I will not be writing fiction or much of anything else for the foreseeable future.

I know withdrawing from writing fiction at this time won’t make much of a difference in the scheme of things. My small group of readers haven’t read anything new from me for almost a year already. The last time I posted to this blog was in April. There are millions of fantastic books and short stories out there to keep everyone entertained forever. I have no illusions that anything new I might produce would be missed.

I’m not boycotting the writing world as some kind of call to action, nor do I think declaring an end to my fiction writing will result in some kind of change that will impact how people think. Between the pandemic and the arguments over masks, the lives lost and the massive economic hardships millions are facing, my imaginary characters, their lives, their issues …  well, who gives a shit? Certainly not me.

Every single day I've felt guilt and insecurities because I can't do more than stare at the empty page. I wish I could fill it with my fear, frustration and the extreme anxiety that washes over me every time I consider what will happen to my country, to the world, if the same thing happens in November 2020 that happened in November 2016. If the politics aren’t enough, watching George Floyd die and the callous indifference on Chauvin’s face broke me. I didn’t think I could take one more story of police brutality and the wrongful deaths of innocents at the hands of people who simply didn’t care. Then there was Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain and Venessa Guillen, a sister in arms whose murder inexcusably went unsolved for so long even when the killer was the most obvious person imaginable. If her murder had been a novel, readers would have excoriated the author for making the solution to the puzzle so damn obvious.

Why is it so hard for Americans to wear a damn mask? How could parents support a president who demands they send their children into virus riddled infection chambers? How do we allow news organizations to spread propaganda against Black Lives Matter as if this civil rights group is some sort of terrorist organization? How is it okay for the party of POTUS to put a mentally ill rapper on the ballot in a scheme to draw votes from his opponent? How do we allow our neighbors or, more importantly, our employees to scream the N word and call the police on people simply for walking down the street? How does anyone make excuses for people who stand on their front lawn and point weapons at people exercising their first amendment rights? Did that cop really think it made things better to help a 16 year-old girl sit up, after he made her and her sisters lay face down on the ground and put handcuffs on them? And even after people from around the world have expressed their anger, shock and horror over our handling of this pandemic, and indeed, ban Americans from visiting most countries around the world because of it, how can the architect of this disaster claim we are the envy of the world? Worse, how can his followers think this is all okay?

The horrific destruction left in the wake of the explosion in that Beirut warehouse seems almost representative of the collective pressure we are all facing. I’ve had enough.

Every single day my frustration and feelings of helplessness have grown in the face of all of this madness.  At the same time my guilt over not being able to put words on a page multiplied exponentially. The horrific destruction left in the wake of the explosion in that Beirut warehouse seems almost representative of the collective pressure we are all facing. I’ve had enough.

I wish I could control the fear so many millions feel over their need for that extra $600 congress can’t come to an agreement on. I wish I could control the guilt some cops may be wrestling with as they start to understand the realities of the systematic racism they have unknowingly supported. I wish I could control the risk to health so many teachers will face. I wish I could control the gut-wrenching feelings low income, hardworking parents must be facing who know their children won’t get the homeschooling they need. I wish I could have control over how much further behind those low income kids will become. I wish I could control the hatred in the hearts of so many who become incensed, outraged and violent over a simple demand that no lives matter until Black, Brown and Native lives matter.     

I know that many people share my frustration and feelings of helplessness in the face of all of this. By saying I'm not going to write anymore, I'm finally taking control of the one stone of guilt I can lift off my shoulders. Unlike COVID or federal troops on the streets or those who refuse to wear masks or the lunatic in the White House and all of the evil monsters who support him, this one thing, the guilt I feel over my inability to write, I can control. So I will.

I know the correct emotion is to feel happy for her instead of jealous. I know I’m supposed love hearing her stories about it, instead of wishing I had stories of my own to tell. And of course I know that if I really wanted one, I could and should form one of my own. Somehow, I can’t convince myself that if I did make one of my own, that it would ever be as cool as hers.

The “her” I’m talking about is my sister, and the thing she has, the thing I wish I had, is a book club.

Not just any book club. This is a group of smart, accomplished, worldly, successful black women who enjoy each other’s company so much, they not only talk about great books, they also go on trips inspired by the books they read. They’ve traveled to Soprlo Island, Charleston, the Gulf Coast of Florida, the mountains of North, Georgia, just to name a few. The Book Trekkers have been meeting and discussing books for over ten years. They read everything from memoir to mystery to, thank goodness, urban fantasy.

I was both excited and nervous when my sister told me she had selected my book, The Bonding Spell, for the club to read at their most recent meeting.

Excited, because I thought it was cool as hell that this group of women I had admired for so long was going to read my work. Nervous, of course, that they would enjoy it.

My sister called me the afternoon of their club meeting. There was lots of laughter and conversation, everyone talking over each other as I heard the names of my characters bouncing around the room. They asked fantastic questions and I could tell by what they asked, that they really understood what I had been trying to do with the book. They had laughed at the right places, had understood the conflicts, and had loved the characters I had drawn on the page.

The whole experience was inspiring.

If your book club is looking for something fun to read, let me know. Cookie’s club members all received autograph copies of the book and I was happy to answer all of their questions as well as provide some questions they could use to spark discussion.

The Book Trekkers. Lower left, Marilynn, Terri, Wanda and my sister, Cookie. Top left is Aishea, Janis, Debbie and Faye.

Thanks for letting me participate in your group!

My siblings and I have always enjoyed having the bejesus scared out of us.

Our mother sometimes worked a swing shift. Our dad worked odd hours so we never really knew when or if he’d be home. By the time my older sister was about 12, my middle sister, my brother who was the youngest, and myself – all of us about two years apart from the next one -- were pretty much on our own after school, living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, casseroles warmed in the oven (there weren’t any microwaves back then), or stovetop cooked cans of tomato soup.

Growing up in Minnesota, there are many days when it’s just too dang cold to go outside. While alone in the house, our most favorite thing to do was to watch scary movies. Of course this is before VCRs, or DVRs or even cable. We had five measly channels to choose from, but somehow, we were able to find movies that scratched that horror itch. On Sundays, when the weekly listings came out, we would go on a search making note of any movies that might make us scream in terror and then plan all activities around it.

A local TV station had a weekly program of horror features that opened with a coffin, smoke, and white, skeletal fingers peeking out of the lid. Horror Incorporated, was a big favorite of ours. The opening segment starts with a high-pitched scream and ends with a high-pitched scream. We loved to mimic it, screaming at the top of our lungs. We lived on a five-acre lot with no neighbors around to dampen our volume. We could scream as much as we wanted, and we wanted to often.

Dracula, The Werewolf, The Blob, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Monster from the Surf, Godzilla, The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi and bug-eyed Peter Lorre. If we saw a film starring one of them, it made our “must see” list. We’d sit side by side on the sofa, a shared blanket clutched to our chins, looking forward to the thing that would make us jump and scream.

As we grew older, the fright somehow changed to hilarity. By the time The War of the Gargantuas,  came out, we were ready to laugh, and laugh hard. The story is about two Godzilla-sized creatures, hairy and monstrous looking, who rise from the sea, one good and one evil. At one point in the film, a woman is in a rooftop lounge singing a song that includes the line, “… the wooooords get stuck in my throat.” She repeats the line over and over. “The wooooords get stuck in my throat.”

Then one of the Gargantuas picks her up, eats her and spits out her clothes. To this day, all we have to do is sing that line from the song and we all crack up.

As we grew older, our tastes developed and the reruns of The Mummy, or the Three Stooges or Charlie Chan versions of those films didn’t interest us anymore. We wanted the truly scary films, like The Thing From Another World. That artic mission, the discovery of the space ship under the ice, the isolation, the killer vegetable and the dry wit and snappy dialogue, had all the makings of a classic. The remakes have never lived up to the original black and white.

Most of our favorites had themes of science gone wild. We were still doing “duck and roll” drills in elementary school. Nuclear science was frightening stuff. There was a real fear that man would mess around with the wrong mixture of something dubious and we’d never see the horror coming before it was too late.

An amazing trailer for one of our favorites starts with a montage of images, all pointing to secrets the government is keeping from us. Then a news announcer, in a dramatic voice, warns that, “Unless something is done and done quickly, man as the dominant species on earth will be dead within a year.”

Wow. A time frame and everything. Evidently, all that nuclear dust from testing has created monsters … biblical in nature … that are bent on the destruction of the human race. There are images of cars driving down main street America, with speakers blasting. “Stay in your homes! Stay. In. Your. Homes! This is not a drill.”

The actual movie starts with a little blond girl, obviously in shock and standing alone in the debris of her destroyed home, clutching a stuffed animal. Someone asks her what happened. All she can do is scream THEM! Those giant ants were no joke.

I have always loved the science fiction style horror films and still do. The Alien franchise is one of my favorites. All the Predator films are great too. This idea that some alien race would come here because Earth offers a fertile hunting ground, it's a fantastic premise. Still, there’s nothing like the terror of what normal humans can do to each other.

Alfred Hitchcock rocked our world. The Birds, Rear Window, even his TV show became a favorite. My brother had to work hard to convince me to watch Halloween. I’d never liked the slasher movies, the stupid women who went in the basement or sprained their ankles bored me. But Halloween was different. The first time Jason pops back up after being unquestionably killed was such a satisfying horror moment.

Then I started reading Stephen King –Carrie, Cujo, It—I couldn’t put them down. Since we’d always had dogs and cats for pets, Pet Cemetery was particularly horrifying for me.

One Saturday morning, I got up early to find my older sister sitting at the kitchen table, her eyes bloodshot, her hands clenched in front of her. She looked like she hadn’t slept all night. I asked her what was wrong. She said she’d been to a movie the night before with some friends. “The Exorcist,” she said, then refused to say more. She’d seen it the first night it was released. I think she’s still scared from it.

Of course, now we’ve all been bitten by the zombie bug. One of my sisters lives in Atlanta. My other sister is obsessed with The Walking Dead show, so when she went to visit, they HAD to go where the show was being filmed, driving by “Alexandria” and where the Terminus was filmed. She still talks about that trip.

My brother and I, share a love for R. R. Haywood’s Undead series. More than 24 books into the series and we still snatch them up as soon as they come out. In fact, I’m such a fan, that I actually wrote to him and asked him for an interview. You can read it here. He’s a great guy and I’m crossing my fingers that he’ll get a Netflix deal someday to make his books come to life.

We’ve never really grown out of our love of fear. Several years ago, I went home to Minneapolis just so I could go with my siblings and a few friends to a place called Scream Town. The massive, outdoor park had five different themed areas, darkened and filled with things and people that jumped out at you. We were, by far, the most senior people at the theme park, all of us in our late 50s and early 60s. We didn’t care. It may be our age that made so much of it hilarious.

In one room, you had to walk through a space with what looked like bodies wrapped in plastic, hanging from the ceiling. They were so numerous, you had to bump and bang your way through this horror, the “bodies” swinging sickeningly. We clutched each other, heads ducked, stumbling around in the dark, and laughing our asses off, screaming too.

In another place, you rounded a corner to come face to face with a man in a glass encased electric chair. The red light in the small booth where he sat cast a horrific, shadowy glow over him. The rubbery, trembling and smoking dummy, wrapped in a straitjacket, it’s mouth gaping open with chilling screams piped out of the box, was so life-like he was fascinating.

We made our brother go first, hanging onto his jacket while we made our way through the corn maze, then stood fascinated at the sight of a cow suspended in air as if it was being sucked up by a UFO. Scream Town does not skimp on the props or makeup.

Now, every year when Halloween rolls around, I think about Scream Town and think about my family and consider flying home for the holiday where we have every excuse to act ridiculous, scream at the top of our lungs and laugh until our bellies hurt.

I don’t know about other writers, but my heart still races when I see that someone has reviewed one of my books. It’s a bit like opening a present from a complete stranger. You’re appreciative that someone has gone to the trouble to give you a gift, but you're a bit frightened of white it might be.

Every writer says it. Reviews mean a lot. The more you have, the more visibility your books get. And while I know some people think writing a review is as appealing as a middle school book report assignment, all a reader has to do is provide a star rating and a couple of sentences that describe what they thought. That’s it.

Every once in a while, you get a review that makes you nod and know that the reader really understood what you were trying to do. They don’t happen every day. When they do, I think they’re worth sharing.

Here are two reviews that had my heart racing this week.

https://mldoyleauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/single-3d2-400x547.jpg

Reviewed By K.C. Finn for Readers’ Favorite 

The Bonding Blade is a work of urban fantasy fiction based around ancient themes, the second novel in the Desert Goddess Series and was penned by author M. L. Doyle. Written for mature audiences, but without explicitly graphic content, this dark tale of inescapable fate rests once more on the shoulders of our heroine, former sergeant Hester Trueblood. The soldier has been bonded to the Sumerian goddess Inanna for some time now, but that doesn’t make life any easier. Whilst keeping the literal demons at bay and learning to use her goddess-given powers, Hester finds one of her warriors struck down and suspects that something supernatural is at work in his injury.

High action, high drama, and high fantasy all meet in this superb mystery novel with plenty of historical content thrown in. The supernatural elements of the plot are dealt with amusingly and realistically as we see Hester struggle with the magical aspects of her life and the reactions of those around her. Author M. L. Doyle has created a relatable strong female lead, whose adventurous spirit and capable mind inspire readers from the get-go. The goddess elements and ancient Sumerian culture are well injected to give good flavor, but also bear a great deal of authenticity to pique the interest of historical fiction fans. I also really enjoyed the plot structure, which had some truly surprising but credible twists. Overall, I would highly recommend The Bonding Blade for historical, fantasy and mystery fans who enjoy successful genre mash-ups and full-on adventures.

*****High action, high drama, and high fantasy all meet in this superb mystery novel with plenty of historical content thrown in.*****

Reviewed By Lit Amri for Readers’ Favorite 

“In my previous life, before I’d become a soldier and deployed to Iraq, I’d never have imagined that I would be running around in caves searching for supernatural creatures. All of that changed when I picked up a shiny coin in the desert and became the living vessel of the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna. I know. It sounds crazy.” M. L. Doyle’s The Desert Goddess Series continues with Book II: The Bonding Blade. Quincy is ill, and the group finds out that it has something to do with someone from Inanna's past. A special blade may be the only thing that can save him, but Gilgamesh, for reasons he won't disclose, refuses to help obtain it. In the meantime, there's a series of deaths in the city that requires Hester's attention. Saving a dear friend's life, solving murders, facing unexpected enemies, family issues and complicated relationships, Hester's resilience is greatly tested.

Doyle’s The Bonding Blade has a slightly faster pace for its plot compared to its predecessor and there’s a lot going on for the human goddess vessel Hester Trueblood. At times it's slightly chaotic but not confusing. Her bond with the goddess Inanna is still peppered with disagreements but the tolerance between them has slightly improved. Quincy’s past wasn’t an easy read but it revealed more about himself including Inanna, particularly about the source of his predicament. Also, there's an interesting development regarding one of Hester's staff, Erika. There are unexpected losses that will further challenge Hester and her companions. All in all, Book II of The Desert Goddess Series is an exciting and commendable continuation from Doyle. Fans of the series will be pleased and look forward to the next book.

*****All in all, Book II of The Desert Goddess Series is an exciting and commendable continuation from Doyle. Fans of the series will be pleased and look forward to the next book.*****

When you sit in your writer cave, wondering if all the toil is worth it, every once in a while, you evidence that, yes. It is. It really is.

A wise young NCO once said to me, "change is never good or bad. Change is just change."

While in uniform I tended to agree with that philosophy. In the military, change usually meant you had to do it wrong the first, second and third time before you got it right. Change meant classroom training, hours of standing around while someone explained this bold, new change and more hours of everyone complaining that the new change didn't make any sense and then some old been-there-done-that guy explaining in great detail why we should just keep doing things the old way. Sound familiar?

As a civilian working for the Army I can truthfully tell you that the reaction to change hasn't changed much.

BUT, when it comes to this blog ... or more importantly, this website, where I continue to write about women in combat boots, change was necessary. Change was critical. Change had been on my mind for a long, long time and with the help of the lovely Natasha Wilson, change is finally here! (more…)

***Apologies!!***

If you're getting this post for the second time, it's because ... well, there's some new stuff going on here and when the new stuff happened, this post was lost. Now it's found. Notice anything, ahem ... a bit different? More to follow on that.

Meanwhile, back to the blog post.

I lived in Korea for a couple of years, living in downtown Seoul in an ultra-modern apartment, everything high tech and brand spanking new. Heated floors, heated toilet seats and push button custom bidet streams, for Pete’s sake.

To get to the subway, I’d walk by several small shops, often times places where the family lived in their place of business. I could see families sitting on the floor, gathered around a hibachi, eating noodles out of bowls held under their chins, or sleeping the way many Koreans do, curled up on thin mats on the floor. But that was Seoul. Ultra-modern next to traditional. High tech office buildings next to one of the ancient temples or palace walls scattered around the city.

For a long while, I didn’t have any English language TV channels. I quickly learned that, 24/7, you could always find a period show -- people in traditional Korean garb, intrigue in the royal palace, peasants starving and barely scrapping by and subject to cruelties from the ruling classes. There always seemed to be a love interest made impossible due to class or royal family. Like American soap operas, depending on the story line, people would discuss the shows, wonder what was going to happen next. It was clear the popularity of them was never going away no matter how many pop boy bands might emerge from the country.

(more…)

Copyright 2024 M. L. Doyle | All Rights Reserved
menu-circle linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram