New Gold City

Cover of the paperback, due out in July. I'd originally planned on publishing a paperback version of Beyond the Will of God  late in the fall. But within days of getting the word out to friends and family that they could download my book at the Kindle Store, it became astoundingly apparent (like a slap upside the head from my older cousin Danny) that there's a huge portion of my world who still like to buy and read bound paper books . Plus, never thought of it, but there's certain people I want to make this book available to personally. I know even if friends are super iPad users (or whatever), they're just not going to get to reading it unless Beyond the Will of God is sitting around their bedroom making them feel like it is, in fact, a real thing. I also need to go to the local bookstore in my neighborhood and give a copy to the owner. You don't give e-books to bookstore owners. A bound paper edition of  Beyond the Will of God  is therefore currently in productio...

Somewhere in this photo is an envelope containing over 100 rejections. You will find below an actual query sent earlier this year to a book publisher for my novel Beyond the Will of God . I sent out over 200 query letters for this novel -- mostly in the early nawts. This is the very last one. I have an envelope, conveniently lost in my office now, with over 100 rejections of Beyond the Will stuffed into it. Yes, only about half the folks I reached out to actually made the effort to get back to me. That's the way it is. (So it goes). My manuscript was rejected outright by one agent because "I don't do religious fiction." Beyond the Will of God is not exactly a religious story (see the query below to learn where the title came from if you don't already know). Another publisher wrote that they felt the novel had potential and was well-written (aw), but they weren't publishing mysteries. A year later their catalog contained a mystery and crime section that is now...

David Jay Brown covers the far edge of consciousness research. I stumbled into his work while reading a weekly report on entheogens at Reality Sandwich. Brown recently did a piece for the Santa Cruz Patch on telepathy and precognition studies performed on subjects under the influence of LSD. You can read that article HERE .  There really is a lot of movement going on out there in the world of psychedelic and entheogen research. It's surprising how dramatically things are changing but how quiet this research still is. Brown probably covers this information better than anyone with his Catch the Buzz column, and has been called "the altered statesman."  What he's best known for is his in-depth and intelligent interviews with consciousness visionaries. He is the author of at least 8 books, many of which are compendiums of his interviews with everyone from Deepak Chopra and Allen Ginsberg to Terence McKenna and Jerry Garcia.  His web site, Mavericks of the Mind , is like a...

James Parker, a contributing editor to The Atlantic magazine, is one of the best writers of cultural criticism working today. I subscribe to The Atlantic partly because I know I'll get a scatter shot of weird imagery, little known facts, untwisted spin, and, usually, surprising empathy and insight from him. In the past year he's written intelligent and entertaining criticism on everyone and everything from Glenn Beck, "Game of Thrones," the band R.E.M., and the Goosebumps books. His R.E.M. piece in particular demonstrates his sophisticated drive to get at the deep meaning always embedded in popular culture.  The new Atlantic just arrived at my house yesterday and once again Parker's talent is presented as he gives us his essay, "A Long, Strange Trip: How a new 14-DVD box set turned me on to the Dead." It's my favorite James Parker yet. He admits from the outset that he could care less for The Dead. "I had an aural impression of the Dead sou...

What would Janis say? There's a simple question at the end here for folks who have read Beyond the Will of God . When I started to seriously write Beyond the Will of God back in 1993, I knew where the book was going to take the reader. I knew that there were questions I've always had about altered states of consciousness and the power of music. I had some weird adventures late at night back in the 1970s. Adventures in my mind. Adventures that needed to be turned into an intriguing story. But I didn't know how to get the story to where I knew it had to go. [I promise there is no spoiler in this brief essay]. The first scene I wrote is part of the first third of the book. It came out of nowhere for me. I woke up one New Year's Day and sat down in front of my new Mac II. I wrote one sentence:  " His vision has that vibrating feel to it, like his eyes are being massaged with electricity."   A nd then another: "In the distance, through the humidity, ribbons o...

My first novel, Beyond the Will of God, is available for purchase at Amazon's Kindle Store. If you're looking for something different to read this summer, this book is for you. It's part thriller, part mystery, part paranormal speculation, and part science fiction. There's romance and sex, of course -- just enough. But the book also deals with big questions about life and the human mind. Click here to go to the Kindle Store page for Beyond the Will of God . As always, Amazon's sample pages are available for you to read. Check it out. If you don't have a Kindle or an iPad with the Kindle, you can download an App for your computer or smartphone right here. Buy the book now to take advantage of introductory pricing. It's a pretty good deal at $2.99. And I'd truly be grateful if you let your friends know about this offer. Send them the link to this web page or to the Amazon listing. Or share this with your social network.  Happy reading! David

Definitely a sunrise in August There's a quiet revolution going on worldwide. Some of you may know about it. I'm not sure how much of this revolution is a function of the Occupy movement and how much Occupy is a function of that revolution.  I've been doing last minute research into the world of transformative consciousness as I prepare to publish Beyond the Will of God . I've found some interesting places on the Internet. They all give me the impression that the "revolution" I speak of is one in which Consciousness Expansion and Sustainable Development are in the process of merging...again. I feel a bit as if I've stumbled into a very beautifully lit room full of quiet people reading various books and looking at screens, waiting for something to happen. In the 1960s, trailing into the 1970s, questions of enhanced awareness and transcendental consciousness led to the birth of the appropriate technology movement and re-fueled the environmental movement. Som...

This essay appeared in Talking Writing in April. Talking Writing is rapidly becoming a high-quality online source of information for writers and content-providers of all sorts.    By David Biddle for Talking Writing Imagine that a rigidly controlled country  you’ve always longed to visit suddenly undergoes a revolution and opens its borders. Its currency value is ridiculously low, making travel a bargain. Do you snap up airline tickets and book a hotel right away?  Or does the prospect of traveling in a land where laws and concepts of ownership are in flux give you pause? For me, that tantalizing country is The Land of Getting Published, now dominated by a digital publishing frontier. I no longer need an agent or even an editor to get me there (though some copyediting help is always useful). With my self-polished text and a decent cover layout in hand, I can publish my own work in just a few clicks through Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, Lulu, or any of several dozen oth...