Sunday, April 22, 2012
Retreat: Day 12 (last)
Get three hours to wrestle with my short story, see the problem and write a couple of scenes to fix them. Am not quite through when train arrives in Shelby and I disembark, gas up the Van, and start driving back to Lethbridge.
On the whole, I judge the Retreat a major success. True, I had hoped to be writing more fiction when Mary booked the trip, but it's my own fault for not clearing the decks by that implied deadline that I had to work on work-related writing instead. But I managed to get what might have otherwise been about a month's work of work done in 12 days. This has taken a huge amount of pressure and stress off me, and ultimately, that's the point of the exercise. Hopefully I am now sufficiently back on track with work deadlines that I can in fact have my work completed by the time I go on Study Leave (July 1) and be able to write both my textbook and my novel without too many major distractions.
Retreat: Day 11
Mary tells me to go to the Seattle Art Museum for the afternoon, so I do that. It’s just three blocks away, and it would be crazy for me to keep wasting time on email while I am in another city, especially one I’ve never been to before.
I instantly love Seattle. I desperately want to go to the Café Nervosa, but am handicapped by it not being a real place. But that’s the tone of the whole city. I can definitely see why people move here. I feel invigorated just walking through the streets in spite of the rain and cool temperatures.
And the Art Museum! It is middle of the afternoon and jammed packed with people. Not school kids this time, but adults of all ages. If this is typical of the turnout, then Seattle is one art-loving city. The current exhibit is Gauguin and Polynesian art…I find Gauguin kind of okay, and when I work out how old he is and how young his native girl “companion” in these paintings, there is a bit of an eewwweeee moment. White imperialists picking up local teens is kind of dark. But the Polynesian artifacts that inspired him are marvelous.
There are several other exhibits I rush through, the African facemasks being a great one. I snap some pictures for future reference for my own cultural appropriation purposes, should I ever care to write fantasy.
Then onto the Empire Builder. Supper is with three gentlemen who have been travelling extensively by rail, clear enthusiasts. They exchange the relative merits of particular trains and routes. On of them is a piano tuner, and we have a great conversation about mentoring, the arts, Seattle, and life.
Not much writing done today. But an excellent holiday.
Retreat: Day 10
Across from the train station is the Science Center, so went there until my train. The exhibits are mildly interesting and there is a nice little gift shop.
Scale at Science Center indicating that I weigth more than average black bear, but less than a loggerhead turtle.
Watched Imax movie on Arabia. It was well done, but a blatant propaganda piece to counteract deep-seated American prejudices – that not all Arabs are terrorists needs to be explained to American audiences is embarrassing to watch; but great photography, nice re-enactments.
The early morning crowd in the science center is almost entirely classes of school children, with a scattering of mom’s with toddlers. The toddlers are fun to watch as they interact with the interactive displays, and the larger kids move in herds and so are easy enough to avoid.
Overheard two teachers talking to each other about some interesting point concerning one of the displays:
“That’s my point exactly. Say, have you seen any of the kids?”
“No. But they must be around somewhere. So anyway. . . "
What parents suspect happens on field trips.
After, I find a three story Chapters with free internet for anyone with a Chapters card, so fire off bunch more emails, other essential work stuff. Then back in time to catch train to Seattle.
I finally get some time to work on my fiction. Struggle with a story I had started on years ago but abandoned because could not fit all the characters required within word limit for short story publication, and the idea not quite worth a novel. But been thinking about it a lot lately for some reason, additional scenes coming to me unbidden. But it’s still not coming together, and I start to see holes in the logic of the piece. And then, about 3 AM, it occurs to me that it might work if I reverse the POV. So will try that tomorrow.
Arrive in Seattle and step outside to find pedicab pulling up, so have Mitch take me to the hotel. He peters out a block short, but it’s late, the end of his shift, the last hill up is 45 degrees and he is simply not going to make it with me and my suitcase in the back. Indeed, I’ve been watching him struggle this far and wondering if I’m liable if he dies from a heart attack. (Though in reality, he is far less at risk of that than I. He looks to be in pretty good shape!)
Arriving at the Olympic Fairmount hotel, am assigned palatial room. More a suite than a single room, it has separate bedroom, large sitting room, and the bathroom is round a corner and down its own separate in-suite corridor. Makes the Westgate’s room seem small by comparison. Don’t know how I’m going to cope with tiny bed on train tomorrow after this. The radio is on and by the time I settle enough to turn it off I don’t, because this is the best radio station I’ve heard in a long time. Who plays this music?! So the station I would tune to if I could. Check out the TV, am surprised to find Seattle has it’s own Chinese TV station, almost equally surprised to find they get CBC.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Retreat: Day 9
Yesterday’s front-page news: “Cruise ship arrives tomorrow”.
Today’s front-page headline: “Cruise ship fashionably late, won’t arrive until noon.”
The town was so small…it didn’t have a Starbucks.
But for all that, it wasn’t a half bad place to walk around. Two bookstores, a half dozen antique shops, and a nice used-clothes/coffee shop (Clothier Coffee) with excellent cookies and free customer Internet. I had followed a girl on stilts to the coffee shop when she said the magic words “free internet” to a crowd of Cruise passengers a few blocks from the store. It’s amazing how much email can accumulate in just three days off line. I downloaded, answered key business emails, uploaded previous day’s blog posts, and continued my tour. I hiked a fair way listening to “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on my iPod, so probably startled a few locals by laughing out loud for no obvious (to them) reason. Pretty sure insulted antique store owner by laughing uproariously as I fingered her merchandize, but episode with Neil Gaimen is one of the funnier ones.
Highlight of Port Angeles for me was the Lower Elwha Klallan Tribe’s cultural Center. Not only is it a visually striking structure, but when I complimented the manager on the architecture, she told me it used to be a tire store. Mindboggling to me that they could take an old eyesore like a dilapidated tire store and turn it into such a striking and vital community center. Some visionary leadership in that group, obviously. (Found out later they had also led the lobbying for largest dam removal in the world, to restore the Lower Klwha river. Unbelievable leadership for such a tiny nation!) Inside they had tribal dancers/singers (rather good, I thought—I’ve always preferred West Coast tribal songs/drumming to plains culture) and a fabulous gift shop. I found I couldn’t buy anything, though, because the majority of items said “made in Canada”, which kind of defeats the purpose, eh? But the Kallan in the Lower Elwha number less than a thousand, so lack the critical mass to have their own merchandise. Still, well worth the visit. I was bit saddened to see how few Cruisers had stopped inside. The Center had obviously gone to a lot of work to mount a series of activities and a fairly elaborate sideboard of appetizers (couple of whole salmon for starters!) for Cruisers, but I don’t think that the cultural center was one of the five stops for the shuttles, and that was a long climb up an almost hill for the average 80 year old, so not many of them had made it there.
And unlike San Diego, there was only one homeless guy lying in the street. (Or, I don’t know, maybe they tidied up for the Cruisers…though it seemed a more laid back community than some.)
Returned to ship, had a nice dinner, finished my report around midnight. Off the ship in Vancouver tomorrow morning around 7:00 AM
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Retreat: Day 8
I make excellent progress on my report; break to do some more fiction editing. I finish the book I want to buy for Five Rivers: very pleased with it, better than I remembered. (It’s funny how wrong our memories get…one of the scenes I remembered the most distinctly isn’t actually there at all. I must have made it up out of whole cloth. And I had completely forgotten the two bits of business that are now my two favorite scenes. Such brilliant little touches of characterization, humor, that create an almost complete picture of village life in just a few sentences.) Such a nice little book, can’t understand how it has been allowed to languish out of print for decades.
I start the next book I am reading for Five Rivers. Actually another editor’s project, so I’m just reading it to give some quick general feedback--more free reading than assignment. Can’t put my finger on why exactly, but it reads more like European novelist than Canadian. Nice alien world though.
Retreat: Day 7
Stepped out of my cabin for lunch and dinner, quick tour of the shops. Excellent food, though that tempts me to eat too much. Nothing to tempt me in either the shops or entertainment offerings, so that’s actually a positive as far as the Retreat goes. Similarly, the cheapest Internet package is $55, so I decide I can forego the distraction of email for four days.
I take a couple of minor breaks reading a novel I am in the process of buying for Five Rivers, part of a three book deal if it goes through. It’s quite wonderful, with just a few minor slips here or there. (Most commonly, switching point of view without realizing it – you know, where a character other than the narrator for that scene thinks something that the narrator couldn’t actually know they were thinking. Simple to fix—the character just has to use their ‘outside’ voice for that thought so the narrator can hear and know it.) But that’s the beauty about being an editor: any part of the novel that bugs me, I get to change!
Retreat: Day Six
This is my first time on Holland America. It is much less garish than Carnival, but still kitsch, an American’s version of European eloquence with altogether too much statuary scattered about. I still prefer the unpretentious decoration of, say, the Norwegian Sun or the Hidden Mickeys of Disney. (None of them, of course, compares to the Queen Mary. That was when ships had real class!) The food in main dinning room is excellent, but not noticeably better than Carnival as I had been assured, and perhaps not quite up to Disney. And almost everyone is older and in worse shape than I….
I throw myself into my work, quickly realize there is no possibility of my processing all this data in three days. Even if I could, it would be 500 page report, and it has to be under 20. So, new strategy.
But I can already see the angle, how to make it fit. The great thing about being a writer is that sometimes one’s subconscious has been working on the project the whole time when it looked like one was goofing off on other stuff, and it just comes out whole. Of course, sometimes when you think you have a great idea at midnight, it looks pretty stupid next morning…. I’ll let you know how this turns out tomorrow.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Retreat: Day 5
So actually go out and about in San Diego. The Westgate, where I'm staying, is on the edge of the Gaslight district, so walked around there for a couple of hours. Yesterday was pouring rain, nasty wind, too cold to walk very far, so I just went to downtown mall for some take away. Today was way better. Intermittent rain, but then really great sun when the clouds open up. Had the drinking chocolate at Ghirardelli's. Bought a few things for the kids at World Market. Enjoyed the architecture of San Diego (nice looking convention centre! Some nice towers. Even some of the smaller buildings colourfully painted etc.)
Thing that makes the strongest impression on me, however, are the number of homeless on the streets here. I count an average of three per block. I'm only approached by pan handlers a couple of times, and they're carefully low key, polite even, but every few yards there's someone sitting with a shopping cart, three to five large green garbage bags of possessions, and a resigned expression. In two cases, its families. And everybody else just walks by as if this is perfectly normal. I can't understand how average American can feel secure when so many of those around them are so obviously in desperate straits, though the other subliminal presence were armies of guys with "security" on the back of their jackets. One particular image burned into my brain is of an obviously homeless guy leaning against a parking meters, watching at a group of yuppies -- their clothes and smart phones and expensive sun glasses pushed back into their hair said 'brokers' or 'software moguls' to me -- yakking away in an sidewalk open air bar. The way he was starring at them -- though they were completely oblivious of him, three feet away -- I could see him thinking, "that's who I was four years ago". And I look back at the yuppies and think, one mis-step and it is a long way down....
No wonder the haves are so focused on getting more. San Diego is a nice place to visit, but I don't think I could live somewhere where it is so literally every man for himself.
And all those guns.
Back to the hotel for productive day on various writing projects. Make excellent progress on my day-job Report. In between working on different sections of report, start negotiating a three book deal for Five Rivers while I still have reliable internet access. Author seems open to it. Another coup for Five Rivers, I think.
Work until supper time, eat at The Bandar. Unbelievably big portions, three times the size of anything ever served in equivalent Canadian restaurant. Again, can't help but think of homeless outside, conspicuous consumption inside. But would highly recommend Bandar to anyone who likes middle Eastern food. Superb meal. Had to wonder, though, how many of the customers realize that "Persian" means "Iranian"? (Aside from that group over at the next table who are themselves clearly Iranian and therefore, you know, potential terrorists. :-) Another productive writing session after supper. Things are starting to come together!
Friday, April 13, 2012
MacBook Air Review
I considered getting a tablet, but all the IT guys I talked to were unanimous that the iPad is for people who want to consume media rather than to produce it. The Air is lighter than the iPad, and I really couldn't be without the real keyboard. The Air's keyboard is identical to my 17 inch, only without the stereo speakers adding en extra two inches on each side.
I have not been disappointed! The Air is worth every penny. The three days on the train were enough to convinced me. The Air sat in my lap for about 1200 miles without ever becoming heavy or uncomfortable...not so the MacPro, which is not only heavy but often extremely hot. Furthermore, coming back from Calgary on the bus the other day, my 17" portable was too big to open all the way between bus seats...I've had the same experience with airplanes. But the Air sits anywhere I can. Even in the private room on the train, I would have had to pull out the table to sit the 17"Pro which then would have been at the wrong angle. The Air was a delight to work with!
The other feature I love is that it is instantly on when you open it. Flash memory means nothing has to spin up to speed or overheat or eat up battery power. I got hours and hours out of my battery. In contrast, the 17" is down to about 90 minutes before it goes down.
Having to get used to Lion operating system though, particularly to the new trackpad motions. I quite like two finger scrolling, once I got used to it, but still find I am accidentally moving my hand without realizing it and triggering all sorts of weird responses...e.g., made a random, accidental circular motion with three fingers and the screen went blurry. It me a couple of minutes to figure out how to redo the motion to refocus the screen. Who knew it could do that?
So 17" will remain my home desktop, moveable but no longer considered portable. The 13" Air will be what I use for trips, presentations, note taking and so on, my true portable. Mary got herself the 11" Air which is even smaller and lighter, but I found the screen bit small for my aging eyes; and I like that the 13 inch is faster and has more memory. So highly recommend the air to writers and editors... Leave iPad for readers.
Retreat: Day 4
I’ve mentally designated today and tomorrow to a major editing job I’ve taken on, since it requires access to the client’s website and this is the only point in my trip with reliable Internet. But it’s ten days past when they’d promised to get me the manuscripts, and no one is answering my emails. I reluctantly try an alternate contact I have, not wanting to go over anyone’s head, but it’s pretty much 'now or never'. I am still awaiting developments at the end of the day. I fill the time with other useful tasks, moving a bunch of minor projects along, but can’t motivate myself to work on my big report. In retrospect realize I am coming down with a cold, feeling a bit iffy. Go to bed early. Have learned on previous trips not to push too hard or worry too much, less the pressure create insurmountable writer's block. I remain confident that I will get report done and have time left over for my own writing. Several scenes in story I’m working on filling out nicely in my head. If editing assignment doesn’t materialize tomorrow morning, will work on report or getting story down.
Retreat: Day 3
I breakfasted with Stuart Bennett, proprietor of Simonsen Road Farm, an equestrian Inn and/or 30 day, 12 step program for those wishing to dry out; and designer/draftsman Alan Hardonk of Calgary, who has the niftiest business card I have ever encountered -- a business card sized and shaped protractor ("give that to an Engineer and it's the one card they always keep on them"); and his Mexican wife of 25 years. They're on their 25th anniversary trip. Another great wide-ranging conversation with people with whom I would very likely never have otherwise come into contact.
(And their stories are now my stories…. The trouble with eating with other writers at a writer’s retreat is that they all intend to use their own stories themselves. Here, in contrast, are stories and characters going begging. Sooner or later you just know I’m going to need an engineer in one of my SF novels, and he is definitely going to be handing out protractor business cards. And some other character is going to get a Mexican lab tech wife who makes to-die-for tamales. And why wouldn’t the B&B owner in my next Eloise mystery inviter to fill in for him as he’s off to L.A. to act in a movie? Yes, of course all one’s characters are completely fictitious and bare no resemblance to persons living or dead; except all the little pieces of these composites we create have to come from somewhere…and mealtime conversation with strangers is a highly valuable source.
Indeed, when I once had the invaluable opportunity of shadowing writer Candas Jane Dorsey through a working day, I kept waiting for her to write, but she kept just ‘goofing off’. She got up in time for lunch, which she took with friends; then we hung out with some other people, then went out for supper, then went back to her place for her weekly salon with half the artists and writers from the nieghbourhood she had helped organize into a housing collective. When finally she snuck away to write, she was gone for less than an hour, but pronounced herself well satisfied with the resulting two and a half pages of polished work. “That’s it?” I had cried, “you call that working?” “Yes foolish boy” (I was a lot younger in those days) “didn’t you see me eaves dropping on the people all around us in the restaurants? The conversations this evening? Where do you think authors find dialog, characters, ideas? It’s all writing: writers cannot have output, without input”.)
Omelet was decent, too.
Found and managed a shower, no small trick on rocketing train.
Then back to the parlor car where I put in frustrating morning trying to recreate grading file I had apparently left in Lethbridge. Four different flash drives with me, and not one of them had the complete final grade file. I must have renamed the final file to something else (“Final file” being one possibility) and stuck it on the desktop rather than in the mark folder so I’d be sure to take it with me…. Idiot. Either that, or it was on the fifth flash drive and I grabbed the wrong ones. (Note to self: next time, don’t buy six identical flash drives.) I’ve now finished marking everything, but can’t post the marks online without the missing file. Grumpy emails from students justifiably impatient for their grades are already starting to show up.
Mary offers to go to my office and search for the relevant file, but since the only time our schedules would match up that I could be sure of both cell phone and Internet connection (necessary to allow me to talk her through the maze of files on my work computer to most likely suspects) would be after I arrived in San Diego at 1AM (2AM where Mary is). Since she is herself driving up to Calgary tomorrow afternoon, no way I want her up after 2AM tonight emailing me files. Crazy. But I am overwhelmed that she even offered. (She’d already invested an hour emailing me potential files from my home computer…. Moral of the story (besides: get all your marking done before you go on writer’s retreat) is take time to pack properly and verify you have everything you’ll need for the retreat.
(Note to self: add dental floss to packing list. Or don’t order the steak.)
Lunch is with three ladies who go on at some length about the decline of American civilization, by which, I am disappointed to learn, they are referring to their inability to impose Christian beliefs on their neighbours, rather than, say, the current declarations of the Republican campaign. I smile and nod and back away at the earliest possible moment. It’s not that I don’t emphasize with their sense of a lost golden age, but that I’ve heard it all a million times before and there is nothing new here to steal. Er, I mean ‘inspire’. To be fair, it is probably because I have not tried to steer the conversation onto more interesting topics, but I was still bummed about the missing file thing, and two of the women had previously befriended each other so it would have been intrusive to disrupt the established dynamic.
Having by lunch officially given up on grading, I went on to other projects. I generally make excellent progress. I even start on piece of my major report, though as I look into it, I realize that particular piece needed to be started about three months earlier since it involves writing others and getting feedback, a step I seem to have missed somewhere along the line. I develop several possible strategies for dealing with the problem, but they mostly seem to come down to various ways of saying “Close enough for government work,” the mantra of my first boss. (Having myself, turned 60, a lot of what he used to say makes more sense to me now.) But as I chip away at various projects, I feel a glimmer of hope that I might in fact come out of this retreat with a great deal of what I need to be done completed.
I again take in the wine and cheese tasting (or at least the cheese part of it), since a plate of local cheeses goes nicely with the scenery and Internet access. I take an early supper alone, seeing as I was mid-productive frenzy and the opportunity expectantly becoming available; the deciding factor being that the only other open spot is back at the table with the three women.
I eventually have to retire to my room to pack; we arrive at Union Station in Los Angels, and I transfer over to the Surfliner to San Diego. It’s strictly a commuter train, no sleeper cars. The last train of the day going south, it is practically disserted, though the conductor assures me it can fill when there is a game on.
I stretch out and blog, but am disturbed by the smell of acrid smoke, as of solder melting. Unsure whether it is my brand new MacAir melting down (should have opted for the Apple Care package!) or the train is on fire, or – it occurs to me—whether the industrial part of California through which we are now racing simply smells like that all the time, I can’t decide which of these options is ultimately the more distressing. I accost the conductor as he passes and he assures me, after some careful sniffing, that it is simply the smell of the brakes. Clearly, he was sufficiently habituated to the smell that he hadn’t even noticed before I inquired, which raises some questions about train maintenance, but was very reassuring on the MacAir front.
I can’t get over how fast we’re going, though, shooting past refineries and neighborhoods and intersections as if they were on coming traffic. I guess that it’s because I’m used to the more sedate speeds of Edmonton’s LRT or Calgary’s C train, light rapid transit that is no match for a full out train like this one. We probably aren’t actually going significantly faster than the Starline or the Empire Builder, but zipping by this close to buildings creates a very different impression than crossing vast plains or judging movement against distant mountains. It just feels more terrifyingly reckless.
Hotel for the night, and bed next.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Retreat: Day 2
A freight train broke down ahead of us this morning, so we sat on the track in the middle of nowhere for about four hours. When we finally got moving again, we had used up all the time I was supposed to have in Portland between connections. Indeed, we arrived after the second train was supposed to have already left, but it waited for us. I stepped off my train, was scooped up by a conductor and driven in his golf cart to the next platform, shooed into the sleeping car, where I quickly dumped my suitcase in my cabin, and trotted down the corridor to the dinning car for a rather late lunch, within about two and half minutes of the first train coming to a complete stop. Full marks for efficiency!
I, on the other hand, wasn’t every efficient or productive for the morning, partly feeling sleepy and partly worrying about my connection. (I tend to be a nervous traveler, which is irrational because not only had my wife contingency plans for every eventuality, she has my back remotely – anything goes wrong, she knows about it before I do--thanks to Amtrak updates via Internet--and can talk me through anything as she makes and unmakes reservations ahead of my travels.) But it’s like waiting for the cable guy: there’s no real reason why knowing he might come should stop you from doing all those other chores around the house, but somehow it becomes this constant, if absent, distraction. And, to be honest, having finished marking the last of my student papers this morning, I was it finding hard to motivate myself to begin my next big task, a report I’d rather not be writing. But I got into the holiday mood listening to episodes of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on my Ipod while enjoying some excellent scenery.
I eventually pulled out some of myfiction I’d been thinking about the last several weeks. For some reason a short story from the 1990s has been popping into my brain. I abandoned it back then because it was too long for short story markets, too short for novel, but now with e-publishing, length is just no longer a consideration, so idea is again worth revisiting. So I read over the original version and saw how easily my new ideas would plug into what I had from before. It’s embarrassing, but I remain my own biggest fan. I don’t know what it is about this guy, but he has exactly my sense of humor! So that got me into a writing mood, if not on the work I’m supposed to be prioritizing.
By the time I switched from the Empire Builder to the Starliner and had lunch I was prepared to settle down to work. Discovering active wifi in the parlor car on the Starliner, I was one happy camper. Catching up on work email, posting grades and so on, finishing off all the work I was supposed to have done before leaving, while they hosted a wine and cheese reception around me. (I can’t drink, but plate of cheeses was nice!) Quite productive afternoon and evening, interrupted by a steak dinner for supper. Fellow dinners were a family from Orleans, a Vice Principal and his wife --an instructor at the university--and their son in a Perry The Platypus T-shirt. A pleasant conversation, and interesting for me as the VP explained why he hated interviewing new teachers: “They all say what they think I want to hear so it’s different faces but the same speech over and over and over.” He was the VP of a Catholic school which pays new teachers about $30,000, so he knows that his applicant pool are those who couldn’t get jobs in the better paying public schools. So that was interesting for me in terms of preparing my graduates.
When I finally retired for the evening, settled down to read an SF novel from the 1980s that was one of my favorite examples of why Canadian SF is different than the American version. Not quite recreational reading--though I am thoroughly enjoying re-reading the novel--because it is one of the ones I am negotiating to republish, so and I’m editing as I go. As a novel previously published by one of the big houses, it obviously doesn’t need as much editing as most of the manuscripts that come across my desk, but it never ceases to amaze me that the previous editor let a lot more stuff go than I intend to. The lapses are all minor – some Bob and Doug dialog, a couple of momentary lapses in POV, the very occasional ambiguous sentence, but still… it’s the editor’s job to see the book is as good as it can be when it goes out.
Of course, I say that knowing that some fan is going to identify a billion minor lapses in the last manuscript I edited. Just finished editing Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero and even on the third iteration, found stuff I had missed on the first two times through. Pretty sure I nailed all the big stuff, but there is always the occasional mistake that slips through: e.g., caught a reference to an earlier but now deleted scene, or that we forgot that we’d tied the dog to a tree at the start of a scene and need to retrieve him at the end of it. Oops. But after a while the editor becomes as intimately familiar with the novel as the novelist and consequently suffers the same kind of “see what you expect to see” blindness. When the galleys come back for Mik Murdoch I’m giving a copy to my daughter to read in hopes that her fresh--albeit untrained-- eyes can catch stuff like that….
Of course, I, the author, the publisher, and another editor will also be proofing the galleys. It’s constantly amazing how many errors can creep into even a thoroughly edited manuscript at the last second. I remember when I worked as a test developer for the provincial government, each test went through about 30 different reviews, and we still had the occasional exam go out where the typesetter (and the 11 different proof readers who subsequently reviewed it) missed an exponent on an equation, rendering the question incorrect. But at least we try, in contrast to the big houses which now seem to expect manuscripts to come in preproofed and self-publishers who just don’t see the need….
Retreat: Day 1
So this guy, this random guy, has a ton of fascinating stories, including the fact that he did 52 airshow performance in one year, clearing about $300,000. (The airshow scene, he noted, is now in decline and he doubts that this is still possible. Too many doctors and dentists, he says, have bought planes and are willing to perform for free.) He regales us with tales of his days as a flight instructor for the next generation of test pilots. He is one interesting guy.
Has he, I ask, ever considered writing a book? Well, yes he has indeed written a book. His first book was published by a small niche aviation press some years ago. He is now writing his memoirs, tentatively entitled, Ten Seconds to Impact. “There are so many stories, things that I’ve done and seen, that would just be gone if I don’t write them down.” We discuss publishing options at some length. He has 10,000 photos of he and his plane, youtube video, documentary video, magazine covers with which to promote his forthcoming book. I explain about Pinterest. He responds by noting that he has an email list of 12,000 people interested in his plane. After choking on my water, I explain to him why he must be the envy of every other author. Compared to others whose names mean nothing, he has a built-in market with which to launch his novel.
Meanwhile, the recently retired woman with us notes that her father had been an illustrator with publisher Ziff-Davies in the 1930s and 1940s, and crazy about planes. He had created innumerable covers for Popular Mechanics and Flying Magazine in which Delmar was subsequently featured… (twice).
I find her father’s name strangely familiar. Didn’t he also do some SF covers for Ziff-Davies? Spaceships and the like? Why, yes, yes he did.
Small world.
She is also interesting in her own right, an excellent conversationalist who not only took the lead in drawing out Delmar’s story, but had a number of anecdotes about her own life and family,
So, how great is this? Way more interesting a first night than I have any right to expect.
But I can’t help reflecting that here it is, only the second time I’ve taken a meal on a train as an adult, and the second time I’ve been seated with someone midway through writing a book. Can it really be that one out of three strangers is writing something?