EPISODE 43: IN WHICH THE AUTHOR GETS SOME PUBLICITY, BUT NOT FOR HIS BOOKS.

Welcome to my blog which yet again has a stirring of plot within. Last week’s triumph, an apparent promise of kindle publication out together by the best publisher in the world, has had no further developments so already the author is wondering whether it was just an illusion of something about to happen – the Vedantic world process in embryonic form one could say. On the other hand, I discovered this week that the local newspaper had given a half-page article to my idea of a Day of the Dead. The significance of this, in terms of this blog, was that this publicity was based on a telephone interview with me, together with obvious reference to the articles I have written for my death website.  In other words, the effort I put in to creating a base of authenticity to work from has proven, at least in this instance, rewarding.

A consequence of this publicity, however, is that if I now bail out of the whole thing, it will be a public matter, not only because the newspaper have asked for updates but because I have now also had my first meeting with possible companions on this journey. (Journey!? What has the X-factor done to us?) In fact it was Harry Palmer ‘s notes on actions you can take to make a creation, particularly the advice ‘Utilize someone else’s energy,’ that made me take the step of putting an announcement on the town’s noticeboard about the DOTD that asked for help. 3 replies came in and I met two of them in a pub last Wednesday night. 

Pubs are not my cup of tea, especially pubs that don’t sell tea. The first to come was David, a catholic druid who sits with the dying for a living. His belief is that the Dead are having a very good time indeed. The second to arrive was Janetta, a social worker, an occasional funeral celebrant and (I think) a trainee priest in the Goddess temple. Of course, in any other town, or circumstance, these tertiary identities could be quite easy to make-fun of, however I don’t intend to make that mistake because one of the fundamental points of the exercise is to acknowledge the universality of death in the human experience in whatever form it manifests. (All right; I need all the help I can get.)

In the hour I had before my concentration went, (since becoming a smoker again an hour without tea and a fag is too long) we mostly swopped stories of our interest in the subject while I tried to make some general points about where I was coming from. As neither of them are wealthy or web designers, when the point came that they asked what they could do, there was little I could tell them. Although I could see clearly that they both were happy to stay longer, and discuss more, I did what I do, I started to pack away my things and said I would get in touch with them by email. (I did something similar the next day when Linda told me she had some ideas for me.) 

  When I began this account those 45 or so weeks ago, my idea was to utilize ‘self-improvement’ ideas to self-improve. I was particularly influenced by Robert Fritz’s book on Creating and over the next few days I’m going to have to reread it, because this DoD (Day of the Dead) is really an accidental creation and I don’t recall a chapter on this concept. The question is how successful can an accidental creation be? Or rather, how successful can this accidental creation be? Even as I pose the questions answers suggest themselves. Clearly, some accidental creations can be world-changing; (okay, I can’t at this moment think of any but science is full of stories of accidental discoveries and inventions, isn’t it?). For this one to become a full creation, it will need to become utterly deliberate. Should I really bother, bearing in mind it is likely to cost me money than earn it and I can’t feel any emotional excitement about it whereas if I knew a novel of mine was about to be launched on the world I’d be sleepless? 

***

Over the last few months, I have begun to meditate more often, not for long periods but maybe for 20-25 minutes four times a week. I first learned about meditation in 1976 and in my ashram days would often be in meditation sessions lasting a minimum of an hour. I’ve never really enjoyed the practise nor found much stillness, mental or physical, while doing it and certainly no ‘states of monumental peace’ that my friend Chintamani once described. Many years have passed between one bout of irregular mediation and another even though I’ve suspected that while the sessions never seemed exciting the overall effect was beneficial. Not much has changed but now I’m less inclined to seek ‘an experience’ and am using it to try and instil in myself the habit of repeating my mantra because this will be my strategy at death, to hold on to the mantra as my anchor. Even so there have been a couple of times when I’ve almost thought, no, actually did think, I was about to slip into a supernal state. It is this thinking that is the problem of course and I often remember a story by Yogananda who once became excited because he was having a vision of his guru and the visionary guru went up to him and said, ‘Calm down, for god’s sake or you’ll blow me away.’

*****

I’d like to think that the call by some group for Christians to be treated in anti-discrimination law like disabled people are is a deliberate joke and means to imply that the religioners are mentally ill and for that reason should not be scapegoated. Sadly, I rather fear that this call is as stupidly serious as that of Baroness Wadi’s when she claimed that Christians were "sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere".

If only.

EPISODE 42: IN WHICH THERE IS A PLOT DEVELOPMENT.

Welcome to my blog which was quite determinedly heading towards being even more despondent than last week when something happened to lift the spirits. You may recall that in the last episode there was a certain amount of abuse of Chris Wafe who, I claimed, was the son of a devil and the world’s most devious publisher. On reflection, I might be wrong about that and it could possibly turn out that he is in fact the most perceptive bookman in the country because having told me to bugger off one day he then wrote and said he felt arrogant and rude and that if I sent him another copy of the novel he would read it the next day. Which he did. 

And again he liked it and again he said he wanted to publish it as a kindle book. I tell you, a writer, (okay, this writer) has so little praise in life that he will lie on his back and worship anyone who can spare a kind word. Or, as in this case, hand over fifty per cent of any imaginable profit. Quite what Mr Wafe will do to earn his fifty per cent, I’ve no idea but I do know that if left to me Sad Sam won’t even find his way to the death that is Lulu.com, so in a way I’ve nothing to lose.

Except for a certain dignity, because unfortunately it is an absolutely filthy novel and not the sort of thing that I would want anyone known to me to read, especially the women. On the other hand, if I keep quiet about it, they’ll only hear of it should it achieve some kind of success in which case my humiliation maybe compensated for by a trickle of money. I do think it is quite a funny book and it contains my favourite line ever. This occurs when Sam is telling is wife how much he loves her. ‘Without you, I’d just be me’, he says. Every time I read that I want to cry.

I am concerned that Chris Wafe isn’t intending to proof read and contribute editorial input and that the book will go out just as it is which, being mine, is not quite polished to the correct degree. Also, if he were a real publisher I would have written a longer book because at the moment it just finishes because it was near on the 30,000 words suggested by Chris and had reached a natural breaking point.

When I got the email on Thursday morning with Chris’s welcome enthusiasm, I felt an inner glow and an excitement which I couldn’t quite put aside. I really really wanted to tell someone but who? Thee three people I would feel most comfortable telling are all dead. And is it significant news anyway? All that’s actually happened it was that one guy has said he will upload my script onto the internet and take 50% of the profit for doing so. Could be the worst deal I’ve ever made. (There’s certainly competition for that prize.) So I’ve told no-one.

Although I’ve managed to submerge my initial thrill in doubt and facts, I do have to admit that it gave me a chance to think, ‘wow, maybe all this work will come to something, maybe it hasn’t all been just another total waste of time, maybe something is different.’ A little part of me thinks the book could be a mini-sensation, ‘a 21^st century cyberworld portnoy’s complaint’, could get noticed. Could make some money. Could.

Could.

On the same day that I heard from Chris, (I’ve just made myself two cups of tea. Must have gone into the kitchen to do something else which now hasn’t been done) I got a phonecall from a reporter on the local newspaper about the Day of the Dead that I am supposed to be organising. I’d sent them a package of info and articles and this was their rapid response, an interview and a pledge of support (until they read my filthy novel!). Quite frightening really, as the Day in no way exists and, at the same time, another unusual sign of my arrows reaching the vicinity of their targets. Thus goaded, the next day I put a notice on the town noticeboard announcing the event and asking for help. Two answers came, a goddess and a catholic priest. Looks like I’ll have to learn diplomatic skills because surely it is unreasonable to simultaneously demand that Christians be thrown to the lions and to work with them.

*****

One of my far too numerous quirks is to not read a book if it appears to be about either the discovery of some historical documentation that has implications to the characters in the present or about the unravelling of past family secrets at a present day event.

 I thought of this last week when I went for a rare meal with my siblings. We are all (but) in our sixties and our parents died 16 years ago during which we’ve met maybe half-a-dozen times and never spoken of the past. Maybe it is because my brother’s recent cancer is making us realize that our times together could always be the last time, (we’ve already lost the eldest sister, in the same year as my parents) but on this occasion some mention of our childhood did get made and since then my middle sister has written me a couple of letters telling me things I never knew – mainly because I was the youngest.

There is nothing scandalous about these minor revelations. For example, I now know that my mother didn’t go to school until she was 12 because she had been so sickly, that my sisters were sent to an orphanage for a year and that I was forever running away from primary school. I’m not quite sure that any revelation could be that upsetting at this point in my life. Say, for example, I discovered I was adopted, would I feel slightly puzzled or that the ground had been swept away from under my feet? Or if my dad had worked for the Nazis: would I actually care? I’d like to think not.

What a weak point on which to end, much more passion when i was pissed off.

EPISODE 41; WHICH BEGINS WITH NOTHING AND THEN GETS PISSED OFF

Welcome to my blog which today wanted to be about nothing but will probably turn out to be about nothing much, which is what I feel I’ve achieved this week. Considering how little I sleep and how long I spend thinking that there are things to be getting on with, I am staggeringly unproductive. They’ll be a time, not so far away I suppose, when the mechanics of transferring thought to page, or to action, will be taken care of by a quantum chip which almost instantly translates a thought-form into its physical expression – okay, a thought-form is already physical but you know what I mean.

Perhaps.

A thought is itself a unit of awareness with both a tonal centre and a specific sound-shape or ‘inner-sound’ and light qualities or ‘sono-luminescence’.

Within each thought the quivering of Spanda can resound in the form of unique shapes of inner sound and shimmer with qualities of inner light.

A thought, in other words, is not just something we are aware of. It is itself the form taken by an awareness – and hence a source of awareness. 

Just as thoughts are themselves ‘things’ – ‘thought-forms’ – so are things also thoughts or ‘thought-forms.’ (Wilberg; The New Spanda Karikas.)

I did write a letter this week, to the Director of the Southbank festival that I went to a couple of weeks ago, thanking her for the initiative and cheekily asking for any funding contacts she may be able to suggest. I haven’t posted it yet. Oh, and I went to my grandson’s class play which was about Cain and Abel but, apart from the brotherly slaying, I didn’t actually manage to follow the story. My grandson looked tired and not particularly engaged but he clearly knew everybody’s lines and was enjoying the experience. The smile he gave when seeing me was well worth the journey which at 2.5 hours, too far for real ease – not that I make the hour journey to see the other grandson any more often.

The nothing I actually wanted to think about is empty space, or space which appears to be empty but isn’t. (This is all part of my slowly putting together an exposition on the connection between Shaivism and Avatar.) I’ve mentioned a number of times before the ineffability and importance of the feel-it exercises described by Harry Palmer and how they encourage you to switch from thinking mode to feeling mode, or as I would rather say, from one part of the cognitive-feeling spectrum to another part. A couple of weeks ago I quoted liberally from my latest flame, Peter Wilberg, describing the perception or ‘feeling’ or sound of a tree, which puts back into words that which Harry strips of words. Either way we’re describing ‘extended feeling’; the ability to perceive something as over there and with space between it and us. This space is, of course, as illusionary as the ‘being’ of the object is.

The VijnanaBhairava, also previously mentioned, contains a lot of meditations on space – an example I gave before being of peering into the space inside a well. Here are some others:

Dharana 11: Fixing one’s attention on the interior of the cranium and seated with eyes closed, with the stability of the mind, one gradually discerns that which is most eminently discernible.

Dharana 20: If in one’s body, one contemplates over sunya (spatial vacuity) in all directions simultaneously (i.e. without succession) with-out any thought construct, he experiences vacuity all around (and is identified with the vast expanse of consciousness).

Dharana 24: O gazelle-eyed one, (if the aspirant is incapable of immediate immersion in the void) let her/him contemplate over the constituents of his body like bone, flesh, etc, as pervaded with mere vacuity. (After this practise), his contemplation of vacuity will become steady (and at last she will experience the light of consciousness).

…I’m going to have to interrupt this lovey-dovey cosmicness for a while because I’m having a fury. I could of course pay attention to 

Dharana 78: If one succeeds in immobilizing his mind (i.e. in making it one-pointed) when he is under the sway of desire, anger, greed, infatuation, arrogance and envy, then the Reality underlying these states alone subsists

But I’m not going to on the grounds that my reaction is entirely relevant to the so called plot of this so called novel and without mention of this catastrophe they’d be no plot at all. Chris fucking Wafe; yes, I’ve named him; he’s the villain of the piece. Last June, Mr Wafe advertised for novels for his publishing firm. Included in my submission were the opening chapters of a novel I had abandoned. Wafe responded enthusiastically:

Hi John. I really loved reading your story. Would you be interested in Fuckwit Books releasing it as an ebook? Chris

Followed by:

…if you wanted it out with Fuckwit Books, I would half all sales, send out press releases to review sites and get you a few interviews to promote the work, if you'd be up for that.

But I have to say I really really enjoyed reading this. Just thought it was fantastic. I received a few (well A LOT) of manuscripts and this was the one I really had to read all in one go immediately. It was gutting when it just finished cos' I really wanted to know what had happened. I love the use of "shocking" words and the character of Sam, who is such a great character.

Made me laugh as well ( I have a real weird sense of humour and find people with constant horn very funny) but also found it really interesting and well written too.

When it is finished I would love to read it.

Less than two months later, that is in early August, I completed the manuscript and sent it straight over. He emailed back and said he’d read it the following week.

SEVEN MONTHS LATER, still not read. Over the months I sent him a couple of reminders. He said he was busy, would read it soon. After another reminder he said he couldn’t find it and would I send him another copy – which of course I did, though he didn’t acknowledging receiving it. Today, realising it was on my mind, I sent one more reminder and quoted the nice things he’d said about it above. I deliberately didn’t make any funny remarks because last time I tried that he got shirty. As he did today:

John, with all due respect you would not be able to send sarcy emails to bigger publishers as they'd just tell you to bugger off. You dont have to be rude. I was very interested in the book but that was before having tons of projects on at once, I underestimated the spare time I had to promote other books and writers. Im overloaded.

You dont have to quote me as I remember what I said.

Ill have to tell you now that I dont have any more time to take on new writers. Sorry if i wasted your time. There are plenty of others whod be intersted or maybe self publsh through Lulu.

Cunt, or what?

It’s the same old pattern for me: resolution, almost breakthrough, brickwall. Why can’t I get over that last hurdle? I had high hopes for this novel, seemingly justified. For all these months it has been my secret santa claus, my knight in armour, who would save me when all else seemed failed. Forty weeks on and I’ve got nothing nothing nothing to show for it and even the article that was going to get published I changed my mind about. (The absolute silence about the follow-up isn’t good news either.) Bollocks!

(Actually my anger is being dissipated by a very beautiful piece of music - Rolf Lislevand, Arianna Savall, Pedro Estevan, Thor-Harald Johnsen — Kapsberger: Arpeggiata addio.  Sounds and Silence, ECM 2770080).

Now where was I? Too despondent to care. See you next week.

Oh, while I’m in such a good mood, I could begin my hate list which basically includes anyone more successful than me. I hate the fucking lot of you and I particularly hate writers who succeed after 56 failures (J.K. Rowling, are you listening?). I hate people who talk about ‘people of faith’, god I hate them. I hate the conservative party with a vengeance and the labour party with disgust. I hate people who charge me money for things. I hate people who see me make mistakes when I’m driving. I really hate Chris fucking witless Wafeman. I hate dogshit and catshit and I hate people who own dogs that could eat me. I hate waiting for things. I hate my body getting older, I hate hair in my ears and nose. I hate the cannabis laws and I hate the stupid bitch across the road and the drumming bitch next door. I hate the broken bumper on my car, the price of petrol and twats who keep to 3m.p.h. below the speed limit when there’s really really no need to. I hate my slowness on the computer and the certain knowledge that one day I’ll get a phonecall giving me the worst news imaginable. I hate being as wise as I am, I hate being as stupid as I am. Most of all I hate every single person who doesn’t think Boggy Starless is the greatest book ever written. Which, I guess, means I hate me. And I hate you for not reading my blog and not commenting on it.

Of course I won’t publish this little outburst….

EPISODE 40; IN WHICH THE AUTHOR IS DIVERTED BY USELESS CHAT

Welcome to my blog which I am hoping will not disappear into the lethargy and lack of focus that has consumed my past week that, post-London and the inspiration of the Southbank Festival, could have expected some forward motioning. I did spend a couple of days writing a mini-talk to give to a guinea-pig but it turned out she had other things on her mind so the words remain unspoken.

A part of the misdirection of energy has come about as a result of experimenting with an Internet Chat site. I stuck up a picture and a bit of blurb and waited to see what happened. First, and mostly, I received emails from Ghana from young Christian women looking for an honest older man to have a long-term relationship (and visa) with. I assume they are involved in some sort of scam because as often as not their profiles have been deleted a couple of days later.

The next handful came the older women, from the Philippines, the USA, Lithuania, Russia, Australia, even England, perforce looking through a bad crop of even older men. 

In terms of my contacting other people, I did very little except to comment on art work that impressed me or to say hello to some of the Persian and Arab women who seemed so much more accomplished, in terms of education, than their British counterparts that I felt compelled to offer friendship and respect and to assure them that not all British people supported our government’s appalling sabre rattling and interference.

Three communications have, however, been a little more demanding.

A Ugandan peasant woman with two children contacted me from her local internet café. She sent me some pictures of where she lived and her kids. We discussed her tribe, their Christianity and the awful poverty of her existence in what appears to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. Soon after Christmas I sent her twenty dollars and she wrote back a delighted email saying exactly what she had bought. Since I did that all her emails have contained a line about how sad her daughter is because she can’t go to school without the uniform which would cost...well, fuck all. Now I feel no freedom and delight in the communicative exchange, just moral obligation.

A woman called Ayeesha has contacted me from Libya. She said she was in hiding with her kids from people trying to kill her. After a succession of emails and explanations and my saying I was on no-one’s side and also was totally disgusted by Britain’s, Cameron’s, vainglorious plunder, murder and grandstanding, Ayeesha appears to be saying that she’s hiding from the NTC because they suspect she has access to her late husband’s wealth which she says he earned under Gadaffi and they say belongs to them. Fortunately I haven’t given this woman my real name for now she is becoming increasingly frantic because I won’t agree to have this money either delivered to, or transferred to, me. Whether this is some adaption of the traditional Nigerian fraud or is a genuine plea for help, I’ve no idea. I’m assuming it is the former but even if it were true, I can hardly assist with the removal of this money from Libya without expecting some sort of consequence or trouble. Hence I won’t, can’t, do it. 

Another woman to message me was a 47 year old from Minnesota. Her first comment was, ‘You should write my biography.’ I asked why; she said because it would make millions. She went on to mention tales of shootings and drugs and prison life, saying that at the age of 13 her mother told her she could not go to school as long as she stayed at home, took speed and did the cleaning before allowing the 21 year old boyfriend into the house at lunchtime. Although I’ve no experience of writing biography, and no time in my busy mind, I was curious and responded with questions. Six or seven emails later she was declaring her love for me and claiming to be obsessed by me. I don’t really know how this happened.  She then put a message up on my public wall on the chat site saying, ‘humiliate me’. The upshot of all this is that I have now gracefully, well as gracefully as a bolting coward can manage, closed this leakage of my sense and energy; no more chatting for me.

  I could try and blame my useless publisher for my self-puncturing because on Monday he sent me an email advertising a book that he was ‘proud and excited’ to be publishing. Why tell me? Why would I care? What am I supposed to do, feel good for them both? Bah!

For no particular reason other than I’ll lose the paper I wrote this on, I’ll put this quote in (from where I can’t remember now.)

Devotion is not necessarily emotion. Devotion is the capacity to identify oneself with an object and recognize one’s basis unity with that object.

When you tell people, when I tell people, I was once devoted to a guru, they look at me askance. I’m not even sure now what that could have felt like, though I know there was something about his physical body which was very lustrous and fascinating to study. (The same being true for me with David Bowie.) An essential teaching of yoga is that the mind becomes what it meditates on, that you absorb the qualities, the qualia, of the object. Maybe it’d be a good idea if the global TV population stopped watching Wayne Rooney and the English football team. 

In fact I’m not sure that I’d agree that it devotion wasn’t emotional but I suppose we’re talking here about strong emotion, one that flavours the perception or is a reaction to it. From my point of view emotion, like cognition, is inherent in existence and indeed is an aspect of cognition, and visa versa. It was Candace Pert who wrote about the 'molecule of emotion', that molecules are emotional and this is probably a key to realising that cognition and emotion are aspects of the same thing.