CE Wills

    A few weeks ago I had something unusual happen here at my home in the woods. We had been having a cookout and everyone had gone home except for my son. He doesn't live here but he had hung around to chat a while. We were sitting on the deck, my son, my wife and I. A cool breeze had sprung up from the north and the sun had just gone down a few minutes earlier.     We heard a cry from the forest that sounded very much like a child who wanted his mother. There was really no words, just the cry. There was some discussion among us as to whether it was an animal or a child. I know that the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The sound continued on and on.     It bothered me that a child could be in the woods, possibly having wandered away from his home. There are no houses within miles of us in the direction the sound was coming from. I went to the bedroom and retrieved a gun and a flashlight and my son and I set off into the woods in sear...

It's dark here in the woods. I noticed one of our outside lights was out, so I went out to change it. I evidently disturbed a buck, because he started snorting. They show their displeasure by blowing air very forcefully through their nostrils. I couldn't see him because when it's dark in the woods it's really dark. I whistled at him and I could hear his snorting dying away in the distance. We went to the creek today and it was dry. The weather has been extremely hot and almost no rain has fallen for several months. I think that global warming is a reality. We have had some days when the temperature reached triple digits in the area. Here on the mountain we are normally five degrees cooler than the valley, however. When the creek drys up there is normally less wildlife about but just when you start missing them they'll show you they are still around. We were sitting on the deck the other evening and noticed a red fox about 50 feet out in the woods. He was just sitt...

Hey, everyone. I just got back from a trip to Jekyll Island, Ga. It's one of my favorite places and played a prominent role in my novel KGB Retirement Program . I've been going to Jekyll for several decades. This time at the island I indulged in one of my hobbies, which is tracking. I became interested in tracking after I moved to the woods and started observing the critters.  While at the beach I saw where a mouse had ran from his hole under a set of steps that had been built to cross a dune. He had come in and out several times to get food that the tourists had dropped. I studied the tracks of a man who was very overweight and walked with his feet turned outward to give him balance. He didn't do this consciously or because he wanted to. It just happens as a natural result of his condition. Another set of tracks revealed that the man who made them drug the toes of one foot at every step, except for the little toe. I'd know his track among many. A lady's prints s...

Recently I reflected on the E-book industry, the publishers of old and the dreams that reside in ordinary folks. It is said that the person without a dream is the saddest and the poorest of people. When I was in the 3rd, 4th and fifth grade I wanted to write. Every week I would take a sheet of notebook paper, fold it in half and fill it with stories about monsters and dinosaurs and adventures. I'd make a few copies by hand and pass them around school. Of course, in a poor rural area the spirit of the redneck despises anyone different or in the least creative. In fact, the area I grew up in was so tough you could get in a fight for wearing a clean shirt. Obviously, you were putting on airs. Most dreams were never spoken out loud and it was important to be practical. I remember one of the toughest days of my life was on a birthday when I realized that I'd work in a factory the rest of my life and die poor. That's the thing that most observers miss about the e-book industry...

Hey, y'all. I'm back at home tonight. Had a nice, if lengthy, trip. We used the northern route coming back which carved about 500 miles off the trip. We drove across Nebraska, my first visit to that state. It was rather pretty. I was struck by how few bugs and how low the humidity was compared with the southeast. As the elevation decreased after we left Wyoming and Colorado, my inner ear problems got better. We spent one night in Kansas City, which I am very familiar with, and I had something odd happen to me. I was standing outside a hotel and I had the strangest feeling, that I was in Nashville, Tennessee. It must have been that the area reminded me of a similar area in the volunteer state. It was quite pronounced, this feeling, and a little spooky. While I was in Denver I saw a couple of things I'm not used to. Firstly, I went through a tunnel and there was a machine there that monitored your exhaust for emissions. I don't know if violators were issued a ticket or n...

As a writer, anything might strike your interest and inspire a book.I remember being in Key West many years ago and meeting an old time sailor man on the street. He was such a neat character that he later inspired the character named Dunny in my book The Dan Tattoo. At other times a place or a happening may start a book. Recently, I had an experience in a hotel that cries out for a spy novel. I had talked to some people in an elevator. When I left the elevator one of the men tried to unobtrusively follow me and see which room I went into. I noticed it but I was not particularly alarmed. Sometime during the night a note was slid under my door. Intriguing? Yeah, I thought so too. I have another example from this current road trip I'm on. I was in a rest area in Arkansas and a young man came into the rest room and began to wash his left hand. He lathered it up with soap and scrubbed it until it made funny noises. Then he rinsed it with cold water for like a full minute. That's n...

Left Trinidad, Colorado, very early on Monday morning. It was a beautiful day and we drove through southern Colorado with a wonderful view of the mountains on our left as we headed north toward Denver. We saw a coyote run across the road in front of us and we saw some antelope grazing in a meadow with the spectacular, snow covered peaks as a background. When we reached Denver in the afternoon the traffic was intense and we blasted through town, past the Rockies massive stadium and on toward the north. We drove through Estes Park and into Rocky Mountain National Park. Very impressive and very steep with people driving like maniacs along the sides of sheer drops. I experienced some symptoms of altitude sickness as the elevation was about 11,000 feet. We stopped to rent a cottage and the price was a bit steep like the mountain behind it so we cruised through places like Boulder, where folks with dough walk the stores. I didn't see anyone famous but I was never a groupie anyway. Af...

This post is a day late because last night I was in a cheap motel with no Wifi. So this describes Sunday's trip. While in Oklahoma we stopped at the Cherokee store. They had some beautiful handmade knifes,quite pricey, some with chipped stone blades and elk horn handles, engraved with Indian sign. Also in Oklahoma, we saw many trees that were festooned with massive infestations of caterpillars. I'll upload some photos when we get home. Hats off to the state of Texas for a nice welcome center. There was a wonderful view across the prairie and canyons. They had two free telescopes so you could enhance this great view. Very classy, Texas. Most states would have have charged. Beautiful concrete work around the building with a huge relief etched in the cement of the lone star state. Also they had put animal tracks, simulated, of course, in the concrete. The first ones I spotted,of course, were mountain lion tracks. My wife took a picture of a nice young couple for them. They remi...

On a road trip to the western US. Yesterday we crossed the mighty Mississippi at Memphis while Mick Jagger was singing about those Honky Tonk Women from the same town. Been many years since I came this way and the fabulous Pyramid where I think the NBA Grizzlies play is almost on I-40. It's visually striking. It was extremely hot in Tennessee and eastern Arkansas yesterday, over 100 degrees in spots. As we went west into Western Arkansas and Oklahoma the country grew higher and cooler. Slept at a motel in Sallisaw and woke in the night to think upon the hardy pioneers who came this way on a covered wagon. I also thought about The Trail of Tears that came to this very area and how thousands of good and decent people died when the Cherokee Indians were relocated to Oklahoma. More on this later but now it's time for breakfast and the road to Colorado. Adios from Ce Wills.

Hello again! Thought I'd give you an app review for an I-pad app named Juxtaposer Jr. It's a fantastic app. What it does is enable you to superimpose one picture, or part of one picture, on top of another. You can put one person's face on another person's body. You can take your brother's picture and place him in a picture of the Grand Canyon, if you like. This app is a ton of fun and it's absolutely free. I, and others in my family, have spent hours being creative and mischeivous with this app. I also bought an app called Color Splash for $1.99. It allows you to have a picture colored all gray except for one person or thing. This makes for some striking photos. I recommend both apps but especially the Juxtaposer. This app just took over our July 4th get-together and it was cool to watch the creativity of the little kids with it.Of course, one of the older people had to make a video of funny pics which was a little silly. Stuff such as putting someone's face...

Hey again, everyone. I went to a movie today and really enjoyed it. It was a flick with Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise called Knight and Day. It's a fast-paced, funny, spy flick and I'd give it 3 stars out of four. I really think my novel KGB Retirement Program would make a good movie. It would certainly have some classic one-liners. Hey, the book industry is interesting right now, don't you think? I really feel that e-books should be a fraction of the cost of paper books. Recently I paid $12 for a "copy" of James Lee Burke's The Rain Gods in e-book format. I'm still kicking my own butt over that one. I buy quite a few e-books and several paper books. The other day I was eager to buy the new book by Nelson DeMille called The Lion . I went to Books-a-Million and they wanted $26 for the hardcover. Do they have a death wish? I stopped by Wal-Mart and bought the same book for $15. To be honest with you the e-book wasn't much less. No e-book should be more t...

Hi, everyone! Just thought I'd let you know that I've got my books placed in the Smashwords summer promotion. Its a good time to stock up on good reads for ridiculous prices. Just follow the link at the side of the page. Get the freebies at least. Hey, I was on my way home just now and hit a deer. What a drag. He survived and so did my car, with minimal damage to both. I've hit four in my life time. I don't know if I'm lucky or not. No sweat, or as the Aussies would say, "No worries". Hey, try a couple of songs. Love Remains by Colin Raye and For You by the late, great John Denver. I played them both on the piano this morning and they will darn near make an old man weep. If you like them, throw in Alan Jackson's Remember When. CE Wills from the boondocks.