A Writer's Legacy

“This moment, the first instant he saw Olivia, would be burned into his memory forever. He knew that no matter what course his life might follow, the memory of his first sight of her would be something he would always cherish. She was dressed in a simple blue dress decorated with small yellow wild flowers. A lace collar surrounded her lovely slender neck. Her long black hair was tied modestly in the back, held in place by a matching blue ribbon. Her body was long and graceful. "She's perfect," Jon thought. He had never seen a woman who was so utterly perfect. She looked at Jon for a long moment before smiling. He was dumbstruck. He couldn't say anything. Her dark eyes held his. Her smile radiated like the sun emerging from a cloud. It overwhelmed him.”

                                                 From my novel, “A Matter of Time”

 Would you mind if I got serious with you? There’s something I want to write about. It’s something I swore I wouldn’t do. It’s deep and personal. You may want to stop reading this now. Check in next week when I’ll be in a more positive frame of mind. I might even crack a couple of jokes. But not now. Not at 10:15 PM on a warm July night in 2014.

It begins with my thoughts of my great-grandfather, Luis deTeves.  He was born in the city of Ponta Delgada on the island of Sao Miguel, Azores in 1851. I know almost nothing about this man. I know he immigrated to Hawaii in the 1880s. I’ve seen a photograph of him taken later in life; a lean, older man who looks like he’s spent a hard life working under a harsh sun. He was working for his family. He was working for me, a great-grandson born well after his death.

I was watching Antique Roadshow. People were showing off valuable items handed down from generation to generation. I have nothing from my great-grandfather and for good reason. He didn’t have anything. I only have a couple of things from my own father, so my own great-grandchildren will be in the same position. Nothing from me, the late dear great-grandpa David Teves.

Except for my writing.

I have cancer. As a matter of fact I’ve had two different cancers in the last year. The first one, kidney cancer, was successfully extracted from my body. The second cancer, we’ll this one is different. It’s a tough bastard called Multiple Myeloma, a blood cancer that can be treated but has no cure.

So it goes.

I used to dream of becoming a successful writer. In my mind’s eye I thought that someday I might be able to enjoy a few things in life that such a career might offer. I know now that realistically, it’s not going to happen. I have been thinking of the road ahead of me. I look at a rock that I keep on top of my writing desk, knowing that it will be around for hundreds of years, heck maybe thousands of years. after I’m gone. And like my great-grandfather Luis, I will be nothing but a faded photograph in someone’s family album.

But I do have a chance at a modest immortality through my books. I have a feeling that they will be handed down at least a couple of generations before they are forgotten. And on the Internet, they have a chance to last for as long as Amazon.com is in business.

I wrote an entry for this blog called “Who will get my records when I’m gone?” or something like that. At the time I was thinking (while slightly drunk on a fine Dillian Zinfandel) that it was my ticket to immortality. Someday I’d have a great-grandchild who will find the records in a forgotten nook in his parent’s basement and wonder, “Who the heck was this guy?”

My books are an even better chance at living for a couple of hundred years. And if my future progeny read them, they might catch a glimpse of what I was like, my soul if you believe in such things. And that’s all I really want. A chance that I will be remembered and appreciated not for the things I won’t be able to leave them, but what is in my heart.

So I will write. I will finish my four book "Land of Dreams" series in a year or so, and if I feel up to it there’s a grand ghost story lurking inside me.

 And that makes me feel good. But dang I was hoping to be able to buy a decent car.

 David

The Day the World Disappeard

            Powerful hands griped mine. They were like my father's hard, calloused hands but in miniature. He was bare-chested and was dressed in a brightly colored malo tied around his waist. A lei of koa leaves rested on his head. His hair and beard were so black it was as if the night had fallen from the sky. 

            He let go of my hands and grunted. "Iki kaikamahine almost drown," he said gesturing at me and then the river. 
            I blinked my eyes, expecting that the apparition before me would disappear. I looked at Kenji. His eyes were closed. Was he dead? Then the apparition spoke again.
            "The Menehune are an ancient race," he said. "We once ruled all the islands of the Great Sea, but it is here we make our final home. We watch over the land and its people. We are proud and possess powerful magic and can do many wonderful things—but we cannot bring your mother back to you."
            "My mother?"
            "Shush, little one, for I must go." He smiled at me and laughed. He did not sound like a dog. He sounded like a babbling brook meandering through a quiet meadow.
            "Life is filled with both joy and sorrow," he said. "It is up to you to choose which will rule.  Your mother is gone, the Great Father has taken her, but someday you will see her again."

From “A Menehune Tale”, a story from my upcoming book, “unexpected pleasures”

One day. when I was eleven, everyone in the world disappeared for twenty minutes….

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1961. I had just left the Bal Theater on East 14^th Street in San Leandro, fresh from a day spent at the Kiddie Matinee—ten cartoons, two movies, usually American International “monster movies”, as we liked to call them. I was alone. I began my walk home under a bright August sun, my eyes still adjusting from the luxurious darkness that had enfolded me since 11:00 that morning.

It was a breezy day as I headed up 148^th Avenue using the shadows of the long theater building to walk in the shade for as long as I could. When I reached the next corner, I crossed Bancroft Avenue and turned right, approaching the myriad of residential streets that would eventually lead me to my home on Lark. At Coral Avenue I made a left, and that was when it all began.

I didn’t notice it at first. I was just walking alone down a deserted street passing 1950's vintage parked cars and freshly mowed lawns. I remember wind chimes tinkling in the breeze from a front porch. It felt lonely on that street. I liked that feeling; I was a weird kid. I let the emotion caress me as I walked. It didn’t hit me until I reached Tower Street that there was no one around. Not one person or a moving car on the street or even a stray cat.

It was just a quiet day, I remember thinking. A very quiet day. Halsey Ave was a long street. When I reached it, my eyes scanned up and down searching for proof that the people living there were alive. But I didn’t see anyone. Not a soul. Where were they? Were they huddled in their homes watching "Wideworld of Sports on television? Had they all gone downtown to the summer sale at JC Penny’s? Where were the kids who always roamed the streets riding their bikes or playing catch?

A chill went through me. Surely there would be people on Lark Street. It was always busy on Lark. It ran parallel to East 14^th Street and people routinely used it as a shortcut. My mom was always complaining about the speeding cars that zipped past our home. Surely I would find someone there. I hurried to the corner and turned right. My house was nearly at the end of the long block, just three houses in from an even busier street, 150^th Avenue. But Lark and the avenue at its end was empty of life.

I got very, very scared. And my walk turned into a full out run as I headed towards the safety of my house. My mom would surely be home. Maybe even my two sisters. Dad was working. That run was a blur. I kept expecting a car to pass me. As I rushed passed the houses of my childhood friends, I hoped to see at least one of them playing in the yard or looking out their front windows, but there was no one. No one!

I stopped in front of my house and stared vacantly at 150^th Avenue. Surely a car would pass heading up to Foothill Boulevard. The seconds that passed seemed like minutes of complete and utter isolation. Finally I cried out and rushed into the safety of my house, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.

“Mom! Mom!” I called out. “Susan? Carol?”

No one was home.

What had happened? What would I do? I had had nightmares in my young life. Martians invading my street. Sometimes I dreamt of a giant Jesus appearing in the sky, ending the world in a terrible Second Coming. But I hadn’t bargained for being alone in an empty world. What would I do? What would happen to me? Who would cook my dinner? I was rooted to the floor, gasping for air in my living room when I heard the back door open.

“David? Is that you?”, my mother asked as she closed the door.

And the world was given back to me.

Where Do Ideas Come From?

I awake in the darkness the same way each night. For a moment I do not know where I am, who I am, what I am. For that brief span of time--no longer than a single, sorrowful second--I am as I once was: normal, mortal. The faces of my once beloved flash across my eyes like the silver lightening on the plains of my homeland, left behind so long, long ago The faces dance like ghosts, splintered fragments of warmth gone cold. I wish, I do not wish, they could be with me now.

And then, just as my nostrils fill with the sweet smells of life, it is gone. It is crimson time, once again. My pale hand pushes up, filled with lingering anguish and throws back the black, lacquered wood. The lid slides open, and in the dim hiding place I smell raw earth and hear the sounds of the others stirring from their graveyard sleep.

Crimson time. It fills my eyes with the vision of blood and washes away the last reminders of my former humanity. It fills my senses with the hidden lust of the night, the lust for eternal life.

I now stand with the others, communicating without words, acknowledging the need that can never be satisfied and never stopped by the sweet offer of death. And as the last grip of protection the sun offers the world slowly fades away, into the night we fly....

            "Crimson Time", a very short bonus story from my upcoming short story collection “unexpected pleasures”.

So as you can see from my previous posts, as a child I had a rich fantasy life. I didn’t write stories, I lived stories. There are many more examples of this—my childhood was filled with them—but I won’t bore you with more examples. Suffices to say that the imagination was there, I just never took idea to pencil.

 Where do story ideas come from? This is a question civilians like to ask writers. How do you think this crap up? Well believe it or not with a little practice thinking this crap up is a relatively easy thing to do. For me it starts with an image. It might be something I see in the course of my day. It might be from a song. It might be from the fears that are always lurking within me. It might come from nowhere.

Years ago, I wrote a series of short stories. I wrote these stories while I was writing my first novel, A Matter of Time. It was a time of great discovery. My abilities were coming to fruition and the ideas came like an open flood gate. They came one after another like glorious storms invading my mind.

Some ideas are slow in coming. For example, I’m writing a four volume series, The Land of Dreams. The first idea came to me maybe ten years ago as a single image: a young woman with flowing golden/red hair riding a bicycle around a translucent wall. At the time I had no idea what was on the other side of that wall, but eventually it came to me, a scene from the fourth novel. It percolated in my subconscious for years, and when the time was right, I started to write it down.

Sometimes something very odd happens. A complete story comes out of nowhere and is downloaded into your mind. It’s a very odd and somewhat frightening experience. It would leave me nauseous and unsteady for hours. My novella, Payday, from my upcoming collection, unexpected pleasures, was such an experience. Twenty thousand words appeared in my mind, a whole and complete story. All I had to do was right it down. It came out smoothly and without hesitation, and the experience still haunts me today.

I write because I have to. Once an idea comes to my mind, it will not go away until I bring it to life. If I don’t do it, the story will just sit there rattling around my brain, demanding attention.

Writing is a lonely life. If I played the guitar and sang, all I would have to do is play in front of people to get the instant feedback all artists crave. Writing is all internal. You have no idea what people will think of your efforts until it’s read by someone, and if you don’t sell many books that internal itch to be recognized is never really fulfilled.

So what’s the solution? You write for yourself. You write for the pleasure and the blissful release of endorphins when things are going well. You write because it’s the only thing that makes you feel mentally whole. It’s a wonderful/horrible thing.