Grounded!

Grounded!

Coming up with a theme for a blog each week is difficult. The blog is mainly about re-writing a book and getting it ready to release. I hoped that the new version would be ready by the end of February. At the same time, I am still doing a national book tour – without a book -- which is a bit hard to explain. Mainly, I am visiting independent bookstores and finding out who is interested in offering my book a coveted place on their shelves.

A coveted spot on bookstore shelves is my goal

So, I try to keep documenting the many steps and struggles a new author faces in trying to finish a good book, a professional book that he can be proud of, and finally get it to market. At the same time, I live in a twin reality, because the national book tour has, predictably, turned out to be the subject of my next book, which is literally writing itself, day by day, week by week, as my dog and I travel in our campervan from state to state across the USA.

The campervan near the Rio Grande and Big Bend National Park in Texas

In any event, the theme this week is being grounded. What do I mean? Being grounded means a number of things, depending on the context. Most immediately, I have been grounded by a winter storm that hit Las Cruces, New Mexico, overnight. When I arrived last night from Texas (after visiting the wonderful Guadeloupe Mountains National Park) the weather was mild, mid-fifties, but the wind was blowing up to 50 mph.

A late winter storm with high winds

When I woke up in the campervan this morning, and opened the door to get out, I was hit by a gale-force wind. It was literally freezing cold. There were strange white particles floating in the air, which defied comprehension at first. I wondered if it was dust or perhaps bits of ash from a fire. It only slowly dawned on me, as the particles hit my face, stinging me with cold and wet, that this was SNOW.

Snow. I had forgotten about snow. The whole point of going through the South in the winter was to avoid snow and cold. We had successfully avoided snow for almost five weeks through nine states. I had forgotten it existed.

Being grounded also means standing on solid ground, having two feet on the ground, and so on. It means taking the time to reflect on your situation and deciding how you should respond to it. We had been traveling almost nonstop for five weeks. I had grown weary and a bit confused. It seemed to me that the winter storm did us a favor by grounding us for a day to let me think things over.

The neon sign at the Grounded coffee shop in Las Cruces, NM

Curiously, when I looked for a coffee shop this morning, the top-rated local shop was Grounded. While enjoying a cup of coffee and working, I met the owner, Tony, and his wife, Sandra. They are very nice people. Tony had to deal with a street person who came in with a loud boom box. He was kind but firm in asking the man to turn down the volume. He smiled at him and showed him respect. Not every business treats street people with basic human dignity.

The author with Tony and Sandra Espiritu at Grounded in Las Cruces

Tony is grounded. He strikes me as a good person through and through.

If Tony could be grounded, so can I. Instead of pitching a fit about being stuck here, I’m actually enjoying it. I can see more clearly as a result. As usual, each blog has a theme song. (If you remember this song, you’re either my age, or you actually listened to your parents’ records and you liked this one.)

The #1 hit, “I Can See Clearly Now”

I Can See Clearly Now (The Rain is Gone)” was a hit in 1974 for Johnny Nash, who wrote the lyrics. It was his only #1 hit. This song had a great hook.

“I can see clearly now the rain is gone/I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind/It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day”

I was a sophomore in high school in 1974. It was not a cool song that you played for your friends, and you certainly didn’t go around singing the song. But you listened to it when it came on the radio. We were just kids, but we already knew about dark clouds and obstacles that got in our way back then. It was a good lesson: no matter what difficulties you faced, eventually, you’d overcome them.

Curiously, the song is on a CD of one-hit wonders from the 70s that I bought somewhere to play in the car as we traveled across the country through the many places where there is no radio and no Wi-Fi signal. In those places, you have to bring your own music or sing songs to entertain yourself in the car.

It had already occurred to me that the song would be a good fit for this blog post, because we have faced many obstacles trying to finish a book that is professional-caliber in every way – not just the writing, which is the main thing, but also the presentation – it needed a talented graphic designer.

I was extremely lucky to find a person who is from Africa to design the book. Tolu, my designer, was actually born in London, but his parents moved the family back to Nigeria so they could learn their parents’ birth culture, and presumably, not grow up to be snotty and spoiled like British teenagers.

Tolu moved back to London as an adult to launch his career as a graphic designer. He soon proved to be among the best. He has won multiple awards and has a stack of graphic design certifications. He is a very talented guy.

And then it happened: Because I met a Nigerian American in my hometown who knew Tolu, he was happy to agree to design my book, not knowing that I had presented him with an impossible task. I had included over 100 color pictures and 25 maps and illustrations as well as five music playlists.

No one does this. Correction: No sane author with any idea what they were doing would do this. But I did it, because I didn’t know any better, and because I loved the idea of including many of my Africa pictures.

So, poor Tolu has been struggling with the task for two months now. He is unfailingly polite and kind, even when he might very well be thinking that he would like to beat me to death with the book. He just this week informed me that the book has ballooned from 375 pages, in the first edition, to almost 500 pages. Oh my God! Five hundred pages!? Tolu added enough “white space “ to make the book look professional and to be pleasant to read, whereas I had crammed every page of the first edition FULL of stuff.

The result was a first edition that looked positively awful. I apologize to anyone who read it. I am glad that the new, abridged edition will be easier on the eyes, but not on the pocketbook. The price will go up, most likely WAY up. Be ready for a shocker. I won’t be surprised if the paperback is $50.

I can see clearly now that it will be a challenge to persuade people to pay $50 for a book written by an unknown author. If anyone knows how to finesse this situation, please let me know. And hurry.

The new release date is projected to be mid-March. FYI.