Author Interviews . . . page 2 X
Q: Did you develop an outline and work from
there?
A: Actually no. Other than the idea of Earth and Eyespell and Mystic
Management I really had very little idea where things were heading. I
know that sounds strange. I would sit down to write and "poof," there it
was piece by piece. It was almost as if the book was channeled . . .
well, I suppose parts of it definitely were. I would finish writing and
look at the text to discover some very strange phraseology, things put
in a way that I simply would not write them. Plus a lot of the ideas did
not appear to be mine exactly . . . at least not in a totally conscious
way. So I decided that the collective unconscious and beyond were at
work here. Even the revision was strange. I tried to update Eyespell
many times to absolutely no avail. Then one day (I guess in about
2006 or 2007) I sat down and out came the Mystic Manager with
far more detail about Eyespell than the original. Even more interesting
was the development of the chapters entitled "In The Family Room." I
have no idea where the technique came from but it allowed me to answer
all the questions that were left hanging in the first book.
Now here's the really unusual part of the story. One afternoon I happened upon a book tucked away on a bottom shelf at our local Barnes and Noble Booksellers. This book had a somewhat intriguing title, From Elsewhere: The Subculture of Those Who Claim To Be of Non-Earthly Origin. I had never heard of the author, Scott Mandleker, PhD, nor had I ever considered the subject of extraterrestrials seriously. In fact, somewhere around the launch of the first Apollo moon flight in 1969 I met Adrian Clark, a NASA engineer working at Huntsville Space Flight Center. He was promoting his book, Cosmic Mysteries of the Universe. Adrian proposed lots of other worldly theories including much biblical reference and the concept that dinosaurs were seeded on the earth by aliens. I dismissed him as basically nuts and hoped he was a better engineer than philosopher.
Now back to From Elsewhere. The subject of extraterrestrials presented as fact rather than fiction makes me reasonably uncomfortable; actually that's an understatement. Regardless, something possessed me to read Mandelker's book. I plodded along the pages with relative detachment, skepticism, amusement, and probably a bit of "yeah right" thrown in. Somewhere toward the end of From Elsewhere my comfort zone cracked a bit; okay, it hit me like that proverbial ton of bricks: the main character in my book, Eyespell and now Mystic, exactly fit Mandelker's profile of an extraterrestrial accidently stranded on the earth! My fictional character fit the profile of Mandleker's "Wanderer." Worse yet, many of the characteristics of my supposedly fictional world, Eyespell, fit Mandelker's description of "other densities" almost exactly! Understand, I knew nothing of these things while writing Eyespell. Of course, I immediately contacted Scott Mandelker and he agreed to read my manuscript. He liked it and was not even slightly surprised at its consistency with his non-fictional account of extraterrestrials living on the earth. I think the manuscript sat in my drawer for a year or so before I even thought about publishing it. I was clearly a victim of "The Kookamonga Effect," fear of the unknown.
Q: So what finally encouraged you to go ahead
and publish the book?
A: First of all I figured I could keep the whole extraterrestrial thing
a secret. My book could certainly hide in the guise of fiction. However,
without sounding too uppity I honestly believe Mystic, and
Eyespell before it, present something archetypical. Parts of the
manuscript must come from what Jung describes as the collective
unconscious. Ultimately what's important about this book is that it was
written. To paraphrase His Holiness The Dali Lama, to recognize
compassion is not enough, we must act compassionately. And ultimately
that's what The Mystic Manager is about, acting compassionately
in a world of radical change, a world where sustainability, the constant
harvest, appears to be impossible to maintain. Extraterrestrial maybe,
spiritual definitely.
Q: So, any hopes or dreams when comes to
The Mystic Manager?
A: I'd like to discuss this with Oprah some day, really. When I
completed The Eyespell Experiment I was so taken with the
process itself I was thrilled just to have it in print; I don't think I
cared if anyone actually read it or not. Although, I have received a
pretty steady $37 or so in royalties per quarter for the last several
years. So somebody is reading it. For Mystic I am creating the
tipping point, that place where it goes really big. The message is too
important for me to hoard. My biggest fear is not being able to
personally and each day live up to what I have written. At $37 a quarter
I could falter without getting caught. I am ready to go public . . . so
"they" tell me.
Q: Do you think The Mystic Manager would make a good movie?
A: Absolutely. But, I would change the title back to the original, The Eyespell Experiment; I think it's more movie sounding. The imagery should really appeal to people like Lucas and Spielberg and Sean Connery would be the perfect Leo. I could take a sabbatical and move to Hollywood to write the screen play. And then we could open a store called the Eyespell Connection and offer all kinds of things in the colors of the Eyespellian light corridors. Maybe this part should be under hopes and dreams, your last question. But I do think there is the possibility for a really cool movie. I would have to decide whether or not I would be willing to "sell out" and somehow emphasize sex and violence . . . not! Back in 2001 Kevin Spacey starred in a movie called K-PAX. In some small way that movie smacked of Eyespell. If I recall there was no sex, no violence, and a positive message; oh yes, and Spacey was an alien and needed to get back to his planet. So it can be done.