Jeff Is Going Off the Grid, But the Blog Rolls On

The Backstory

About a dozen years ago, I began toying with an idea I had for a fiction novel. 

It's a story about a middle-aged guy who wants more happiness in the second half of his life than he had in the first half. He thinks he knows how to make that happen, but after some wacky stuff happens, he realizes much of what he knows about life, well, it might just be total crap. It all works out...maybe. (Can't tell you everything, can I?) It's your typical transformation story, only eloquently told with charm, wit, and an online thesaurus.

Anyway, about 18 months ago I stopped dabbling with the idea and began working on the book in earnest, and earlier this year, I finished a first draft. With more than 400 pages completed and 145,000 words committed to "paper," it turns out - that was the easy part.

Since early summer I have been revising that first draft. The editorial process for a novel, I have learned, can take far less time than the original writing (which is good because I don't think I have another decade in me for this project), but it takes even more focus and commitment. 

Commitment has always come easy to me, but concentration, not so much. Which leads us here...

Jeff's retreat in the redwood forests near Arcata, CA.
(Note: I don't know the woman pictured on the porch. I hope she's gone.)

The Next Four Weeks

Between now and Thanksgiving, I will be living in this tiny cabin, deep in the northern California redwoods. With no internet, phone, or cable TV immediately available, I will be largely disconnected from the real world. 

I'm hoping to find greater focus here than I have been able to muster in my daily life in recent months, and with a little luck and a lot of effort, I should make tremendous progress on revising my novel. 

You Can't Stop The Way Things Turn

I won't be publishing The Way Things Turn each day, but the world will continue to spin and events worthy of note will still need to be...noted.

I've asked my friend and fellow writer Tim Juhl to take over the helm of the blog for the next month, and lucky for all of us, Tim agreed! He will continue to publish daily zen posts, and hopefully, share with you some of his personal views on "politics, culture, and other best laid plans."

Tim will promote his daily posts via Facebook, so feel free to "friend" him. You can find his FB profile here. I will also "share" his blog posts thru Facebook and Twitter every few days when I make way to an internet cafe.

If you want to be sure you continue to see everything posted on the blog, all you have to do is subscribe. Just enter your email address in the "Follow By Email" box near the top of the left-hand column, and follow the simple instructions. You'll get an email each day with links to the daily zen and other posts.

That's it for me. I'm signing off for now. Wish me luck. Many thanks to Tim for taking over the blog for a month and....

...as always thanks for reading!