Category: Writing & Publishing
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Welp… it’s official. April 30th is the first book anniversary of Some THING Lives in the Attic!, published on April 30th, 2024! This wild picture book tale is all about the possible monstrous dangers lurking up in one’s attic, and includes an investigation of all those spooky sounds you hear as up there they go “bump” in the night. Written by, you could say, a close personal friend of mine, Mr. B.H. Belfry, the book also showcases the fantastical, whimsical, and spooky illustrations/paintings of artist and long-time friend, Gail Marie Kern. Highly recommended for any child, parent, librarian, or school teacher close to you who you’d like to highlight it for imagination and adventure. And if that counts for you too… then all the better!
You can currently find the book for a discounted rate on Amazon, or full price on Barnes & Noble online. Check out the links below for more info. All five star reviews!
You can purchase it with the links below! Thank you!
Amazon.com: Some THING Lives in the Attic!: 9781662885648: Belfry, B H, Kern, Gail Marie: Books
Some THING Lives in the Attic! by B H Belfry, Gail Marie Kern, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®
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I fell off the posting bandwagon for a bit, but I’ve been writing the whole time, so hey, it all works out! Let me get this thing rolling again with a poem I performed a little bit ago for Orlando’s Loose Lips, which is a monthly reading series downtown. The theme is always news related writing, so I did a short piece on the news itself, which has been, as you are I’m sure well aware… painful, to say the least.
Don’t Click
My Macbook screen stares me down.
If you stare into the abyss of your computer, it will stare back into you.
It beckons my eye to look, directing me in like a lighthouse beacon.
The date and time bar in the upper right corner hold secrets… terrible secrets.
It says, “Click here and you will possess knowledge. You will gain power.”
My computer tells me this about every twenty to twenty-five minutes.
And, like Pavlov’s dog, I salivate,
Not wanting to wait for my reward.
So I steer my cursor up to the corner,
And instead of bells, I hear the hungry click of the mouse,
And know the reward is coming. The drug. The dopamine rush in my brain sighs,
And says, “Yes!”
The click tricks me again.
The screen changes, and where there had been an innocuous date and timestamp,
Is replaced by the heading newsfeed “Top Stories.”
The thing about “Top Stories” is that they’ll always leave you
At the bottom.
When the world demands blood,
When the feed lusts for 24/7 sacrificial coverage,
There is no room for sleep. For quiet.
There is no space for peace falling and
landing like feathers on your shoulders.
The headlines and stories will not make you feel good.
The dopamine fix that cries out,
“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” does not care
That you will be left under the covers,
Hiding from bad politician boogeymen, natural disasters, and clean, crisp, suit-wearing mass murderers.
Manic, searching, and crying out for stories about kittens and puppy-dog heroes
who pull grandma and grandpa from burning houses.
Give us a newsfeed filled with “Mom Saves Toddler” or “Toddler Saves Mom.”
Give us pie-eating festivals and stories about old people sewing quilts for children in hospitals.
Give us something else than this unrelenting Masochism of Clicks.
Give us anything else.
Hiding from dying and convict politician boogeymen, pathological liars and crisp, cold suit-wearing mass murderers.
Give us a newsfeed filled with “Mom Saves Toddler” or “Toddler Saves Baby.”
Give us pie-eating festivals and stories about old widows sewing quilts for charities and homeless shelters.
Give us something other than this unrelenting Masochism March of Clicks.
Give us something else to make our mouths water.
Give us anything but this. -
Another poem from the vault, written in spring of 2017, shortly before Nala was born.
“Cities of the Sky”
Some days the cities of the sky
look like small islands or rocks in a riverbed.
The water rushes past to meet new places and people.
Some days, they stretch on
into a disappearing horizon,
with an older sun passing
and a new one rising.
They sit in the mist,
distant ghost kingdoms,
fading from sight
like a car speeding to its crash.
Blurred as the words and syllables
of an unfamiliar language
in our ears.
And maybe we are burrowed animals
living underneath these countries of clouds.
The farms spread in endless drifts
of silver and white smoke,
farther than the forests
of our younger days.
Maybe these dirt roads are nothing
more than lonely subways
traveling to a city in the sky.
Our own homes nothing
more than underground towns
and new Atlantises, one day
to be discovered
by those left behind
to pick up the trail’s breadcrumbs.
As those who move on,
plumb the depths
of their increasing altitude
in cool air and cotton carpet.
With feet as light as light itself.
Never again promised or anchored
to the silence of the soil. -
I’ve been thinking of sunflowers a lot since my dad’s passing in November 2024. He was a farmer most of his life and one of his crops of choice was sunflowers. In honor, this is one from the vault, written somewhere around 2014 or 2015.
“As Tall as Sunflowers”
In a faded Polaroid with a handwritten scrawl that reads “Summer of 1980-Something,”
there is a blurred image of a sunflower field, yellowing canary yellow like cowards,
green stalks growing stubble, five-o-clock shadow.
A shield of trees barricades a farm in the background.
A cloudless sky frames the top half.
Thousands of miniature suns bud from black summer dirt.
A little boy stands beneath the suns, in knee-high ditch grass.
Too short to reach up and pull
out the suns’ seeds with sticky, candied fingers.
Too young to taste the rewards of being fully grown.
Next to him, all these pretty ladies stand in their cultivated rows,
heads glowing gold, auburn, and brown under the sun,
waiting for the harvest.
Smiles fall like broken stalks to the soil at their bare feet.
They wish for nothing more than to see their children
grow as tall as sunflowers,
but please, oh please, don’t ripen too fast.
They want strong stalks,
no browning leaves,
no damaged seeds.
No harmful pesticides to counter growth.
Who will he be
when tall enough to reach their heads?
Will he still want to touch their faces,
and consume the creation they hold,
allowing acres to go fallow or dry up in drought,
wither in reddening sun,
all for the fleeting pleasure
of holding a few seconds of their salt on his tongue?
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Well, a new year is once again upon us. And a long-time resolution of mine has been to actually attempt to do more with this so-called website of mine. So, in the interest of new words, new writing, new ideas, (and hopefully not new resolutions that only last about two weeks then quickly fade into obscurity) this is my first post in way too long. And second post altogether!
We’ve reached the final day of 2024, and addition to publishing a picture book titled “Some THING Lives in the Attic!” (under pseudonym B.H. Belfry) I am in the final act and getting closer to wrapping up a first draft, albeit a messy one, of a new fantasy middle grade children’s novel! Though I didn’t do any of the old NaNoWriMo business this November, I’m ending 2024 with a pretty decent word count on this novel. Funny thing is, I couldn’t wait and already drafted about 20 pages or so of the next book too, which I’m really excited about as it’s unfolded in my head. And I still have to shop around the manuscript for my prior MG contemporary fantasy more as well in the coming year (of which I have to choose between two completely different versions due to some agent/editor suggestions). I hope to make 2025 an even better year for writing. God knows, I’ll need it as I imagine some of the possible future news headlines.
Anyway, here’s to getting close to wrapping a new first draft as I wrap up 2024. Wishing all of my fellow writers out there, and all other visitors, a fruitful year ahead. More to come!
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The morning’s first page is not meant to be the last anything.
It isn’t there to wrap up a plot like ribbons and bows on a birthday present.
Loose ends need not be snipped off with a shiny pair of scissors – then tied up all neat, crisp and clean.
No mysteries are yet ready to be solved.
No questions and conflicts resolved within a final burst of climactic ink.
No death-march dirge in the click-clack of keys beneath frenetic, fired fingertips.
No.
The first page needs none of these things.
It asks only for love.
A commitment that you will be there for its next generation of pages:
New kids of college-rule to capture fresh words and the meaning behind why they’re all strung together to form
something bigger than themselves.
The first page demands your promise to keep pages turning
when the going gets tough, as it does in every story,
A faithfulness not to run off and find yourself an easier first page,
one who does not ask so much.
The first page wants you to stay and fill its emptiness,
leave its margins marked up and its corners bent.
It invites you to inhabit its roomy house and live there
long enough to fall in love again.
The first page dreams of the day you lay your head down at night,
and whisper “Good morning. I missed you,” when you wake.
Author Bret Hoveskeland 