Eighty Days – Day 7

Welcome back to my globe-trotting blog tour. We’re tracing the fictional path of Phileas Fogg as he raced Around the World in Eighty Days, 150 years later. On this date, at 11 am local time, Fogg and his servant reached the city of Suez aboard the steamship Mongolia.

The ship would stay there just four hours to refuel with coal and then cast off to steam toward Bombay. That furnished enough time for Fogg to obtain a visa from the British Consul. He didn’t need the visa to pass through Egypt, but wanted official evidence he’d reached Suez. He’d traveled 2522 miles since leaving London, about 10.3% of the planned distance, but only taken 8.8% of the allotted 80 days.

For Verne’s plot, the refueling stop allowed Detective Fix to see Fogg for the first time, to gain valuable information from Passepartout about Fogg’s intentions, and to firm up his suspicions about Fogg robbing the Bank of England.

Ferdinand de Lesseps

Suez sits at the junction of Africa and Asia, near the southern end of the then-new Suez Canal, completed in 1869. Verne seemed proud of the accomplishment of his countryman, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who masterminded the construction of the canal. Lesseps also gets a mention in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.

In 1872, Egypt existed as an Ottoman province, known as the Khedivate of Egypt. Isma’il Pasha ruled as the Khedive.

Much has changed in 150 years. They widened the canal to double its capacity. It’s endured wars, the planting and removal of mines, and blockage by a ship running aground.

Long past being a Khedivate, Egypt became a republic with a president, currently Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and a prime minister, currently Moustafa Madbouly.

Today’s traveler needs far less than 4 days to transit from Brindisi to Suez. You can ride by car to Bari, take a flight to Cairo via Istanbul, then hop a bus to Suez, all in 11 ½ hours.

I’ve been pushing my new book, 80 Hours. However, that’s not the only Verne-related piece I’ve written or been associated with. My story “The Steam Elephant” in The Gallery of Curiosities #3 forms an African sequel to Verne’s The Steam House. Think of “A Tale More True” as a clockwork version of Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. “Rallying Cry” celebrates two Verne novels—The Steam House and Clipper of the Clouds. “The Cometeers” follows From the Earth to the Moon as a sort of sequel. I co-edited the anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered, with its obvious Verne connection. I also co-edited an upcoming anthology by the North American Jules Verne Society called Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. Look for news about that here.

If all goes well on our steamship ride, we should reach Bombay (now Mumbai) on October 20, the next entry in this blog trip. Detective Fix may embark aboard the Mongolia as well, along with Fogg, Passepartout, you, and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 9, 2022Permalink

Eighty Days – Day 3

We’re continuing our blog-trip Around the World in Eighty Days, 150 years after its publication. Today, we’re in Brindisi after riding with Phileas Fogg and Passepartout by train from Turin.

We’ve covered 1420 miles to this point, already 5.8% of the total planned distance. Yet only 3.8% of our 80 days have elapsed. All looks well.

As with the earlier cities on the tour, Verne neglected to describe Brindisi. Perhaps he could count on his French readers being familiar with it. 

Brindisi sits at the high heel of the Italian boot, near the joining of the Adriatic Sea with the Mediterranean. In 1872, 13,800 people lived there. Only two years before, the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) added Brindisi to its route, coinciding with the opening of the Brindisi Marittima railway station.

After leaving the train station, Fogg and his servant would have taken a carriage to the port to board the steamship Mongolia. That ship would take them through the Suez Canal to Bombay (now Mumbai). No fictional creation of Verne, the Mongolia existed. Built in 1865, it displaced almost 3000 tons and, according to Verne, its engines produced 500 horsepower.

The Mongolia got scrapped in 1888, but P&O later built two more ships by that name.

If you visit Brindisi now, you’ll find it’s home to 87,000 people. That Brindisi Marittima railway station closed in 2006, replaced by a car park.

Brindisi Harbor

Getting from Turin to Brindisi today doesn’t require a train ride of 32 hours and 40 minutes, like Fogg had to endure. Just hop a 3 ½ hour flight, which includes a 1-hour layover in Rome.

If you’re wondering what it would be like to fly around the world today, stopping at the major cities of Phileas Fogg’s route, I recommend the book 80 Hours. It’s sold at Rakuten Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Vivlio, Amazon, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble.

The voyage to Suez will take four days, so look for the next post in this series on October 9. They’re about to remove the gangway on the Mongolia. Fogg and Passepartout are already aboard, waiting for you and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 5, 2022Permalink

Eighty Days – Day 2

Buon giorno, faithful readers and fellow blog travelers. We’ve reached Turin on our voyage Around the World in Eighty Days with Phileas Fogg and his servant, Passepartout. We’re commemorating their famous fictional trip of 150 years ago.

Mont Cenis Pass train

The book states Fogg and his party reached Turin “by Mont Cenis” on Friday, October 4, 1872, at 6:35 am. The Mont Cenis part seems unlikely. A railway had been operating there since 1868, but it closed in 1871 after the opening of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel. That tunnel proved a much better connection between France and Italy through the Alps. I’m guessing Verne wrote the novel a year or so ahead of when it appeared in print.

Fréjus Rail Tunnel

In any case, Fogg must have felt gratified, in his stoic way, to have traveled 736 miles since leaving London. That put him 3% of his way around the world in just 2.5% of the time. Good to be ahead of schedule so early in the trip.

Turin, in 1872, held a population of 208,000 and had served as the capital of Italy up until 11 years earlier. King Victor Emmanuel II then sat on the throne of the newly united Kingdom of Italy.

Turin today

In 2022, Turin’s population numbers 900,000. Sergio Mattarella serves as President of the country, and Mario Draghi is the Prime Minister.

Today’s traveler wouldn’t need 22 hours, as Fogg did, to reach Turin from Paris. You can fly between the two airports in about an hour and a half.

Speaking of flying, you might consider buying a copy of my book 80 Hours, a fictional tribute to Verne’s story.  You can get the ebook from Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Vivlio, Amazon, and Apple Books.

Tomorrow, we’re due in Brindisi. So far, all is going well for our party—Fogg, Passepartout, you, and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 4, 2022Permalink

Eighty Days – Day 1

Welcome to Paris! Today we’re continuing our trip Around the World in Eighty Days, following the fictional route taken by Phileas Fogg 150 years ago. I hope you remembered to turn off the heat in your room back in London. Passepartout forgot that.

He and Fogg left London the night before, took a train to Dover, a steamship to Calais, and a train to the French capital. Jules Verne spent few words describing this leg of the journey. Little wonder, since his readers knew this portion of the route well. Verne focused on character development here and introduced a major subplot, the pursuit of a bank robber by Detective Fix of Scotland Yard.

Passepartout regretted not spending more time in Paris, capital of his native country. He and Fogg rode in a carriage through the rain for an hour and forty minutes between two train stations.

At this point, Fogg had traversed some 294 miles, about 1.2% of the total distance, and he’d consumed 1.3% of his allotted time. On schedule with no mishaps or delays. The day before, when making the bet, he’d asserted, “The unforeseen does not exist.” So far, that had proved true.

“The Train” Claude Monet, 1872

In 1872, the population of Paris (minus outlying areas) numbered about 1.8 million. Adolphe Thiers served as the President of France, with Jules Armand Dufaure as President of the Council of Ministers.

Today, Paris claims a citizenry of 2.2 million. Emmanuel Macron is the President of the Republic, and the Prime Minister is Élisabeth Borne.

Had Fogg waited 150 years, he could have caught a flight directly from London to Paris with a flying time of one hour and twenty minutes. Truly, that unforeseen did not exist.

Trains, too, have changed. They no longer belch smoke like the one in Claude Monet’s 1872 painting, “The Train.” A traveler today can go by rail from London to Paris, through the Chunnel, in about two and a half hours.

If you’re enjoying this blog voyage, perhaps you’d like my latest story, 80 Hours, inspired by Verne’s tale, but updated to modern times. It’s available as an ebook from Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Vivlio, and Amazon.

All aboard! Next stop—Turin. We should arrive there tomorrow, according to your conductor—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 3, 2022Permalink

Eighty Days – Day 0

150 years ago today, Phileas Fogg made his famous fictional wager and started his journey Around the World in Eighty Days. To commemorate the anniversary, let’s travel along with him for the next eighty days and find out how the world he circled has changed.

The Reform Club, as it looked then

He made his bet and started his trip at the Reform Club. Jules Verne didn’t invent that club—it had existed for thirty-six years. A gentlemen’s club originally devoted to promoting the passage of the Reform Act of 1836, it conducted business in a building on Pall Mall Street in central London.

The Reform Club today

The club still exists today, but with some changes. Once political, it’s now mostly social. Once all-male, it admitted women in 1981.

In 1872, greater London boasted a population of 3.9 million. Queen Victoria sat on the throne of England, and William Ewart Gladstone of the Liberal Party served as Prime Minister. The 20th Parliament performed legislative duties.     

In October 2022, greater London’s population numbers 8.8 million. The monarch is King Charles III, and the Prime Minister is Liz Truss of the Conservative Party. They’re up to the 58th Parliament now.

The date of October 2 fell on a Wednesday in 1872. Fogg set a departure time of 8:45 pm, since he planned to take the train to Dover leaving at that time.

In 2022, the second day of October falls on a Sunday. Trains still run from London to Dover, and the trip takes less than two hours. You could also drive by car, rideshare with others, take a bus, or fly. Fogg lacked all of those latter options. 

In related news, I’m launching a new book today. Called 80 Hours, it’s a modern take on the Verne classic. You can buy it in ebook form at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Tolino, and Vivlio.

Let’s agree to meet in Paris tomorrow, just Phileas Fogg, his servant Passepartout, you, and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 2, 2022Permalink

NASA’s DART Mission is 125 Years Too Late

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) succeeded in impacting a probe on the asteroid Dimorphos in an attempt to redirect the path of that body.

You’re late to the party, NASA. It’s been done already. Over a century ago.

As chronicled in The Cometeers, an international team already attempted to redirect an Earthbound comet.

In 1897.

When Comet Göker threatened to strike our planet in September of that year, there were no rockets, no nuclear weapons. They fired projectiles from the Jules Verne cannon and tried to deflect the comet with a gunpowder explosion. Commander Hanno Knighthead struggled to motivate his argumentative, multinational crew of eccentric geniuses to work together.

Then he learned the crew included a saboteur. Only a truly extraordinary leader could get this group to cooperate, identify and thwart the spy, and jury-rig a way to divert the comet. Lucky thing Hanno brought his chewing gum.

Good work, NASA. DART struck its target. But let’s not call it new or innovative. The credit for saving the Earth from collision goes to The Cometeers, by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 27, 2022Permalink

80 Hours—Available for Pre-order

Next Sunday, October 2, 2022 marks 150 years to the day after Phileas Fogg began his trip Around the World in Eighty Days. I’ll celebrate this fictional event in two ways:

  1. My story “80 Hours,” will be available for purchase, though you can pre-order it now.
  2. I’ll begin a series of blogposts on the days when Fogg and his companions arrived in each city on their trip.

To Jules Verne’s reading audience in 1872, it must have seemed astounding to think someone could circle the globe in as little as eighty days. Today, we’re accustomed to the space station and manned spacecraft orbiting the earth in a little over eighty minutes.

For the rest of us non-astronauts, imagine facing the challenge of circumnavigating the earth in eighty hours with no preparation and with unknown, promised obstacles along the way. That’s the problem confronting shy and sheltered Wendy Pegram in “80 Hours.”

You may pre-order “80 Hours” in ebook form now at Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Tolino, and Vivlio. Starting next Sunday, you’ll be able to get the book at those sites, and at Amazon, Scribd, and Rakuten Kobo.

If you’ve been itching to make the trip around our globe, you can do it for real. Or (far cheaper) you can read your way around the world by two different methods, courtesy of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 25, 2022Permalink

Metaphor, Your Trained Tiger

Ah, the metaphor. The perfect asset for rendering the abstract concrete, for elevating prose above mere banal description, for igniting the fire of words.

tiger photo by Charles J. Sharp

I’ve written about metaphors before, but only to distinguish them from their showy, weaker fellow creatures, similes. The poor, attention-starved simile. It’s like a male peacock, brandishing ‘like’ or ‘as’ to signal the reader, to flash its tail feathers, saying, “Look at me! I’m making a comparison!”

A metaphor shows no signal, gives no sign. It’s unannounced, sneaky, and subtle. A trained tiger lurking within a jungle of words. Hidden power, and beauty.

I attended a webinar this week titled “The Magic of Metaphor,” by author Marin Sardy, and that inspired this post. She refreshed my knowledge of this trained predator, one I’ve too often left languishing in its cage. Thanks to her, I’ve fed the beast, stroked its fur, let it get some exercise, and vowed to present it more often.

All metaphors hinge on an absurdity. A thing is not a thing, says the metaphor, it is some other thing. It’s not like something else. It is something quite different. X is Y. Shakespeare asserts the whole world is a stage. They’re the same thing, equal.

Absurd. The whole world is not a stage. You know that. Shakespeare knew you’d know that. But your mind, that highly evolved pattern recognition engine, saw the link and made the connection. The world resembles a stage in some respects—got it.

Ms. Sardy discussed the various types of metaphor, the different tricks your trained tiger can perform. Simple, Compound, Extended, Implied, and Conceptual. You can look those up elsewhere. Each takes the basic ‘X is Y’ formulation and twists it a different way.

Metaphors help readers understand and appreciate your story. The ‘X’ is something in your story—hard to describe, difficult to picture, outside the reader’s experience. In the cited metaphor by Shakespeare, “all the world” is fuzzy, nebulous, too big to grasp. Your powerful trained tiger equates that with ‘Y,’ something known to readers, tangible, and easier to imagine. “A stage.”

If your tiger performs well, Ms. Sardy says, the metaphor is clear, apt, original, and authentic. On a bad day, the tiger bites its trainer-author in the form of a cliché, or metaphors that are mixed, stacked, or forced.

Ms. Sardy addressed how to train your tiger—that is, how to choose the right metaphor. Given the ‘X’ of your story, how do you select the perfect ‘Y?’ The four pieces of advice, put in my own words, follow:

  1. Push past the obvious. List a bunch of candidate ‘Ys’ (perhaps by mind-mapping) and don’t pick the first ones that occur to you.
  2. Think for yourself. Don’t copy, or even attempt to imitate, the metaphors of other writers.
  3. Understand the ‘X.’ Put yourself as deeply into your story as you can. Immerse your mind in it. Only by being there can you convey an appropriate and vivid comparison.
  4. Draw from past experience. Think about similar things from your own past. That may help you select the right ‘Y,’ one familiar to readers.

Note: In this post, I’ve transposed Ms. Sardy’s marvelous webinar into my own words. She didn’t use a trained tiger to describe metaphors—that’s my idea. I take the blame for any misinterpretation of her wonderful talk.

Ready to show off your trained tiger? At the literacy circus, a spotlight shines down on the center ring. A vast, reading audience waits in their seats, anxious to find out if your trained tiger act is better than that of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 18, 2022Permalink

Writing Retreat? No! Writing Advance!

A writer’s retreat sounds good, doesn’t it? Get away from your day job, your house-mates, your friends, for a week, a weekend, or even just a day. Pure writing bliss.

Except it often isn’t. I’ve blogged about writing retreats here, and even earlier, here. If you approach them with realistic expectations, maintain discipline, and avoid distractions, you may accomplish many of your retreat goals.

You can divide writer’s retreats into two types—Group and Do-It-Yourself, and I’ve done both. Group retreats provide camaraderie with like-minded writers, and the opportunity for critiques and idea-sharing.

DIY retreats, described in two great posts—this one by Kristen Pope, and this one by Alicia de los Reyes, feature ‘alone time’ where it’s just you and your words. You may find a well-executed DIY retreat quite productive and rewarding.

Now for the counter-argument. In group retreats, when all is said and done, there’s often much more said than done. If you’re going to talk and not write, don’t call it a retreat. Call it a weekend with friends, a party, or a beer-bash.

DIY retreats avoid that problem, but may suffer other pitfalls. If you’re accustomed to writing in short bursts during the rare moments life allows, you may find it difficult to stay focused when you’ve set aside a whole day. If you’ve trained your brain to adjust to one-hour writing sessions, don’t be surprised when the gray matter gets distracted or sluggish after an hour.

Also, when you think about it, DIY retreats resemble your daily writing sessions, except they’re longer. Just a question of scale. Seems a little strange to give it a special name—retreat—when it’s so similar to your normal routine.

Consider professional authors, those who call writing their day job. They write all day, every day. Think the term ‘DIY retreat’ means anything to them? What you call a DIY retreat, they call a career.

Perhaps you should aim at that target. Rather than writing for a few minutes squeezed from life each day, all the while looking forward to the next retreat when you can really write, why not think of each day as a DIY retreat? Maximize those seized moments. Do everything you can to approximate the life of a serious, professional author. Maybe you can’t give up your day job or ignore life’s other requirements, but you can prioritize your time to permit more writing.

With that mindset, every day starts looking like a DIY retreat. Who started calling them ‘retreats,’ anyway? Yes, they involve backing away from the non-writing parts of life, but ‘retreat’ sounds so weak, like surrender. From a writing perspective, you’re advancing, not retreating. Let’s call them advances, or charges, or attacks.

Let’s go, writers! Grab your spear and shield—er, I mean pen and laptop, and advance toward glory. No retreat, no surrender. Charge forward! Follow—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 11, 2022Permalink

You’ll Never Get Rejected

Interesting fact—over the years, I’ve submitted stories 441 times, and in all of the responses to all of those submissions, I’ve never been rejected. Hard to believe? Consider this—no matter how many times you submit your writing for publication, you will never be rejected either.

To clarify, my stories have been rejected plenty of times. Yours might be rejected as well. But I, as a person, have never been rejected by any editor. Nor will you.

When one of your stories gets rejected, it sure feels like the editor is rejecting you, doesn’t it? It’s like the editor’s saying, ‘You’re not good enough for my publication. You really aren’t a very good writer. You ought to quit now and consider doing something else with your time.’

Editors never say that. Nor do they mean it. But we writers can’t help but think that’s what they mean. After all, we think, I just wrote something from the heart, from the deepest part of my soul. I am the story, and the story is me. When you reject it, you reject me.

In dealing with this conundrum, you’ve got two options to choose from:

  1. You can identify with your stories in a personal, intimate way. When an editor rejects one of your stories, you can regard it as a rejection of your very being. You’ll have to find some way of coping with that (see below).
  2. You can place some emotional distance between yourself and your stories. They’re not you and you’re not them. They’re good, and you’re proud of them, but they’re a product of you, not the very essence of you. A rejection of a story is nothing more than a minor setback. It doesn’t constitute a condemnation of you as a person. Your identity as a writer remains intact.

Though I practice Option 2, I’m not sure that’s best. It can lead to a disinterested approach to writing—’It’s just a story, after all. It’s not me. Who cares if it gets rejected?’

Option 1, however, reminds me of the quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway—“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” That attitude calls for baring your soul using words, pouring out your essence into every story. Perhaps Option 1 could result in the best, most masterful writing you can do.

If you choose Option 1, how do you deal with rejection? You’re in for a rough time when an editor rejects (what you consider to be) you. At a minimum, alcohol may get consumed and perhaps your forehead will bang into a wall a few times. I hope nothing worse occurs.

It seems likely that, for Option 1 writers, rejection becomes less soul-crushing after the tenth, or the hundredth time. I hope so, even if only for the sake of minimizing wall damage.

Perhaps wisdom lies in a sort of balance between Option 1 and 2. You could maintain a close relationship, an identity, with your stories, while growing a hard shell when it comes to others’ opinions. You’re going to need a thick skin at some point anyway, even after acceptance, when critical readers leave scathing comments.

Whichever option you choose and however you deal with rejections of your stories, it remains true that you will never get rejected, and neither will—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 4, 2022Permalink