UNALIVE By Cyrus Keith AND MY FIRST EVER NON-PROMO PROMO

My guest today is a very dear man, Cyrus Keith, and it is with pride and tremendous appreciation and love that I turn my blogspot over to Cyrus.

Welcome My Muse Brother.

If it's okay, I'd like to not promote my work. Of course, I'd like you to buy my books, and I'm even giving away a copy of

Unalive, my latest novel from MuseItUp Publishing. But let's pretend for a moment that I'm not just here to sell books. I feel like one of those used-car schmucks who corners you in the parking lot and waves a pen under your nose while he keeps harping about signing over your dog for "this little beauty in the corner." So I won't sit here and tell you why you should buy my book.

What I really want is for you to read the story. I want you to think about the concept of identity and what makes a person who (or what) he or she is. Does humanity qualify someone as a person? What would the legal definition be? If a person is made by man and not by God, does that person have a soul? What moral compass would such a person have? What awareness of right and wrong?

I'd also like you to read it and think about how many people around you just wander through life. They get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, and the next day they do it all over again. They can't see the magic of a

sunrise, the beauty of dew on a spider's web. They never hear the music of a city at night, or feel the magic moment that passes over the world at the precise moment the sun goes down, that infinitely deep hush that opens the door to another world, just for a split second before dark sets in.

We get moments every day that, were we to stop and soak them in, would take our breath away. We complain about the cold in the winter, and six months later we complain about the heat. The glare of the sunlight makes us blind, or the dark of the night limits our vision. But can we see

a million diamonds on the ground as the snow crunches beneath our feet? What about the majesty of a thunderstorm? Or even yet, when the three-year-old wants you to read Timothy Mouse Goes to Sea one more time, do you say, "Okay, just a minute," and keep watching television instead?

The point I'm trying to make is that so many people, myself often included, take most of our lives for granted, often not even taking the time to appreciate the moments that slide by, aching to take our breath away. It's easy to appreciate that first plunge on the new roller coaster. We sat rapt in front of our television watching Neal Armstrong take one giant leap for Mankind. I missed my oldest son's first public performance in an elementary school variety show. I did learn in time to catch each golden moment that my baby daughter fell asleep on my chest. Every night I tell my kids I love them. Every morning I kiss my wife goodbye and tell her the same thing. I savor her lips long after I've pulled out of the driveway.

Our lives are filled with golden moments. It's up to us to make each one count, even if it's only to pause long enough to take a deep breath and greet it as it flies by, on its way to our past. Because once it's there, we can't dig it out and live it again. It's only a memory, and memories just aren’t the same.

UNALIVE by Cyrus Keith is available from Muse It Up Publishing, Inc. Click HERE for the direct link to it's Muse Bookstore page.

And thank you for sharing your beautiful words with us here on my blog, Cyrus...before I end this, Kat and Chris, Mom loves you both. Lea, Litsa, Karen, Dee, Tir, Cyrus, Gail, Nancy, Chris, Tanja, Ginger, Penny, and all my Muse Family, I love you too.