If I were in the Netherlands right now, as I thought I might be this weekend, I would be driving my rental car back to Brussels from a venue known as Megaland in the Netherlands. It's right next to Aachen, the first portal into Germany for the US Army in 1945. My ears would be ringing from a Bruce Springsteen show almost four hours in length. The euphoria would linger.
I make my living writing books, so I get understandably nervous when prognosticators make bold statements about print being dead. What else would I do? In my heart of hearts, when I hear about AI or a more video-centric world, I pray a little prayer that books hang around for at least forty more years. I'll be 102 by then and most likely out of stories to tell.
The boys are of an age where luring all three home at one time requires a special reason — Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mother's Day. The BBQ is supposed to start at 2 but they know we're not going anywhere, so they will arrive with fiancées and girlfriends and gifts and dogs whenever they feel like it.
I hit my deadline. There is no pretending it was easy. Perhaps you missed last week's blog post — the one that never occurred. . . . No matter your business, hitting a deadline means hyperfocus and sacrifice. And it's not just working fast. It has to be the best, which means not just writing, but editing (and more editing), and research (and still more research). But now it's done. . . .
My Achilles Heel is that I never knew what I wanted to do for a living until I was almost thirty. I came to writing late. So when I am in the presence of two people like yesterday's bride and groom I feel deficient. These were individuals who knew what they wanted to do even before they began high school, let alone college. . . .
