Ask the Author: Peter E. Upton
Answered Questions (11)
Peter E. Upton
I thought your new review was thoughtful and beautifully written. It was very kind of you to take the time to revisit it. In truth i had always been more than happy with your earlier review. I know your reviews are always of a very high standard which is why I enjoy reading them so much and perhaps in this case you were judging yourself to harshly.
Btw the first day of Spring you mentioned earlier. I went out running in the local hills and had to keep jumping over the remaining snowdrifts!!!!
Thanks again and my very best wishes, Peter
Btw the first day of Spring you mentioned earlier. I went out running in the local hills and had to keep jumping over the remaining snowdrifts!!!!
Thanks again and my very best wishes, Peter
Peter E. Upton
'The Cauliflower', 'All The Light We Cannot See', 'The Almond Tree', 'Monkeys, Motorcycles and Misadventures' and 'Enemy of God'
Peter E. Upton
The greatest mystery in all of our lives has to be is there a life after death and I think I have already answered that in ;Candles on The Ganges.'
Peter E. Upton
This sounds an easy question but I am struggling to think of a couple rather than the inter-relationship that goes on between many different people in a book and more importantly for me the inter-relationship that takes place within a single person's mind where a thought is always followed by an 'on the other hand' which is one of my favourite kind of reading. However, if I am pushed I am going to go for 'Butch Cassidy and the SundanceKid' in the fictionalised film version because of its feel-good factor and the simple unquestioned trust they placed in each other. Sorry if that is not the intellectual answer you were looking for!
Peter E. Upton
Hi Jessaka, You should now have now sent you a message as a friend.
Peter E. Upton
I have never had writer's block. My main problem was that in reading something I had previously written I would always see a better way to write it.
My second problem was that I would find myself writing long sections about things which, while important to me and my beliefs, were not strictly relevant to the book and reluctantly I decided to strip these out rather than risk boring the reader.
My second problem was that I would find myself writing long sections about things which, while important to me and my beliefs, were not strictly relevant to the book and reluctantly I decided to strip these out rather than risk boring the reader.
Peter E. Upton
For me it was creating a tribute to my son and his determination to comfort us.
Peter E. Upton
Having only written one book which I have self published because I have never succeeded in getting a publication house interested I would say only do this if you are really driven to writing.
On a practical level make sure your book fits neatly into a category which my book doesn't and was one of the reasons my initial publisher pulled out it was also a repeat factor in most of the rejection letters I received. It appears that the middlemen who buy from the publishers and sell to the bookstores will not touch books that don't fit neatly into a category.
If you are going to self publish I would suggest you avoid all the mistakes I made by going to CreateSpace who will publish your paperback book for free, give it an ISBN for free, sell it through Amazon, collect the money from the buyer and post the book off for you. They will also offer at the end of the publication process to turn it into an ebook at amazon kindle for you and then deposit your earnings electronically into your account. OK they will take a cut of your money but they will also save you an awful amount of administrative work and in my case about £900 in printing costs and ISBN for just 100 books.
On a practical level make sure your book fits neatly into a category which my book doesn't and was one of the reasons my initial publisher pulled out it was also a repeat factor in most of the rejection letters I received. It appears that the middlemen who buy from the publishers and sell to the bookstores will not touch books that don't fit neatly into a category.
If you are going to self publish I would suggest you avoid all the mistakes I made by going to CreateSpace who will publish your paperback book for free, give it an ISBN for free, sell it through Amazon, collect the money from the buyer and post the book off for you. They will also offer at the end of the publication process to turn it into an ebook at amazon kindle for you and then deposit your earnings electronically into your account. OK they will take a cut of your money but they will also save you an awful amount of administrative work and in my case about £900 in printing costs and ISBN for just 100 books.
Peter E. Upton
I am currently working on repairing a fireplace, maintaining the garden and getting ready for a walking holiday in the Brecon Beacons! There is not another book on the horizon! The last one took me 20 years to complete to my satisfaction!
Update to 2022 if you have read my book you will see somewhere around page 100 that while in the desert I suddenly realized that by just adding water the place and the people's lives in it could be transformed. In the past few years I have turned this realization into my own plan to help solve global warming while regenerating the world, solving the problems of drought, ending starvation and giving clean drinking water to the millions without.
The plan, like me, is simple, build massive solar powered desalination plants along the coast of Africa, Asia and wherever else there is a need . Then use solar driven pipe lines to carry it where ever it is needed, store it in medium sized earthquake proof 'tanks'. Use it to irrigate drought ridden arable land and to regenerate degraded forests and with different minerals added, as fresh clean drinking water.
The cost about 1 billion American dollars for the massive Claude Budd desalination plant in California plus maintenance. So not cheap for the many plants that are needed but the people of these areas will be able to once again feed themselves without Foreign Aid putting them back on the road to EQUITY while their children won't be part of the 3.1 million children who die each year of the results of malnutrition and dirty drinking water.
The water poured onto the land and into the people will then go on a cycle of evaporation into forming clouds which will bounce the sun's rays back out of the atmosphere lowering global warming before raining on new areas starting the irrigation cycle again.
The high salinity waste water from the desalination process could be carried by tankers to the areas where it is needed for its density to keep the world's major ocean currents running till global warming is solved. The fertilizers like nitrogen could also be taken out of the waste water and sold instead of factory produced fertilizers.
If I have missed anything out it is because the above is part of a 14 page document and that I have almost given up trying to interest the Government or any Climate Change organization in.
Apart from that I am learning to play the guitar and piano badly, speak French and Spanish even more badly, to replace wind blown fences skilfully, To walk whenever the chance occurs, to run every other day and to fall in love with my daughter's latest 'child' a one year old Cocker Spaniel:).
Update to 2022 if you have read my book you will see somewhere around page 100 that while in the desert I suddenly realized that by just adding water the place and the people's lives in it could be transformed. In the past few years I have turned this realization into my own plan to help solve global warming while regenerating the world, solving the problems of drought, ending starvation and giving clean drinking water to the millions without.
The plan, like me, is simple, build massive solar powered desalination plants along the coast of Africa, Asia and wherever else there is a need . Then use solar driven pipe lines to carry it where ever it is needed, store it in medium sized earthquake proof 'tanks'. Use it to irrigate drought ridden arable land and to regenerate degraded forests and with different minerals added, as fresh clean drinking water.
The cost about 1 billion American dollars for the massive Claude Budd desalination plant in California plus maintenance. So not cheap for the many plants that are needed but the people of these areas will be able to once again feed themselves without Foreign Aid putting them back on the road to EQUITY while their children won't be part of the 3.1 million children who die each year of the results of malnutrition and dirty drinking water.
The water poured onto the land and into the people will then go on a cycle of evaporation into forming clouds which will bounce the sun's rays back out of the atmosphere lowering global warming before raining on new areas starting the irrigation cycle again.
The high salinity waste water from the desalination process could be carried by tankers to the areas where it is needed for its density to keep the world's major ocean currents running till global warming is solved. The fertilizers like nitrogen could also be taken out of the waste water and sold instead of factory produced fertilizers.
If I have missed anything out it is because the above is part of a 14 page document and that I have almost given up trying to interest the Government or any Climate Change organization in.
Apart from that I am learning to play the guitar and piano badly, speak French and Spanish even more badly, to replace wind blown fences skilfully, To walk whenever the chance occurs, to run every other day and to fall in love with my daughter's latest 'child' a one year old Cocker Spaniel:).
Peter E. Upton
Once the initial enthusiasm for this book had been lit, finding the inspiration was not a problem. When I wrote this book I felt spiritually inspired the whole time as though I was sitting in meditation. As I wrote I would be reliving the moments I was writing about. Sometimes this would leave me in tears while at other moments I would be smiling at a happy memory but always the feeling of meditation remained.
Finding the time was the problem not the inspiration. With a full time job, a family, an old house that needed repair and a garden to maintain there was not a lot of spare time and often on days off from work I would wake up at 4.a.m. and instantly feel the inspiration to do three or four hours of writing before the family woke up.
Finding the time was the problem not the inspiration. With a full time job, a family, an old house that needed repair and a garden to maintain there was not a lot of spare time and often on days off from work I would wake up at 4.a.m. and instantly feel the inspiration to do three or four hours of writing before the family woke up.
Peter E. Upton
I had written down all the messages we received from mediums over the years in case we ever forgot them. I had also written down all of the unusual events that had happened to me and thoughts that had occurred to me during those years for the same reason. Then when I went to India I wrote long letters home recalling everything that was happening. My sister-in-law read these letters and said I should turn them into a book. Two mediums had already told me that I would go on to write a book that would bring comfort to bereaved people but I had never really believed them; I was not a writer. It was the enthusiasm of my sister-in-law for the letters from India that really awoke my own enthusiasm for the project. The journey through India provided the chronological framework and some lighter moments for the book into which I wove the spiritual story.
I didn't want to write a book that was purely spiritual because not only would it only appeal to a limited audience but more importantly real life is more colourful and occurs on many levels even for people on the most spiritual of searches and I wanted the book to reflect this.
I didn't want to write a book that was purely spiritual because not only would it only appeal to a limited audience but more importantly real life is more colourful and occurs on many levels even for people on the most spiritual of searches and I wanted the book to reflect this.
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