A note to my readers

A year ago I wrote a book entitled TEGO ARCANA DEI - "Keeping God's Secret" which told the story of my life from the 1960's to 2006. It was written in my pen-name Andrew Man, about the adventures of seven young women and a British hero - James Pollack. Having never written a book before, I used these pages to explore female consciousness from past intimate liaisons which were probably a big mistake? Having autographed the book at the BEA 2011 in New York, I realise that my story was not such a great success and perhaps I had failed? Told relentlessly by several local Librarian's that any title which includes the forbidden word 'Dei' (meaning God) was almost certainly doomed and my front cover implied a semi-religious tome - of little interest to most literary critics. To be a successful author today you need to write about demons or better still vampires - black magic is also liked by publishers, although that has been well covered by Mr Potter. But then I also received some more positive comments at the Expo…

At the first afte
oon of the Book expo and shortly before closing at 5 p.m., I was approached by a number of different people? The first were a group of young Arab women, with traditional costumes and colourful head scarves. They were of course shy talking to a British foreigner, but wanted to know more about the equality of man and women, as this had been introduced with the Bridal Chamber rite? Just before closing that day, a young boy approached me and asked for a copy of the book for his 'pastor', which was duly signed. He then asked if I was a 'jumper'' and could I really move around in time? Let it be said that I really could not disappoint him any longer and gave him a personal copy of the book as well!

The fact is that many of us authors do not know how to write a best seller and are not sure that we want to do it anyway. We only write books that we need to write, because of the three deadly D’s: divorce, death and disease – all of which I have experienced in my life. Most authors recognise that what happens to our books after publication is out of our control, so when I returned to Switzerland, I spent more time in the garden, tending my garden roses. Whatever you may love or think about life, plants such as roses are a marvellous cure for focusing your thoughts. They may appear prickly on the outside, but the flowers are beautiful and show their real beauty for most of the summer. Surprisingly all plants on this planet have the same double helix DNA just like animals and humans, so scientists think it’s probably the same throughout the solar system? Like many gardeners, I enjoy talking to my roses and they of course do not normally answer back. But on this day a cool wind was blowing from the Jura Mountains and the bamboo next door was swaying in the breeze, hissing at me, why I had given up - when the story was only half complete...
(to be continued)