Adventure and Magic published!

I published my 2009 PCT journal. I didn't get an ISBN number. Perhaps that is why it appears to be cheaper than Piper's Flight. I call it Adventure and Magic because I had so much trail magic. Unless I get an ISBN number, it won't be available through Amazon. I haven't decided if I will do that.

Update: I decided to get the ISBN number. That bumped up the price. Bummer. I doubt anyone will buy it anyway, but maybe somebody will. At least I have a copy for myself. It is nice to have my journal so nicely printed up as a memento.

Someone reviewed my book

Someone reviewed Piper's Flight, the journal I published about my hike in 2008. I can't believe anyone actually took the time. It's a well-written review and largely positive. Probably more positive than I deserve. Only people who like long trails will like my book. People who like good literature will probably find very little of value.

The reviewer says I traded one cage for another when I left my job to hike the trail. I suppose that is true. I wonder if I finally broke out of the cage when I completed the trail this year.

I hope someday I get my 2009 journal finished. I've got a proof, but already on the first page I want to rewrite some of it.

New book is coming

I've finally got my butt in gear and I'm getting my book done. I wrote Piper's Flight, which was my trail journal from 2008. Now I'm working on my trail journal from last year, making it into a new book. I'm adding information that wasn't available in my online journal as well as information I didn't write down in my journal at night.

This time around I'm not going to create the ISBN number until I've had a few people read it. Then I will be able to change things if they find mistakes.

A new book on the way

I am writing my book now. I decided I would take my trail journal from this year and write another book like I did last year. I finally got it all transcribed into my computer. I had five small notepads of pencil written text to type. Now all I have to do is clean up the writing and fill in any gaps with things that I will remember when I read it over again.

It was fun to read about my journey all over again. I kept a version of my journal on this blog, but in Oregon and Washington there were not very many places to update my computer journal along the trail, so I would just type up an entry remembering what I could. I left a lot out. My online journal seemed more crabby and unhappy than what I had written each night in my tent. I really had a great time out there.

Lately I have been so busy. I have my part time job at the whale factory, my volunteer day at the garden and lately I've been getting a lot of web development work on the side. I can't keep up with it all. And now I'm trying to write my book on top of it. I hope to have it written before Christmas, but it may not happen.

Positive feedback about Piper's Flight

I received an email today from someone who read my book. He wrote:

You were also brave to tell the truth about Agua Dulce and Donner Pass. These things needed to be said and I don't think I have ever heard anyone else do so in a public forum. Most of all, of course, I enjoyed reading about the trail, the familiar places seen again through another human's eyes. You did a terrific job of relating your physical experiences along with the mental and spiritual challenges life seems to throw everyone's way.

He also said that he's going to complete the PCT very soon as a section hiker. He began the trail with his wife in 2001. But they quit after the High Sierra. His wife hated the High Sierra as much as I did. I guess I'm not crazy after all.

I think that completing the trail as a section hiker takes much more dedication and perseverance than as a thru-hiker. Even though I have been planning to go back this year and finish the trail, I often have doubts whether it is the right thing to do. Actually, I know it's the right thing to do. I feel it in some place deep inside that this is the life I was born to live. But on another level it feels so irresponsible. I should be working full-time and succeeding like everybody else. I keep slipping further and further away from that, however. I feel so conflicted!

I had a flash of thought today. What if I began my hike in Dunsmuir, right where I left off? I could start there in July, finish at the Canadian border, then find a way down to Sonora Pass where I could hike southbound all the way home, finishing the portions I skipped last year and connecting the trail to my front door. I will have to think about this.

Anyway, It's nice to get positive feedback about my book.

I'm on Amazon!

My book, Piper's Flight, is now available on Amazon.com!

I've sold 41 copies so far, not through Amazon, as far as I know. Maybe I will sell more now that it's available there.

I got a computer!

I popped open Craigslist last night and found a nice laptop with Windows on it and bought it. How easy! Now I can browser test on my own Windows computer. I also plan to run some web servers and of course, Cygwin, because I'll always have a touch of linux geekiness lurking beneath my ordinary demeanor.

I got the computer so I can do some work for a client. That's right, I finally have real web dev work to do for a client. I am doing a site redesign plus installing a content management system for the site. I'll be using Wordpress, which is my favorite blog software. It is so customizable and can be used for a web site that isn't necessarily a blog. My plan is to create custom templates and use the page creation capability to manage pages and includes and the blog management to manage a library of articles. There won't be blog-like stuff like comments or blog archives or anything bloggy like that. My client will be able to edit (most of) her own web pages without being nickeled and dimed by some lame pimple-faced web designer.

It feels good to be doing web development again. I really do enjoy it. I just was not doing it at a fun place before I left on my big walk across California. It is nice to use my creativity and I feel proud that I can scare up work for myself without having to depend on someone else. I am glad I was patient and did not let fear lead me back to the cube.

I get to go back to the learning process again and do real web development. Programming, creativity, whatever I want. Recently I even wrote a little Greasemonkey script to add a link to my Blogger dashboard in the navigation bar at the top of the page. It bugs me that there is a customize link but not a dashboard link. Now I have one.

On another note, so far people seem to enjoy my book. I brought it to my writing class last night and people were impressed with how nice it looks. I am not happy with the margins on the book, but otherwise, it is a wonder to behold a book with my writing inside it. Here is a link to my book.

My book has been printed

Proof copies of my book arrived today. The physical book looks nice. Better than expected, although the margins aren't quite right.

It's funny how bad my writing is in print vs online. That is why I self published. No real publisher would accept such poor writing.

I am going to change the image on the back cover and then I think I'll go ahead and approve it for general distribution. I am not going to worry about the inside margins.

Update on my PCT book

I have almost completed my book. I have created it and ordered the review copy. If all is well, I will approve my book and it will be available for purchase. It is actually already available for purchase, but I still have a chance to edit if I find any glaring errors. After editing it so many times on screen it will be nice to finally see it in print.

The last time I edited it I accidentally wiped out a day and a half worth of editing. Arrgh. I have read my story so many times now I can see what an irritating person I truly am. I hope people will enjoy my story anyway.

I will let you know when the book is approved and I will provide links to it. It is going to be $18.95, which I admit is expensive. They charge by the page so it is hard to get the price down. If that is too high, you can order a PDF download for $5.00. I actually make more money on the download so either way is fine by me.

The publisher is lulu.com. It is a print-on-demand publishing service that is rated very highly, does not cost a lot to use and allows you to self-publish a book that can be made available through Amazon and other online bookstores. Seems like a revolutionary way to do things to me.

It has been fun writing a book. I have enjoyed it enough I think I will write more books. I am even thinking maybe I should consider technical writing as a future career. I enjoy writing and I enjoy technology so it seems like a good fit. The hot topic in technical writing these days is XML and DITA and that sort of thing interests me as much as writing. I think I would be good at it, but so far I have no experience and have no idea where to begin or how to get started. I hope to find out. But I will keep working on my freelance web development, too. I don't see technical writing as that far off from web development. It's all information architecture and technology. Writing is just more wordy and uses different software.

Meanwhile, I have finally started my job as an acoustical analyst. I'm looking for the sound of whales in the ocean. Seems interesting and boring at the same time, but the people there are very nice. I really think with quitting my job, hiking and now working part-time, unrelated jobs I might have screwed up my employability. At least with big companies. At least temporarily. So far, I do not care that much. I think I was kind of done with big company web dev anyway. You get stuck with whatever out-dated technology they use. C'mon! Font tags? You know who you are. Font tags were so 1997. So out-dated I can't impress anyone with that whole year and two months worth of effort. Nobody can grow a web dev career with font tags.

Anyway, I hope someday I will make enough money to live on again. But so far life is interesting.

My book is almost done

I have finished writing my book about my PCT hike. Tony is proofreading it for me. Hopefully there will not be too many edits.

I'm looking at lulu.com for self-publishing. I won't make much money on each copy I sell, so my book will never be a money-making thing. But it was enjoyable to write it.

Writers. What makes somebody a writer?

I am taking a writing class. I don't think I am a very good writer. I used to be a great writer when I was a child, but school beat it out of me and now my writing is not very good.

When I think of writers I think of people who read a lot and who read other people's writing while holding a pencil. They make little squiggly marks indicating where proper punctuation ought to go and where the grammar and phrasing is all wrong or where typos occur.

I am not like that. I have typos everywhere all the time. I don't know how to use a comma properly, let alone the difference between an endash and an emdash or what the heck a semi-colon is for.

What I do is write from the heart. I wonder if that is enough to make one a writer. What is more important? The heart or the mechanics. I have known more people who favor the mechanics than who favor the heart, and those who favor the mechanics tend to be stern perfectionists who can stifle any shred of creativity in people like me. They also tend to be more employed and more employable than me.

So, what makes somebody a writer? Am I a writer? Can I write anyway?

Book number 2

I began writing, or perhaps a better word is assembling, another book today.

My PCT book has a first-draft done. All the journal and blog entries in all their boring detail are combined into one giant text document. Being a reformed geek, I used TextWrangler, a text editor designed for programming. There are over 2000 lines of text. Paragraphs are all on one line. It's a huge document. I hope to take a writing class and get some tips on polishing the text so that it is not completely boring before I bother to try to assemble the book.

Meanwhile, I thought I should practice laying out a book. There is an online self-publishing service that lets you put together your own book using Microsoft Word or Open Office. I have Open Office. Actually, I have Neo Office. I hope that it will work. I have not used Neo Office much so I have a lot to learn. Some things have been a little frustrating.

My book number 2 is the hard-copy version of my other web site. In the process of copying and pasting the text from the site into my book I'm learning about how to properly create a table of contents, lists and other text formatting. I already knew how in Word so it's only a matter of learning how it's done the Neo Office way. I'm also fixing a lot of typos on my web site. Attention to typos isn't one of my strongest skills.

This second book looks like it will be very long, too. I may have to make two volumes in order to keep the price down. That may actually appeal to people.

I plan to spiral bind it so that it is more useful in the field. I get very annoyed at books that are intended for reference, such as cookbooks or music books, that have perfect binding. They won't lay open to the page you are looking at so you constantly fuss with balancing heavy objects on top in order to make use of the book. I have even resorted to taking some books to Kinko's and having them cut the binding off and put spiral binding on instead. Sometimes this works and sometimes there is not enough margin to do it.

It is good to be productive and moving toward setting up some passive income streams. However, sitting in front of a computer all day does not feel productive. It feels lazy.

Started writing the book

I started assembling my blog posts and my paper journal into a book. It will be a self-published book. I hope it will be affordable. There are a few things I never wrote about in my blog so I hope it will be interesting, too.

It's been fun reading over my hike, reliving some of the earlier days. Things changed so much over time. I'm amazed how strong I was in the beginning. I wish I could have kept up the strength. I am surprised how detailed my memory still is for each and every day, too. I can remember not just the trail but also people's names, place names and my feelings.

I still feel so sore and stiff. I'm trying to eat more protein and I can tell that it helps, but the recovery is taking much longer than I ever thought it would. I still struggle with wanting to eat more food than I'm letting myself. I know I'm not active enough to eat as much as I want anymore.

I plan to go to the farmer's market again today. There really is a difference in how much better the fruit and vegetables taste when you buy the locally grown and organic food there. I think it's a conspiracy of the regular supermarkets to sell bad tasting vegetables and fruit so you'll buy more junk food instead. I think it's also a conspiracy of the natural food market to have such high prices for produce that still isn't as good as the farmer's market.

I was going to walk there, but I think I'll ride my bike instead.

Book

Several people have said I should write a book about my trip. I don't know how to write a book. I don't even know how to write a story.

I was reading something online from a web site devoted to personal development and one thing that it said was that you will know when it's time to do something when people start asking you for it. I guess that means I need to take a writing class and write a book.

I never intended to write a book about my hike. I met others on the trail who were hiking it for that very purpose. I didn't think those people had an especially interesting story to tell. There were some out there who did have an interesting story and I encouraged them to write books. But I never felt like my story was very unique or interesting.

I never saw myself as a bumbling idiot like other personal accounts of long distance hikes. My story isn't particularly funny, nor did I have any brilliant revelations about the Meaning of Life. I set no speed records, have no tales of incredible bravery or physical prowess. I wasn't especially heroic or pure about the trail. I didn't even hike the whole thing. I don't understand yet what the hike accomplished in my life, where it will lead me, or what it ultimately means to me.

I do see that it has themes of birds and cages, freedom and following a path. Of course it has the last two. We all shared that theme. That is why I think a writing class will help me. I hope I'll learn how to take my blog posts and make them coherent and meaningful and not boring or forced. I hope that I can write something worthwhile. If not, making the attempt to write my story as a book ought to help me in some way.

I remember when I was in the second grade we had to cut out construction paper in the shape of right and left feet and write a story about feet on them. I messed up my story by starting it on the right foot instead of the left, so my feet forever hung backwards when displayed taped to the wall. But the story itself was pretty clever about a pair of feet that ran away, had a big adventure and then went home and put on a body.

I thought of that story often as I hiked the PCT. It seemed like I was living a real life version of it in some way.

Because of that story and many others I wrote in childhood, people were pretty certain I'd become a writer. I thought I would, too, until writing was beaten out of my by English classes and jobs where I was made to understand with absolute certainty that I am most definitely not a writer.

So, don't expect a book to come out of me. It might not. But it's worth a try.