“If you seek a beautiful peninsula, look about you.” That’s
the state motto of Michigan, and I caught it all last month in an odyssey that
took me east across the timbered tracts of the UP (Yup I’m a Yupe now), south
across the undulating steel of the Mackinac Bridge, west to the tiered elegance
of Harbor Springs, south again to K-K-K-K-Kalamazoo – and I lost track
zigzagging after that before returning to mothership Minnesota. But I remember
a secluded beach, red sails in the sunset, a wonderfully misplaced rainforest, haunting
music adrift at twilight, sun-spangled air redolent with wildflowers, the cloying
aroma of hot fudge…and, most of all, people. It’s been a wonderfully busy
summer with magic as here-and-gone as the breath of a lime in a frosted glass
of nectar you’ve quaffed too quickly. Wish I’d saved a sip to share.
Love to wake up to the music of my mailbox downloading
lyrical names – a Shana, a Sheena, a Shane and a Sean. And this month my email has been humming with
melodies, much of it involving PANDORA, a box-set of 20 novels that includes
THE WATER WOLF – my tale of an adventurer who travels from an Inca fortress to
the Pyramids of Giza to an enchanted churchyard in Connemara, Ireland, where he
falls in love with a woman of, shall we say, more than mortal roots. At $.99, and available for only 30 days
before leaving the market forever, the box-set PANDORA has become a sensation,
hitting Amazon’s Kindle Best-Seller list in two days – this after a very
aggressive preorder sale that reached #1 or near it across all formats. The idea wasn’t to make money (though,
money’s good too) but rather to expand readership, which it is certainly doing
for 20 widely-ranged and celebrated authors of what is loosely called the
paranormal. We’re halfway through the PANDORA
sale, so if you want this library in a box for a mere $.99, the homepage of my
website has links for all formats: http://thomassullivanauthor.com/index.html
Not sure why the 20 ladies of paranormals invited me to
throw in with PANDORA, but I like to think that the character relationships in
my novels and the compelling relationship threads you sponsor here,
particularly in Q&A, have expanded that brand for me. Whether it’s
psychology, philosophy, romantic idealism or just the penetrating insights you feed
me, your emails and the audience are growing exponentially. And I’m impressed
at the long memory of some of my readers. Wish I could answer your emails at
greater length. “What was the love of your life like?” someone asked this month,
and I merely wrote back, “She was a sunflower in the night.” But I could have
added that the past tense really doesn’t exist for me. It is simply a
cumulative part of the present. Affirmations are survival, but growth comes when you
recognize and separate affirmations from explorations.
Driving a long trip like I just did may
not be as fast as flying, but the difference is like savoring a meal rather
than popping nutrients in a vitamin pill. Slow-Mo scenery postures for your
perusal from a car and the sky composes masterpieces in an IMAX field-of-view
rather than through a hole in a flying can full of stale air shared with 200
strangers. 200 strangers trying to be zombies, actually – buried in laptops,
ear-muffed in music, or meditating while levitating…
I can see how meditation works in many ways – why people
like it, need it – but for me it’s a waste of time. I like to think. I mean I
love to think all the time – it excites me and fills me with energy! Don’t want my radar to go blank for even a
minute. Anything that gives me time for
uninterrupted thought, like exercising in nature or sitting in a hot bath, is
just gangbusters for letting the hyper gray cells in my thin paper skull run
ramble-scramble. I even think about
thinking, planning ahead for those solitary moments when I can focus on a theme
or a person or an idea. I must have spent years cumulatively thinking about she-who-is-always-new-and-exclusive-in-my-life,
ditto connecting the dots of human motivation.
Like applying for precious observatory time to watch stars through a
humongous telescope, thoughts have to apply for this quality time in my head. If a thought doesn’t show potential for
revealing something hidden or reaching a profound truth, it doesn’t make the
cut. Can’t imagine shutting down all
that limited time just to watch grass grow or paint dry. Ohmmmm.
Maybe meditation is a break from thinking, if you need to be refocused,
but for me it’s like practicing death.
CATCH A FALLING STAR, ONE FOOT IN ATLANTIS and PANDORA. That’s the title of my August Q&A
column over on SU. Here’s the link http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2014/08/15/thomas-sullivan-catch-a-falling-star-one-foot-in-atlantis-and-pandora/
Mea culpa! Promised someone on FB I’d take
lots of pics on the trip but got so much into the moment that I missed most of
the…um, moments. Below are a few from my cell phone: #1-8 various shots of
Seamus, Colleen and moi. Also Chyna
the horse (hope you get that one right). #9-11 one of my dearest friends going
back a lifetime ago. Ralph Garcia and I have had sooo-o many adventures! He’s
an incredible person, and I was delighted to meet his soon-to-be-wife Cathy and
stay with them in their spectacular mountain-top house in the resort area of
Harbor Springs. That’s Boyne Highlands you see in the distance and Nub’s Knob
is also visible from one of their decks. #12 one of the many empty beaches on
the north shore of Lake Michigan in the UP where I stopped to baptize myself.
Thomas "Sully" Sullivan
You can see all my books in any format here on my webpage or follow me on Facebook: http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com
