Corutesy Arrest Warrant

I consider myself a "dangerous mind" because I live smack in the middle of the ghetto of my city and do things like read arrest records and search public records indexes and get the "scoop" on people. Don't worrry, I don't do it unless I am asked to investigate someone or I just do random searches of family members names to see how many identical names are in trouble with the law. Crazy hobby, I know. It passes the time. Better than porn, right?

I stumbled upon a new data base this morning and something made me wonder. 

What in the heck is a "courtesy arrest warrant?" 

I should have looked at the charge and it would have made it all crystal clear. However, I was looking for something in particular and was not interested in the charge for a "courtesy arrest warrant" at the time. However, in a list of 7500+ records, I continued to see this over, and over again. I turned to one of my co workers and said:

WTHeck is a courtesy arrest warrant?  Hrmm....."Good morning citizen! As a one time courtesy, I am going to arrest you for your convenience, please hold."  :)  That made for a good laugh. After I said that, I noted that the charge was for larceny/failure to return books. AHHHH. It all makes sense now! LIBRARY BOOKS!!!  Still, courtesy for what? Is it a reminder? (ya, ya, I know it IS a courtesy for the Library. They want their stuff back.)  Is it something where you are "warned" but still fingerprinted, mugshotted, and let go to find and return or paid for said item? (Yes, I said mugshotted. Mugged was simply not appropriate.) 

At any rate, that made me worry and I ended up searching for MY name as I have had a book that has not been returned because I am not done with it yet. Yes, I have done all the renewals I could on it and the library has even emailed me a bill for it. It was due I think in.....March. I just put it down and forgot to finish it. Soooooo. I guess I am reading today and returning the library book before I get my "courtesy" handed to me in the form of silver bracelets. 

**shudders** Scary thought.  However, ironically, to receive shinies over an epic dragon story. Go figure. 

Only Me.

What do YOU think?

Using real life to change fiction

It never ceases to amaze me how a messed up situation in real life can change the pace of a fiction story one is composing.


Currently I am in the middle of the lives of Jack and Anastasia and they have now found that they have evil neighbors in their desert. Hrmm. Wonder where that came from? Well, I certainly love my neighbors. Even the evil ones that have no idea how being nice really works.  As a writer, it amazes me how things can take a turn in a story that you are writing and you don't even intend for it to go down that path.


What happens is this:


You are walking along, minding your own business. Listening to your footsteps as you travel down this storybook road ( your footsteps are sounding like your fingers hacking away a the keys-keep your pinkies up while typing!) and you see this little less travelled path along the side of the road. Oh, you note it alright but you keep walking. Only, your stride slows down as you think about that path. You think. You stew. You think and you stew. You think until you come to a stop and look around you. There is nothing but untouched field and warm sunshine all around you and you stand there.


Brooding.


That paths presence simply will not leave the back of your mind. At some point, as if hypnotized, you do an about face and you find yourself standing at the top of the path...wondering. Should you take it? Should you keep going? You know if you keep going in the direction you were, you will always wonder. You wonder this as you stand before said path and turn your face to the setting sun. This is the same direction you were heading in the first place. Hmm. The setting sun. Interesting. Maybe something is trying to give you a message. That path leads to an ending that your mind knows so well. The plan you had laid out for this story to travel. The path that you know how it is going to be. However.


However, you are at this new, unexpected thing. This crossroads and you have to take it. You ask for opinions of others and they all say...go for it! What makes it even more interesting is that you once wrote a small blurb when you were experiencing a writing prompt and you had requests to finish it. While you had no full story to go with that blurb, that one situation that led to this interruption of the field you are waking by and the path that so raptly has your attention now has a place in your story. That blurb and where this path leads go hand in hand and make perfect sense for the direction you know the story could go.


Do you take it? Life is about taking chances. While us writers are not ones to go out and do parkour or ride a skateboard off a ramp some 500 feet in the air, these are the chances we take. Is this the making of a great story? In my mind it may be.


It makes me wonder how many paths are along the stories that I read.  I now understand where "the Wind Through the Keyhole" by Stephen King came from. When I first discovered that story I was in pure bliss to find another book to the whole Gunslinger collection. When I read the intro, I thought it strange for the author to label it as Gunslinger 4.5.  However, it fit right in between books 4 and 5 of that story. Funny how paths are created and how they come into existence.


Have you ever come across a less beaten path? Did you take it? Where did it lead you?


What do YOU think?






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I did it! I am now published! Check it out!

I wrote a book and finally had it published! I am soooo excited!


Check it out.


facebook.com/MicaaMilesAuthor (Please like my page if you have a Facebook.)   :)


You can also find "WAH Professionals" by Micaa Miles on Amazon, Kindle, and create space stores.
It is also available on Amazon UK!


Here is a link:


http://www.amazon.com/WAH-Professionals-Micaa-M-Miles/dp/1494828685/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396800654&sr=8-1&keywords=wah+professionals

My own travels to the Dark Tower.

In the courts, it is all about who tells the best story. The juries believe the story tellers (the attorneys) who paint the most vibrant, believable tale.
I must have been about 13 or 14 when I first picked up the Gunslinger, by Stephen King. Never did I fathom that this story teller would take me on adventure that would take nearly 23 years to complete. Now that I am reading the final Dark Tower (VII) book, I have a certain melancholy feeling about me. I have come to love this story and its characters like a woman to her soap opera. Now that the tale is coming to an end, the sadness that I feel was similar to that of Roland the morning that Susannah went through the Artists door. They were so close to Roland's coveted Tower and now, just as the story begun, the Gunslinger enters the tower alone.
I was always told by literature experts that great stories go in a circle. Here is ours, sai Gunslinger. Another thing that enrages me but brings home thiat this story teller has successfully done his job is that the end leaves you begging, no PLEADING for more. While I have not yet red the part of Susannah in New York or what happens to Roland in the tower, I just KNOW I will be left wanting more. Just like a junkie wanting their next fix.
Yes, sai King, I do have The Wind Through the Keyhole, and while I have nearly all of your other tales, mere mention of Roland and his Ka-tet will not satisfy the thirst there is for the true story of the Gunslinger and his beloved Tower. His Darling.......
This is homage to you, sai storyteller. Thank you for this lovely tale. In my court, you have prevailed. I even cheer that the story is done because in an epilogue, you mentioned one sad little chained teddy bear that I know will now survive and go free, to search for his own tower. While I am considering taking the time to read the whole tale over again, I know it will not be the same as it was the first time.
Yes, I do truly understand, just as the artist Patrick Danville did as he drew and erased the Crimson King in the Dark Tower Vii......with vivid understanding as my eyes light up so approve.......

NOTE: This was a post to my Facebook blog that I posted last year. Yes, I did finish the book and yes, I was yearning for more. It was a marvellous ending!  I have also since found a map that shows the intricacies and how the world of Stephen King is just that....a world.  All of his books are tied together in some form or fashion and I absolutely revel in that fact!  Like this ending, I am still living my own journey to the Dark Tower.  What about you? Have you read these books or any of the Stephen King books?  What about your journey?

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of the easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

This is one of my favorite poems as a child. Thought I would share. Kind of makes you think. Huh?

Cheley

Daddy truly knew.

I just finished a book (for my own enjoyment not for an assignment) that I had started to read a very long time ago. My favortie part about reading a book is the feeling you get when you read that last sentence on that last page. It is a gratifying feeling that only readers know. This time, I had quiet to enjoy that feeling and noted it gave me chills. I love it. I love to read. It is a pleasure that causes no disease, cancer, and can take you away from any hell you are in and temporarily place you somewhere else. Further, upon returning from that else, your mind is, if only for a brief moment, clearer and refreshed.
Dad knew what that was like. In his final years, I often wondered why he would go through a stack of books in the blink of an eye. The man read so much that he was on what I called the library honor circuit. You see, there were about four libraries within driving distance of where he and my mother live. Every now and then I would ask him what he was reading and it was always something new. Just about every other time I inquired, he would inform me that he was on the honor books of the next library because the one he had been going to, had nothing more to offer for the moment. He had read every single damn honor book they had. I know for a fact that some of those honor shelves would take up more of two stacks! The closer to the end of his life story he got, the faster he went through those books. 

Now I understand why.

He could hardly breathe and the oxygen was not helping. The threat of the VA to take it away to convince him he did not need it did not help matters any. When dad came for his final visit to our new home, he predicted his own fate....almost to the day. But still he read. He read until he could not do it anymore. Chasing that feeling of accomplishment and of enlightenment only true readers know. Next to his deathbed he had a plastic grocery bag filled with his last round of honor books from the library. One of them "The Old Silent" had his mark in it and his glasses on top. I still have that bag of books. I still have the glasses, "The Old Silent," and that mark is still there.

While I find it hard to read something other than a textbook and my favorite author, Stephen King, I now intend to finish that book for him. I started it right after his passing and I find it quite interesting, but life got in the way. Now that I have finished my book, I will pick this one up. With dad reading over my shoulder.

Why do I say he will be reading over my shoulder? Stephen King calls his die hard fans "constant reader." That is my Dad. He needs to finish that book. Those glasses have since broken, however, I still have mine. It will be through my eyes that "The Old Silent" will provide that enlightenment not only for me but for Daddy who stands constant watch over me, my family, and, yes my Mother.
I love you Daddy. Even the things that come to light from your wisdom now make me proud to be the glimmer that was in your eyes for so long. Yes, he knows. I know too.

Please bring my neighbor their paper! I stole it! (whisperingly)

As many of you are aware, I used to do customer service for a local newspaper. For those of us in customer service, we all have our "favorite" customers and our doosie stories. One of my favorite stories came from speaking to a lady about her neighbors paper.
Yes, I said the neighbors' paper. This particular lady (I call her this because I believe her to be one of our great elderly wisers) had occasion to call because her own paper had been missed or stolen and she wanted her paper with her morning coffee as per her custom. However, she was full on aware that her neighbors were late risers and she took it upon herself to take their paper. She called quite early, around 7ish I suppose and it was hilarious because she was whispering into the phone.
Now, imagine some little old lady about four foot nothin' standing on her porch whispering into her cordless phone with her little hand cupped over the speaker on the phone. Imagine it quite early and in the summer so she is in her nightie and slippers and she is looking over to the neighbors yard. Below was our conversation:
(Remember, she is whispering the ENTIRE time!)
Me: Thank you for calling the News! My name is Michele, how may I help you?
Lady: I am calling about my neighbors paper.
Me: Ok, what is going on with your neighbors paper?
Lady: Well, I need you to bring one out in a hurry so they don't miss it. You see, I didn't get mine today for some reason and I know they sleep late over there. Can you bring them one so they don't see that it is gone? I took their paper and I don't want to get in trouble with the neighbors for taking their paper!
Me: So, you missed your paper and you took theirs? O.o
Lady: Yes, I know they never get up before 9:30 every day. If you hurry, you can get one out here before they wake up and nobody will know! Can you do that for me? I really wanted to read my Sunday paper and it was just laying there. Please bring one out so nobody knows what happened. You can do that right? This will be a secret between you and me.
Me: Aw, certainly Ms. Lady. I can do that for you. Oh, and don't worry, it will be our little secret, ok?
Lady: OK, thank you! I am going now because I don't want them to see or hear me lest they find out what happened!
Me: Ok, is there anything else I can help you with today Ms. Lady?
Lady: No, you just have a good day and thank you for getting me out of trouble! :)
I hung up the phone and had a little chuckle about that. I don't know if she was in her nightie and slippers or not. I do know that she was outside because I heard traffic but it made me smile to know that our elderly population gets up to rambunctious goings on early in the morning!
Thought I would share this little smile for today. Though I am certain that if she knew, she would be quite upset that I shared her secret! :) Na, it will be alright.....

Reading. Its fundamental

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to read.  I have had the bittersweet priviledge of finishing the beloved Dark Tower series.  I started reading this monster in high school.  Well, if it gives you any inclination as to how long it has taken me, I graduated nearly 20 years ago and I was in early highschool when I started The Gunslinger.

I am so amazed at the story that I want to go back and start over!  I have also found that, along the years, our clever author Stephen King, has intertwined other stories and related them all to the Dark Tower series.  One such stark reminder is The Stand.  One of the main characters there is Randall Flagg.  For those loyal readers of his, you know this to be the Dark Tower main character as well. However, it is like a Yin/Yang thing.

Ah, stories, they take us places.  Who remembers the Reading Rainbow series.

Butterfly in the sky,
I can go twice as high,
Take a look,
Its in a book,
Reading Rainbow!

Good times. Gooooood times!  Now, I have found myself in a digital age and you can read books on your computer (done it,) on your phone (doing it,) and on this nifty digital device called a kindle (have one.)  But it feels so empty reading a book in digital format.  I rememember when I would find audio books in the library.  I told myself I would NEVER deface a true book by "listening to it."  That was only for people who loved a good story and were no longer able to see to read or who were not with the abililty to access full version braille books because they were physically blind.  Not for people like me who enjoyed the feeeling of finishing a great book.

Also, when you are reading a true book. Nothing feels like turning the page or flipping a corner down to mark your spot when you go to make coffee.  Even better, the images a great story will invoke in your mind as you are reading about the plight of the main character.  To the dismay of movie makers, each person who reads the book first, has a different opinion of what the scene is and the main character looks like.  I believe that those who are gifted with the skill of great comprehension while reading are able to create such an image in their mind and fully enjoy reading for what it is.  Best yet, the feeling of finishing a novel or long book when you turn that last page and take a moment to reflect upon the story as a whole.  Ah, better than a runner's high.

I wonder these days if there will be a time when there will not be any people who can do such a thing or that they will achieve the abovementioned feelings when they finish their digital copy of a great book.  With the advent of the digital format, I have (however) found it easier to obtain and read classic.  Currently I am in the middle of Bram Stoker's Dracula.  I love it and it is easy to get on my kindle as most of the classics are free and you do not have to pay for them.  Another reason I love my digital formats is because they take up a great deal less space in my suitecase when we travel. 

What is your feelings about reading a real book versus a digital format of any kind?

Please suggest topics for me to rant about here.

I have tried to do some daily nonsense here or there and my failed attempt at word of the day has led me to try something different.
While I still anticipate continuing the word of the day, I want to add something more. I like to compose. While I prefer putting pen to paper, it is much faster to put finger to key.
This one is short and sweet and I want suggestions on topics from all of you. Please comment below and suggest things for me to post a rant about and that I will do. If I do not get many rant suggestions, I will have to come up with some rants of my own. However, I prefer to be creative and involve the faithful fellow facebookers in my quest to "publish" something in a public quorum.

Cheers! **Holds up long stem crystal with self draining ice and the finest soda in the nation....COFFEE!" (Did you expect any less?)