Hello again!

Hello again! Relax...I don't plan on making these posts an everyday thing. I just wanted to post today because tomorrow morning, I will start the big re-write at Barnes and Noble Cafe. It's gonna be scary. It's gonna be a little hard. It's gonna be great! I am getting so psyched about the book now. Can't wait till I get it going!I'm not really in much of a philosophical mood today, so I don't know if I should talk about themes in the book, as well as in my life, today. I would, however, like to talk a little bit about the title: The Perfect Star.

As I have said before, I wasn't able to use The Perfect Star as my member name at blogger.com beacause, apparently, that name had already been taken. Thus, I did a little digging and found out that whoever took the name never did anything with their site...so PHEW! I can probably use the name for my book thus far. After this, though, I decided to check the internet at large for anything named "Perfect Star" and the only thing I could find was a real estate company web site. This was a very good sign...because a real estate company and my novel are two very different entities indeed. So, I shall proceed with this title.

So...where does the name come from? Well...as I have said in my profile, one of my hobbies is composing music and I do this on my computer. If you go to my main web page at http://www.geocities.com/bradleylore , you will see that the last four entries on the archive are songs. I write weird songs, I know...but I like them. Anyhoo...I also write songs on my Playstation 2. Don't laugh! They have some very good music software available! I've probably composed close to 400 songs that way. I don't have the technology available to me to get them on the web yet...but hopefully, that will be forthcoming.

But, as usual, I digress...one of the songs that I composed, about three years ago maybe, was a song called The Perfect Star. It's kinda na R&B tinged little ditty...or at least as R&B as a white boy from the midwest can get. Anyway, I always loved the song and the title and when I started writing a book that had to do with witches and stuff, The Perfect Star seemed like the perfect way to go...with it's allusions to pentacles and to idealism and whatnot.

In the story, the Perfect Star is a piece of gold that has been cut from the queen's crown that young Bradley Lore wears around his neck. It's meant to symbolize an ideal world...a world where war and greed don't even begin to enter into the picture...or at least a world where such nasty vices can be somewhat eliminated.

Perhaps I should elaborate a little on the idea of perfection. Perfection, to me, is not the art of doing everything just right all the time. The idea of perfect to me would be the art of being perfectly human. Sure...we all have flaws...we make mistakes...that's what makes life interesting. But to be perfectly human is to own up to our flaws, accept them and try to learn from them. That is the ideal. To put away such petty human concerns as greed and power and to strive to live our lives without hurting anybody. That's the Wiccan Rede, The Golden Rule and a dozen other basic credos followed by the various religions on this planet. Greed hurts. Power corrupts. Just don't hurt anybody! It's that simple. Not that you really can hurt anybody spiritwise, as I have said before, but don't hurt em physically or mentally either. PLAY NICE for crying out loud!

I've also noticed, after writing this story, a little bit of irony... the men who are fighting the war are fighting for gold...gold...the thing that promotes greed and ultimately, leads to many deaths. Gold is seen a a bad thing in this way. And yet...gold is also depicted as the thing that will save these people from themselves...the thing that will bring about peace and love and goodwill...the gold in the Perfect Star. How can gold be both these things?

Well...let's look at gold...it is pretty...it shines...it resonates. It's a beautiful rock! So the gold of the star represents this beauty, in its purest form...The light from the golden star can lead us to our ultimate peace. But beware! Do not try to covet this light or our old friend greed comes back into play. Just enjoy gold for what it is and don't worry too much about getting your grubby little hands on it.

Make sense? Oh well...I tried.