Picking Songs... "Goodbyes" and "Rear View Mirror"

I absolutely love some of the questions I have been getting lately. The biggest question is always, "How does the soundtrack fit with the book?" I still don't have a really good answer for that, so I'll go to another that I can answer without sounding too idiotic:

"How do you pick the songs for the soundtrack?"

That's tough to answer as well, but to tell you the truth, the songs kind of fell in my lap.

Over the years I've written many songs, and I wrote those songs as I was writing The Mahogany Door, the first book in a series of fantasy-adventure books for young readers. But I never had the idea of putting the soundtrack together until late in 2009. (That's right. We've been working on the CD since October of that year).

The first bit of music I put together for the actual book was a small piano riff that was playing for my under-construction website at the time. It was called "It's Our Time," I still like the song, but I've never completely finished it. Maybe later.

The idea to do a complete soundtrack for the book popped in my head while I was riding around Greenville, NC, one day with my brother-in-law, Scott. We both were pretty psyched about the idea, but then realized we had no idea what kind of music we would put on it. The idea started with a song per chapter - not a good plan as there are 29 chapters, which would means 29 songs. And really, the nine we will have on the final CD were hard enough to create as it was.

Enter Katie Basden. Katie is a former student of my wife's choral program. Through the years, while Katie was in high school, her mom, Anne, and my wife not only shared a common bond with Katie but a common bond with music. Anne helped my wife tremendously with the choral program by playing the piano at shows and doing all kinds of other things. Naturally, a friendship started between the two, which is not at all surprising considering the fact that, if you ever meet my wife, she'll know everything about you by the end of the conversation.

Some time before that, Katie decided she wanted to be a songwriter. Many of her heroes are not just good singers, but they are also great songwriters. I found this out.

Thirteen years ago, I wrote a song called, "Goodbyes" after some pretty bad things happened in my life. My sister is a natural poet, so, as the story goes, I snuck around her in diary and found this poem called, "Goodbyes." It was very emotional, and it captured everything I was feeling at that time. I'd bought an old guitar from a pawn shop some years before so I started fiddling around with some chords and finger picking. I think I put together a pretty good song. I really liked it but I never sang it to anyone.

One afternoon as I was deciding what songs to put on the soundtrack, I realized I really wanted to include "Goodbyes." It fits nicely with a scene at the end of the book. The problem: I can't sing. (Never let my wife try to convince you that I can. She had a Freudian slip one day and said, "Yes Mark, you can sing, but it should never be recorded." Thanks.)

So I needed a singer, and Katie was the first person I thought of. Her voice is something that has to be heard to be believed, and since she wants to be a country singer I thought she might like to sing "Goodbyes." She could add it to her catalog.

Nervously, I played -- and sang -- the song for her one afternoon. Lucky for me, she liked it and went home to practice it. The same afternoon, she played a song for me called "Rear View Mirror." I was blown away. Right then I asked if I could use it for The Mahogany Door soundtrack. She said yes. I was elated! The problem was, I didn't know if it would fit the book. I read through some chapters and found one scene that the song could possibly fit with, but I wasn't sure. So I changed the book to make the song would fit because I simply love the song. And it makes my story better.

So that's where picking the songs came into play. I pulled some old songs I had been messing around with out of my head and started putting some other stuff together. Then my brother-in-law Scott jumped into the fray and it went from there. He added to the music the only way he knows how.

When I woke up on Christmas morning in 2009, I discovered that my wife had bought me a beautiful Fender acoustic guitar. "If you are going to be playing around here writing songs, you need to throw that old guitar out," she said matter-of-factly. "It sounds like crap."

There are more stories like this for the other songs, and I will be posting those as we go along here and on the website at www.JMarkBoliek.com. (The website isn't quite completed, but hopefully will be ready soon.)

It's been pretty cool to have watched the songs progress from very rough to almost perfect polished. April 12th is the date it should all be mastered and ready to go. One pretty special thing about the soundtrack that I'm really appreciating is that it is a very eclectic mix of styles: country, pop, rock, and even a bit of classical thrown in.

Oh yeah - I do play the Fender on "Goodbyes" on the soundtrack f you were wondering. But you will never hear my voice.

Talk to you later!

Mark




Chapter 7 Illustration copyright Lauren Gallegos Illustrations 2011

The Perfect Mile : A Short Story

I apologize for not having an excerpt from the book right at this moment so that you can get an idea of what "The Mahogany Door" is about -- or to prove to you that I can at least string two words together to make a sentence.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a short story called "The Perfect Mile" that I would like you to read. It may give you a little insight into one of the reasons why I wrote "The Mahogany Door." I will be heading back to this stretch of beach, known as "Stump,, to begin filming the book preview video very soon.

I absolutely love the beach and I practically grew up on its golden sands. And its presence is known throughout "The Mahogany Door." The beach I trampled all over as a kid has changed so much over the last 30 years that, in some cases, it's very hard to recognize. It can be a metaphor for our own lives in a way. Sometimes it's hard to come to the realization that we, too, are very different from when we were younger. We just need to accept it.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the story. I will definitely share some pages from the book in the coming weeks as we get closer and closer to its release and as the soundtrack becomes more polished.


Thanks again for taking the time to visit my blog. It means a lot.

The Perfect Mile : A Short Story

When I was nine years old, my father announced to our family that we were going to build a beach house located in a place called Stump Sound, NC. The name didn’t have the iridescent resonance as a Daytona, Palm, or Myrtle, but when I woke up early on the second Sunday of June for the next eight years, Stump was the place I’d journey to in order to finish my long, exciting, boring, exhausting, and relaxing days of summer.

Sometime around 1978, my father bought two beach lots on the north end of Topsail Island, NC, which incorporates the town limits of Stump Sound. The beach lots started at the ocean’s edge and continued through to the sound’s. It was a very good deal at $15,000. It was also nice because our beach house, when completed on the sound side, would be only one of three bungalows past the New River Inlet Pier. That gave my family practically one mile of undisturbed walking and seashell hunting from the pier to the inlet. From then on, I dropped the “Sound” and lovingly referred to the town and beach as just Stump.

My dad’s vision was to have his family build a beach house so he and my mom would have a place to retire. When I say, “have his family build”, I don’t mean that we hired someone to do the building. I actually mean that our family literally built the house, and it didn’t matter if I was nine years old at the time when it was started. I lifted sheet rock, insulation, wires, pipes, and everything else you can think of that builders do. The problem with my father’s thinking was that we weren’t all that good at any of it. Maybe that’s why I hire professional contractors to do anything I need done around the house today, even if it's to change a light bulb. But I digress.

You see, my dad was very passionate about our beach house. Any waking moment, mostly on weekends when he wasn’t working, there would be nails pounded, pipes soldered, paint splashed, insulation hung, arms sore, and legs cramped in the town of Stump.

As my brother and I were grunting, toting 25-pound buckets of spackling up the flight of stairs to the 1300-square-foot bungalow, my father would always inform us about the days when he was younger, where he spent the summer at Old Man West’s house on Topsail Beach fishing. And it would be his mission to make sure that his family would have the same halcyon experience he had. I think I recollected those days as being hell on Earth, far away from anything that was serene or peaceful. That is until my dad would return home to his regular work on Sunday afternoons, leaving my brother and me free from our labor schedule. Then we would have beach to ourselves to enjoy for five glorious days until the sweating began again the following Friday night.

My mother’s vision was very different. I came to realize that her sole purpose was not only trying to make the transition from the Sunday afternoons my father left to the Friday nights of his return as smooth as possible, but she was also searching for the perfect name for our beach house.

Since I could remember, traveling to the North Carolina coast before we began building was nothing short of spectacular in my mind. It was a great family tradition to remember the names of houses that lined the roads and shore of Topsail Island. We didn’t practice this exercise merely because of the recreation aspect. It was fun, yes, but we did it specifically to locate landmarks as we hiked up and down the beach.

“I’ll meet you up by Oslo’s.”

“Your brother is walking up to The Sailfish.”

“We are going to walk up to The Sand Dollar and back.”

These statements would ring through the air on any given day. I have to believe that remembering the houses’ names made the experience much more personable. If we couldn’t know the tenants who switched like clockwork on every Saturday afternoon during the summer, we could at least know the bungalow they stayed in because it would be there week after week, year after year, just like an old friend. That made it doubly important for my mom to come up with the perfect name. She would have hated for people walking out on the beach to have to say, “I guess I’ll walk up to that ‘tan’ house and back.”

I tell you the last number of paragraphs only because I want you to hear the real story. I remember it like it was yesterday. It begins on a Tuesday in late July when I was 11 and set out on a mission.

On that glorious second day of the week, a month into summer, my mother brought to the “under construction” beach house a little book about seashells. Realizing I didn’t have to hold screen up anywhere so my father could staple it, I decided to flip through the pages of the small black book. It was when I turned to the section on state seashells that my interest really caught hold. I quickly turned to the North Carolina page where I discovered that North Carolina's state seashell is the Scotch Bonnet. I don’t really remember much about the stubby, speckled, brown, cone-shaped shell other than that I think it was named after Scottish peasant hats because, as soon as I saw its picture, I etched it on my brain, threw the book to the floor, and went out to find one.

I wish I could put into words the feelings I get when I'm walking on the North Carolina beaches. I guess if I were a good writer, I could, but I have to believe in my heart that only God could explain it, especially in those days.

Painstakingly, I combed the yellow sands of Stump, forgoing the chance to bag perfectly shaped Conchs, Shark’s Eyes, Shark’s Teeth, Lion’s Paws, Razors, and Angel’s Wings. I was going to purloin nothing less than that which I started my mission: a Scotch Bonnet. It was during this time that I truly began to understand what drew my father and mother to the beach. The blue waters bounced on the shore. The smell of sweat and saw dust from the house exploded into a sweet, mellow saltiness. The Sandpipers chirped and poked at Sand Fiddlers for a day’s meal as Sand Crabs scurried away from my investigative eyes. The wind danced delicately through the dune grasses as thick as a young man’s head of hair, and the sun’s beams warmed my heart. It was heaven on Earth.

Down the beach I went, away from the pier and on around to the inlet. There, the ocean meets the sound and its water became rougher as the sand on the shore becomes smoother. Big beds of shells lay in front of me and I filed through all of them, searching for the one shell that would make me happy.

The day drew by and my attempt at finding a Scotch Bonnet failed. But the one thing that I looked forward to was that I knew the tide would rise and ebb over night and I would have fresh seashell beds along my Perfect Mile to find my perfect Scotch Bonnet.

The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years. Hardworking weekends spent building on our beach house became solaced in the fact that Sunday would come, my dad would leave, and I had another Monday through Friday to continue the search for my state’s shell.

But the mission I set out on that Tuesday in July faded away and would disappear entirely when word came, from a single phone call, that my mother had suffered a devastating stroke. I believe that was a Tuesday, too. I was 17, and that would be the day that everything changed.

As I've mentioned, my father intended the beach house to be a place where he and my mother would retire. But instead of becoming an ideal retirement haven, the house in Stump became a burdensome expense as medical bills piled up and only one spouse could not work. Eventually the little bungalow by the sound went into foreclosure. My family would never complete the house nor return to my Perfect Mile. In fact, my family was shattered.

My heart jaded, I swore I would never go back there. Stump and my Perfect Mile became “that beach.” The anger I felt toward things that I could not control, and the pain that pierced my soul because of my family’s loss, were just too much for me to deal with. It would be years before I returned to the North Carolina beaches for vacationing. And when I did return, somehow the experience would never be the same.

I was much older by then, almost 34 and married. I traveled south from Topsail Island and became acquainted with beaches called Kure, Carolina, Wrightsville, Caswell, and Ocean Isle. Childhood days of currying around the beach, combing seashell beds, or hanging windows in an “under construction” house gave way to leisurely rounds of golf on what seemed like the exponential growth of courses up and down the coast of North Carolina. I played a beautiful course in Calabash, NC, and the starter there told me, “Grand Strand courses tend to play longer than others.” (If you're not from North Carolina, Grand Strand courses are golf courses associated with Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which is known as the “Mecca” of golf on the Eastern seaboard of the United States.) I didn't say anything, but from that moment on, I knew the North Carolina coast I remembered and loved as a child had changed.

I cordially experienced the North Carolina beaches as an adult. I woke up in the morning, took a nice walk to a designated pier or blue house, and made my way back to bed. I then strolled out to a golf course, thought about how much North Carolina had changed, returned to the house I stayed in, ate lunch, maybe took a nap, trudged down to the beach to another indiscriminate house or water tower, sat for about 20 minutes, returned to the house, and then started the routine all over the following day.

I would be lying, though, if I didn’t say that on those randomly scheduled walks up and down the beach, my eyes would wonder to the sandy shore trying to locate a bed of shells I might scour in hopes that maybe, just maybe, I might find my perfect Scotch Bonnet. Of course I never did. But in the back of my mind, I thought that if I ever found one, the feeling of clutching that little brown spotted shell on some other beach just wouldn’t have been as joyous as it would have been if I'd found it on my Perfect Mile.

Some five years later, in 2008, I received a phone call from my brother. Being the over-achiever and lawyer that he is these days, he informed me that he had bought a beach house and wondered if I and my beautiful bride would like to spend a weekend there. My wife, who overheard our conversation and has never backed down from the chance to go to the beach, said "yes!" before I could pull the phone from my mouth to discuss the possibility. Enthusiastically but cautiously, I asked, “Where exactly is this beach house?”

To some people it really wouldn’t have mattered exactly where this beach house was located. Just that it was at any beach would be good enough as long as there were sand, an ocean, a place to lay their heads, and it was free. However, if you have been listening closely to my story, there was one stretch of beach that would have made me think twice before going back there. Of course, my brother’s words would be cheerfully clear:

“It’s at Topsail.”

I didn't want to be rude to my brother, who didn’t have to ask if I would like to visit his new house. I said, “OK.”

If you know a little about Topsail Island, then you know that there are three distinct sections of it. On the south side of the island, where my brother’s house is located, is Topsail Beach. Surf City is located in its center. And Stump -- now North Topsail Beach -- is to the north and at its tip is the New River Inlet. There are also two bridges that access the island. The one to the south is a draw bridge. The one to the north is an enormous arching bridge that once gave me chills as I crossed it because, in the distance to my left from the top of the structure, I could make out the New River Inlet Pier -- the beginning of my Perfect Mile.

With apprehensions abounding and our car packed, my wife and I made the journey.

I flashed back to the times my family made the same trek some 30 years before in our humongous, burgundy-colored station wagon. From our house in the Piedmont region of the state, it would take about four hours as we traveled down I-40 to Raleigh then exited on to Highway 70 East. On that stretch of highway, we passed through towns like Goldsboro and Kinston, where we always stopped at a Hardee’s fast food restaurant for lunch without actually “stopping." We had to get our food from the drive-thru window because any second wasted on the drive was one less second my father could splice wires. I even remembered those rare occasions we by-passed the Hardee’s and pulled nice, slimy, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with a bag of wet potato chips from the big red cooler that sat in the back of the car. Later, I affectionately nicknamed that cooler "The Animal." Down the road we continued. And I always knew when we got closer to my Perfect Mile because, as we passed through Richlands, NC, the dark, thick soil gave way to golden sand.

The trip my wife and I made on a Friday around noon 30 years later would be a little different. I-40 now stretched all the way down to Wilmington. It was then just a hop, skip, and a jump to the island from the port city, shaving at least 45 minutes from the trip. The small towns we would have passed through 30 years before had now become random exit numbers with national food chains and convenient shops every few miles or so. Though I recognized those exits while traveling to the southern beaches of North Carolina, I didn’t recall a single one on the excursion to Topsail.

We crossed over to Topsail Beach by means of the draw bridge. Despite my heart fluttering and the nervousness flooding my body like a sponge bloating with water, after three decades, I was back on Topsail Island. Nothing seemed familiar. Large houses sprouted up like red wood trees. Big-name grocery stores were strategically located just before the bridge for easy access to vacationers, and para-sailing chutes could be seen hovering 100 feet from the ocean’s surface like odd, unidentified flying objects. I was confused to say the least. I realized the beach that both my father and I visited when we were kids was not insulated from the housing boom of the late '90s and early 2000s.

We unpacked our things at my brother’s beautiful house and in no time flat my wife was in her bathing suit, book and chair in hand, heading over the dunes to the beach. I, however, hung back. I don’t know what it was. Maybe I was being childish for not letting go of a past I had no control over in the first place, but for some reason I found it hard to step out onto that beach. An hour passed and I realized that if I wanted to spend any time with my wife on that particular trip, I needed to do it on the beach. So I put on my swim trunks, grabbed a chair, and went out to the sand.

Immediately memories filled my mind and my heart wrenched. The smell was just how I remembered it, and the sand was as soft as down feathers. I swam some and sat some. I got up and walked a little, then sat some more. I became comfortable on this new beach. I then recognized something I hadn’t before: There were no piers. Well, not as many as I remembered. I wondered about it a bit but went back to enjoying my wife’s company. And then I couldn't help: Something forced my eyes toward the north. Was my Perfect Mile still there?

The next day my wife, being the observant person she is, pulled me to the side before she trekked out on the beach for a day of sun.

“Just go," she said. "You know you want to.”

I was taken aback, but I'd had told her the stories of my family’s bungalow on Topsail Island. And from where I stood at that moment, I believed she had a point. I concluded I was being childish, and that if I wanted any semblance of closure, I must return to Stump. “OK”, I said. I hopped in the car and turned it north.

I passed by strange but familiar streets. New, large houses, easily 2500 square feet each, lined the roads with license plates from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. It was progress on parade. I traveled even further and saw the large, arching bridge that I'd crossed over when I was younger rise over bushy little trees and glow white in the mid-afternoon sun. My heart pounded. I turned right onto the New River Inlet Road that led to Stump and my hands became wet. My vision went fuzzy and my surroundings became surreal. The large, template houses had not stopped in Surf City. They crept up the shores of Stump only to be separated by an assortment of condominium complexes with names like, “St. Regis.” Had I made a wrong turn? Was I really in Stump?

Down the road I ventured, cursing every quarter mile. Stump had changed. I looked feverishly for the New River Inlet Pier and the beginning of my Perfect Mile. I needed to gain some sort of marker as to where I was, especially since I felt as if I were on Mars. I barely noticed the road in front of me as my head was on a swivel searching, scanning, and contemplating. I then ran out of road that was cut short by a gated community, its houses towering over any living thing in eye-shot. I realized I was at the very north end of the island. The pier was nowhere to be seen. I was lost.

I turned around and stopped at a little store in front of a condominium complex and was told by the clerk that I was definitely in Stump Sound, but now the area liked to be referred to as North Topsail Beach. He also mentioned that hurricanes during the late '90s washed the New River Inlet pier away. Was it really true?

I drove to the first few large houses past the condos not behind a gate near the start of the inlet. There was a For Sale sign in the front grass of the first house as well as signs in front of the other two. They looked abandoned, so I pulled into the driveway of the second house. Apparently Topsail Island was also not insulated from the housing bust of 2008.

Interested, I pulled the flyer from the information box off the sign and my eyebrows sprinted up my forehead as every cell in my body seemed to blister with anger: $750,000, the brochure stated, reduced from $1.5 million. What had become of my Perfect Mile?

I kicked off my shoes and vaulted over the dunes. I was shocked. The clear, golden sands seemed dark and littered with seaweed. The beach had lost the sweet smell of salt and I couldn’t explain the odor that now burrowed in my nostrils. The dunes were now shaven bald and with the distinct aura that machinery had lifted them from the already stressed beach.

I marched to the ocean’s edge and turned south. Believing that one of my strides was about a meter in length, and knowing that there are 1600 meters in a mile, I walked and counted. As I set out on my mission, I angrily scanned the beach in front of me, my eyes tearing up as the large beds of seashells I remembered had disappeared. Every 50 meters or so, I would see perfectly shaped shards of glass, plastic wrappers, or aluminum beer cans. Gone was the golden clean sand. In its place was grayish, lumpy sludge.

Closer and closer, my counting climbed to 1600 steps. When I reached 1500, I thought my heart would explode from my chest. My knees became week and my head began to hurt. I knew our beach house would have been just past the now-vanished pier if you were traveling from the south. Exhausted from my ordeal, at 1513 I stopped. I turned west toward the bald dunes that now stretched across Stump, and staring me in the face was a row of monstrous looking houses. If they were in Cary, NC, I would have thought they were striking. But they were on my Perfect Mile and, to me, they were anything but. I walked over the dune and through the first row of immense houses only to face a forest of these same now-familiar-looking giants.

I skimmed over the scene and then noticed something oddly proverbial between the behemoths’ stilts. It had definitely changed, but there, amongst $1 million, 2500-square-foot homes up for sale in this great time of uncertainty, was my father’s little vision. Something bizarre I could not explain began to percolate in my body as I gently shuffled across the street and nearer to the 30-year-old little house flanked by a company of titanic residences. The memories I had as a kid -- shoveling sand, pounding nails, painting walls, hanging insulation, running wires, and rummaging around my Perfect Mile on my free days trying to find my perfect shell -- rushed over me like a tidal wave. And I didn’t mind it too much.

Someone cared enough not only to keep our 1300 square foot bungalow, but they cared enough to finish it.

How my cheeks ached as I smiled! Instantaneously, the years of anger and hate broke like a sledgehammer smashing into porcelain and a sense of peace flowed through me like a gentle, salt filled breeze. The more I felt the North Carolina coast had changed, the more I felt it had stayed the same. Not only were my parents and I drawn to this beach, but others were as well. And that was a good thing. It was time I got used to it.

Tears uncontrollably and happily poured from my eyes as I examined the yellow exterior of the house. A plain, little, wooden placard was attached to the front porch. It simply read, “The Scotch Bonnet.”

It was the perfect name on the Perfect Mile.


If you are ever on the beautiful North Carolina beaches, I challenge you to find our state shell in one piece, and not from a gift shop. I don’t need to look anymore. I’ve already found one.

The Cue. Chapter 4 drawing.

It is pretty cool to have comments about things you are least expecting.



I have placed five chapter illustrations in one of the albums on my Facebook author page, and I received a comment on one of the illustrations that I really like a lot, but never really thought of it as an eye-catcher. That chapter is number 4.



It depicts JT standing under Gregory's big, old, oak tree looking out over a field that he farms, and by his right foot, the first leaf of Fall tumbles to the ground.



In the book, the scene is used as a visual cue to let the reader know that this is where the adventure starts to get interesting. Have you ever wondered about the very first snowflake that falls from the sky on a winter's day, or for that matter the very first of anything? I have often thought about those things.



I do believe (and she may correct me) that Lauren Gallegos, my illustrator for The Mahogany Door, mentioned that the leaf falling stuck in her mind and just seemed pretty important.



It's interesting as well to play your life in "rewind" to see some of the decisions that you have made to get you to that one particular point. In that context, it IS very important. For example, one day two very dear friends of our offered to let my wife and me use a time share in Alexandria, Virginia. At first I really wasn't so sure. We had studio time to prepare for, and, if you know me, you'll understand my disdain for driving around Washington, D.C. In fact, by taking the trip I would have driven through the area twice within the last month. But I digress.



My wife immediately wanted to do it, but I really, kind of, maybe, not so sure, maybe, wanted to say no. I really didn't want to have to drive back from D.C. at night and then have to go to work (wow, I am just too exciting). I then remembered how much that our friends mean to us, so I said yes.



As I barely got the word "yes" out of my mouth, my wife immediately says, "So do you want to go see your uncle and aunt and cousins? They do live in D.C., right?" Granted there are many personal things in my life I do not talk about, so for the chance for my wife to corner ANYONE from my life and ask questions about me, she's willing to do it at the drop of a hat.



When I was younger, my family was pretty close. But things in life happen, and the separation of time takes its toll. I think we can all relate to the "I love my family, but there are some things I just don't want to do with them." I confess: I am one of those people. Yet as a gesture to my wife, I said, "I think that will be nice."



Again, if you know me, and you know my wife, you know I will say that I will be glad to do things. But it's the "doing" that is the problem. My wife promptly sends a note to my aunt, knowing that I will probably forget or wait until the day before we should show up.



Long story short: I got to meet my uncle, aunt, and cousin again and meet a couple of first cousins once removed (so I am told). I was told a hundred times that I need to get a dog, I was encouraged to talk about my book with people very interested in it, and I got to look stupid wearing a head thingy while they guessed "What I am?" And Jill got some of her questions answered. She found out that the Hunter (my mom's maiden name) apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, and that we all - I mean ALL -- have the same eyes (squinty inset ones). It was not only a nice seven hours - it was fun! Something I hope that I can do again soon.



It was a good lesson for me to revert back to the real reason I wrote the book. There are some things we have no control over, but there are some things we do. We don't have control over the first leaf of Fall making its way to Earth, but perhaps we have control over what takes place after it metaphorically floats to the ground in our lives. Saying "yes" sometimes may just be a good thing.




I was reminded a couple of times during the process of creating The Mahogany Door, the first book in my series of fantasy books for young readers, that I really need to try to do some of the things I write so eloquently about. I think those people who have reminded me of this were right. (Of course you can probably guess who that person is.)




Always,



Mark

Days That Seem to Never End

Hello Friends:

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.


As a note, I'd like to let you know that The Mahogany Door, the first of a series of fantasy-adventure books for young readers, will be released next Spring. Unseen circumstances have dictated a later release, but I believe the extra time we are going to put into the soundtrack and marketing will be well worth the wait.


In the next few months I'd like to show you some of the final chapter headings, the passages behind them, and why I wrote those passage - before unveiling the cover art at the beginning of the year. That might seem like a long time, but it's actually only three and half months away!


The passage that Lauren drew for Chapter 19 is as follows:


"A mysterious bang rang across the floor and JT woke from his mesmerized state. He walked out of the small inner room and the stone wall slid shut and JT was stopped in his tracks. He turned to face the bed, and all around him, was a very disturbing site.

On the stone walls surrounding the bed were counting marks. The lines were grouped by five with four marks vertical and one mark slashing across the others. After studying the groupings for a few moments, they appeared as though they were in uniformed rows and columns and seemed to have started from the top right corner across from where JT stood and dressed each of the three walls entirely. The neatly stacked groupings stopped to his left just above his ankle directly beside him. The last grouping of marks was only four vertical lines. As each collection of marks receded and labored down the walls, the lines became shakier, jagged, and deep. A sense of sorrow penetrated JT’s body. His heart sank and he felt powerless. He remembered Charlie stating in the great hall of the Triton pyramid that he had counted each day he had been in Bruinduer and in his bed chamber is where he had done the deed..."


" ‘Do you have any idea what it feels like to be totally alone?!’ Charlie screamed at the top of his voice toward his guests.."




The theme song for The Mahogany Door is called "All Alone." It's driven by the fact that in my personal life there was a time when I felt all alone, as if there were no one there to catch me if I fell. During that time, the days never seemed to end. One after the another, the morning sun and the monotonous bounce of life continued relentlessly. I never thought that I would be able to move forward. In fact, some of the time I felt as though I was taking steps backwards with my life. Depression set in and ripped not only my psyche apart, but also my body, physically. To this day, I have yet to recover fully as pain is a daily reminder of that awful time in my life. The last grouping of four lines in the passage represents the reminder that there would be at least one more day I'd have to face.

Slowly, with the help of my father and a release to the Holy Spirit, I was able to get the hands of time moving again. My life started with a new purpose and I moved to Wilmington, NC. There, sitting on the beach and through regular counseling sessions, I allowed myself to let go of a lot of anger. I found that I could love again and support myself without always relying on my parents. It was a tough but satisfying two years.

One of my assignments from my counselor was to write a journal. Instead, I started remembering the good days of being young and I tried to figure out where my life went wrong. Out of it all, I began to develop The Mahogany Door.

Writing didn't save my life. I believe the story God gave me did. I know it's not Shakespeare. Some may even think it's not very good. I don't mind. I'm not alone anymore.


Thanks for keeping up with me - you have no idea what it means.


Mark

Coming month or 2

Working hard on the soundtrack CD for The Mahogany Door. It's getting a little difficult, but I'm sure that goes with the territory in making quality music. Lauren and I approved the cover art sketch, and she's back working on it over the next few days. In the next month or two, look for a few unveilings of new music and the cover art (hopefully) - as well as an a special interview with Janeen Free-McKee, ELS, editor of The Mahogany Door.

Thanks so much!

Mark

Interview with Lauren Gallegos : Talented Illustrator

Lauren has been working so hard on the illustrations for The Mahogany Door, the first book in a trilogy of fantasy-adventure books for young readers, that I decided to ask her a few questions. I want all who may be interested in the book to have a chance to know her - just a little.

I could not have asked for a better illustrator. Her talent and imagination have made it a pleasure and an event to open new e-mails from her, telling me that she has completed a new drawing. Each one I open sends chills down my back to think that what she captured in an amazing illustration came from something that I wrote!

I felt it very important to let Lauren have free reign on what she has drawn for each chapter. Having a professional illustrator such as Lauren draw an image that sticks in her noggin after reading a passage was very important to me because she now knew EXACTLY what to draw and how it should look.

If I'd tried to tell Lauren what to draw, it would have made the process very difficult on her, especially since she would have been trying to draw something that I pictured. I'm sure it's very hard to try to guess what someone else might be creating in his or her, mind.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ms. Lauren Gallegos:

Mark: When did you know you wanted to be an illustrator?

Lauren: Growing up, I always loved drawing and creating. In college I decided to take the Graphic Design route of creativity, considering my attention to detail and order. However, after taking an introduction to illustration course I realized how much I missed traditional drawing and was introduced to the world of children’s books. Thinking back to my childhood, I realized how much the books I read as a little girl had stayed with me throughout my life. They were an important part of my growth, my beliefs, and my behavior. The idea of telling a story with my art from which children would read and learn important life lessons gave me a way to make a mark in this world, and I couldn’t just ignore that calling.

Mark: How long have you been drawing professionally?

Lauren: I have been doing freelance illustration for almost two years after spending most of my college years mainly focusing on developing my drawing skills and learning how to survive the business side of illustration. Although I am still quite new to the field, I feel I have had some great opportunities to learn from veterans in the field who have been generous enough to pass on their wisdom. I’m still waiting for that big Publishing House to let me know they want to publish my book, but until then, I am willing to take on projects I haven’t done before so I can be challenged, grow, gain experience, and find my niche.

Mark: What was your first professional job in illustration?

Lauren: While I was in college I was blessed to have the opportunity to do an internship at Piggy Toes Press/Intervisual Books, a small children’s book publisher in Santa Monica, California. (Most publishing houses are located on the east coast; there are very few in California) When my internship was done I was offered a job as their freelance illustrator. I couldn’t believe it! While I was there I learned a lot about the publishing industry, the process that goes into making a children’s book, and I was able to develop my storytelling skills with professional, smart people who could point me in the right direction. I am so thankful for the time I had there to learn and grow.

Mark: Many illustrators take on multiple projects to get experience, jobs, and credentials. I'm sure that there are many projects, though, that you may turn down because of one reason or another. What made you to decide to take on the Mahogany Door?

Lauren: Every offer to work on a children’s book project is enticing, but I have learned to approach these offers with caution, especially when there are so many people who want to get into publishing without doing their homework or having any understanding of what it takes to make a quality book. I decided to take on “The Mahogany Door” because it seems like a book with the potential to last. The book also has a certain feel to it that fits the kind of art I love to create -- the feeling of adventure, mystery, and drama. The characters drew me in and I wanted to make drawings that would draw in the readers even more.

Mark: So Lauren - what gave you the inspiration to draw Michael on the throne for Chapter 17?

Lauren: Michael is a character that grabbed my attention from the start. I wonder about his motivations and what’s going on in his mind. He must have a lot of internal struggles, and we see some of his emotions come out throughout the book. It’s quite a journey. I wanted to explore him a little more for this book and encourage the readers to ponder Michael a little more by showing some of his big or significant moments throughout the story. I thought the image of Michael on the throne was a good opportunity to expose some of Michael’s hidden motivations. His actions effect all the other characters and events that take place. That’s a lot of influence for one character to have!

Mark: Can you expand on the process you use to draw an illustration?

Lauren: Most of my illustrations are inspired or based on some kind of text that I have read, or song or story I have heard, or maybe even another image I have seen. I always try to incorporate some kind of symbolism within my illustrations that might seem normal and insignificant, but a lot of thought goes into what I put in my drawings. For “The Mahogany Door,” I read through the book, taking note of important moments, emotional moments, thoughtful moments, and tried to make images that either helped build the mystery of that chapter, or emphasize a significant event, or show an important moment to encourage the reader to pay close attention. Once I have sketched out the main idea of the drawing, I’ll revise it, clean it up, and make adjustments to be sure everything is proportional and makes visual sense. Then I make a value study so I know where light and shadows go. If the image is in color, I will do a few color studies as well. Once all of those parts make sense and fit together nicely, I can make my final drawing.

Mark (shameless promotion): All things being equal - and the book becomes a success - are you looking forward to drawing for the next book in the series?

Lauren: I’m very excited! I want to explore more of the characters and see the things that motivate them. The style of the book and my art seem to fit together quite comfortably, so it’s really fun for me to create images that go along with the text. I’m excited to see what happens with this book. My hope is that there will be such a demand for the next book that we can start working on it right away!

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You can find Lauren Gallegos on the web at www.LaurenGallegos.com and on Facebook.

To see a few drawings for "The Mahogany Door" go to Lauren's blog @ http://artbylauren.blogspot.com/

The following is the before to final drawing for Chapter 17. It depicts Michael's introduction to Kali and JT as King of Godwin, First from Eden.
Notice the size of Michael's crown, as it is much too large for his head. This represents the fact that what Michael has taken on, in becoming a king, might be too big a task for him to handle. It is my experience that, sometimes, we have leaders in our own world who try to take on way too big of a job without weighing the consequence.



It's the attention to detail that Lauren brought to these illustrations that take the writing and the story to a whole different level!

Complete Abridged Summary: The Mahogany Door

The Mahogany Door, the first book in a series of fantasy-adventure books for young readers, begins on a beach where an old man, sitting on a little wooden crate, tells a decades’ old tale to a dedicated band of listeners no more than twelve years old.

The old man’s narrative begins with a troubled young man named Michael Peterson having a reoccurring nightmare. His nightmare is about an old spirit guide named Billy who is beckoning him to reunite with his childhood friends and return to their hometown to complete the adventure they started many years ago. And in doing so,they will make right the wrongdoings from their past lives. Unable to shake the visions, Michael writes a letter to a childhood friend named Kali Logan, explaining that he must find their mutual friend, JT Davis, so they can all return to Warhead Dale, a large, old chalet once owned by JT’s grandfather that sits on the coast of the small, cobblestone covered town of Athens Eden.

Michael finds JT only to discover that time and life experience has changed him. Not only has JT lost both of his parents, but he has also lost his memory, including those important memories of his childhood that the trio will need if they are going to retrace their steps through the Mahogany Door into the fantasy Vryheid world of Bruinduer.

Convinced the only way he will be able to find answers to his lost childhood memories, JT goes with Michael to reunite with Kali in Athens Eden, where they arrive at the neglected Warhead Dale. There they confront the spirit guide, Billy, in all of his unrecognizable glory.

The trio learns that Bruinduer is going to collapse due to their carelessness in not following the rules of the Vryheid world. They also find out that because of their recklessness, a long lost friend, Charlie Blackburn, who entered through the Mahogany Door with them on their incomplete journey, is still alive and has somehow taken control of Bruinduer away from Billy.

After following Michael through the Mahogany Door to complete the task from years passed, JT and Kali learn they have been betrayed by their conniving friend, and that he has teamed with Charlie in splitting Bruinduer into the two kingdoms of Godwin and Triton.

Things aren't quite as they seem in Bruinduer, and The Mahogany Door unfolds in a fantasy tale of tragedy, adventure, destiny, and hope.