And So the Maze Begins...

One of my favorite parts.

The beginning of a new story. That time of tilling the ground and planting seeds. The wind pushing characters this way and that. An arc coming together.

The truth is, halfway through writing this thing I'll be swinging a hammer at the keyboard and sobbing into lukewarm coffee because I'll be lost and frustrated. It's like giving birth. Without the blood and tearing. But everything else.

I just finished the rough draft of Ronin: The Last Reindeer. That needs to simmer a few months before I polish it one last time. In the meantime, it's back to the notebook to start a new story.

Maze: The Essence of Sunny Grimm (Book 2)

So this is a sequel to The Waking of Grey Grimm. 

There's an upside to writing a sequel. There are already pieces to pick up. This is how I start. Write all the character names and what happened. Start scribbling possible story arcs in one line sound bytes. Circle the ones that have heat. Come up with possible twists. Mix in a pot and stir.

With no deadline, I like this. I come up with some ideas and sleep on it. That's where the creative knots get worked out, in the twilight of dreams. It's been been a couple of weeks  now and I haven't typed a single character, but I've sketched out the following.

It's twenty years since book 1. The Maze is now legal. Freddy (the detective in book 1) has become an agent with a special skill set. He can sense when he's in the Maze, can taste the essence of another reality. When he runs into an unusual case, he begins to follow clues that lead him back to an incident that happened twenty years earlier--the Grimm case. This will lead him a worldwide conspiracy and begin to reveal the true nature of the Maze, how it's absorbing this reality to make a new one. The only thing that's keeping that from happening is the essence of Sunny Grimm. But that might come to an end.

Or something like that.

I'm still a little ways away from hitting keys. Once I do, this could all come together over night. Or fall apart. I was 10,000 words into Foreverland is Dead when I started over. That's the agony and the challenge, to see if I can pull this together and come up with a story that's compelling and unpredictable. No matter how painful, I keep coming back for more.

Same way people have more than one baby.

Visit the Maze!

Ronin: The Last Reindeer Cover Feedback

So the sixth book in the Claus Universe is nearing the finish.

I'm way out ahead this year, like six months. The release is scheduled for November 1, 2018. I'll be requesting ARC readers probably in October, but for now I went ahead and got the cover ready. The artist really dialed in on what I requested, but I want your feedback before I moved forward. Take a look and comment. You like?

Any feedback would be fantastic. Tell me what you'd like to see added or taken away or changed. This is your chance to shape this project.

Claus fans, comment below!

Drayton is Loose.

Today is day.

Drayton is loose.

Get your copy

http://bertauski.com/drayton

Kissing the Sky

Dope.

That's what I called weed the other day and a twenty-something thought it was hilarious. Heroin is dope. Weed is just weed.

She had a point. It's remarkable that weed is still federally illegal. It's also pretty amazing it's legal in ten states. How the hell is fentanyl still legal? Shit is killing people and a plant growing in ground is illegal?

What the hell.

I chat up the legalization of weed often. I don't even use and I'm out there making the argument that if it was legal we'd all be growing it. You can't grow fentanyl in the backyard. That might have something to do with it.

My plans are to give weed another roll when I turn 60. I don't use it now because it never did me much good in college. I just got super paranoid. The last time I pissed my pants. Which is a pretty good reason.

I know enough users that have experienced very positive results from weed, psychologically and physically. And now there are some interest results coming from psychedelics, in particular mushrooms and LSD. Michael Pollan just wrote about using them to treat things such as PTSD, depression and end of life transition.

Pollan is better known for writing about food and ecology so this is a sharp turn. I recently heard him on Rogan's podcast discussing the scientific approach on their meaningful and lasting effects as well as expanding our understanding of consciousness. You might think these substances light up brain activity but it actually has the opposite effect. Pollan suggested they actually suppressed brain activity, in particular where ego activity is located, sometimes resulting in the experience of omnipresent supergalactic oneness.

Someone described it's lasting effects like this: the mind is a snowy slope and our thoughts are stones rolling down it. Over time, groves develop and thoughts tend to fall these tracks. Habits develop and addictions result. A positive trip wipes the slope clean with a fresh layer of snow.

I like that analogy, but if you think I'm game, I'm not. I'm so intrigued and so wish I could, but I can't even handle weed. Keep in mind, Pollan points out these are guided trips where someone is there to talk the user through the experience. It's not for those with unstable personalities or psychological disorders. I still have a hard time peeing in public restrooms.

I'll stick with meditation for now.

But this could be the beginning of some real treatments regarding mental health. In my twenties, I found my way through depression via meditation and therapy. It was hard work and a lot time, but that route was possible, at least it was for me. If there are safe methods to significantly heal the mind, they should be explored. A hundred years from now, humanity might be astounded we just suffered through mental disease in the same way we look at our ancestors suffering through a toothache or a broken bone, things that are easily cured today.

It's not hard to imagine our ancestors stumbling onto psychedelics. They saw God. Or a dinosaur.