Life's rich tapestry...

I have sometimes confused people by saying "Life is not just too short, it is too narrow as well" -meaning I want to do lots of things Now, not simply live a long time. But I never knew how many of life's experiences would come my way as result of self-publishing.
Publishing your own book, though fraught with difficulties and puzzles, is actually the easy part. (Well actually writing it is the easy part, but that's another story!) Getting the book out there to people who would enjoy it seems to me to be like the torment of Sisyphus!!
I did a course on epublishing a while ago with Catherine Ryan Howard, who suggested making a book trailer. She showed some examples that she felt would work, and they were all little stories in their own right, not descriptions of the book. So I wrote a script. It is about a man who can't find a cheque, and his guardian angel's attempts to help him. I'm lucky to be in two drama groups, and from one I assembled a team - two actors, a great cameraman, and a film editor. We had two rehearsals, then last Sunday was filming day. I watched with huge pleasure as two friends acted their hearts out (and missed a lot of sunshine, it was the best day of the year, maybe the decade!) and the others wielded camera and clipboard with great skill. We had 74 separate takes by 4pm, when we all went home to enjoy the sun and cool and calming drinks!!
It will be a week or more before this is all cut together to make a less than 5 minute 'play' which I hope will entertain people enough that they will share it with their friends.
It felt a huge honour to have these four great friends (five actually, as the editor's wife came along to take notes; not to mention another partner who provided great sandwiches!) spend this time on my work. When else, in the normal world, would I get the chance to be a film author or film director? And set-designer to boot! It is great to be able to have such experiences.

Top photo: Cameraman and editor/director. Middle photo: an angel trying to move a table mat. Bottom photo: Human and angel waiting for cameraman to say 'rolling', and director to say 'and Action'!
You will be the first to know when "Listen to your Angel" goes live!

I Have Been Here Before

     "If the waitress comes back, tell her I'll have the chocolate mousse," I said to George, and set off to find the toilets. We were having lunch in the "Auberge de Gascogne", a cheap and cheerful roadside 'Relais Routiers' in the south west of France. It was a normal day of our holiday, not the sort of day or place I expected anything out of the ordinary to happen.

     The sign 'toilettes' pointed along a dim corridor, which sloped down.About twelve yards away I could see light streaming in from the left. As I walked down the slight incline, a strange feeling came over me. I found myself straightening up, taking a deeper breath, throwing my shoulders back a little. A feeling of anticipation stole over me. I recognised it from my small experience of amateur acting - I was getting ready to walk on stage. It was a lovely sensation: I knew I was ready, that I could do my act without any difficulty. Maybe I even felt a bit famous, as though people waiting out there were glad it was me that was coming.

     But in no time I was at the end of the passage, turning to my left. And there in front of me was the toilet cubicle, sunlight shining in through frosted glass. My heart fell. As I sat there, I asked myself, why was I disappointed? What had I been expecting? The answer came very quickly from some deep knowing place within me - there should have been sand, and a roaring crowd. I should have been stepping out into an arena. Not the Coliseum, but a smaller version. I had experienced what I later learnt is called a 'bleed-through', a small snippet of a past-life memory. These can be triggered by something in the environment, in my case I think by the angle of incline of the passage, and the direction of the light, which I assume mimicked the passageways under that ancient theatre. I was some sort of performer, not a gladiator, the feelings I had did not suggest that at all. It was more as though I was the warm-up man, and I take some vague pleasure from the idea that maybe in the distant past I could work a crowd!

This is part of an chapter I contributed to "The Undiscovered Country", edited by Bill Darlison