"Hey," I Exclaimed, "That Was My Idea!"

I read an author on Substack who said she was tired of publishers not paying her, and she was going to begin writing a series of small books.

 "Hey," I exclaimed, "that was my idea!"

Writing small books, I mean.

Well, there is room for both of us, but isn't it odd when an idea is floating around and more than one person gets it? I heard that when Albert Lamorisse wrote The Red Balloon, to his dismay, another author was also presenting a book by the same title for publication. Both were published. (A title is one thing not copyrightable.) Lamorisse's book, made into a movie, won an Academy Award. (His young son plays the protagonist.)

Lamorisse was a filmmaker and was praised for his photography, yet while filming another movie, his helicopter crashed, killing all aboard. His grown-up son and wife completed the movie and released it posthumously. (I keep finding dead authors, darn it.)

I love novels, and I usually have one running all the time, but reading them takes time, and time is a precious commodity. You can read a short story in one sitting, and it is more fun than a bunch of real-life How-tos. Besides, I want to get to the questions and answers quickly.  People have asked these same questions for eons, and will continue to do so for eons to come, however, they are fun to ask, and the answers are as different as the person asking them. "What’s my purpose? Why am I here? Where do we go from here? What sort of spirituality rings true for me?"

I reach out tentatively and touch the questions, throw a few crumbs their way, drop a little magic, and run away.

Here are the first two books in my "WHERE" series,

10,000 words or less—fiction.

 

Two so far:

Number 1: Where Tiger's Belch, 8,791  words.

Number two: Where the Frogs Sing Café, 6,766 words.

Remember Edward Abby's quote? He gives an invocation better than I can:

"May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams wait for you — beyond that next turning of the canyon walls." –Edward Abby

As we go through life, not only have our bodies been bruised, but our spirits have often been as well. Yet, a few words can shine light into a dark hole, tickle our funny bone, or motivate us.

This series is my try.

"Don't try, do."—Yoda

Carry on. Do good work,

P.S. In searching for other books of this genre, (I don’t know what their genre is called) I found two authors who have written books the sort I aspire to. I’ve read two books from each. One author is John Strelecky, The Café at the End of the World, A Story About the Meaning of Life. “Over 4 million sold,” so says the cover. See, I know there are people who like these sorts of books. The other is Michael V. Ivanov. The Traveler’s Secret, Ancient Proverbs for Better Living. (Five stars.)

Yea, live authors.

Here we go with Number Two:

 Excerpt from Where The Frogs Sing Cafe: 

 

  

Copyright © 2025

ISBN: 979-8-9906076-2-0

Published by The Frog’s Song Publishing Junction City, OR 97448

 

Cover design by Joyce Davis

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the author's prior permission.

 

Chapters

 

Chapter 1 Voted the Best Café by My Mother

Chapter 2 The Green Flash

Chapter 3 Who Created This System Anyway?

Chapter 4 Underground Railroad

Chapter 5 Where is That Person?

Chapter 6 Life Beyond the Horizon

Chapter 7 I Vote for That

 

"May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles, and poet's towers into dark primeval forest where tigers belch, and monkeys howl…beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."

–Edward Abbey  

 

“Frogs sing the eternal call to life and happiness.”

 

 1

"Voted the Best Café by My Mother"

 

 

Carolyn, Freda, and I were barreling down a lava-based road in our rented Jeep while cane grass as high as the Jeep's hood slapped us on both sides. We thought a Jeep suited us, but by the end of this day, we felt beaten up from the constant wind in our hair and sun on our cheeks. And why in the heck were we on this road?

We had seen a sign tucked in alongside the highway, barely visible if you were going any speed at all: "Voted the Best Café by My Mother," it read. We laughed but kept on going until we saw the second sign: "Where the Frog's Sing Café" with an arrow pointing to the road we were now on.

The road didn't look like one that would lead to a café, but after our day of snorkeling in the ocean, sunning on the beach, and being wind-whipped to pieces in an open-air jeep, we were exhausted and starving.

And so, when the sign indicated a café ahead, we aimed toward it.

We were on summer break from college, and although it might seem that a trip to Hawaii is a luxurious holiday, our families got together to give us three girls this trip. My Aunt Mable gave us her Condo share for a week, our folks paid for our airline tickets, and we scraped together enough money to live for seven days.

We were all juniors in college and had been friends since high school, but there we were, exhausted after our junior year and worried about what to do after graduation. Our folks decided we needed a break, and so they gave us this gift, like the Twelve Days of Christmas minus eleven.

Eventually, the lava-encrusted, lumpy road through the cane grass ended at a strip of golden/white sand. And there on that beautiful sand sat a Robinson Crusoe-style shack with a sign under its thatched roof, Where the Frogs Sing Café.

When I (the designated driver) cut the motor, we heard the surf pounding off in the distance.

"Jo," Carolyn attentively asked from the passenger seat, "do you think this is safe?"

"We have only met friendly people," I said. "This looks like the sort of place poor college students would frequent, a Barefoot pub on the beach. Besides, do you think that fellow we met while snorkeling would steer us wrong? He said there was a shortcut to our condo beside a café titled Where the Frogs Sing? He seemed nice."

"Well, you were flirting with him, no wonder he was nice."

"All the more reason to trust him. He was flirting back." I opened the car door and swung my legs out. 

end of excerpt 

 

Where The Frogs Sing Cafe will be available on Kindle in a day or two. In the meantime, since you are my blog readers, and if you want to read the rest of the story, I will send you a PDf file for Free to your email. You can be my first readers. See what you think.  This offer will only be available this week. Thanks for reading.

Oh, I need your email address to send it. No worries, I never let emails creep out of my box. My dog guards it.

Go to joshappytrails at gmail.com/ You know what at means. Type it in. Whohoo! Sing with the frogs. Say YES.

 

 

 

Why Am I Here?

Don't you sometimes want to read something that packs a punch and gets to the point quickly?

I love reading novels. We can take our time reading them or stay up until 2 a.m., savoring every line. Let's face it though, we don't have all the time in the world, and we are thirsty for answers.

This is my idea; to write a series of short books, under ten thousand words. Not  a How- to- Book, but fiction where I can investigate those questions we ask ourselves in the dark of night. "Why am I here? What's my purpose? Do I have a purpose?" 

Where Tigers Belch--it's been out for awhile and I have mentioned it before, so please indulge me so I can offer it for those who don't know about it. 

Where Tigers Belch is 8,801 words, and now that I am well into a second book, I am offering an excerpt from the Tiger book so you can get a taste of the sort I’m talking about.

Using Edward Abbey's lyrical poem as my inspiration, I am incorporating 'where' into the titles.

"May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles, and poets' towers into dark primeval forest where tigers belch, and monkeys howl…beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."–Edward Abbey 

The second book is Where the Frogs Sing Café. (An excerpt will come.)

Upon searching for books of this sort, I found two authors who write in this category: John Strelecky’s story about the meaning of life sold over 4 million copies." (In my dreams.)  I’ve read two of his books.

And Michael V. Ivanov. (About Pursuing Dreams) I love his speech title: "Stay Alive All Your Life." Oh my gosh, I just saw he lives in Portland, OR, right up the 1-5 Freeway from us.

I’ve read two of his books.

 

Here is an excerpt from

 

Where Tigers Belch

By

Jo Davis

  

An Introduction plus ten chapters are included in the book.

 

Introduction

 

Tomorrow I will take my backpack, I will add a few bottles of water and a couple of sandwiches and set off to find my destiny.

We aren’t on safari here, although I wish we were. We're here to find the spot that lights our fire. That's where the tiger belches. I could say sleep, lies down, or roars, but I like Abby's lyrical poem, so I'm saying, "Where it belches."

Paulo Coelho, wrote The Alchemist, in which a shepherd boy begins a quest to find a treasure—he calls that treasure  his "Personal legend."

Since human beings first became aware that they were thinking, they have asked questions such as Coelho is asking. “Why am I here? Do I have a purpose? Can I trust a Higher Power to look out for me? Is life simply working to supply our basic needs, shelter, food, water, and reproducing?”

While in Africa, Martha Beck found herself in an awkward and dangerous place. She was between a Momma rhinoceros and her baby. Standing there looking at an animal the size of a Volkswagen bus, she experienced a strange phenomenon. She was frightened, yes, but she also felt elated. She was at a place she had dreamed of since childhood, and at that moment, that rhinoceros represented her one true nature. She felt that, somehow, she had come face to face with her destiny. (Between a rhino and a hard place?)

Perhaps that rhino was a talisman for her, a representation of what she could become: big, strong, able to overcome obstacles, that thing that both scares us and elates us. We hope we live to tell of it when we find ourselves in that place.

Being at a spot where a tiger belch has a gentler ring than coming face-to-face with a rhino. The purpose is the same. However, which would you rather face, a wild tiger or a wild rhino?

I don't think we can take credit for all we have produced, for I believe in muses and divine intervention.  However, we can take credit for searching. I search for my figurative or literal spot where the tiger belches.

 

 

Chapter 1

You might think I spent the night quivering in my debris hut, listening for the footfalls of wild animals.

I did.

I'm joking. I slept like a relaxed dog lying on his back with all four paws in the air.

I was on a mission and wouldn't let a minor inconvenience stop me.

Ahead was the goal of my life.

I spent yesterday walking, but when a washed-out area of the path sent me sliding into an avalanche of mud, I slid downhill, screaming and grasping at the vegetation.

My careening stopped short of a stream, thank heavens. I had scraped my hands on the way down, and made my throat raw from the screaming, but I survived to the tune of birds screeching and wing flapping as they fled from the treetops, painting a smear of colors across the sky.

I washed my hands in the stream and ate one of the tuna fish sandwiches I had placed in a plastic container to keep them from getting mushed. I drank my bottled water and gathered sticks and debris for an enclosure where I spent the night.  

Now you might be waiting for me to fall on my face, and I may—I slid down the muddy slope, didn't I? But what if we travel through life knowing it will turn out well for us?

I crawled out of my enclosure, stripped off my clothes, and bathed in the stream.

Figuring that the stream—which flowed at a pretty good clip—was pure, I filled my empty water bottles.

I put the bottles into my backpack, and found a surprise. (Did I tell you I had lost my backpack on the way down that embankment and had to climb, holding onto vegetation for support, back up to get it? I slipped back down again—but I saved my backpack.) I had used this pack before and had left a pen and a paper pad in its zipped-up compartment. I searched to see if I had anything else tucked away.

I found three sticks of gum, old and dried up, a chocolate mint from a restaurant long ago, melted, flattened, and reset, but still in its foil wrapper. There were a few crumbs of leftover peanuts and salt at the bottom of the pack. I dipped a wet finger in the salt and licked it. It gave me the taste of having potato chips – a good aftertaste for my tuna fish sandwich.

Okay, dry, dressed, fed, and invigorated after that cold bath, I began skipping down the new path destiny had chosen for me.

Besides, I knew that following a stream usually led somewhere. Water goes downhill, not in circles, as I am apt to do.

What if I get lost? I think as I walk along—a moment of doubt. What if I run out of food or get eaten by a tiger?  Well, I'd be dead. I don't know where I am now anyway. I might as well proceed. I'm determined.

I take off my tee shirt, dip it in the stream, and put it back on to cool my steaming body. I sit beside the stream, gather some reeds, and weave them into a ratty-looking hat. It protects my head, and the wet grass helps keep me at a tolerable temperature.

I keep walking; the sun beats down hot, and it is humid and muggy under the forest's canopy.

Occasionally, a monkey screams at me, sometimes they sing in a full-on chorus of screeching, but I keep on.

Another night in the jungle? What did I get myself into?

Suddenly, I hear someone humming.

Am I coming upon an encampment?

I stop and hold my breath as I peer through the jungle thicket. I see only one hut.

Standing there where I am, hidden in the trees, I see an old woman come out of a shelter. Her white hair frizzes out in a tangle, flowing down her back. She is wearing a turquoise sarong tied above her bosom. Her shoulders are bare. She ambles, carrying a jug to the stream where she dips it into the water. She hefts the filled jug out of the water and settles it on her hip.

As she is walking back to her hut, she calls out to me.

"Why are you standing there, gawking? Come in out of the heat. I've been expecting you."

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