Moose received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Ron Potter.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Moose, April 2020.
What’s the book’s first line?
“Okay, so this is how it works.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Turmoil gets buried in a life like a worm in an apple. And it gets buried in a boy when his father pushes him into developing an aggressive personality which negates his spiritual, artistic yearnings. The boy grows up and begins a series of self-destructive episodes, each increasing with danger to himself. But he survives and grows into middle age where, with the aid of Shamanistic teachings, he learns to move his consciousness around, into his past and future experiences. He feels the weight of his unresolved issues, specifically with his father and seeks to unburden himself. The boy is me, a guy nicknamed Moose.
He begins to recapitulate his past, reliving the most dramatic incidents. He goes to a Rolling Stones concert and has a spiritual encounter with Mick Jagger. His deceased cousin leads him back to an event that happened when they were teenagers in a small northern town. But the outcomes are beginning to change. The past has become different. He is overwhelmed and seeks out an incident with a single mother where he never got laid the first time. The sex is miraculous but he gets murdered by her biker husband’s friends and winds up in a pseudo heaven with Mick as god.
He discovers he has not changed the past but created an alternative reality and from this reality he must become an aid, a spirit guide to his former drug addled self. He goes back into his old life, assuming various characters to gain Moose’s attention and lead him to a series of epiphanies which will turn him toward the new destiny and his meeting Aranka, his future wife and mentor. As for the dead Moose, his time on earth is over. He is to sail past the Eagle, the consciousness devouring entity at the end of the world. The final episode involves a reconciliation with his father who sets everything in a proper context. Moose discovers it was all planned from the beginning. Father and son exit the world, passing the Eagle into new dimensions of existence.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
I had read Castaneda’s book “The Active Side of Infinity” and was intrigued with the teaching of recapitulation, the reliving of emotionally charged memories while deep trancing, allowing trapped emotions to relinquish their energies. I began my own experimental delving into past experiences that held too much gunk to be much fun. Out of these journeys into the active past came this book and the very real experience of a parallel universe where future and past selves guide us to freedom.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Even though Moose is comical the ideas presented are based primarily in A Course in Miracles, Letting Go by David R. Hawkins and the teachings of Carlos Castaneda. The leader can learn how inner turmoil can derail a life and how certain energetic and spiritual practices can provide relief and new energy to create new opportunities. Also, that we are never alone. If we ask for help it does come. Learning how to listen is a theme in the book.
If they made your book into a movie, who would you like to see play the main character(s)?
Tom Waits as the old man, for sure.
When did you first decide to become an author?
When my wife said I was a writer.
Is this the first book you’ve written?
I wrote a book called Cash first. I will publish it soon.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
HVAC sales.
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
When I’m rolling, I can do two hours a day.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
I’m ill-defined. I just write and because Walt Whitman self published, I said, what the hell. And Tellwell made it so easy and fun.
What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
I need accountability. Both my books were written when I was committed to a program called ‘A Novel Approach’ here in Ontario. This Inksligers group has you commit to 3000 words biweekly as well as reading and commenting on the works of others. In 26 sessions you come up with a healthy first draft. The group provides encouragement and community. I am considering enrolling again to start a third book.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
I think I would. It would be all about exposure.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
My life is hard. We raise our grandson and work long hours. I have a horse I call Biggus Dickus who is a long-term project. I write for the exhilaration, for going to new places. I write to explore my mind and through it the strange reality we inhabit.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
Paul Auster.
Which book do you wish you could have written?
The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster.