May
2017
Light
day today. Basically… just an announcement…
Life
Won’t Pass Me By
Conversations
There
will be more updates coming for both pages, but I am pleased to
be adding places here at the 'ville for both of the upcoming publications.
Going
to be a sketchy few days to finish out the month, with some posts
here and there, but I will have at least one new essay before
May wraps up.
Got
a new essay today… a few other things first…
Local
Friends for Local Business
We
are in the middle of a complete month celebration of Special
Events.
Just
about every month, in any community, you’ll find different things
going on. It might be a fundraiser at a church or fire station.
Maybe there is something of historical significance being recognized
with concerts or festivals. You get the idea… some are formal…
some are smaller and perhaps a bit more intimate… some may just
be excuses to party.
In
May, the usual ideas are Mother’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, and May
breakfasts. Some places have events for Memorial Day… some are
just enjoying the weather after a rough winter.
From
May 1st all the way to May 31st, Local Friends is directing your
attention to some of the special things going on around you. Whether
for a small and limited community or guest list, or a larger get
together, take a few moments to support a good cause, learn a
bit about your region, or enjoy something that doesn’t come around
every day.
Over
the next couple of months, I have plans to release two books –
Life Won’t Pass Me By and Conversations. Already
mentioned them this month, and will have more to share around
the web site soon. For now, I want to direct your attention to
the Writing
& Books area of the ‘ville. To date I’ve
released seven books, including the April publication of Title
Town. If you’re looking for some reading,
there just might be an option or two around here that I’d be grateful
you considered.
And
finally for now… “Crockpot
philosophy”
New
essay today… link at the end.
Our
focus for this entry is going to be a brand new project, which
I am referring to as…
A
Writer’s Workshop
Every
so often I get questions — at events, in e-mails, from messages,
etc. — and many of them deal with the publishing process, or slightly
more specifically, the hurdles involved and lessons learned.
I
had been talking with someone about this recently, and she asked
me if I could design a presentation for writers based on some
of these ideas. After a bit of investigation and consideration…
we decided to give it a try.
The
basic idea… the foundation of it… is the concept of things I wish
I knew when I got started. And that breaks down to three areas:
(1)
Lessons learned over time – Experience is a great teacher. And
there are a few things that I do now… don’t do now… wish I had
started doing much, much earlier.
(2)
Stuff that didn’t work – These are the things I mostly learned
the hard way. They aren’t simply mistakes that needed to be
corrected or replaced, but also include efforts where I invested
too much time and work into something that roughly equated to
spinning my tires rather than anything resembling being productive.
(3)
Stuff that did work – Ok… yes… blind squirrel and finding an
acorn, sometimes you stumble across things without knowing any
better. That’s a part of it. But there are some things I did
from day one — actually, even before day one — that turned out
to be pretty wise decisions.
This
is not going to be a sales pitch of a seminar. I’ve attended presentations
like that… some of them have been very well done and quite useful…
but many are primarily money grabs. (“Here are a couple of ideas,
and if you like those you can learn more by buying my workbook
for just…” – “If you like what we’ve discussed here today, imagine
what you’ll discover by listening to my recorded lessons, which
I have with me and available today for just…” – you get the idea)
These
events will not fall into that category… all will be free and
open to the public. Might bring some of my books along for the
ride, have them if they’re wanted, but the session will not come
with a sales pitch and optional extras for a fee.
What
they will be is a presentation of information. Stuff for a writer…
stuff for you… to consider and think about. Hopefully writers
will find the material helpful, but if nothing else it will give
them details to build on. And it should be interesting and fun.
The
to be announced stuff will begin getting announced as this month
moves along. Two dates are just about ready to confirm… more should
be coming.
And…
for those that may be interested… I am hoping to make some arrangements
for additional events (possibly signings and readings) that will
take place as I move around.
Here’s
the new piece… “Now
where did I put…”
Brief
entry today… just a couple of updates on plans for this week…
I’m
going to have some details on a program I’m currently calling
A Writer’s Workshop. It’s a pretty exciting project for me, and
one that will be hitting the road this fall.
I
think… stress think… new pages for the web site will be ready
for Like Won’t Pass Me By and Conversations.
Should
be adding some things to Calendar of Events pages, for both me
and ComplemenTerry
Designs.
Even
have two essays nearing completion.
So…
yeah… lots on the way.
To
wrap things up today, let me direct your attention toward Amazon…
Bob’s
author page at Amazon
Are
you looking for a book to add to your Kindle? Maybe you’re thinking
about getting a couple of books for some relaxing moments of reading
in the good weather. (Perhaps you just want to offer your support
to a hard-working writer.)
There
are a few places to find my writing. I would love to send everyone
out for paperback editions of my
books from CreateSpace. I also know that things
like free shipping… purchases of other items along with a book
or two… electronic editions for your tablet, smartphone and so
on… and more combine for different shopping conveniences and preferences.
What
I can tell you is that I am incredibly grateful for your time
and support. I really appreciate the comments, suggestions, feedback
and more. Thank you.
A
few days ago, it was Life Won’t Pass Me By. Today…
Conversations
Time
Just Drifts Away was a combination of efforts. Overall (and
most simply stated), it was a single collection of material from
the In My Backpack web site. March 2003 to March 2012…
highlighting nine years… one publication. Simple. But…
It
also visited multiple neighborhoods of the ‘ville, so to speak.
One was focused on essays, and the other interviews. While in
many ways the walk between the two worked, in talking to several
people over the years since I have come to understand how the
two areas are in some approaches stronger for being celebrated
apart. That is a division leading to the separate efforts found
this time with Life Won’t Pass Me By and Conversations.
Conversations
will be a work that focuses primarily on the interviews from Backpackville.
I do expect that there will be more. Much more. And while I’m
not ready to lift curtain yet on exactly what will be included,
I can say there will be some surprises:
-
Conversations,
like Life Won’t Pass Me By, is heading toward a July
2017 release. There are some special things that need to be
set up, and I haven’t decided if the two books will be released
on the same date or with a brief separation. It is possible
I will hold it back into early August. That decision will
be made before the end of May.
Today
I’m going to kick off a run of updates on some projects. And we
start it all with a look at a new book…
Life
Won’t Pass Me By
Before
I can introduce the book, I’d like to tell a story…
From
the days of efforts that went into starting the In My Backpack
web site, I had hopes that one day I might have enough material
to publish a collection. At first, it was just a fairly unformed
thought. “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if I had enough to produce
a book?” Simple… basic… pretty straightforward. Nothing amazing
there.
Over
time though, it began to take on some definition and shape. The
early days around Backpackville, as things were shifting and developing,
included daily entry segments I referred to as “Are you chewing
gum?” and “A Momentary Lapse…” before settling into the Now
Playing area it has been for quite some time.
Essays were divided by sections, and I cannot remember the reasons
I had for separating them. I even had movie reviews. A lot has
changed.
In
2007, I began considering the first collection. Because the web
site was supposed to represent a work in progress… efforts put
together and released in order to be writing and expressing thoughts,
while not always being able to produce rust-free perfection… I
kicked around some possibilities about what the collection would
be…
One
option was taking all of the essays on the site, narrowing them
down to some of the favorite ideas, and then taking on massive
overhauls and re-writes for all of them.
Another
option was designing introductions for each essay. These opening
words might offer the date it was written, explanations and thoughts
about what motivated writing the piece, and describe any changes
made during the editing process.
For
a wide variety of reasons, all such considerations and options
were trashed and discarded.
Now…
check out that date… 2007. The ‘ville kicked off in March of 2003.
I was targeting March of 2008. I wanted to release a fifth anniversary
collection. Keep options open by considering anything posted by
March of 2008… a full five years of writing… and then a few months
later release the In My Backpack five-year celebratory
collection.
That’s
when a lot of funny stuff begins.
The
main source of entertainment was a fried hard drive. It didn’t
take down the web site. It didn’t wipe out most of my files, since
I had most backed up. But it did bring about a need to consider
new software, which in turn led to ripping apart and reassembling
the site. Everything reviewed… everything more or less recreated.
That was a blast.
I
also happen to be a great procrastinator. I’m not good at it.
I am, literally, great at it. So when 2012 arrived… and just after
the ninth anniversary of the web site that year, I released Time
Just Drifts Away… I enjoyed telling people
that I just had too much material to hold off for the tenth anniversary.
The reality is, and a punchline to the joke I have shared before:
I wasn’t early for the tenth anniversary. I was really late for
the fifth.
Which
brings us to 2017. Often people celebrate anniversaries annually,
while placing special emphasis on specific years. First… fifth…
tenth… and then every five, ten or twenty-five years gets some
sort of special consideration. Since I celebrated the ninth, to
me it made sense to maintain that off-beat pacing and target the
fourteenth anniversary with the next In My Backpack collection.
And so we shall…
Life
Won’t Pass Me By is a batch of essays taken from the In
My Backpack web site, between the dates of March 2003 and
March 2017. While most of them will be taken from the past five
years, I am finding a good amount of earlier material that likely
will make the final cut. And as was the case with Time Just
Drifts Away, a couple of essays may end up making a comeback…
as they may be pieces that are no longer posted on the web site.
Well
over two hundred essays made it to the first round of consideration.
The final manuscript is still being reviewed, so I can’t give
a true count of what is coming just yet. What I can say is…
-
There
are some changes being made, mainly for any errors found during
the proofreading or to clean some stuff up. But, they are
for the most part remaining in their original form. (As critical
as I can be about my own work, stepping back to read things
again years later does help show me that every so often my
writing isn’t too bad.)
-
I
will have the page active in the Writing
& Books area of the site later this
month.
-
The
target release date is July. (I might just be ahead of that…
but given how things normally develop on my projects, I’d
rather stay with the safety of saying July.)
This
weekend, I’ll share some background and information on Conversations.
Melissa
McCarthy is part of the process that may finally
bring The Happytime Murders to the screen.
Some
creative people out there. Beatles
and Star Wars, a classic combination.
Welcome
to what is shaping up as an absolutely crazy month…
Let’s
start with Title Town…
In
April, I released my latest effort… Title
Town (and other tangents).
A
collection of more than three dozen essays with a sports theme,
Title Town is my seventh published book. Almost fifteen
years of material was considered for its pages, with more than
thirty of the essays being pulled from the archives of In
My Backpack.
To
date, it has been receiving some positive feedback and attention,
for which I am incredibly grateful. I hope you’ll take some time
to check it and (and thank you for doing so). If you want to learn
more about Title Town and my other books, head over to
the Writing
& Books area of the ‘ville. And, if you’d
like to purchase them (HUGE thank you for that)…
Bob
Hocking author page at Amazon
Next
stop… Local
Friends for Local Business.
This
month, the challenge is reflecting all of the great happenings
and activities taking place. It could be a gathering… could be
an annual event… could be a moving celebration headed to your
town. May is packed with such possibilities…
Mother’s
Day… Cinco de Mayo… May breakfasts… Memorial Day…
Flowers
and parties and pancakes and barbecues. And those are just a starting
point. (Awesome!)
Heading
out to celebrate Star Wars? Well… May the Fourth be with
you. (And find a spot in your neighborhood to enjoy it.)
This
month, Local Friends is using the theme of Special
Events to hold a month-long challenge.
Special
Events
May 1st to 31st
As
the month continues, I’ll also be posting some information about
a few new projects. Here are some quick details…
Life
Won’t Pass Me By and Conversations
It’s
time for the In My Backpack fourteenth anniversary collections.
Life Won’t Pass Me By will feature essays taken from
the web site. Conversations will cover several interviews.
(And I’m working on surprises for both.)
A
Writer’s Workshop
Later
this summer and into the fall, I’m going to be hitting the road.
Working on setting up activities right now, which hopefully will
include book signings and readings.
In
the past, I’ve been asked many times about writing, with some
specifics relating to the process of bringing an idea to a published
effort. This program takes a simple premise – “Things I wish I
knew at the start” – and attempts to offer some information and
advice at an introductory level for writers.
(That
whooshing sound you hear is an avalanche of excitement and work
swirling around. Back soon.)
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