- writing in markdown, using WYSIWYG editor Texts (it holds fairly high quality, but few features, and it's portable which in my experience makes for stability);
- added a few postprocessing steps in a homebrew 88-line python script (type setting, image layouting, etc.);
- looked at some self-publishing sites online, understood nothing and left it alone for a while;
- chose typeface Minion. At first glance for a rookie like me, Times New Roman looked a lot better than Crimson. Which I still think it is, but Minion was yet better. I also tried a Things like Verdigris, but the serifs were too much for small letters;
- most of the images are grayscale, and all could print in grayscale if necessary;
- sprinkled some pages with pictures of people I write about in an attempt to make the text more appealing, but not sure if I succeeded;
- gave the chapter to my fiancé, who read the first two pages. I won't be put off by that, (there's hardly a more dismal critic on the planet).
In all, trial and epic fail! That didn't stop me before, won't stop me from following through this time either.
Next chapter should be a lot easier, the first is the most important. I'll make an introduction chapter as well, but not until I've written more. That chapter I have to nail. Chapters two to five are on remote viewing, precognition, (micro) telekinesis and healing. Then I'll write the introduction. Then an in-between chapter on skepticism, related scientific theories (which will involve a pinch of quantum mechanics, at which point the skeptics will roll their eyes even worse), education today, and why it's not in the mainstream research and media yet, and why half of the parapsychologists are skeptical towards the topics in the following chapters. And then finally some speculative chapters on OBE, NDE, survival of consciousness and reincarnation.
The ending chapter will be some type of summary, but I'll refrain from being overly speculative on presence of God. It does however seem increasingly unlikely that a multi-dimensional universe, where you most likely travel to another realm when the body dies, has no creator nor higher authority.
On the other hand, the eastern mystics, who are much more versed in the inner workings of the mind, does not acknowledge a dualistic, separate God, just one within. What christians would refer to as "holy ghost." Or a consciousness underlying matter, which sounds pretty much the same to me. The distinguished parapsychologist Dean Radin holds this belief. Anyhow, that's for later. Now's chapter two.
