A teaching in the Jardin

                 Ringu Tulku was here for two days over the weekend to give teachings on The Heart Sutra, which is just about my favourite thing. These teachings were just what I needed.

                   There were too many folk about to send any emails to agents, but I will send a couple today and I'm going to compose a letter to send to the agency in New York  headed by a man who is on the board of Shambala, the Buddhist publishers. The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man is definitely not suitable for Shambala, but Mr Clark will, at least, have heard of the Tibetan teachers mentioned in the text. If I was playing American football, this would be a Hail Mary, the last throw of the dice. I'll soon have spent more time sending emails than I did writing the book, and I can just forget about it now, and get on with writing the sequel.

Jardins de Meditations de Samye

 

                        This is where I'll be staying for the next couple of weeks, in the home of my mentor, Lama Rinchen Palmo. So pleased to be here!!

                         While here I am here, I have started sending out emails to agents again, which is probaby a waste of time, but you never know.

                         When I was sending out emails to agents about two young adult books about twenty years ago, I assumed I got no responses (I was working as a school librarian at the time and got kids to confirm through questionaires, etc., that the books were hitting the mark) because they were books for 10 to 14 year olds and JK Rowling had maybe made the number of books getting written for that age group soar.

                         Then I wrote TheBlissBook and got an agent almost straight away. Of course, he never sold the books, but what the hell. But I was just lucky. 

                         I now think I was incredibly lucky to get two novels published at all! I think the reason why no one ever replies to emails is because agents are getting hundreds of them every week. Easy to write a book on a word processor and easy to send hundreds of emails. I reckon people who know people don't have to send emails.

                         If I make any money from The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man I'll give it to Lama Rinchen. I don't need the money. I've never been better off!