The Writing Machine

Grease Spot Cafe, Hope, and Books

I’d like to thank everyone who visited The Writing Machine from the discussion forum on Grease Spot Cafe (main site | forums). The comments on the thread and your e-mails have re-validated the past 15 years of writing and provided the spark of encouragement I need to stick to my deadlines and push through this last phase of self-publishing. I did also feel a touch of the Rock of Ages come back to me where The Way was understood without explaining; and where everyone knew my name and remembered me in diapers. :-) Once again, thank you all… I am touched and grateful for your support.

During this week I also received provocative comments about growing up in the cult, The Way International, and the attitudes of the former children of The Way who are now angry, empty, and lost as adults. From my own experiences I believe this statement is sad and true, but not eternal. Of my two books, Stealing Wings from an Angel is youthful, angry and vengeful; The Secret Curse Surrenders is sad, lost and empty; but in these books and everything I write about my life, I believe there is hope—and not just the hope of living in paradise—but in finding peace here on Earth within your own soul. Unfortunately, for some of us, finding peace is more of an adventure than we may like it to be, so thank God for the internet where we can share our stories, find comfort in knowing someone else has been where we are now, learn from one another, and hopefully make the adventure a bit less adventuresome for each other.

I have a five-year-old son whom one day will be a grown man. I hope to pass on to him the lessons I’ve learned from my own adventures growing up in The Way, working countless jobs, and roaming the country in search of my family and a home. And with this opportunity to pass on my lessons to him, I find the greatest hope of all…

As for my books, Stealing Wings from Angel is on track for publication in the beginning of November and I will post information on this site as I have a final date for its release.

The Secret Curse Surrenders can purchased from iUniverse by clicking here.

Or from Amazon by clicking here.

Coming up in November, I am participating once again in NaNoWriMo where I will attempt to write 50,000 words more into my memoir in the month of November (technically you are supposed to write a 50,000 word fictitious novel, but I’ll do what I have to do to keep the motivation going on the memoir even if that means breaking the rules and writing creative nonfiction). I will post excerpts from my progress all month as I work my way to 50,000 words. Stop back and cheer me along; I can use all the help I can get.

And finally, as I wrap up this post, I’d like to share a passage from Joseph Campbell in, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, that has continually helped guide my life, and has been especially in my mind all week:

“Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had though to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with the world.”

Thanks for reading The Writing Machine. As always, you are a stranger here but once. Stop back often and stay long.

See you in November…

Christian

Find Yourself a Music

MEMOIR PROJECT ROUGH DRAFT

Oh hear the music. Search the world over for the sound that fills your soul with companionship when you are alone. Music that heals and comforts and knows you in a way no one else will ever know you. A music that calls out to you in the night. A music that fulfills your unfulfillable longing. A music that reminds you to live and to love and to dwell in your feelings. A music that keeps your spirit at peace. A music that gives you harmony. A music that laments for your soul. A music that calms the demons should you have any. A music that inspires when the well has run dry. A music that turns a barren land lush with flora and can burn the land dry and desolate as a stone canyon. A personal music. A secret music. A secret music indeed. A music much too personal to share with anyone you do not trust. A music that reminds you of time passing and the beauty of the mystery of living here in this time on this planet with the people you know and love all around you that no matter the season or the situation will always love you and the music sings to this place and to these people. A music that haunts you and give surcease from your hauntings. We are all haunted. A music that rambles and rolls and erupts and dances and moans and wails and dies and ripples and echoes and falls and exalts and deflates and billows and ignites and calls out from the very cells of your body the memories of all the strange lives once connected to the deepest memories of whatever substance we are truly made of that remembers bits and pieces of all time and through this music you can feel the past even if you don’t understand it. Find a music that is yours and love it despite what anyone else shall think. Keep it and listen to it as a sermon when you are down and let it guide you when you are awake and when you are asleep let it drift into your dreams.

Interim Year Assignment

MEMOIR PROJECT ROUGH DRAFT

I don’t believe much in omens but maybe I should. But something else just hit me. Who the fuck in their right mind decides to send a 27-year-old single mom with her 8-year-old boy 1100 miles from Southern Ohio to Northern Texas knowing she doesn’t have a car or the resources to pay for transportation? A bunch of cheap ass manipulative fucks who just took in money from her and her friends for the past year so she could be Way Corps and believe God to get her ass down to Texas for her interim year assignment so she can witness and get more people in The Way who will give their hard-earned cash to take the PFAL class and later tithe 10% of their hard-earned income. That’s right, a bunch of cheap bastards who don’t want to pay for her to relocate because they know she’ll hitchhike there if she has to because she believes she is meant to be there and she believes that the fucks in that room who decided her assignment received this assignment from God and that is the reason she has to get there come hell or high water, and if she doesn’t, then she ain’t Corps and she can just go back to Lorain but yet not a penny of all that money she’s tithed will ever go to help her out, she must go to God. Yes, the crash the night before on the freeway was most certainly an omen which began a year I would like to forget, but for the sake of this story—and the fact this year changed the rest of my life and still influences me to this day—I’ll remember and tell you for now.

Let Us Give Thanks

I’m thankful my life is beautiful… it is as simple as that.
I’m thankful Iraq will be over one day… as much as I try to deny it, the war weighs on my soul.
I’m thankful we have men brave enough to go to Iraq… I often feel small in comparison.
I’m thankful we will have a new president soon… I’ll leave it at that.
I’m thankful we can have a new president soon and it’s our choice… so many countries must kill for a change of power.
I’m thankful I don’t have cancer… yet.
I’m thankful it was cloudy today… and hopefully tomorrow too.
I’m thankful for books… my friends forever.
I’m thankful for video games… I am a bad ass without ever leaving the couch.
I’m thankful for my friends… I only wish I spent more time with them.
I’m thankful to have a job… and with that, a job I enjoy.
I’m thankful that my job helps other people… even though they are dying.
I’m thankful for all the wonderful people that I have met in my life… and hope for many many more in years to come.
I’m thankful for the friends who’ve returned that I thought I would never see again… “rarely do friends come and then go”—Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I’m thankful I no longer have to be prfect… even though I still unsuccessfully try.
I’m thankful I don’t have to go to church… and that I have a choice about these things.
I’m thankful I will turn 40 soon… I’m looking forward to leaving the 30s behind.
I’m thankful for movies and the hours upon hours of magic they have given me… and hours of just pure B entertainment too.
I’m thankful for magic in all things that fill me with awe and wonder… even if it is just tricks or things I don’t yet understand.
I’m thankful for technology… it is allowing me to fold my cloths and dictate this passage at the same time.
I’m thankful the world is finally becoming more green… it’s been a long time coming.
I’m thankful I’m just crazy enough to have fun… but stable enough to try to do the right thing.
I’m thankful my wife supports me in everything I do… and she is still a sight for sore eyes.
I’m thankful I can eat like a horse, exercise moderately and still stay relatively thin… or least only mildly overweight
I’m thankful we have not yet reached the time of the Apocalypse… yet.
I’m thankful the world as in not global warmed… yet.
I’m thankful I did not take on the unreal apocalyptic visions of my upbringing… or wait, maybe I did.
I’m thankful the world is so incredibly diverse in its beauty… I hope to see much of it without hurting it.
I’m thankful for coffee and all fluids that are brown and delicious… my comfort at all hours of the day.
I’m thankful for modern medicine… as I probably wouldn’t live much past 40 without it.
I’m thankful for all the artists have come before me… without them I would still be lost in the dark.
I’m thankful to have a son such as mine… so full of love and empathy.
I’m thankful the world is becoming smaller… there are so many things we can learn from each other.
I’m thankful I live in America… despite how much I disagree with what we have done recently.
I’m thankful I am drinking beer again… I missed so many of the delicious flavors during my two-year sabbatical.
I’m thankful for my dreary composers of the early 20th century and the protégés they inspired in our modern times… they bring continual solace to my soul.
I’m thankful for my family near and far… I wish you were closer.
I’m thankful for Wendy’s fast food restaurants… need I say more.
I’m thankful for seconds… and thirds, and fourths, and so one and so on.
I’m thankful for health food, super green food, smoothies, and all sorts of other organic delights… they are just as uplifting as junk food to me.
I’m thankful for popcorn and ice cream… without them the world would be a lonely place.
I’m thankful to be alive right now—and I mean in this place and time in history… whether we are ascending or declining as a civilization, it is a most exciting place to be alive.
I’m thankful for myself… as screwed up as I may be.
I’m thankful you took the time to read this… may your Thanksgiving be wonderful and full of laughter, good friends, and family.

At Last! Stealing Wings from an Angel is Finished!

I have 10,000 things I could say right now about the journey of publishing this book, but I’ll cut to the chase and say Stealing Wings from an Angel is now available in print for $11.50 from LuLu.com and I am elated!

Purchase a Copy Here
Read an Excerpt Here

Thank you for you all of your patience, and as I said before, it is worth the wait.

Back Cover Summary

In Stealing Wings from an Angel, Christian Cloud Abraham presents a collection of passages written during the period of his life when he broke away from his upbringing in the Bible cult, The Way International, and fell into a new world no longer protected by the people and ideas of the cult. From the first page you are whisked away from common reality and submerged into a Kafkaesque, turbulent, psychological landscape of a young man on the edge of losing his mind—and maybe even his life—as he battles for reconciliation between his preconceived ideas learned in the cult, and more rational ways of thinking. The story is told through a series of exhaustive and emotionally wrenching passages which blend the facts of his life with the fantasies and dreams erupting from emotional conflicts, reflections, and sentimental reveries for a past he knows he can never have again.

Stealing Wings from an Angel is not for the faint of heart as it is a story of suicide, destruction, and rebirth; but ultimately there are moments of profound beauty in the ugliness, and peace amongst the smoldering ashes.

If you think you can endure, join Christian Cloud Abraham as he falls to Earth.

The Secret Curse Surrenders

And don’t forget my other book, The Secret Curse Surrenders, available on iUniverse.

Purchase a Copy Here
Read an Excerpt Here

In the darkness, my muse has always been there for me. Ever shimmering in the distance, she’s guided me, tormented me, comforted me, seduced me, betrayed me, but ultimately forced me to take the steps forward into the abysmal darkness where the greatest secrets of life are discovered.

The Secret Curse Surrenders is the tale of one such journey though the darkness. Excerpted from my journals is an adventure of mind and soul told through fact, fiction and prose. This book is for those who love to go places they have never dared to go before and return with a boon to enrich their lives.

And as for the future…

I failed at writing more than about 3,000 words for NaNoWriMo but that’s okay, I succeeded at self-publishing another book and I know well enough now that life and learning is all about failing and making mistakes. I know I make more mistakes and fail more than I do succeed (as I like to chew off more than I can bite) and I am still living a great live so oh well…
I am longing to write again after all this publishing work, and if there is one thing I learned from the past few years, it is don’t give dates because my family comes first so I miss my personal deadlines frequently. With that, I will be back to writing and posting again soon… just not promising an exact date (but it will be in December).

Thank you for reading The Writing Machine, your enduring patience, and all the support I’ve received. As always, you are only a stranger here but once. Come back often and stay long.

Christian

Thinking of Friends and Christmas on a Cold Night

And I Keep...

I enjoy feeling the times of change in the world. Even in this melancholy there is peace like the wheels on the highway rolling by lulling you to sleep… the manifestation of change… the wind coming in the window, the trees racing by, the storm on the horizon, the sunshine breaking through, the storm in the past in the rear view mirror, the anticipation of a new arrival… the Earth keeps turning and I keep driving on…

Foolish Tolerance

And when the world knows of the greatest wisdom of all—that life is simply pain management—that the actions we take are simply to relieve the pain of living—we shall understand each other more. It is not about loving each other with hugs and false smiles, but by helping each other ease the collective pain by letting one another have their foolishness without ridicule and condemnation. When the world embraces tolerance—the message of the prophets—the pain will subside immensely. Now if only I could practice what I preach.

January 5, 2008

Seriously

Dear Julian,

Take your life seriously. Take your dreams seriously. Take your talents seriously. But laugh at yourself.

Seriously,
Dad

How will the Russians know of God?

Memoir Project Rough Draft

Before the Iron Curtain fell and the communists were still in the forefront of our consciousness, I would sometimes lay in bed as a young teenager and think of the poor people in Russia who were held prisoner in their own country. As my heart filled with empathy for these people, I hoped for Christ to save them. To come back from heaven and take them away from their suffering. But then the teachings of our ministry reminded me that Christ would only return once every man and woman on Earth had the opportunity to accept Christ as their savior. That the Word of God had made it around the World. That the Word Over the World had become a reality. Then I often felt helpless and hopeless as I wondered how we would ever get the Word into Russia. And the more I thought about this, the more I simultaneously became saddened at the suffering of the Russians, and comforted knowing I was blessed to be born in America.

The Patron Saint of Flattulence

Memoir Project Rough Draft

iType. Eh vous?

The Crystal Ball

i gazed into the crystal ball
wondering what i would see
i looked into the future
and saw myself
looking back at me

Goodbye Writing Machine

I’ve never been good at goodbyes so bear with me if I am bad at this one too… but it is time for me to say goodbye to The Writing Machine.

I don’t want to say goodbye—this hurts like breaking up with a girlfriend—but when you know it is time, it is time, and really this is about time or the lack of time and I just can’t seem to find the time like I could before and so it is time to say goodbye…

…goodbye Writing Machine…

And farewell to all of you who’ve visited over the past two-and-a-half years. Thank you for sharing your time with my stories and giving them somewhere to be read instead of rotting away in a file folder in a storage box.

Okay. Enough said.

Goodbye Writing Machine.

Farewell friends.

I’ll see you around.

Christian

P.S. The site and the stories will still be here for you to come back and peruse, but I will not be publishing any new stories from here on out.