Relaxing in NY customs

One cannot love NY customs. There is nothing fun about standing in line for two hours, looking at the same faces snaking forward. I swear that I can see beard growing in some of those faces. They start the line clean shaved, end it with a stubble.

After a long flight, not a pleasant experience. And the monitors welcoming you to US, the smiling happy faces, the beaches and skyscrapers displayed for your viewing pleasure while slowly shuffling in the line, they are just in so much conflict with the frustration you will feel.

And, for sure, you can expect that when you are finally close to the officer taking your stack of papers, there is some person with faulty documentation just before you. Then he or she can, literally, stand there for half an hour while the officials try to figure out what the persons wants. Sometimes, the person causing such discomfort does not speak english.

I wonder, every time, that there are no old, mouldering skeletons, long forgotten in that line. I would love to shoot a hidden camera on how people would react, if after such a wait, the line closed and they were asked to start again. Monkey rage, I bet.

Also, do not try it with two kids after a nine hour flight. I dare you.

Ready?

You rarely are, especially if you think you are.

Time to Relax

7th June, 2013 - Holiday time

It's been around one year since I started to write. Well, no. I used to write for the companies I worked for, and had a large audience on weekly basis, but that was impersonal, devoid of opinions and full of company rhetoric. It was comms, what I studied in the University. Meant to influence, but not my own words.

This is different. You put a lot of yourself into what you write. In fact, you put in more than you started with, because while you do this, your fears, confidence and the very surroundings sneak into your fingertips, and you keep finding aspects of yourself, new ones, forgotten ones and by gods, you get to sweat and grow while you spin your story through those day you think it's going great, and those days you feel you will fail. Hard to say which days you have more of. It is a profession for those who know how to bounce back, often from very small successes. "You liked that sentence? Damn. This will work after all!"

It was a lifelong dream for me. It still is.  I have consumed books, movies, games and comics since I could walk. Theatre, opera, yes, when one has time. And I started early. 

I still remember, vaguely, the black and white TV at my grandmother's place, and seem to recall the very crude, simple TV shows there. Daniel Boone, Tarzan's, Errol Flynn in his piracy days, Robin Hood's. Now that you think about it, they were all the same. Heroes with flaws, villains with agendas. Yet they made us kids carve swords out of sticks and charge through thickets to slay the foe. I remember enjoying playing the villain in those games. Still would.

I remember flipping through books by Henryk Sienkiewicz, the very best of adventure stories by the great writer. Kmicic! What soldier would be better than this young Lithuanian, swede killing knight and oh, when he finally gets the girl at the end. You will weep, or you are made of stone. 

There too, was a library of World History books, and going through those bygone stories by the great men and women, I started to see stories. You know these men and women by their failures and successes, but you don't really... know them.

I have spun these stories in my head for thirty years. Thats the time it takes. Not only do you have to have the spark and interest to jump into the story, you have to live the story in your own life. If you know no loss, you cannot feel the loss of your character. If you have few joys, you probably fail at expressing the joy and success of whoever it is that you write about.

At forty, I felt I had the ingredients in place. I have lived, smiled and cried, won and lost, hurt people and got hurt others. I have children and a wife, I have exes a plenty and tombstones I visit. Yeah, I know about life.

So, when the time came, one year past, I jumped out of the corporate grind, at least for awhile and wrote my first book.

The first two books, in fact. The Pawn and The Wyrd. First two of the planned six. That is a lot of paper. Also note the diaper on the background. I have no doubt that many of us have done this with our workspace littered with diapers, pacifiers and jars of babyhood, not to mention slobber on the Mac screen. I do love them, though, despite the diapers. Which are.... everywhere.

Anyways, the book, it contains, you guessed it, a story.

It is a story, old as time, beginning around 12 AD. It is a story of a young man called Hraban who lives east of Rhenus, amongst the Marcomanni tribe. He is a happy youth, who soon faces hardships after his exiled father returns from Roman service, replacing his grandfather and mother who die by betrayal. It is not a happy reunion, for Hraban is a Germani with a dark hair, making his father think him illegitimate, and Hraban faces his fate as a pawn to the great mans ambitions, involved in prophecy old as time in a world tottering at the brink of war with Rome.

So begins Hraban's story of growth, a story about man balancing vengeance and peace while he shuffles between Rome and Germania. It is a historical story of an empire in the making, Rome and the struggles of Augustus and of the unity and the disparity of the nations of the deep woods, and the intrigues of Armin, Arminius, the foe to Rome.

I loved to write them. The characters, with their flaws, the villains, not always entirely evil, the world and the adventure. It was all worth it.

Now the hard part. Selling it. At first, when the stories were ready, I felt empty. Selling it? I can do that later. It's not really ready, is it? Perhaps I can write few more books, and make sure I can do this. Yeah. 

My wife stepped in. So I have started, as of last week, to search for an agent. Gods help me! Creating a story is nothing in comparison to this hell and uncertainty. I feel like a one armed boxer facing an old and grizzled champ and all I can do is smile and spit teeth. At least I prepare for that, for the rule is: you will get rejected. A lot.

So, as a veteran product manager, I will do what I have always done. Fight. I will fight and keep doing it. What else is there if you truly wanted this, and you really, really love them stories?  Nothing. Just a dark void back there. 

Oh, I wrote two movie scripts too. 120 pages each, and gods bless Blake Snyder and his fabulous book Save the Cat. 

I'm here to stay. Even if I have to crawl, eventually I will walk, and run.  

But now, a short holiday, during which I will sell. My wife will love that.