Why All Writers are Millionaires: (apart from a few who aren't): part 8

My wife Anne, ('She who Understands Things'), has just done our annual accounts, and tells me that my earnings from writing for the last financial year were 'almost £1,300'.
This would buy a decent lunch for two in Chelsea, I believe, but it doesn't seem a lot for the hundreds of hours spent hacking away at the keyboard over the past twelve months. How did it come to be this way?

Firstly, my sort-of novel, called 'Your Dog as Philosopher' put my agent into a tailspin.
What I was trying to do was to write a funny story about a man left on his own for a week with his feisty toddler daughter and his flolloping dog, and to blend it with an easy-reading introduction to Yogic philosophy (a subject that I think every thoughtful person deserves to have access to).

Stan read it and said 'Sorry…'
I said 'Oh surely not..? I thought it was quite funny. Don't you agree?'
'Yes', said Stan, 'the book is funny; and yes, it is interesting and informative and stimulating, too.' But the problem was that no publisher was going to touch it, because you can't have a book about philosophy that is funny.
'Who says so?' I asked. 'That's not the point', said Stan.
'Did I succeed in what I was trying to do?' I asked.
'Yes, you did,' said Stan.
'Well then?'
'Why don't you listen: NOBODY WILL TOUCH IT.'
This exchange went on for some time. Stan was quite right, of course, once I thought it over a bit. Publishers and editors everywhere endlessly claim that they are looking for 'fresh' or 'original' material… but don't let them fool you. They are not. What they want is something very very similar to the last thing that fluked them a lot of money. Original is RISKY; and there's nothing a modern publisher hates more than the 'r' word.
Stan's solution was that I should remove all of the story element from the book and try again with it.
This depressed me rather, but I had a go. Stan played his part, and took the time to supply a bare outline for me to start from, and Anne had a go as well, but after a week of trying, I shelved it. I was just too close to the original to untangle the two strands of story and content. And I kept becoming unsure of what was 'story' and what wasn't. I ended up in a fuddle. The file is on my C drive, awaiting further attention one day.
A couple of people have read the text, meanwhile, and have reported favourable things back to me, but Stan is still adamant that no publisher will give it house room. I'm sure he's right, still.

So.. no success there, then.
My next effort was a self-help book called 'Guide Yourself to Happiness', a subject close to my heart, as I am endlessly happy and have long been puzzled why so many other people seem not to be. I sent Stan the first chunk, and he came back positive, so I went ahead and wrote the book.
Stan read it and was still positive. He sent it off to half a dozen publishers, including Piatkus, who we thought would definitely like the look of it.
Responses came back, slowly, which is never a good sign. One house said no thanks because only published a certain number of UK titles per year and they'd already filled their quota. I can only assume that this was a polite brush-off; otherwise it suggests that timing is more important to them than quality.
Two other houses said it was a good book (in fact nobody had a bad word to say about it, except one editor thought it might be a bit 'stronger', by which I think she meant 'more sensational'.. the very opposite of what the essence of the book is about) but they couldn't take it on as 'the author doesn't have his own radio or tv show' to launch it from.
Sleb culture rules OK?
We never heard back from Piatkus at all, despite several approaches.

So no joy there, either.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd try my hand at drama again, for a couple of Amateur Dramatic friends, and wrote a three-acter called 'Upper Nattem's Little Piglet: or Hamlet, the Panto'. I thought it worked ok, and sent off to a few friends to read. Reports back were positive so I sent it to my 'clients'. They didn't like it.

Three down. One to go.

That left something I'd been pottering along with over the year: a series of short stories, or vignettes, each based around a day in the life of twenty different dogs. The stories were loosely connected, and intertwined here and there. I asked an artist if she'd like to draw for it, and she came up with a couple of preliminary drawings that looked good.

'OK, Stan? What do you think of 'Dog Days'?
'Er… sorry, Chas… but no.'
'Well why not? I realise some of the stories are a bit 'dark', but they are realistic, I think. Don't you agree?'
'Well yes, I'm sure you're right.'
'So do you want a couple of more cuddly stories instead?'
'Er… I'll come back to you.'
In the end, Stan just didn't feel right about it. Again, he didn't think a publisher would want it.
In my heart of hearts I wasn't surprised. The stories weren't cuddly enough for conventional requirements. To publish them would be….risky.

So.. four up, and four knocked down! I guess that's why not all writers are millionaires! The message, for any wannabe writers reading this is.. if you want to sell a lot of books, study the market, and write something almost, but not quite, exactly like something that has already sold a million. It will probably be rejected on the grounds that it is too like the book you copied, but if you show any promise as a writer the agent will work with you and encourage you along suitable lines for your next effort.
If on the other hand, you want to do something original.. be warned. Unless you name is Wayne Rooney or Paris Hilton, don't even consider writing a funny philosophy book!

On Materialism and Idealism...

Hello Omnist...

Good to hear from you. And thanks for all the information, too.

It comes as a shock to learn that Darwin used 'the Creator' even in the first edition of 'Origins'. I have clearly been misinformed by other sources, but upon checking in a couple of recent reprints (Penguin 85; Wordsworth 98) I see you are indeed correct. Thankyou for this.
However, I'm still left with the puzzle of why anyone should want to re-publish the first edition of a Great Work rather than the definitive last edition. I still smell a wish to mislead, I'm afraid.
The essence of the matter is that Darwin seems to have been a clear and honest thinker, and thus made a distinction between the logical need for an Ultimate Cause of some sort (his 'Creator') and the subsequent bafflingly irrational and apparently unfeelingly cruel 'God' of The Church.
It's my impression that modern neo-Darwinists have not taken this into account when they decided to abandon all non-Materialist elements from their dogma, and are thus embarrassed that their figurehead should mention 'the Creator' multiple times in the final edition of 'Origins', even in his famous last sentence: 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with it several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one…'.
By re-issuing the first and not the last edition they have reduced the damage to their dogma as much as possible, short of actually editing the embarrassing 'Creator' out completely. As it is, I've read (and heard) many a review of the great man and his book which quotes the last sentence as 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one..'. These reviewers have clearly read the reprinted first editions and have thus been subtly misled. By whom? The publishers? Or the scientists who write the introductions, and who presumably choose which edition should be published?

Of course, by showing a belief in 'the Creator', Darwin would not be eligible for membership of the neo-Darwinist movement, which ought to be a great embarrassment to Materialists, but never seems to be such. Certainty is not embarrassable, as history endlessly teaches us, from the Inquisition to Hitler and beyond!

You suggest that Materialism and Idealism are not opposites. I disagree. Of course, you are right in saying that under the terms of normal discussion A being wrong does not automatically make B correct; for example BigEndians being wrong does not make LittleEndians correct; and because 'Communism' is wrong, that does not make 'Capitalism' right; etc etc. No argument here.
But in such cases we are speaking of the relationship, or more accurately, 'non-relationship', between two separate propositions. My case is that Materialism and Idealism are not separate propositions, but are intimately linked and that thus A being wrong does (must) make B correct, by a process of logic. Why do I think this?

As ever, it depends upon our starting definitions.
Can we agree that the fundamental puzzle is 'How does Mind relate to Matter (by which I mean 'Matter/Energy' in the normal physical understanding)?'

Materialists claim that Matter came first and that Mind derived, by accident, from Matter. (I'm using 'Mind' here to include 'Life' and 'Consciousness' as well. Ridiculous, I know, but time-saving, and the distinctions are not necessary for the argument to hold.) There's the link I'm referring to: Materialists claim that Mind 'derived (or arose) from' Matter.
Conversely, Idealists claim that Mind came first and somehow created Matter. Again, the link between the two elements is stated.
Either way, the one, it is claimed, gave rise to the other. Linked.

Can we agree on these definitions, which might be summarised neatly as: either Matter → Mind or Mind → Matter? It seems to me that we must, as these equations state the barebone essentials of the question, and any attempt at modification of them is really only a fudging of the issue.
If we can agree that the above equations do state the barebones of the issue, then we are thus faced with a rare but genuine 'either/or' for us to choose between, according to the requirements of logic.
Thus, according to normal historical ways of thinking, we may choose via logic, whether Matter came first or Mind came first (I'll return to an alternative theory and way of thinking in a minute).

It is the link that matters in all of this. It is there, whether we like it or not. Either Materialism is right in its claim that Matter alone gave rise (spontaneously) to Life Mind and Consciousness from within itself alone, or it is wrong. If it is wrong, then there must, by definition, be an element involved which is extra to 'Matter alone'. That non-Matter element is the element Idealism is concerned with. Thus, if Materialism is wrong, Idealism must be right. What comes after this necessary recognition is another matter, of course.

To expose the falsity of the Materialist case again: if Matter came first, then Mind must have arisen spontaneously and purposelessly from within such Matter, because, and here's the point, there is absolutely nowhere else for it to have come from, is there?
Whichever way you try to twist it and think around it, you must invariable come back to this: that in a universe of 'only Matter', then Mind must have somehow arisen from only Matter.
The problem is that 'only Matter' is by definition, not alive, or mindful, or conscious. Thus, a Materialist is asking us to believe that our own fundamental qualities of Life, Mind, and Consciousness, arose spontaneously from Matter.. the same Matter which does not contain them.
This is clearly irrational nonsense, and requires at the very least that the universe be based on magic: ie a locus in which something may arise without cause, from nothing: the very thing Science itself is dedicated to scourging from our thinking, and quite right too.

Thus.. if Mind did not arise spontaneously from Matter.. where else could it possibly have come from? The only logical answer to this is 'not-Matter'… which is precisely what the Idealists claim.

However… given that what I've written above is just a matter of simple logic, and not a question of 'philosophy' or opinion of any sort…. Where does that leave us?

People are apt to leap to irrational conclusions, are they not? And many thus assume that because Idealism might be easily shown to be rational while Materialism is not.. they leap to all sorts of horrific assumptions, the main one being that if Science is wrong then The Church must be right. Not so. For a start, 'Science' is not wrong; only 'Materialism' is wrong; and The Church is not the only opponent of Materialism by a long shot. As you say so rightly above: A being wrong does not make B right.. in this case, Materialism being wrong does not make The Church right. There are many alternatives to be explored.

To most people, however, including just about all scientists I've met, 'The Church' is the sole perceived opponent of Materialism. Many people thus think that abandoning Materialism would mean having to adopt the wild flummeries of The Church. This is because they know of no alternative to 'The Church' as an opponent of Materialism.

For its part, The Church seems in general to have not distinguished clearly enough between Science ('Good'!) and Materialism ('Bad'!).
People in general are confused, and find no help in any of this, governed as they are by their own psychological tendencies to see the world in terms of black and white, right and wrong. Is Science right? Is Religion? Neither of these august institutions seems able to put a persuasive case to a genuinely rational thinker.

This mess puzzled me for a long time. Then I started to read around, and discovered that there is a way of thinking that is alien to most of us in the West, but bread and butter to Indian schools of philosophy (and various others). These understandings might be best labelled as the Esoteric view.
In a nutshell, the Esoteric view is that all Matter/Energy is alive in some sense, from the lowliest atom (and, I presume the quark and quantum) right up to Man and beyond. The creative force in the universe is Mind (coupled with Will). It is, of course, a profoundly Idealist (and therefore 'rational', as proposed above) view, but with a most interesting addition, as it provides a non-paradoxical hint of the nature of the connection between Mind and Matter.
What's more, the need for Will as a vital component in the creative process should be of considerable interest to a quantum physicist.
The Esoteric view also proposes multiple habitable dimensions other than our own local three dimensions, and thus dismisses the now-traditional notion of Time being a fourth dimension in itself.
I have also found that the Esoteric view makes sense of the whole issue of whether 'Science' or the 'The Church' is 'right'…. And much more besides.
You suggest that 'a compelling case can be made for a reality in which, like quantum particle-wave dual-unity, there is no actual difference between materialism and idealism, except in our limited and misinterpretive understanding of reality. It seems to me that the Esoteric view might support you in this.

From your letter, it seems you have not come across the Esoteric view of things. Might I commend you to it? I'll be happy so suggest a few references that I have found useful.
Incidentally, the Esoteric view is fully supportive of the 'freewill and reason' that you suggest that theologians of The Church have no time for. Anything that favours reason over dogma is worth looking into, in my book!

Thanks again for taking the trouble to write. Much appreciated… not least for correcting me on 'the Creator' in the 1st edition.

All best wishes Chas.

Gosh! A production!

Hi again, Linz…

Wow! Somebody actually wants to stage 'How Come I'm Feeling Fishnet Tights and Rotten Cardboard Boxes?'! Great stuff!

What sort of production do you have in mind? Is it part of a drama school project? ('Director's log' sounds as though it might be.) Where are you based?

Yes, of course. If I can help in some way, please do ask.

Have you been to my website ( www.thirdleafbooks.co.uk ) ? The books are autobiographical, if that's any help.

Anyway.. I look forward to hearing from you and to hear about your production. Do you think it might be better to communicate via email (see website) rather than on the blog? Or do you think other readers might be interested in the ins and outs of putting on a stage production?

All best wishes Chas

Feeling so Rotten!

Hi Linz…

Great heavens! I thought 'So How Come I'm Feeling so Rotten' had sunk without trace! How on earth did you come across it? It was languishing at number 1,786,000 in the Amazon Hot Million, last time I looked.
Just for my own amusement, I've recently changed the title to something I hope might be a little more encouraging to a casual reader, namely: 'Fishnet Tights and Cardboard Boxes' … I wonder if anybody will ever notice!

All best wishes Chas