Living in the Moment

When bad things happen like the tornadoes in Oklahoma with lives lost suddenly, you start to think about living in the moment. After all that moment might be all you have, and you should appreciate it to the fullest.

My mother used to tell me to "wake up and smell the roses". She worried that I "burned the candle at both ends". Mother was right about that, and I still do. However, I am thinking more about living in the present and enjoying the flowers in bloom and the beautiful sunsets which I have always appreciated but perhaps never quite enough.

"Portal to Forever" acrylic painting ©Mary Montague Sikes

Sometimes I create paintings that make me think. "Portal to Forever" is one of those. A few years ago, I stood inside one of the smaller buildings excavated from the jungles at Palenque in Southern Mexico. It was part of the Maya Ruins from long ago. I started to think of the people who stood in that place before me. I stared through the portal, across the massive foliage that led to Guatemala, and wondered about the past. I took 35mm color slides of the scene that would later serve as reference photos for my paintings.

Was I living in the moment that day in Palenque? Or was I living in the past? I remember that I looked across into forever. Are forever and the present one and the same?

I don't know. Do you?

Tides Inn Art Show

Memorial Day Weekend, May 25 and 26, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., I'll have books to sign and will paint at the Art Market, Tides Inn in Irvington VA. 

Combining Art with Writing

"A Vision Beyond" acrylic painting MMSikes

Balancing the life of an author and an artist is difficult and often impossible. How does one write, promote, paint, teach and have another life besides? It's not easy, but sometimes it's rewarding as well as fun.

For the next couple of months, I will be combining art and writing lives with an exhibition of my Maya Ruins paintings that were created from photos I took on trips to Palenque and to Chichen Itza in Mexico. The Palenque trip was particularly challenging because it required a flight on a small plane we chartered from Huatulco across the jungles of southern Mexico to a grass airstrip near the ruins. While there I was astonished and amazed at the depth of the jungle overgrowth that covered the huge number of ruins not yet unrevealed. When I returned home, I relied on my pictures to provide resource materials for the dozen large acrylic paintings I created in my studio.

Those paintings are on view through July 10 at Crossroads Art Center, 2016 Staples Mill Road in Richmond. The public is invited to an opening reception, Friday, May 18 from 6 to 9 p.m. The event will include a book signing for my adventure novel, Jungle Jeopardy. Inspired by my travels to the Maya Ruins and by Indiana Jones-type perils, this book finds a perfect setting among my paintings located in Gallery One at the Art Center.

Thursday, May 17, my art show and book signing will be featured in a segment on Virginia This Morning, CBS Channel 6 Richmond, between 9 and 10 a.m.

Around the World in 30 Days - Guatemala

"Far Jungle" by MMSikes

Around the World in 30 Days, Blogging A to Z, for the letter "G", the Passenger to Paradise has chosen Guatemala. Although she's never been there, the Passenger feels closely connected to that destination. For her book, Jungle Beat, she started in Antigua and ended in Antigua, but along the way she also "visited" Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

The Maya Ruins in Mexico have long been close to her heart. A few years ago, when she visited the ruins at Palenque in Southern Mexico, she was certain that as she gazed across the thick green jungles through a window of the Temple of the Inscriptions, she was seeing into Guatemala. Perhaps she was and perhaps she was not, but the memory of her thoughts that day have invaded her psyche and given directions in her art and in her writing she would never have taken without that journey of destiny.

Besides her book, the Passenger has created an exhibition of Maya Ruins paintings that will be on view at Crossroads Art Center in Richmond, VA starting May 18 with an opening reception and book signing. She is fascinated with the Maya and the end of their calendar December 21, 2012.

Is that date the end of time?

Guatemala.

The Maya.

What do you believe?

Mystery and Mystique - Who Are the Maya?

"Early Evening Sky" - MM Sikes

Since I first visited the dramatic, expansive ruins of the Maya that lie buried deep beneath the thick, green jungles of Mexico and Central America, I've been hooked. Then, when I started reading about the end of the Maya Calendar in 2012, I was spellbound. It's like gazing at the sky in wonderment as early evening settles in.

Did the Maya know things we do not? Is the end of their calendar on December 21, 2012 the sign of a doomsday event?

Because of their advanced abilities in mathematics and their primitive knowledge of astronomy, the Maya were able to develop a calendar that was considered by some to be the most accurate in the world. Their Long Count calendar begins in 3114 BC and ends December 21, 2012. The calendar has time divisions of 144,000 days (a little more than 394 years) called Baktuns. The 13th Baktun ends December 21, 2012. Long ago, the Maya predicted a solar shift at that time. A stone tablet found in the 1960s at the Tortuguero archaeological site in the Gulf of Mexico tells of the return of a Mayan god at the end of the 13th Baktun.

So much of the Maya history was destroyed during the European conquest that sometimes myths have grown to take the place of knowledge. I love the adventure of uncovering the ruins of the lost buildings of the Maya. I even fantasized about it in my latest Passenger to Paradise book, Jungle Jeopardy.

Who knows what still may lie hidden beneath the lush, tropical jungles?

Mexican tourism will take advantage of the 2012 phenomena. A year-long celebration is planned for the heart of the Maya ruins that lie buried in southern Mexico. Palenque in Chiapas is one of those sites. As many as 52 million tourists are expected to flood the area. That compares with about 22 million during an average year.


Who knows what we may learn? Perhaps we will know more about who the Maya were in those long ago lost times.

Getting Things Done and Organized

Organize your schedule.

Easier said than done.

Do all writers have the problem of organization? Or are some folks naturally more organized than others?

I have two new novels coming out this year. Jungle Jeopardy, an adventure story set in Central America, was recently released by my publisher. A Rainbow for Christmas, a sweet romance set on a wagon train, will be out in late October. That means I now have a double problem of organizing and promotion because I have two new books.

Unfortunately, although I know better, I have done little to promote either book. During the summer, we took trips that I would be unable to undertake any other time of year. Those trips put me way behind in setting up events for my books. However, those trips also gave me background and exotic settings for future books.

I have scheduled a radio interview with Neil Steel, several book signings, a talk, and a tailgate art show which sounds like lots of fun. But there is way more to be done. Jungle Jeopardy has a big tie-in with Maya ruins. A few years ago, I painted a big series of large acrylic paintings of the Maya ruins we had visited. Now, I want to set up art exhibitions with those paintings tied to my book signings. Hopefully, I can figure it out by connecting with art departments of the universities I attended.

So much to do.

I'm making a list of all the possibilities. Of all the potential. There is more to do than will fit into a normal seven day week.

It would help a lot to be organized.

I'm trying ...

Are you organized? I would love to know how other writers think.

Signing the End on a Book Manuscript

Signing the words "the end" on a book manuscript has usually been a magic time for me. After weeks of intense work and dedication, it's fulfilling to accomplish a special goal.

Last Saturday, I typed those words on my latest manuscript, Jungle Jeopardy. I was happy, and I was sad at the same time.

You see, along the way, I fell in love with the characters. I relished the adventure in the jungle. My characters took over the story and wandered off in directions I never imagined when I began writing this book in March. I had a villain at the beginning whom I loved in the end. That was certainly never planned nor was it expected. I even had a jaguar play a major part in the plot.

Imagine that!

It was so much fun that I want to return to the jungles of Central America for more adventures. I want to find my way back into the unexplored Maya ruins. And I want to continue to wonder why I never heard much about the amazing Maya civilization in history classes.

What happens when you complete your manuscript? Are you willing to leave your characters or do you want to keep on going?

Getting Lost in the Setting

When you're writing a book, do you ever get lost in the setting you've created? I do.

Right now, I'm writing an adventure novel, Jungle Jeopardy, that's set in the jungles of Central America. I have a wonderful National Geographic map of Mexico and Central America spread out across a third of my desk. As I write about my characters' experiences in lost Maya ruins, I am captivated by the subject. When I leave to proceed with my own daily life, I think about my characters as though they were real living people.

Sometimes for past books, I've made a big chart and stuck post-it notes all over it as things happen. That can be pretty helpful when you want to check on the timing for some event. For this book, I have a little black spiral notebook that's 4 x 6 inches in size. So far, I've almost completely filled it with research notes about the Maya, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. It's amazing what you can find on the Internet, even including the sounds certain animals make.

Since Jungle Jeopardy is a sequel to Secrets by the Sea, I keep a copy of that novel close at hand as well. I also make little notes on sheets of paper scattered about my desk on both sides of the computer. And there are photographs torn from magazines from some of the destinations in my setting.

Getting lost in the setting is a lot of fun. Now, I can hardly wait to see how it all turns out because my characters have taken over. I truly won't know how this book ends until almost the last page. It definitely will not end the way I originally planned.

I'd love to know what happens when you're writing a book. Do you ever get lost in your setting?

Google Changes Everything for a Novelist

Parking Lot at Sunset - MMSikes

How quickly things change. An ordinary parking lot turns into magic at sunset. And a novel you think is going one way suddenly takes a U-turn in the opposite direction. That change in my novel happened because of Google.

When I first started writing books, as the Passenger to Paradise, I spent a lot of time at the local library using various reference materials to enhance what I already knew about the destination I was visiting. For my first novel, Hearts Across Forever, set in Jamaica, I not only researched that island nation, but I learned more about subjects such as hypnotic regression and reincarnation because my characters were involved in both.

For my current project, Jungle Jeopardy, I planned to have my characters get involved in a kidnapping and much more in Costa Rica. But then Google and my characters took over. I remembered my own adventures in the Maya ruins and started reading and Googling the ruins of Central America. What I've learned has been compelling, and my characters are out of control having a wild adventure in the jungles of Guatemala. While in the past the Passenger to Paradise has always written from personal experience, now I've discovered a journey so dangerous only Google can handle it for me.

Because so much is available at the touch of a key, Google changes everything for the novelist. Have you changed the way you research and write. Do you still spend hours at the library researching? Or do you have your own system.

"X" Is For the Temple of Xtoloc at Chichen Itza

"Pathway to the Ruins" MM Sikes

For the past few weeks, as the Passenger to Paradise, I've been researching the Maya ruins in Central America. During that investigation, I came across the Temple of Xtoloc. The remains of this small temple are located on the edge of the famous cenote at Chichen Itza known an the Well of Sacrifice.

According to my research, this cenote is quite large, covering a surface of about one acre. The well was used for perhaps as long a period as 500 years and contained not only treasures but also the skeletons of people of many different ages, including children, who were sacrificed in rituals. This information came from A Guide to Ancient Maya Ruins by C. Bruce Hunter which shows a photograph of the well with the temple in the background. From the Internet, I found a description saying that there are actually two cenotes at Chichen Itza and that the one the temple is on is not the sacrificial one but may have served as the source of fresh water supply for the people.

Chichen Itza is a Maya ruins site we visited a few years ago. The well was one of the locations on our tour. I later created a large series of paintings from photographs taken of the many excavated buildings. The painting on the right is one of the series. I made a very large painting of the Well of Sacrifice but not of the Temple of Xtoloc.

Jungle Jeopardy, my WIP set in the jungles of Central America, includes exploration of some of the Maya ruins. Copan in Honduras, where many of the most intriguing ruins are found, may have been settled as long ago as 2000 BC. Stela B, a large stone carving found at Copan, contains images some people believe are elephants. Sad we know so little of the true history of this part of our world.

Have you visited any of the Maya ruins? If so, what was your reaction?