Posts Tagged ‘memoir’

#FirstLineFriday

Posted: April 29, 2016 in Living and Life, Writing
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It’s Friday again, so you know what that means. It’s #FirstLineFriday! It’s also the second to last day of Passover. I’ve somehow survived seven days of matzah and a diet known to make grown men cry. Funny thing, the reason we eat this diet is because when our ancestors left Egypt they didn’t have time to make anything else, but some scholars suggest that the Israelite slaves were fed matzah by the Egyptians because it lasted so long and was easy to make. So maybe we’re taking this “we all should feel like we left Egypt” thing a little too seriously.

Anyway, I digress. If you’re not familiar with #FirstLineFriday, here’s the deal. On Fridays, you:

  1. Create a post on your blog titled #FirstLineFriday, hashtag and all.
  2. Explain the rules like I’m doing now.
  3. Post the first one or two lines of a potential work, a work-in-progress, or a completed or published story.
  4. Ask your readers for feedback and then encourage them to try #FirstLineFriday on their own blogs (tagging isn’t required, but is encouraged).

This week’s entry doesn’t come from any particular story. It’s just something that came to me while thinking about my day Monday during dinner. So you could say that this entry is based on true events. In fact, it is based on true events. So I guess I’m doing memoir this week? Perhaps I am. Also, I’m counting everything after the colon and until the period as one sentence, so don’t get on my case saying I did three sentences. Though if I did, who cares? It’s my blog, and if I want to slightly modify the tag, why not?

Anyway, enjoy:

Summer and winter in central Ohio are marked by two things: extreme temperatures and power outages. So when, in late April, I walked into my house from a eighty-degree heat to find that my power was out, I knew summer had come early to Columbus.

Thoughts? Errors? Too long? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

And while you’re at it, why not try #FirstLineFriday yourself? It’s fun, and for those of us with the writing bug, it’s great practice on openings.

In fact, I think I’ll tag someone to show them the joys of #FirstLineFriday. And I’m tagging my friend and colleague, Ruth Ann Nordin. Ruth, you’ve been tagged. You have to do your own post this or next Friday. Good luck and have fun.

That’s all for now. Wish me luck as I try to survive the last two days of matzah. If I live, I’m ordering pizza. Have a good weekend, my Followers of Fear!

Conversations with Becket

Posted: October 20, 2015 in Author Interciew, Living and Life, Writing
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Becket image

Some of you may remember my previous interview with author Becket, an indie novelist who likes vampires, was once a monk, and works for Anne Rice. Now he’s got a new book out, American Monk, a memoir about his years in a monastery growing closer to God and living in a brotherhood of similarly-minded men.

Welcome back to my blog, Becket. Happy to have you here. Now, your new book is American Monk, which chronicles your time as a monk in a Benedictine monastery. Why did you decide to write this memoir?

One day on my Facebook page I decided to make a post about my experience in the monastery. People responded well to it, so I made another one the following week. I kept up that have it for about half a year, at the end of which I decided to compile all my Facebook posts about the monastery into a memoir.

Why did you decide to become a monk in the first place? And why did you leave the monastery?

I wanted to be a monk because I want to deepen my relationship with God. The monastery was a wonderful place to do that because it was a house conducive to my personality type, an introvert and a scholar. I stayed in the monastery for five years, at the end of which time I was given the choice to make solemn vows, which is like the marriage commitment. It would’ve been for the rest of my life. The monastery was wonderful, but I also felt called elsewhere, although I did not know what that was at the time. So without any hard feelings, I left the monastery and began working for Anne Rice.

What’s a day in the life of a Benedictine monk like?

Monastic life is built around routine. We wake up early in the morning and begin our day with prayer. Our morning prayer lasts for about an hour and a half, and then we would go to breakfast. After that it was time for work. We worked most of the morning until the hour to celebrate the solemnity of the mass. After mass we had lunch. And after lunch we spent the afternoon committed to more work. Our day ended in the evening with prayer. After prayer we went to dinner, and after dinner we had a community time together, where the monks gathered together in one room and enjoyed one another’s company. Finally, we had night prayer and that it was bedtime.

American Monk

In memoirs like these, I’ve noticed that the vignettes within generally run the range from humorous to serious to tragic to inspirational and everything in between. Do you feel that this is true of yours? 

My memoir is meant to be inspirational. I hope that people read it and grow in their relationship with God, because the monastery was a place where a truly began to understand who I was in the divine plan. I am still learning the depth of my relationship with God. In many ways, the monk I was is still inside me, and perhaps he is a better monk than I used to be.

 Does Anne Rice make an appearance in American Monk at all?

She makes an appearance in the beginning and at the end, and in one chapter in between, but the memoir mostly deals with my experience with the brother monks.

What are you working on these days?

I just finished the first draft of my next music album as well as the first draft of a novel appropriately titled The Monk, about an African monk who suffers the stigmata and works as a miraculous channel of God’s love in the world.

When not writing or working with Anne Rice, what are you doing these days? And is there anything on your wish list you think you could be doing in the near future?

I spend time with God, my girlfriend, and my two cats. For the future, I have a few projects that I am working on and I am praying that God will give them success for His Glory.

Well thanks for joining us Becket. Glad to speak with you. And if you’e interested in reading American Monk and other works by Becket, you can check out his website, as well as find him on Facebook and Twitter.

And if you’d like to read more interviews with other authors and with some of my characters, you can head over to the Interviews page for those.

Hope you enjoyed reading this, my Followers of Fear. I certainly had fun putting it together.