Woman in Llanganuco, Peru

From a trip in 2003. The woman in the picture is cooking up guinea pigs for the only tourist concession around. She was lovely.

Topics that Sustain Us.

For some reason, I keep stumbling up against the Millennium Development Goals. I was at a work function recently and Tina Sharkey, the global president of Baby Center, gave a talk about her mandate and that of Baby Center. She's a super impressive speaker - very dynamic and full of energy, but I was most struck by her sense of mission. She had clearly taken the Millennium Development Goals to heart, and from that framework, she has given her business a strong push in what I think is a great direction. Knowing that the mission of your organization directly contributes to one of these goals must be tremendously inspiring to employees, attractive to investors and useful to the consumers whose lives are thereby improved through its use (and yes, I am on Baby Center, most nights).

Of course, nothing is that simple: there is lots of debate around the goals. Everything from how they were established, to how to measure them, and of course, who funds the projects - not to mention the means toward improvement. Clearly if you are working on maternal health (goal #5), family planning will come into the mix. So there you go. Let's face it: it's nearly impossible to have a conversation about maternal health without a discussion of contraception. And at least in the U.S. contraception appears to be the death of funding for health initiatives.

So, you might ask: why are you talking about this?

Because I plan to tie the topic of my book back to these goals in some way. I think that will give me a bit more motivation to finish and provide a thorough investigation on some of themes in the book. I am not really cut out for memoir writing, but I think it would be fun to do - given years of journals and notebooks. I think what will ground my personal stories in some kind of context bigger than the completely indulgent adolescent drivel you likely expect is a broader picture of what I personally observe.

A Beautiful Boy.

I actually wrote the text for a kids book for him earlier this year, but I am not much of an illustrator, so it sits on "my shelf" for at least a little while. May make it into a chapter of the new book. Could tie into some of the themes well.

2,500 Words So Far

Good stuff so far. I've assembled an outline during my son's naps today and written a couple of short pieces to start warming up the process. I'm struggling with a few critical issues. I don't want to write anything that may be painful for my family or my friends. Reviewing some of my journals, I am realizing that there are definitely some topics that are simply not meant for public consumption. Yet, I do think there are other anecdotes and occurances that would be fine to share, and may even be (gasp!), entertaining! I do want this an entertaining and funny read.

Ten Ground Rules

There are a couple of things I'd like to accomplish through this project:

1.) Keep all material in the cloud. I plan to keep all drafts and source documents on Flickr or in Google Docs. In fact, I don't really need MS Word, because I can work in the cloud and never have to pay a thing.

2.) Print nothing. Did you know we have a problem with global warming? And today does happen to be Earth Day.

3.) Spend money only on a book doctor. After I have a draft, I plan to hire someone to edit and shape the book so that it is actually readable. I've read that many self-published authors hire their own editors to help, and I think this would be helpful. But I am long way from that... must get a draft together first.

4.) Produce a full length eBook and print-on-demand (POD) trade paperback simultaneously and make both available as broadly as possible.

5.) Force self to actually tell people about the project. Once I am out of the closet, I'll have to keep at it. 43 Things has a site dedicated to public goal setting. Writing a book is currently the number two goal of all time.

6.) Spend time developing an audience and marketing the book using social media and free online tools.

7.) Work only nights and weekends.

8.) Bore no one with the ideas or plans for the book unless they stumble upon this blog.

9.) Develop a voice. And a point of view. Attention to tone, humor, and nuance.

10.) Enjoy the process. Digging through old journals, scanning faded photographs, tracking down stories from my family for relevant anecdotes and stories. This is an act of appreciation.

The Route Ahead.

The Road to Bielefeld, a photo by mandaclose on Flickr.

The book is going to be part travelogue, part memoir, part exploration. It will be primarily text, but liberally sprinkled with interesting snapshots - kind of an old school travel journal. If a typical book is 70,000 words, I've got a long way to go.

Ideally, I am going to get this out before I turn 40. Without identifying anything personally incriminating, let's just say, that I'd have to average a lot more than 1000 words a day to get this puppy together, edited, layed out and into the marketplace with that goal in mind.

But a goal it is.
I'm going for it.

Testing. Testing. This thing on?

This is my book project.