My Self Doesn’t Want Any Self-Help

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Andrew Genn - DepositPhoto

Andrew Genn – DepositPhoto

Books are an important part of my life.  Fiction in all its multicolored genres, are my preference.  Non-fiction is fine, if there is something uniquely scientific or historical I can learn.  Self help books?  Worse than eating liver.  I will admit to being someone who probably needs a self-help book or two, but at my age, I’ve made peace with my flaws.  God made me this way, which is why I’m convinced he has a great sense of humor.

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Thankful

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VISTA's infrared view of the Orion NebulaCredit : ESO /J. Emerson /VISTA

VISTA’s infrared view of the Orion Nebula
Credit : ESO /J. Emerson /VISTA

Now that the holidays have ended, and I ponder events of the past year, instead of traditional New Year’s promises I never intend to keep, I thought I’d stop and be thankful for the light. So, what does this have to do with a photo of the Orion Nebula?  No, it is not a delayed fuse on the Mayan calendar.  As mentioned in my previous post (December 21), we are not going anywhere, anytime soon.

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We’re Still Here

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Depositphoto.com

Depositphoto.com

If you’re reading this note, it would appear the Mayan’s have messed up the date
for the apocalypse.  So much for the sacrifice of young maidens who gave their lives to bring you the world’s end.  My heart goes out to them … no pun intended.  And what’s with the poor Mayan with the big schnozzle?

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Blogging Today as DT Tarkus at the Muse

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Santa Ad

I’m blogging as DT Tarkus at the Muse today. http://ow.ly/gdMal Check out a little Holiday humor from yesteryear.

Non-Fiction. Really?

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High-school student falling asleep in class teens

I tweeted a recent magazine article by Joel Stein, Time Magazine’s humor columnist, who had an interesting take on some High Schools pushing nonfiction over fiction literature (How I Replaced Shakespeare ti.me/QOonQ4 via @TIME).  It had me revisiting a blog I wrote last year at the muse, http://blameitonthemuse.com/non-fiction-and-other-necessary-evils/, which in my own unique brand of humor, agreed.

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Maslow and the Apocalypse

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From: wikipedia.com

An author friend, Hope Ramsey, asked an interesting question last week on her blog post: What Happened to My Modern World.  She wanted to know if the younger generation’s interest in dark, scary, post-apocalyptic fiction was a rebellion against us Baby Boomers who have over-consumed our way into climate change.  Well … given my writer’s interest in the genre, I felt compelled to put some thought into it.

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What Would Thanksgiving Mean in a World Gone Awry?

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I stumbled across an interesting blog article from last year’s Thanksgiving.  Titled Thankful for the Right to Read: Dystopian Novels about Censorship. It was posted by Emily Kickinson, who is associated with the Daniel Boone Regional Library in Missouri. Given my interest in all things dystopia, Emily talks about the classic stories by Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and mention of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta.  Censorship is the key theme of these classics. It is a noble premise in our current world where censorship has smeared the literary arts for centuries, and worth reposting.

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I’m blogging today as DT Tarkus at the Muse

I’m blogging today as DT Tarkus at http://ow.ly/fhxLK and embracing my inner funny bone about holiday indulgence. Tell me what you think.

Fiction That Finds Light in the Darkness

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In setting up my author page, I struggled with what to choose as my author byline. For those who know me, I haven’t exactly embraced concepts of social media, relegating the establishment of an author brand as something found in infomercials. I expressed my curmudgeon behavior of the subject recently at http://blameitonthemuse.com/confessions-of-a-website-avoider/ as DT Tarkus. The resulting commentary told me to suck it up and get with the program.  Sigh. 

An author friend of mine advised to look at my stories and find a common element.  I tend to write about YA protagonists ripped from normality to face dark, impossible situations. To me, it is about moving toward that proverbial light at the end of a long, seemingly-infinite tunnel.  Searching for light in the darkness. I’m not the first to make this connection.

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Do You Believe in Zombies?

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My daughter recently made me sit through back-to-back episodes of the Walking dead.   I love conflicting characters in a stark, dystopian tale, and this one was dripping with emotion.  That’s not all that was dripping. It had me longing for the days of low-resolution cathode ray tubes.

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