"Chagford Hoop Dance, Devon, United Kingdom" (c) 2013 Stu Jenks (For Terri, Howard, Tilly, Shelagh, Rex, Jason, Lock, Virginia, Steve, Jenny, & Dave)
"Forgiveness doesn't mean you absolve the other person for what they did. It means you don't want to hurt them anymore." - Levi Neill.
"Forgive everything. Well, almost everything. At least try." - Stu Jenks.
(Author Photo by Jeff Smith at www.jeffsmithusa.com
Step Zero, the novel, has been launched.
So where can you buy it?
For those of you with tablets and digital devices, you can buy Step Zero as an iBook from the Apple store, for your iPad and iPhone, or you can obtain it as an ebook for your Amazon Kindle device, via this link. (The Nook version is pending.) You can also purchase the soft-cover first editions at the Barnes and Noble online store and at the Fezziwig Press online store. And locally, you can obtain the soft-cover book at Tucson Touch Therapies at Pima and Alvernon and at Betty Blue's Junk Shop on South Plumer. Lastly, on, Saturday, November 10th, 2012, from Noon to 5 p.m., I'll be at my studio at 549 N. 7th Avenue, for an imformal book signing, in conjunction with the Tucson Open Studio Tour.
And as a special free treat to those who buy Step Zero, I'll send you a pdf of The Lost Images of Step Zero, a hundred plus images that didn't make the final edit, but are a nice adjunct to the Step Zero experience, whatever that means. Just send me a Facebook message or an email at stujenks@gmail.com and I'll send the PDF right to you.
So push those buttons and buy those books, boys and girls, for baby needs a new pair of shoes.
From The Lost Images Of Steps Zero PDF:
Top to bottom, "A Rose For Chessie, California", "Matt Antone's Ginger, Arizona", "The 41 Nights, Arizona", and "Michael and Chessie's Moon, California".
Cover design by Gail Cross of Desert Isle Designs. Cover photograph by Stu Jenks.
The first draft of the novel is done!!! It came in at 149,000 words, 552 pages in my document. Yeaaaa! I can't tell you how good it feels. The ending made me cry, as I hope it does you. (Last word in the novel, which won't change in revision: Sighs.) I want to jump right back to the beginning and start revisions, but Mary Ann suggests I take more than just a couple days off. OK. I'll take off three or four days. LOL. But then it's fixing this and revising that, then off to the editors. And I have ideas for the next novel in this series, too. I have some pretty great characters, I think, and I want to see what they will do next. But first things first. Get this novel to print.
One serious note: It took about a year to write this novel, but it almost didn't get done. With Mary and Pamela dying and all, I didn't work on it for about six weeks and it was so hard to get my momentum back. But I did. But it was difficult. If you are working on a novel or a large work, I recommend you plow through, even if the field is frozen. I've been told I'm very lucky to have gotten back on track.
Speaking of track, good luck to Danica Patrick tomorrow in the Daytona 500 and in the rest of Sprint Cup and Nationwide races this season. I might just have to go up to PHX next Saturday to watch her race.
By the way, did I mention I finished the freaking first draft of the novel?
Yeaaaaaaaaa!
Been a long time coming for The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010).
Three editors, two proofreaders, two designers, four printers, and hours, days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, (I know I'm overstating), of writing, traveling, shooting, editing, remembering, hiking, and more writing, shooting, and editing, but I'm not complaining. No, no, no.
And apologies for not having the dough right now, to print The Transpersonal Papers as a coffee-table book as I had originally planned. ($10,000, it would have cost. Maybe someday.) But you now can buy it, for $14.95, as an Ebook on the Apple IPad, and I expect it to be available within a couple days on the Nook and the Kindle as well.
I just looked at it on my new IPad. The photos, text and design look grand.
And as an extra surprise, Bozo In Love is now up on IBooks too, ($9.95), as well as the rest of my catalog: Flame Spirals, Hoop Dancing, and Dementia Blues, on IBooks, Nook and Kindle.
Just in time for Christmas.
And don't worry. All but The Transpersonal Papers can still be bought as a book book through Fezziwig Press. I have plenty. Just go to www.fezziwigpressonline.com, for the hardbounds and paperbacks, but go to ITunes, today, (and Kindle and Nook, soon) for the ebooks.
Heavy sigh from my third story apartment balcony. I look out onto the Tucson city lights in the valley below. Cold, dry air embraces me. I inhale deeply. Exhale.
A very good night in the desert.
Think I'll make a cup of coffee with egg nog and play some Angry Birds on my new IPad.
Time to celebrate.
"The Ghost Of Christmas Present in Arizona" (c) Christmas, 2009, 2010 Stu Jenks. Read by the author.
Merry Christmas and Happy Winter Solstice to y'all. Here's a little audio gift to my StuBlog pals and my Facebook friends. Hope you enjoy this little audio ditty, and may Happiness, Joy and Peace find you full of Nog and Roast Beast, this holiday season.
"Vortex at Cathedral Rock, Sedona, Arizona" (c) 2010 Stu Jenks
Those of you who have read my essays over the years may think I’m a very Woo Woo kind of guy. Sometimes I talk to trees and I hear their voices. On occasion, I feel the presence of dead relatives and even hear them speak. I’ve had spontaneous visions of past lives. I pray often throughout the day and quiet my mind through short yet powerful meditations. My visits into the nocturnal desert shake my core in a Godly-sort-of-way. But I’m not nearly as Woo Woo as you might think.
I don’t believe that I’m special in God’s eyes. I don’t magically believe that through my spiritual practices, harm will flee from me and light will always come. I’m just awake enough to avoid The Bad Guys. I don’t believe there is any Secret to prosperity. I believe success is a combination of hard work, good luck, what part of the planet you were born on, and what race, class and sex you happen to be. I don’t believe that I’m one of the Chosen Ones. I believe my closeness to God comes from my heart journeying into an often poor and despairing world, giving as I can, but not from any sense of religious entitlement from having sat on the lap of God or from a condescending pity for those less fortunate. It just feels good to give. I don’t believe that praying in a cathedral or making a stack of stones will cure me of cancer, cause my mother to not die a painful death, or bring back a past lover I still miss. I believe that Life is a wonderful, painful thing, and that prayer is about me getting right with The World, not God doing right by me.
At one time, I thought God was a gumball machine: I put in the coin of prayer; I get back what I want. Those beliefs seem so much like those of a scared child now. I’m not in Spiritual High School yet (I’m still too much of a know-it-all.), but I do feel like I’m currently enrolled in God’s Middle School.
But what does make me more Woo Woo than most is that I do believe if you go to a place, anyplace, be it a church in a square or a stream near a mountain, and you come with strong and focused intent to be closer to God, to Humans, and to All There Is, you will find a power of Love and Light there beyond what you would expect. You will be spiritually surprised. But it comes from the intent, not the place. Revelations can visit any of us at any time, whether we are surrounded by centuries-old stained glass at Notre Dame in Paris, or the weeks-old stench of piss and grease in the alley behind my favorite grill in Tucson.
It’s about intent. Your desire to Give. Your willingness to Love. Your ability to Forgive.
So stack your river stones high, metaphysicians of Sedona. Let the Woo Woo out. But know what you will most likely receive will be the knowledge that you are OK just the way you are. And from this new found wisdom, hopefully you will return to your loved ones in the village, bringing a grounded spiritual practice of Giving, Loving, and Forgiving.
Chances are very slim that God/Goddess/All-There-Is will give you a million bucks.
You’ll just feel like a million bucks.
MP3: "The Ghost of Christmas Present, in Arizona"
Happy Winter Solstice everyone!
Attached is a mp3 of me reading my little Holiday story, "The Ghost of Christmas Present, in Arizona." Hope you enjoy it and feel free and pass it around if you wish. Its running time is around 13 and a half minutes.
But I need to address a couple of things that some friends have asked and perhaps misunderstood. And yes, I'm running a terrible risk of explaining something I've written, which usually ends in weakening the piece, but I'll take that risk, so as to quell some confusion.
1) The Woman in the story and her troubles is not modeled after any one in particular, yet her physical traits are similar to a good friend of mine. The Woman's story, however, is not that friend's story. But at the same time, I know that I and many of you have experienced the same pain, hurt and disappointment that The Woman in my story has experienced. I choose a woman because, frankly, I think women get hurt more than men. But that is not to say that Good Men don't have their hearts broken, nor that bad parents have stepped hard on a good boy's soul, or that men don't feel the need to forgive, and open their hearts too. Of course they do. But women, sadly, in this world, have historically taken the brunt of abuse and neglect and violence, and just as sad, only small changes have occurred to help stop this in our Modern World.
2) The Ghost of Christmas Present, crafted by Charles Dickens, only lived for one night, and I made him into an immortal spirit instead. Dickens' work is public domain now, so I've broken no laws by taking one of his characters and expanding him to fit what I wanted to say. I love "A Christmas Carol" more than I can say, and I meant no disrespect by taking one of his greatest characters and placing him in an Arizona canyon.
3) Yes, the Old Man in Texas is modeled after someone I know. And I ain't telling who.
4) Yea, I suppose I am ripping off Tolkien a bit by having Old Mr. Alligator being an old soulful tree-being. But if you had seen those old trees in that canyon in the Sierra Anchas, you would have wondered if they were ents too.
5) And lastly, if I'm in the story as a character, I'm both the Blond Woman and the Ghost. And the forgiveness the Woman gave was from a pain I had, long long ago, in the Early 1990's. And my hope for myself, is that I become more like the Ghost of Christmas Present, in his compassion and free-flowing love and open-hearted-ness. I'm not there yet, but I'm trying.
I really hope you enjoy my little mp3. And by the way, there is an 'audio typo' in it, in which I said "The Ghost of Christmas Past" instead of "Present", but I left it in, since I liked my performance in that section so much, and I didn't think I could recreate it. See it as my Navajo Thread, that shows I'm far for prefect. And feel free and share this mp3, as you wish.
I wish all of you a Happy Solstice, a Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year.
Love and light,
Stu
