Three Day Fast

                     Someone I know was told a hospice place awaited, and she said she wasn't ready for the hopice yet. Well, I realised I wasn't ready for the hospice yet either. At my age maybe you should think about being hospice ready, not beach ready.

                   Anyway, I stopped drinking beer at night and went on a three day fast. Half way through it,  I decided to get into the spirit of the thing and shaved all my hair off. You can tell by the photies how much one enjoys having nothing to eat for two days!!

                    I should have been in Belgium on a month's retreat with the wee lama ... till a week ago, but what with the hospice awaiting my friend's mother .... can't really justify going away at this time. But I don't see anyone for days at a time anyway and if I stop the beer ... I'm practically on retreat half the time anyway.

                    I've been sending off maybe an email a month recently concerning The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man. Having stirred up no responses and nothing but apathy from emailing London agents, I decided to try overseas. This might have been just one step away from bothering the publishers of restaurant menus, but lo and behold, someone got back to me and they say they'll take a look if I send the book to them after January 3rd. 

                    Actually getting an agent to read it, or at least to start reading it, is a bit of a triumph in itself. I don't expect that they'll want to try to flog it, and if they do, I don't expect them to succeed in that. I've told the wee lama I'll give her any money I make from it anyway. Low expectations is the way to go. And I don't have to send out any emails till the agent gets back to me. Hurrah to that! She's called Vicki Selvaggio from The Storm Literary Agency.

Something moved...

 

                                        I thought I should  come here to say that something interesting happened when I was meditating yesterday. After a vase breath .... wow! What was that? We're cooking with gas. There is some heat. Yesterday did seem like a red letter day, but today the difference has been  assimilated and is now part of the new normal, more or less. Still very encouraging though. I think I'm proving that you don't have to be a saint to do this inner heat stuff, since I'm sure this is going to work for me now, and I'm certainly no saint unless you can be one as well as a habitual piss and pot heid!!

                                    It's over a year since I finished The Buddha, the Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man. I really gave up after about twenty emails to agents, which produced bugger all, and so I haven't managed to get an agent to look at it yet. That doesn't matter. I only send out about one email a month these days!

                                    This hasn't stopped me writing a follow up! Or, starting one. I thought this heat thing would happen, and the last book has been written by someone who cannot raise heat. I think my next year sometime that might not be me. Anyway, I'm wanting to write something about mysticism. Been very interested in Neo-Platonism, Plotinus, Sufis, Greek Orthodox hesychasm, and all that. 

                                    I was down at the Samye Ling for the retreat following the anniversary of the passing of Dr Akong. Then Lama Rinchen came and stayed with me for two nights. Meditating with her at my shrine was something else. I think these two events might have had something to do with the Wow yesterday. Who knows anything about anything?

                                    The blog gets hit nearly every day from somewhere in the Netherlands. I assume this is a machine. What is that about?

My Old Man is the one on the right. No one is bigger than 5 ft 5ins.

    

                Of course, everything started to deteriorate once I stopped meditating so much and started back on the evening doing the usual stuff. 

                For the last couple of days in Brussels, I was taken aback by the increased ability to visualise and the sometimes feelings of exhilaration, and sometimes feelings I just had to look at and couldn't really explain. Is that what folk who are bi-polar feel when they are wonderfully manic? I think it is. I got there and wasn't scared (exhilaration isn't scary!), but kind of surprised because I'm supposed to be old and tired, but it wasn't like that now and again. This is about not believing in anything and accepting knowledge only through experience. 

               This blog is supposed to be about writing.

                I've been ruminating and taking notes about another book because the last one stopped when I couldn't raise inner heat. Well, I still can't do that, but things have developed since last year in the summer when I finished The Buddha, The Dakini and The Dirty Old Man.

                Once upon a time, about eleven years ago, when books were put up free on Kindle the downloads tumbled and tumbled down in the hundreds. Free mostly, but that's okay. I put Cold Killing onto Kindle a couple of months ago to see how things were now. In the first three days of sticking that book on Kindle, it was downloaded fifteen times. In the last day, it's been downloaded three times.

                So, I will not be putting The Dirty Old Man on Kindle. It would not be read and I think I should try to get an agent for it, and maybe another two following it. This seems unlikely, but that's okay. I'd like to make some money for my Kagyu friend.

                 Once my favourite book was A Moveable Feast. It wasn't published till after the author was deid. A Long Day's Journey into Night wasn't produced till after Mr O'Neill was deid, probably his best work. So, it's about trying and doing your best. I'm not anywhere in the league where O'Neill and Hemingway reside, but anyone who tries to do this writing or any arty stuff is in the same game. You need a culture where a lot of folk are trying to get Michelangelo and what else would I do? Keeping on. Writing has kept me focussed. I'm glad I tried with this .I might not be any good at it. I'll keep trying. Once I read Bertrand Russel's Autobiography and I think he wrote that in his 90s. So keep on keeping on.

                    The photie is of my old mas. He's in Antwerp, I think, about in his early thirties. I didn't get here on my own. I owe it to my old man and lots of other people to stop being an arsehole and get into the purification and accumulation. To end up as good a person as my old man would be improbable.

 

Brussels, vase breathing, the bliss and that jazz

 

                            Sometimes you might think this is the most significant time in your life, but you may be getting a little carried away. Maybe you're not. When I go back to Edinburgh, will it all deteriorate and will I go back to things being just the way they were. That wouldn't be so awful since I was having a wonderful old age before I go here.

                         Today is the first day I've gone to the Dzong morning and afternoon. Though I sit way at the back as far as I can and it is difficult to focus as well as you might while sitting alone, there's something else going on. Energy? Can it be described as the energy in the place being cranked up by all the singing and chanting and occasionally cacophonous music. 

                        My mind is a lot "clearer", if that's the expression I'm looking for. The visualisations of lamas, deities and all that is certainly much improved over the last couple of weeks. For years and years I was managing almost bugger all, but over the last couple of days, especially today, there it was. You want to see a guru's face over your head and there it is. The Dorje Semper visualisation is, of course, far more complex, but even that is much improved.

                       The after-effects of the vase breathing are also much enhanced. Really much enhanced. Everything is just more and more than it was.

                        I can't take any of the credit for what's going on. Lama Rinchen Palmo encouraged me to go the Monlam, and brought me here, got me a wonderful place to stay with a really great person. She's on the bike in the photie and she's called Katrina. I don't even know her second name. Apart from today when I went to the shrine in the morning just for a change (Glad I did!!), I've been doing a couple of hours meditating here, then going to the shrine, then coming back for more meditating in the evening. As you can see from the photie, I'm meditating my socks off!

                    I have a flight on Thursday. I wish I hadn't. 

Brussels Dzong

    

    

                     I was down at the Samye Ling last week for the Kagyu Monlam, which is a prayer festival. Great to see Ani Lhamo with Lama Yeshe there. The place is not the same when they are absent. The place was almost like its pre-Covid self. Potala House was open and sometimes so was the cafe. 

                    Drupon was doing the teachings. He explained contemplation, as opposed to meditation, and that was very useful. I knew about it's role in analytical meditations before, but I'd forgotten.

                    The best time was spent on the riverbank. And, oh, how the sun sometimes shone. There are few places I visit that look better to me when the sun shines.

                    It's late at night and I'm very tired, but I came here to say that tonight the dial really moved as far as the vase breathing and all that was concerned. I'm so lucky to be having such a wonderful old age. All I brought to the table was stubbornness and doubt, but I have met with some brilliant practitioners. Lama Rinchen encouraged me to come to Brussels and I'm so glad I did come. I'll go back to Edinburgh a different meditator. I knew this nineteen day break would make a big difference considering the way things were going when I was still at home, and it certainly has so far. And I've still go a week to go!!!

                   Maybe I'll write something more considered and sensible about all this when I get the time. Suffice to say that I will be a HotboyMadyamika, I really will. 

 

Cold Killing and the juju.

        

                                I was away from here from Thursday night till Sunday night so I couldn't meditate as much as usual then, but this morning, after one night at home, I felt as if I'd crossed the Rubicon. Right from the first vase breath. Many times there have been false dawns, but there is something different going on today from what was happening yesterday. Of course, I have no idea what the hell's going on, but I expect the meditations to be a bit different from now on. We'll see. 

                            Cold Killing was downloadable for free for five days over the holiday weekend and was downloaded 25 times. I was not expecting it to be downloaded that much. Anyway, I'm using this as a kind of dry run for The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man. Cold Killing is a crime thriller and I'd expect it to be downloaded more than a non-genre book about Buddhism. I don't mind just having Cold Killing parked on Kindle without anyone downloading it, but I don't want to park The Dirty Old Man. I'll keep it away from Kindle for the foreseeable unless Cold Killing is "successful".

                            A friend of mine put a five star rating on Cold Killing before she'd read it. I was pleased with that since I was expecting a troll to immediately give it a one star. People get off on that kind of thing. Some who had read it gave it a five star review. That was nice though it's not in the same class as The Dirty Old Man. 

                            The photie is an old one of Lama Yeshe, the abbot of the Samye Ling.

 

Cold Killing is published on Kindle

 

                        Seems somehow unexpected, but I put Cold Killing, a crime book sequel to Remote Control, on Kindle today. 

                      I'm trying to say something about it, but it was just something I wanted to write. I had already written something like that in Remote Control so a sequel was an obvious way to go if I wanted to write another crime book. 

                       It's supposed to be a page turner with a nice plotline.

                        It's free to download from tomorrow, Thursday 28th till 2nd of April. Here's the link. 

Found a "slush" pile

                `    Luath Press don't want submissions by email. They want three chapters in hard copy. This is the first publisher I've found like that. Anyway, I got a print out of the book and posted three chapters yesterday. It says on their website that if you don't hear from them in a year ....

                    In  the days when you might approach a publisher without an agent in tow, you could send stuff to the slush pile. This is probably a complete waste of time. When I was trying to sell two books (In The Land Of The Demon Masters and Bugtown) for ten to fourteen year olds, I couldn't find a publisher who'd ever published anything from a slush pile. 

                    Just by having a slush pile, these publishers have cheered me up. I've been sending an email to London agents about every odd week, and have as yet to receive a reply. Sometimes I think it was some kind of miracle that I got two novels published. 

                    I managed to get my New Years resolutions together, just three months late, when I gave up the beer about nine days ago. What a difference! You think three or four beers a night doesn't matter, but with the meditations it matters a lot. I'm feeling quite warm just sitting here. The meditations are far stronger than they were last week. Every week they've been developing, but the foot is on the accelerator now.

                    I got my Irish passport last Friday. I'll be going to Beaumont with Lama Rinchen after the Samye Ling Monlam in May. I'll have to book a return flight or I'll never come back!

                    This winter just passed has been even worse than usual. The only two enjoyable events have been wakes! Someone is hitting this blog almost daily from Mijdrecht in Holland. Well, hello to you!

                    

                    

 

Samye Ling Makahala Prayers

 

                                        I visited the Samye Ling last week for the Makahala Prayers, which is traditionally one of my favourite times at the monastery. So there's ritual music from about eight in the morning till half eleven, and from two in the afternoon till about half four. So I go to the temple at eight and start meditating and stay there for most of the day until soup at six. Then I went to my room and waited for the radiator to come on. Otherwise, it was quite cold, though I felt it less as the week wore on.

                                        I'd been back here a few days before I thought I must be crazy. Nobody does this kind of thing. I don't think anyone else was there meditating all day while the music crashed and banged. But I didn't feel crazy when I was doing it. After a couple of days, as usual I was in the swing of things, and it was as if the anxieties I never even knew I had were slipping off my shoulders.

                                        But back home it occurred to me that I might be trying too hard. Maybe I should be doing more analytical meditations and less visualisations. I keep thinking the meditations are improving, but the heat isn't getting much hotter.

                                       I started writing a new book last week, but I can't get into a routine at the moment. It's like meditating. You want a regular practise, and a time to write every day. Someone is helping me improve my altruistic intentions. 

Bye, Bye Kate

             Kate Nixon passed away the night before last in St Margaret's Care Home. I've been visiting Kate in care homes for at least fifteen years, usually every week unless something else got in the way. She had multiple sclerosis, the same disease that killed my sister, so I was keen to help if I could, but I think I got more out of visiting Kate than she got listening to me prattle on about anything that came into my head week after week. MS is a very cruel disease and she bore it as best she could. She probably knew more about me than just about anyone else. I knew she wouldn't tell anyone. I'll miss her. 

            I varied the emails I was sending every now and again to London agents, and in one went on about the agents I had previously, books they'd taken to London and Frankfort book fairs, and how I had two crime books and two books for young adults if they didn't want to look at The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man. 

            So I got a reply from Susannah Godman, who seems to read everything that goes into Lutyens and Rubinstein Literary Agents. Of course, she didn't want to read The Dirty Old Man, but asked to see the four other books. 

             I was hoping if I got an agent interesting in the genre books that I'd be able to get them to look at The Dirty Old Man. I'm pretty sure that's pie in the sky! Once you've sold a crime book, nobody will be interested in anything other than another crime book, but .... at least, someone wants to read something, so the emails must be getting read ... and deleted without anyone even bothering to tell you to fuck off.

             I got a reply from Filip Holm who runs the YouTube channel Let's Talk About Religion. I don't often send thank you emails to folk, but his channel has been a joy. I watch it while I do hatha yoga, usually in the late afternoon. 

Here comes the heat!

                         I was delighted on Sunday when I found out that Lama Rinchen was going to the Samye Ling for a week of Makahala Prayers, and I managed to get accommodation booked. I love these events. Just sitting there doing the meditations to a background of gong bashing cacophony. 

                       When I started writing anonymous blogs ... must be over twelve years ago now ....I called myself Hotboy because I'd heard that you should imagine yourself what you'd like to become. Like trying to imagine yourself as a deity when you're trying to do deity yoga.I wanted to be able to raise inner heat. I thought if I could do that before I died then I could claim to be a proper practitioner. Well, I doubt that I'll be able to do the completion stage of deity yoga ever, but I think I'm definitely getting heat now. It must be something to do with the "channels" becoming more "open", but there's been a real acceleration in the process over the last couple of weeks. 

                        Lama Rinchen asked me if I was scared a while back. I'm not scared, but I'm watching my step! This is like footering around with your hard drive, not just replacing software. You can imagine it getting completely out of hand. Lama Yeshe warned me once ab out "unleashing forces" I could not control and you can see how you might crash and burn, but I'll soon be seventy three years old and it's quite funny thinking that sitting quietly doing nothing might be dangerous. The whole business is a bit like having an adventure which is happening in slow, slow motion.

                        I started sending emails to London agents about The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man at the start of October, and so far have received absolutely no response to any of them. Not a cheep! 

                        Someone keeps hitting this blog from Mijdrecht in the Netherlands. Maybe they are interested in meditation. Hi, anyway. 

                        If anyone would like to have a look at The Buddha, The Dakini and The Dirty Old Man (and you should if you're interested in meditation), just put your email address in the comments section. Due to some troll leaving comments, I monitor them now before publishing and you're email won't appear on this blog, but I can use it to send the attachment to you.

                        I've stopped drinking beer through the week. Tempis fugit. And it really does improve the meditations. 

                        

Bye, bye Hughie

                My wonderful big brother, Hughie, was cremated a couple of weeks ago. I can't really do justice to him here, but he was my brother and I loved him and now he's gone. Sometime I'll write something about Hughie and his effect on my life, but maybe this isn't the time yet.

               Two good things, I know about, happened for me this year. Once was finishing The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man, In the six months since I finished it, I haven't managed to get anyone in the book business to read even the first three chapters, which is all they want to see if they don't know you. But that's okay. The writing is the thing. Becoming something is not what it's about when you're a septuagenarian. Wanting to become something is for young people. 

              The other good thing was the heat. All the time, it's coming. It's a false alarm. It's an intimation. Well, now it's evident in almost the first vase breath.

                How crap is this when it arrives just as the flatheids come loose from their positions and you have to attend to all the drunkenness of this time of year, and all the people, and everyone is fucked up in some way or other. I don't like "holidays". To me, I have to have a holiday from all the things I like and deal with the fucked up who are too dumb to meditate.

                I became an Irish citizen this year. Tomorrow I might take possession of an Irish passport. Begorrah! Our time will come. Maybe in Belgium. 

                My brother died at 84. This is a very good age. I want to die at 84, or 93 when my maw and my auntie Kathy, and Mrs Bowman died. But 84 would be great.

                Some people are hitting this blog regularly from Holland. Happy New Year to yous when it comes. The troll who keeps trying to leave ugly comments here can go fuck himself.

     ====

 

Another no progress report on literary agents

                     The photie was picked at random. It's from New York in a budget hotel around nine years ago.

                        I still haven't heard a cheep out of any London agents. Not a cheep! I must have sent out about thirty emails over the last couple of months, but it's so far been the waste of time I thought it might be. But I didn't think I'd hear nothing. This is not a problem for me, but if I was a young person hoping to become a novelist ... well, I don't know what you'd do if you didn't know anyone in the business. The only response I did get was from someone who said The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man wasn't for them. They had only been sent three chapters, so I don't know if they'd even read any of them. No one has asked to see the book.

                        This is reminiscent of trying to sell books for 10 to 14 year olds, which I tried to do about fifteen years ago. I wrote two books, got kids at the school I worked at to read them, fill in questionnaires, and rate the books. Anyway, despite have books published, plays produced, and working as a school librarian ... never got anyone in the business to read them either. You need an agent. If you can't get an agent to read them ....

                       There's eleven books of mine on Kindle. They don't get downloaded much these days, but since there were put up, there has been 12,333 downloads, but the most downloaded at 1,879 is Bugtown, one of the 10-14 years old books. I do find that a bit odd.

                        I loved writing Bugtown. I took a leaf from the creators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since they said they just made something that had all the ingredients afloat in the teenage consciousness .... like turtles, Ninja and mutants.

                        For Bugtown I thought, well, dinosaurs, castles, time travel, alien abduction and bugs from the future.

                        Anyway, I like writing and it's time I started on something else. This time ...mysticism, sci-fi, Gnosis, a crime thriller escape story with lots of doubts about what is reality or what is really happening. Maybe a kind of Bugtown book for adults, but without any sex whatsoever since I've done that. Maybe set it in a gigantic space ship about the size of the moon which the inhabitants think is all there is. Some preliminary ideas. 

                        I'll keep sending out a couple of emails a week about The Buddha, The Dakini and The Dirty Old Man. I know it's a waste of time, but it doesn't take me long to do that.

No Progress Report on Agents

 

            I sent the first emails to London agents on the 7th of October. That might be four weeks ago. Must have sent maybe twelve emails ..... and I haven't had any kind of reply at all. It's been over a decade since I last was hustling agents, but I think the responses then were a bit quicker. 

           Anyway, yesterday I started sending emails to London literary agents about the two crime books I now have in stock. I got a response right away from someone who told me I hadn't sent the books. 

            It says on some of the websites for agencies that they will get back to you within eight or twelve weeks, and if you haven't heard anything from them by then, forget it. There used to be things called "slush" piles before everything got digitised. It's stuff that hasn't been commissioned by the publisher. No one got published off slush piles. I don't think back in the day anyone at all got a young adult book published from a slush pile. It's all done through agents .... the slush pile has moved.

            Anyway, I'll just keep on pitching for a couple of hours a week, some afternoon, and see if I get lucky. I don't really care about the crime books, but it would be nice if I could get anyone in the book business to read The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man. Of course, we don't always get what we want. Mare dukkha.

First Emails to London agents

                        About three months after finishing The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man, I finally got around to sending emails to literary agents in London. I'll list them here. I don't expect to get much from an email. I sent them all three chapters. Here's who I sent the emails to:

Simon Trewin

Madeleine Milburn

Peter Straus

Zoe Waldie

Marilias Avvides

Putting this on my blog might help me stick with it. I lack enthusiasm for this. I like writing.

 

Three Day Fast

                         I weighed in at nearly thirteen stone and that is one fat basturn, so I went on a three day water fast last week. Lost four pounds, but I was really keen on fasting because it's just about the only thing that stops me drinking beer in the evenings!! Anyway, I've done these fasts several times before and it's really not that difficult once you've got you mind set. That's the hard bit.

                        Any purification jump starts the meditations. On the last evening, I was sitting in this kitchen and doing vase breathing and the .... it was like previously there had been a breeze as an after effect and now it was a bit of a hurricane! This slightly freaked me out and I had to wonder whether this was really for me, or not. And did I have any choice at this stage in the game. 

                        On Thursday evening I was off the fast and thought I'd get back on the four wee cans of Bud routine instead of meditating in the evening. Towards the end of the evening, I found an email from Lama Rinchen with a ticket for flight to Brussels enclosed. We'd been talking about me going to Belgium at this time, but I thought it was a non-starter and had made other arrangements. It seemed weird to get this right then and I had to sleep on it before I replied in the affirmative. Seemed like a weird coincidence.

                        The lama asked for a copy of The Dirty Old Man book which made me smile. Nuns weren't really in the target demographic. She probably won't read it. Another friend asked to read it.

                         Apart from that, nothing is happening with the book. Yellow Kite didn't want to look at it and I haven't tried to get an agent in London yet. Trying to get an agent is worse than going to work! I really should at least try for a couple of hours a week, but ... I'll spend a wee while doing that soon.

                           I love fires. I had to cut back a buglia and had to set the branches on fire. Apart from collecting some dead leaves to spread over it, that's the end of the allotment stuff for this year. Here comes the winter!

Letter to a publisher

 

                    I gave Stan from the North till Friday and I still haven't had any word from him about The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man so I thought I'd do a wee bit of book publishing research.

                    I checked on meditation books and found one by Gelong Thubten, called Handbook of Difficult Times, which I will order today. It is published by someone called Liz Gough at Yellow Kite books, an imprint of Hodder and Stoughton. In the Bookseller reference, it said she bought the rights off the author. I assume that means he hasn't an agent. 

                    I prepared an email to send to Liz Gough this morning, but I haven't been able to get one through. Folk like her will get hundreds of book proposals every week, and the chance of getting someone to pay attention to an email from someone they've never heard of is probably remote, but you've got to try and make an effort. 

                     My spiritual friend in Belgium has a teaching day on her schedule at Beaumont for this guy so when I've given up on Liz Gough, I'll try to find out more through my wee lama.

                    All the emails sent to Liz Gough have bounced. I also sent it to Hachette enquiries an hour or so ago, so I'll wait a couple of days before starting to chase my tail again. Anyway, here is the email:

Hi Liz Gough,

                     I've recently finished what seems to be a very funny memoir about my experiences in meditation and my connection with the Samye Ling. 

                     The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man has zeitgeist written all over it. The Buddha in the title refers to the abbot of the Samye Ling, the dakini is my girlfriend and the book is about much more than meditation. Sex for old folk, menopause, porn, quantum mechanics, mindfulness, but what will sell it is the fact that the folk who've read it for me so far thought it was funny. Jane King Hippolyte   and I had this exchange over the book.

                    

 She wrote on FB about her man, Kendel is laughing out loud at the first chapter. I asked what she'd found funny about it. She wrote:

It's the Catholic upbringing chapter. And to be fair, the whole book is kind of funny, which is mainly a tone thing. But ask Neil Gaimon, all the torture in the name of love is hysterical. Not to mention the heathens getting chucked out of limbo.

The first person to read the book sent this to me:

I FUCKIN loved the book!

The title intrigued me from the start - you dont hear much about the dakinis! It took me a while to work out the heathen girlfriend is the dakini???!!!! wow - I mean , I get it if I were her it is a bit close to the bone but jeez john what a wonderful description of the 3 glass psychotic syndrome - beautifully observed - I could see myself. HOWEVER the inner heat the inner heat - well blow me down with a feather , right enough I have been experiencing it for 15 + years easy but not till the moment that you spoke about the irony of sitting next to a spontaneously boiling dakini did I recognise it as a blessing, have a giggle and breathe out!

You manage to get some of that esoteric stuff across in the most enjoyable readable terms - im inspired to have a go at the vase breathing myself now i know i can produce the inner heat haha! The anecdote of the WHACK was alsomagnificently done -

The carryons are delightful and It´s also just a lovely wee record of the development down the years of the Samye Ling centre - so well done indeed amigo!

Jane King Hippolyte also sent this to me in an email:

I don't see why this book should not be publishable. Especially now, when most people have been told to meditate or to try mindfulness even if they have no clue what it is. 

Did you read Arun Sood's New Skin for the Old Ceremony: A Kirtan? That would probably be the closest to yours in genre. I met him last year - he's young, Scottish and Muslim, which is an interesting combination. 

I was very absorbed by your book. It felt like a real person talking, and a real set of philosophical and spiritual questions being dealt with very seriously but not at all academically, which is really unusual and very refreshing. The only other writer I know who regularly steps up to these questions is Neil Gaiman, who I totally love. But he turns all the answers into comedy, whereas you have kept the journey real. Congratulations.

I just finished this book a month ago. I haven't tried to get an agent yet. It said in the Bookseller that you bought the rights of Handbook of Difficult Times off the author. So I assume you don't have to be approached through an agent. Want to read the book?

                    You must get hundreds of emails at day. Hope you read this one. Anyway, all the best. John McKenzie

5.50 p.m.

Some angel at Hachette's submissions forwarded the email to Liz Gough. I said if she published it, I'd buy Rachel a bunch of flowers!!

                    Someone who visits this blog sent me a very nice review although I only sent her three quarters of the book. This is typical. When she told me that, I had to re-send the book to Stan the Man, an agent. He hasn't gotten back to me yet, but that's okay. Here's what she said. I'm sure she won't mind me inserting it here.

I FUCKIN loved the book!

The title intrigued me from the start - you dont hear much about the dakinis! It took me a while to work out the heathen girlfriend is the dakini???!!!! wow - I mean , I get it  if I were her it is a bit close to the bone but jeez john what a wonderful description of the 3 glass psychotic syndrome - beautifully observed - I could see myself. HOWEVER the inner heat the inner heat - well blow me down with a feather , right enough I have been experiencing it for 15 + years easy but not till the moment that you spoke about the irony of sitting next to a spontaneously boiling dakini did I recognise it as a blessing, have a giggle and breathe out!

You manage to get some of that esoteric stuff across in the most enjoyable readable terms - im inspired to have a go at the vase breathing myself now i know i can produce the inner heat haha! The anecdote of the WHACK was alsomagnificently done -

The carryons are delightful and It´s also just a lovely wee record of the development  down the years of the Samye Ling centre  - so well done indeed amigo!

In the version you sent me, chapter 16 ends 

                The reader hasn't gotten back to me yet, so maybe the end effed it up for her. Because of her impressions, someone in St Lucia asked to see that book. That was about ten days ago, so no word from her either. The first person to read it was someone I was on pilgrimage with in India and she said it was "really good". The first person I sent it to was a friend of mine, someone I've known for ever, but she never got back to me so it wasn't for her, or she deleted it, or ...

                I wasn't able to send the book to Luath Press since I don't have a printer these days, but they are hosting readings from their authors next Sunday morning, so I got notice of this in my emails a couple of days ago. I guess I'm on one of those lists. No problem going. It's free.

                I came to write this post because of the change in the meditations. The dial has definitely moved. It like something gradually "opening".  You can feel the change in the after-effects of the vase breathing, but just sitting there is a bit different: more bliss. Hard to describe this kind of thing, but I sent my friend in Belgium an email about this change.  

                While this was going on at the start of last week, I was having the worst time psychologically. I was not a happy bunny. And in this condition it is hard to calm the mind. The development in the inner heat stuff seems to be ongoing despite anything I feel about life otherwise. Anyway, there was a story about Marpa, the guru of Milarepa, having depression. I couldn't realise how you could be enlightened and depressed, but I've got a better insight to that now.  The meditation sessions won't make up for you living your life like a moron. And the after effects of being an idiot are going to leech in. 

                    I've been to four plays in the Fringe. The best one by far was The Grand Opera House Hotel, which was brilliantly performed and most enjoyable.

News about the bliss and all that jazz

 

                    Sometimes you think you should mark the day. There were two interesting things concerning the meditations today.

                     The easiest thing to talk about is the bending forward and straightening up. I used to do this and was surprised at the amount of bliss that occurred when I did this. Just assume the position and after meditating for a bit, lean forward and straighten up. It's a matter of degrees. I was surprised when it first appeared in the long ago, and because it's not supposed to be about the bliss ... today I did a bit of leaning forward and straightening up, and was flooded, flooded with bliss. Just whackeroni.

                    Every now and again, the jump in the juju happens. For years and years I've been getting intimations about the heat. They come and go, and nothing is certain, nothing stable. But today for a few seconds I got the warmth you might expect when you can dry off wet sheets and all that. Well, I'm sure I got that today, but only three or four seconds of it. It's an inner heat, but it's an overall kind of heat, and not something going up your central channel. Tomorrow I don't suppose I'll get it again, but it's now on the menu.

                    Everything else is crap. You have to keep everything down to concentrate on this stuff. Your life should be a bit boring. That's why you should be on retreat. There are two things to take into consideration. The usual joe. The meditations don't like that stuff. The usual joe is out looking for sweeties. Or not, in my case, during the week. Right now, I'm a bit stir crazy. I'm dying to do something else. Tomorrow I get into weekend mode and I'm really looking forward to it. 

                    I'm not bothered about the books. The Dirty Old Man has been written. That's enough. I don't think anyone has read it except for my Polish friend. Another friend might have read it, but she said bugger all about it, so ... Getting books published doesn't make you happy. I'm just pleased to have written them.

                    The weird raspberries in the photie were eaten today. Whoever hits on this blog from Etten, hello.

Minor movements in hustling The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man.

 

                        I got an email from LR Price Publications this morning. Last week I got one and before I opened it, felt disappointed. One assumes rejections. Anyway, I did not like my reaction. It's a hustle hustling books!! Why bother? Well, it's easier if you think the book might do some good and you might in a rather unlikely scenario be able to donate some dosh to someone who wouldn't spend it in the pub.

                        Anyway, it wasn't an outright rejection. They seem to have a hierarchical system where someone a bit more senior looks at it next, kind of thing. The book seems to have gotten through the first couple of filters and now they say they'd like to do the book, but want me to cough up some of the money. Vanity publishing? I wouldn't mind putting some money in if I could have a guarantee that the book would quickly make it back, but if that was the case, why would they talk about sharing costs?

                         And they made a mistake. Part of their calculation seems to have been that the book had been in the public domain (I assume someone had a look at my Kindle page), but it hasn't been. So I told them about this in my reply and maybe they'll get back to me. I don't expect them to change their offer.

                        So I looked up the list of Scottish publishers. The top of the list is Canongate, but I assume you can't approach them without having an agent. The next one down was Luath Press, so I decided to contact them. They have a preliminary submissions form. Having spent twenty minutes or so hustling, I reckon that's enough for a couple of says. I haven't heard anything from Stan yet about the thrillers.

                        I was looking down the fiction list for Luath and came across several books by Des Dillon. When I was a school librarian, I bought multiple copies of Me and My Gal, which is a brilliant book about kids in Coatbridge. You sometimes wonder what happened to people. Well, he's got several books published by Luath Press. 

                        I've decided to try reading  novels again and may well read something by Des Dillon. I finished A Farewell to Arms last week (took me weeks to read it!) and I don't think I'd read that before after all. Just reminded me of how good Ernest Hemingway is. I've just started The Plague by Albert Camus and bought The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. First chapter is entitled Appearance and Reality. Right up my street.

                        I found the photie of the head stand in Central Park from eight years ago. FFS, I was at least a stone and a half lighter!!

                         

The Fox and I.

 

                    I've fed the fox a couple of times. Sometimes he walks by. I've given him dog food three times in the last couple of weeks on the grounds that I prefer foxes to rabbits.

                    I'm hoping that reporting on my feeble efforts to get a literary agent might stimulate better efforts. In the last three weeks, I've sent out four emails to agents and got no positive responses. In fact, I didn't get any response from

Daisy Chadley of Peters, Fraser and Dunlop.

Stan from the Northern Literary Agency

Fraser Ross Associates.

Jenny Brown Assocs did reply, saying that they weren't taking submissions right now. That's okay. If I could get a quick response, I could continue searching.

                    Can't say my heart is in this searching for an agent business. That's practically all I've done in three weeks. Dearie me.

Tonight 23/6/23 ... I got an email from Stan saying he'd look at the two books. I sent him three since I didn't know which two books he wanted. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that I don't have to send out any emails to anyone about getting an agent for a couple of weeks anyway. So well done, Stan. 

                       I think I'll have to think of something else to write a book about. Where do you get your ideas from?