Creative Writing: It's Team Work

As a published author, I thought I was a literary island unto myself. I found out this week that, not only am I a member of a publishing house with all the support from the publisher, the editor and formatter, I am a member of a team of authors with a desire to work together to help each other succeed as well. How great is that?

The Diamond Trade: Great Rewards Attract Dangerous Risk

GREAT REWARDS 

ATTRACT DANGEROUS RISK

Gil Devos with his wife, Nina. His daughter, my friends and I hosted Gill at Lake Keystone in Odessa, Fl recently to work on the book and play in the lake.

The life and times of Gil Devos is chronicled in my next book, A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH. The book will be released in June from Mountain Springs House publishing. The story is about a man from Brussels, Belgium who walks into an Antwerp diamond district merchant’s office and lands a job because he did not know a thing about diamonds.  

Gil had trained to be a mercenary and worked out for months with Claude Goetz, the karate instructor who taught Jean Claude VanDamme. In fact, after quitting a job as an advertising agent prior to that, Gil became a beer distributor in the jungle of Central Africa. Gil probably would have been fighting some tribal lord’s personal war in another remote country had he not accepted the beer distribution job.

This is not the story of a rich kid that goes to college and becomes a success just to please his father. Gil didn’t know his parents very well. A loving grandmother raised him. He struggled to find good jobs. His good looks and “street smart” ways led him to eventually become one of the premier diamond buyers in the business. The merchants of Antwerp taught him well. He learned the craft and the dangerous business of buying rough diamonds from the people who actually flushed the stones out of the mud, rocks and rivers of South America and Central Africa. He made millions for himself and billions for his sponsoring employers in Antwerp.

The unsavory and dangerous part of the diamond business also cost many lives, as great risk always does. It ruins careers and governments as well. Diamonds have also cost Gil well over two million dollars to learn who to trust, and who not to trust.

The book is in the hands of Lee Porche, my very capable and demanding editor. After the manuscript was finished, my friend, retired bush buyer Gil Devos took off on another risky adventure to Sierra Leone, Africa. At 78 years old, he is not much of a trained mercenary anymore. But the lure of an eighteen million dollar potential diamond buy has once again dragged him out of retirement. It could be big. It could be a waste of time. It could be deadly. I can’t wait t see how this adventure unfolds.

Have Your Ever Seen Water Dance?

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN WATER DANCE?

Once upon a time, in Berlin, Germany there was a man named Otto who, in 1939, put a musical water fountain together on a stage, and with a series of pumps, levers, electrical switches and bright lights, created the first “Waltzing Waters.”

Today, in Cape Coral, Florida, Otto’s grandson is doing the same thing. Michael Przystawik grew up in the musical fountain entertainment business. His father, Gunther, and Otto before him created the first and most sophisticated musical, lighted fountains that danced, swirled and swayed to Broadway Show Tunes. Michael has made technical improvements that have brought the fountains into the modern world of jazz, rock and contemporary music. His fountains, some of them over 150 feet wide and sending colorful plumes of water nearly 100 feet in the air to perfectly timed music are now located in many cities and parks around the world.

I recently wrote a book called Dying Dreams. It is a fictional story of a man who dies and enters the “spirit world.” When his children honor his memory by building a park and having Michael install the latest edition of a Waltzing Waters musical fountain, the spirit of their deceased father crosses the mist of the waters as a “portal” to communicate with his mortal family.

For the past forty years I have been associated with Michael’s father, and now Michael, where I have had the opportunity to see his shows hundreds of times. I have heard the comments that have come from the audiences who witness the shows. Many people have been mesmerized and transfixed on the beauty and tranquility they experience while watching something as simple as water “dancing,” and reflect on how they wish their departed loved ones would have liked to see that, and even imagine their faces appearing in the fading mist.

And now, as the future of one of America’s minor entertainment treasures contemplates the future, a possible opportunity exists for the “Water that Dances.” Last week, on April 12, the Waltzing Waters showcased the Hall of Fame induction for the USA Water Ski Foundation held at The Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida. Thanks to the generosity of Kermit Weeks, owner of Fantasy of Flight who hosted the occasion alluding to the possibility that the Waltzing Waters may figure into the plan for something huge, something on a grand scale that he is planning for the property he owns at exit 44 along the Interstate 4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando.

Good things take time and great things take even more time. But, let us hope that some of Kermit’s plans materialize in my lifetime so that I don’t have to be watching the progress through the mist of Waltzing Waters. I love it when a plan comes together.

Welcome to my new blog!

Have you ever wanted to know what it is like to experience flying and airplane, landing on water?  Have you ever tried water skiing and wondered what it would be like to ski without any skis at all? Have you lived an interesting and fulfilling life and wanted to try your hand about writing a book based on your experiences?

Well then, I have some wonderful stories to share and some even more wonderful people I want you to meet through my regular blogs that my publisher, Mountain Springs House Publishing has made it possible for me to do. I’ll be a regular on this site on Tuesdays and Thursdays from now on.

Allow me to share some verbal “snapshots” of what you can expect from me in the blogs to come:

I was a scholarship athlete at Miami University, the famous university in Ohio. I thought lettering in a few sports was enough to keep me in school. I learned the hard way that they expected you to be able to read too. That is something I learned to eventually accomplish by the time I was nineteen, thanks to a demanding wrestling coach.

And then, there were the years in the water ski shows at Cypress Gardens where I performed daily, rubbed elbows with a lot of TV personalities, participated in several national television shows live, a couple of films and even an Esther Williams Special.

Real life beyond sports was an eye-opener for me. I taught school, later became and insurance adjuster with a nationally recognized company and moved back to Florida, where I once again, found myself in the tourist attraction business.

And now, at almost 77 years of age, I am still living the dream and telling the stories. Earning a Masters Degree in Fine Arts – Creative Writing that made it possible to tell the stories well. There are dark clouds and bright lights in all the stories just as in the real world. And just wait!  I’ll be talking about who the characters in my book are, and who the real people they represent really are. Some of them you may already know.