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When Fear Fell Away

Friday, August 29th, 2008

On This blog you have heard a great deal about this book of mine, now at the printers and soon to be sold on Amazon.com.  It’s about time that I introduced you. 

“BootsnAll  Folks, please meet Hey Boomers, Dust Off Your Backpacks, by Linda J. Brown.”

      The following is my frontispiece because the secret to world travel lies in overcoming fear.  This is my true story of twenty years ago:

     “We were descending the summit of Pyramid Peak near Aspen, Colorado, when I had my first – and final – face-to-face encounter with fear.  I stared him down and I haven’t heard from him since.  It was August, 1988, and I’d climbed this killer mountain three times before, never much thinking of its drastic reputation among mountaineers as the toughest and most dangerous of Colorado’s “Fourteeners,” the mountaineer’s term for any mountain over 14,000 feet.  But the death of famed theoretical physicist Heinz Pagels, just the week before, was on my mind.

     At fifty, I was only a year older than he had been on that gorgeous July day when he hugged the same rock face and edged his right foot blindly around the curve to find a solid place on the narrow ledge.  Pyramid is what is called a “rotten” mountain and it was his bad luck to find a rotten rock with that right foot.  Thinking of him that day, I survived his ledge but here was a scree-covered slope just ahead with my name on it.

     Someone else in my party had already crossed an angled slab of granite and was waiting to grab my hand once I’d taken the several long steps necessary to traverse the sideways-slanting rock crossed by the trail.  Then, I stopped short.  There was nothing for four-thousand feet to catch a plummeting body.  Plus, tiny pebbles of scree littered that slick rock and they could easily send my boot soles skidding.

     “I could die ten seconds from now!” I heard a part of my mind whisper to myself as fear found a wide open door into my heart.  I felt his cold fingers along my spine and noticed how that affected the backs of my  knees and put a stricture in my throat.  For one split-second, I even considered challenging my own belief that what one takes up the mountain, one must also carry down, including my own inexpert body.

     Then, I remembered the lessons of the labor room, twenty-five years before.  My babies were born by natural childbirth and I went into labor fully trained to cooperate.  Midpoint, and simply out of curiosity, I had experimented for one tiny moment to see what would happen if I stopped doing the breathing and relaxing exercises that I’d been taught.  Wham!  The pain hit hard.  Now I understood why those women down the hall were screaming and crying in such fear; they were unprepared and so afraid, that their bodies naturally clenched up and worked against them.  There, in that labor room, I took charge of myself and resumed the exercises and all went well.   

     And on this mountain, I took charge of myself again.  “Tak, tak, tak, tak, tak, tak.” said my mind, verbalizing the six steps required; using my hands to rehearse the placement of my feet.  That launched my body across the open space and, in seconds, I was holding my friend’s outstretched hand. 

     Fear had lost his foothold and must have fallen into the abyss insted, because I haven’t seen him since.

     Over the next two decades, there were many opportunities for fear to return to my heart.  I left my happy-go-lucky life in glorious Aspen to plan and lead group tours to the Soviet Union, taking Westerners to meet the people of that vast land when the Iron Curtain fell apart.  Strange and dicey things happened all the time, but they gave me exhilaration and happiness instead of fear and worry.  That sort of travel led to an appetite for more and I began to roam the less-traveled places of the world…alone.  Recently, I proved that I could safely wander across the entire Northern Hemisphere by myself, with only a backpack, for a year.  Soon, I’ll set out to do the same throughout the Southern Hemisphere. 

     Even as I age along, I do not encounter that old rascal, Fear.  My beloved mountain, Pyramid Peak in Colorado, took him away from me forever.”

Now that you have read a sample of my book, do plan to order a copy for yourself.  I’ll let you know when it’s available.

There’s An Other Side To Everything

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

Ohhhh yeah!  High Fives!  Do a little war dance!!!  Yesterday, I crossed the Great Divide and I did it, I did it, I did it!  After all the worry and high tension of the past week, while old erstwhile Hurricane Fay was messing with other people’s lives and the weather all over the State of Florida, I was facing a final showdown with my computer.  At last, I had pdfs for both my book cover and my book interior and things had come down to me to upload them into Lightning Source’s system. 

Innocently, I had thought that an email & attachment to my account representative there would do the trick, but learned that it had to come from within my own account.  Quaking in my boots, I tiptoed through the steps, messed up once, but finally saw that my files had been successfully received.  There I was, on the Other Side of that scary task.

I’m not out of the woods yet. It remains to be seen whether everything is actually print-ready, but nothing seems quite so hard any more.  I went right to the beach for a many- miles’ walk and a chance to talk to God.  That’s where I dream up all my audacious publicity schemes.  Wait till you see those!

What is your Great Divide?  What makes you uptight or irritable just because it’s all coming down on you, and there’s this deadline, and you want everything to be right?  Well, soon you’ll be on the Other Side of that little tiny fissure, which, now you can’t imagine would have made you nervous in the first place.

And you’ll be doing your own high-fivin’ victory dance.  So sweet it is!

BUT, that said and all… for any of you considering self-publishing… you might just shop the ads attached to this column for companies that do a lot of this for you.  You must consider carefully, because I see good ones and not so good ones there.  But, I’m not saying I wouldn’t consider that route for my next book, now that I’m a savvy consumer in the whole book publishing thing.  My do-it-yourself route has not been cheap, but it has given me total control and that’s a good thing.  If you can combine fixed price for service with a retention of all rights and ownership of your book, then you can probably save time and a lot of hair (that doesn’t get pulled) by going with an agency of sorts. 

In retrospect, of course, with your feet firmly standing on the Other Side, putting together a book of your own suddenly feels very easy and you start to think of doing it all over again. 

Just exactly, (as you will learn) the same way that your around the world trip will take on this smooth easy glow once you get back to sleeping in your own bed.  I’m already planning my next RTW. 

Just exactly the same way that a new mother will forget the pain of her labor and delivery and will wind up having lots of children.  It’s all about the Other Side.

Pssst!  That’s the secret of death, don’tcha know!

Tropical Storm Fay is a Drunken Sailor!

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Yessiree, old Fay is no lady, that’s for sure.  She’s weaving around the State of Florida, spilling her drinks and making a general mess of the counties north of me now.  At this very minute, she is breathing heavily on my hanging ferns on the patio and making them swing about in a very attractive way.  She knocked over my big umbrella during the night, but she’s actually miles away and these are only the swooshes of her trailing skirts. 

Like a sailor gone blotto, Hurricane Fay entered our state five days ago and careened across the Everglades well south of here.  Somewhere along the way she lost her hurricane status but she’s still a mean woman and a killer of twenty-eight and counting.  Causing a great deal of flooding along the East Coast, she veered out to sea for a short looksee and then turned back to land to stumble wantonly towards the panhandle.  I have no idea what she’s doing just now as I have failed to check the news before sitting down to write this, but she’s probably still tearing up the pea patch, refusing to go quietly into yet another night.

I actually like negative ions and find this sort of weather exhilarating, but I think this must be one of those ill winds that does nobody any good.  Well, judging from the loss of life and property damage, there’s no “probably” about it. 

But, it’s so weird that these past few days have been also marked by a lot of stress as I try to get my book put to bed.  (Isn’t that the old printer’s term for getting ready to make the first print run?)  I usually don’t even experience stress because I have a pretty laid back life.  But, I’ve been trying to get my book’s manuscript and cover design to the printers in enough time to have a proof copy run, shipped and checked, and then to be able to make my first order in time to take some copies to the AARP Convention in Washington, DC, the first week in September.

That would require some close coordination but it sure was worth a try.  I found someone to format the manuscript and convert it to pdf and that part was sent in on time.  I didn’t expect any problems with the cover design since I had signed off on the final artwork weeks ago and we were just waiting for the page numbers to be complete so I that could tell them the correct spine width.  My designers had assured me that they could handle all the technical requirements of getting their pdf sent to Lightning Source.  Monday was a holiday in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they’re located, so I expected everything to be sent in on Tuesday, but it didn’t go out till late Thursday.  Now, I believe their pdf is finally at the printers and I am waiting to hear whether both files are trouble-free and print ready. 

However, this is Friday.  A weekend is ahead.  We lost a valuable week which could spell the difference between my going to my first big book promotion without any books; and having something to present to the important reviewers and media people whom I will be meeting there.  At least I have my new business cards and I can always network and take addresses for sending books later.  It will all work out anyway, and I’m sure that this field of self-publishing which I have newly stepped into is full of glitches like this.  That’s business, right? 

Last night, I went and joined old Tropical Storm Fay on the beach and watched her wallop the waves awhile.  All that was lacking was a beer in my hand but I cavorted by getting a little much-needed exercise. 

ALL’S QUIET ON THE HURRICANE FRONT!

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

Interestingly, Hurricane Fay has her eye on me, sitting here in her direct path as I am, in Clearwater, Florida.  Today is utterly beautiful and the sun shines brightly because Fay has vacuumed all surrounding clouds into her spinning self.  I want very much to go take a long exercise walk on the beach but am sticking close to my computer and phone because my book manuscript is undergoing its final formatting and I may need to answer questions.  Everything concerning the book is also spinning along to a rousing conclusion.  (Just a reminder or to any late-joiners: the book is my “Hey Boomers, Dust Off Your Backpacks: Travel The World On A Limited Budget.”)

If my calculations are correct, I will be able to sling my two PDFs, containing my finished book cover and manuscript, up towards the Lightning Source printers in Nashville, Tennessee, just at the very moment when Fay is predicted to come and pound us on this central West Coast of Florida, right beside the Gulf of Mexico, westward of Tampa.  Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m.

Wouldn’t that be dramatic?  What a book launch!  Why, those hurricane force winds could conceivably carry this project right on up to the big talk shows in Neu Yawk City or Chickargo.  Sounds mighty symbolic to me!  And a radical launch calls for radical promotion measures.  That’s all the excuse I need.

So, here’s another Hurricane-worthy selling point that I shall unveil on this blogsite. Just this morning, I did a quite odd and radical thing in the way of future publicity….but a genuine one, nonetheless.  I applied to Guinness World Records in London, England, to be considered for a new category title: 

“The World’s Oldest, Solo, Around The World Backpacker.”

Don’t laugh!  I’m going for it – if they accept my challenge.  And why shouldn’t they, I ask?  I’m genuine.  I can’t claim it for my around the world, year-long, solo trip in 2005 at ages 67/68 (which said Hurricane Fay book is all about) because I didn’t actually begin to backpack until Prague. I toiled with a drag-along suitcase for three months. 

But, my planned around the world journey beginning January, 2009, will be all of the above at age 71.  At the moment, Guinness doesn’t even have a category for oldest any kind of backpacker, so I think I have this one in the bag…..er…. backpack.  Let me do a survey here.  Do any of you know of one of us who is older than I am?  Well, we could contend.  That would stir things up.  What a funny fogey fight that would be, huh? 

So, there’s been a lot of slinging going on, down here in Florida, lately.  I just slung my challenge over to England today and on Tuesday, I plan to sling my print-ready book over to Tennessee, aided by some errant winds wielded by a sassy gal named Fay.  The following Monday, a proof copy will be slung back at me and if it looks good, we’ll be off to the races.

Meanwhile, it’s mighty quiet down here in the calm before the storm.

I’m A Symphony Conductor!

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

I feel as if I’m standing at the podium with baton in the air and I have an orchestra in front of me, tuning up.  Right now, it sounds rather awkward with uncoordinated bleets and blats going on and no music coming out.

That’s a snapshot of the status of my current dream production – this new book and its promotion. If every instrument harmonizes exactly, then I will have a book on Amazon.com and in hand by September 3rd when I take off for my first big promotional endeavor – the AARP Convention in Washington, DC.  That’s where I plan to network like crazy among all the youngest old folks (like me) that you’ll ever meet.  This is a huge 50th birthday celebration of the American Association of Retired Persons and it will be a spectacular three-day event.  So, I will be there trying to make some sort of a mark among my peers, all of whom are also highly-accomplished, memorable individuals.  How will I accomplish this?

1.  The big plan is simple:  Pass out lots of special business cards…..which I have just ordered online…5000 of them….to everyone whom I meet and chat with.  I love the card’s design and the fact that it advertises my book, not me, and will send people to my personal blogsite and to Amazon.com to order my book.

2.  But, for the moment, my heyboomers.com blogsite is getting completely redone.  Recently, I have lost two long postings to the blithersphere (the ether), so my blog designer is going to change things completely and to try to get the site ready for the big September 3rd deadline.  Will it be ready on time?

3.  I still have to get the headers and page numbers done on the book’s formatting and a PDF file produced so that I can submit it to the printer, Lightning Source.  In the meantime, my sister has just proofed the manuscript again and found lots more stray commas and things to fix.  She’s a crackerjack high school English teacher and I’m very grateful for her input. I’d rather have her catch the errors now instead of while she’s reading the published copy.

4.  Assuming that I can get these technicalities on the book interior cleared up by this weekend and can send the cover design template to my Argentinian cover designers, I can send everything to the printers by next Monday and they will send me a printed book proof copy within just a few days.

5.  Hopefully, that will be acceptable and I can order my first fifty books to send out for review and to solicit interview opportunities.  At that time, the book gets posted on Amazon.com for sale and I am in business.  This could all be up and running by September 1st and I’ll be ready for my big “concert” in our nation’s capital.

But, the success of it all depends upon many different instruments playing together – on the same song – at the same time.  So, we shall see.  Tune in three weeks from now and I will tell you if we made it. 

Ether or……….

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

My book Hey Boomers, Dust Off Your Backpacks: Travel The World On A Limited Budget, is getting close to its production time, and yet at just this moment, it feels to me more out in the ether than ever. 

Ether – (aithein, to burn) 1. an imaginary substance once thought to pervade space.  2. the upper regions of space 3. a volatile, colorless, highly flammable liquid used as an anesthetic and a solvent.

That’s where books come from, you know… the ether.  Where is any mental creation before its owner pulls it in from outer space?  You think up a thing and then you set about bringing it into creation.  And it is a burn.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.  But, it’s worth it.  Whether it’s a book or a baby or a blog that we are talking about.

I thought it might be time for a Book Report.  Literally.  Everything is written and it looks very good to me when I proof it for the umpteenth time.  But, I’m stuck in the home stretch because I’m a computer dummy and I need to locate a geek to hire and I haven’t found one yet and I have company coming for a few days and everything goes on the shelf for the moment.  So, I have to run in place with my beautiful book just hanging there in space waiting to get headers and page numbers put in.

“Is that all?” you say, “Piece of cake!” 

“Well, not to me!” sez I.

Unlike the rest of you, I wasn’t born with a silver thumbdrive in my mouth.  I still don’t get it, even on the simplest of the complex operations.  But, I must rave about a book that has taken me by the hand and walked me through some complicated procedures.  You see, to make a book, it is necessary to design your Book Block.  To do that, you must Insert Section Breaks into your manuscript.  Then, you have to Unlink them.  Then, you have to put in your Roman Numerals in the Front Matter, your Invisible Numbers, your Even Page Numbers, and then, your Odd Page Numbers.  And then, you must write the Text in your Headers.  Whoosh!

Believe it or not, I have done half of that all by myself.  I bogged down on the numbering but maybe if I had the time to return to the task, I could actually make the rest of it happen too.  But, I think I’ll find somebody with brains to help me figure it out.  Gotta hire a geek for this.  If you ever self-publish, you need to get this book because if I can get results, anybody can.

How To Self-Publish Your Book With Booksurge For $99 by Edwin Scroggins.  It’s sold on Amazon.com and is a very boring read because it is full of “put your cursor here, click here, you will see this, do that…”  But, it’s not meant to be a bedtime story, it’s a detailed guide through Word 2007 and Word 97 on how to prepare your manuscript for the printer so that it will come out like a book.

To do what I’m doing, an author becomes the publisher and takes on all the hidden tasks that usually happen deep inside of a New York book operation.  It is hard, at least the first time around.  But, we have the means to do it right there on our PCs, nowadays.  We also have the means, because printers are willing to work with individuals as long as we are willing to take this responsibility upon ourselves, become small publishers, and provide print-ready covers and inside material.  This book will train you to do that. 

Almost anyone is more computer comfortable than I am, so my learning curve may be slower and more agonizing, but I will have one beautiful book to show for it when I’m finished and one that I will be so exquisitely proud of, because when I finally hold it in my hand, I will have an even greater sense of wonder than many awestruck authors.  “I actually DID this?!!!”

So, it feels slow, drawing this thing out of the ether.  I printed the manuscript out yesterday.  Got a look at it on paper, and there are chapters, and everything stayed where it should.  Just no page numbers or headers yet.  It reads like a good story.  You’re going to like it, I know.

My cover is finished now and is very beautiful.  But, it must wait until this stuff is finished on setting up my Book Block because the spine width might change a little still.  Headers may crowd the page and a font that I’m considering changing to, might make the copy longer, as well.  Subtle ripples are sent down the entire length with every small change.

Creating something from nothing is very labor intensive.   

But, life itself is either Ether or Creation.  I’m gonna go with Creation.

Experience, Exploration, Freedom, Adventure vs Stuff & Money

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

I’d like to share something that I wrote in my journal in July, 2002.  I was living in Aspen, Colorado, and already thinking about an around the world trip, which didn’t actually happen for three more years:”

Sometimes, I conduct little imaginary conversations with any naysayers who might think that I’m being irresponsible and not “saving for the future,” by spending my money as I get it on something as ephemeral as travel.  Nobody would bat an eyelash if I spent the same amount on obtaining a house or a mobile home.  You couldn’t get much of either on what the year of travel is going to cost.  Or how about a car?  All would agree that a car is a necessary purchase, right?  Well, those things require constant investment and upkeep and they tend to tie you down.  I have learned that it’s very easy to find a place to live when one needs that, and transportation is always available in some form or another. I don’t need to own it all.

This is the secret that Americans don’t know.  They think that their identity comes from things….that their security comes from things.  And the accumulation of things is approved; but the refusal to accumulate is looked upon with alarm and disapproval.  Many of my contemporaries, who are in their sixties, have already spent tens of thousands of dollars on rebuilding their bodies. One friend must have used up a hundred grand of hers, or Medicare’s, money on hospital bills, just in the five years that I’ve known her.  If they are not fixing their body parts, they’re fixing their wrinkled faces with cosmetic surgery.

Now the news is full of stories about the worthlessness of two medical procedures that millions have spent big bucks to attain:  atherosclerotic surgery on the knee or shoulder, and hormone relacement therapy for menopause.  Neither does much good, at all, though both cost a whole lot of money and have been sworn by for years.

Then, there is the vast amount of money that has simply disappeared from millions of American lives through their faith in the stock market.  So many retirees, or wanna-be retirees, are broke right now because their pension funds have evaporated in these scandals and the bursting of the stock market bubble.   That’s what it’s all about.  These American Expectations of The Good Life.   Afraid, afraid, afraid!  That’s what everyone is these days because of the economic changes.  They are not the fat cats that they once thought they were. 

And meanwhile, there’s me, skimming along on the surface of it all, carrying no expensive baggage.  I get to stay in fancy hotels, or in unique hostels, eating wonderful cuisine, and loving every affordable minute, because I’m not drowning in the strange psychology of this society.  I’m also not spending one penny more than life would cost me if I stayed in one place and just existed.

I find it so hard to believe that it was only three weeks ago that I returned from Europe and started back on the job.  It feels so long ago.  That’s because of the sameness of the routine.  Nothing here has essentially changed since I arrived five years ago.  It’s a time warp sort of feeling, as if I’ve been doing this forever; going through the same motions in the same surroundings.  So, stepping into it again, I sink back into the same old jelly mold and the days again become monotonously alike.

This is the way that many humans live their whole lives.   This is what normal feels like to them.  One friend has been doing the same thing here for over thirty years, often with the very same objects.  So have her friends and neighbors.  I step away for a year-and-a-half and then come back, catching them in mid-motion of a routine activity which they were following on the day that I left.  This is life for 99% of the population.  I can’t be compelled to feel guilty for the choices that I have made to live my life a great deal differently.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.  Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men, as a whole, experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer, in the long run, than exposure.”  Helen Keller 

Schnapps Under The Grape Arbor Will Bring About World Peace

Friday, August 1st, 2008

My subjects are all over the place on this blog, aren’t they?  But, at their core, each one has “travel” in common.  Since I have my notebooks and albums out concerning my long (five years now) love affair with Croatia, I will continue the story that I started a few days ago.

As I work on the book which I’m about to publish, I am struck by the fact that most of it concerns  small interactions that I have had with interesting people all along the way. If I have nothing to say about a place other than tourist brochure material, well frankly, that city won’t make it into my story at all because in my opinion, “nothing happened” in that spot worth noting.  But, ohhhhhh, if a little story took place, then it gets captured in my journal and savored for all time. 

We never know, ourselves, as we stumble through our own lives, whether somebody has so treasured a momentary exchange with us that it gets written up in their diary or even just flagged in their memory.  But, it occurs all the time.  Here’s a sweet evening that happened to me in September, 2003, in Dubrovnik, Croatia:

One fact which makes this even more bittersweet, is to understand the scene.  Dubrovnik sits at the tip end of a long, skinny strip of Croatia, that is almost pushed into the sea by Bosnia.  Imagine that the big, chunky country of Bosnia was a bulldozer and that it had darned near done the job already. Geology has created an alps between the two countries, resulting in a long mountain which runs beside the entire cityscape.  During the Bosnian War, snipers and grenade-throwers occupied the top of that mountain and took aim on everyone walking in the streets below.  Most wood in the structures of the Old Town was burned away and many of the famous red tiles of the roofs were destroyed.  You can still see pockmarks in the marble left by all of this sharpshooting and grenade-lobbing.  That war was up close and personal. Now, for my story:

“The night I checked into my second guest house, I found myself invited to join the family for schnapps at the table under the grape arbor on the front terrace.  Schnapps were new to me but the bottle with its floating plant contents was so intriguing that I could not resist.  It was coughingly delicious and two shot glass fulls led to hours of deep conversation with my host, Vlaho and his best friend, Slobodan.  Vlaho is named for the Patron Saint of Dubrovnik and his wife’s family has lived in this mansion for centuries.  He is a Catholic and a Croat.  Slobodan, also born in Dubrovnik, is by birth a Bosnian Orthodox. 

This recent war tested their friendship extremely, but thankfully, did not break it.  If either of them had lost a relative, however, both agreed that they could not look upon the face of the other.  Neither one wanted the war, nor had anything, at all, to do with it; but each one said that they would have fought if their respective sides had called upon them to do so. 

What is the solution to this ethnic impasse?  They wished they knew.  Meanwhile, the two best friends drink schnapps at each other’s tables.  Slobodon went home with a little kitten from my host cat’s litter.”