Hi, thank you so much for inviting me on your blog today!
Of course!
Can you tell us a little bit about your book? When did it come out? Where can we get it?
Can you tell us a little bit about your book? When did it come out? Where can we get it?
Sin and Zen is a story that
parallels my own experiences after being injured in the French Foreign Legion.
It dives into all the troubles a lot of our generation has when
facing everyday life with love and work, and trying to fill this
seemingly endless void of having meaning and purpose. Add on the difficulty of
having spent my entire life (up to that point in the story) in the military and
then becoming a broken soldier thrown into the civilian world, it's quite a
ride with lots of ups and downs.
It came out July 24, 2019 on
Amazon, where you can still grab a copy today in paperback, ebook, or
audiobook.
Wow!
Is there anything which prompted this book? Something that inspired you?
Is there anything which prompted this book? Something that inspired you?
A desire to write was the biggest
prompt. That, and all the times I've told my story to someone, it always seems
unbelievable. I even had a guy want to make a film about me once. I figured I
should write the novel first before somebody else takes credit for my
story.
As well, as I wrote it, it gave me
a level of clarity that the main character, Will, is looking for, and in many
ways, I had been looking for.
It's true that writing can be cathartic...
Let me ask a different question.
When did you know you wanted to write? Or has it always been a pastime of yours?
Writing has always been something I
have enjoyed doing. I wrote a novella for my mother for Mother's Day when I was
in high school and she has since told me to be a novelist. I obviously had
other dreams of being a superhero in the military. A life I got to live for
some time, falling from the sky and saving the world and what-not, but after my
injury and months laying in a hospital bed with no chance of ever being in a
combat company again, I told myself, "I didn't join the infamous French Foreign
Legion to drive a bus or push papers."
So, I got out, taught English for a
while to pay the bills and started writing in a real way. After finishing this
first novel, I know it is my true role in this play of life. I am working on
the sequel now, which I hope to release one year after Sin and Zen (July
24th).
Nice!
Do you have any favorite authors yourself?
Do you have any favorite authors yourself?
My favorite authors are varied. For
pleasure and the man who truly takes the words from my mind and puts them in
front of me in a way that is magical is Charles Bukowski. His hero, John Fante,
is also a favorite. However, to go in another direction, I enjoy Alan Watts for
feeding my soul in a different way. Beyond those two big ones for me, I love
Wilde, Plath, and Camus. L'Etranger being the first book I read in French
(versione originale) after Le Petit Prince.
Okay, great!
Do you write in a specific place? Time of day?
Do you write in a specific place? Time of day?
I'm usually stuck in the corner of
my wife and I's bedroom. Occasionally, I go out to our patio and sit with our
puppies in the sun or head to a coffee shop for a change of environment. I do
know the best stuff comes out in the late hours: 10 p.m. - 4 a.m. I don't write as
often during that time now that I've taken on writing as my full-time career.
Generally speaking, my highest stream of creativity and motivation now seems to
be around the same 'time', but during daylight: 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Then around 4 p.m., the
wife and I sit and eat 'comida' together (we live in Mexico). I usually get
back at it until 7 or 8 or so, but the raw stuff - the good stuff - comes out in
those first hours.
Fantastic!
Are there some words you'd like to impart to fellow writers? Any advice?
Don't try. Take it from my Bukowski
influence or my Taoist way of life of 'WuWei'. Don't force it. Is it that
important to be a writer, just to say you're a writer? It seems most writers
write more about the trouble and pain of writing rather than keeping that pain
for the story. Yes, writing can be hard at times, but most of the time, it
should be like playing. Exciting. Hacking away at the keyboard like a piano,
creating music.
If it doesn't come out, just wait, it will. And if it doesn't,
fine. Maybe it wasn't meant to. Better than force-feeding our readers with the
nonsense that has no real spirit.
Such a valid point!
Thank you so much for stopping by to visit us here today at Writing in the Modern Age. It was wonderful having you! :)
Readers, here is the blurb for Sin & Zen.
 |
| https://books2read.com/u/bW1vzW |
Seductive soldier and shameless alcoholic, Will Strief
was made to be broken and transcendental. After spending his entire adult life
in the military, jumping out of planes and living a hero's life, Strief is left
in the gutter of civilian life in Marseille, France after a devastating injury
in the French Foreign Legion. Now, at twenty-three, he is reveling in his
suddenly liberating rock-star life: hilarious drug experiences, vicious
drinking, and a delirious sex life that would put any lesser man in the ground.
With all of Stribling's real-life experience, the story is as bona fide as it is uncovering. Said to be a must-read for women to understand the mind of man. Stribling writes a psychological fiction that delves into the restless mind of a young adult trying to understand himself and the world. It is dirty realism and dark humor and deep philosophy in this relentless tale of life on the edge.
With all of Stribling's real-life experience, the story is as bona fide as it is uncovering. Said to be a must-read for women to understand the mind of man. Stribling writes a psychological fiction that delves into the restless mind of a young adult trying to understand himself and the world. It is dirty realism and dark humor and deep philosophy in this relentless tale of life on the edge.
Purchase Link:
Universal Reader Link: https://books2read.com/u/bW1vzW
Here is an excerpt from the book.
Matt stayed.
I felt him leaning in that direction
from the dinner the night before. I wasn’t feeling that much better, but I just
didn’t want to stay in the same place for that long when we were only halfway
up climbing up the hill. This lake I had only heard of also enchanted me. It
seemed more worthy to see, to achieve than just walking over a mountain pass.
I packed my bags, planning to head out
on my own. I was disheartened by leaving my pleasant company, but something
drew me much more than companionship.
As I was waiting downstairs to say
goodbye to Matt, Cathy came down packed and said she was coming with me. I
could see almost a pang of lost love in Matt’s eyes. Not a romantic love, but a
loss of something that didn’t see the end he had envisioned and hoped for. He
made a few, “Are you sure?” attempts to ask her to stay, and I could see the
discomfort in her to tell him “Yes.” They had been together since they met on a
website to meet fellow trekkers in Kathmandu. They had each come on their own,
but came together almost immediately and just as quickly made their plans
together. It was nice to see people come together like that and I was glad to
have been a part of it, even in a spontaneous, add-on sense. I felt guilty too,
since it was Matt that invited me along and had me join his team, and now I was
splitting it apart. Matt would leave the next day to continue on the path to
the pass, which would put him ahead of us. We spoke hopefully and
optimistically about crossing the pass together and how he might wait for us at
one of the base camps for such a reason. Though it was no promise, and none of
us assumed it was such. We said, “See you soon,” but we meant, ‘Goodbye.’
Cathy and I left. It would be a full day
getting there. Longer than any day we had had so far. Up to this point of the
trek, we had only walked about five hours a day with breaks in between,
sometimes frequent and sometimes long. It made a day, a short day, but a day. I
felt confident with my drive and her steadiness. I imagined getting there,
running up the mountain, and then getting back on track without a loss of
breath or time.
I felt that way until the first two
hours were over. Up and down and up and down. Was it left or right here? Was
this even a trail? My motivation became a desire just to get to the base camp
before it snowed too heavily.
****
There were two villages we passed along
the way that provided a place to stay for people making the trek, but the
steady tortoise won the race.
“Good to go?” I would ask.
A smile and, “Yep.”
The trail was windy, cold, and the last
leg of it involved walking across a landslide area. Considering that there was
not even enough trail to put one foot, I wondered how the villagers brought
large cattle or supplies through here. I kept imagining one little rock turning
into an all out landslide as we walked across it. The entire mountainside was
nothing but small rocks. Forty-five minutes of leaning against these small rocks
so as not to be blown off the inch-wide trail by the extreme wind and gusts, I
looked down and envisioned the fall quite a lot. It would be one hell of a
slide. One hell of a ride.
We made it. We arrived at Tilicho base
camp, got our shack, and then headed to the common area where we found
Friedrich and Aviva. The common area was like many other places we stayed at.
It was a large room with a kitchen in the back. It was the only room with a
stove to heat the area and it is where everybody who stayed there would stay
until it was time to go back out to their rented shack and sleep in their
sleeping bags.
There were people scattered around the
open space, some at tables reading, some at tables eating, and some at tables
drinking tea and staring at the larger concentration of people near the front
of the room. This is where we found Friedrich and Aviva. There were probably a
dozen people in this little circle.
Friedrich was under the weather. They
had just finished their climb to Tilicho Lake that day and already come back
down. Friedrich was now feeling the wrath of Acute Mountain Sickness. I
believed his story. He didn’t seem the type to use it as an excuse. He had
himself curled up on the floor with a jacket over his head. It seemed mostly
like a headache, but he couldn’t eat and was having some nausea. I believed
more than anything his ears were the worst of it. He was happy to see us, but
hid under his jacket most of the evening before finally heading to bed.
Aviva was still her cheerful and
friendly self, but not as emphatic as she had been before. She was concerned
about Friedrich. She was eager to continue the trip, but just as ready to stay
and wait for Friedrich to rest as long as he needed. Cathy and I also met two
of their new companions, two Israeli boys who would go along with them. They
wore sandals too.
“Where’s Matt?” Aviva asked.
“He still wasn’t feeling well. SO, he
stayed another night in Manang, and will head up to the pass directly rather
than the detour here. We’re hoping to catch up with him.”
Aviva told us about the lake.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever
seen,” she said. I looked at the pictures she took. It looked inspiring, but
far from the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
“It’s amazing,” Cathy said looking at
the pictures.
“So, was it a tough climb?” I asked.
She looked at Friedrich. “It wasn’t too
bad, but it is straight up. We didn’t go up too fast, but it was still such a
change that even I felt dizzy once we got up there. Friedrich seemed okay at
first, but even after the climb down he’s only gotten worse.”
“That’s scary,” I said. “I wasn’t too
convinced of this mountain sickness thing, but Friedrich… I didn’t see him
falling victim to it.”
“Yeah, he wasn’t taking the Diamox
before, but now he’s going to,” she said.
“How long did it take you?” I asked.
“It only took three hours to climb up,
then once you get to the top, it’s only another thirty minutes to the lake. We
stayed up there for an hour and then climbed down. Going down only took an
hour.”
“That’s not too bad, I guess.”
“It’s not too bad,” she said. “But most
people say it’s harder than the pass itself. So, if you do it, then you should
be okay for the rest of the trip.”
“That’s kind of comforting,” Cathy said.
Most of the night though, I spoke to a young-old
couple from Canada and the Czech Republic. The man was in his forties; she was
in her twenties. They had met when he was backpacking in her home country of
Czech. They had been together since, just walking. They lived out of their bags
and had been to many parts of the wild world to trek, to camp, and I imagined,
to make hairy armpit love. They were now planning to climb to the lake, but
rather than head back down to the main trail, they would just continue through
another trail that stayed around the same elevation. They were trekking across
the entire Nepalese Himalayas. They were already well into their trip.
I wasn’t too interested in their love
story or personal lives as interesting as they were, but I listened hoping to
get around to her violin. She was a very thin girl and carried a bag twice the
size of mine that included a violin. She had played it her whole life. It was
her art. It was something so valuable to her that she strapped it to a bag and
carried it with her across the Himalayan mountains.
She played a piece for me. I was seduced
immediately.
She played another. I wanted to open up
and tell her everything. I wanted her to know that I had always wanted to play.
She continued to play a few more pieces,
and I just listened. This is life. This is magic. This is the unexpected when
it is most needed.
I thanked her for the music and
complimented her strong character for her liberating and honest lifestyle. Then
I left her so others could talk to her; she was now the center of attention. The
girl who carried a violin to the top of a mountain.
I went to sit down and eat. Cathy joined
me. We had a quiet conversation about the following day’s plans. We both felt
okay and if we really could climb up the hill and back down by morning, we
would try to get immediately back on the trail rather than stay another night
here. As usual, she was up for it if I was. I figured we could turn three days
into two and be back on the main trail and only a day behind Matt.
After dinner, we headed to our unheated,
uninsulated shack. Which wasn’t that bad since it protected you from the wind
and anybody planning to hike the Himalayas would no doubt have a nice warm
sleeping bag and not a summer weight sleeping bag.
I grabbed my shower gear and braved the
cold wind to have yet another cold shower. No water. Thank God. Baby wipe bath
it was. Just like my war days.
****
Chinese neighbors and an unexpected
return of the regurgitation fairy defined my sleep. The neighbors were loud and
inconsiderate, but not up that late so it was just a frustration about their
existence and inconsideration that disturbed me more than the actual
frustrating and inconsiderate disturbance.
I also woke Cathy up in my running out
the door to give a refund to the local chef. I couldn’t have been any easy
person to bunk with during this trip. I felt bad about that, but I just
pretended it didn’t happen and she didn’t ask more than once if I was okay. We
understood each other pretty well.
We didn’t let the excitement from the
evening slow us down the next morning for our climb to Tilicho Lake. It took
less than three hours going up. What made the trip much easier than I had
thought must have been the climb without the weight of all our belongings with
us. It almost felt like running up the hill. We still took our time. Cathy
maintained her steady pace and I would run up ahead and then wait. She felt bad
about making me wait, but I was glad to do it, since I didn’t want to climb too
fast and pass out from lack of oxygen.
I didn’t notice until the top that my
head was spinning. Then the spinning went to annoying pain, and I sat down and
drank half my water telling myself it was just dehydration. Cathy felt fine,
and I didn’t mention my headache.
Once the walk leveled off, we faced a
wind that came from hell. It was the wind that could freeze hell that I had
heard used in so many expressions before. It felt like blades cutting through
you. I told myself thirty minutes of this, and we were there. I put my head
down, made sure Cathy was with me, and charged ahead like an adventurer
discovering the back door to Hell.
My watch said it had only been 7 minutes
since we started this last leg of the trek.
Then 12 minutes.
We crossed one guy coming back alone
from the lake; he was almost running. Or gliding. I think each time he took a
step, the wind lifted him off the ground and carried him another five feet
forward. I was already looking forward to the return.
Fuck, it was cold. I decided it must be
a scientific fact that no amount of clothing could protect you from this cold.
18 minutes.
This lake better be fucking worth it.
19 minutes.
Cathy is a little behind me, but still
moving forward and in sight.
25 minutes.
Is it over this hill?
25 minutes and
30 seconds.
It has to be
this hill.
26 minutes.
Stop looking at
your watch. Thirty minutes could mean thirty-five or forty minutes.
27 minutes.
As you climbed
the last hill, the lake just opened up to you. It was just over a thousand
meter climb. You stand on a hill on a mountain at 5200 meters and look down at
the highest (largest due to a technicality) lake in the world at a cool 5000
meters.
What breath I had left, what momentum
rested in my feet, died. I was left speechless, utterly stunned by the
overwhelming beauty. All the waterfalls, flowers, birds, and cute children
could not compare to this sight. I didn’t understand how a still body of water
could be one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, but I did not
question it.
Cathy arrived, and I watched her feel
what I had just felt. I hugged her. We both looked out over the lake for a
while, the wind and cold seemed nearly irrelevant.
Then it became very relevant again, and
we hid behind a small shack that I imagine provided coffee and snacks during
the tourist season. We took turns jumping out into the wind and trying to get a
good picture. No picture made sense. No picture could capture what we felt.
Perhaps there was some high from the walk or altitude or struggle that created
this delusional effect that there was something more to this lake than there
really was. I didn’t care. I knew I could never capture this moment with a
photo, and even though you can photo-shop beauty and contrast and color into a
photo, I wouldn’t try to fake the nature of what I was witnessing.
We stayed for a while, but we didn’t
stay long. It was so damn cold.
****
It didn’t take us too long to get back
down the hill. We did about a five-hour hike. Not a bad day, but it was early
afternoon.
“How do you feel?” I said.
“How do you feel?” she said.
“I’d like to
keep going.”
“Okay. Me, too.”
She smiled.
“We don’t have
to go far, but two hours will get us past the landslide area while it isn’t too
windy or snowy and will help cut off a day to the pass.”
She looked at me to say, ‘I already said
okay.’
I then continued to explain to her my
genius plan of adding a couple extra hours to each day to cut off one entire
day.
Patient girl.
As we walked, I thought about how my
stamina improved with these longer, colder, and steeper days. I thought about
home. I missed Claudia and my Maverick. I missed being inside. Warmth and
pajamas and all three of us cuddling. Even if she was on her computer and I was
on mine and the dog was in between us sleeping, or begging us, or throwing the
ball on our laptop to remind us he existed. I thought about our Romanian
upstairs neighbor, Petru, or Pierre as he preferred to be called. Different in
so many ways of what I would normally call a friend, and one of the few people
I would consider a true friend. I thought about pizza always being fifteen
minutes away. And showers. Long and warm showers.
I looked around and then thought about
the rest of my trip. After the pass, I was looking forward to the easy climb
down. The last climb up to Poon Hill for a look at the mountains I would have
just finished walking through. A chance to say goodbye to my journey and the
mountains. I would appreciate the occasional break or meal with new friends. I
would miss the solitude. Especially the solitude. The solitude before the
thrust back into the life that felt so far away and missed.
I was looking forward to all of it. One
experience made the other experience richer. Without one, the other was dull,
almost a ghost of its true self. Yet side by side, having both created so much
value in the essence of both. It was a strange combination of having everything
and nothing. To choose one meant to lose the other, selection meant rejection.
It was like the strings of my new friend’s violin. Playing only one string
sounded stupid. Varying it up gave you a melody. It can be even more magical if
you knew how to go from sharp to flat in one song.
Living this double life wasn’t about
half-assing two things. Or maybe it was. I knew I wasn’t missing out on things
at home, but I knew I was appreciating them more here, away from them, then I
would if I was home. It wasn’t trying to have my cake and eat it too. That shit
didn’t make any sense. Sure. One existence could eventually devour the other.
That was the risk, that was the game, the compromise. Independence v. Dependability.
Adventure v. Comfort. Solitude v. Companionship. I would spend the rest of my
life half a stable man, half a rolling stone. Compromise didn’t mean settling
for one friend of five she approved of. It didn’t mean having one or two beers
and avoiding the reason alcohol existed. That isn’t compromise, that is defeat.
I had it figured out. The sun was setting, my legs were moving, and I had it
figured out. Or I had just lost my mind. Either way, it felt good.
What are people saying about this book? Let's find out!
Sounds like quite a read! Add Sin & Zen to your Goodreads bookshelf, readers! :)
We'll be sure to check out this psychological/literary fiction novel!
Get it now!
We'll be sure to check out this psychological/literary fiction novel!
Get it now!
Author Bio
Being a former Airman, Legionnaire, and
English teacher, I have spent just as much time creating stories as I have
spent writing them. This first novel is loosely based on my own personal
experience with enough liberty taken to call it contemporary fiction. Having
always had writing in my life as a form of therapy and being the broken soldier
that I am, I have fully committed to what I believe to be my role in this play
of life, a writer.
Author Links:
Website/Blog: https://www.wstribling.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SWStribling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SWStribling/
S. W.'s Books:
