Imaginary Friends

(Doo doo doo. Anyone else hearing CCR?) I love the sky. Whenever you step outside, it's half the world, and it's never the same from one day to the next, one hour to the next. And when it is, everyone gets depressed because it's usually due to fog, smog, or living someplace where it's constantly overcast. Why would anyone do that? Here in beautiful Cache Valley, if you don't like the sky, wait five minutes. (Okay, that's what they say about weather. It's sort of a joke. It's actually true about the sky.) Even on days when there's not a cloud in sight, you still get to watch night descending like a curtain in the west or rising in the east. I didn't notice this until I was in Australia and away from my mountains. The flat land and clear air made it easy to see the shadow of the horizon on the sky, but it happens here as well. The sky is a canvas on which God paints an ever-changing mural to reach through our eyes and into our hearts. Do you

I printed out a copy of my manuscript and marked it up while reading it aloud. This morning I moved most of those changes to the computer. I'll finish up tonight or tomorrow, and then there's another change I'm thinking about making. And then I'll be done. And then I start looking for someone who can sell it to a publisher for me. I am both eager and reluctant to begin this process. Someone should invent a machine for it. Writers could slide their pretty manuscripts into a slot, and in three seconds the machine would spit it back out along with a slip of paper like an ATM receipt. It would have the name of the very best agent for you or it would say, "Sorry, please try again." No waiting. No wondering. No shadowy doubts lurking backstage. But that's impossible, soforgetIevenmentionedit. I love waiting! It's the wondering I don't like.

Today, I give you another photograph! Hooray! This particular photo, you may notice, is the background of this very blog! Why? Because it reminds me of DRIVERS. It looks like the sky was torn wide open and is bleeding. There's a distant clear like freedom, but you don't know if the clouds are withdrawing or moving in. There's darkness everywhere but that narrow strip, and that's where you want to be. (And the mountains nicely complement the clouds.) I shot this one from my back porch with a 5 megapixel Nikon Coolpix. That camera's really showing its age, but has always taken good photos. My wife has grabbed lots of amazing pictures of the kids with it even though the shutter lag is terrible. For awhile, I had a logo that I threw together in Illustrator on top of it. Anyone remember this? I wanted it to look like flames, kind of. And the font is meant to look like old machine-readable type, appropriate for a book with robots in it. And the crosshairs,

Occasionally, we here at the Imaginary Friends blog get the chance to interview an author. Some of you may remember the previous interviews. Both of them. If so, please be assured that this interview is NOTHING LIKE the previous interviews. Okay, so it's actually pretty similar, but there's one big difference:  This time, we have a REAL AUTHOR! Jolene's Book Jolene B. Perry is the author of uncounted millions of books, one of which will be available in PRINT on October 8th. It's called The Next Door Boys .  Jolene also has a fabulous blog . (But don't go there yet! You might not come back!) She lives in Wasilla, ALASKA, which pretty much proves that she's crazy. And if that's not proof enough, on to the interview! First, Jolene, what would you like me to call you in the interview to mark where your answers start? I could use your initials, JP or JBP; your name, Jolene or Jo or even Joe, just to confuse people; or something completely arbitra

I had an unusual weekend. Heck, it wasn't just unusual, it was unique. Completely. Ohhhh, and it would take too long to tell about it and I'm not sure I should, so I won't. Okay, so I will. Sort of. Skipping the details. I helped take the Boy Scouts on a fifty mile bike ride. (They made it, which is really impressive for twelve and thirteen-year-olds on mountain bikes.) Along the way, we were asked to help in the search for a missing person. And then we found her. Cool, eh? Yeah, I left out most of the story. I'm responsible, at least partly, for the spiritual education of those boys. Two weeks ago, I taught them a lesson in church about showing respect for women and girls. I didn't mince words. I told them the girls they knew at school were more likely than them to deal with eating disorders and depression and that they could have a huge impact for positive or negative on those girls. I even told them girls were more likely to attempt suicide. That wasn&#

I had a life-changing realization early this morning. The exact moment of my paradigm shift is hard to pin down exactly. It gradually came to light as I drifted from sleep into consciousness, and the more alert I became, the more urgent and important this thought seemed to me. You know how in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz , Elmira Gulch comes to Dorothy's house to collect Toto and take him away to be put down. And Dorothy's all freaking out and everyone's mad at Ms. Gulch. A Victim of Animal Cruelty Well, the dumb mutt deserved it for biting a cyclist! That's my life-changing realization, and I'm going to make it my mission to vindicate Elmira Gulch. All these years, we've all been on Dorothy and Toto's side. In reality, Ms. Gulch was the good guy. She was the victim, standing up for her right to live in safety, and we've vilified her for it! Put Toto down! That's what I say. Of course, by the time I got in the shower it did

This is supposed to be a writing blog, so why am I posting photos? Because sometimes they just fit with what I'm writing. My novel In Memory has an ensemble cast of characters. (Its reincarnation will split them up into smaller groups, giving each their own entire novel, but that's another story. Pun intended.) Awhile ago, I got an urge to give my blog an In Memory- themed background and pasted silhouettes representing each character onto a photo I had. (Some of you will remember that background.)  Here's the original photo, which I took from the roof of the Doncaster Shopping Centre in suburban Melbourne, Australia in late 2000. It was shot on 35mm film, 200 or 400 ISO. The camera was a compact Pentax with auto focus and exposure. The scan was made from the negative. It's a pretty typical Australian sunset. And here's the wallpapered version made with stock-photo silhouettes: The feel of the sunset was exactly right for the book. The suburb

Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, normal people get locked in a box called depression. The reasons vary. Maybe it's a negative pattern of thinking, stumbled onto or learned from someone else. Unrealistic expectations is a common one. There are physiological reasons, too. Illness. Grief. Things that should go away but don't. Frequently, there doesn't appear to be any reason at all, even to the person in the box. All they know is that they're in their own private hell and there's no way out. Some other people get mugged and stuffed into the box. Once inside, they can easily forget how they got there. They frequently blame themselves, even when it's obvious to everyone on the outside that it was the muggers' fault. It's a personal hell decorated with memories. The boxes are about the same for both groups. Once a person has spent enough time isolated in the dark box, their eyes adjust. Not completely, just enough to read the sign over the most visi