Book Progress

I'm now in the last stages of the Visible Mantra book. The text is finalised (though errors keep leaping out at me rather alarmingly) and I'm more or less happy with all of the images. I need to check the indexing and bibliography for consistency today, but it's probably only a day's work. This evening I'll pick up the cover art from my artist friend (my first glimpse which I'm a bit nervous about - I hope I like it!). I need to have it scanned at hi resolution, and then create the cover itself.

Then I'm done... years, months, and weeks have telescoped into days.

My other project on reprinting Plato's Cratylus along with Kūkai's Shōji jissō gi ('Explaining Sound, word, reality') and Thomas Kasulis's article linking the two of them is going well. I have the permissions I need (at a price I can afford!) and I've commissioned Dr Margaret Magnus of Margo's Magical Letter Page to write an introduction to Plato and Sound Symbolism. I will write an introduction to Kūkai and some background on Shōji jissō gi. I'm thinking about soliciting a celebrity forward from someone. I'm excited about this bringing together of East and West. I don't expect to sell many copies, but it's a book I'd love to read!

Kūkai is much on my mind as the Visible Mantra project comes to fruition. I'm a non-fiction writer rather than a story teller, but I love the story of Kūkai's journey to China and it lacks a really good retelling in English. Yet another book I want to read, but may end up having to try to write!