MY WRITING LIFE

JANUARY 2024

It’s been a deceptively busy month, lots of useful things but no over-arching story. 

PUBLISHING

KDP finally published my book ‘Daily Prayers from the World’s Faiths’ at the beginning of the month.

I started on the audio market with the help of Elliott of Monkeynut.  I sent the MP3 files for ‘Jesus the Troublemaker’ and ‘Discovering Psalms as Prayer’ to Elliott for him to spruce up and make acceptable to Audible.  I then revised the script of ‘Daily Prayers from the World’s Faiths’ so that it makes sense on audio rather than the printed page.  I gathered the prayers of each faith together so as to make more comprehensible listening.  I will record it at the start of March.

SYMPOSIUM ON PRAYER

A multi-faith symposium on prayer was meant to accompany the launch of ‘Daily Prayers from the World’s Faiths’ back in October.  It was postponed to the end of January because of security fears following the onset of the Gaza war.  It was very helpful to have  Leonora, the administrator of St Mary Abbot’s, to organise it and take care of the publicity.  She recommended I made a small charge of £5 for wine, especially when  advertising on eventbrite.  However, on 18th January Pinakin Patel, chair of the RBKC Faith Communities Partnership, who was going to chair the symposium, said he would have to withdraw unless it was a free event. Within a day I had rethought and re-arranged it, ending with juice, bread and za’atar instead of starting with a glass of wine.  Much better.  Through Pinakin’s contacts I finally got a speaker from the local mosque and was told of someone who could talk of the Hindu Vedanta tradition.  So the symposium went ahead on 31st  with a full panel comprising Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Christian participants.  Twenty people came and it was a successful evening.  Rabbi Helen, West London Synagogue, told of how a famous Hasidic rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, (see photo) spoke of the twin poles of prayer:  ‘keva’ meaning a fixed form, and ‘kavanah’ meaning something like spiritual concentration.  There were very good conversations at the end over the refreshments and I sold half a dozen books.

Photo is of Ann Garry, Abdurahman, me, Pinakin Patel

MARKETING

A big surprise is how easy it is for me to sell ‘Daily Prayers from the World’s Faiths’.  Sitting opposite a stranger in the British Library, meeting several new people in church, even being helped at a M&S supermarket, all resulted in sales!

I continued to do a bit on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, but not as much as I want.  My aim is to do a short video on Facelive once a month on Wednesdays.  The problem is  that I am not on my phone all the time.  Just too old!

But I am trying to catch up.  On 13th I went on an all-day course at CityLit on Search Engine Marketing, see photo. I also met with someone I already knew who said he could help me improve my visibility on the internet and make use of Google ads PPC (Pay per Click).

I changed the strapline of my new website revandybooks.org from ‘Facing the Big Questions of Faith’ to ‘Questioning Faith’ – nicely ambiguous and looks much better on a mobile screen.

WRITING

No writing in January apart from the December Newsletter and the two blogs you have already received,  ‘Victims and Perpetrators’, and ‘What was John the Baptist?’.  

I did find two new places to do my writing: the rather labyrinthine British Library, and a cafe at Imperial College in the Dyson-sponsored department of Design Engineering, very basic but excellent acoustics.

CHURCH

A lot of church this month.  

One Sunday Justin Welby, our Archbishop, had a Sunday free, so he came and worshipped at St Augustine’s Queens Gate, which was his mother’s regular church.  I had a chat with him and we agreed that the troubles of the C of E would be much simpler if people were more willing to say “I don’t really know.”  He can do with our prayers! 

I went to the service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, hosted by the Armenian Church, with some wonderful hypnotic chanting see photo.  The next week I went to the Deanery Synod in St Luke’s Chelsea, the first Gothic revival church in England.  Then came a splendid church lunch at St Augustine’s Queens Gate – two enormous portions of lasagne – at which I sold two books.  Finally I took a short midweek communion service.  The reading was Mark 5.1-20, about the demon-possessed man in Gadara.  After he had been made well he wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus told him to go back to his folk and tell them what God had done for him.  In other words he was the very first Gentile missionary to the Gentiles!

HOME

We had a small but enjoyable Epiphany party with just seven on us.  The rest of the month was dominated by TAX!  We both got our return in time.

There was more drama in the kitchen.  Our fridge gave up the ghost – not the freezer – and we have now (2nd February) replaced it with a slightly smaller version.  So our kitchen window sill is no longer doubling as a fridge.

And we have a new friend, a handsome black crow who stops by every morning for a piece of cheese and some walnut pieces.  Believe it or not, if you google ‘Crow’s breakfast’, there are several others who do the same.

FILM ETC

Our viewing has been somewhat eclectic this month.  We saw the excellent film ‘Bernadette’, about the wife of Jacques Chirac, the French President, and how she clawed her way out of being ignored to being the political power behind the throne.

In the cinema we saw the live production of Carmen from the Met in New York in a very modern production – truly excellent.

On TV we saw the strange serial ‘The Singing Detective’ (1986) about a private detective suffering from psoriasis, a painful skin condition, which led to vivid hallucinations.  The author, Dennis Potter, suffered from the same disease.  Completely weird and also completely watchable.

After the December hiatus, live music returned to lunchtimes in the City.  The outstanding recital for me was Beethoven’s strange piano sonata 31 plus the exciting music from ‘Iberia’ by  Albéniz.  Try them on YouTube.

A FINAL THOUGHT

I heard a sermon by Will van der Hart on the wedding at Cana.  During it he made the arresting comment:  “Jesus is about the business of breaking shame.”