Messenger From The Summer Of Love
By David Echt

Short Description of Messenger From The Summer Of Love

It is 1967 and Trevor is on a quest that is unclear, even to him. Guided by a series of omens that range from a radiant appearance of a mystical young man at a Dylan concert to an unexpected psychic reading. Through these experiences, he is being shown a path. All of these omens are telling him to go north to San Francisco. “There is something waiting for you,” the psychic tells him.

Laura, the love of his life, suddenly walks out on Trevor - leaving him restless and despondent. He realizes he must do something to get out of his depression, so he decides to leave his life behind and take a journey. What begins as a simple road trip becomes more of a journey in consciousness than it is in miles.

Eventually Trevor lands in San Francisco where he discovers reason why this was called ‘The Summer of Love’. There he finds to divine source for the inspiration.

Interview With The Author

Why did you decide to write a book?

It’s based on an idea that I first had over thirty years ago.

Back in the late sixties, I had an intuition that the Summer of Love was brought about by the birth of an Avatar. I took that initial inspiration and expanded it. I used a lot of personal experiences to fill the pages, from places I’ve lived, moments with Rama, to my first acid trip. Some of it is very personal stuff. I had the luxury of hiding behind a veil of fiction.

What did you learn by writing a book?

It’s really hard!!

I’ve heard it said that writing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. That’s true! I would have an idea and then labor for hours trying to figure out how to make it work. It can be a challenge simply getting two characters to meet or creating a kitschy conversation that won’t put the reader to sleep.

Then again, sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night with an idea that I had to write down before I forgot it.

There were times when I sat down to write and the ideas came to me as fast as I could type it. In my book there is a story about a Vietnam Vet who recounts his experiences in the war. It just came to me; I can’t say that I thought of it.

The whole acid trip just came to me. I never even had to edit that chapter.

I also had the assistance of someone who helped me with editing and taught me about writing. It’s good to bounce your ideas off of someone who knows what they are doing.

I’m extremely dyslexic and have a difficult time reading. So I had some serious obstacles to overcome.

Do you have any suggestions to help others publish their books?

Good luck? Like most businesses today, corporate publishers are buying out small publishers. These bigger fish aren’t that interested in creative writing. The bottom line is cash. They are looking mainly for someone with name recognition. Elian Gonzalez has a better chance than an unknown first time writer.

At the same time technology has made it affordable to publish small numbers of books. There’s a way to distribute self-published books but I will leave that for someone with more experience.

I think if you are looking for either a publisher or a literary agent I suggest that you write the best cover letter that you are capable of writing. This is all they have to judge your work by. If they like your cover letter, they’ll ask to see a sample of your writing.

“Query & Cover Letters” by John Wood is a good place to start. In it, you will find some good examples of successful cover letters.

How do you inspire yourself to write?

How do you inspire yourself to go to work every day? I don’t know what the secret is. I wanted to reach people who might not be interested in taking a meditation class. I didn’t want to preach to the choir- I wanted to reach a new audience.

I had the luxury of not working while I wrote my book “Messenger from the Summer of Love”. For me it was a full time job and I approached it like a job. I got up everyday and went to my office to work on writing.

My inspiration really came from within; there is nothing I can put my finger on. I just knew I had to do it. The seed was planted when a famous psychic told me in a reading that I would someday write. I didn’t believe it at first, but after a while the idea stuck. Then I decided to pursue this long buried story idea.

The character of "The Master" was mostly based on Rama. Sometimes I would feel his energy in the room with me while I was writing. I didn't expect this. There were other influences too: Adi Da Samraj and Zen Master Hyunoong Sunim.

Do you have any funny stories about things that happened while you were writing the book?

Rama used to say, if you’re doing something important that every force in the universe will come after you.

My computer went down several times. I even had to re-format my hard-drive two or three times. I also got very ill while I was writing. It’s pretty serious business.

I guess that’s not very funny.

Do you have anything else that you would like to add?

The feeling of knowing that people have read my work is unsurpassed. It’s a great high- it’s totally worth any pain that I endured. Sometimes I psychically feel people reading the book and enjoying it.