Eastward Bound
Welcome to my digital home and my fourth post. Topics today include traveling, writing conference, and Tigers. First a book status.
One month ago today I gave version 1.6 of “Manners” to the wonderful person who agreed to take me on as a client and edit the book. We met for the first time, face to face, sitting in our preferred public “office” – a Peets Coffee. Meeting her, I felt even more convinced she was the right person. She’ll do the three levels of editing – developmental, copyright and line edits. Once I make the changes, I’ll send version 2.0 to the many wonderful beta reviewers – people in my target audience - who’ve agreed to read it. Then the fun part begins. The publishing process. And this takes me to this conference I recently attended.
The California Writers Club held its annual conference in my hometown of Pleasanton April 13th. A family friend encouraged me to attend, herself a writer and book publisher. She said I may learn a few things about the publishing world. She was correct. There was so much valuable information that, as the saying goes, I felt like a mosquito in a nudist camp. I concluded that it is important to me to get this right and have the book done well. Whether I self-publish or not, it has to look professional. If it looks tacky or sloppy or unprofessional, then I can expect to be visited by the ghost of my mother, tsking her way through the myriad of issues that aren’t right. “If you dress sharp for an interview, why wouldn’t your book look just as sharp?” she may ask.
I posted on facebook recently about achievement in the face of great challenge. I suggested that the benchmark for the ultimate feet of achievement was the Apollo moon program. Last Sunday was another incredible achievement. Tiger Woods winning the Masters. After 10 years, four back surgeries, and an pot pourri of very poor choices and bad behavior, the 43 year-old Woods wore the green jacket again. Regardless of your judgments about his character, you have to admire the sheer tenacity of someone like that. I decided I wasn’t going to whine anymore about little bodily ailments.
At long last we embark on a three-week journey West. First stop is Vietnam. Considering the weather when we arrive – well, I have an ear worm. Robin Williams’ funny performance as a DJ in Vietnam talking about the weather forecast. HOT! REALLY HOT. Then we learned it’s burning season so looks like we’ll be wearing masks. I’ll be thinking about my Dad who was stationed there during the war (one of the so-called civilian advisors), and for some reason I will reminisce about that day when my best friend Lino and I, on our 16th birthday, went to the Post Office to register for the draft. At first we thought we were cool and all grown up. Then we mused - “what we would do if we had to go to this far away place called Vietnam?”
Then we’re off to Singapore. Singapore is about eating. We’ll pay homage to Anthony Bourdain and will eat where he and President Obama ate. Finally, the true vacation part of the trip will take us to Bali, one of those exotic-sounding places I always wanted to go. I consider this trip the kickoff to our retirement bucket list plan, though Tanya isn’t retired and I am not really retired. I like to act like it.