Ajax Minor's Blog, page 14
October 17, 2016
Idaho 10/17/16
Hello fellow bloggers. i’m sure you’ve been wondering where we’ve been. all three of you. well, both of you. it may come as a shock to those who’ve read SVMM, but Linda and i were in Idaho. Fishing, of all things.
It was pretty cold for this time of the year. temperatures are normally around 60, daytime. but we hit a stretch in the mid-40s. pretty chilly. however, the fishing made it all worth while. Linda’s prize was a 20″ cutbow, and i reeled in a sub-species, about 20″ as well, which was entirely new, in my experience. the Fine Spotted Western Slope Cutthroat. a gorgeous animal. tiny black speckles spotted its golden flanks. and, while Cutthroats normally don’t have the vim of a Rainbow, this one was a fighter.
we landed (and, of course, released) both fish on the Lost River, which also figures prominently in SVMM, you’ll recall. we were with our guide and friend of 30 years, Scott Schnebly, of Lost River Outfiters in Ketchum. the river was running pretty well for this time of year. but the real attraction was the Lost Mountains. rising almost a mile and a half off of the valley floor, they were covered in snow. a new experience for our eyes! the ‘walls of Troy’ that Jaq visualized in SVMM had never stood out in such bold relief. i kept waitng for Priam or Hecuba to hail us!
i’d love to know if any of you have checked out the Iliad, assuming you’ve not read it before. let me know if you love it as much as i do.
next blog we’ll be talking about some anomalies in the story of SVMM and why they actually fit into the context of the narrative
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August 16, 2016
Concept Cover for Book 2, The Ur Legend series, The Girl from Ipanema 8/16/16
in Book 2 of The Ur legend series, The Girl from Ipanema, scheduled for release Jan 2017, we met Ur as a young lady. and, boy, is she growing up!
can Ur help save the Earth of her original Worldline from the effects of a catastrophic event? help without interfering? ‘Girl..’ is a different kind of book from Sun Valley Moon Mountains. it’s Fantasy and Future Fiction. and i sort of like how my daughter is turning out.
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8/16/16 You like golf? You like fables? Dragons? Check out ‘Wanda and the Winged Sea Serpent’ under Short Stories
so we’ll lay off the heavy topics this week. i have a new short story. Wanda and the Winged Sea Serpent. my first crack at a fantasy for kids. well, maybe not just for kids. while it’s written in a ‘fable’ style, the themes transcend age group, i think. i had a blast writing it, at any rate. check it.
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July 18, 2016
Tao te Ching 7/18/16
so how does one deal with a crushing loss? the kind both Kate and Jaq, and Linda and i did, in losing a child. a lot depends on personal history and the predilections of one’s personality.
of course the first question asked is ‘why?’. first the finger may get pointed 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.
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.
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 imigrated 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?
so no matter our personal history or intricately constructed belief systems, we still question God’s role. and 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 creatons 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. and 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.
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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Voting Results on SVMM cover: Likes win! 7/18/16
okay, so, results are in on the vote, Like or Not Like, for the cover of Sun Valley Moon Mountains.
Like 0
Not Like 0
wow! a tie. well i’ll take a page from the Constitution and act as President Pro-Temp and vote Like, since i paid for it! so the Likes win.
obviously not getting much traffic on the old site. but it takes time. SVMM has only been out since April and is now getting into a few hands with an ebook freebie and Goodreads Giveaway. check out the reviews.
and yours truly has to begin to connect with the blogging community to begin a true dialogue. but in the meantime we’ll keep posting.
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June 29, 2016
VOTE! 6/29/16
well, this week we’ll take a short break from heavy topics and do something fun. i’ve received all kinds of feedback on the cover of SVMM, which is quite different. so, vote: LIKE or DISLIKE. i’ll tally up the results.
and we’re not finished with the heavy stuff. after my Goodreads Giveaway is over and done with, we’ll be talking about Stoicism. Lao Tse, in the Tao te Ching said:
“Nature does not play favorites. She regards her Creations without sentimentality.”
think about that one.
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June 23, 2016
Loss and Tears 6/23/16
So, now that Sun Valley Moon Mountains has been out for a couple of months, is actually selling a few copies and is getting reviews, it’s time to start a conversation.
i guess i’d like to hit some of the major themes in the book over the next few months. let’s start with Loss, the most significant subtext of the story. in the first chapter, 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.” very Stoic. and she had just admitted that she is “one (a Stoic) by choice”, while Jaq is “one by inclination.”
a major premise of Stoicism, is not neceesarily to deny feelings but to keep them from interfering with the business of living. so when Kate vents, it’s alone during the emptiest part of the day–the middle of the night.
like 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.
i believe emotional trauma can register at the intellectual level and still be valid. Linda and i often joke that we cry twice a year for practice. but that doesn’t mean we don’t care.
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.
what do you think? how does pain register with you? Brain, breast or belly?
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June 9, 2016
Freebie ebook Promo of Sun Valley Moon Mountains
we’re doing a promotion of Sun Valley Moon Mountains. ebook will be available free, $0.00, on Kindle for ereaders, Thurs 6/9-Mon 6/13. check it!
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June 1, 2016
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. And maybe like Clemens I just thought the name was snappier than my own.
Ajax connected well, phonetically, with the name Jaq. And 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 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. 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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May 1, 2016
Blogging Plans
We can, and will I hope, talk about all kinds of things with one another in the Blog: how the creative process varies for each individual, writer’s block (assuming that’s a problem), development as a writer, using college courses, writers’ groups, book doctors (editors) and any other useful resources. We will talk about writing and editing. Some writers prefer one task over the other, or may love or hate both. And we’ll talk about publishing your work so that you can share your ideas and/or actually make money! Agents. Direct submission to publishing houses. Self-publishing, including the great resource of Kindle/Create Space for new writers no one else will touch. Which is probably most of us.
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