The Carnival of Venice

The Carnival of Venice (Arban) is one of the toughest pieces in the trumpet repertoire. It involves blisteringly fast scales, double tonguing (ta-ka-ta) and triple tonuing (ta-ta-ka-ta), crazy intervals over an octave in difference, 32^nd notes, and on and on. I played an easier version (Clarke) my senior year of high school, and it took me a fair bit of practice to get it as perfect as I could.

I’ve heard it said that masterpieces are never finished, merely abandoned; and if you’ve ever gazed long at a renaissance painting you’ll begin to understand. The details could go on forever, and one wonders at the process… how the painter went about his business. When did he paint what? How did the pieces fit together in time as he created it? What made him move on from one zone of the canvas to the next and why? And at what point did he abandon it, effectively saying (in Italian, no doubt), “enough is enough!”

Wynton Marsalis, whom I practically worshipped as a young trumpeter in high school, produced a pinnacle of the art form in his recording of The Carnival of Venice on the record Carnaval. And yeah. It’s the Arban’s version, which is in another universe from the Clarke’s. Here's a YouTube link of Marsalis with John Williams and the Boston Pops orchestra that will blow your freaking mind. He's playing a cornet, not a trumpet, in that video. 

It’s a theme and variations, so it starts off with the basic melody. It’s in 6/8 time, so it feels like a waltz; oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah. It’s a nice little melody, if it does anything it lilts. I said lilts. Now I get a triple score. Anyway as the variations go on, they get more difficult until gradually, in the final variation it literally sounds like there are two trumpets playing simultaneously. I am not making this up. Just a shower of sound. Marsalis did this to perfection on the record Carnaval (aforementioned), released in the early nineties. It was and is incredible. I’m waiting on my public library to call me with my reserved copy of that recording; I just have to hear it again.

As you may or may not have gleaned from the buzz in the ether around here lately, I’ve picked up a trumpet after about a seventeen year hiatus. Right now I’m just using loaners however I can get them, but I’m back into practicing again nevertheless. Today during my routine I cracked into a dusty long-forgotten section of the Arban’s book.

J.B. Arban’s first comprehensive trumpet and cornet method was published in the late 1800’s and quickly became the ultimate authority on the instrument. I’d argue that it still is too, in many ways. It’s over an inch and a half thick and has everything you could ever and never think of inside it. Included is the trumpet part for The Carnival of Venice.

When I collided with it today it was glorious. I just thought you should know. As I was playing it, fond old memories started coming into focus again. That melody, those notes, are up near the rarified heights of musicianship that I was just beginning to know so many years ago. For me to make my clumsy little forays around the edges today was nothing less than a delight.

Mind you, our collision was probably hideously ugly to my next door neighbors. But to me, in my heart and head, it was a thing of beauty. 

Resurrection

It's a funny thing about gifts. While a thing that we're gifted to do in life can master us, define us, lend us a piece of our identity, enable us to do what no one else can do, steward us to great heights of accomplishment... it can also break us, back us into corners, entrap us, destroy us, burn us like wicks until all the fuel is gone and we're utterly spent.

Probably the best metaphor for this is the simple seed.

Seeds. Contained within one of these impossible capsules is an entire forest, given enough time, good soil, rain. Generations can be supported on one grain of wheat, which again, given enough time, will produce field upon endless field of staple crops for the children of the children of the children of the man who first sowed it. It's incredible, but we can hear in this expression of creation the voice of God asking us why we're so amazed.

I've experienced a weird hate-love with a gift in my own life. It all started when I was eleven years old and in desperate need of something to do. I needed something to define me. Tell me, at least in part, who I was. The first time I ever touched a trumpet it was clear that I had a natural ability for it; a gift. I was able to make it work. One of my band directors in high school, Dan Christian, pulled me aside one day during my senior year and asked me why I wasn't auditioning for the Indiana All-State Band. I just shrugged and implied I was bored with it. That's when he told me that he had never in his life seen a kid take to the trumpet like I had. He told me that I really shouldn't be able to do half the stuff I was able to do, that I had been fortunate that no one had ever told me I couldn't. This is an incredible guy, by the way: he famously told us, "If you're gonna make a mistake, make it loud." I ended up auditioning for the Indiana All-State Band, and I made the All-State Honor band. Not first chair, but first part. I still have the CD of our concert somewhere, I think. That was the year I played Carnival of Venice, too, which is, as any trumpet player worth his salt will tell you, one of the premiere pieces in the repertoire.

Why do I bore you with these inane details? It's not to brag about anything. I'm far past those immature days; I might even hazard the opinion that most of it has been burned out of me. No, I tell this story to set the stage for a radical idea that, like a seed, has germinated within me after years--seventeen of them--lying dormant.

But first, another story. Bear with me. In 2006 I started up a construction company with my dad and my brother. By summer of 2007 it was busted, and for lots of reasons, but I maintain that I was rescued from success because it would have been more damaging than failure, at least given the way we were going about our business. After that, we entered the crucible. I was unable to find work for over a year. I was deeply depressed. It was as if I had lost someone, not something. We started selling off everything we didn't need in order to make ends meet. My drums, our band's PA system, my huge home stereo, the months-old plasma TV... then pretty much all that was left was the trumpet.

I had delivered papers for two years, maybe three years, saving my money for that pro-line trumpet. At the Indiana Trumpet Competition in Anderson Indiana in the summer of 1991, after play-testing several trumpets from the hundreds on display, I selected a Bach Stradivarius model 180S with a 43H heavyweight bell and 25LR reverse leadpipe. Very sexy for the times, let me tell you. And it played like nothing else. Rather than inhibiting my talents, it amplified them, made everything easier, better, richer.

In 2008 I sold it. I prayed about it quite a lot beforehand, too. I knew that I needed to provide for my family, and I wasn't opposed to selling it. "No sacred cows," I say. My in-laws lived in Hawaii at the time, and they told us, "Why don't you guys come here and look for a job?" All we needed to do was get there; they told us they would put us up in their one bedroom condo in Honolulu until we found something that worked. We needed about $1600 for the plane tickets, if I remember right. I appraised my old Strad and guess how much it was worth? It sold on eBay quickly for the appraised value. Some rather fortunate young trumpeter in the London area is now (hopefully) the proud owner. Off it went, certified post, and off we went to Hawaii. I found a job there quickly, working at a marina doing dock maintenance. Of course, I was laid off after about four months and we then came back home, but it was precisely what we needed: refreshment.

When I made the decision to sell my Strad I distinctly heard God tell me if I laid it down completely then, He would repay my decision, my sacrifice, many times over. I was glad to do it. And I don't believe that word repay connotes monetary value, either. God is creative. I shall be wise enough to allow Him to choose how and when; I live and breathe at His mercy daily. So we'll see what happens next.

And speaking of what's next, we're now full circle in the little story I'm telling here. I think also that it's significant that I'm posting this on the first day of a brand new year. That's what I'm talking about: my radical idea. Actually, it's probably not radical at all for anyone but me. Forgive me this indulgence, will you? You see, in the hard years now hopefully behind me, I've learned a great deal about holding to things loosely. How to lay my will down. How to make sacrifices for others. How to stop thinking so damn much about me, me, ME. In fact I learned it so well that when this idea finally occurred to me I was shocked at how out of the blue it was. Truly, it was the furthest thing from my mind.

I was so over the trumpet that I had actually gone to a local music shop and talked with them, casually, about getting a tenor sax on a rent-to-own program. But that was months ago. This new idea came gently, like a steady rustling breeze on a bed of hot coals, enlivening them slowly, roundly, thoroughly. I thought, Hey. I could teach trumpet. And that was it. Then, Why not rent one? The next day I was in the same shop looking, seriously, for a trumpet to rent. They obliged me with a play-test, also directing me next door to  a studio that, strangely enough, was looking for trumpet teachers. Huh, I thought. The lady was busy with students, however, but she took my number and promised to call.

I took another fine instrument on approval for a week, from another local shop. I got back into my fundamental routine, daily gaining more flexibility. The day came to return it, and I walked in and asked for another. A better one. A Bach Strad. There was a guy in line behind me as I went through the checkout process. He seemed a decent fellow, and asked me if I was buying a new trumpet. I told him no, just checking one out on approval, trying to get back into playing. That week, I had also Googled that nice lady with the studio who was looking for trumpet teachers and called her up and left a message. You've gotta chase these things down sometimes.

Later on that day, I got a call from the other shop; the one from which I had borrowed the Strad. This one took me way back. On the phone was a young man I had known since he was small enough to ride piggyback on my shoulders. He saw my name in the transaction record and decided to track me down to see if I was indeed who he thought I was (I was). Today he's an accomplished cellist, educated at Vanderbilt. He's quite well-connected, shall we say, with the local schools, and told me he was very interested in doing whatever he could to help me build up a private studio. He gave me a phone number as well: one of the trumpet players in the Boise Philharmonic. I called that gentleman right away and introduced myself, telling him I had been given his number by a young man who worked at Dunkley's Music. He said, "Hey, were you down at Dunkley's today?" I answered yes. He said, "I was right behind you in line." Turns out I had already met, in person, the guy I was going to meet over the phone. We're going to meet in person again soon to talk about strategies for building up my clientele. And just like that, I'm tapped into the local community of professional musicians.

The only thing is: I need a trumpet if I'm going to teach. It's not something that's learned out of books. It's learned by rote, by doing, by example, by repetition. A trumpet instructor without an axe is absurd. I was wracking my brain to figure out how to acquire a trumpet in the most cost-effective way. I could rent one, but that's a long-term expense that adds to the overhead of my business. While that remains an option, I nevertheless had a brainwave and struck on an idea that could be better, plus allow people that I've known for years to have a hand in helping me out, getting me back into playing trumpet and fulfilling a long dormant and frustrated part of me that wants to positively impact the youth of my community, the musical capabilities, particularly of younger musicians and students.

What is it? Crowdsourcing. If you've heard of Kickstarter, you know at least a little about what it is. And as of this writing, I'm still waiting to hear back from Kickstarter.com about my submission and whether or not it's been given a go. Whatever the case may be, my goal is simple:

Raise at least $500, buy a trumpet, and start teaching.

I've already looked on Craigslist and found some. I'm hoping to raise more, of course, but at least with that minimum amount I can get started, start my studio, gain students, make a difference, and earn my way back into this thing, eventually buying a pro-line trumpet again. Maybe even a Bach Stradivarius. I plan to weasel my way into local schools and offer to teach a day of sectionals with the trumpets, train them in proper warm ups, range expansion, the finer points of mouthpiece selection, maybe even give 'em some tips on jazz improvisation. It'll be a great way to recruit students. I'm going to have studio recitals with my students. I'll organize competitions. Together we'll raise the bar. We'll get some of these young musicians listening to properly good music, maybe even positively influence the pop culture with something besides sex and bling and gratuitousness. And who knows, maybe Idaho could become a musical oasis. Anything is possible. I know that for a fact because I have experienced it.

Stay tuned to this space for updates. When I hear from Kickstarter, I'll be posting up their yea or nay. If it's nay, I'll just raise the funds through my blog and social media, using Paypal. There' s more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to buy a trumpet and make a difference. The key is that we do this together. I really do believe that's crucial. Thanks for being a part of this "radical idea." And for now there are some videos that I put together that will tell you more about me and my story and my idea--plus you get to hear me play (yikes). There's a short and sweet version, and a longer one with an additional ten minutes of footage that tells the whole story. Leave comments here if you have questions/ideas about all this. Thanks for popping in here, and I look forward to getting started on this project ASAP.

Chris

K [phantasmagoria] is live today

It's been two years in the making. Finally, I've come to the point where I can release the work of my heart and hands to you, my great fan base, my crowdsourced patrons of the arts. K [phantasmagoria] is my interpretation of what a novel can be. It has many layers. There are things that are said that are important, but there are things that are not said, that I leave to you the reader, that are just as important. I know there are people who will disagree with me on its merits, but I'm quite proud of it. The work in its entirety is designed to provoke thought, so be ready, and be advised: this one is not for kids.

There's more to come, and I promise: there's at least one twist coming in the K series that no one will see coming. I'll reveal it in book two, which, for now, has the working title K [parousia].  I'll introduce some new characters, change the setting quite a lot, and tie the plot up in knots. I know you'll like that. But that will have to wait. For now, Enjoy K [phantasmagoria]. I sure enjoyed writing it.

Airel/ Arson/ Pyxis Blog Tour Coming Soon!

Guest Post: An Open Letter to Indie Bookstores, by Allan Leverone

An Open Letter to Indie Bookstores

Dear store owner,

I know things are tough right now. Being an Independent Bookseller was never easy, even in the good old days of four or five years ago, when practically everyone purchased their reading material the same way—by getting in their cars and driving to your store or to one of the big chain bookstores. Oh, sure, some people ordered their books online, but they were the strange ones, the shut-ins or those techno-nerds everyone made fun of in high school who are now running the world.

Then came the revolution. Steady yourself, because I’m going to say it out loud and I don’t want to catch you by surprise. Are you ready? Okay, here we go: Ereaders. Are you alright? Because you’re looking a little green around the gills. Let’s try it again. Ereaders. Ereaders, ereaders, ereaders.

Okay, I’ll stop. Sorry about that, I just couldn’t help myself.

Anyway, here came ereaders, and their popularity gave rise to a new form of book-buying practically overnight: Staying home and browsing online, where not only could the reader save time, gas and money, she could begin reading her selection seconds after making it!

What started out as a fad, a niche, a way for those techno-nerds to download their science manuals and their Penthouse magazine subscriptions soon became a full-fledged trend, then almost immediately an accepted practice, meaning now not only do you face competition from the Barnes and Nobles of the world, you face even stiffer competition from the Innerwebs. (Amazon. Amazon, Amazon, Amazon. Dammit, I did it again. Are you sure you’re okay?)

I know, I know, it sucks to be you. And I apologize for bringing up a sore subject.

But that’s the thing about revolutions: They change the status quo forever—hopefully more for the good than the bad—but always forever. If there’s one thing history has taught us, it’s that the entities who are best able to adapt to changing circumstances are the ones who survive and sometimes even—gasp!—thrive.

And here, at last, is the point of this letter: Instead of whining about the digital publishing revolution and the whole new class of true “Indie” authors epublishing has given rise to, maybe it’s time for you to figure out a way to include some of the best of them in your survival strategy.

It’s interesting that bookstores which are so fiercely protective of their identity as “independent,” seem so dismissive, as a whole, toward independent authors. Case in point: Me. After selling my debut thriller to an “Indie” publisher, Medallion Press, I chose to go a different route—StoneHouse Ink—with my followup thriller, The Lonely Mile.

Stonehouse/StoneGate Ink is one of the new breed of publishers sprouting up all over the place, like mushrooms in the forest after a cleansing rain. They’re less traditional than traditional publishing, but more traditional than self-publishing.

The Lonely Mile was released in July by StoneHouse as an ebook, and sales have been steady ever since. And while I’m not in any danger of knocking Connelly, Cornwell or Grisham off the Bestseller Lists in Mysteries and Thrillers, the folks at StoneHouse saw enough promise in The Lonely Mile to convince them to release a paperback version of the book in October.

Guess what I did when I found out, store owner? I contacted virtually every Indie bookseller within about a one hundred fifty mile radius of my home (Londonderry, New Hampshire), offering a complimentary copy of The Lonely Mile to each store owner or manager, for them to read to see if they might consider it appropriate to carry in their stores.

I contacted exactly four dozen Indie bookstores in the New England area. I wanted to support the Indies while taking advantage of the opportunity to expand my readership at the same time. I viewed it as a wonderful opportunity. Would you care to guess how many bothered to respond?

No? I’m going to tell you anyway: Two. Two!

I realize you’re busy. I realize The Lonely Mile may not be a book you wish to carry. I don’t understand it—it’s a damned good book—but I accept it. I’m a writer, I got used to rejection years ago; it quite literally does not bother me. My career is progressing nicely, anyway.

But what I don’t understand is your utter disinterest in even taking a few minutes to respond to someone inquiring about you and your business! As a portion of your business strategy, you might want to rethink that one. In fact, you might want to rethink your entire strategy, because the revolution is well under way, and things ain’t going back to the way they used to be, regardless of how much you might like them to.

Think about partnering with Indie authors, instead of dismissing them. Sure, there’s some putrid crap being published by Indies, I’m not about to try to convince you otherwise. But there’s some damned good stuff being written too, by some damned talented and dedicated authors. Who knows, maybe there’s a way to engage some of those people in a symbiotic relationship.

Or you could continue the way you’re going, and when you’re out of business six months or a year or two years down the road, your building can get taken over by an auto parts store or a craft shop. I’m sure your town can always use another one of those.

Thanks for reading,

Allan Leverone

The Only Begotten, Not Created, Christ

Author’s note: all definitions in this article have been taken from the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1890) unless otherwise cited.

I recently attended the Ambrose School Christmas program, and heard some of the most amazing exhortations from the students. In between musical performances, during the set changes, individuals take turns delivering memorized speeches to the gathered assembly. We usually greet them with loud applause; it’s really amazing what these kids can do. One of them spoke a phrase that caused me to stop and think, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. She said that “Christ was begotten, not created.”

So what’s the difference?

I decided to look into it, starting with my treasured five hundred pound Webster’s Unabridged dictionary from 1890. I started with the two most obvious words:

Beget v.t. [be and get] 1. To procreate, as a father or sire; to generate; to get. 2. To produce as an effect; to cause.

Create v.t. [Lat. creare, creatum, to create] 1. To bring into being; to form out of nothing; to cause to exist. 2. To effect by agency and under the laws of causation; to be the occasion of; to produce. 3. To invest with a new form, office, or character; to constitute; to appoint; to make. a. Begotten; composed; created.

I then started on my hunt, looking up the words that were used to define the original words. I came up with the following:

Procreate (the Latin roots are pro, forward, and creare, to create) means to beget, to generate and produce. Generate means to produce a being similar to the parent, or to originate, especially by a vital or chemical process; to produce; to cause. Get (both the Icelandic geta and the German getan mean to obtain) means to procure, to come into possession of, to persuade or to carry. The Wordnet Dictionary defines Create as “to bring into existence, to cause to be or to become, or to create by artistic means.”

How about some Latin for ya? Fully fifty percent of the English language finds its roots in Latin (hence the importance of the study of this “dead” language). Turning to original meanings is usually highly instructive for me, so I trawled around on the Web looking for some insight:

Wikianswers.com gives us this information on the Latin roots of the word create (pronounced cray AH tay): “as a noun, create is the vocative masculine singular of creatus, the past participle of the same verb creare. As such, creatus is an adjective meaning ‘created,’ ‘elected’ or ‘begotten,’ and can be used as a noun meaning “offspring.” The vocative form is the form of direct address, so the translation of the noun would be (addressed to one male person) ‘O offspring,’ ‘O elected one!’”

Let’s add to the mixture here, shall we, because there’s more to the picture of Christ than what we’ve yet laid out. Take the word temporary, for instance. A quick perusal of Roget’s Thesaurus gives us more to look into: interim, transient, substitute, conditional. Have a look at a derivative word like temporal, and its synonyms include unsacred, material. All this is again, highly instructive, because it’s serving to throw more light, out to the edges, on the canvas we’re looking at, helping us see the picture better.

But wait a tick. I seem to remember Jesus referring to Himself as the Son of God and the Son of Man. So how about the word son? The Slavonic word for son is synonymous with the Sanskrit word sunu, from su, which means to beget. The word son is also described as meaning a male child, the male issue of a parent, a male descendant, a native or inhabitant of some special place, the produce of any thing [Redwoods might be called the sons of the earth], and, in my old dictionary, Jesus Christ, who is referred to as both the Son of God and as the Son of Man.

Now, I’ve always wondered what these phrases meant; what the difference is between them. The phrase “Son of Man” is used in the book of Ezekiel, for example, 93 times, and The Oxford Companion to the Bible also notes the same (1993). Son of Man is used as a Semitic idiom (a peculiar phrase stamped by the usage of language) and is thought to denote humanity or self (body, life, having one’s own body). The first time the phrase appears in the Bible is Numbers 23.19, where it is used in traditional Hebrew parallel poetic form (where the same idea is expressed twice, often with different words, for clarity and emphasis) where the phrase ben-adam (Son of Man) is used across from ‘iysh (human being or man). Even with this modest scholarship we can safely deduce that the phrase Son of Man is evocative of our concept of humanity. As for upper or lower case treatments of the words, we owe that to the translators taking some degree of license. I’m pretty sure the Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic languages had no facility for upper or lower case, and indeed no punctuation either. I know that for a fact about Latin because I studied it for two years in high school. I remember at least that much.

As to languages, here’s a quick detour: The Hebrew Torah was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic (the Aramaic reflecting the years of exile in Babylon). That intermixture produced all kinds of dialects, and Jesus may have spoken at least four major languages: Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Latin is important because the first full translation of the Old and New Testaments together into a single language was the Latin Vulgate (completed in late 300-400 AD).

Okay, back to our little study on the Son of Man. The Oxford Companion to the Bible (1993) explains that the Greeks rendered the phrase we read today—Son of Man—effectively as “the son of the man,” a literal translation of a phrase that, to the Hebrews, was instead mostly idiomatic and had metaphorical meaning. So it’s not completely accurate. The Aramaic language at the time included a similar phrase, bar enas, which in the Galilean Aramaic meant “a human being,” or could be used as a modest way to speak of oneself (to say, “I”). “Son of Man” in the New Testament can mean a number of things, and its true meaning can only be inferred from context. It may mean “one,” “a human,” or could be “a self-reference provoked by awe, modesty, or humility…” (ibid). The Biblical New Testament text supports this thesis too, because the phrase is almost exclusively used by Jesus as a self-designation. There are only a handful of occurrences where the translated phrase is used by anyone else.

So how do we compile all these facts? I think that we can make a case for Christ as all in all. In other words, He is precisely and exactly who He says He is. I think the little word study we’ve seen here provides sufficient evidence for Christ the Begotten as He appears in Colossians 1.15; “The image of the invisible God;” and in John 1.1-3 as the “Word” or logos that the Greeks in those days understood philosophically to be the foundation of all that is. So Christ is fully God, but He is also fully man, as evidenced by the very use of the word begotten.

Is there a difference between beget and create? How about this: in some ways they're total opposites, and in others they're identical. This search for enlightenment has at its end a vast portal to dimness of sight; it's an enigma, at least in the realm of the temporal.

Contrary to what some might think is a nail in the coffin of the advocate for Christ, it is not a disaster that beget is sometimes synonymous with create. No, it actually further supports the Christian doctrine of the Triune God, the Trinity, the Father-Son-Spirit Godhead, that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man. That’s where the word temporary comes in, because its root is the Latin tempus, or having to do with time. Christ, being fully God since before the foundation of the earth, submitted himself to His creation and inserted Himself into the scope and limits of time, the temporal. He forsook not just the throne and glory, but eternity itself to join us. Contrary to being a kneejerk reaction to our fall from grace in the garden, or even a reactionary search and rescue operation, it was part of His plan from the beginning, as John 1.1 tells us. He took on manhood in order to live the perfection of which we have always been incapable... and that was, from the beginning, prerequisite for true fellowship with our Holy God. That invasion, His begetting, still echoes heroically in these dark places. How can One who was and is and is to come be created, after all? It is not possible.

But what of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man? Let's look at some of the words we've unearthed, in bold. He is both effect and cause, generated to get to us; He is the elected One, the I AM, the only begotten. And not created. Christ was appointed in the flesh to make atonement for us. Christ is the origin and genesis of all creation, our God incarnate, Emmanuel, who walked with us, and His story is singular throughout all cultures and tribes and nations; there is not one pagan god (i.e. a created god, a god created by man) that can boast of anything close: He became sin for us, took the penalty for sin in our place as substitute, chose to become our servant, to become material, unsacred for us. He chose to have a self, having his own body, become a native, an inhabitant of some special place with us here, under temporal influences of corruption, weather, wickedness, time itself. Our Almighty God chose, before Day One, to become ben-adam, 'iysh, the Son of Man, a human, begotten, though He remained fully God, the Son of Man. It is a great and noble mystery, like all scripture, that the Elect of God is revealed by His Spirit in scripture in this interim, this temporary state of being, to those called and elect of God.

I guess a word study of elect is overdue...

K [phantasmagoria] part one

I first sat down to write this story more than two years ago. It began as a sketch on how horribly depressed I felt as a man having to live within the confines of his own mistakes. Under the thumb of consequence. Having to look myself in the face when the reflection in the mirror was the picture of futility. Heavy stuff, indeed, but I’d argue then as I do now that there are a lot of us out here mired in failure, frustration, and the deep sand of personal responsibility. It’s anything but easy.

As I moved through that desolation, I couldn’t get away from my little sketch. I called my protagonist by a simple letter: K. I didn’t know what else to call him. It was easier anyway, since so much of the story was autobiographical and K can, by extension, denote Chris. Okay maybe I'm reaching. Anyway my sketch was just a simple scene in which a man is awakened by the oppressive sun streaming into his bedroom on an early September day in Meridian, Idaho. It would be hot and bright and washed out. And he knew he would hate it. So he thrashes around with the blankets and the alarm clock until he realizes he cannot avoid responsibility and consequence any longer: if he doesn’t get up and get his butt to work, he might lose his job—all he has left.

I continued to work on it, share it with my friends at the Huckins Writers Guild, get critiqued, and then work on it some more. It began to grow. Before I knew it I had produced about 100,000 words. Somewhere deep within, though, I wasn’t satisfied with it. It was sophomoric. Kind of childish; undeveloped. It lacked grit, intensity. It wasn’t believable, even to me. And that’s when it hit me: I knew what was wrong. Strangely, it had to do with mechanics. Spelling and grammar type stuff. More specifically, tense.

It reminded me of when I was in high school, playing the trumpet, or learning how, more like. The sound I produced in real life wasn’t always equivalent to the sound I heard in my head. When improvising a solo over chord changes, the melody in my head was far different than the one I could wrestle that recalcitrant instrument to produce. It was the same with my new stillborn novel, K. In my head it played like a movie; I could see it all in front of me. But on the page it was stale, impotent, cold, disengaged. So I set about making a few changes as an experiment.

About that time, I was finishing work on another piece; The Marsburg Diary. Since part of it is set in the late Victorian age, I was hitting up old dictionaries apace, looking for period-accurate vocabulary. I came across the word phantasmagoria. And that’s when my working title gave over to the final title: K [phantasmagoria]. I decided then to write three novels in a series, with K [phantasmagoria] the first in the line.

And just a sidebar here: My original idea for the three volume series has grown. K [phantasmagoria] was getting to be so long that I had to break it in half. Yep. So three novels have become six. It's still going to be three main titles, but each title will have two parts, so K [phantasmagoria] part one will be followed by K [phantasmagoria] part two next year. The other two titles are top secret, natch.

I finished Marsburg and shifted to K. My experiment—changing the first chapter’s past to present tense—just flat out worked. While there will be some, like Les Edgerton, who protest against the use of present tense in fiction, as for me I’d found my happy medium. Writing in what I call CenterCode lent the sizzle I required. So I set out to change the entire book.

In that process I found out that I needed more background for K as my protag. It wasn’t quite right, just waking him up and throwing him into a massively explosive precognitive event on his way to work. I needed something more, some background, relationships that made him more human, gave him something to lose. So I introduced new plotlines, like the new first chapter, [Provocation], new characters like Quincey the cuz, and Essie Gray the Harley riding girlfriend, and Dr. Charles Wen, K’s government mandated psychiatrist. All of it gave me more opportunity to ply the conflicts in the story, and really set up the explosive main event that happened originally in my little sketch on the frustrated man.

It’s been said that all fiction is autobiographical. It helps me to know and believe this, because I can make peace with the idea and not hold back in my writing. K is 100% me in the sense of my experience; i.e. my perspectives on things. But as a character he’s an amalgamation of people I’ve met in my life and gotten to know. I suppose, really, that includes me. Those who know me will recognize bits of him as self-portraiture, certainly, but not all of him.

I mentioned earlier that I’ve not held back in this work. I made an executive decision with this book to include profanity, for instance. My rationale for it is that it creates a different environment than could be made otherwise. It makes the characters more believable, more fun to write, and raises the stakes a bit, providing a little more intensity. But that’s not the only area I’ve tried to push things a bit. I don’t, for instance, believe it’s wrong to struggle with life or wrestle with God, and I certainly don’t think it’s apropos to stick Him away in some God Locker, cloistered within the confines of Christian fiction or the subculture du jour. He swaggers front and center on these pages sometimes, and K wrestles him all the way, from start to finish. Some of it may seem irreverent, but keep reading. I think wrestling, in season, is all good, and I’m not afraid of it or what questions it may provoke in people. Questions are meant to be asked; God has all the answers.

This book, K [phantasmagoria] part one, is intensely personal for me but I think there are more out there like me who dare to ask tough questions. There are more out there who are at peace with their decision to ask, even if there is no clear answer forthcoming. This book is about that. It’s also a piece of fiction in which, hopefully, you’re kept guessing until the end about what’s really going on here. Evil has many brands, many faces. You’ll see lots of those in this book. Sometimes what we wrestle has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the light… even if it’s us. I hope you’ll begin the journey of the K series with me; it’ll be quite a satisfying ride, I think.