The early January sun warmed the sidewalks as college students hurried to their next class. The eclectic array of buildings, surrounded by barren maple trees, stood in sharp contrast to the pale-blue winter sky.

I have to be out of my ever-loving mind. Do I really want to drive from London to the University of Windsor and back, once or twice every week? I’m on workmen’s comp. Put ‘out of service’ by the New Mexico Department of Transportation. All because of that seventeen year old! What in the hell was she thinking? She drove a late model extended cab Nissan pickup truck with her grandmother who was an elementary school teacher on the Navajo Reservation. Four youths were also in the vehicle—two brothers, a sister, a cousin and a twelve month old whom she was babysitting. My eighteen wheeler was empty, but it still weighed forty thousand pounds. She tried to make a left turn onto a side road flying across the highway into my lane and dead-center in front of me. There was nothing I could do.

The pickup was turned into a pretzel. Actually, a pretzel has form and function.

That seventeen year old driver was the only one wearing a seatbelt, no restraining device for her twelve month old cousin. What in the hell was her grandmother thinking? Who in their right mind allows an infant to ride in a vehicle without a car seat?

Five dead! The last thing they witnessed, while living on this planet, was my black and gold Western Star big truck blasting out of hell as a banshee followed by the headless horseman under the portentous midnight sky on the bleak Navajo landscape.

Mary Shelley always quoted her husband’s work, while they lived on the coast of Italy. Even Lord Byron was enthralled by her recitations. ‘Never wake the serpent, Least it knows not were to go.’

I’ll never forget the expressions on their faces of absolute horror. SMASH! I’ll never forget that sound—metal hitting metal at 60 mph. Death and hell exploded out of Pandora’s box with a merciless fury that even the three Fates couldn’t stop. The pickup flew one hundred and twenty feet before the dust settled.

Maybe there is mercy. The seventeen year old driver was very pretty, the same age as my daughter, Michelle. I know she was pretty because I was the one who ripped open the dash with my bare hands before lifting her out of that mangled metal of death and destruction. To this day, the last thing she remembered was shopping in Gallup, New Mexico, before driving thirty-seven miles north on Highway 666 and onto the Navajo Reservation. Highway 666, the Devil’s Highway. That’s what the locals called it. But, maybe there is mercy. She’ll never remember how it happened. The collision erased family and memory as sure as a blackboard brush removes chalk.

Thank God, even the Navajo police said I wasn’t at fault. But that doesn’t change a hundred other things—blood, gore, mayhem and that twelve month old infant sprawled across the dead in the backseat as I witnessed the taking of her last breath.

I was out on Highway 401 heading east when I shook off the nightmare. Snow, then a break in the dark gray ominous clouds and then more snow as darkness engulfed winter’s barren landscape.

Yes, I will take English 304. Driving back and forth will be good for my psyche. The fear of driving haunted me like a heroine addict’s monkey on my back.

What will I write about for the next twelve weeks? In the past, I’d get hit by an idea—a simple, non intrusive thought. Somehow it finds root in the fertile soil of my soul. Furtively, it grows over the following months; maybe it’ll take a few years. Then without warning it explodes inside my heart forcing me to the keyboard, punching out words and suffering through a gauntlet of emotions until its birth.

Four days later, I found myself back in Windsor taking random snapshots of this site and that—the casino, a beach on the eastside, a park nearby and a totem pole, as a sentinel, watching the ice flowing down the Detroit River anxiously waiting for winter’s thaw. Thinking, thinking, coming up with nothing concrete. There wasn’t even a whisper of hope in terms of direction. I needed a story line, a plot, settings and characters. And I’m freezing my butt off gazing at Belle Isle across the Detroit River. I knew I should’ve worn my ski parka.

Hey wait! I remembered the pretty coed in class mentioning how she killed off some of her characters when she wrote. I could do that. Nothing like a good death scene. Okay, someone will die. It’s not writing on the island of profundity, but death will always keep them guessing and on the edge of their seats.

Click, click, click. If I kept taking pictures, something else will have to give.

I lit a cig heading into the center of the city. I was so apprehensive about taking English 304 with all of its ramifications that I started smoking again last Saturday. I graduated from university before any of my new fellow-students were born. I better place ‘stop smoking’ on my list of things to do. I need a drink.

The gulf stream had whipped up the Alberta Clipper streaking unabated across the prairies and Lake Superior. How did it find me? It struck like an unforgiving vendetta as I stepped from the Taurus at Dieppe Gardens. I pointed my nine-ninety-five camera at the Detroit skyline. I’m freezing my butt off!

What did Dorothy Parker say sitting at the Round Table in Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel during the Depression? Oh yeah, now I remember. ‘I need to get out of these wet clothes and dive into a dry martini.’

Click, click. The Ambassador Bridge, the sterilized steel and glass of the Renaissance Center—monoliths of uncensored immortality. If nothing else, I’ll get it all down for prosperity. Where’s that drink?

I hurried back to the car seeking warmth and comfort as a chill entered the marrow of my bones.

The intrusion pierced the frigid air. “Excuse me, are you Gerry Grondin?”

Immediately, I knew the unrecognized voice was out of the long forgotten past. I now use my middle name, Paul. I hate Gerald or Gerry. Well…when I was a kid they called me Mr. G. That wasn’t too bad. Gerald had married my father’s sister, Geraldine, and someone had to get stuck with the name. Actually, ‘the long forgotten past’ is a lie. I say that because it’s not always fun remembering how stupid I was when I was a kid. I’m not claiming I’ve cornered any degree of wisdom over the years. It’s just that I no longer rush in like a fool where angels fear to tread. As thirteen-year-old kids we rode on the ice flows down the Detroit River. In the summertime, we swam across to Bob-Lo Island dodging lake freighters and undertows that could suck you under and make a swimmer disappear from the screen of life. The Fates are still refusing to tell me why they’ve kept me alive for so long. Maybe I should take Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis for a drink to loosen their tongues.

I turned in the direction of the female voice. In the late sixties, Maria had been an extremely good-looking teenager. Back in high school, twenty miles south from where we now stood on the waterfront of Dieppe Gardens, Maria was captain of the high school girls’ gymnastic team. You can imagine the body she had. She had moves even Britney Spears would envy.

Anyway, I ruled over the boys’ gym team, and we loved competing against the teams in Windsor. If a county high school was ever fortunate to defeat a Windsor team in any sport, the city kids felt like scum, and not once were we ever beaten. Got my picture on the front page in the Windsor Star’s sport section to prove it.

“My God, how long has it been?” asked Maria.

I’m not answering that, but I’ll say this: the blast from the past was interesting. The image ran across the screen of my mind’s eye. Maria and I reclined on the sofa in her living room getting hot and heavy. In walked her mother. I fell off the sofa with a thud onto the hardwood floor as any self-respecting gymnast would do. Maria and her mom laughed, while I performed skewed dexterity by jamming the buttons of my shirt into the wrong button holes.

When you hear people say, ‘if I was only young again,’ they’re lying. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I’m totally convinced that if we could do it over again, we would take the easy way out and do the same old dance. Moses never showed anyone what was written on the back of those two tablets he had slugged down from the mount—“History will repeat itself.”

Wait. A miracle! I have another idea! Two in the same day—move over Einstein. Dammit, what was I just thinking? Oh, right, now I remember. My protagonist returns to Windsor and meets an old girlfriend. Life in Windsor, then and now. That’ll be the underlying theme, but I still need a plot. I hate staring at inviolate white paper.

Maria’s ex-husband had made a fortune over the years. Two of her kids were away at university, while the third worked in the Windy City on the other side of the Great Lakes. Maria lived on the outskirts of Windsor, across from a golf course, alone, in a sprawling brick and glass two-story country estate with eight thousand square feet. The palazzo dominated seven acres of manicured woodland with its resident birds and squirrels. The home was for sale as dictated by the divorce settlement. You could pick it up for a mere four and a half million.

In the drawing room with its expansive cathedral ceiling and teakwood paneling, Maria and I sat on the floor at a custom-made coffee table from the Carolinas. The view of the north garden was impressive even with its barren maples, oaks and snow-covered gazebo. We munched on crackers and crème de brie with a hint of herbs. I had sampled a bottle of Pilsner Urquell, originally brewed by Josef Groll in the Czech picturesque town of Pilsen. It’s a hundred and sixty-five years later, and the world is still trying to copy Groll’s pilsner brewing method. And yes, if you must know, Maria’s ex-husband had dropped off the beer after bringing it into the country on his private jet.

Now we shared a bottle of red wine from the small village of Auxey-Duresses wedged into the slopes of Burgundy’s famed Cote d’Or. The wine was famous for subtle hints of delicate flavors, but they were lost on my Swiss Chalet chicken palate, although it sure tasted great. The welcoming heat from the enormous fireplace with its mantle of flagstone and granite accentuated the perfect ambiance, while the alcohol charmed our hearts, as it numbed my aching writer’s soul.

We nourished our lost friendship midst laughter and fond memories, while my eyes were constantly being drawn to an amethyst crystal cathedral perched on a Nineteenth Century Russian alter table. When Maria scampered off to the wine cellar for a second bottle of wine—we had to try a bottle from the famed vineyard of Montrachet—I found myself gazing into the amethyst cathedral, my attention having been drawn by its hypnotic powers of imaginary possibilities.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could enter the cathedral, transcend time and space and emerge onto the other side of life to a land that no one had ever seen, I thought, or was it the wine talking, creating a delusional and alternate form of sanity?

Eureka! I’ve discovered my plot. I have my story. What? What exactly do I have?

Images flashed as rapid-fire across the screen of my third-eye. Death? Yes. I’ll kill off the antagonist, while he tries to knock off the protagonist. Good verses Evil. The underlying plot will be the quest for immortality. I’ll even throw in a long lost grandchild—keep the audience guessing as to his or her identity until the last moment. There’ll be a flavor of romance, but there’ll be stumbling blocks to trip over. During last week’s class, someone mentioned leaving and returning home to live in Windsor, permanently. That’ll come in handy. Windsor then, Windsor now. What else? The antagonist will have an enormous ego. Maria’s home should be large enough to house it.

Arriving with the second bottle of late afternoon delight Maria rescued me from the onslaught of ambiguity and confusion. After all, most of my current ideas were only wisps of illusive imagery. Intuitively, I could sense more than I could see, feel more than taste. I needed to chew a mouthful, spit out the distasteful and swallow what was useful.

Maria didn’t object to being used as a sounding board, while images, veiled in a shroud of gossamer, blossomed into ideas with the certainty that Winter will kiss Spring before it dies. Thoughts, glimmers of hope, compelled my hand to scribble in a virginal journal of unborn genius. There’s nothing like killing trees in the name of contemporary literature. Finally, she asked if I had ever written a screenplay. Yes, although calling it a screenplay was somewhat debatable. She was overly kind to add that the story would make a good movie. I thought, why not? I only have my sanity to lose, but I’ve lost that before.

As an epilogue, I must confess to an untruth in this little tale. The crème de brie didn’t have any herbs in it.

G. Paul Grondin
September 2011

Finally, I’ve taken the opportunity to read Jason’s (your husband’s) article: http://jasonjackmiller.blogspot.com/2011/07/ebook-marketing-models-if-its-good.html. Although I have previously read about this marketing concept, it’s well worth reading again and again.

Similar to Jason, I have never believed a writer writes solely for himself or herself. We write because we want to be read; we want others to enjoy what we have enjoyed writing.

Yes, we write in a social vacuum, or do we? We huddle at the keyboard all alone. However, we are not alone. We have our characters, our settings, plots and subplots, themes, genre(s) and over a million word combinations to define our creative expression on the page.

Writing, in itself, is a social event. Characters talk to each other. They interact. They cry and laugh and love and cheat and do everything in the human gauntlet of day to day expression. If you are a dreamer of dreams, your characters can and will talk to you via your subconscious as you sleep in a state of rapid eye movement.

Although it outwardly appears that we are alone when we write, we are not alone. Our Muse pumps the adrenalin of creative juices into our body, mind, heart and soul. Our Muse adores us as we become ‘high’ on the creative flow of ingenuity and freedom of expression. Our Muse wakes us in the middle of the night. “Write, write,” she whispers in our mind and heart.

When the manuscript is finish the write doesn’t step into the garden and bury it in the compost. We give it to friends and family members. “Tell me what you think. Tell me…tell me!”

In the USA and Canada, and around the world, thousands and thousands of books (all types, shapes and sizes) will be in print (or in electronic print) this year. Unfortunately, the chances of a first book finding a commercial audience are slim, very slim at best. Therefore, throw away the conventions. Throw away the agents or the gatekeepers, the established publishers and the self-appointed experts who disapprove of your creative genius. If you have a self-published book in the form of a POD (Print On Demand) and very few people are buying it, then give it away in the form of an eBook. Yes, there are other marketing techniques, but this one is easy, and it won’t cost you a dime.

We should be reading Jason Jack Miller’s article, hhtp://jasonjackmiller.blogspot.com/2011/07/ebook-marketing-models-if-its-good.html, until it’s one of the foremost thoughts in our head, ’til it is metaphorically tattooed on our forehead.

There’s only one test for success. The examiner is the READER. This isn’t brain surgery. The Reader is the one who will make or break a writer. Throw away your phobias, your fears and doubts, into the garbage. They are not your friends. They are the ENEMY! Therefore, as Jason reiterates, give your book to the Reader. Let the Reader decide if it’s a good read, not the literary agent or gatekeeper to the commercial publishing industry.

BUT what happens if no one likes your fist book? The answer is simple. Write another book, and give that to the Reader.

Three months ago, I offered my first POD book, NEVER REGRET TOMORROW, to two hundred potential Readers. Only ten requested an electronic copy. Then I became distracted. BUT now, after reading Jason’s article, hhtp://jasonjackmiller.blogspot.com/2011/07/ebook-marketing-models-if-its-good.html, a fire has been lit under my rear-end. With my second book, SECRETS, available in Dec. 2011. I will be giving a free eBook copy to anyone who wants to read it. And why not? After over two years of writing and editing SECRETS I truly want people to read it.

In all honesty, I want to be a successful writer who earns a living from his endeavors. However, right now, my writing is a hobby, but it’s a very serious hobby. BUT hobbies can only be commercially successful after many people have enjoyed the fruits of our labor.

And let’s face it. Planting your manuscript in a compost doesn’t really do anything to improve your garden.

I recommend: http://heidirubymiller.blogspot.com.

G Paul Grondin
October 2011

PS: Heidi, I’ll be posting this article on my website under the “Omega Diary” section. Also, since you first published my article under “Path To Publication” on your blog I would like to post that as well.

And I finally figured it out. You’re the “Just a Girl” sitting on the bench! Great pic, Jason.

I would have guessed the Grinch, but I’m not a big fan of Dr. Seuss. But, you still walked away with $25,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Great smile.

Actually, I counted over 1,400 rejection letters over the years before I gave up counting. These numbers does not reflect screenplay rejections. So my path to publishing has been flavored with the bitterness of one rejection after another. The only summation I can make is that I must have needed to get beat up verbally or in writing—kicked and punched emotionally—causing me to never give up one of my dearest loves in this lifetime—writing.

When JK Rowling finished HARRY POTTER not one literary agent in the UK took her book seriously. They all turned her down. Then a very small publishing house said they’d publish it because it’s an interesting story but “don’t expect to make any money off Harry Potter.” Later, I saw JK Rowling a TV special. They asked a few literary agents and publishers why they had turned her down, and they all claimed they had never heard of her prior to her fame. Of course, they were lying since JK Rowling had copies of their rejection letters. No self-appointed expert wants anyone to know their opinion is just another comment in a sea of intellectual discussion, especially since JK Rowling has now earned over $500,000 in her writing career. In the old days, a publisher who had turned down a book that had became a best seller would have said, “Yeah, we made the wrong decision on that one.” Now they just lie about it.

I’m not saying I’m a great writer. That’s for the reader to decide. However, I’m against the “gatekeepers,” more commonly known as literary agents, in and around the publishing industry who do not have an ounce of creativity flowing in their blood and yet they control what is sent to a publisher and what gets filed under ‘G’ for garbage.

Originally, Lucas could not sell anyone on the idea of Stars Wars. Then a studio agreed to make the movie only if George would waive his fees for writing and directing the movie, etc. He’d only be paid a percentage if and when Star Wars earned a profit, which of course eventually made him a billion dollars.

William Goldman, who was a famous pulp fiction writer from the ‘60s and ‘70s, could not sell the screenplay, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, to anyone. After over six months of pedaling the screenplay in Hollywood a few studies bid on it because Newman and Redford were now interested.

Getting published or selling a screenplay to the ‘establishment’ can be no more that the luck of the draw, but yes, there’s serious talent out there. Unfortunately, a lot of undiscovered talent is destroyed by rejection and the onslaught of despair and defeat. Writing is not for the faint of heart.

A secondary note: The key to writing is not just a good story or an idea. The power in the written word is in the editing. I spend as much time in the editing process as I do in the writing. For me, writing is easy. It’s the editing that’s so difficult. Now the difficulty will be trying to find readers who will take my writing seriously. Then again, the READER is KING, not the publishing industry or the literary agents.

If the readers of the world do not want to read my work, or if they want to ignore it, I’ll accept that judgment—fair is fair.

What is the important thing here? At the end of this lifetime, I want to look back and say, “I tried to do my best. No regrets.” If I fail in this lifetime, then by God’s grace, I’ll get it right in the next lifetime. I am grateful life is cyclical.

G. Paul Grondin
September 2011

Thank you for your inquiry concerning our incomparable resort known as The Country Club of Freedom where the roads are paved with golden opportunity, where you will never go hungry, where children will never have to dodge bullets on their way to school and where you set the standard and pace for the enrichment of your life. We will be more than willing to give you a temporary membership so you can enjoy and come to know that Freedom is truly a luxury with uncountable benefits for the whole family and is not something that anyone can take for granted.

Disclaimer: Please rest assured that we are in no way associated with the former Republics known as The City-State of Greece and The Roman Empire, which were once referred to as Country Clubs of Freedom. There is no connection since they degenerated into apathetic cesspools of selfishness, greed, lust and…oh yeah…corruption!

Three months later…

Thank you for your letter expressing your enthusiastic and overwhelming desire to become a fulltime and permanent member of The Country Club of Freedom. Yes, we have no prison camps for people who do not like what the government is doing. Yes, you can obtain more education and/or training at any time to provide a better standard of living for your family. Yes, you can go to your children’s school and complain or praise their teachers. You can even teach your children at home. Yes, you can call God or your preferred saviour by the names of Christ, Buddha, Allah, Krishna, I AM THAT I AM, etc. Yes, you can even start-up your own church. Yes, private property is sacred. Well, the list is endless, as you know, since you and your family have been a guest or temporary members for the last three months.

Now, down to our business at hand… the price for fulltime and permanent membership:

Guarantee: And yes, if you are willing to pay the stated price, we will be willing to guarantee that you will enjoy the full benefits of (but not limited to):

1. Freedom of speech
2. Freedom of religion (worship)
3. Freedom of the press
4. Freedom from want
5. Freedom from fear
6. Freedom of assembly (Warning: You can not create a gang, travel around neighbourhoods and perform criminal acts and call it ‘your right of assembly.’)
7. Freedom to pursue happiness
8. Freedom to engage in peaceful civil disobedience as dictated by your conscience
9. Freedom to pursue any personal goal that is lawful (See the Ten Commandments for the laws that are cut in stone. That ‘treat your neighbour as yourself’ thing can be found on the back of the first tablet. These stone tablets are heavy so be careful when turning one over. Also, the small print is on the back of the second tablet.)

Well, the list is very long since these are only the first 9 of 25 items. You know exactly what we are talking about since you have a copy of our beautiful brochure.

The Price:
(Note: This list is intended to serve as a guideline except items #4 and #9.)

1. Eliminate apathy from your life and encourage your children to do the same.
2. Eliminate hatred and intolerance of other people, i.e., people who are different than you in skin color and belief systems.
3. Be willing to defend Our (Your) Country Club of Freedom when it is threatened by tyrants from without and from within.
4. Vote in all elections, local, regional and national unless you have been run over by a big truck carrying 45,000 lbs of bananas.
5. Maintain awareness of civic and/or political events.
6. Get to know the policies of your governmental representatives and agencies.
7. Let your governmental representatives know when you disagree with their policies and actions that create the laws that surround and influence your everyday life. Remember: silence and/or apathy will always be interpreted as meaning that you approve of what is being done on all levels of government.
8. Never be willing to think that the other person will keep an eye on the government, while you watch TV.
9. Be willing to spend an hour per day to fulfill the above. (The 7 hours per week requirement can be performed according to your personal schedule. Miss an hour this week, add an hour next week.)
10. Vacation time: OK, you will be allowed a two week vacation from Item # 9.
11. Attend socially and politically concerned group meetings from time to time.
12. Religion is optional unless you are an arrogant SOB who doesn’t care if you hurt other people. If this is true, then we recommend therapy, but again, you always have free will. (If the SOB part of this applies to you, then reread the small print three times.)
13. Always yield the right of way, if you want to demonstrate that compassion does exist, and it’s a ‘pretty cool’ thing to have in your life. However, yielding the right of way does not mean that you become a doormat for the uncompassionate.
14. Once a month write a letter to or call a governmental representative giving him/her your opinion on a current political issue, or write about his/her performance in a general way. There are many variations on this theme. Please see Section 11A, Subsection ii, Paragraph v in the club’s manual.
15. You should ask for clarification, if you do not understand something.
16. Teach your children how the government works and to be responsible citizens who know that membership to The Country Club of Freedom is not free.
17. Ask not what is best for your political party, but ask what is best for our Country Club of Freedom and all of its members. (Always remember that being an American comes before being a Republican, or a Democrat, or an Independent, etc.)
18. All allegiance is to The Country Club of Freedom and not to any former club membership, known or unknown.

And do not forget to read the small print:

1. Never believe it when someone tells you that freedom is free and comes with zero responsibilities. 2. Be willing to kick yourself in the butt, if you ever entertain the idea that freedom is free even in the remotest sense. 3. If you are silent when confronted by evil, then you have willingly become a part of evil, whether you like it or not. Remember: silence is consent.

Please remember to submit photographs of your family so we can post them along the Stars of Freedom Boulevard.

Warning: Non-participation in club activities will nullify your membership as well as destroy The Country Club of Freedom.

Thank you for your kind consideration in this matter.

Best regards as always…
I remain…God, the Almighty.

PS: Yes, The Country Club of Freedom is a gift from God, but like all gifts such as sunshine, air and water, if you do not take care of it, do not nourish it by ennobling yourself, then it and you will fade as sand in the cosmic hourglass of past, lost and forgotten civilizations.