Field Recordings welcomes the distinguished Dr. Lama Milkweed L. Augustine to the wilds of the internet. Dr. Augustine has written numerous books, the most recent on death and dying. Please explore.
Lama Milkweed L. Augustine PhD
Pen name:
I use my religious title as the pen name-
Lama Milkweed L. Augustine [PhD]
Most recent title published:
My recent most published title is
"Dying and Loving It." Published in 2012.
Where do you write?
I generally have no realistic outward rituals, but rather I always do a method of "living" my books, short stories, etc, like a method actor might, especially concerning a fictional book. Of course, the nonfictional books I do not have to do anything; just write them, as well as experiencing a true and unadulterated form of emotional affect.
What are your rituals with regards to writing (ex: Must have tea, a cat on the lap, etc):
My writing process is very complicated when compared to most established authors such as myself. Meaning, where I am a highly analytical individual, especially a Buddhist religious leader, who dedicated her entire life to religion and unending theological studies and writing my own works revolving around such endeavors, it is with credible comprehension that I actually take no notes, but rather take them all inwards, and literally breathe life into all of the characters, as this is very literally a life sustaining process. I live "through" my characters, in fictional books, which permit me to truly experience, although a manufactured insight, but nonetheless, an insight about what happens out there-in normal mundane public life and humanistic relations, and all aspects of the mentioned.
Describe your writing process:
When I "revise," it is basically a fix-it concept. Meaning, where I am nearly blind, I must go over the entire work and edit, especially the small typos that I miss, but I also am able to rearrange the words making them sound better, as well as may be interpreted better for the reader. Where I am a Professor, it is often difficult for me to write in a way that will reach all of my readers. The first thing I do in this said process, is the typos-then the tying up of loose ends with grammar and adding further words of inclusion to make things further understood and viewed from my personal concepts, which are difficult for a lot of people.
What do you when you begin to revise? What's the first thing you do during that process?When revising, how many drafts do you go through before you feel comfortable with the final product?
When revisng, I only have to do one extra draft, and where I now type on a computer, although it is dying like the one who owns it, the process of writing is much better that doing it on a typewriter, which until a few years ago, was the only way I could-this computer was bought for me by someone outside of my family.
Where does your inspiration come from (music, film, other books)?
Most of my inspiration comes from my life itself; especially where I was a torture survivor held in captivity for 7 yrs. In addition, my greatest inspirations come from my life in the woods of my extremely impoverished past, especially in the 1960's and early 1970's; pinball and slot machines also grant me much inner inspiration. To humbly ad, my lifelong relationship with God and the Lord Buddha.
Explain how your local and regional environment influences your writing, your process, and your product (in other words, how does your reality intersect with the worlds that you create?):
As a survivor of brutal physical and psychological torture graphically intermingle with my books of fiction, especially my life as a religious leader and Ordained Professor, but in addition, it is the tragic fact of my physical handicaps that always invade the premises of the blank page. Being a complete shut in, due to blindness and catastrophic medical illnesses, could not help but invade the said story lines. I always accentuate my existence of never being able to drive, and being completely socially deprived, due to these things, and so much more, which are explained and exclaimed in rare manner of description; especially in my nonfiction novels. Emotions that tear and seethe are forever there in the limelight, which I do everything I can to shake the readers and force them to listen and to see the brutality I barely survived. The profound struggles no one should ever face, as even in the medical fields, I was an embalmer and medical monk, were lengthy talked about and shown to my reading audience; photographic evidence is also a good primer to such relevance.
You have to invite three authors to dinner, who are they? Why?
Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, and Herman Melville, Why?
Stephen King, although most of his horror novels are written based on perspectives from people he has known, writes a catastrophic horror like I do, but one major difference; MINE ARE REAL and display profound warrant. Ernest Hemingway, I loved because of his deeply spiritual twist, like myself, and how he manipulates his words of intellect and a wider sense of consciousness, again like myself-humbly stated. Herman Melville, by his great book "Moby Dick," his graphic tale of "man's eternal quest for the self," my own depiction of this tale when I was 15 yyrs old, his wondrous manner of struggles and how he manipulated them in story format; the white whale was his fixation and anchoring heuristic in this ingenious read.
Favorite title (you wish you had come up with):
"The Old Man and the Sea" my favorite book ever by Ernest Hemingway. I only wish I wrote it, because of the manner of his descriptions regarding the fishing experience, but his own writing style reminds me so much of my own self. I never really thought about writing in this mildly narcissistic manner.
Book you did not read in high school but now have read and have an appreciation for: And why:
"Lord of the Flies," was one book I never got to read in high school. I appreciate it due to the face it graphically depicted mans' reverberations of a well concealed truth regarding his atavistic senses, and how, given the odd circumstances, are still there for our very survival, but in inclusion, how the kids, in the beginning, tried to work together and resolving their differences; kids are apt to battle more than adults, because of the fact kids are always struggling for independence due to the often strangulating grip of their adult peers who often think they have ti all figured out.
My favorite words were by Lord Jesus Christ,
"He who is of this world is loved by the world.
He who is not of this world is hated by the world."
[I manipulate this saying a lot in my books of nonfiction and fiction, because it edifies exactly my very life; even now.]
"Ask not what your country can do for you;
ask what you can do for your country."
By President John F. Kennedy
Advice you would like to pass on to other writers:
To never stop writing from you heart and spirit; this is the only asset we have as the representatives of God's promise of the written word of man. Words are the best kind of legacy we can offer, because WORDS are what makes us children of God.
What you would discuss with your pet if your pet could talk:
I often talked with my pet before he was taken away by a coyote; "God's endless loving endeavors and His far from ephemeral concern for His creations. The beauty, seen and unseen, and of course, my devout studies I had done while silently, and singularly, earning my Degrees at such a staggering young age. I loved my cat, his name was "Floppy Disk," because he was a gray short haired cat, but the funny ways he just "flopped" down to a lying position whether he was tired or happy.
Her Holiness;
The Most Venerable Lama Rimpoche,
Miss prof. Milkweed L. Augustine PhD DD
author, artist, pacifist leader, religious leader
[Also known as Voice for the Condemned.]
Connect with Milkweed Augustine on Goodreads.
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