Mark David Gerson

~ Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir

And please follow me on Pinterest and Google+

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Father's Day

"I wept when I reread his shaky scrawl, not for the father I missed, but for the father I missed having."

In this excerpt from my Acts of Surrender memoir, I recall the day my father died: 45 years ago today...

By August 1968, my father had been a full-time resident of Montreal’s Grace Dart Convalescent Hospital for several years. Just about every Sunday through that time, my mother, my sister and I would make the 90-minute, three-bus trek out to the city's east end to visit him. The Sunday that would turn out to be his last, August 11, I stubbornly refused to accompany them, a surprising stance, given my generally compliant nature.

There was a rare argument, but I would not be moved. Eventually, my mother and sister left, and I walked the two blocks to my best friend Gary's house.

A few hours later, a mysterious phone call had me shuttled up the street from Gary's house to my cousin's. A few hours after that, my mother and sister pulled up in a car, one of my uncles’, their eyes puffy and red.

"Daddy died," my mother said and took me in her arms, grateful that I hadn’t been present for his fatal heart attack.

For a long time, I felt guilty that I hadn’t been there for my father. It never occurred to me to question why I would need to be present for a man who had never been present for me.

Many years later, when I was preparing to move to Nova Scotia, I found a letter that my father had written to me when I had been at summer camp. I would have been 11 or 12 at the time. The letter wasn’t signed with "love." Rather, it ended with, “Kind regards, Daddy.” I wept when I reread his shaky scrawl, not for the father I missed, but for the father I missed having.

Read more about my relationship with my father, including a 1997 "ghostly" reconciliation on another anniversary of his death, in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir. Get your copy today in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo and iBook stores for your e-reader, tablet, computer and smartphone. And watch me read "Fatherhood," an Acts of Surrender excerpt about both my fathers at http://youtu.be/MENeMJldzgA.

Photos: #1 ~ A Gerson family gathering before I was born. My father is in the lower left foreground; my mother, in the right foreground. #2 ~ The Grace Dart Hospital. #3 ~ Another Gerson family gathering, with my father on the far side of the table in the center.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• Acts of Surrender book
• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books

Please follow Mark David on Pinterest and Google+

Thursday, August 1, 2013

The MoonQuest: The Stage Musical?

When I began writing The MoonQuest book (Book I of my Q'ntana Trilogy), I always saw it as a movie...though I never imagined that I would be the one to write the screenplay. Then, when I found myself writing The MoonQuest screenplay a dozen years later, I began to see the story's potential as a large-scale stage musical.

Now that I have written all three of the Trilogy's books and screenplays (Book III, The SunQuest, will be released in a few weeks), my muse has started nudging me toward that MoonQuest musical.

She began her campaign a few evenings ago, when, after it had languished for many, many months at the bottom of my Netflix queue, a filmed stage presentation of The Phantom of the Opera suddenly demanded my attention.

I was walking to the store the morning after having watched Act I of this 25th anniversary production (staged brilliantly at the Royal Albert Hall) when she whispered to me, my muse did. "It's time," she crooned."

Tonight, as I sobbed through the musical's final curtain calls, she whispered again, louder this time: "Now. It's time. Now..."

To be clear, I wasn't crying because of the story or its production. I was crying because those curtain calls brought me back to a time in my life when I went to the theater religiously, wrote about the theater regularly and fantasized about writing stage plays. This was a decade before the creative and spiritual awakening that would ultimately birth The MoonQuest.

"Perhaps," Toshar ponders as he prepares to tell the story of his MoonQuest on the first page of the book, "it is time to allow the boy I was to touch the man I have become."

I was no longer a boy when my theater dreams first ignited. I was a teenager in my junior year at Montreal's Mount Royal High School, working on a school production of the musical Mame -- a time I write about in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir. My experiences of the past few days suggest that those long-ago theater dreams never died, even if they were overtaken for many years by other imperatives.

On Sunday I wrote here about the surprising (to me) rediscovery, reclaiming and reintegration of my artist-self. Today, it seems, those three R's have found another target: my theater self.

In the next days, I will allow that part of me to reignite as I welcome back my long-dormant, never-realized playwriting self. And once again, the mythical tale of a land stripped of its visions and stories will live out in my life in a new form.

I know no more about crafting large-scale stage musicals than I did about writing novels when I began The MoonQuest or screenplays when I launched into its film adaptation. What I do know is The MoonQuest story. I know it intimately because, in so many ways, it continues to be my story, a story that, as always, begins once upon a time...

While you're waiting for The Q'ntana Movies and stage musicals to show up in your neighborhood, pick up The MoonQuest and StarQuest books in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iBook stores -- for your e-reader, tablet, computer and smartphone. And watch for The SunQuest...coming soon!

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books
• Acts of Surrender book

Please follow Mark David on Pinterest and Google+

Sunday, July 28, 2013

The Art of Surrender

"I still couldn’t call myself an artist. The way I saw it, I created energy-enhancing tools and just happened to employ the same instruments used by 'real' artists."
~ from "The Art of Surrender" in my memoir, Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir

• • • • •

Some years back I was coaching an accomplished writer who had already published several short stories. She had even won awards for a few of of them. I'll call her Sally, but she's a composite of several clients, all of whom carried a reluctance similar to the one I'm about to describe.

Sally asked me to help her with a novel she was conceiving. As we worked together over the weeks, I discovered that she refused to call herself a writer. "A writer has written a book," she insisted. "I've just written short stories."

"A writer writes," I retorted, quoting the You Are A Writer meditation included in my two books on writing. The meditation continues: "That’s what you have done. You have written."

For homework, I insisted that Sally listen to the recording of that meditation at least twice a day for a month.

You are a writer.

What you write is powerful.

What you write is vibrant.

What you write, whatever you believe in this moment, is luminous.

Trust that to the best of your ability, in this moment.

Acknowledge the writer you are, in this moment. ...

You are a writer.

In less than a month, thanks to You Are A Writer, Sally could finally state clearly and unequivocally, "I am a writer."

I have no difficulty calling myself a writer, perhaps because my writerly identity snuck up on me so sneakily and surreptitiously, and over so many years. But I have never been comfortable calling myself an artist.

Never mind that I've had photographs published in The Globe & Mail, Canada's most prestigious English-language daily, and that I've sold my artwork all over the U.S.

Yet if a writer is one who writes, then an artist must be someone who creates art. Given that I have been creating art for decades, isn't it time for me to surrender to that part of my identity?

All artists in all media are storytellers. At our best, we create from that innate heart-spark that everyone carries. We also create from that place of authenticity, discovery and revelation that can make us feel vulnerable and scared, that can hold us back from sharing our work...that can keep us in hiding.

I realized, when I recalled the Sally story a few days ago, that I can no longer hide this part of myself -- from me any more than from the world. It's time to claim my artist identity. It's time to do what I inspired Sally to do. It's time to say it, publicly as well as to myself:

I am an artist.
I am an artist.
I am an artist.

There. That feels better.

But there's more to do. Without action, those artist-words could easily be empty words.

What's my next step? The answer is clear before I finish asking the question: I must claim my professional artist identity.

I start by ordering new business cards, long overdue. For the first time, these add "artist" and "photographer" to "author," "screenwriter" and "creativity catalyst."

It's a start, but I know that it's not enough. I need to do something more concrete. What I decide to do is to create a new website, a dedicated online gallery for my work.

Suddenly, my drawings, photographs and inspirational art are being sold in a professional setting, and it surprises me to discover that I feel more anxious about releasing my visual art into the world than I do about putting my books out. (I've probably forgotten how scared I was when my first words hit print 37 years ago!)

Yes, I'm feeling anxious. But I'm also excited. It's energizing to share the fruits of my creation in more than a casual way. It's even more exhilarating to integrate into my "family" an orphaned inner child that I have long been reluctant to acknowledge, to give yet another part of me a voice in this sometimes messy, often paradoxical, always unfolding agglomeration of bits and pieces that is Mark David Gerson.

In the end, though, isn't coming back into wholeness what this journey is about? It's certainly what I have written about and taught for more than two decades. Whether I'm aware of it or not, I'm sure that even my art reflects it.

And so my artist website is launched, with more images -- art, photography and what I'm calling "inspirational art" -- being added to it every day. Apparently, I am an artist!

Please check out my drawings, photography and inspirational/motivational art at
• Mark David Gerson Fine Art/Photography
• Instacanvas

click on any image for a larger view
and to access additional images

Photos (c) Mark David Gerson: "Passion Flower," "An Open Heart Knows No Limits" and many other images are available from Mark David's fine art/photography website unframed and as framed/matted prints, canvas wraps, acrylic prints, metal prints, greeting cards and iPhone cases.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books
• Acts of Surrender book

Please follow Mark David on Pinterest and Google+

Friday, June 28, 2013

Now Available: The StarQuest - The Long Awaited Sequel to The MoonQuest!

Journey to the time before time...

when the stars lost their mooring
and the constellations unraveled,
when chaos was king and evil reigned unchecked

This is the Q'ntana before The MoonQuest

Here, in the midst of brutal tyranny,
a legend would not die:
of the Heart of the Star
and of the Fair One who would rekindle it
to bring peace to the land.

The StarQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book II)

The Long Awaited Second Installment in
The Q'ntana Trilogy

To celebrate the launch of The StarQuest

all my Kindle ebooks are on sale for $2.99 each through July 2
• The MoonQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book I)
• The StarQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book II)

• The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

• Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow
• Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir
• The Book of Messages: Writings Inspired by Melchizedek

• The StarQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book II) is currently available exclusively for Kindle apps and readers. Versions for Nook, Kobo and iBooks will be available June 29.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books
• Acts of Surrender book

Please follow Mark David on Pinterest and Google+

Electric Muse Radio for July: Authors, Photographers & Celebrities!

One month's radio shows done...and what a month it's been! The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson got off to, well, an electric start with four creative stars:

• Luke Yankee, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart, and an accomplished writer/director/producer/actor in his own right.

• Michael Scott, the New York Times bestselling fantasy author of the six-book series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

• Dorothy McIntosh, dubbed the "next Dan Brown" and an author whose debut novel, The Witch of Babylon, was an instant hit in some 20 countries.

• Photographer Melissa Vincent, whose 200,000-plus Instagram fans have turned her into a mobile-photography superstar.

(Click on any of their names to listen to a replay of their episode.)

July's lineup is just as good...if not better!

• July 9 ~ Truly a Renaissance man of the arts, Dan Stone is an author, poet, fine-art photographer and visual artist. On this episode, we'll be talking about how each of Dan's artistic pursuits feeds the others and what it means to be creative. We'll also be talking about dreams. As Dan puts it, "Most of what has come into my life so far or what I hope is on the way, started with a dream."

• July 16 ~ Hollywood visual effects master Ed Kramer, whose technical artistry brought you Harry Potter’s Quidditch field, the multiplying puppies in 101 Dalmations, the dinosaur stampede in Jurassic Park II, the weather and ocean effects in Twister and some of your favorite moments in Star Wars. Ed has lots of entertaining stories about Hollywood and moviemaking to share with us.

• July 23 ~ Photographer and watercolorist Lynn Lane, one of Houston’s “Top 100 Creatives,” is exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. With styles from documentary to edgy, he is a favorite with commercial and creative clients alike, from Cirque du Soleil to Saks 5th Avenue. He's also a documentary filmmaker and, a cancer survivor himself, founder of the Voices of Survivors Foundation, which has given scores of cancer survivors a human face and voice.

• July 30 ~ Author, biographer and ghost writer Jenna Glatzer was a recovering agoraphobic still unwilling to be enclosed in an airplane when she was asked to write Céline Dion's authorized biography. Two weeks later, she was in the air, enroute to Las Vegas and to an adventure that would change her life and launch a career that has resulted in more than 20 books, including an authorized biography of Marilyn Monroe. She tells that story in the newest Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul book, and she'll share that inspiring experience and others on this episode.

Wait! Why did I leave out July 2? Because this episode is going to be a bit different...well, a lot different! Instead of asking all the embarrassing questions, I’ll be in the hot seat, answering them! In the host seat will be author Amy Robbins-Wilson. Why the switch? To mark this week's release of The StarQuest, the second book in my Q’ntana Trilogy of fantasy novels, Amy will be interviewing me! So, for a look at the author behind the host, please join us this coming Tuesday via this link!

Meantime, get yourself a copy of The StarQuest in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iBook stores -- and check out all my titles, on sale for US$2.99 through July 2 to celebrate their new sibling. (The book is in the Kindle store right now; it should be in the Nook, Kobo and iBook stores later today or during the weekend.)

To listen live to any episode or to hear a replay after the broadcast, click on the name link for any guest. And visit the Electric Muse pages on my website for more about these and other past and future shows.

Tune in to The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson every Tuesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network.

Don't you dare miss an episode! But if you must, you can always catch it after the fact. Just look for links to every episode on my website.

Don't forget! Every Tuesday at 5pm PT / 8pm ET: The Electric Muse with Mark David Gerson.

~~~~~

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books

• Writing Books/Recordings and Inspiration