennium. When I do a quick search, I find Florida has the highest percentage of seniors over sixty-five in the USA. I'm thinking the Fountain of Youth thing isn't there. So, where in the world is it? Inquiring minds want to know!

I have found it. It is in my kitchen, on the counter. And it cost me less than twenty bucks at Walmart.

Yep, according to a recent study, and this one is the right one, the more coffee a person drinks the longer he or she lives. I like that. My Mr.Coffee is the fountain of youth! Talk about music to a coffee drinker's ears.

I suspect there is a limit to the life expectancy thing. If, for instance, you were to drink one thousand gallons of coffee in one day, you would drown. That is not working in your favor. Also the article did not mention immortality, just longer life statistically. Let's not get carried away in our excitement.

So, there are many scientific theories being bandied about for this fantastic brew of good news. There will, no doubt, be the politically correct people who want tea to have the same effects. But I don't think that is actually possible. I know the real reason it works for coffee drinkers. Seems obvious to me. Coffee drinkers live longer, because they want to.

Children's Series ... Book 2

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Today I have officially finished Book 2 in the series of children's books I am writing.

Finished means different things to different people. To some, it may indicate ultimate finality. To me, in this case, it is more like a major milestone. Finished means the fun part of writing the story is completed and the first round of mop up edits have been accomplished. Now the real nitty-gritty of editing is ready to begin.

This is when my copy editor, who happens to be my wife, sharpens her nasty red pencil and lacerates my masterpiece. I am being metaphorical, of course, we do all of that on the computer now. This is when I discover I have read a comma as a period many times in a row. This is when I, once again, learn the misplacement of words such as that for than are invisible to the spell checker. Finding incomplete sentences. And this is when I make the frustrating discovery that a brilliant rewrite of a favorite passage has somehow vaporized. Most likely that happened when I hit a wrong button somewhere along the line.

But I digress. I really do love every part of the writing process. And I am totally loving the illustrations that Shawna is making. There will be a public display soon, I'm sure. I do hope each of you is following her blog or facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/backtothedrawingboardart                                      http://backtothedrawingboardart.com/             

P.S. If the incomplete sentence in this missive was like a fork between your teeth, congratulations.

The Tyranny of Facts

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“Weak ink is better than a strong memory in a court of law. Write everything down.” That tidbit of advice was dished out on a regular basis from a man I worked for many years ago in Alaska. He was a retired Alaska State Trooper. That advice has proven to be invaluable many times over the years, especially when it comes to remembering complicated things like passwords.

One place it has not been helpful, however, is writing stories, true stories, like about my past. Once I commit an event or detail to writing, it loses its dynamic nature and can no longer change itself for the convenience of the story. Fact morphology is one of the greatest writing tools available. Hard facts can really cripple a good story. Photographs have the same negative effect. I'm really glad I don't write true stories for a fishing magazine. Or, maybe they don't require too much truth in the stories in those publications.

Fiction writing, on the other hand, is great fun. There are no rules. The writer is free. I can call something historical fiction and the only part about the story that must be factual is the date. And for that matter, it only has to be in the past. Five minutes ago was the past, by the way.

There is, of course, the intentional misrepresentation of facts in writing. In the news, it's called … news. In non-fiction, it's called lying. On my Meet the Author Page, it's called fun. In fact, my page has four “author bio's” to choose from. One of them is pure fiction bordering on fantasy, the other three are actually true. In the interest of not messing up a good story, I'll leave it to your imagination to determine which is which.

Back When We Were Tent Dwellers

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We lived in a small pup tent when we first got married. For some reason people seemed to think we were peculiar. I never gave a second thought to what unimaginative people thought. We were living an adventure.

Our stint on the Rogue River was only one summer long, but it was packed with adventures. You see, I lived with the notion that adventure and imagination were interwoven. Our tent was sufficient as a home, and the river provided us with an endless supply of exploration and discovery. Wild creatures were a few threads of fabric away from our bed, which simply made the whole event real. It was the perfect honeymoon!

We got our water from a spring. We ate a lot of wild blackberries and took our baths in the Rogue River. Black bears were abundant, if not amicable, neighbors and deer walked through camp every day. It was a twelve mile round trip hike to the Agness post office where we had a box. I guess we would have been classified as homeless by today's bureaucrats.

We were not actually homeless, it was much worse than that. Back then I assumed I was normal.

Somewhere along the line, we bartered our way into the possession of a DC3 inner tube and suddenly we owned the river. Mind you, we did not have sense enough to wear life jackets when we shot the rapids … it is probably a miracle we survived that part.

Our three-days-per-week post office provided us with a schedule to live by, so we made that trek on those days. At least once per week we included a detour to the store, such that it was, on the other side of the river. That only added six miles to our trip, which rounded it off to an eighteen mile hike. Yes, hike, like walking, with our feet. Together we could do that trip in three hours and forty-five minutes. Alone I could do it in just under three hours, but that was really getting it on. I was a lot younger thirty-odd years ago.

Because I was under the delusion that I was normal, it seemed to me that everyone else suffered from a profound lack of imagination. It turns out that normal people do not have intense, vivid, wildly imaginative dreams. And they certainly do not act on those dreams. I've since come to grips with the fact that I may not be normal.

I've heard that some people read more than one book at a time. I have eight … that I am currently writing … of the twenty three that I have slated. You tell me, is that normal?