The Fifth Dragons of Creativity- The Dragon of Putrefaction, Part Five of Seven

The Depths of Darkness

*****

Children were dark flashes down the sidewalk, the whir of their skateboards like electric knives cutting through meat.

Winged things fluttered by; screeching shadows stuck in thin branches that caught them like garrotes.

From the corner of my eye I saw something that looked like a gray dustball scurry across the room. A streak of white blurred by me and I saw her land next to the intruder. Her paw slapped it flat and I heard a quick squeal.

The next morning, I found a bloody mouse head on my keyboard and tucked it into my right hip pocket. As the hours passed, I tried to write but instead I kept taking out the tiny head and staring at its empty eye sockets.

excerpted from "The Companion," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

The curtains were closed in the kitchen, but orange-yellow light pressed against them from the outside dusk. The sink was filled with food-crusted dishes the color of dark mold. The wastebasket lay on its side and a puddle of curdled milk wound toward me like an albino snake wriggling across the mottled yellow linoleum. The smell of old bacon and buttermilk suffused the room and clung to my skin.

I opened the cabinet over the sink and felt around inside with stiff fingers. I found the open bottle and pulled it out. The label said that there were ninety ibuprofens inside, but that was a lie, since I had taken twelve every day for the last week.

Leaning back against the stove, I threw back a handful of tablets into my mouth, and followed that by gulping warm water as I pushed aside dishes and held my head tilted back beneath the faucet. I closed an eye as I twisted my neck to run water over one side of side of my face, and I saw that the only thing clean and shiny in my dish drainer was the long butcher knife whose blade reflected back a distorted, dark, demonized caricature of my face.

When I stood up, I felt a deep pressure hard against the inside of my head, like something was trying to escape by pushing through my skull. I brought my hands up toward the pain but stopped when I saw how red and swollen they were. My pulse throbbed beneath my fingernails. I noticed dark scabs crusted over puncture wounds on my knuckles.

“I should put something on that,” I said.

The phone rang like a fire alarm in the other room, but I pretended I didn’t hear it and leaned forward to lick the back of my hands.

excerpted from "The Companion," by Rerrel D. Moore

*****

I stand before the hoary skull entrance and hold tight to my torch. Broken bones lay scattered along the steps, as though they have been gnawed by something within and then cast back out when the marrow was sucked clean. There is no light at all past the skull entrance. It is a place where light is not allowed.

"What is the place?" I ask. "It is like nothing we have ever seen on this journey."

I seen the lines in your face; it is though you have aged ten years or more in the last few days.

"Tell me," I plead.

"Most stories are simple things," you say. "They amuse us in one way or another. Some are filled with light and power, darkness and despair, but they are not... timeless. They are the stories you tell now."

Even in the flickering darkness, I bridle at this.

"But people like my stories," I counter. "What more is there to write about than things that people wish to listen to? I only came down this hideous tunnel because I thought it would be easy to face the Dragon of Putrefaction."

You smile your knowing smile, and I hate you for it.

"Hah! I see you have no answer to that. Further, what difference does it make? We are here together to find the Dragon Master and then to face the Dragon of Putrefaction. All I asked you is what this place is and you give me another riddle. I am tired of riddles."

You stare at me as though I am a simpleton. But I am not. I have survived the first four Dragons of Creative Writing, and am now a Storyteller. I should have stopped right there and returned home to weave stories for crowds gathered around me. They would have hung on my every word and perhaps applauded at the end.

"Inside the Depths of Darkness is the Dragon's Mirror, and within that mirror, you will find the Dragon Master."

"But there is no light beyond this entrance," I point outj. "We will find nothing because we cannot see in the darkness. If perchance we stumble around and find a mirror, it will be by accident. How will we see anything in a mirror in total darkness? This cave is confusing your thoughts."

"All great stories are birthed in darkness. The Dragon of Second Light arises from the First Death."

I have descended into this cave with a mad woman.

"Who are you? Where is the woman I first began my journey with?"

"Women birth the Divine Madness. Without the Divine Madness the Dragon of Second Light will not arise."

"Have you no practical advice?" I demand. Your constant stream of generalities is maddening.

"We must hurry. If the Dragon wakes before you enter, all might be lost."

I notice suddenly that though the air in this cave is still, the torch flames seem drawn to the skull opening. It is as though it is sucking the very air out of the opening in which we stand. I, too, feel its pull.

"Id rather stay where we are. I don't want to know about Death and Rebirth. I just want to tell stories that everyone likes. I've had enough of Dragons."

From within its depths comes an angry roar that reverberates throughout the entire tunnel. I step back and fall backwards. Flames burst forth from the Skull entrance, and the air that rushes over me smells of burnt flesh.

"Too late," you say, and then disappear.

*****

Mardie's heart beat faster. With a flick of the shovel, he moved the bone aside and dug deeper. Water welled up aground the blade. Steam seemed to fume from it like from a simmering pot. He scooped another shovelful and slopped it up and over the edge. The flashlight shone on the oily water like a searchlight.

A skeleton hand seemed to lurk below the surface. He bent over again and fished out a tangle of bones. He felt his stomach lurch as he pulled them out. Three hands intertwined together like twisted hangars broke free.

Three hands?

He shuddered and threw them aside.

How was that possible? That would mean that more than one body. More than one person.

Fear seized him and he suddenly felt claustrophobic. The piles of dirt that he had piled high around the pit were like prison walls. He stood and stared up at the shadowed figure of Lily Treach.

“Can I make a confession?” she asked.

excerpted from "The Coal Room," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

The Dragon Master's Mirror

The Fifth Dragons of Creativity, The Dragon of Putrefaction, Part Four of Seven

The Dragon Master

*****

Looked in the mirror.

Checked my zipper, and opened the door.

They were still there.

“You been standing there the whole time?” I asked.

“Well, no,” said George, but he didn’t look me in the eye.

“Well, yes,” said his wife Mary.

A good looking woman with a homely stump of a man named George.

There was one more.

A young woman was trying to force the husband and wife team of polar opposites apart at the shoulders the way a latecomer tries to pry open closing elevator doors. She was blond and built and looked to be about twenty two, but had the roughed-up voice of a woman in her forties.

“You can sign my book now, right?” she asked. “Just put ‘You need to be on my next cover,’ and sign it ‘Love, Ben.’”

“Give it up, Vicki,” said George. “Come on, Ben. What do you say? You come over to our place and meet Mary’s sister. She loves mysteries and all that shit. She’s got connections. She could do some things for you.”

“Hollywood,” winked Mary.

“That too,” said George. “You know what I mean?”

“Come on, you guys,” said Vicki. “Leave him alone so he can sign my book. Then you can have him.”

Bathroom stalkers are the worst type of fans. They’ve got no pride, and they’re proud of it. As they extend their books toward you to sign or are asking you to come over to their house, they really should be wondering if you washed before zipping.

They stood in the hallway, the tapioca colored wallpaper and the Thomas Kincaid paintings on the wall behind them lending a certain abnormal normalcy to the situation.

“You guys mind parting like the Red Sea so I can catch up with the hostess?” I asked.

“No can do,” smiled George. “She’s holed up with her kid. Little tyke’s throwing a fit. Having a conniption about her Teddy Bear. So come on with us will you? We’ll take you away from these Philistines.”

“Okay, but maybe next week. I’ve got to schmooze with the hostess or my agent will kill me.”

Vickie whipped out a copy of my latest book with one hand and extended a pen with the other.

“Please,” she said, and batted her eyelashes like a silent screen heroine. “Wouldn’t I look cute on the cover of your next book?”

“Since you asked,” I said.

“Oh Jesus, Ben, come on,” said Mary. “You can stroke the nympho later.”

“Nympho?” I said. “I’ve been hiding in the bathroom all this time when there was a nympho roaming the halls?”
excerpted from "The Teddy Bear Suicides," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

"I don't like caves," I said.

"You're afraid of the dark," you replied.

And it was dark.

"This is a mistake," I said, but my voice cracked with fear the way thin ice fractures and gives way beneath your boots. "How can a dragon live underground? It would be too big to slither down these tunnels. And there's not enough air for it to breathe."

My voice echoed down the harsh blackness ahead like a bell ringing in an empty village.

I look to you for confirmation, but since you two became one, you are like a new woman who knows more than either of you individually.

When I returned to my body after seeing into the eyes of the Dragon of Condensed Starlight days ago, I found that the two women I had left behind were now one. There was no longer Lea and Scarlett, but a new woman waiting for me asleep by the fading orange glow of the fire.

Once you have experienced the Dragon of Condensed Starlight, you see magic as plainly as I now do. I did not have to question whether the two of you were now just one woman. It was clear that you were one. The hows and whys were hobglobins clawing for attention. But I have changed since I began this journey- I will push aside monsters of doubt to see but one golden sunrise of understanding.

"Worry less about Dragons and more about the Dragon Master," you say.

In the wavering torchlight, your rich grey-blond hair is streaked with shadows and your eyes look back at me between sparks that pop and leap from the pitch torches like magic streaking into the darkness from Merlin's wand.

"My feet hurt," I say.

I stop, lean against the hard and painfully uneven cave wall, and bend to adjust my boots. The soles are too thin, and it is as though they are not there at all. Each step is like walking down the side of a rocky mountain barefoot.

"And I don't believe," I continued, "that there is a Dragon Master. I was perfectly happy above ground. We met the first Great Dragons of Creativity and lived to tell about it. Isn't that enough? We know more about ourselves than we ever did. We can tell stories that will be the better for it and people will appreciate what we create. Was there any reason to crawl down this miserable hole where the air is as cool and dry as a witch's heart?"

"You know the answer," you say. "The Dragon of Condensed Starlight only gifts those who will carry on to the Seventh and last Dragon. If you do not continue you with me, you will become a writer whose stories are good only for a time, but then will grow stale as bread left on the table for too long."

"There is nothing wrong with telling a few good stories," I say, straightening my back and feeling it snap into place. "We could afford to eat and live with those who love what we have written. Is that not enough?"

A cold wind blows down the tunnel as though chasing us. I feel my skin tighten and instinctively duck my eyes.

"If you do not continue," you say, "the Dragon of Condensed Starlight will come for you, pick you up in her taloned claws, and carry you high and far away until she hovers over the Abyss and drops you down into it. Your screams will rend the night like a broken heart tears the soul."

I look back toward the way we came, just for a fool's moment, then say, "I was just testing you. We should get moving again."

And then I am up and walking. Even this dark, dank cave is preferable to being dropped into the abyss.

"It will do us no good to be moving if we do not find the Master of Dragons," you say, but I notice you walk with me.

"Tell me again why we must find this DragonMaster."

You grasp my sleeve and stop me from taking another step.

"Because no storyteller can face the Dragon of Putrefaction by themselves."

"And why is that?" I ask nervously.

"Because it will devour you."

It is sometimes difficult to remember why I began this journey.

We round a corner and I see torch lights up ahead.

"What is that?"

"It is," you say, "The entrance to the Depths of Darkness."

The Fifth Dragons of Creative Writing, The Dragon of Putrefaction, Part Three of Seven

courtesy of clone_trooper at deviantart.com

Descending into Darkness

*****

The sky flared and twisted like screaming flames. I saw it in the congealing reflections ripping across a teenager’s sunglasses. She was maybe thirteen, and her shoulders glistened like caramel glaze. A green hand flashed in a yellow metal box across the street; I heard the sudden electric crack of a chrome pistol bouncing high off the pavement.

Shrunken-head eyes stared at me from a black car streaked with angry light as the passenger window moved up like a closing spaceship door and sealed them behind reflected darkness. Heat shivers wriggled above the searing concrete and rippled the air; I closed my eyes, hoping the entire city of Detroit would just disappear.

excerpted from "Concrete Abrasions," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

They were both from Montreal. When he spoke, he sounded like he'd been places and done things. His gestures were elegant and cultured, fingers pulling away at the threads of ideas and intense brown eyes that knew the meaning of taking what wasn't his.

When he said, "But that is, of course, only a metaphor," she brushed his wrist with the back of her hand. He seemed not to notice.

I thought about that for a while. I thought about her for a while. He wasn't going to live long if I had anything to say about it.
excerpted from "The Dark Visitor," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Mystic Rose is right. The Dragon of Putrefaction does sound horrid. And it is a horrid experience to meet the Dragon of Putrefaction. But without confronting the Dragon of Putrefaction, there is no way to meet the beautiful Dragon of Fermentation, which Dragon represents, in her own beautiful way, the birth (or rebirth, if you will) of a new writer.

When writers first begin to achieve success and because recognized as "real writers," not those who stay at home hoping they will, someday, see their name in print, they begin to move away from the creative mindsets that finally brought them success. They begin not wanting to make mistakes, and thus they begin the fine art of dowsing their own creative spark. We begin to try and "fit in" as writers, and the quality of our work becomes more acceptable and less volatile. We develope a more "mature" voice- less edgy, less "in your face," and more reassuring to the social culture all around us.

*****

“I don’t know what I’d wish for if I had the choice,” said Mary. “For you to have a functioning brain or a functioning penis or one day a week for both. Where’s you mind, Edgar? Where’s your testosterone? We don’t always have to go where they take us.”

“But they could put us out,” whimpered Edgar. “Where would we go then? I don’t have a car; I don’t have a house anymore. Maybe I do. I don’t think so. It was on Maple Street. Have you ever seen my house? God, I love to work in the back yard. Annie can’t do much gardening anymore.”

He leaned toward her, smiled a row of stumpy teeth and whispered, “Her back’s bad.”

“Annie’s been dead for a long time,” said Mary.

Edgar began to cry.

Mary looked away.

excerpted from "Death's Door," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

If you study the lessons from the first four Dragons of Creative Writing, you will have a measure of success as a writer. Perhaps you will achieve the blessing/curse of being published. This is when writers takes stock of themselves in a serious way. We see the chance of success as possible but so very far away, but we see the chance of public failure as growing closer with each chapter or verse we write.

So, we begin to play it safe. The Imp of the Perverse has become our literary agent.

Suddenly, we are ever more conscious of other's opinions. How will our work be judged? What kind of reviews will our work garner? Do we have a theme in our work? If not, it and we could be judged as not "literary" enough. Are we not economical enough? Then we write purple prose. The judges, after all, are always qualified to judge our work and find it wanting. A critic may bemoan our lack of tension or- God forbid- an unclear character arc because no story can really be any good without the author prostrating themselves before these golden rules, can they? Certainly not. That would be like living in the Matrix without first having watched the movie to show us how to behave in that fictional construct.

At these moments, we have doused our creative sparks with fear and buried them in the muck and slag of egotistical sensitivities. Our writing begins to develop a certain "odor of commonality" about it. Like good soldiers in the Army of Writing Zombies, we lumber forward as though alive, yet writing without zest. We are more afraid of wounds to our ego than we are of falling down while running with exhuberance. We have traded away our spark of Creative Heart to put on the uniform of Peer Review.

We become good students and only face foward. We become respectable writers and stay between the lines.

*****

Havier clicked his tongue.

“Mary,” he said, “you are so hot blooded. You should have been born Latin. And at your age… I am so proud of you. But do the two of you use protection? You should ask me to bring some in for you. They have them in colors now, did you know that? Hey, Edgar? What do you say to that? You are a man. Such things are not your responsibility, but you must sometimes think for two.”

Mary’s stomach roiled when she saw Havier lean toward Edgar and place one palm on each of the armrests of his wheelchair. Mary noticed Havier’s muscles flex as he squeezed the armrests, and she was certain Edgar did as well.

“You must have something special for this woman to find you so attractive. What’s your secret?” asked Havier.

Edgar stared up at Havier and Mary felt like crying. She watched Edgar blink his eyes and take a small gulp of air to fortify himself the way years ago he would have taken a shot of whiskey. She looked at Havier’s hands as they slipped down to adjust Edgar’s gown.

“My, my,” he said. “What you got down there Edgar? You hiding some special equipment?”

excerpted from "Death's Door," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

In our writings, our readers- and critics- expect to see a glimpse into our souls, and, as writers with a little success under our belt, we want to clean up a little bit before that photo shoot.

Hence the need to hide our raw insights and uncomfortable observations beneath the Putrefaction known as Conformance. It is a black and murky thing for a writer to slip a leash around their own neck and then heel to the side of Convention. Somewhere below that ugly darkness float the scattered points of creativity that made that person into a writer in the first place.

But if we don't succeed in our confrontation, if we don't dive into the decomposing darkness our selves brought about by our initial succeses, then we will not be able to break the surface again with our lost creative sparks held tight in our fists like captured fireflies. We will never be able to look about that inky mess and gaze on the radiant beauty of the Dragon of Fermentation as she rises up from the dark and into the night sky. To writers, achieving that moment gives the right to release our handful of re-captured creative fireflies and send them skyward with her as she rises toward the constellations.

The Fifth Dragons of Creativity- The Dragon of Putrefaction, Part Two of Seven

Buddha Exposed as Story Killer

*****

“I’ll be right back.”

Ignoring his little brother's protest, Brian was through the door and moving across the back porch. The wooden stairs squeaked and protested as he walked down them, and he turned and said over his shoulder, “It’s just the steps, Kevin, don’t worry. Just the steps.”

A little way past the rose bushes, he hesitantly turned and looked back at the porch light, which shone bright as a beacon. Savior of the porch, guardian of scared boys, and beacon for lost lightening bugs.

In the center of the yard was the maple tree, whose strong, friendly branches had supported the first tree house that Brian had ever built. The bright sphere of light given off by the porch light made it look solid and reliable, an old friend patiently standing guard.

I wonder what the other side of the tree looks like, Brian wondered suddenly. The side where the porch light doesn’t shine.

excerpted from "Beyond the Porch Light," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

As a writer, I live in terror of Gautama Buddha, and so should you. His teachings are bad for us. The Buddha, who expressed disdain for Clive Cussler novels even before they were written, had no use for the maxim "Babes and Bullets Forever." Desire, the Buddha taught, is the source of all human conflict. Writers would be out of business without conflict. Sex and violence sell, don't they? There are other elements, of course, and we could very well illustrate character growth by tortured individuals overcoming their desires through spiritual growth, but still... what kind of an action adventure story could be written by the Buddha? Tell me an answer to that question. Or can you imagine him writing a spy novel, or, worse yet, a horror novel?

Although the same could be said for the founders of all enduring world religions, the Buddha ranks as the all time worst for writers. Other founders at least talked about conflict and spiritual warfare and even things like Judgment Day (a phrase nicely turned by the creators of "The Terminator"). They unfolded stories of sin and transgression and war and lustful desire and redemption and blasphemy and repentance- things that would have made the Buddha cringe, or perhaps cause him to chant a mantra composed to quiet the unquiet mind. No, the Buddha would not do as a Writing Muse.


And yet, he taught the subjugation of the ego, the death of the self to one's higher self by achieving enlightenment. Surely to God their must be a few stories along the way of sordid struggles, gratuitous violence, theft and maybe even some Bond girls? Probably not.



Could the Buddha have scripted the TV show "The Closer?" Or "Burn Notice?" I think not. It's a good guess that, even if the B-Man were alive today, he wouldn't care if Bruce Campbell worked or not. He might have allowed that it was a nice gesture for the director of the Spiderman movies to allow Mr. Campbell to have a bit part in each, but beyond that, he would no doubt encourage Bruce to spend more time on meditation than acting.
He might also advise him against writing any more books.

And that's the problem, isn't it? Why would we as writers want to concentrate on our inner journey with Alchemical Dragons as guides if the result were that we advanced as people but declined as writers as we grew more "enlightened?"


Are there any "enlightened" authors on the Best Seller list for novels? Is it possible that better people write worse books? It's much easier to discuss theme, economy, POV, character arc and the like than to deal with the real writer's issues.


Stories come from writers. To improve the quality of a writer's work it is necessary to focus in on the writer. This is not to deny the mechanics of writing. There will never be a shortage of people to lecture us on such things. In fact, the number of words written on the topic of economy alone is too large to be contained within the borders of France.



What are we left with, then? We can learn much about our creative selves by journeying inward using the Dragon symbology, but will us lead us to being more peaceful human beings, freed from conflict, open to the universe and will we be in the end too beneficent to write a decent sex scene?


No.



The land where Alchemical Dragons roam is far more dangerous than that. It is a landscape peopled by heroes and heroines, love and betrayal, quests and monsters, treasures and romance. It is a land of rebellion and shining armor, a world of glorious mountains and dark whispers within hidden caves. Temptation pulls at the sleeve and triumph explodes through all obstacles in the world of Dragons, and mystery swirls about women like capes billowed by the wind.


I tell you this because to confront the Dragon of Putrefaction, is to step again into the darkness of our consciousness with only the Dragon symbology and Alchemical procedures to guide us. A confrontation with the Dragon of Putrefaction is nothing less than coming face to face with the fact that we are all merely a fraction of the writers that we should be. In the eyes of the Dragon of Putrefaction we will see the knowledge that we have given too little to our writing and risked even less.


We have no defense before this Dragon. Our egos have grown strong again and we wish to talk about method instead of changing our substance. Point-of-View instead of writing something so much from our very heart and soul that if our writing is poorly received we fear it will crush us so that we never write again.


Safety is the refuge of the timid writer. The timid writer should avoid the next posting of The Secret Dragons of Creative Writing- The Dragon of Putrefaction, Part Three of Five.


But if you're not afraid of a little action, grab your survival gear and come along.

Photo credit to: wayangtopia.com

The Fifth Dragons of Creative Writing- Part One of Seven, The Dragon of Putrefaction, An Introduction

*****

The three robed figures moved away in unison across the deck, their steps silent beneath their robes as if they floated above the planking. Crewman eyed them with uneasy glances. Several crossed themselves and quickly looked away.

A pushy, persistent wind threw shredded rags of clouds overhead, billowing them like a poor man’s laundry across a cerulean sky of textured Tiffany glass. As the pale sun disappeared behind the clouds, the Professor pulled his collar tighter to his neck.

Captain Baker pretended not to notice.
excerpted from "The Bedlamite," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

"For many who work deeply with spiritual transformation, the goal may seem to be the healing of and freedom from past pain and suffering. When this goal appears to have been reached, there’s a tendency to believe that there will be no further difficult experiences. We think that because we’ve worked so hard, we’ve cleared it all out. Our life from that point will be idyllic and serene.

This is such a common experience of lulling ourselves into yet another type of unconsciousness. This sets us up for the shock of an even more challenging experience wherein the ego is again thrown into the fiery cauldron for further transformation. In alchemy, this is called the Putrefaction - Fermentation stage.

"Here, we again face the ego’s insistence on dominance, but there is an important difference in the quality, intensity, and source of the experience. Unlike the experience in the first stage of Calcination, where we were alone in our battle with the ego, this time we sense another force assisting us. Although the initial part of this fifth stage, Putrefaction, can be very disturbing, and we may be thrown into a pit of depression or despair, it feels like we are being held up, supported, even encouraged in the process."
Alchemy Journal Number 2, Volume 5 "The Alchemy in Spiritual Progress Part 5: Putrefaction" by Nanci Shanderá, Ph.D.

*****

But what does this mean to the writer? Let's look at this before we return to the story, because we are about to journey into the rareified air where writers and the world of spirit merge. Are you an atheist or an agnostic? No matter, I'm not talking religion. But, if you think that all there is to a writer is isolation, if you think that a writer is a mere bag of chemicals restrained by skin and with an organic computer for a brain, if you think that parsimonious economy trumps abundance and theme transcends hope, then there may not be much of interest to you from here forward.


If our hearts cannot feel the reassuring touch of spirit, we shall someday fall to self-manufactured neural networks that have no real need of poetry at all. To create a different world, where the spirit of mankind can outpace its technological assemblages, it is necessary to tap into the centers of our being. This is the true realm of the saintly and the mad- the writers, musicians, artists, and poets who fearfully descend into the darkness of their subconscious to find the pinpointed lights of starlight that float within their soul, and bring back the imageries of both to share with those of us too afraid to make the journey on our own.


In the laboratory of the human heart, as in any other laboratory, one distallation is not enough. To achieve the highest degree of purity, to become rectified, the process must be repeated over and again to remove the dross of our lives so that we may move forward free from impurities.


Consider, if you will, Walt Whitman's life work. After his initial ephiphany that produced the staggering yet slender first edition titled "The Leaves of Grass," he continued to spend his lifetime re-writing, expanding, and refining that great work. Yet, because he was fearful of facing those aspects of himself that had not been cleansed by his first illumination, the remaining editions (save, the third, which is, as even Malcom Cowley agrees, a masterwork), display the efforts of a craftsman, not a towering genius.



His initial succes, achieved by abandoning his ego, were supplanted by the return of his ego. Try as he might, he never again achieved the breadth of literary power that had called the praise-parsimonious Emerson to announce, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career..."



Even the great Whitman was afraid to attempt a second re-birth by journeying inward to face the blackest elements of himself. Calcination had been quite enough for him. Walt Whitman, the great American Poet of the Everyman, feared to face the Dragon of Putrefaction.



I once asked an elderly alchemist what I should do to become a great writer. "It is the same for anything creative," she said. "Abandon the craft and find yourself."



"That is a new-age platitude," I said. I was angry with what I thought to be her flippant response.



"I wish that were true," she said. "In truth, it is not hard to create compelling stories- if the writer stays out of the way."

Recent Anthologies

A Short Commercial Break

*****

"It was my Grandma that told me about them first. Stay away from the dark hollers where things smell bad, Skeeter; that’s where the haints hide and wait for little boys and wayward souls. There were plenty of dark hollers that smelled bad around Heber Springs, Arkansas, and trailers on sequestered hills where the county cops wouldn’t venture unless accompanied by the state police."

excerpted from "Haints," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Before I get to my next Dragon post, an editor friend of mine told me that it's a good to take a moment from time to time to let your readers know what you've sold recently and what you're working on. He's usually (okay, always) right about these things. But I'm only doing this in hopes that all of you will tell me what you're working on, too!! So I'll go first. Then you. Here's what I've had published recently and what I'm working on:

Anthologies

Cover of Darkness November 2008 includes "Haints."

Tales Out of Miskatonic University is just coming out and includes "A Horrified Mind."

Cover of Darkness 2009 (May Edition) includes "Counter Creatures."

Cover of Darkness 2009 (November Edition) includes "Ricci's Last Night."

Magazines- Fiction

I have three stories out for considerations at present:

"Hemingway's Chair" is out to The Strand Magazine

"Pillow Talk" is out to Brutarian

"Evil Eye" is out to Weird Tales

NonFiction Books

I'm currently halfway through a book on Practical Masonic Symbolism, and another on Reiki Empowerment.

Novels

Halfway through my werewolf novel and loving every minute of it.

I've also been re-writing five novels I wrote while I was learning to write. Kind of a penance. Three are done, two in progress. Wish me luck.

*****

Next Posting: The Dark Night of the Writer's Soul

Return of the Dragon Painter

The Dragon Vision

(photo courtesy of dragonlady7137)

She was like a shivering limp rag when the neighbor kid held her out to me.

“You knock too loud,” I told him. “How many times do I have to tell you not to knock too loud? It gives me headaches. I don’t like headaches.”

The kid held his ground, wincing as he pushed the white fur toward me just another inch.

“My mom says people need company,” he said.

“I don’t like company."

“She sneezes around cats or maybe she’d keep this one.”

“Who’d keep a dead cat?” I asked.

“It’s not dead yet.”

“It will be if you don’t feed it,” I said, and closed the door.

I turned away and was about two steps across the hardwood floor when I started talking to myself, telling myself I didn’t like kids and I didn’t like cats. My back hurt from sitting in front of the computer all day and my eyes were fuzzy from staring at the screen.

“I need some peace and quiet,” I said.

The kid was still there when I re-opened the door. His lips were pressed tight together and his eyes were squinted closed. He looked like he was praying hard.

“I don’t trust your mother,” I said, as I yanked the cat from him.

I don’t like being jacked around by women and I just plain hated living next door to Wiccans.

excerpted from "The Companion," by Ferrel D. Moore

*****

Over the last six months my life has been an incredibly interesting mixture of meditation, study, training, and writing. I've driven across the United States, Canada, and back again in my personal quest to spend time with my teachers. I've missed all of you who were so kind to stop by to read the first installments of "The Secret Dragons of Creative Writing," and hope to see you join me again as I conclude the series. In answer to where I've been, there is a recital in one of my arts that explains the journey:

I face my life

By beholding this day

I am one with Earth and Heaven.

Where fire purifies

and Water cleanses.

I am a tree in the wind

looking at the world.

I gather the best that I see.

I refine it to save what is good

and wash away what is not.

I am one with God.

I embrace the tiger,

and return to the mountain.

It is, as many of my friends might say, a very Zen answer. But it is very true. I have the greatest respect and fondness for my teachers, but my journey was not only about spending time with them, it was also about my quest to once more find my personal Earth and Heaven.

Was I retreating from this world, from an environment saturated with politics as drama, bickering, media bombardment, and information overload? In a word, no. I went to seek goodness in the world, and to explore the creative gift that we as writers can offer back to our readers. I was not looking for economy and theme or the secret of staging scenes or character development- they are still there in the Walmart of Writing and the books on them are endless in their lack of either economy or theme.

Although it is important for writers to read other writers and immerse themselves in the media of the day so that they can be current and "up with it," I wondered if it was not more important at a certain point in my life to listen to the world and consider my role in it. And, frankly, it is sometimes difficult to understand ourselves in between twitters and text messages. In our manic rush toward the cliff of total interconnectedness, we risk throwing our individuality headlong to its death on the rocks waiting below. So, like so many writers before me, I went away to think and consider.

One thing that prompted me was the realization that over the years I have studied with masters of many arts, but I realized I was not giving enough to any of them because my life was littered with too much unfinished business that caused me to trip when I tried to move forward. I chose to study, perhaps, too many arts, which further complicated resolution and mastery. My first teacher used to tell me that I should study no other arts. "In the end," he would say, "if you do that you will drift from art to art looking for perfection and learn nothing." Perfection, you see, demands devotion and practice, practice, practice. And focus above all else.

I have struggled with this my entire life. It is, I think, an affliction that is particularly crippling for writers, as we too frequently abandon the mist-wrapped path of our art for the clear highway and billboard plastered roads of a writing "career."

So, having been gifted with the vision of the Dragon of Condensed Starlight, I was at the crossroads that many writers find themselves. Having had some success, I could rest and remember or go forward. The way forward leads to the darkness and rebirth of the Dragons of Fermentation and Putrefaction. Neither dragon's name fills the writer with comfort.

The ability to see the quintessential goodness of the world and to be able truly understand the creative gifts that allow us to write with meaning to lift up the world around us come at a fearful cost. It is difficult for me to pass a season without remembering what it cost John Steinbeck to write "The Grapes of Wrath."

Shall we write to please only our ego or just to be published? Or can we truly write to make a difference in the world? I believe that we can create wonderful, even brilliant stories to astonish and entertain our readers if we have made it as far as the lovely Dragon of Condensed Starlight. But if we wish to do more than that, we must face the dreaded dragons known to all who aspire to greatness as the Dragons of Fermentation and Putrefaction.

If you doubt you have the stamina, simply come along for the story, and perhaps the courage to pursue this terrible confrontation will come to us both because we travel together.

The Dreaded Twin Dragons