For the Love of Words: A Writer's Tale -Part Seven

Oct 20, 2024

Harmony sinks deeper into the recesses of the soul and takes its strongest hold there, bringing grace also to the body and mind as well. Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything. Plato (429-347)

I started writing Tamboura in November 2017. My original plan had been to write a series of short stories, each featuring different aspects of the tamboura’s life. A tamboura is an instrument made from a large gourd. It has a long neck and four strings which, when plucked slowly, create a sustained harmonic resonance that can transport both player and listener into an altered state of consciousness.

In the foreword to Tamboura, Rajesh David writes:

The tamboura is the fundamental sound of Indian classical music, revered by musicians. It has prime place in a musician’s house and is treated with great respect as a member of the family. Its sound brings joy, peace and harmony to the household. It is truly a divine instrument.

I was given my Tamboura in 1969, by Donovan, and it has a very special place in my life, I first experienced the transcendent state while playing it, and regard the tamboura as a catalyst on my spiritual journey.

George Harrison gave the tamboura to Donovan while they were visiting Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in Rishikesh in 1968. I used to play the tamboura with one of my husband’s bands when we lived in Bristol in 1970. I didn’t actually know how to play it then, and plucked it like a double base, accompanying songs like Season of the Witch and Tomorrow Never Knows. I learned to play the Tamboura when I first visited an ashram in India. But I don’t want to give too much of the book away here!

I carved out time to write regularly, ensuring that I scheduled at least two writing days a week, and I defended my writing time zealously, refusing to answer the phone or arrange any events. I started writing at 9.00am, and continue until 1.00, taking walks whenever I needed to move or chew something over. Most days I wrote around two thousand words. The words flowed through me, and I loved the feeling of being in that flow state. There is a word in the Welsh language, arwen, which beautifully expresses the spirit of words that we tap into when we write, and connect with at times when we read.

I soon found that the story I was telling was also my story, our story really as my husband is very much part of the tale. I enjoyed researching how a tamboura is made, and what happened when the Beatles visited Rishikesh. I didn’t really plan the book, nor did I write the chapters consecutively. I chose more to write each chapter set in different locations, from Cornwall to the Isle of Skye, Morocco to Afghanistan.

Much of Tamboura is autobiographical, yet some chapters are well-researched fiction, so I had no idea how to place the book. It wasn’t memoir as I was fictionalising even the parts based on my own life. So was it fiction? Yet so much of it was true. I decided it was faction, fiction based on fact, and when I googled ‘literary faction’ I found that such a category does exist. Examples given included In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. (Novelr.org) However it is all a little vague, and other terms come up, like pseudo-fiction, which sounds like a con, or creative non-fiction, which I quite like. So, I continued to write, and to ponder. I don’t like the way we have to pigeon-hole our writing, but everything I read in ‘writerly’ mags and articles emphasised that I had to know what my genre and intended audience are.

At the beginning of 2020 I was ready to launch my book into the world. I’d edited it at least four times, printed it out, read it aloud, chapter by chapter, consulted ‘trusted readers’ to give me feedback and I felt it was as good as I could make it. I’d decided to call it fiction, as that seemed the best choice, and many writers base their fiction on experiences from their own lives.

I bought the Writer’s Year Book 2020 and combed through the copious listings for agents, marking the ones that seemed like a good fit. I worked on my enquiry letter, and submitted my first fifty pages to twenty or so agents in January 2020.

I received the following response from one agent:

Thanks for getting in touch with us. Unfortunately, we are currently not able to take on any new clients at the moment.
If you have an unsolicited manuscript, we would strongly advise you to approach our friend from xxxx (who offers an affordable service (£80 to start) to assess manuscripts and then help build an editorial plan towards consideration for publication. He’s what we call a ‘gem finder’ and has had much success combing slush piles of agencies and getting numerous careers started that have resulted in a Booker Shortlisting…
Keep that pilot light of hope on!
And remember what Beckett said …
Ever Tried
Ever Failed
No Matter
Try Again
Fail Again
Fail Better
We wish you every success.

I really appreciated the encouragement. When I checked out the ‘gem finder’, to my amazement I found that he was based less than twenty miles away from me. Now I live in West Wales, wild, rural and remote, and in my mind all publishing related activities are based in, or near London, so to find anyone remotely connected to a Booker Shortlist so near felt like a sign from the universe.

I called him up, we had a quick chat, and I sent him my first three chapters, the synopsis and my enquiry letter. I awaited his response with bated breath, secretly hoping he would consider my work a gem!

He wrote back in under a week, and his response hit me like a brick. He thought the second chapter read more like a memoir, and yet it was pure fiction, which really confused me. Music and spirituality are key themes which run through Tamboura, along with freedom and motherhood, yet he hadn’t really picked up on any of this from the sample he’d read, and expressed doubts about readers becoming engaged enough to continue reading the book.

I felt completely deflated and could not write a word for weeks.

It was mid-February 2020, and coronavirus was creeping ever closer. The news from China, and Italy was deeply worrying. Everything I read about this new virus frightened me. I knew that I would stand little chance of surviving it, being over seventy with lifelong respiratory issues. On February 25^th, after hearing that there were 322 confirmed cases of Covid in Italy, and 10 deaths, I decided to stay home and stay safe, for as long as it takes.

My family were a bit shocked, and felt I was over-reacting, but my lovely husband could see the sense in my decision, and agreed.

It took another four weeks for the UK government to decide we all needed to stay home.

Each of us will have our own memories of the pandemic, and I am sure we all have mixed emotions. I have always kept a journal, and I decided to write about what I, and my family of three generations, were experiencing during this historic and frightening time.

Our days settled into a simple rhythm, writing, walking, talking on the phone, and occasional Zoom calls. We explored the area we live in, and I observed the minute changes in nature: unfurling ferns; snowdrops, daffodils and bluebells; the arrival of swifts and swallows; the stillness of the skies; the laughter of children playing in the village.

I wrote for hours. I began writing new chapters for Tamboura, exploring it as a memoir. I re-read the feedback I’d been given, and took some of it on board. I noticed that he used an apostrophe for the word ‘phone, and reflected that maybe he was not an ideal reader for a book about spirituality and the music of life.

I moved my journal writing onto my computer, I wanted to document what we were experiencing in this extraordinary time. I knew we were at a threshold, that the pandemic and global lockdown would change our world irrevocably. I imagined future school-children studying 2020—the year the world changed. I even imagined we would speak about Before Covid and After Covid. I became super observant—of nature, the news, my emotions. I wanted to mentally record everything that happened, every day a part of my mind was describing what I was seeing and experiencing. And every day I poured it out into my book, which I called Dairy of a Shielding Yogini.

This definitely was a memoir, and, by the end of January 2021, I knew I should find a way to publish it. For some reason most of the books written about that time are by medics on the front line, or famous people who caught Covid. I felt it was important to tell the story of us ‘ordinary folk.’ Although, whenever I said this to friends and family they told me we are not ‘ordinary,’ but who is? I wrote about how we coped with lockdown, our walks and discoveries, our silent retreat days, the wonderful live-stream events from the ashram, our grandchildren’s schooldays ending abruptly before they took their final exams, how my two daughters coped with running a school and a food shop.

I had no desire to search for an agent again, so I investigated Kindle Publishing, but I didn’t really want to cast my minnow of a book into the vast ocean of Amazon. I wrote to a fellow writer in Lampeter Writers Workshop for advice, as he had produced all our poetry anthologies. He told me that another writer from our group, who had opened a book shop in Aberaeron, also had a small publishing company for books written in and connected to Ceredigion. That sounded perfect, so I wrote to her straight away. Karen Gemma Brewer liked the book, suggested some edits, and agreed that Cowry Publishing would publish it. I was blown away. It was all so simple, delightfully local and very real. I would soon be a published author!

Karen designed the book, and even wrote the foreword. My talented son-in-law designed the cover and Dairy of a Shielding Yogini was published in October 2021.

Here is a short excerpt:

August 12^th – Another storm arrives, while I am studying my teacher’s message for 2020. This time I touch the peace at the heart of the storm—stillness within and wildness without. Lightning and thunder roar and spark overhead, rain cascades, the begonia and iris in the garden tremble. The sky is a symphony of dark and light—the silvery-blue accentuated by the deep thickness of rain-bearing grey that nevertheless contains light. My heart sings. Nature is awe-inspiring. This is a manifestation of God’s supreme energy: magical cloud formations, tumultuous rain, glimpses of azure blue, folds of tender, swirling clouds, every shade from white to darkness—the peace and stillness after the storm passes—the faint rumble of thunder echoing around the hills—the sheets of light that arrive and depart—the zing of energy in the air, in me, in my breath, in my blood. I am filled with gratitude and feel deeply blessed.

So, what happened to Tamboura you are wondering.

Well, one day in July we were walking along the almost deserted seafront in Aberaeron and we met Dic Edwards, my creative writing tutor. As I lay down to sleep that night, I had the sudden realisation that Dic would be the perfect person to give me honest feedback about Tamboura.

I emailed Dic, he suggested that I send him the first three chapters, which I promptly did. Long story short, Dic read the entire book, and really enjoyed it. His feedback gave me the confidence and impetus I needed to work on Tamboura and re-shape it. I worked on the new draft for most of 2021, while also finalising and launching Diary of a Shielding Yogini.

I had established a good routine, where I wrote or edited most mornings, and I was enjoying life as a productive writer. Looking back now I can see how much this period strengthened me as a writer and editor. Holding my first published book in my hands was exhilarating, emotional and totally awesome—the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream.

I received some excellent feedback, and I also noticed something very strange: some of my friends bought the book, and every time I saw them, I was kind of waiting for them to say something —and they never said a word. Well, they may not have read it yet, I told myself. Then, when the silence had lasted several months, I began to think they didn’t like it, and didn’t have the heart to tell me. I longed to ask them what they thought of it, but I just couldn’t.

In January 2022 I attended a book launch at the University, and I asked two of my friends, who have published several poetry anthologies, if they had experienced anything similar. They both rolled their eyes knowingly. One told me that she sent twenty copies of her latest anthology as a gift to friends, and hadn’t heard a word from any of them . ‘So, what do you do?’ I asked her. ‘Just start on the next one,’ she responded, shrugging her shoulders.

This is excellent advice, which is why I am passing it on here. I do find it strange that people do not comment on our writing, but it is a fact. The readers who tell us they enjoyed reading our words are rare and precious. Mostly we write because we are driven to write, and when we offer our work out to the world it can feel like there is no-one there. When I reflect on the many books I have read, and how seldom I’ve made the effort to connect with the author and tell them how their words affected me, or write a review, I do understand the silence. It takes a different kind of effort and generosity of spirit to reflect on, and express, what a book means to us. And most of us do not do it.

It is similar on here on Substack. Many people may read our work, however very few engage by leaving comments (for most of us that is.) And, even though I have the intention to respond to each piece of writing I enjoy, I sometimes cannot find the words.

As writers our work is to write, and polish our work, and then offer it with no strings attached, no expectations, to just write for the joy of writing. It is quite a yogic practice really. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna encourages Arjuna to act free from attachment to results.

That action, which is prescribed by the scriptures,
which is free from all attachments,
performed without passion and without hate,
by one who has no desire for any reward,
is said to be sattvic, or pure.
Bhagavad Gita [18:23]

(Action prescribed by the scriptures is dharmic action, our chosen path in life)

Tamboura was published in January 2023, and the launch took place in UWTSD on January 25^th. I also published it on Kindle, so it would be accessible to readers around the world.

This is the book I was always meant to write, and it feels amazing to have manifested this book from the adventure of my life.

As I wrote Tamboura, I realised what I really wanted to say, and what my intention for the book was. I feel my afterword sums this all up:

Afterword
The effect of Indian music and spiritual philosophy on the minds and culture of western youth in the sixties was profound, and Tamboura opens a window on that effect from the perspective of people who lived through it. The Beatles’ retreat in Rishikesh in 1968 with the Maharishi was historical, and affected thousands of people. The prevalence of LSD in the late sixties, the psychedelic revolution, the process of ‘turning on, tuning in and dropping out’ led many people to begin the search for spiritual meaning and initiated the so-called ‘hippy trail’ to India.
Many people are still searching. Music, and sacred sound, can open the doors of perception within us. We know, in our hearts, that there is more to life, we catch glimpses of wonder and joy, of stillness and serenity. Hatha yoga classes, mindfulness and meditation are popular and help people to find some inner peace. There are many good teachers, and, fortunately for our world, there are a few living enlightened beings who have completed their own journey toward unity and illumine the path for others. My intention, in writing Tamboura, is to give an eye-witness account of what it is like to live in the presence of such a being, and, hopefully, to inspire others to explore their own inner realms.
Listening to, and telling, stories is in our DNA. We were sitting around fires, hearing stories long before screens were invented, and will be long after they are gone. Many tales, like this one, are based on truth, and all story-tellers will use the tools of drama and fiction to bring the facts to life.

Thank you for reading For the Love of Words: A Writer’s Tale, whether you’ve read all seven parts, this final part or a selection. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Nurturing the Light

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