hamishdee.com

It’s an uneventful week in Auroville, India. I’ve been milling around, occupied with job searches and flight complications, but the pleasantries have been few. Rather than squander this little break in events, I conceptualized and completed a small project named, The Silent Spoon.

As the title suggests, maybe, The Silent Spoon is a children’s book. It’s my first book written for a younger audience and it’s an adorable, little piece, at that. The only setback is it’s an illustrated book, and I’m not the world’s most brilliant artist. Actually, I can do heiroglyphs very well (I’ve had high compliments for my Anubis) but beyond that I’m merely average. One of two things will happen. Either, I learn to draw, or I get an illustrator to do it for me. If it sees a completed form, the book will be about 75 pages long, and then an online sample would follow.

Clearly, the subject is a little girl who carries a spoon that makes things quiet.

~HD

Last week, when I mentioned my upcoming projects and said I had nothing on my plate, a tinge of sadness and remorse came over me. It shouldn’t be this way. So in the seven days that followed, I picked up a string of projects and committed them to paper in the form of a checklist.

One, a personal, commercial venture that I’m not at liberty to announce.

One, a potential, collaborative, commercial venture, of which I can’t breathe a word.

One, an in-progress, collaborate, multimedia venture, which I can announce once we can agree on a working title.

And, I’ve started a book that I’m within two days of finishing, Title: TBA. I’ve decided to try my hand at children’s authorship. It’s a departure from basically everything I’ve done, but it’s cute and clever. Not horror masked as children’s, which is the recent trend.
That’s enough. I’ll write about one or more of these soon.

~HD

I proudly announce the completion of my fifth title, which goes by the title “Mirror Box”.

I’d truly like to give a synopsis of the book, some tiny inkling of its subject, a person or placing in time, but whenever I’m asked, I can’t pin down an answer I’m happy with. So, here is:

The Menu

The Mirror Box Welcome Page

Mirror Box Sample Pages

My usual handiwork is visible in the text, maybe it can fixed in the printout. I am pleased with the welcome page though. The graphic is quite spooky.

Details: The book took me seven weeks to write, and the work was done entirely in Auroville, India. Its 199 pages long (for some reason I couldn’t squeak out the extra page). The book is humorous, but contains elements of horror and spiritual linguistics.

More news to come, but I think another book is enough for now.

~HD

After a solid month of solid key punching, I’ve written roughly half of my next book. I’m at 107 pages, presently.

It was my intention from the start to write this piece in one swift stroke, the cutting blow that will bring the publishing world to its knees. Well, not as such. I’m taking April off to go to Hairakhan for a Spring festival, see the Taj, Varansi, etc. We’ll plan on an end of May completion, instead.
The nature of the work requires a sharp change in tone around the middle. This is my chance to fit into it. The experience of writing MB has been nearly perfect, and you can see it in the quality. It retains the humor of the earlier books, but sometimes the content terrifies even me.

I look forward to posting something of MB. When I finish, I’ll put the first 30 pages up, which is a solid introduction.

Namaste ~HD

Since I only write something here once per season, I think it’s time for the Spring posting.

Firstly of all, I am in Auroville, India and I still publicly call myself a writer. If someone asks me what I do, I reply: I’m a writer, give me a hug and a sandwich. Luckily, I’m surrounded by sympathetic people and I get many sandwiches.

Nextly, I’m wasting away in front of a laptop, while I write my fifth novel, which I’ll give the cryptic title, MB. It’s an acronym for the real title. If you guess right, I’ll give you $1. I’ve written about 3/11 of the book, and am scheduled for a late April completion. It’s also one half of an art of living project I’ve created for myself and of myself. I’ll explain more, when it’s finished.

The fourth book, Cavernous, is still looking for a home.

Namaste ~ HD