Derbyshire chakras

 

"I'm gonna shut down my chakra, shift Shiva off my shelf
Take down my tie-dyes, my Tibetan bells
Cool down my karma with a can of O.P.T
Ain't no call for Casteneda in my Frontline library

'Cause there's one thing I know, Lord above
I ain't goin'a go
I ain't goin'a Goa
Ain't goin'a Goa now
I ain't goin'a Goa
Ain't goin'a Goa now

Yeah, people in the house” 

Well, that was until I met Debra and Ross, this time in Whaley Bridge. Alabama 3, The Brixton band who wrote the Sopranos theme song summarised my prior sentiments, but then with Debra’s  ‘A Year Out', it all changes.

Debra and I first knew each other from blogging and then I met her in Amsterdam one time when I was over there on business, She was writing a novel, and I’d joined NaNoWriMo, so we swapped our screeds and I was immersed in her story of a time in Goa, west coast India.

Debra single-handedly encouraged me to finish my first novel - The Triangle - which is by now on its 3rd Revision and has sold thousands of copies. Debra paused her own writing, resuming again when she lived in Paris, but by then it was a different story. 

Now, we sat together in the candlelit roof space of a delightful Inn, sipping beers and engrossed in conversations about writing and photography. 

Those that know me will realise I’d brought a few Ed Adams books along, but soon discovered that Debra’s writing had experienced the same jittery anguish as me, us both having once joined different creative writing circles. {cue: Dan Dang Daaaang!} 

We’d both experienced that fluttery moment when the experts pile in with passive-aggressive suggestions like: ‘Have you ever imagined that first chapter as a blank page?’ ‘Are you going to do something with that fight scene?’ And  ’That hero wasn’t very likeable, was he?’ Even ‘Was there supposed to be a hidden meaning?’

We’d both discovered the unreported downside of some book review covens.

Yet here, in the midst of the Peaks, we decided it was about time for ’The Goa Book’ to see the light of day. Brad, Krish, the boy with the tea urn, Sara on the tube train and Zennish Motorcycle Maintainer Tom. They all need to be let out into the world, having spent many days musing inside the pages of Debra's almost finished novel.

I said I’d have a quick bash at a Goa-beachside cover, with Sara, which is here:

And I know, but this is the least spliffy of my cover designs. I can’t easily add a tag-line (my MacBook hasn’t got all the software loaded), although it would have to be ‘I smoke my friends down to the filter’ or similar. The choice of a typewriter font was deliberate.

But now for some Liverpool sunshine.