Get Rich Quick

If only it wasn't such bad karma, murder would be a great get-rich-quick scheme. And you wouldn't even have to be the murderer to profit from it. Just be a mistress and have the right opportunity channel to publish a book about your foolish choices in boyfriend material.

The San Francisco Examiner ran a story about Amber Frey's memoir flying off the shelves! Woo-hoo! Kiss a murderer and tell. Cha-ching.

I'll be upfront about it; there are some sour grapes here. I am trying to put on my Cosmic Consciousness Thinking Cap to work my way through the Valley of the Shadow of Envy.

I spent two years writing a sexy, edgy, spiritually uplifting novel that one seasoned book editor and author called "the best first novel I've read in a decade." But I have yet to find a literary agent who feels the same way. Most of them won't even read it because it deals with reincarnation, soul mates, and enlightened sex.

Amber Frey just had to schmooze with Scott Peterson.

Books about woo-woo sneak onto the best-seller list.The Five People You Meet in Heaven has been a New York Times best seller list fixture for months, just like Celestine Prophecy was. Still, agents I have approached have been anything but optimistic about how they could sell "such an original work" as mine.

Despite all the writing advice I have been fed over the years, I have not found that being original or breaking new ground has brought me any job security at all. It's the old reliable formula that works, like unwittingly falling in love/lust with a future convicted murderer and telling all about it in sordid, but hastily written detail (never lose sight of the window of opportunity.)

I just haven't written a book like that. I don't murder people and I don't glamorize murder by profiting from it. Meanwhile, as you know if you've read the rest of this blog, I don't even believe in murder. Not literally. I believe Laci and Conner Peterson are still alive in another dimension. That doesn't excuse Scott for anything (assuming he’s truly guilty) but it does change the nature of the crime.

People who have had near-death experiences often report that during their life review they feel all the pain they ever inflicted on anyone. Not only that, but they also feel the entire ripple effect of how their thoughts and deeds affected anyone and everyone touched. So, a murderer is automatically subjected to the pain he caused not only the one he killed, but all those affected. Mere execution seems like a piece o’ cake compared to that, except that execution also hastens the life review.

But back to a point that I keep hammering at: our media culture is much more intent on giving up the gore, the lurid stories, and the outrages than in serving up healthier alternatives in consciousness.