While I was vacating
While I spent two weeks in Massachusetts, the New York Times went west. First they hired Patricia Nelson Limerick to write some hopeful if vague columns, and then they sent John Tierney to Indian country.
Here Lance Mannion destroys Tierney's column. Maybe a bit overzealously, but I did find Lance's thesis more pithy and intriguing than Tierney's, to wit:
Meanwhile, Russell J. Milne sent me a nice note highlighting his new biography, "Orphan Boy," in which his father gets on a train to Poplar, Montana, in 1915. Thanks, Russell, and good luck with the book.
Finally, buried in a standard story about hardworking mainstreet retailers in the Missoulian is this startling stat:
The decimation wreaked by big-box stores on small-town retail is a well-known subject (which is how I can be a bit flippant in summarizing the Missoulian story -- I've read similar ones so many times before) -- but even I didn't know the numbers were that high.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/, or let me know your thoughts via info at johnclaytonbooks (and you can fill in the rest).
Here Lance Mannion destroys Tierney's column. Maybe a bit overzealously, but I did find Lance's thesis more pithy and intriguing than Tierney's, to wit:
The West was settled and civilized when the government came in and took everybody’s guns away -- sometimes literally, but usually by making it unnecessary to carry a gun.
Meanwhile, Russell J. Milne sent me a nice note highlighting his new biography, "Orphan Boy," in which his father gets on a train to Poplar, Montana, in 1915. Thanks, Russell, and good luck with the book.
Finally, buried in a standard story about hardworking mainstreet retailers in the Missoulian is this startling stat:
The U.S. Census reports that the most rural of rural Montana counties lose about 40 percent of their retail dollars to larger towns and cities.
The decimation wreaked by big-box stores on small-town retail is a well-known subject (which is how I can be a bit flippant in summarizing the Missoulian story -- I've read similar ones so many times before) -- but even I didn't know the numbers were that high.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/, or let me know your thoughts via info at johnclaytonbooks (and you can fill in the rest).
A project's end
It's done. After almost five years of research and writing, I've finished the manuscript for "The Cowboy Girl," my biography of Caroline Lockhart.
Granted, it's hard for any author to officially mark the end of a book project. I finished a draft, which I turned in to my editor. A month ago I finished an earlier (far rougher) draft; three months from now I'll be finishing another draft, based on feedback from the editor and reviewers. After that I'll be looking at copyediting changes, and publicity materials, and. . .
But at some point you have to celebrate. Ideally that point is related to a point at which you feel like you have accomplished something. You've taken a pile of sand and made something you think has meaning. And you want to walk away, at least for a while. That's how I feel now. I've written what I thought I wanted to write. Someday I may learn that I didn't want to write that, or that I didn't accomplish it as well as I'd hoped. But for now I am done.
My attention goes elsewhere: to some shorter essays and better-paying business assignments. I am delighted to find that I can stroll downtown at 3:30 in the afternoon and feel like I am actually engaging with people, rather than being lost in reverie I had finally christened Lockhart-world.
My attention also goes to vacation. This blog will become even more irregular than usual for the next several weeks, as I celebrate and travel and lie on the hammock. I encourage you to do the same.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/, or let me know your thoughts via info at johnclaytonbooks (and you can fill in the rest).
Granted, it's hard for any author to officially mark the end of a book project. I finished a draft, which I turned in to my editor. A month ago I finished an earlier (far rougher) draft; three months from now I'll be finishing another draft, based on feedback from the editor and reviewers. After that I'll be looking at copyediting changes, and publicity materials, and. . .
But at some point you have to celebrate. Ideally that point is related to a point at which you feel like you have accomplished something. You've taken a pile of sand and made something you think has meaning. And you want to walk away, at least for a while. That's how I feel now. I've written what I thought I wanted to write. Someday I may learn that I didn't want to write that, or that I didn't accomplish it as well as I'd hoped. But for now I am done.
My attention goes elsewhere: to some shorter essays and better-paying business assignments. I am delighted to find that I can stroll downtown at 3:30 in the afternoon and feel like I am actually engaging with people, rather than being lost in reverie I had finally christened Lockhart-world.
My attention also goes to vacation. This blog will become even more irregular than usual for the next several weeks, as I celebrate and travel and lie on the hammock. I encourage you to do the same.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/, or let me know your thoughts via info at johnclaytonbooks (and you can fill in the rest).
