It was never my intention to oppose a war or to author a book. But a good friend, a few years ago, having read some of my other work, suggested I write a book, and somehow I believed them.
If I had planned this, I would have kept a diary or notes. What few notes I did take, in notebooks or scribbled on soggy barroom napkins, are long gone — forever in a landfill. But even though many years and more life incarnations than I can recount have passed, I still remember most things.
It seems like a very long time ago; in fact, it’s been a few years since I first started this book, and it’s not finished yet, or even close to it. I saw an interview with Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where the interviewer, Charlie Rose, asked him what took so long between One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion. Ken laughed and replied, “Well, I was living my life.”
Living my life is one thing I am proud of having done. Book or no book, poetry on the back of laundry receipts or left behind in the spin cycle of a Maytag could never have taken the place of the life I am thankful I have been able to have, from a professional radio broadcaster to selling baubles in a Christmas store, and many other types of occupations along the way. I did not get locked into one lifestyle or a more mainstream way of living.
Putting this book out to the world one chapter at a time is just another way of not fitting into a mold. I’m sure many writers would say, “What are you doing?” or, “Never give away for free what you can sell.”
Well, it’s not giving it away; WordPress has an ad thing where, if I get enough visitors, I make some pennies. But as someone once said about me — and it’s true — if money were the reason, I wouldn’t be me.
Besides, putting this out to the world as chapters are finished will encourage me actually to finish. And anyway, it’s the story I want to tell, because the life that created it is worth telling.
And it doesn’t rule out the warm fuzzy feeling you and I will get someday when this makes it to hard copy.