Ajax Minor's Blog, page 12

Betelgeuse and Second Chances

If you had a second chance—but only one—what would it be?

Last week I posted a short story, ‘Betelgeuse’, about second chances. My series, The Ur Legend, is also about second chances.

Second Chances & Forgiveness

Have you ever made a mistake? I’m guessing the answer is yes. If you had a second chance—but only one—what would it be?

Do you find that an appealing concept?

Was your mistake simply an unbearably embarrassing action or a life changing error? If it’s not correctable—say you killed someone, would forgiveness be enough? What about redemption? Is there salvation with forgiveness but not redemption?

Or, even if we remembered our past mistakes, would we be able to correct them or would we simply make new ones? I tend to be optimistic on that score, but how about you?

Would you like a second chance? Or do you think unintended consequences would create a whole new set of problems?

Missed Opportunities

What about a missed opportunity, rather than a mistake?

My protagonist in ‘Betelgeuse’ mused about a missed kiss. Was he being silly or merely honest with himself?

Would we really want a chance to fix a blunder or, living with that failure, grab a lost opportunity? If so, what does that say about our character? Are we then the incurable optimist, always looking at the doughnut not the hole?

What would you change?

Next week we’ll talk a bit more about ‘Betelgeuse,’  and 1963 in America.

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Dr. Samuel Johnson, or the Dictionary!

Did you know? Dr. Samuel Johnson compiled “A Dictionary of the English Language” in 1755, and it is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language.

~ More about Dr. Samual Johnson here  »

Enlightening or annoying?

How do you feel about using a Dictionary when you read?  I ask this because I’ve had comments from readers, directly and in reviews, who mention I use a lot of words in my writing that cause them to reach for their good old Merriam-Webster. One even went so far as to ask whether I did this for snob appeal, as one might at a cocktail party!

Cross my heart and hope to spit, I simply use them, unselfconsciously, because they are part of the lexicon I’ve acquired over the past several decades.

Cumbersome or Fun?

I’d like to know whether, as a reader, you find using a dictionary cumbersome or fun. I usually find a dictionary just adds to an existing base of knowledge, so I like the Fat Book.

Now, as a matter of full disclosure, I’m partial to Kindle for fiction. Kindle is a snap. Touch and Bingo! there’s your definition. In fact, Kindle enables many foreign language works for dictionaries. And using a dictionary when reading in a foreign language can really be a slow slog!

Look it Up

I like the good old dictionary despite the fact that looking up words is a slow process for me. We all have holes in our intellectual tool kit and mine is the alphabet! This is mentioned as a matter of full disclosure.

So back to the original question: Dictionary: fun or frustrating? Vote with a few keystrokes.

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Loss and Tears

“I know the way to your heart is through your brain and I do love you for it, or in spite of it.”

Loss

One of the major themes in the book Sun Valley Moon Mountains is “loss.” In the first chapter of the book, Kate says to Jaq, who finds her crying in the bathroom in the middle of the night, “I know the way to your heart is through your brain and I do love you for it, or in spite of it.”

Stoicism

That’s a very Stoic attitude. Kate admits that she is a Stoic by choice, while Jaq is “one by inclination.”

A major premise of Stoicism is not necessarily to deny feelings but to keep them from interfering with the business of living. I believe emotional trauma can register at the intellectual level and still be valid.  Like the fictional Jaq and Kate, my wife, Linda, and I tried very hard not to allow the tragedy of Katherine’s death interfere with the “business of living.”  Simply, we couldn’t if we’d wanted to. We had responsibilities, most especially to our damaged daughter.

Linda and I often joke that we cry twice a year for practice. But that doesn’t mean we don’t care.

Registering Pain

Besides registering intellectually, I think pain can also register in the heart and in the gut. Empathy pulls at the heart and may be a feeling most closely related to poignancy.  Visceral pain, like Kate’s sobbing alone, comes right from the gut. And although Jaq and Kate were Stoics, they still had their guts wrenched, but were careful as to when they would let their feelings loose.

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Grief and Action

Can art be a balm for Grief? If so, how?

Last time we mentioned that Smith Publicity was running a campaign for the latest book in my Ur Legend series, The Girl from Ipanema. I’d written an essay on Father’s Day, which appeared in the Huffington Post and was interviewed on the Ed Tyll radio show. But Smith won’t rest and so neither will I, it seems.  On June 23rd, we published another essay, this time on The Good Men Project website. An editor had asked that I write about the connection between Grief and Art. You can read the article here »

This is a worth while subject because Grief is a crushing and chronic emotion. And it depresses. It’s not uncommon knowledge that one of the immediate remedies for depression is activity. In my case I had a small idea for a story that has morphed into a three book series (Book 3, Kutusov’s Dream, to be released in 2018). Some might express themselves on a canvas and some, like my wife, Linda, might even devote their talents—in her case considerable financial talents—to a good cause and paint on an Excel spreadsheet.

So if you’ve suffered a grievous loss, or have been fortunate enough not to but are curious, check out the essay, ‘Grief  Life and Art‘, on The Good Men Project website. And check out the site as well. Some of us guys are talking about how we become not only ‘Good Men’ but better men.

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Loss in the Real World

We are in the middle of a promotional campaign for The Girl from Ipanema. I’m working with Smith Publicity out of Cherry Hill NJ and am excited about the interest they’ve generated. We ran an essay in the Huffington Post on Father’s Day, in the Contributor’s section, and done an interview on the Ed Tyll Show on radio.  Ed by the way is a terrific interviewer.

Listen to the interview here:

https://ajaxminor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/PaulSinsarJun14.mp3

 

We will also be running an essay on ‘Grief and Art’ on The Good Men Project website later this week.

While people are always interested in the craft of writing, they are even more driven to dig down and have me explain what really happened when Linda and I had Katie.  As you know from this site and the books, Katherine suffered a horrendous birth accident and died seven months later. The nice thing about fiction, and especially Fantasy, is that you can craft any outcome you want, as the author.  Not so in the ‘real world’.

So check out the essay (pretty short, kids) and the mp3 interview above (about 30 minutes) and you’ll know what happened to Linda and me and how the experience changed us.

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God, Grief and the Tao te Ching

How does one deal with a crushing loss, such a losing a child?   The kind both Kate and Jaq (In “Sun Valley, Moon Mountains“), and Linda and I did in real life.

A lot depends on personal history and the predilections of one’s personality.

Why?

Of course the first question asked is, ‘Why?’  First you may point the finger at yourself. ‘What did I do cause this horrible thing to happen?’  or ‘What could I have done to avert this catastrophe?’

Usually, the answer doesn’t lie in taking blame.  If the loss is directly your fault, it will probably be a long road to recovery. And I’m not a professional so we’re not going there.

God’s Will

In most cases the tragedy just ‘happened’. But how can that be? Is the universe that indifferent? Maybe, maybe not. But you grind through the question in search of meaning.  Of course, God usually gets brought into play.  If one is devout, both an answer and solace may be found by invoking ‘God’s will’ and reconciling to the fact that the mind and intentions of an omniscient being are beyond human understanding.

But this doesn’t work for everyone.  You can be a believer in God’s omnipotence and then get pretty pissed at Him/Her as a result. The event can drive a believer away from the comfort of trusting in a benevolent and loving creator.

Personal Background

For Linda and me, we came from different histories. Linda is/was a Presbyterian and attended church regularly with her family until college. She even had a pin for participating in choir for 12 years!  But she began to have doubts when, as a banker whose territory was Latin America, she saw poverty on a scale unimaginable in the US.  ‘Why’, she asked, ‘would a benevolent God let this happen?’

I had a different history. Most of my family were socialist atheists who immigrated to the US early in the last century from Iraq, Poland and Wales (some mutt huh?). They had seen the seamy side of religion and rejected it. Curiously, my maternal grandma (Grannnie Jen in SVMM) was an old Connecticut Yankee and staunch Congregationalist.  Oddly, I was closer to her than all of my other grandparents but, even though I attended church on and off from childhood through the time when our Katie was born, I never heard the ‘calling’.

But you know what? When this kind of mess happens, everyone questions God’s involvement. as the saying goes, ‘there are no atheists in foxholes’, and God is put on the spot when unthinkable tragedy occurs. WHY?

Lao Tse

No matter our personal history or intricately constructed belief systems, we still question God’s role. Both Linda and I did.  And we became comfortable with the idea that, as Lao Tse said: Nature does not play favorites. She regards her creations with out sentimentality.

And so we came to believe that the universe was not cold or impersonal by choice but rather fundamentally in its design. Like Kate and Jaq, we adopted a Stoic worldview.  It fit with personalities that were fundamentally rational. This is not to say that is superior to those that are more emotional in nature. It’s just a fact, not a judgement.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

But as to God and those who cannot let go of the notion of involvement by a supreme being, I would recommend a wonderful book: When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner.

I will summarize.

God is often thought of as omniscient, omnipotent and loving. Kushner’s conclusion was that he can be two of three but not all three at once.  There is comfort, I think, in that idea.

What do you think?

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Who is Ajax Minor?

Who in hell is Ajax Minor?  Check the link.  Everyone knows Ajax the Greater, or simply Ajax.  He was the greatest of the Greek heroes in the Iliad, next to Achilles.

There are many reasons an author may use a pseudonym. Georges Sand, and other female writers of the 19th century, felt they needed the protection a pen name offered, or the credibility a male name conveyed (or maybe Georges Sand just liked to wear pants and smoke).  Michael Crichton used the handle John Lange for his pulp fiction potboilers, while a student at Harvard Med School. Was he trying to hide something or just having fun?  And Mark Twain? Brilliant marketing of brilliant books that connected his stories to a true past.

I think Sam Clemens’ motivation comes closest to my own, though I think that the adjective ‘brilliant’ applied to anything I have produced or accomplished to date inappropriate. But like Clemens’ experiences on the Mississippi, “Sun Valley, Moon Mountains” drew its inspiration from the shared experience my wife, Linda, and I suffered in losing a child. And my choice of Ajax Minor reflects the deep interest I’ve always had in Classical history and literature, as did the book’s main protagonist, Jaq. The Iliad was the first book that seized my imagination when I was in elementary school; and I’ve read it in many versions since and consider it to be one of my all time faves. Maybe like Clemens I just thought the name was snappier than my own.

Ajax connected well phonetically with the name  Jaq. I believe  that Jaq would not have thought the comparison to Ajax the Greater appropriate, because of both the warrior’s physical stature and his own temperament. But why would I ever care what a character in a fantasy thinks?

World lines are a key basis for the fantasy in SVMM and in the subsequent books in the “Ur Legend” series.  In quantum mechanics, not only elementary particles, but macroscopic objects, can branch at key points in their histories as they evolve.  In one of my personal histories, I wrote SVMM; in another, I found the manuscript that Jaq wrote and edited it for publication. In an infinite universe, with infinite time, all contingencies are not only realizable but realized.

So, you decide who really wrote SVMM and the new book, “The Girl From Ipanema.”  In Hugh Everett’s quantum theory, we both did. Ajax Minor, then, is a pseudonym, but there is nothing ‘fake’ about it.  It is a tribute to the hero of my story. And the story itself is a tribute to my heroines, the loves of my life, Linda and Katherine, Kate and Ur.

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The Girl from Ipanema Released! Climate change, North Korea, Ethics

North Korea’s subtle shift.  Climate Change surprise: a real curve ball.  Ethics: Greatest Good for the Greatest Number or the Golden Rule, or something else? All of these themes are tackled in TGFI!Well, Book 2 of the Ur Legend, The Girl from Ipanema, is now hot off the press.  (Buy now on Amazon) In it we continue the story of Ur, who holds worlds together with her mind. But can she and should she affect outcomes?  Read on to find out.

Sun Valley Moon Mountains was a very personal book, for me. And, thematically, it was very different as well.  It was a combination of pure fantasy and magical realism, which I like to call Fantastical Realism. And although I didn’t realize it when I wrote the book, the plot structure followed the Hero’s Journey, elucidated by Joseph Campbell (Google it).  The story was a true Quest.  It was a chance, as well, to recount my wife, Linda’s, and my struggle with the catastrophe of losing a child.

But Ur, and Mattie as well, are all grown up now. I’ve been able to sketch them as young ladies and that has been exciting and challenging.  I hope you all like the result.    I’m pretty crazy about my daughter!

But this work is more topical than SVMM, even though elements are still ‘fantastic’.  We land first in North Korea and the reader is given a suggestion of what that country could be with a more benign direction. But that is the background and just a hopeful thought.  This is not a tract on Political Science (is that an oxymoron?). It’s the story of the people that really matters.

As for Climate Change, we’ve thrown a curve ball.  The scenario derives from geologic history and, while plausible, I certainly haven’t run the numbers.  But this is fiction after all.  Still, if global warming were to melt a good portion of the Greenland ice cap, what would be the result?

Finally, I don’t know how many of you enjoyed the philosophy in SVMM, Ur Book 1. It was epistemology, or how we come to know things. In Books 2 and 3 we will explore moral philosophy, ethics.  Now, I’m even more of a dilettante when dabbling in ethics than in philosophy of mind.  But it is a subject we should all think about as human beings.  What ethical choices should we make that shape how we live our lives? We’ll be talking more about ethics and Dharma, in future blogs.  Until then, get TGFI and let me know what you think.

The post The Girl from Ipanema Released! Climate change, North Korea, Ethics appeared first on Ajax Minor.

The Girl from Ipanema Released!! 5/14/17

North Korea’s subtle shift.  Climate Change surprise: a real curve ball.  Ethics: Greatest Good for the Greatest Number or the Golden Rule, or something else? All of these themes are tackled in TGFI!Well, Book 2 of the Ur Legend, The Girl from Ipanema, is now hot off the press.  In it we continue the story of Ur, who holds worlds together with her mind. But can she and should she affect outcomes?  Read on to find out.

Sun Valley Moon Mountains was a very personal book, for me. And, thematically, it was very different as well.  It was a combination of pure fantasy and magical realism, which I like to call Fantastical Realism. And although I didn’t realize it when I wrote the book, the plot structure followed the Hero’s Journey, elucidated by Joseph Campbell (Google it).  The story was a true Quest.  It was a chance, as well, to recount my wife, Linda’s, and my struggle with the catastrophe of losing a child.

But Ur, and Mattie as well, are all grown up now. I’ve been able to sketch them as young ladies and that has been exciting and challenging.  I hope you all like the result.    I’m pretty crazy about my daughter!

But this work is more topical than SVMM, even though elements are still ‘fantastic’.  We land first in North Korea and the reader is given a suggestion of what that country could be with a more benign direction. But that is the background and just a hopeful thought.  This is not a tract on Political Science (is that an oxymoron?). It’s the story of the people that really matters.

As for Climate Change, we’ve thrown a curve ball.  The scenario derives from geologic history and, while plausible, I certainly haven’t run the numbers.  But this is fiction after all.  Still, if global warming were to melt a good portion of the Greenland ice cap, what would be the result?

Finally, I don’t know how many of you enjoyed the philosophy in SVMM, Ur Book 1. It was epistemology, or how we come to know things. In Books 2 and 3 we will explore moral philosophy, ethics.  Now, I’m even more of a dilettante when dabbling in ethics than in philosophy of mind.  But it is a subject we should all think about as human beings.  What ethical choices should we make that shape how we live our lives? We’ll be talking more about ethics and Dharma, in future blogs.  Until then, get TGFI and let me know what you think.

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Writing Tips for Aspiring Authors

Last week we addressed the issue of the extent to which stories are autobiographical.  Now let’s talk about something more basic. I often hear people say, “I’ve always wanted to write,” or “I’d write, if only I could find the time.”  The second comment is the easiest to address.  Let me tell you, you do have the time.  Can you spare 15 minutes, one day a week?  If not, you will probably die of anxiety or exhaustion, or are so completely fulfilled that you really don’t need, or want, to write after all.

Writing Practice

Consider:  Grab a Composition Book at the local supermarket in the school supplies section.  Or just use your Word Processor.  During those 15 minutes, once a week, write one hundred words.  I think a prose writer can do that.  Do the math.  In one year you will have written 5200 words.  That’s a nice short story.   I Married a Butterfly is only 3000 words and is, while short, a complete story.  The year will pass in any event and, barring death, you will finish it either with a piece of writing or without one.  So, do you want to write or don’t you?  We’ve established that you have the time.

The arithmetic is simpler, but the process harder for poetry.  I can vouch for this, since I’ve written some poems; though I am clearly not a poet.  Novels, of course, require more of a time commitment, either in terms of hours per week or as the sum of months or years.

Writing Fundamentals

One thing that is absolutely necessary is to have a good grasp of the fundamentals of modern exposition.  Unless you are a bona-fide genius with a revolutionary style that resonates with a large audience, you have to observe current conventions: Point of View, dialogue tags, well defined genre.  Then again, since I fail utterly on genre, I should probably say you need to be aware of modern conventions.

But before you begin to write, make sure you have a good grasp of usage, grammar and syntax.  Even if you got A’s in English, you may have forgotten some basic rules after years of plumbing houses, slinging hash or writing memos.  So, “Get the little book!”

Recommended Resources

Read and keep handy at all times  ‘Elements of Style’—it’s been a major help to me for my writing!

 

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