Deliverance unto the few

It is nice, when you can help others. Whenever I go to a reading or writing group and someone has written a work, of any sort, I try and gauge whether I can help them out. I'm also a businessman so I listen to what I know sounds like it will carry, but also to what sounds like it has a message and great meaning.
I recently helped out a writer who had been writing his novel on and off for several years. Now it looks as if he will do very well.

The reason I bring this up however is not because he has gotten somewhere. But because I passed him on with no want for gain. I still don't infact expect to get a lot of money for it. However I did it because I heard what sounded like a good story; potentially a very good story and more importantly I wanted to help him.

I think as long as we don't loose sight of what makes us who we are; we can never truly go astray. That as long as we remember that the path is more important than the journey, we won't forget the importance of watching the footsteps along the way.

I have just added a gallery to my website, with photos of the events I’ve done and I am now far more importantly, back to square one.

The thing is, you might think it was an easy as picking up a phone. The reality is, that you have to ring people again and again and again and again. For days and weeks on end, until you A) Get the right person and B) Manage to find a day when there in. So i am now organising four more book signings, but I expect them to take me a good three weeks to get fully organised.

Still, it will work, eventually I’ll have enough money to start developing Dark Cataclysm properly and we will make one of the best games ever made. Then I’ll be able to start making some more money, before finally putting all that hard effort to good use.

Buddhism and Fitness

Now that the events have come and gone I find myself with no public events left to go to! There are two large ones on the horizon but there big and I need time to get them right.

This week I've been looking into Buddhist culture, which has been interesting. The centre I attended practiced with the oldest teachings of Buddha. Yet it debunked most of the myths celebrities and the media would have had us think about it. Or maybe not directly but indirectly thought. Such as it being a pursuit towards an enhanced way of thinking. Not that it can't be and not that people won't do that with it.

Yet for me I did understand that pursuit of nothing, that just living is far wiser than pursuing. Though I can't apply this to my own life, I could never sit still long enough!

One of the things I found so profound this week was the prayers. I've never liked christian prayer, infact I always disliked it, not for any spiteful or bias reasoning. My gut just didn't like the practice. Then again I always felt that the christian religion was controlled far too heavily by those at the top and I always saw that as a frame of corruption within a hierarchical makeup. So I didn't expect a great deal from the Buddhist prayers, but i was open to anything.
But when those who knew what to say started to say them, it was fairly terrific. The second prayer was about beings all across the universe being united together and free from separation. The amazing thing was that you could really hear the age and the time within the words, you felt as if you were being put back in another time. Sends a shiver down my spine even now.

I've been to a Pentecostal service also and didn't really think a lot of the experience. I felt as if people were focusing too heavily on Jesus and not enough on their own lives. Then again thats my opinion.

I also started running again properly this week which gets more enjoyable every time i do it. One thing about being at home instead of at University, is that I can get to do some things like these. I guess other Uni's aren't like that, but Stafford campus is very quiet ;)

Fans and Fitness

It was nice today to see that I'd received a gift from a young year six pupil who had read one of my books. She'd made a little figure of me with those round buttons that you iron together. Telling me that I'm "The best writer ever.". Very sweet.

That's the nice thing about all the hard work. Eventually you start to get people coming back to you and telling you what they think, whether it be kids being brutally honest (Both bad and good) or adults giving you what you hope is an objective opinion. But with nearly ten good testimonials, from people that really enjoy my book "The Storms of Acias" it gives you a lot of motivation and confidence.

Another of my intrests is running. I love running, I've only been doing it for two years and i was aweful at it in school. But now i see it as a way to train myself to work longer and more effectively, without getting so stressed you can't cope, which is the important part. I know not everyone sees it as a great stress reliever, but it is for me. All that enjoyment went and got me a sprained ankle as well! Still that's not going to be the last of my injuries (laughs)

Just one more round of posters to put up before all the events are underway for the next two weeks. With three more about to be setup and confirmed within the next few days.

Till then...

Publicity and The big dream

Thank god for the computer, or i don't know where i would be. I've created all my posters on it, laid out my typeset for my book (That is how the words appear on the page) myself. Doesn't half make your life easier, but then again you don't speak to people, you don't have to ring anyone and your glued to a screen fifteen hours a day.

Not that I'm complaining, though its certainly true. Posters was today's theme, put some up in a little village near where i live.

Right now I'm creating blogs where ever I can and ranting about the things that matter to me most.

I think in the past week I must have received three or four leaflets/brochures on terminal illness or some sort of medical condition that is affecting someones life. I give them a quick read, only to find that were still where we were five years ago (In some not all cases). I don't believe that money thrown at organisations is the only answer, it can help, it can save lives, which is what we want.
But for me I want to do more than that, I want to be able to save the lives of as many people as possible. But for me money is the issue. As I learnt when I was a teenager, you can't save the world without money. Because money makes the world go round. Well one of these days in years to come I will start putting all these words into action and I'll be a far happier man for it too.

Until that day, the hard work continues.

Interviews

Well the Radio interview on BBC stoke was good. Hopefully a publisher might just have been listening, at least I can hope so.

As with promotion its just another thing ticked off on a long list. I've known for a long time that my book is a gamble in terms of its saleability. the book itself is quite different, the ending is still a new subject in terms of fiction and its written in a style some people will love and some will really dislike. But I always knew that would be the case.

So I know that in order to make this work I'll have to do four times what some people have done. GP Taylor got lucky, three weeks in he had the first sightings of a deal and that was it.

I have publishers telling me they like the book but every time they won't take that all important gamble.

Just like mainstream games in the gaming industry. Only the indie developers will take a gamble on a new idea, one that could be groundbreaking (All hail bullfrog).

So as before, onto the next event! Newcastle Library.