Yet Another Iteration

Happy Birthday Dad!

Yesterday was Dad's birthday, and I sent out the "feels almost done" back cover copy to Peg and the kids for review. We had a nice Sunday dinner together, where I showed them what I thought was "almost done". They had great feedback, so I made changes and sent in email again to them late in the afternoon.

I sure hope that subsequent books are easier to put together than this one in terms of all this cover design etc.

I'm also having second thoughts about the whole thing.

The more this feels like a commercial venture, the less it feels like what I really wanted to do when I put this story down in writing. While I really do view this book as something that I am supposed to "give" away, I also have a desire to use this book as a way to transition my "mission" in life - my career - to that of a writer.

It's a really funny place that I am sitting right now - on a fence between a couple of different "fields", pulled by desire into one field, pushed by practicality (or something) back the other way.

There's a really magical little corner of some land in Kansas where I archery hunt for whitetail. It is truly a corner, where 4 different quarter-sections come together in a single fencepost. Each of the 4 quarters that come together right there offer a different habitat, and it is a favorite "posting ground" for the bucks in the fall. Lots of rubs, and they seem to roam around that space like gladiators.

I often sit in a tree that lets me watch that corner. The tree is right on one of the fencelines, looking east. There is a really magical feeling right there - as if you can feel the tension of the bucks that roam close by listening for battles, casting for scent.

Right now with my writing career, I feel a bit like I am watching that corner. Sitting on a fenceline, looking east toward the rising sun. Wondering what the day will bring, wondering which of the 4 quarters I might hunt in this next day, wondering where the magic will come from this morning...