More Brain Droppings--July Digireads

You get an idea about what might happen after a disaster that effectively destroys

most of the world. What remains are men in a cabin and primitives on a valley floor.

There is a weapon on each side the holders of the weapon think it will allow them

To assert their predominance over the other side. Each side has a leader, a leader that is unscrupulous in dealing with his own people.

I played with that idea and those characters after I’d quit a very unsatisfying job for one of the titans of the rocket industry that had me working three different shifts in sequence, an abomination then as it is now.

As far as other personal aspects that played into the genesis of the catastrophe idea there was the separation from my wife that ultimately led to a divorce and the loss of my three children.

But as the idea of the struggle between what ultimately became good and evil continued to fill my mind I spent time with the two boys who were now in my care for the duration of that summer. Every day

was special as I watched them play in the water, at the park and at the movies.

With an old Underwood typewriter I started writing what would become “The Rifle.” I wrote ten to fifteen pages a day as the characters developed and the plot played out. Most of the writing took place while the boys were taking naps in the heat of the summer afternoons.

Finally the novella was finished and sent off to an agent in New York. Days passed and there was no word and then a letter arrived from the agent filled with high praise for the novella. She thought it was a morality tale and would present it to publishers with that viewpoint in mind.

She was very diligent in sending the manuscript around, but even with her glowing interest there were no publishers interested in the book. She reluctantly sent the manuscript back and I had to live with the rejection and depression that accompanied spending all that time, getting high hopes and then having the reality of the publishing world set in.

It took years of different kinds of writing before “The Rifle” was published. And that publication would not have happened if the digital world and Amazon had not opened Create Space.

How many times does it take before the germ of an idea makes the leap into reality? Somewhere in the fog of the past I read Moby Dick for the first time. I think it was after I’d seen the John Huston movie with Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab. Nothing clicked then.

Fast forward to the birth of my son Thomas and even faster forward to telling him stories and then to the reading of Moby Dick with various voices to make the story jump alive to such an intelligent little boy. He listened intently as I read of the men aboard Pequod and how Ahab’s compulsive drive to find the white whale filled the pages with the character of Ishmael and his friend Queequeg, the irresolute attitude of Ahab’s chief mate, Starbuck and the tenacity of Ahab.

That reading stuck with me as I worked a variety of jobs to keep the family housed, clothed and fed. Still it didn’t heap me or task me with anything but the strange tale of the white whale and what would be classified today as a maniac in charge of that whaling ship.

Then in an epiphany I thought: “What happened next to Ishmael?”

He was shipwrecked as the white whale attacked and sank Pequod, drowned the rest of the crew and took Ahab made fast to the whale by the harpoon and lines circling the beast much like fishing nets and other gear entrap modern day whales.

Ishmael didn’t have a thirst for revenge, but it seemed reasonable that members of Ahab’s family did. Not only did they lose the ship but they also lost a family member to what had become a mythical monster. There was only one way to avenge Ahab and that was to prevail upon Ishmael to lead an expedition to find and destroy Moby Dick.

With those thoughts a plot developed along with characters that would ship with Ishmael on the quest to put an end to Moby Dick.

I wrote twelve hundred pages over a number of years until I found an agent who by happenstance had taught Moby Dick at the college level. He was as enthusiastic about the possibility of selling the novel as I had been about writing it.

He said the book was too long and I followed his advice cutting it down to a more manageable size as well as eliminating the prolog. After I was satisfied that I had done as much as possible to the story I sent it to him.

He tried valiantly but the usual response he received from publishers was “I didn’t even finish reading Moby Dick!” He relayed that disheartening news and I let the story die for the time being.

After the turn of the 21^st Century I wanted the book published so I went to what was then considered a “vanity house” and went through the process of getting the book published with the title the agent had given: Moby Dick: Ahab’s Revenge. The publishing house was difficult to work with since they made many errors in translating the typed page to the printed one. Ultimately the book was published in both hard and paperback editions.

And that was that, or so I thought.

In the meantime I became connected to Create Space and published a number of other novels, but I was never satisfied with the Author House version of the story, so I made numerous corrections including giving it a new title “Ishmael’s Quest” before I published it with Create Space in paperback form.

We examined the Create Space edition for July Digireads and it was another chance to make a few changes that sharpened some of the passages and satisfied me that the story was a good one. For me it had solved the problem of what happened to Ishmael after the end of Melville’s Moby Dick. 

What is being a member of a cult really like? That was a question that had bothered me for a long time. Time spent examining and practicing various religions from the Catholicism of my father (couldn’t understand any of the rituals or why I was even in that church in San Francisco) to a rather basic protestant set of beliefs in a small town in northern California to a full blown participation in the Catholic ritual during and after the birth of my first child. Sometime between then and the third child the Catholic ritual became stale and meaningless. In the past I put up with the fire and brimstone sermons and dutifully went to confession and participated in the Eucharist sacrament, but when the time came to reject all of that I was ready. The elation of asserting myself lasted for a number of years. Then meeting with some people who were New Agers that had successfully passed through the flower children rite of passage, I became enamored of how happy and grounded they seemed to be.

So I went to a couple of their meetings, listened to their Guru Ma and finally agreed to spend time in their environs in Southern California.

What I experienced during those three months was almost a combination of Boy Scout camp and a minimum security prison. It was an interesting experience but as with the other cosmic answers it wasn’t for me so I came back to my home in Sacramento.

Various life challenges awaited me including getting married again (number three was the charm, but I hoped that number four would be).

Another child came along and I did my best to apply the lessons I’d learned with my first family.

All that was a precursor for the novel “Akasha” that I worked very hard on to make the cult experience as realistic as possible. Of course there had to be a plot and the one that sufficed for the story appeared to me to be as close to what might have been as I could make it.

The characters in the novel are composites of people I related to during my cult experience. Guru Ma has passed to the Great Beyond (or in her case to the realm of the ascended masters) so the guru in my story though based on Elizabeth Clare Prophet lives on in her fictional world.

We have examined “Akasha” some time ago and that examination should stand by itself, but these few brain droppings might help you as reader get a glimpse into the byzantine workings of a cult.

What role did an argyle sock play in the genesis of “Operation Belize?”

Fast backward to an interview for the Foreign Service conducted in San Francisco. The panel for that interview consisted of a US Navy captain, a member of the US State Department and a supposedly unbiased member of the public.

I entered the room thinking I was fully prepared for any questions that had to do with geography, world politics and history.

The first question was about the latest jet fighter to be introduced into the Air Force’s collection. The media referred to it as the “swing wing fighter” and that label was okay with the panel even though it had the traditional “F” number assigned to it.

The next question was about the Vietnam War and what I thought of it. I tried to be as circumspect as possible saying that the history of Indo-China was rife with conflict and many attempts by China to influence the political outcomes in that country.

Other questions about various trouble spots around the world were what I had prepared for and I gave answers that appeared to satisfy the panel.

However, when I was asked about the US policy in Belize I was stumped. Where was Belize? After a pregnant pause the unbiased member on the panel said I might know it better by its original name: British Honduras. I had to admit that I didn’t have a clue what the US policy was for that country.

That answer caused the panel to confer among themselves. When they had finished I was told that the interview was over.

As I was getting ready to leave the room in the Post Office building, the State Department representative said that the Navy captain didn’t approve of my wearing argyle socks. He said they were probably a gift from my wife. I didn’t argue the point. He also said that because I was an older candidate I would be hired at a higher rank.

Fast forward many years. I didn’t get the Foreign Service appointment but the memory of being at fault for wearing argyle socks came back again and again as I thought about not getting that job.

I became so caught up in the original interview that I started a research project on Belize. That research led to writing the novel that ultimately bore the title “Operation Belize.”

We have examined Operation Belize in an earlier Digireads, but I thought having a look at how the novel came about might add to the pleasure of reading it.