Beyond Family and Friends
Over 1700 people entered the Goodreads.com giveaway for The Last Observer and more than 700 have added it. Wouldn’t it be nice if 10% of those actually purchased the book? The two lucky winners were sent their copies today. One in the UK and one in the USA. Is it selling? I’m not sure. Lots of people tell me they have it or they plan to get it but the Amazon site suggests they aren’t buying it there as its not very highly ranked and few copies appear to have sold there. I guess I will see more end of next month when the publisher sends a report. It should sell. The reviews are all good to great. Its not over priced. I am just not sure how to get
Read More »Nova Scotian Fieldwork
I was lucky enough to visit Nova Scotia three years running for 6-weeks at a time between 1981 and 1983 to do geological fieldwork there. Actually, I spent most of my time on Cape Breton Island in and around Sydney – a coal mining region as well as a little time in Joggins of which more later. I also managed to get to Montreal on one trip and Ottawa on another ostensibly to visit museums and examine specimens there. The trip in 1981 will always stay in my memory. I had to hurriedly pass my driving test in the UK to go because I would need a rental car to get around. With just 3-weeks to take off, I failed. For undue hesitation I recall! The instructor might have considered
Read More »It’s In The Silence
It’s in the Silence So they say The loudness of the quiet day It’s in the Darkness I’ve heard said The brightness shining in my head It’s in the Void I was told And followed deep to behold It’s in the wind So it reads Not in your dry and powdered creeds It’s deep inside I know this You are the sought after bliss Its where you least expect to find it Hidden in plain sight Ears to hear and eyes to see Inside you will find the light
Read More »The Ride
The flight into Halifax was late and, as a result, I had missed the bus to Sydney on Cape Breton Island. It would be all day before there was another. As a PhD student on a tight budget, I could not afford to do anything but take the bus so what could I do? The answer was stand in the doorway of the airport periodically asking people if they were headed in that direction and if so, might they give me a ride? I stood there for about 30 minutes before two gentlemen approached and told me they may have a ride for me. Not them but a colleague was heading to Cape Breton in a rental car and he may be inclined to give me that ride. Eventually their
Read More »School Days
After posting the story of how I was nearly became a member of the rock group The Police, my best friend from those days – Steve – and I compared notes. He pointed out that not only was my memory correct but they also offered him a job as a roadie! And they did too…. However, posting that story got me to thinking. What a hell of a life I have had! Really, very few complaints – well, more money would always be useful but other than that…. So, my next few posts will deal with some events from my life and how I became me…. I couldn’t wait to leave home and Hull. Wolfreton School did me well in that I got a good education – 9 “O” levels,
Read More »Nearly Famous
Today, as I work, I have been listening to older music. The kind of stuff I listened to growing up – Its nostalgic. But it reminded me of another time and place….. The location – Aston University The time – circa 1978 I was stage manager for ACE – Aston Campus Entertainment at the students union. The job involved organizing the social events from a logistics point of view. Making sure sound checks were done, making sure the bands had their contracted for beverages, making sure their equipment was set up and dismantled etc. Frankly, it was super fun. I met a lot of people as you may imagine. There was one local band we rather enjoyed having called Streetband. I think we had them 4-5 times performing at the
Read More »Magical Practice and Imagination
Sometimes the thought of meditating and conducting what amount to tortuous mental exercises is less than compelling. It takes effort, it is repetitive and you can go for weeks without any meaningful results. But there is no way out. You can’t learn magic from a book! It has to be via hours and hours of practice. Sometimes, I go for days without doing formal exercises instead practicing various things like pore breathing and so on in those moments when I have some time. After a while, I make a renewed effort to get formal again. The plain fact is, its pretty bloody tedious. The biggest part of magic is imagination. You simply have to be able to imagine and to see/feel/hear things that you imagine. One exercise I practice all
Read More »Astral Messages
My next book is already ready to hit the presses. It’s called Astral Messages and it is a collection of poetry interspersed with blog articles from Asteroth’s Domain. The collection of poems is deliberately matched with blog articles in the same theme so what you get is a good look at what was going on in my mind at the time the material was written. Topics covered range from esoteric and philosophical discussions regarding reality and magic to a discourse about my old socks! Astral Messages uses poems and blog articles from my long standing blog – Asteroth’s Domain – in a discussion of reality and magic. We are all magicians willfully creating our realities and this selection demonstrates how this touches all aspects of our lives – yes, even
Read More »Looking for a Break is Tough Work
Writing – it’s a tough business. For small time authors such as myself, we rely on the ‘friends and family’ concept since we lack what is called a ‘platform’. Let me translate what I just said….Small time writers rely on their friends and family to purchase their books as they don’t have a brand name like say JK Rowling that will guarantee thousands of anonymous buyers for their writing product. Hopefully, friends and family will not just BUY the book but also support it by writing short reviews on Amazon or Goodreads and mentioning it to their friends. The hope is that either, one of these friends of friends and family is extremely influential and can influence the broader public to buy the book (a stroke of good luck) or,
Read More »Just A Dream
The just over two weeks in Florida and NY now seem like a dream. If it wasn’t for the photographs I might even believe that it was a dream. But good vacations always have that dreamlike quality don’t they? Now it is back to the real world – jobs, bills, tidying and so on. Our vacation started more like a bad dream however as our daughter immediately started with a fever, stomach pain and diarrhea more or less on arrival at Disney World. Once the diarrhea turned bloody it was time to deal with US healthcare. The hospital was just outside of Disney in Celebration, FL and it was palatial – I am not surprised after being presented with the bill for around 4-hours cooped up there, one saline drip
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