Blog Posts - Books by Eric Douglas

Holiday Ghost Stories: The End of Darkness; Naughty List

December 20, 2013 By Eric Douglas

An old English tradition that has passed into the past (probably to our loss), is the telling of ghost stories around the Christmas fire. Think of the song lyric “…scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago”. The dark, cold nights of winter made for a perfect venue for this practice.

For the last five years Loren Eaton of I Saw Lightning Fall has organized a group of writers to put together stories to be posted in the Winter Solstice…with one catch. They are all flash fiction. Maximum of 100 words for the story. It becomes a tremendous exercise to creep someone out and tell a complete story in 100 words. This isn’t a contest. No one wins anything. It is purely for the sake of telling stories. That’s what makes it fun.

Below are my two submissions for Advent Ghosts 2013. You can also read my submission to last year’s Advent Ghosts story telling project. That story was called A little bit of Grandma and definitely went for my baser instincts…

Visit the entire Advent Ghosts project and revisit it during the day as more and more writers add their submissions.

The end of darkness

The fire crackled and the wind howled as night fell.

“Son, today is the winter solstice. Ancients celebrated this night to coax the sun higher in the sky and bring back longer days. They believed it was a fight between good and evil.”

“Did the sun ever fail, Father?”

“Not so far, son.”

“What if the evil wins?”

“The days will keep getting shorter until it all goes black. Evil will take over the world.”

“How do we know if good holds out?”

“The earth stays in balance.”

“But what if something upsets the balance?”

“We won’t know until tomorrow.”

Naughty list

“Santa told me you’ve been naughty. He put you on the list.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sorry,” she said as the tears began again.

“It’s good you’re sorry. Maybe next year you’ll get a present.”

“Please, you have to believe me. I won’t be bad anymore. I promise.” The hysteria was beginning to rise again.

“When Santa tells me you’re off the naughty list, I’ll let you out,” he said with a sad smile.

For the rest of Christmas Eve, the only sound the woman heard was her own screams echoing around her private dungeon..

Shortest “day” of the year

December 19, 2013 By Eric Douglas

A couple years ago, I commented that I hated December 21^st because it was the shortest day of the year. A friend asked if budget cuts had made the government shorten the day from the standard 24 hours. Since that day, I have chosen my words more carefully (at least when it comes to this topic…).

December 21 is the Winter Solstice, the day of the year with the fewest daylight hours (9 hours, 29 minutes and 32 seconds). That makes it my least favorite day of the year. On the other hand, December 22 is a much happier day because we get another moment or two of daylight (9 hours, 29 minutes and 34 seconds).

It is easy to try to describe the solstices (solsticii?) in terms of the sun’s movement, although it is more accurate to say the earth’s rotation causes the sun to be at a different angle to the Earth. For the Winter Solstice, the Earth has rotated placing the North Pole 23.5 degrees away from the sun. The North Pole and people living above the Arctic Circle will not see the sun at all at this time of year. It is also important to remember that the Winter Solstice is only an issue in the Northern Hemisphere. If we are tilted away from the sun, the Southern Hemisphere is at full summer.

While this is the Christmas season for much of the world, there are many, many other holidays celebrated this time of year. A quick count of “Solstice Celebrations” yielded 34 different festivals and holidays. Some of them are no longer observed and others have small groups or are extremely regional. Many of these go back to the lack of daylight and the fear of the dark from ancient cultures. A great tradition that I’m sorry most of us don’t participate in is telling “scary ghost stories” on the night of the solstice (Ever wondered about that song lyric? Check back tomorrow and I will be participating in the Advent Ghosts 2013 storytelling project that meets that exact description.)

I celebrate Christmas at this time of the year. We decorate two Christmas trees, attend a Christmas Eve church service and open presents on Christmas morning. That said, I realize there are people with other beliefs around me. I don’t see how acknowledging other people’s beliefs or recognizing that they may celebrate differently does anything to undermine Christmas. I honestly think people look for things to be offended about when they protest the phrase “Happy Holidays”. If someone tells me “Happy Holidays” (which I truly, rarely hear) I see that as someone wishing me well. My response is always “Thank you!” followed by a “You too!” or “Merry Christmas!” And that is really all we have to say.

For now, though, I think I need to turn on some more lights around the house. It is getting really dark….

Interview on the Diversync podcast

December 18, 2013 By Eric Douglas

My friend Rich Synowiec came to town a couple days ago to take some additional training from me. He is a big fan and supporter of the Mike Scott adventure novels as well and when we were done with the training aspects of the day, he interviewed me for his weekly radio/podcast Diversync. Rich is on Season 3, Episode 51…he has never missed an episode.

Rich is a passionate Michigan diver, often taking trips to the Great Lakes to dive the shipwrecks and he also dives his local rivers to find artifacts, typically in the form of centuries-old glass bottles. A couple times a year he goes to the Cooper River in South Carolina and dives for Megaladon shark’s teeth. That is a dive trip I want to join him on. Sounds like something Mike Scott might end up doing at some point.

In the interview, he compares my writing area to something Hemmingway-esque…not sure about all that, but it was a good discussion and a fun interview.

You can listen to the portion of the show with my interview here:

Or check out the entire Podcast. If you’re in the area, stop in and see him at Divers Incorporated as well..

Leo Morales—not saying “I can’t”

December 17, 2013 By Eric Douglas

Editors Note: Check out the book Dive-abled: The Leo Morales Story.

Let me say first that I had absolutely nothing to do with Leo Morales‘ world record setting dive. I’m just really impressed by it and with him.

Leo lost most of his right leg to cancer. But he hasn’t lost a step. Last weekend he completed his second world record dive for a person with a disability. He stayed underwater for 8:16 hours and traveled 15.6 kilometers in the marine park in Cozumel, Mexico making it the longest in terms of both time and distance. A year ago, he made a decompression dive to 410 feet to set his first world record dive, the deepest for a person with a disability.

Watch a trailer of the documentary about his world record deep dive.

While his records may have the phrase “with a disability” attached to them, that certainly doesn’t lessen the accomplishments. Obviously, if anything it adds to them. The mental focus necessary to accomplish something like that is phenomenal. He had to maintain his Nautilus rebreather, continually swim, stay warm and alert and concentrate on what he was doing for more than eight hours.

Most divers will never attempt anything like Leo’s dives and that’s fine. The lesson I take from watching Leo, and enjoying his warm, inviting and positive outlook is nothing is impossible. You can’t let anything stand in your way. In interviews, he has described the days after the cancer and the surgery to remove his leg—the surgery saved his life, but he only had an estimated 20 percent chance of surviving—as the darkest days of his life, and a time in which he considered taking his own life. He had given up. With the support of his friends, family and God, he returned to diving and now works as an advocate for the disabled in his native Mexico. His dives aren’t stunts; they are designed to inspire everyone and also to show people with disabilities that they can do anything they set their minds to.

Most of us will never have to face anything nearly as terrible as a surgery to save your life that will probably kill you in the process. Most of us will never have to lose a large portion of our bodies to disease. Yet, too many of us use the words “I can’t” on a too-regular basis.

My most recent work with Diveheart (here, here and here ) and meeting Leo has definitely inspired me. While both have a diving connection, the inspiration isn’t about diving at all. It is about life. From now on, every time I say “I can’t”, I’m going to ask myself why. Would Leo say I can’t? And then I will get up and do it, regardless of what anyone else says.

What are you doing?

Visit Leo’s website to find out more. It is in Spanish, but my browser did a fair job of translating it..

Cayman Cowboys featured in a text book

December 11, 2013 By Eric Douglas

Not long after the release of Cayman Cowboys, the Caymanian Compass (the national newspaper) published an interview with me about the book. A year or so after that, I got an email from Pearson Education, a textbook publisher that wanted to use a copy of the interview in a textbook aimed at children in the Caribbean. Each section of the 4^th level text book is based on a different island and the section for Writer’s Inspiration and interviewing skills was on Grand Cayman. Other sections included Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent and the rest of the islands of the Caribbean.

The exercise in the book talks about using open-ended questions and the interview published in the Caymanian Compass is a good example of that.

It is an interesting feeling to know that children all over the Caribbean are learning to perfect their language skills and interview techniques based on something I wrote. The text book was published in 2008. I hope it is still in use.

See photographs from the place that inspired the story or learn about this second edition of the story.

You can also get a Kindle ebook version or a Print version direct from Amazon..

Home of the novel Cayman Cowboys

December 10, 2013 By Eric Douglas

In honor of the second edition of Cayman Cowboys, I thought I would post some photos from Grand Cayman and the location of most of the book, Sunset House. I took all of these photos in December 2011, with the exception of the one of me by the Mermaid. That was taken by Steve Barnett in 2004 or 2005. He was kind enough to give me a copy.

Check out yesterday’s blog on the second edition of the novel or read the book’s description. You can also get a copy in print or as a Kindle ebook directly from Amazon.