by Tom Evans | May 30, 2022 | Expanding, Scribing
This moonth was one of those times when the changes were rung in. The catalysts were an actual holiday, a revelation and bad back that led to a gift from on high and stroke of good fortune.
A death in the family also got thrown into the mix. It was both expected and welcome, so a release and relief all round.
These types of events though do make you stop, evaluate and come up with a new way of doing things.
The Holiday : Soul Notes
While I was away, I stopped creating for a while and read another writer’s work. Specifically a book of short stories called Exalation by Ted Chiang. This video explains what resulted :
The Revelation
Also while on holiday, I wrote some more materials for the Path to Overstanding. A huge revelation and realisation came my way about how our self-aware and unconscious minds interact with the superconsciousness. As I mention in the Path to Overstanding, when the Tarot evolves, we evolve. The process of creation is like picking yourself up by your own bootstraps.
The revelation is part of next moonth’s materials and is exclusive to subscribers … as some steps are required before and after you take the ramifications of this revelation on board.
The Back
So my bad back came on quickly on a day we were clearing father-in-law’s room. He had passed away after being trapped in a stroke-ridden body for nearly four years. With lockdown, he felt doubly trapped in a care home where we couldn’t visit him or, due to profound deafness, even talk to him.
So RIP John Joseph Leon Howson, hairdresser to the stars :: 28/02/1930 to 13/05/2022.
The back was like someone whacked a cricket bat across your lower back. I am having treatment and working through it. Perhaps John’s passing was a sign to slow down and stop now after providing care for 12 years and more.
Before he passed, we were already planning to be away in the motorhome for most of June. We had decided on France so we could get back quickly if needed. So I was already working on strategies whereby I could create solely from my iPad, while on the road.
So a USB-C mic was purchased so I can record my meditations while I am away. My best find though was an ambient music generator called Wotja which means I can ‘compose’ complex, layered soundscapes while away.
Being slight confined with the bad back means both tools have come into play already. There’s a short example below of what I’ve been creating …
You’ll find more Wotja-generated tracks on Insight Timer …
by Tom Evans | Sep 7, 2021 | Scribing
Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?
Last month I came across this question for the first time and had no idea what it meant at first. I came across it in an author’s forum which gives a small clue. It asks if you, as an author, plot your book in detail and then write it in linear sequence. Alternatively, do you just make it up as you go along?
It made me think about my approach and, at first, I thought I am a wearer of the pants. On reflection, I thought, “No I do have a plot, most of the time at least.”
Then the answer came to me. The question itself is flawed in my opinion and suggests than you can only choose one as your approach. Rather than an EITHER/OR approach, what I have done most recently gives the best of both worlds, by plotting and outlining a course AND/BOTH flying by the seat of my pants!
Soulwaves : A Future History
With my first novel, I had the main plot line nailed down for many years (15 or so) but not the very ending. The last and 100th chapter only came to me when I was writing chapter 98 or so.
The main plot chronicles the years from 2058 to 2109, when all life on earth is wiped out. That by the way is not a spoiler as it’s not the end or point of the book.
What lifted the main plot line was interspersing and intertwining the linear narrative, based in The Density, with a viewpoint from an other-worldly perspective from what I called The Void. This gives both depth and context in both space and time. The implication is an age-old concept that there is more to heaven and earth that we can possibly know and understand. The second plot line was completely ‘pants’!
By way of exploration, this ambient track takes readers to a place where they can actually experience what it’s like to be in The Void and observe the goings on in The Density.
Soulwaves : Insertions
So this second book is bound in length by the number 12, with each short story inspired by the numerology of each number from 1 to 12. This then spills over to the 12 ambient tracks and the meditations inspired by each short story.
The overarching plot tells both the pre- and post-history of humankind. In a Cloud Atlas kind of way, some characters appear and re-appear down the timelines – as is the way with things.
Chapters 1 to 6 and chapters 11 and 12 were planned, in outline only, and plotted from the outset. Chapters 7 through to 10 only appeared in meditation on the days I’d planned in my diary when they were coming to meet me. So this book is mostly 2/3rds plotted and 1/3rd ‘panted’.
When it comes to the ambient album and the meditations, the ideas for them only start appearing after I delivered the previous track. Listeners experience how they build on each other and get more complex and audacious at the same time. Like the third book in the series, they are exclusively available to subscribers.
Have a listen to Insertion 1 : The Scroll and see if you can spot which elements I plotted in advance and what might have arrived ‘off the top of my head’.
Soulwaves : The Duadex
With the third book in the anthology, I am 75% in pants mode, running along with a loose 25% framework of a plot. As it is largely based millions of years into the future, on planets with weird and wonderful life forms, too rigid a plot would strangle the wilder fantasies and flights of the imagination.
The book is being serialised, in a Charles Dickens manner, as an audiobook exclusively to subscribers but I am thrilled to share one of the more bizarre chapters publicly here for the first time.
I hope these three different samples of my work show you how you can plot and pant at the same time. This mixed and selective approach, at the very least, works for me.
Active Channelling
For most of my non-fiction works, there is a rigid, mind-mapped structure which is populated with scribings done in the meditative state. Some call this channelling.
In my free course, How to Channel Your Book, I explain the difference between passive and active channelling. On reflection, active channelling is the plotting AND pantsing state. The only difference being that you bring an external intelligence and guiding hand into the mix. If you listen to The Duadex, you will hear concepts which have not from me but through me. The latest chapter that I’ve shared here, on where the first 12 Duadexes get delivered, is a good example of that.
Get access to the How to Channel Your Book course here
by Tom Evans | Jun 10, 2021 | Expanding, Scribing
Back in the Groove
In retrospect, taking two ‘moonths’ to relocate and get back into the writing groove is quite short. So now I am installed in my new writing room/music production space – just a little tidying up to do as you can see from the piccy above.
In the meantime, I managed to keep up with the production of the moonthly ambient tracks, meditations and lectures all inspired by Soulwaves : Insertions. The daily Just for Today’s also spawn two new meditations for Insight Timer a moonth.
As it happens, and this is no surprise, a break from writing has lead to a new perspective. I had already planned that the Duadex would go to some places I had never been before. The chapters are being serialised again via the Soundwise app … along with my usual moonthly outpourings.
What would happen though it I went to places wilder than my wildest dreams?
… subscribe below to find out !
New Content
I have now got a 350Mb direct fibre connection to the Interweb – uploads and downloads are so fast !
and here’s a few things that floated up from my iMac into the cloud this moonth, from the Below to the Above you might say …
… onwards and upwards.
by Tom Evans | Mar 13, 2021 | Scribing
Riding a Moon Wave
While I have operated with the Moon phase in mind for many years, this year I am using it as the clock to which I time the creation and release of my new output.
[ image by the amazing Georgia Hofer ]
Apart from giving me a target to stick too, it seems to have brought a new level of creativity along with it. So by the day that this blogcast goes live, I will have completed three new ambient tracks and two guided meditations and delivered two lectures – all inspired by the book Soulwaves : Insertions and the numbers 1 to 12.
In the background, I am guided by moonthly readings from the intuitive business astrologer, Louisa Tanner Munson. Along with it all, and with the constant help of the Council of the Light, the most amazing serendipities are flowing my way too.
Like all ‘waves, this serendipity is bringing others along for the ride too … thanks for all those surfing with me.
Creation of Ambience
While all this creation to the Moon Phase is going on, I have found a new way to relax – and that’s to create audio mashups of ambience. Some are entirely new and some permutations of existing tracks. Apart from anything, I find them great to listen to while I am writing – as I am doing now. It’s a great way to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Listen to my latest two tracks below …
Springing Forward
While creating in tune with the Moon has its benefits, so does syncing yourself to the seasons. So on the Spring Equinox, the opening chapters of my next book, The Duadex, will be released in audio exclusively to my Soundwise subscribers.
It’s the in third book in the Soulwaves Anthology and will bring together many of the threads set up in the first two books. Indeed, it starts where the end of Insertions leaves off when sentiences in each galaxy receive their Duadexes. What follows is the Universal Unification – with a few lessons learned along the way of course. While it is complete fiction, you can also take it as being true.
What’s different about this book to all my others is that subscribers can have a hand in its direction and evolution. You can subscribe to the Duadex and my other moonthly creations here for much less than the price of a takeaway pizza a month. Your subscriptions will be gratefully received and all help to help me create more and more …
by Tom Evans | Oct 16, 2020 | Scribing
So while the UK opened up, we managed to get a full three and a half week’s of touring in a working motorhome – with no recourse to call out the RAC.
And while I was away, I used the time to bring the Soulwaves : A Future History side-projects to a close while “Insertions” was being edited.
So the Soulwaves Ambient album is completed with the addition of a one hour ambient track called Parting the Veil …
… and the Soul-full Path guided series is brought to a close with the one hour guided track called The Paths of Return – see and hear them in this blog post
Both side-projects rock in at just under four hours long and there are links to listen to them in my new Soundwise App.
Both were written and planned while away and created on my return – and note that, in 2021, the 12 short stories in Insertions will be complemented and augmented by 12 ambient and guided tracks inspired by numerology …
… as one door closes, another opens.
Last Moonth’s Output
So even though I was away, the creation and publication engine was primed ahead of my departure and back-filled when I returned … here’s about half of it.
What’s Happening Next Moonth?
So next moonth I am doing something I haven’t really done for any of my previous books – I am planning the launch for Soulwaves : Insertions.
If the wind is behind me and in the right direction, I’ll also do a beta release of the audiobook for pre-review to my Launch Crew.
I’ll also have a play with some musical ideas for the album and meditations plus there may be the odd podcast.
… I am also open for my soul to show me another way I hadn’t envisaged!
by Tom Evans | Nov 28, 2019 | Expanding, Scribing, Timing
While I have been busy creating the Soulwaves book itself, I have consciously done nothing about publishing it, other than to observe what is happening in the industry. So rather than me having to find the way to get it published, I’ve been allowing the paths to publication and marketing to find me.
I had already used Ingram Spark last year for the Big U and am using them again but this time also publishing a hardback version. I wanted something other than just ACX and iTunes for the audiobook though.
Thanks mainly to the wonderful Creative Penn podcast, from the prolific and supremely knowledgeable Joanna Penn, I’m using a new way to distribute the audiobook version.
Findaway Voices not only submit your audiobook to ACX/Audible and iTunes but over 40 other audiobook platforms. Before submitting Soulwaves (at nearly 10 hours long), I tested the system out with the audiobook version of The Germinatrix (at less than 1 hour long).
I had the usual tech issues to fix with ACX, my fault for rushing, but pleased to see the book out on so many places it has never been heard before. Note, I serialised it on Insight Timer over the last two years – well that method worked for Charles Dickens and H.G. Wells!
Listen to Joanna’s podcast with Will Dages of Findaway Voices
Listen to my first audiobook distributed by them – The Germinatrix
Also this month, I had a lovely heart-to-heart with wordsmith, Mariëlle Smith …
Proofing the Pudding
Usually initial proof read and recording of audiobook catches 99% of errors. As the first sample print books of Soulwaves arrived this month, it was clear I only caught 95% or so!
Thank goodness for print on demand and setting a pre-order date.
Perhaps as this is so big and expansive in plot – over billions of years of time and 150,000 light years in space – I have learned a novel such as this needs an additional proof read after the recording of the audiobook.
So December will be spent ironing out the wrinkles. You can however safely pre-order the book in all good online bookstores and it will be perfect by the 10th Jan 2020.
by Tom Evans | Oct 28, 2019 | Scribing
Fifteen books later, the book I started first has finally been written – and narrated.
It’s now off for typesetting as this blog gets published. The day after the book is done and it’s now kind of out of my hands, it’s almost like missing an old friend and there is a strange sense of loss.
I have been researching genres though and am delighted to zero in on Metaphysical and Visionary Fiction, where you find books like The Alchemist and Five People You Meet in Heaven.
Rather than my usual rush into a new project rapidly, I am treating myself to a breather. New plans kick off on the 1st November when we may be in, or out, of the EU – or more likely, one foot in and one foot out – which mirrors where I am with the book which is written but not published.
On which note, we’ve decided to go for a publication date of 10th Jan 2020, which is the first Full Moon – the timing of which appears often in the book.
Lessons Learned
- The process cannot be rushed (even for a time bender)
- The book is much richer in its third draft with intertwining plot lines
- Audiobook production is the best proofreading process
- The timing is impeccable with more and more ways to promote a book these days
- Pre-marketing on the book’s progress and a pre-order date are key to warming up readers (and listeners)
What’s Next?
- Being Soulful – a series of meditations to accompany the book
- Getting beta readers and listeners
- Long overdue rationalisation & streamlining of my old online courses
- Creation and re-creation of said courses (and new ones) for online apps and a new and wider audience
- Restarting The Zone Show podcast
Other News …
- Being 999 – a meditation I recorded ages ago now up on Insight Timer & making waves
- An Extended Akashic Journey – elongation of an old favourite also up on the app
- More short stories from The Germinatrix also up on the app and pending release …
- … the audiobook version of that book happening by stealth
- Honoured to lead an 80 minute live guided meditation and awakening in Bristol this month
by Tom Evans | Aug 31, 2019 | Scribing
Artwork by Siri Stiklestad Opli
The month of August has become a big handle turning exercise. September augurs more of the same.
The reason being is that 35 of the 100 chapters of Soulwaves are now narrated. I make no bones about it, it is a huge task and big ask, with no shortcuts.
While it might sound like a lot of hard work, it does feel I am taking my hands off the wheel and coasting down hill to a glorious destination. Apart from anything, I am really enjoying reading my own book back and remembering things I’d forgotten I’d wrote.
Reading a book out loud is simply the best and most thorough way to proof read a book. Here’s why:
#1. If I can read it out loud, a reader can’t read it ‘in loud’. It won’t scan well.
#2. I am spotting forward references I set up in earlier chapters I wrote many months ago that I can pick up and develop subtly in later chapters.
#3. You spot errors even the best editor/proof reader may not have spotted. I’ve found loads and suspect there are more.
August also saw two weeks off with some family support commitments. Due to ongoing support commitments, I plan to have the next third of the book narrated by the time I blog next and the final third completed by the end of October.
This will lead to print and ebook production in November which in turn means publication should be early December.
One of the tricks I use, which is also one I use in writing, is to record the very ending words first. This is the poem I wrote many years ago to describe the essence of what a Soulwave is. It wraps up the book but there’s no spoiler alert as it gives nothing away about the actual ending. Merely it describes how Soulwaves are the fabric of the Universe.
You can listen to it free on Insight Timer …
Soulwaves : A Poem on Entanglement
… also, you can listen to two new meditations on the app this month and a new short story from The Germinatrix and a musical mindful podcast.
Take Your Hands Off the Wheel
Count Your Riches
Moderating Your Mindberg
Mindful Beats With Tyson Baird
p.s. if all of this output seems quite a lot in just one month, it’s just an example of what happens when you take your hands off the wheel
by Tom Evans | Sep 30, 2018 | Scribing
In 2012, on September 3rd, I started writing what became my quickest book called This We Know. 14 days later, on the 17th September (that same year), a copy of the print version arrived in the post – and it was available worldwide.
This blog tells the story of the slowest book I have written. It is novel which foretells the end of life on Earth, as we know it, within 100 years. While it is channelled fiction, some the events I first wrote over 14 years ago have already come to pass.
Genesis
Back in 2005, I was on holiday in South Africa, on the Garden Route at a place called Hog Hollow near Plettenberg. I had a shock when I ended up sharing a shower with a tarantula. A strong G&T later, I calmed down. At the time I was reading a book by Teilhard de Chardin called The Phenomenon of Man – it is deep and profound but also a little inaccessible.
A combination of tarantula shock and the G&T brought a light bulb moment along. What if I was to die when I know a lot of useful ‘stuff’ that could be shared? I had a pile of books that went some way to explaining the Universe and how we came to be. Many of them were as complex as Teilhard’s.
The idea was, what if I was to decode them, distill them and explain them?
I started mind mapping what I could share, along with imbibing a second G&T. The memory is still so vivid, I can even remember we were playing this amazing album, African Groove.
The Light Bulb Moment
This idea came in. What if the Universe was built on soulwaves? They were waves of energy that connected everything to everything. This was the missing dark energy and dark matter. I had no proof and no theories, just intuition.
So what if I shared what I knew in a novel? No proof would be needed, it would just be a story.
A few months later, I had about 60,000 words written. Then it ended up sitting on my hard drive for what would be 12 years, until I picked it up again.
What happened next was that 16 other books came along. I did release a short story version of a snippet of the book for Kindle in 2011. That got some good reviews that told me I should really finish it some day. At that time, the Universe was busy making an unexpected meditation guide out of the unsuspecting author though – and This We Know was about to arrive!
Winding on several books later, I ended up spending my 59th birthday, in 2017, at my best friend from school’s funeral. I resolved then to get this story our before my 60th, just in case I wasn’t around for much longer.
I ended up rewriting it from the ground up, and inserting some new intertwining plot lines, but I only got 90% of it done. Just the last 20 chapters or so need finishing off.
The reason I only got 90% of the way last year was that yet another book project that I didn’t plan came along. The Big Ü is done now and was published on the 8th August 2018.
Of course, these diversions are not irritants. In a Universe connected by soulwaves, all is ‘meant to be’. Apart from anything, I know more stuff now than I did back in 2005 and I hope that I have become a better writer. I am certainly more internally confident at the very least.
So the latest planned schedule is to get the print, ebook and audiobook published on the 21st September – all in 2019 that is.
Tuning into cosmic timings is one of the many memes touched on in the book!
What’s It About?
I have now discovered that the book now has a genre – post-dystopian cyberpunk.
It starts in 2059 when humanity has got its act together after the excesses of the last few centuries. Sadly, it is all a little too late as something triggered off in 1959, 150 light years away, that would lead to the end of life, as we know it, on Earth.
Our hero is sent from the ‘gods’ to help at the time of transition – as often happens cf Jesus, John Lennon, Kermit the Frog. Like all such characters, he doesn’t know this. He hatches a plan at the last minute to save some of humanity. All along though the dolphins, knew so, so much more.
So the book explains how the cosmos goes through cycles and how death is an integral part of life. Even stars have to die to create more stars … and us!
