A Short Story

 

“Like frog we are asked to know when it is time to refresh, purify, and refill the coffers of the soul.”—Medicine cards, Jamie Sims & David Carson.

 

Hey, everybody, I'm glad to have you here. You are the best to hang in with me through thick and thin, messes and cleanups, mistakes, typos, and all. I try to be good, but miss sometimes.

Okay, this has been my last few days: I took my short story, novella I had called it, off Kindle. I don't know if anyone was reading it anyway. I have no way of knowing, although data might be in the bowels of Amazon for all I know.

Now that's a disgusting thought.

Anyway, I like the story, but it needed work, so I revamped it, went over it word by word, inch by inch, paragraph by paragraph, until I gave myself a headache, and decided to give the story away for free. (Hold a bird in an open hand, or frog in this case.)

You might have read something about this story in an earlier blog, but I’m back at it, and as a writer, you know a piece of writing is never perfect. (Once a writing teacher said, “All art is flawed, which gave me hope.)

While reading about the toy frog a child has in this story, I was motivated to buy a plush CoQui frog toy off eBay this week. I had bought one when we lived in Hawaii--can't find the same one. It was cute, and when you squeezed its belly, it said its own name, “Co-Key.”

One day, one of our dogs, then a puppy, got the frog, and “Goodbye, frog.”

(I will post a picture of my frog when it arrives.)

Another idea in this book I got from Hawaii was that someone had offered a green frog toy, prettier than the brown Coquis, with the instructions to carry that frog with you on your adventures, write your adventures in its accompanying book, and give it to another traveler who will add their stories. It’s a fun idea, but those things fall flat and grind to a halt, and you never hear of them again.

Here, if you wanted, you could pretend that you are carrying a frog and a journal, and write down something funny, inspirational, or profound. We would love to read one or more of your gems.  Keep going for the link.

 

“Frog sings the songs that bring the rain and make the road dirt more bearable.”

—Medicine Cards, Jamie Sims & David Carson.

(My inspiration for using the Frog’s Song in a couple of titles.

I will post a picture of my frog when it arrives.

You may have heard me talk about the CoQui frogs of Hawaii before (an accidental import from Puerto Rico)—they are only about the size of your thumbnail, eat bugs and insects, and say their own name “CoQui,” which is to call a mate.  In mass, they can be loud, causing some to call them noise pollution, but that was not my experience. I thought they were sweet, and from a distance, innocent me who didn’t know they existed, thought they were birds.

All this is leading up to my presentation. Ta Da! In my effort to be transformational, I am presenting this short story, 5,850 words.

 

When you are in Hawaii, and you find a sign alongside the Highway saying “Voted the best café by my mother,” with an arrow pointing to a road through the cane grass. Take it.

You will bump along a lava-encrusted road with grass slapping the sides of your vehicle until it opens to a sandy beach beside a café. Above the entrance of the café, on its thatched roof, is a sign that reads, The Frog’s Song Café’. Go in, have the best sandwich you have ever tasted, and accept their invitation to a campfire at the beach, where you will find…

Well, I’m not going to tell you; read the book.

 

Click for Page and to read the book

The Gatekeepers

 

Notice, I left the gate open.

I was rewriting old novels, editing. I don’t know if they’re real novels or practice ones, so far, they haven’t caught an agent's attention. Some say it’s harder to get an agent than it is to write the book in the first place, or even to get a publisher. But folks, if you are a writer, remember most of the books that make it have been rejected numerous times, even Harry Potter. Can you imagine those agents who rejected Harry Potter crying in their soup nightly because they missed it? Fifteen percent of a zillion bucks is what? Probably a billion.

About 20 years ago, when we lived in California, I took a workshop from a Screenplay agent in LA. At the time, my daughter and I were toying with a script. That agent, with her young daughter standing beside her the entire talk, said that agents invite a bunch of creative writing students to go through the slush pile. (Their stack of unsolicited manuscripts). First, they set them all in a room, throw in a pizza and packet of rejection slips, and lock the door.

That’s it.

I suspect it’s about the same with books. Maybe it has changed since publishers have more competition now that many authors are self-publishing their books and Indie publishers have best-sellers. I have the problem of thinking that few people want to spend the money on books with price tags publishers demand, but readers of Harry Potter must have forked out that money when the Harry Potter books were first released. And hey, who doesn’t want to believe in magic?

The success of JK Rowling and Harry Potter are not to be tampered with.

I don’t know why I began this blog as I did. I guess I am following my own advice to my grandson. Just begin writing, I told him, and see where it takes you.

He came up with a brilliant idea but doesn’t know how to implement it. He had compared what he calls “Culture,” meaning the youth of today, which includes artists, furies, Trans, and computer game creators, with religion. He says both wanted to give the people hope, and while religion says you can have it, you can find God, peace, salvation, all of those, he says Culture wants the same, but they believe it’s impossible.

That was so sad, a defeatist attitude, to want to express yourself only to believe you will never be successful at it.

That is the legacy we have given our young people.

He says he wants to give people HOPE.

That’s what I want too.

When I was editing those novels, and at home discussing theme, plot, the deciding moment, and the old saying that without conflict you have no story, I thought, I need to write a new book maybe it will hit the refresh button on my brain.

What if I, instead of following the convention that you must put your protagonist through hell, write a book where things work out? Yeah, yeah, I know, one must struggle first before events work out. But isn’t hope what we want? Don’t we want to believe that good is waiting for us—that life will get better?  And what about attitude and the belief that much is accomplished with a glad heart? Did we lose sight of those?

Is that boring? Think of the book Chicken Soup for the Soul. It stayed on the Best Seller List for 4 years.  What about Robert Fulghum's book, Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten which stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for two years. And I loved the recent book Theo of Golden, basically uplifting—not that people didn’t have troubles, or were sad, but it was enchanting. You think people don’t want good news?

Every time I open my computer, it spits something depressing at me.  I’m tired of the Government's rabble. I’m tired bitching, snipping, and arguing. I want something that shows the goodness in people.