In light of the interest some have shown for spiritual biographies, I thought I might share the first chapter of mine. I suppose its chief interest lies in the idea of someone from a fundamentalist background having a kundalini awakening. It's all I've written so far and I'm planning 8 chapters all told. It's perhaps a little long for a quick read, so take your time if you're at all interested.

And thanks.

Click on the download link on the left:

https://www.nitrocloud.com/get...ZE&locale=en&ve=true

Please - if this link doesn't work, let me know and I'll try and find another way to share it...

Great! I'll look forward to having a read of that. I was able to download it, but services such as https://www.box.com are good for file-sharing. Are you going to self-publish it eventually? On one of my blogs I posted a summary of all that I know about self-publishing, mainly for Canadians (since so much of the material on the web is by Americans, for Americans), but much of it might apply in the UK.

I might self-publish, Derek. The publishing industry is going through a bit of a crisis right now. They're not making a smooth leap to digital, which seems to be inevitable.

I loved writing that chapter, but am going to take my time with the rest. There's some difficult stuff I'll need to recall, some real trauma, and some stuff that still needs understood or dealt with, which I'm hoping may become a little clearer by the time I get to it.

Thanks for the interest!

Thanks Stephen. I will download and read it.

Re. self-publishing . . . does lulu.com not work for you all? They do publish ebooks and market them through Amazon, iBookstore and other resources. Also, it's not that difficult to make a Kindle eBook. I've done a bunch of them.

If you need a break from writing and editing, you can always start playing with designs for the cover! I've done that sometimes.

The artwork on your visual poetry blog is very good. What software do you use to do that?

Here are my blog posts on self-publishing:

Self-Publishing in Canada

Ebook publishing in Canada

I wrote a book about the first part of my spiritual journey and awakening: http://heptarchia.co.uk/mission/a-little-death/

I've submitted the sequel, which covers my conversion to Catholicism and "second awakening". Waiting to hear if it will be published...

Well, this is great! Nice going, Ona.

Stephen, I started reading and just kept going. You're such a very good writer! That was most enjoyable.

quote:

Originally posted by samson:
In light of the interest some have shown for spiritual biographies, I thought I might share the first chapter of mine. I suppose its chief interest lies in the idea of someone from a fundamentalist background having a kundalini awakening. It's all I've written so far and I'm planning 8 chapters all told. It's perhaps a little long for a quick read, so take your time if you're at all interested.

And thanks.

Click on the download link on the left:

https://www.nitrocloud.com/get...ZE&locale=en&ve=true

Please - if this link doesn't work, let me know and I'll try and find another way to share it...

What a great read! Thanks for sharing. I hope you do finish it. It's very well written and engaging.

Stephen, it's fascinating to learn of your enclosed childhood among the Brethren. Having grown up in a moderate Church of Scotland household, I never suspected such a world existed.

The "letter of commendation from a neighbouring Assembly" (p.8) reminded me of an occasion when I was a teenager, by which time we were living in Lincolnshire. A guy I vaguely knew, who was visiting the area, invited me to a church service. Since he was a visitor from elsewhere, he had to produce a letter of some sort to get in. Ever since then, I've wondered what denomination it was. And now perhaps I know the answer -- the Brethren?

I could visualize Ailsa Craig, since I saw it for the first time in 2011, when my Dad and I took the ferry across the firth of Clyde from Ardrossan to the isle of Arran.

LOL at "doctrine was thrown around like hand grenades" (p. 19). Also amused by the story of saving the Buddhist taxi-driver (p. 20).

The cliffhanger ending of chapter 1 left me wondering what would happen next, though I see you've started to reveal that by including a few paragraphs from the start of chapter 2 in your excerpt.

By "Brethren" do you all mean Church of the Brethren? We had a staff member at the retreat center for awhile who was a Church of the Brethren pastor, and I have a directee who is a Brethren pastor. They do not seem so strict here in the U.S. Quite the contrary. They are also one of the "peace churches" along with the Quakers, Mennonites and Amish, who are all here in fair numbers in KS (though not as common as nondenominational evangelicals).

Thanks so much everyone, I really appreciate the feedback!

Phil, no it's a different group. I was brought up in the Plymouth Brethren, an evangelical group which split from the Churches of England and Ireland in the 19th Century. See here:

Plymouth Brethren

Derek,

Thanks for all that info. I use a Serif desktop publisher and photo editor for my visual work, but I've exhausted the techniques they offer and am really needing to upgrade...to something a little more expensive and complicated unfortunately.

Ona,

Your own history is really fascinating. I do hope I get a chance and some time to read your books. I have a backlog of reading and am very slow to get through a book these days.

Thanks again, everyone!