— — —

“My soul, sweet love, sits blissfully smiling in the space between what we did and what we shall yet do together.” — Tehtena, Princess of Sheba

— — —

Now that you are gone, the words of my poetry all trace a fading dream like the outline of a body at a crime scene.

— — —

"I would be a much better procrastinator if I got around to working at it." — Tobiel, the carpenter

— — —

Queen Makeda's Sister is just a fictional character and I owe her nothing. Yet if I do not let her speak, much of me will never have said a word.

Tobiel speaks again

"When you come to a fork in the road, you have THREE choices: Go left, go right, OR go back to where you came from. That last one, though, won't get you anywhere fast." — Tobiel, the carpenter

A line from the novel

"However nice your day may get,
before too long the sun will set."

—Tobiel, the carpenter

— — —

We've lived now well into the dusk of life, but just as the beauty of the sun most stirs the heart at eventide, so too, beloved, does yours.

— — —

Due to chronic arthritis, I now restrict myself to only bending over FORWARD to please my clients. ;-)

— — —

Maybe my company seems less than sweet to you because your presence does not stir my heart. The sugar sits still undissolved at the bottom.

A few lines from BOOK THREE

"A blind rooster gets more sleep," Tobiel said after Tehtena had finished sharing Solomon's comments. Not even the most romantic story could not keep him from making his funny remarks. "And so does his whole neighborhood," Deborah added, chuckling and squeezing her husband's hand.

A few lines from the trilogy

I should have felt it sooner, sensed it long before you confessed your love to me. But then, does a blind rooster crow at the first faint sign of dawn? Will it not have to feel the warming rays of a fully risen sun to know that the morning has come? Thus my heart did not break into song until your precious words removed all doubt that my night, at last, had ended.

— — —

"Even on sunless days the shadow of death falls sharply across my path. Only you, my beloved, can soften its edges."— Tehtena

— — —

When your looks have faded and your last lover has discarded you like a torn garment, come to me, for I have always loved the hidden you.

Twitter & Facebook

Like many other writers and artists, I have a Facebook page and love seeing the number of "likes" go up. Besides, few things spur me on more when I get lazy than to imagine that 2000+ 'fans' will be disappointed with me if I don't finish my novel or do not give it my very best.

From time to time there are initiatives on Facebook that help people get more "likes", but there are other ways as well. One of them is Twitter.

I have a lot of followers on Twitter—roughly 13,200 at the moment—and I've got so many because I always take a proactive approach. I regularly look at the list of followers of other writers and follow those I find interesting. If they follow me back, I introduce myself with the following message:

Thanks a lot for the follow, (insert name here). Please let me introduce myself: https://www.facebook.com/pages/MakedaQueen-Makedas-Sister/115244978463 & http://ruppertlindemann.jimdo.com/oil-paintings-drawings/ Nice 2 meet U! :)

True, many on Twitter do not like DMs (Direct Messages), but they do not mind a simple, friendly introduction like this. In fact, most appreciate such a convenient way of getting to know who I am and what I do, and roughly one in ten will "like" my page while visiting it. Needless to say, I always ask them for a link to their FB page so I can return the favor.

I have met tons of great writers and artists in this manner and treasure even those who did not "like" my FB page. I am sure you will have a similar experience if you use Twitter this way. It takes a little bit of work, but is well worth the effort.

Some thoughts on writing

If you are a writer, you are actually making movies. Only, your audience is given nothing but close captioning on a blank screen. Your viewers see only words in front of them, yet those words will create images in their minds that surpass anything projected onto a screen. They even provide a soundtrack to amplify and enrich your story (yes, a well-told tale creates music in the soul). And not only are you the director, the cinematographer and the scenic artist, but disguised as you characters, you also play every part in your film, and you do it so well that no one recognizes you. It's quite a project and a challenge, isn't it? So take your sweet time and make it an Oscar-worthy masterpiece. :-)

Having fun with homophones...

I was shocked to learn that Odysseus himself was inside the Trojan Whores. And I thought he was always faithful to his wife, Penelope. ;-)

Morbid digressions of a writer's mind

The combo 'KS' makes the same sound as 'X' — so why keep 'X' around? I only hope my wife doesn't ponder my usefulness along similar lines. ;-)

From Tehtena's Diary...

"Even though I may arrange them differently than others did in the past, the words I have at my disposal are not new, but have been used by countless souls in countless different circumstances and combinations. Oh, how I wish I could speak of my love for you in a brand-new tongue, with virgin words that have never before come over anyone's lips— but then, how would you get my meaning if I did?" 

— — —

"Seek out a hill crest, my sister. There lie down, face-up, and gaze at the sky now far below you. See how deep it is? Such is my love for Solomon." — Tehtena, in a letter to Makeda which was never sent out.

— — —

"Two wrongs don't make a right...but three lefts do. Try it—you'll see." — Tobiel, the carpenter

A bit of self-reflection

I am not a handsome man — please do not draw back my curtain of beautiful words.

I shortened the line I posted last July—it still says it all, I think.

"When a pretty young woman walked by, I saw in the old man's eyes that time inflicted more wounds than it healed." — Queen Makeda's Sister

— — —

Sooner or later the time will come when I might need a beta reader to look over my novel. I have never tried that sort of thing on a large scale, but experiences with acquaintances and friends to whom I had given some of my writings are enough to make me believe that it would perhaps be wiser to actually pay strangers to read my work. Not only will the later be less concerned with hurting my feelings, they will also be more likely to take their task serious. All too often have I seen friends acting all excited and flattered when I gave them my manuscript, only to find out later that they merely read a few pages and then forgot about the rest. That kind of hurtful insincerity can actually harm a friendship. It seems far safer to me, therefore, to entrust people other than friends and family with such a job. What experiences, if any, have you had with beta readers? 

"Do not harden your heart for fear of pain. Love does not tread where it cannot leave its footprints." — Tehtena, Queen Makeda's Sister

A line from 'The Response'

"'Air On the G String' is a famous piece of music by Johann Sebastian Bach and not what happens when a woman eats too many beans and then wears a skimpy bikini. "  — the pianist André De La Lemieux in my novel 'The Response'

Writer's block?

I do not believe in writer's block, and neither should you. If staring at a blank page keeps you from writing, just fill it with words. That's what I do. I just start writing. The key is not to expect anything meaningful from the get go.  As I once pointed out, the muses do not talk you INTO writing, they talk to you WHILE you write. In my experience, even when I start out completely uninspired, it does not take long before a thought comes to me, a precious new insight perhaps or a gem of a metaphor, which I had no idea would rise from my unconscious mind. I may delete everything I wrote up to that point, but it was still the simple process of writing it that brought me there.

So when I find myself not writing, I don't blame it on writer's block. I blame it on a lack of discipline. Every time I sit down to write, the above happens to me, but the problem is that I cannot always bring myself to sit down.

Maybe I should do my writing while standing. ;-)

Maybe it's experience...

Quite often these days I write words I enjoy reading the next day. It used to be that I cringed every single time I looked at something I wrote the day before. Somehow I've learned now to look at my writing with tomorrow's eyes. I still have to tweak a few sentences here and there, of course, but the re-writes are nowhere near as drastic as they used to be in the past. It's a real time-saver, to say the least. ;-)

One of many epigraphs that head the chapters of my novel:

"Know your strength, but focus on your purpose. Take it from a seasoned builder like me that one must not watch the hand that swings the hammer but the one that holds the nail." — Tobiel the carpenter, friend of Tehtena

A line from "The Response"

People tell me that my wife looked beautiful. This would actually make me feel good if they didn't sound so utterly surprised when they said it.

A line from the novel

"Be consistent in all you do, my son, for the beggar who forgets to limp on his way out will end up empty-handed when he comes hobbling back for more." — Tobiel, the carpenter,  in one of his frequent impersonations of King Solomon

— — —

It's always the little things that touch me. My soul lives on bite-size blessings.

A line from my novel 'The Response'

The good thing about having children late in life is that you can use their bibs when it is your turn to be fed.