About the Author:
Jim Ringel lives in rural Colorado with his sidekick and teacher, Rascal the Tibetan Terrier. When not writing fiction, he can be found hiking, biking, and skiing in the Colorado mountains, or sitting still and meditating at home.
Jim is the author of the Lama Rinzen Mystery series. Book 1 of the series-49 Buddhas-is coming in May, 2018. Each book takes place in one of the six Buddhist Realms--either the Hell Realm, the Hungry Ghost Realm, the Animal Realm, the Human Realm, the Warring Titan Realm or the God Realm.
In each book Rinzen must solve a crime and learn the lesson of the realm. In solving the crime, he will in evidently be killed, so that he may be reborn into the next book and the next realm.
Contact the Author:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn
An Interview:
When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer/ a storyteller?
I have been telling stories since I was a kid in grammar school. Some stories were lies I made up to get me out of fixes. They worked, and I learned I could be convincing. Others were lies I told to get me into conversations where I didn’t belong. They were funny and people laughed. That’s when I promised myself—I was in the 4th grade then—that my life’s mission would be to make at least one person laugh every day. I think I’ve held to that.
I guess that’s when I got the bug. I like telling stories.
What inspires you to write?
I write to explore the questions of my life, and to seek out the little nuggets that are hidden inside every day.
I write to survive in the incomprehensible world around me.
How did you come up with the idea for your current story?
I am a practicing Buddhist. A western Buddhist with a questioning mind. Meditation is my practice for opening myself up and becoming vulnerable to the answers that confront me.
I wrote 49 Buddhas as the first of a six-book series framed around the Six Realms of Tibetan Buddhism. In each book, Lama Rinzen is reborn as a detective into one of the six realms where he (and sometimes she) must solve a crime and learn the lesson of the realm. By accomplishing both these goals, Rinzen then dies to be reborn into the next book and into the next realm.
49 Buddhas explores Lama Rinzen’s rebirth into the Hell Realm on Denver’s Colfax Avenue. The Hell Realm is a realm of confusion and unsettlement and self-loathing. A realm where the hero stands alone outside of the mainstream. I wrote 49 Buddhas to help me through my own confused state of observing so much that I don’t understand.
I wrote 49 Buddhas as an off-beat detective story. I have always enjoyed detective fiction. The hero-detective trying to puzzle his way through clues to find the killer, without overlaying his own ego atop what he observes.
It is a lesson Buddhism teaches—to see the world without ego. Of course, for me as a Buddhist and for any good fictional detective, that is hard to do. I wrote 49 Buddhas to explore this in myself, and to tell a funny noir detective story about it.
Are there some stories tucked away in some drawer that was written before and never saw the light of the day?
I have a number of short stories that have never seen the light of day. Most have to do with mean-spirited animals or witches, and they draw heavily on childhood experiences. I wrote one story about when my cousin and I encountered a witch. She chased us down an alley. I have remembered that story all through my life, and finally I wrote it. I told my cousin about it a few weeks ago, and how I remember it as so chilling. He told me he doesn’t remember a witch ever chasing us. I guess it chilled him so much he cannot even remember.
Tell us about your writing process.
I have a few simple rules:
1) Get to the desk six days a week by 9:30AM and write for a three hour session,
2) Have a goal of at least 750 words committed to paper during each session,
3) When I’ve completed a draft, repeat the process until I am happy with the novel,
4) Don’t be too hard on myself. Keep the writing fun.
Did any of your characters inherit some of your own quirks?
I think all of my characters inherited my quirks. Each character assumes a different one. Obsessive focus. Grasping attachment to ego. Interpretation of the world according to my own needs (the old detective-Buddhist challenge). A snide way of laughing things off. These are the less desirable way I have of dealing with how life confuses me.
But in the end our hero turns all this into wonderment. A brief glimpse of enlightened mind, and that’s where the story ends. That’s a quirk I’d like to inherit from my character.
What is your most interesting writing quirk?
I walk around my house acting out scenes for the book. I rant, I rave, I go off on tangents. I love this quirk. Plus, it amuses my dog. It takes me down all sorts of rabbit holes where I learn about my characters more and more. Sometimes all the acting keeps me from hitting my daily word count. That’s when I try to go easy on myself. The exploration of writing is meant to be enjoyable. Why else do it?
Do you read? Who are your favourite authors and how have they influenced your writing style?
My all time favorite since college is Graham Greene. The subtlety of his suspense and his humor is the lesson I keep trying to learn. It’s probably the measure I use when finding other writers I enjoy, like Shirley Jackson, Thomas Berger, Walker Percy, Patricia Highsmith, Blake Crouch, Olen Steinhauser, Louise Penny, and I know I’m leaving somebody out.
I just finished a really poignant book by T.Q. Tyson, The Past is Never. Beautifully written story about a child gone missing. Mysterious and haunting.
Humor and suspense both play hand in hand. Both keep you on edge. I’m a sucker for pretty words and well-sculpted scenes. But these are backdrop, and should not call too much attention to themselves. All the world is a whole. A balance, and no one part should be saying “Look at me. See how pretty and pretentious I am.” The world should sneak up on you in a slow reveal. Like how humor does. Or how a good mystery unfolds.
What is the best piece of advice you have received, as a writer, till date?
To expect nothing. To sit down and write, even if the session feels unproductive while writing. Sometimes gems blossom long after they’re born.
What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone that wants to get into writing?
Go for it. If you’re a writer, go for it and don’t let anything interfere. It will not be easy, so be comfortable with unease. It will not be a conventional way of living either, so be comfortable being an oddball. There are many who say that writing is a profession of suffering. But if you’re a writer, you don’t resist suffering. You explore it. There are many seemingly successful people who avoid suffering by not doing what they want to do. To me, that sounds miserably naïve. Like true suffering. No matter how big their houses, their cars, their smiles, inside they’re just bums panhandling their way through a life full of trade-offs.
How do you spend your free time? Do you have a favorite place to go and unwind?
My free time? I needed to look that up—what is free time? I walk my dog a lot around various local hiking trails. I meditate. I read, of course. I enjoy good jazz, rock, and experimental classical music. I do charity work. And I bicycle.
Can you share with us something off your bucket list?
I think I lived my life backwards. I did a lot of my bucket list when I was younger, so I could learn from it. Now, my bucket list mostly consists of catching up on the goals I should have pursued when younger.
Tell us three fun facts about yourself.
1) I once read the instructions from a tube of Preparation H to a crowd that gathered to hear me in a Moroccan marketplace.
2) I hitchhiked for a month through Ireland once, where I kept meeting different brothers and sisters and cousins from a family named Dunphy.
3) I have fallen down some of the steepest ski trails in the Canadian Rockies, and have lived to tell entertaining stories about it.
What do you have in store next for your readers?
I am currently continuing my Lama Rinzen Mystery series with Lama Rinzen in the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts somewhere out on the Colorado plains.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with your readers?
I appreciate you reading. Not just my books, but all the good writing out there.
Jim Ringel lives in rural Colorado with his sidekick and teacher, Rascal the Tibetan Terrier. When not writing fiction, he can be found hiking, biking, and skiing in the Colorado mountains, or sitting still and meditating at home.
Jim is the author of the Lama Rinzen Mystery series. Book 1 of the series-49 Buddhas-is coming in May, 2018. Each book takes place in one of the six Buddhist Realms--either the Hell Realm, the Hungry Ghost Realm, the Animal Realm, the Human Realm, the Warring Titan Realm or the God Realm.
In each book Rinzen must solve a crime and learn the lesson of the realm. In solving the crime, he will in evidently be killed, so that he may be reborn into the next book and the next realm.
Contact the Author:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn
An Interview:
When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer/ a storyteller?
I have been telling stories since I was a kid in grammar school. Some stories were lies I made up to get me out of fixes. They worked, and I learned I could be convincing. Others were lies I told to get me into conversations where I didn’t belong. They were funny and people laughed. That’s when I promised myself—I was in the 4th grade then—that my life’s mission would be to make at least one person laugh every day. I think I’ve held to that.
I guess that’s when I got the bug. I like telling stories.
What inspires you to write?
I write to explore the questions of my life, and to seek out the little nuggets that are hidden inside every day.
I write to survive in the incomprehensible world around me.
How did you come up with the idea for your current story?
I am a practicing Buddhist. A western Buddhist with a questioning mind. Meditation is my practice for opening myself up and becoming vulnerable to the answers that confront me.
I wrote 49 Buddhas as the first of a six-book series framed around the Six Realms of Tibetan Buddhism. In each book, Lama Rinzen is reborn as a detective into one of the six realms where he (and sometimes she) must solve a crime and learn the lesson of the realm. By accomplishing both these goals, Rinzen then dies to be reborn into the next book and into the next realm.
49 Buddhas explores Lama Rinzen’s rebirth into the Hell Realm on Denver’s Colfax Avenue. The Hell Realm is a realm of confusion and unsettlement and self-loathing. A realm where the hero stands alone outside of the mainstream. I wrote 49 Buddhas to help me through my own confused state of observing so much that I don’t understand.
I wrote 49 Buddhas as an off-beat detective story. I have always enjoyed detective fiction. The hero-detective trying to puzzle his way through clues to find the killer, without overlaying his own ego atop what he observes.
It is a lesson Buddhism teaches—to see the world without ego. Of course, for me as a Buddhist and for any good fictional detective, that is hard to do. I wrote 49 Buddhas to explore this in myself, and to tell a funny noir detective story about it.
Are there some stories tucked away in some drawer that was written before and never saw the light of the day?
I have a number of short stories that have never seen the light of day. Most have to do with mean-spirited animals or witches, and they draw heavily on childhood experiences. I wrote one story about when my cousin and I encountered a witch. She chased us down an alley. I have remembered that story all through my life, and finally I wrote it. I told my cousin about it a few weeks ago, and how I remember it as so chilling. He told me he doesn’t remember a witch ever chasing us. I guess it chilled him so much he cannot even remember.
Tell us about your writing process.
I have a few simple rules:
1) Get to the desk six days a week by 9:30AM and write for a three hour session,
2) Have a goal of at least 750 words committed to paper during each session,
3) When I’ve completed a draft, repeat the process until I am happy with the novel,
4) Don’t be too hard on myself. Keep the writing fun.
Did any of your characters inherit some of your own quirks?
I think all of my characters inherited my quirks. Each character assumes a different one. Obsessive focus. Grasping attachment to ego. Interpretation of the world according to my own needs (the old detective-Buddhist challenge). A snide way of laughing things off. These are the less desirable way I have of dealing with how life confuses me.
But in the end our hero turns all this into wonderment. A brief glimpse of enlightened mind, and that’s where the story ends. That’s a quirk I’d like to inherit from my character.
What is your most interesting writing quirk?
I walk around my house acting out scenes for the book. I rant, I rave, I go off on tangents. I love this quirk. Plus, it amuses my dog. It takes me down all sorts of rabbit holes where I learn about my characters more and more. Sometimes all the acting keeps me from hitting my daily word count. That’s when I try to go easy on myself. The exploration of writing is meant to be enjoyable. Why else do it?
Do you read? Who are your favourite authors and how have they influenced your writing style?
My all time favorite since college is Graham Greene. The subtlety of his suspense and his humor is the lesson I keep trying to learn. It’s probably the measure I use when finding other writers I enjoy, like Shirley Jackson, Thomas Berger, Walker Percy, Patricia Highsmith, Blake Crouch, Olen Steinhauser, Louise Penny, and I know I’m leaving somebody out.
I just finished a really poignant book by T.Q. Tyson, The Past is Never. Beautifully written story about a child gone missing. Mysterious and haunting.
Humor and suspense both play hand in hand. Both keep you on edge. I’m a sucker for pretty words and well-sculpted scenes. But these are backdrop, and should not call too much attention to themselves. All the world is a whole. A balance, and no one part should be saying “Look at me. See how pretty and pretentious I am.” The world should sneak up on you in a slow reveal. Like how humor does. Or how a good mystery unfolds.
What is the best piece of advice you have received, as a writer, till date?
To expect nothing. To sit down and write, even if the session feels unproductive while writing. Sometimes gems blossom long after they’re born.
What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone that wants to get into writing?
Go for it. If you’re a writer, go for it and don’t let anything interfere. It will not be easy, so be comfortable with unease. It will not be a conventional way of living either, so be comfortable being an oddball. There are many who say that writing is a profession of suffering. But if you’re a writer, you don’t resist suffering. You explore it. There are many seemingly successful people who avoid suffering by not doing what they want to do. To me, that sounds miserably naïve. Like true suffering. No matter how big their houses, their cars, their smiles, inside they’re just bums panhandling their way through a life full of trade-offs.
How do you spend your free time? Do you have a favorite place to go and unwind?
My free time? I needed to look that up—what is free time? I walk my dog a lot around various local hiking trails. I meditate. I read, of course. I enjoy good jazz, rock, and experimental classical music. I do charity work. And I bicycle.
Can you share with us something off your bucket list?
I think I lived my life backwards. I did a lot of my bucket list when I was younger, so I could learn from it. Now, my bucket list mostly consists of catching up on the goals I should have pursued when younger.
Tell us three fun facts about yourself.
1) I once read the instructions from a tube of Preparation H to a crowd that gathered to hear me in a Moroccan marketplace.
2) I hitchhiked for a month through Ireland once, where I kept meeting different brothers and sisters and cousins from a family named Dunphy.
3) I have fallen down some of the steepest ski trails in the Canadian Rockies, and have lived to tell entertaining stories about it.
What do you have in store next for your readers?
I am currently continuing my Lama Rinzen Mystery series with Lama Rinzen in the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts somewhere out on the Colorado plains.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with your readers?
I appreciate you reading. Not just my books, but all the good writing out there.
About the Book:
49 Buddhas tells of Lama Rinzen in the Hell Realm—a realm of confusion, shifting ground, and anger.
In the Hell Realm, the lama must find insurance man Sonny Heller’s killer. Lama Rinzen believes finding Sonny’s killer will lead him to the sacred dorje. Once he finds the dorje—once he can touch it and feel the dorje’s ancient wisdom—only then can Lama Rinzen and all sentient beings achieve enlightenment.
Many seek the dorje, but only Lama Rinzen is deserving.
Then again, distinguishing such delusions from insight is the lesson the lama must learn. Not only so he can find Sonny’s killer, but so he also may progress along the path to enlightenment.
Or so he believes.
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