At Last the Story Can Be Told - Today, I got the third set of blue lines from my publisher to review. A blue line is a complete copy of a manuscript which the author (ME) gets to mark up. I mention that this is the third one because even though I have probably read this manuscript a couple of hundred times, these last three required me to nit-pick and to read what has already become very familiar with a great deal of care. I had the constant notion in the back of my head of two images. First, in one of the big pieces of legislation that I worked on - the actual enrolled version included the following lines in statute "Senator Moynihan, please call XXX-XXX-XXXX" (When that bill went to the printer some stray paper got scooped up and became momentarily part of the Internal Revenue Code. But then I had a second image of two tombstones I found in an old cemetery which had typos. I hope my images were merely author's caution and not forecasts.
There are fourth additional announcements and one clarification. First, if the publisher keeps to the schedule all three versions (Hard Bound, Paperback and E-Book) will be on every possible book outlet (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Kobo) - in about a month. I will send an email when I have been notified of the publication date.
Second, if you would like a copy of the last Blue line sent to you please send me an email and I will send you one. I hope that if you accept this version that a) you will offer comments - either directly to me or to a site when the book comes up - and b) that you will consider buying one of the editions. Unfortunately I do not have any control over the price.
Third, I am considering having a friend translate the book into Spanish. There are some complications in doing that but I have had a good friend offer to do the translation. And I know his Spanish is great because he is my tutor.
Fourth, I am moving this blog and my main website from the current one to a new one titled FIVECENTTHINKING (which is in the process of being built in Mexico). That transition may happen by summer. I may keep the old domain or simply supplant it.
A Clarification - one of the key issues for this book has been whether I should include pictures. I had one good friend who is a successful author argue persuasively that I should cut the pictures to speed the process. While I understood the advice, I chose to ignore it and include 70+ pictures and illustrations (all in B/W because color photos are a pain to print). The picture above is one which did not make the cut. It is from 1964 - the gent with the Ode Banjo(Left) and shades you may recognize is me - the gent in the middle is the Reverend Gary Davis - it was taken for the Sat. Evening Post but never used. Davis was a superb blind guitar player and as a group of us were jamming on a plaza at UCLA's folk festival he came up and asked "Do you boys mind if I join in?" You'll notice that my arms are folded over my banjo -while we had done a couple of tunes together at that time we were all listening in awe as he riffed off the chimes on campus and then improvised.
Before the book gets in final print I want to thank each of you who read this blog and chapters over the last couple of years - I have been amazed by both the comments and the patience from each of you.
