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Don't you sometimes want to read something that packs a punch and gets to the point quickly?

I love reading novels. We can take our time reading them or stay up until 2 a.m., savoring every line. Let's face it though, we don't have all the time in the world, and we are thirsty for answers.

This is my idea; to write a series of short books, under ten thousand words. Not  a How- to- Book, but fiction where I can investigate those questions we ask ourselves in the dark of night. "Why am I here? What's my purpose? Do I have a purpose?" 

Where Tigers Belch--it's been out for awhile and I have mentioned it before, so please indulge me so I can offer it for those who don't know about it. 

Where Tigers Belch is 8,801 words, and now that I am well into a second book, I am offering an excerpt from the Tiger book so you can get a taste of the sort I’m talking about.

Using Edward Abbey's lyrical poem as my inspiration, I am incorporating 'where' into the titles.

"May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles, and poets' towers into dark primeval forest where tigers belch, and monkeys howl…beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."–Edward Abbey 

The second book is Where the Frogs Sing Café. (An excerpt will come.)

Upon searching for books of this sort, I found two authors who write in this category: John Strelecky’s story about the meaning of life sold over 4 million copies." (In my dreams.)  I’ve read two of his books.

And Michael V. Ivanov. (About Pursuing Dreams) I love his speech title: "Stay Alive All Your Life." Oh my gosh, I just saw he lives in Portland, OR, right up the 1-5 Freeway from us.

I’ve read two of his books.

 

Here is an excerpt from

 

Where Tigers Belch

By

Jo Davis

  

An Introduction plus ten chapters are included in the book.

 

Introduction

 

Tomorrow I will take my backpack, I will add a few bottles of water and a couple of sandwiches and set off to find my destiny.

We aren’t on safari here, although I wish we were. We're here to find the spot that lights our fire. That's where the tiger belches. I could say sleep, lies down, or roars, but I like Abby's lyrical poem, so I'm saying, "Where it belches."

Paulo Coelho, wrote The Alchemist, in which a shepherd boy begins a quest to find a treasure—he calls that treasure  his "Personal legend."

Since human beings first became aware that they were thinking, they have asked questions such as Coelho is asking. “Why am I here? Do I have a purpose? Can I trust a Higher Power to look out for me? Is life simply working to supply our basic needs, shelter, food, water, and reproducing?”

While in Africa, Martha Beck found herself in an awkward and dangerous place. She was between a Momma rhinoceros and her baby. Standing there looking at an animal the size of a Volkswagen bus, she experienced a strange phenomenon. She was frightened, yes, but she also felt elated. She was at a place she had dreamed of since childhood, and at that moment, that rhinoceros represented her one true nature. She felt that, somehow, she had come face to face with her destiny. (Between a rhino and a hard place?)

Perhaps that rhino was a talisman for her, a representation of what she could become: big, strong, able to overcome obstacles, that thing that both scares us and elates us. We hope we live to tell of it when we find ourselves in that place.

Being at a spot where a tiger belch has a gentler ring than coming face-to-face with a rhino. The purpose is the same. However, which would you rather face, a wild tiger or a wild rhino?

I don't think we can take credit for all we have produced, for I believe in muses and divine intervention.  However, we can take credit for searching. I search for my figurative or literal spot where the tiger belches.

 

 

Chapter 1

You might think I spent the night quivering in my debris hut, listening for the footfalls of wild animals.

I did.

I'm joking. I slept like a relaxed dog lying on his back with all four paws in the air.

I was on a mission and wouldn't let a minor inconvenience stop me.

Ahead was the goal of my life.

I spent yesterday walking, but when a washed-out area of the path sent me sliding into an avalanche of mud, I slid downhill, screaming and grasping at the vegetation.

My careening stopped short of a stream, thank heavens. I had scraped my hands on the way down, and made my throat raw from the screaming, but I survived to the tune of birds screeching and wing flapping as they fled from the treetops, painting a smear of colors across the sky.

I washed my hands in the stream and ate one of the tuna fish sandwiches I had placed in a plastic container to keep them from getting mushed. I drank my bottled water and gathered sticks and debris for an enclosure where I spent the night.  

Now you might be waiting for me to fall on my face, and I may—I slid down the muddy slope, didn't I? But what if we travel through life knowing it will turn out well for us?

I crawled out of my enclosure, stripped off my clothes, and bathed in the stream.

Figuring that the stream—which flowed at a pretty good clip—was pure, I filled my empty water bottles.

I put the bottles into my backpack, and found a surprise. (Did I tell you I had lost my backpack on the way down that embankment and had to climb, holding onto vegetation for support, back up to get it? I slipped back down again—but I saved my backpack.) I had used this pack before and had left a pen and a paper pad in its zipped-up compartment. I searched to see if I had anything else tucked away.

I found three sticks of gum, old and dried up, a chocolate mint from a restaurant long ago, melted, flattened, and reset, but still in its foil wrapper. There were a few crumbs of leftover peanuts and salt at the bottom of the pack. I dipped a wet finger in the salt and licked it. It gave me the taste of having potato chips – a good aftertaste for my tuna fish sandwich.

Okay, dry, dressed, fed, and invigorated after that cold bath, I began skipping down the new path destiny had chosen for me.

Besides, I knew that following a stream usually led somewhere. Water goes downhill, not in circles, as I am apt to do.

What if I get lost? I think as I walk along—a moment of doubt. What if I run out of food or get eaten by a tiger?  Well, I'd be dead. I don't know where I am now anyway. I might as well proceed. I'm determined.

I take off my tee shirt, dip it in the stream, and put it back on to cool my steaming body. I sit beside the stream, gather some reeds, and weave them into a ratty-looking hat. It protects my head, and the wet grass helps keep me at a tolerable temperature.

I keep walking; the sun beats down hot, and it is humid and muggy under the forest's canopy.

Occasionally, a monkey screams at me, sometimes they sing in a full-on chorus of screeching, but I keep on.

Another night in the jungle? What did I get myself into?

Suddenly, I hear someone humming.

Am I coming upon an encampment?

I stop and hold my breath as I peer through the jungle thicket. I see only one hut.

Standing there where I am, hidden in the trees, I see an old woman come out of a shelter. Her white hair frizzes out in a tangle, flowing down her back. She is wearing a turquoise sarong tied above her bosom. Her shoulders are bare. She ambles, carrying a jug to the stream where she dips it into the water. She hefts the filled jug out of the water and settles it on her hip.

As she is walking back to her hut, she calls out to me.

"Why are you standing there, gawking? Come in out of the heat. I've been expecting you."

more

 

 

 

 

Finding your Purpose

On the first day of my college Biology class, the professor yelled over a class of about 200, "This is the Study of Life."

That clinched it for me. I majored in Biology.

My Humanities class changed me more than any other. I loved it

And then, I saw on the internet that some people regret their college majors. At the top of the list was "Life Sciences and the Humanities." What?!

Those classes stood me in good stead to be a writer. Although the study of life I prefer is not Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genius, and species, it is the magic of being alive in all its idiosyncrasies and ideologies, and let's face it, grandeur and fun. 

And probably the regret that some folks have with their major is the difficulty of finding a job in their field.

Have you ever thought about how you won the genetic lottery? Out of one egg and 250 million sperm, you got to be you. One sperm is different; whoops, your sister or brother got it.

So, here we are. Now, we wonder what to do. "Why are we here?" We ask. "What's my purpose?" I wrote a little story with that in mind.

I see that right now, Where Tigers Belch is available for free on Kindle Unlimited. (They choose when it is free. Otherwise, it costs $2.99.)

I revamped it and re-submitted it. It is titled Where Tigers Belch. That's where you find your purpose and reason for being.

Pic

Pretend you are in a bookstore, and you pull Where Tigers Belch down from a shelf and begin to read:

Introduction

You might have read Paulo Coelho's book, The Alchemist, where a shepherd boy begins a quest to find a treasure and something he calls his" Personal legend."

Here is another quest as a young college student sets off into the jungle to find her purpose and reason for being. And she declared it would be where the tiger's belch that she would find it.

Have you ever had one of those days where you felt off? You were out of sorts, irritable, thinking nothing was going right? You were mad at the world and mad that things weren't going according to plan. You were angry that you aren't further along on your enlightenment trail, wondering what enlightenment is anyway.

You could search for years and never find that spot where the tiger belches, where you are calm and believe all's right with the world. It is the place where you feel invincible. 

I understand the gap. Best to back off. Go into your hut, nap, stroke that baby cheetah on your bed, and listen to it purr. (I've heard that they have a purr like a lawnmower, and if they lick you, your skin will feel like it has been sanded.) Decide at that moment that you will be fresh tomorrow and not push it today.

Tomorrow I will take my backpack. I will add a few bottles of water and a couple of sandwiches and set off to find my destiny.

This is the purpose of Where the Tigers Belch. It is an investigation into finding our purpose and learning that we are magnificent beings on the road to greatness.

 

Nobody Can Look Away From a Good Story

 I’m so happy to see you here. I don’t know who you are, but welcome. If you’d like to tell me about yourself, please do, no pressure. It’s fun for me to talk about writing, and I see that you care about it too. 

I wonder about other things on https://travelwithjo.com.

Nobody can look away from a good story.

 

The rub, dear writers, is making the story good.

 

You know the basics, right?

• The character (hero) wants something.

• The hero encounters a problem.

• A guide steps in and offers a plan.

• There is a call to action

• The idea is to avoid failure and end with success.

What will happen if they are not successful?

 

 

 

Most really successful stories use this formula. You can deviate from it, but those stories rarely work well. We, as readers and movie watchers, are geared to the formula. Of course, within that framework is a myriad of stories.

 

George Lucas mastered the story in Star Wars. 

 

You’ve heard that we know within 15 minutes if we are going to like a movie. If it’s awful, we walk out; at home, we switch to another movie. In a book, we stop reading. Horrors.

 

In his book, Building a Story Brand, Donald Miller writes, “Story makes music out of noise.” Mark Twain emphasized that when he wrote. “Sorry about the long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one.” (Making music takes time.)

 

When a storyteller bombards us with too much information, we tune out. You know the novelist who gives so much description we skip over that passage? Miller says the reader burns too many calories organizing the data.

 

If you are writing to sell, the story idea works as well. The idea is to pass the grunt test.

 

Let’s say you are selling to a caveman:

1. I sell aspirin. “Uh”
2. It makes you feel better. “Uh.”
3. You buy it here. “Uh.”

Remember the formula for story? Sell it.

1. The customer is the hero.
2. He has a problem.
3. Meets a guide (One who helps him solve his problem—you.)
4. The plan (agreement)
5. Take action.

I believe most of my problems in selling is that I don’t meet a need. Trying to sell a book because you want to sell it is like selling refrigerators to Eskimos. (Although maybe they need a refrigerator to keep their food from freezing.)

 

If you are selling a book for entertainment, or education, you must first convince that person they need it. I'm crummy at that--but trying to learn.

I am working on a story, though, in Where Tigers Belch. (Small ebook like a newsletter.)

 

My problem: Finding one’s purpose.

 

I have met a guide: a little white-haired blind kahuna living in the jungle.

 

What happens next?

I don’t know. I’m making it up as I go along.

It’s coming out on November 21. I better get cracking.

See ya later,

Jo