meaning of life | CW Hawes

Making Life Pleasant

“I wish… to thank you for your share in making life pleasant for me.” —from a letter, by a reader, to William Wallace Cook

In this little world, so crowded with sorrow and tragedy, what is it worth to have had a share in making life pleasant for a stranger?

—William Wallace Cook, in The Fiction Factory

William Wallace Cook, due to his prolificity, was called “The Man Who Deforested Canada”. Unfortunately for us, and I suppose him, his popularity with the reading public seemingly died when he did in 1933.

A search of the internet yielded no complete bibliography, nor even much of a biography. It seems none of his books are in print. And virtually none have been digitized. I suppose the lack of bibliography is due in part to the many pen names he used, and to a very large portion of his work being published under house names, and a considerable portion of his writing for the 5¢ and10¢ libraries of the day not being credited at all!

Would his present anonymity have bothered Cook? I’m sure I can’t answer that question. However, in his autobiographical The Fiction Factory (published under a pen name!), Cook does not seem to have had an eye to the future. He knew very well he was writing “disposable” fiction. He was not writing the great American novel — he was writing fiction to make a buck to pay the rent and put food on the table. He was an entertainer, much like TV scriptwriters today, and he seemed fine with that.

Then there are the quotes above.

While it’s clear Cook wrote hundreds of novels and stories for money, he was not averse to the writer’s higher calling: making life pleasant for the reader.

If he could, by his typewriter, help to alleviate someone’s sorrow, that was worth more to him then the check he got from the publisher.

I was a prolific poet: writing something over 2000 poems in the space of about 10 years, and seeing several hundred of them in physical and virtual print.

As I’ve said before, there’s no money in poetry. One must seek satisfaction in something other than the almighty dollar. For me, it was hearing from a reader how much one of my poems touched him or her.

Quite honestly, 99% of us will be forgotten by the time our peers and our children are dead. And some of us a lot sooner than that!

What matters most in life is how we touch others. We can be a vehicle of positive energy or one of negative energy.

As a writer, I can crank out books to make a buck — or I can seek to step a bit higher and hopefully make life pleasant for someone. The choice is mine.

I like money. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t writing in the hopes of making money. However, at the end of the day, I’d rather touch someone, inspire someone, or make life pleasant for someone than bring home shopping carts full of money.

There’s nothing wrong with money. After all we do need it to live. If suddenly my sales took off, I’d be jumping for joy. And I wouldn’t give the money back. But if no one ever told me one of my books made life pleasant for him or her, I would be very sad. Very sad indeed. For though rich, truly I’d be poor.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Still More Suggested Reads

This is my fourth list of suggested books and authors with which you can while away those lazy summer days, or hunker down and wait out inclement winter weather if you’re south of the equator.

Banana Sandwich by Steve Bargdill

Actually anything by Mr Bargdill is well worth your money and your time. For example, here is a story that is a superb example of show, don’t tell: http://www.tingemagazine.org/left-with-the-moon/

In Banana Sandwich, Carol is mentally ill. After a stint of being off her meds, she decides to start taking them again and get better. And then the world goes crazy on her.

This is a masterful novel. It’s funny. It’s sad. It’s dark. One of the best works of contemporary literary fiction out there.

Don’t miss this one. I own all of Bargdill’s published work. He is one awesome writer. Incredibly awesome.

Hotel Obscure by Lisette Brodey

This book is billed as a collection of short stories. Nix that. I mean they are, technically speaking, short stories. However, Ms Brodey has written the stories around a theme and they are to be read in the order they appear in the book. So to my way of thinking, Hotel Obscure is something of an episodic novel rather than just a short story collection.

Having worked in public assistance, I could easily relate to the characters in this book, because only the down and out go to the Hotel Obscure.

The book, however, lives on a much grander scale. Because it is about people, and living, and dying, and the meaning of life.

Hotel Obscure is a fabulous book. I highly recommend it.

Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations by CW Hawes

Hey! Wait a minute! I know that guy! Okay, maybe I’m cheating, but this is my blog and I want to do a little promo for the Pierce Mostyn series and the new Mostyn adventure that is coming out at the end of this month.

I’ve been very pleased with the good things that have been said about the Pierce Mostyn books.

Here’s an excerpt from a review of Nightmare in Agate Bay:

CW Hawes, author of the fantastic “Rocheport Saga”, has done it again putting together a well-crafted story that slowly builds in tension. Trust me, you won’t want to put it down! Hawes has managed to capture that Lovecraftian atmosphere that so many get wrong, superbly managing to weave a contemporary thread to the shadowed tapestry of the past. Bravo indeed!

Now if comments like that don’t warm an author’s heart, nothing will.

I serialized the working draft of The Medusa Ritual, the fifth book in the Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations series, on this blog and if you read the blog installments, thank you!

If you decided to wait for the book to come out, good for you. Because good things come to those who wait.

I got good feedback on the book and all those improvements will be in the book version. So even if you read the serial — the book will be even better.

Keep your eyes peeled. Watch this blog, my Facebook page, and my Twitter account for the publication announcement.

Or better yet, sign up for my VIP Readers list. You’ll be the first to know, get exclusive offers, and you’ll get “The Feeder” which is a Pierce Mostyn novelette exclusively for my VIP Readers.

Here is another review excerpt, this one for Terror in the Shadows:

Terror in the Shadows, the third book in the adventures of Pierce Mostyn and the Office of Unidentified Phenomena, picks up where Stairway to Hell left off. …to investigate strange sightings and attacks in a rural countryside. The investigation leads Mostyn’s team to an abandoned mansion, where things quickly go from bad to worse as a certain family history turns out to have gone downhill… if not down the gene pool.

Terror returns to territory Hawes traveled with Nightmare in Agate Bay, where he explores HP Lovecraft stories in a more modern setting. In this case, Hawes plays homage to Lovecraft’s “The Lurking Fear” (there’s a brief reference to the title in the first chapter – don’t miss it!). The idea of “regression” is well explored in the storyline, and is well explained in contrast to evolution. The climax of the story is especially exciting, like a strange cross between Lovecraft’s original narrative and the climax of the original Assault on Precinct 13.

If you haven’t read the Pierce Mostyn series, you can check it out on Amazon. But remember: there be monsters here!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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A Bump In The Night

Good Books You Probably Never Heard Of – Part 9

A Bump in the Night by Crispian Thurlborn
https://amzn.to/2KBx666

We think life can be difficult. But being dead has its own problems.

Mr Snaggle and Mr Snuffle, those Arbitrators of the Quick and the Dead, have a new problem on their hands: their good friend, Mr Bump (that fellow who ferries folks across the river to the realm of the dead), is fading. Fading from being a ghost to being truly dead. And if Mr Bump goes, who’s going to do the ferrying?

This is a ginormous problem and Mr Snaggle and Mr Snuffle are doing their darnedest to help their friend. Seemingly, though, without success. That is, until little Penny shows up.

Crispian Thurlborn’s A Bump in the Night is a ghost story. It’s an urban fantasy tale. It’s a literary think about the meaning of life — and death. It’s a book that is at once humorous and serious.

In a style that would make Dickens envious, Thurlborn tells us a story we won’t soon forget. The tale lingers there on the edge of your mind, just like… Well, just like a ghost.

And while A Bump in the Night isn’t a Christmas story, it does have ghosts and the themes in the book go very well with “peace on earth, goodwill towards men”.

Crispian Thurlborn is one of my favorite authors. If you haven’t read anything by him, let me say his writing is on par with that of the best writers writing today.

Do yourself a favor and get a copy of A Bump in the Night. You won’t be sorry, and you may just find yourself putting the book in your pile to read again.

Comments are always welcome; and, until next time, happy reading!

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