WUI - Writing while under the influence....of possession

General Discussion
1

Something overcame me again last night, I really wanted to figure out who keeps semi-possessing me like this. I have a feeling it is Aiyrn, my familiar, because he always goes missing when these feelings of powerful control come over me and he was sent to me to aid me with matters that require creative thinking so, put two and two together here. When I feel this way, his name always immediately comes to mind and I honestly have never sat down and said is that you? Because when I enter this state of mind and when I even think about asking questions as to the identity of my possessor something says “Shut up, don’t ask questions, just write what comes to mind.”

I feel as if there is no time for questioning things and I do not feel threatened when this male force overtakes me as I feel relief, solace, and wisdom overcome me. I do not feel one single shread of fear. I know that I am in good hands. So I ignore my human needs and just write like there will be no tomorrow, as if I have a deadline and must have a certain amount of new content written by tomorrow. Last night, I felt like I was no longer alone in my body and the urge to write instantly took priority in my mind. I stopped everything else I was doing, pulled up Microsoft Word and began to type. I was amazed to find at 4:00 a.m. this morning that my book in progress went from being 18 pages long to 81 pages long in just 7 hours.

Writing a book was not my first plan for sharing information with others but it is something I have had on the backburner for quite some time. Before, the reason I never fully persued this was not because of procrastination, it was honestly because I was afraid I lacked experience and enough helpful content that make a book useful to others, but it has been 6 years since I last got the urge to write and now I do know that I have more than doubled my magickal experiences since then and have also expanded to incorporate darker magick into my path so now, armed with more experience than ever before and a trusty and helpful familiar at my side that has a knack for spurring spontaneous creativity, I feel confident that I could actually handle writing a book now that would actually be useful and not just full of theories and useless facts that every other author has already wrote about in their books.

I was looking over the submission guidelines today for submitting to BALG a proposal to become a published author under their label. I am getting ready to download to the author’s guide and form a proposal letter for Eric. I hope they will give me a fair chance, as I am sure they receive many proposal letters a year and most of them are probably not the kind of materials they are looking for, mainly submissions from those just hoping to get famous or well known without actually having anything useful to contribute to the BALG movement. I’m sure all publishing companies have to deal with that.

Based on the criteria, my book so far, seems to have each of the 3 requirements for submitting a book to BALG for publishing consideration. I guess I will just have to try and it see. The worst that could happen is that I get rejected and they tell me to try again when I have more content that they find useful. I don’t care either way, if they don’t accept me I will find another source. I know it says they will accept a proposal letter even if your book is not done yet but if I do that, I may end up adding something even more useful afterward sending them my letter, but something tells me to go ahead and read over the author’s guide and contact them anyway. I feel like there is a strictly set window of opportunity here for some reason.

Should I go ahead and file for copyright of my book before contacting them? You don’t need to have a completed book to file for copyright, the government only requires you to download a copy of like 10 pages from your book anyway in order to meet the copyright requirements. I don’t think Eric would be dishonest, but people have been screwed like this before and I genuinely don’t trust anyone due to past experiences in my life.

But the book I am writing is not for beginners, I feel that there is only so much you can teach a beginner before moving on to the more advanced subjects and there are probably like 100 authors or more out there that have already covered the beginner basics, so I feel like if I did a beginners book I would be covering the same old shit, different author. This book is for intermediate magicians. I will not reveal anything more than that. But I also have plans for a book and grimoire for adept magicians as well.

2

I don’t know much about modern copyright law BUT the copyright should exist for the person who first wrote an idea, so e-mail it to yourself via a Gmail account you won’t be closing any time soon, so that the headers and other stuff there should act like the olden days when bands would send themselves new song lyrics via recorded post (and obviously not open the letter) to establish ownership and dates.

I think I’ve heard, been PM’d here and elsewhere, and also e-mailed, every single criticism of BALG the entity there is, but never anything implying they fuck with the rights of creative people who submit stuff to them.

It just doesn’t even fit with anything I for one have seen about these guys - I’ve only had the smallest contact and yet they’ve treated me with generosity and respect.

Most of the criticisms boil down to whining that they stopped magick being the sole possession of various orders, classism (E.A. didn’t go to college! Oh Noes!), or whining about their hairstyles ffs…

And you IMO would be one excellent author, and a star in the occult firmament, so… :wink:

3

I say go for it. Eric is pretty legit in my eyes. Anytime I’ve ever talked to him he has been straight up with me and has given me the utmost respect. You come across as someone smart and down to earth and I think the occult community especially the lhp side needs more people like this in the lime light. I hope it all pans out and good luck to ya!

4

In the event that for whatever reason you couldn’t work anything out with BALG, at the risk of telling you something you may already know there is a host of indie esoteric/occult publishing houses, many of whom are interested in perusing manuscripts even from new authors. This link is someone who specializes in fine press book bindings. Down the page on the right are links to publishers they do bindings for including BALG.

[url=http://balkansarcanebindings.blogspot.com/]http://balkansarcanebindings.blogspot.com/[/url]

It’s a good reference list for potential publishers of your work. Another option is DIY with CreateSpace or Lulu, but CreateSpaces royalties to their authors are dismal.

Good luck!

5

Well thank you! I will go for it then and start reading the submissions guide.

6

Hello.Hope you won’t mind if I chime in.

You’re awesome.I struggle with the same thing.Because whatever I write,there is an overwhelming pressure pushing me,that makes me constantly quit it.

I think that what’s happening is a perfectly natural consequence of your excellent pact with Paimon.Or am I getting the familiar wrong?

So surely,a submission to BALG,to share your magickal knowledge is not only something you should do,it’s your duty.I’ve talked to you a lot,and you’ve taught me a lot.And we both belong to a movement that seeks to eliminate restrictions on teaching magical knowledge.

So go for it.

7

RavensAscent, I like numbers, and did you know that since last Saturday alone you’ve typed in 9,043 words on this forum, not including hyperlinks or any quoted content: that’s 15 pages in a standard Word document, at TNR size 12 with standard margins, though of course rather more if it was line-spaced as a print manuscript.

That was the word count from the posts you did since the 15th, 44 posts, and they were of varied lengths, giving a mean average of 205 words/post.

Assuming they’re reaonably representative of your posting history (complete with occasional very short or long posts as outliers), that means the 657 posts you have here at time of writing this would be an estimated 134,685 words in total, since the first post you made here on 28th May.

Now that may sound weird but when we think “write a book” it sounds daunting, but the fact is, you’ve pretty much already written two books (given 75,000 words as the top limit for a non-fiction manuscript, and 50,000 as the lower limit: source) - in less than three months on here alone!! :slight_smile:

And almost all of those posts had well-written insights, experiences, or helpful guidance in, only a small number were questions.

I can’t know for sure, but I’m guessing you never even thought of that as writing, as such?

Most people on forums don’t, because it’s a conversation, or when we share a new experience, it’s talking to people.

I think you’ll find writing an essay or a full book as simple and relatively pain-free as those posts (an estimated eighth of a million words) if you keep it as a conversation?

Imagine the person or small group of people you’re writing the books for, flesh them out, imagine having these conversations with them… well it’s one way to write, anyway. :slight_smile:

8

Thank you Arcane and Eva. I went ahead and submitted my proposal this morning. Not sure how long they take to respond but I imagine it will be a few weeks before I hear back.

Actually, I have thought about that recently, as much as I constantly write that if I can do that here or on facebook, then writing a book should be no different but I was only thinking in terms of content and variety of subjects. I never stopped to think about the number figures you added up. Wow, I really am a jabber jaws LOL.

I have acutally been writing this book in a conversational way. I get so tired of reading books, feeling as if the author is speaking AT you and not TO you. I truly enjoy having conversations with others. Where I live, not many open magicians around here but we have a high concentration of good ole hillbilly style religious nuts! So I keep to myself here. I literally don’t talk to anyone outside of the internet except for my immediate family (mom, dad, daughter) and they’re all religious too, just a lot more accepting more than the others.

So most of the time, the second I think I have a topic to discuss, I make a post because it gives me another opportunity to learn (which I love) and to chat with others (which is something I lack in my personal life). But since I like to chat, I have been writing this book as if having a conversation with the potential future reader. Asking questions which prompts them to pause for a second and think of an answer, the kind of questions that makes a reader talk to themselves, answering the questions outloud instead of in their head. But that seems more personal and engaging to me.

9

Just go for it, RavensAscent! :slight_smile:

Been thinking of writing a book myself, not only because I love to write, but there’s so much misconceptions and misunderstandings about my area of experience. And a lot of dogma, too. Been thinking about this for some years now, but doesn’t really know where to start just yet.

10

Do you have a favourite non-fiction book?

See how the author starts that book, what he or she uses as structure - you can model yourself on other people’s work because your content and ideas will be unique, but when you’re holding a book that’s been published, ideally something that’s well-respected, you also know that formula was acceptable.

I’ve analysed a number of fiction books during one of my paid jobs and even the ones I most enjoyed for originality had a specific structure, almost a template really, that the author follows again and again. But it works, because the flesh over these basic bones is different every time!

Just as most modern music has a verse - chorus - verse structure, there are simple principles you can use, that can be found in works you already own.

Something that seems extremely popular these days (also seen in TV shows) is to begin the book with a very dramatic or compelling scene, to grab the reader’s mind right away, and then backtrack to how you reached that point. This method can easily be used in a grimoire or instructional book.

These are just my opinions, of course, and there are plenty of “How To” guides for writing non-fiction, courses, and plenty of info online as well.

11

[quote=“succupedia, post:9, topic:6052”]Just go for it, RavensAscent! :slight_smile:

Been thinking of writing a book myself, not only because I love to write, but there’s so much misconceptions and misunderstandings about my area of experience. And a lot of dogma, too. Been thinking about this for some years now, but doesn’t really know where to start just yet.[/quote]

Just start by brainstorming some on ideas on paper. I think you could make an interesting book. I have read a handful of articles on your blog as I have it saved to my list of prefered blogs on blogger, so each time you write a new entry, it shows up in my recommended reading list on there. You write about interesting and intelligent subjects that really get the reader to think outside of the box.

12

I haven’t written there since March, because of more commitment to this forum lately. But I have some idea of the layout of the book, and I also want to use sketched art to describe the workings and appearance of my ladies. There’s no vivid images of them either, so it would fit in very well in my future book. But I’m no skilled painter or artists as my two brothers are, unfortunately.

Yeah, I might have a different approach in my writingstyle by thinking “out of the box” when I explain the dynamics and the mechanics of things. :slight_smile:

I have a late vacation this upcoming week, so I might start writing tomorrow at a bakery I use to visit whenever I have free time to spare. The environment is just the right place to start writing. :slight_smile:

13

You could learn a specific style, such as Art Nouveau, which doesn’t rely on realistic portrayals, and you can use stylistic tricks to avoid the difficult things like shoulders, hands, and feet.

Remember the Egyptians figured this out early, that bits of the human body were damnably hard to get right, and created an aesthetically-pleasing and accessible style of art that avoided all the tough stuff!

And Art Nouveau is a great style for illiustrations, because you can work a decorative frame round the image, making it fit in with the text.