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.