A Door in the Mind

I have two seminal reading experiences in my lifetime. The first was sitting on my father's lap at age 5 and reading a book aloud. He asked me to read the same sentence without moving my lips... and I did. I knew I was doing something different but might not have sensed its true import had my father not shouted out with glee.

The other experence came about a decade later. I was an awkward teenager and hadn't yet found a rudder to steer toward my interests. My school had given me a long list of books to read over the summer, but those book lists were always a chore to be done. I simply didn't get reading. It wasn't fun.

And then my older cousin Chris threw me a book. "You might enjoy reading this." It was Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama. As I turned the pages, I felt myself completely transported into a world unknown, full of surprises and bizarre mysteries. The word "awestruck" probably best typifies my experience reading that book. (I understand why now—that book won the Campbell, Hugo, Jupiter, and Nebula Awards!)

Not long after I had finished Rama, I found myself constantly skulking around bookstores for my next fix. Clarke's Rama led to Issac Asimov's Foundation trilogy and robot short stories, which led to Piers Anthony's XANTH fantasy novels, which led to Whitley Striber's The Wolfen, and so on. By my early 20s, I had finally migrated to Heinlein's Future History stories and novels.

And none of that would have happened without Clarke's marvelous story about a massive ship in space whose inhabitants are inexplicably missing.

Thank you, Mr. Clarke. Thank you for opening a door in my mind.

Arthur C. Clarke
1917–2008

It's Time For A Book

My mother is visiting this August 11th and because she doesn't have a computer, she's never read any of my blog posts. Recently, she asked me to put up all my screenplays into one book so she could read them whenever she wanted. But she's never read my blogs? Mom, you're killing me.

And that got me thinking. I probably have enough material from my blog for a book, so why shouldn't I use a Print On Demand self-publishing service like Lulu.com to print my own book? It's not like I don't know how to lay out a book—I have the design knowledge from years of laying out magazine ads. The challenge of publishing a book is that it's a marathon because you're wearing so many hats at a given time.

Nevertheless, I got really excited because I own all the copyright to my own writing... what's stopping me from going all the way and distributing my printed blogs through Amazon*? And the answer is—money. Among other things, Amazon requires an ISBN number and you can only buy ISBNs in lots of 10. At $25 per ISBN, that's $250. And then there are the proofing costs. All told, self-publishing could be as expensive as $350, which is a hefty chunk of change.

Naturally, I could slap all that on a credit card, but I thought it might be a nice gesture to invite my friends, family, readers, and subscribers—the people who still enjoy reading my banter after all this time—onto the wagon and help this train come into the station. Plus, the end result could be something really special for my Mom to see a "real" published book of nothing but blogs her son wrote. Come on, you can't say that's not cool!

Anyway, if you feel like you want to help out, all contributions are very welcome:

My aim is have all $350 by August 3rd. If I start getting contributions as planned, I may detail on my blog each step of getting my book published. That's got to be worth two yanks of a steam train whistle.

* I'm not very concerned with how many people buy the printed copy, because just having a book listed listed on Amazon is worth bragging rights for its own sake!