Author: Devlin De La Chapa

Indie. Writer. Dreamer. Poet.

And you don’t need to be a genius to figure that out!

On By Devlin De La ChapaIn Article, Fiction, Musing2 Comments

 

 

So why are people under the impression that by dishing out money to hear the secrets of a successful businessman (or woman) automatically entitles them to that luxury?

 

Now referring to Donald Trump’s latest seminar or the Trump Universities “supposed scandal” of those who invested, then after, complained about learning nothing only to end up in debt.

 

Aside from myself, does anyone else here honestly believe that Donald Trump is about to divulge the secrets to his success just because someone paid to hear it?

 

For anyone who is successful, those successes usually derive from some form of a self-strategic ethic and not necessarily someone else’s strategies.  In the pursuit of success, the whole idea, while a romantic one, is not without heartbreak or hard work; there’s a vast amount of time, sweat and money when trying to be successful in any business, and by the time success is achieved one will then find themselves asking:  Do I really want to make it easy for someone else to achieve my success after what I’ve just been through because they paid to hear it?  Now if people in general can understand that very concept, then I hate to be the bearer of bad news folks, but you got what you paid for.

 

So my 2-cents is this:  Stop whining!  Because the money you invested to hear things you were never going to hear, you could have very easily invested it to start the path of your own success!  

 

And you don’t need to be a genius to figure that out!

“Good China” – Flash Fiction

On By Devlin De La ChapaIn Fiction, Flash3 Comments

 

 

     He latched onto my nipple.

     The way newborn sons latch onto nipples-only distant.  And the scenario takes me

back to a place of pubescent butterflies and crimson donuts sprinkled in Christmas glitter gold. 

     I sigh, and run my fingers through his hair-short, refined, tousled.  The gold of the calico blond strands shimmer beneath the sunlight probing into our little secret affair.

     From amidst his suckling, he glances up at me, my reflection stares back.  I look down at my white dress.  The eyelets on my dress are like the windows of my soul, missing threads.

     I sweep an anxious eye across the nightstand.  Divorce papers unsigned, yet lay perfectly folded beside a pen tempting me to sign the mistake you’ve made. 

     My mind drifts back to that hot August afternoon.  A sticky note posted to you from me on our front door:  Dear John, Your girlfriend called.  I forgot to buy Kleenex at the store.  You moved out, and he was to move in, your best friend who didn’t know you had moved out prior to him knocking on what used to be “our” front door, on a late September morning. 

     He leaves me a sticky note on my front door:  X O, X O, empty boxes.

     I am guilty to say we now share in this room, no longer sacred or abide by or united in our matrimony.  Not even my nipple knows no boundaries as my tears slip through the sand of decaying bones; your mother’s ring.  It no longer resides on my left hand. 

     My nipple grows raw, not with sensation, but with sentiment.

     Because the open range echoes the sound of death’s love aging gracefully near.  I thank you for the memories of when my heart was broken next to my good China.

 

 

Update on “ROMEO”

On By Devlin De La ChapaIn Book, Fiction, Musing, Review, WritingLeave a comment

 

 

Well “ROMEO” (my YA paranormal modern-day Romeo + Juliet love story) hasn’t exactly been knocking Agents off their feet despite the fact I’ve been trying to sell them on the idea that ROMEO is a fresh and one-of-a-kind story as well as uniquely written as ROMEO reads in the same fashion as William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo + Juliet.

 

Now I’ve pondered on why I haven’t exactly received invitations from Lit Agents to submit further material on ROMEO, and I haven’t came up with much answers.  Perhaps Agents consider ROMEO to be a knock-off. . .maybe so, but you can’t discount novels like I,DRAKULA or CINDER or RED RIDING HOOD, re-written classics with a unique spin to them.  Or perhaps it is what one potential Agent quoted when I pitched her LAST BITE! my last YA novel, and why she couldn’t take it on even though she was ecstatic on the idea-editor vampire fatigue.  Or perhaps it’s the timing, the economy; maybe word count plays a factor or maybe the market is too flooded with YA paranormals, or maybe, and perhaps my last conclusion, a weak query?  Now while all those may play a factor, in my opinion, and what I’ve read considerably, the YA genre, regardless of sub-genre, and is as of this moment the biggest seller when it comes to books.  So yeah, in that sense, the market is there, the Agents are there, I just think (and I as I stated before) it’s the “timing”.  I would like to assume, or speculate, that Agents have their good days and their bad days when it comes to reviewing queries or submissions which play a major role when it comes to deciding on whether to request material on a query or reject the query entirely despite the fact that it could very well be a best-seller.  I will admit though that It brings me great comfort in knowing that what I’ve just IMO’d above may harbor some truth.

 

So in the meantime I’ve decided to self-publish ROMEO.  And if it sells pretty well, then maybe I can re-pitch it to Agents and perpahs gain representation, with fingers crossed, of course!