A comment

Anonymous wrote:

Rory

I very much enjoyed your book, don't take it out of print, you'll be depriving others. I found these blogs because I was interested in the what happened next bit, you're an interesting guy, you remind me of people i met when i was young and studenty. I guess people probably tell you all the time to settle down and be normal, perhaps you make them feel uncomfortable in some way, I don't know. I'd say to ignore such advice.

You certainly made me review the decisions I've made in my life and their consequences - I would love to have adventured more, but I've tried to make a happy for home for children, and whilst you can certainly be adventurous with children, you can't do what you want when you want, which sometimes is a bit of a pain :)

I like the fact you do refereeing, you don't fit the character profile that most referees I've come across have - I'm still playing at 46, with lads more than half my age, but I love the slightly surreal, edgy, adrenaline filled experience of a match, it takes me out of the polite, gentle world I normally inhabit, and challenges me not to be the sad old guy, but still a functioning, competent, even talented, cog in the team wheel. I'm guessing you get similar enjoyment (not the old guy bit, just the 'out on the field running about and calming grown men down' bit).

Anyway sorry, I hadn't intended to talk about me, i meant to say well done, you're a good writer, I loved your book (apart from the extremely new age bit at the end - not my cuppa tea but then that's just me), write another book, people will enjoy it and you might quite enjoy doing it.

All the best

Mike


And Rory writes in reply:

Nice one Mike, really appreciate you taking the time to write and post such a lovely message: sure do make the whole thing a little more tolerable. Thanks for the kind words and encouragement: because of that, I will keep the book in print, even though sales are slowly trickling down towards the "zero per month" mark as we speak. But it must be there for a reason. I did have a vague idea that taking it out of "self-published print" might help me find an agent but that's probably just wishful thinking. Anyways, as the maybe-non-mythical immortal Indian holy man Babaji said to his equally outlandishly unbelievable sister one time in Autobiography of a Yogi: "The Lord has spoken his wish through thy lips" - and that's good enough for me.

Which is all just a rather tongue-in-cheek way of saying, wow, I'll take a sign from anywhere. And also to provide a nice segue into my next point, which is that - man, I'm sorry but I reckon if I do write another book - they're two which niggle away at my brain - it'll probably hold no interest for you at all. If you thought the end of Discovering Beautiful was New Agey...well, can you imagine what the sequel'll be? I guess I have a notion to tell the tale of "what happened next" - but it really was all spirituality from beginning to end (apart from the refereeing and squash and women). I think that's par for the course, really: you embark on a search for joy and truth and happiness and love, that's probably where you're gonna end up: meditation and spirituality and some horrendous realisation that, omg, this God thing really is about the best thing there is - 'cept it's nothing like all those crazy religious dudes have told us. Anyway...

I dig that you're out there Mike. Sorry I probably don't have another book in me that would appeal to you (although the other idea is to write a full-out autobiographical musings account of my romantic history and thoughts and ideas around that; probably anonymous) but, hey ho, you gots to be yourself. It was nice being 23. It's even nicer being 36. Contentment and happiness are more consistent. Kids are probably a really groovy thing: at least, that's what everyone tells me. Maybe give it a try one day...

Cheers for all. I shall keep you posted on the books.

All t'best,
Rory