This non-vacation/vacation from the keyboard was prompted by my moving my base of operations from upstate NY to California. This coast-to-coast shift was about as taxing as anything I have ever done.But it's completed. Done. Over. Finished.
Y gracias Dios.
And the draft of The Devil's Pipeline? Pardon the pun but it is still in the pipeline. The plan is to get the completed manuscript off to a New York publisher this fall for an agreed-upon look-see. But in the meantime, I have another potential writing project in mind, a la a well-known, well-loved John Steinbeck book, Travels with Charley.
If you haven't read this short tome, pick it up. I read snippets years ago. Now I am rereading it in its entirety as I plan a cross-country trip of my own beginning in early September.
I don't have dog named Charley, or any dog actually. But I do have a pickup truck and time. Lots of time.
My Travels will start in New York City, from the same spot I left in 1970 driving a blue, 1964 VW van. That two-month cross-country tour ended in Napa, Calif.
I will retrace many of the steps I took along that route. But this time I will be solo piloting a 1990 Nissan pickup truck with a camper shell. And my journey will be viewed through the eyes of novelist & journalist, not a brand-new dad with his wife, three-month-old son and a coal black cat named Mr. Kitter aboard.I have no idea what will come out of this trip: A handful of daily blogs (Posted on The Captain's Blog), a magazine article or two - or even a book about the America I find. I won't know until I head out and return.
Steinbeck explains this far better on the first page of Travels with Charley.
"We all find after years of struggle, that we do not take a trip, a trip takes us."
