Another Book Done!

Before I do anything else today, I do want to remember the tragedies of September 11^th, 2001. I don’t think any of us will ever forget where we were when we heard the news about the first airplane hitting one of the Twin Towers. We were in our motorhome in Traverse City, Michigan, where Terry was undergoing her cancer treatment. She was still in bed when I saw it on the news and I thought what a terrible thing to have happen. A few minutes later, when the second plane hit the other tower, I went to the bedroom to tell Terry that something very bad and very scary was happening in our country.

For the last two days, we have been watching documentaries on 9/11 and the sacrifices so many first responders and civilians alike made as they came together to help others survive, and then thinking about the division and hatred in the country today. And I have to ask myself which day is worse.

I also want to thank everybody who made blog comments and sent me emails or messages about my news in yesterday’s blog about having a stroke. I am fine and intend to keep on being fine for a long time yet, but it’s comforting to know I have so many friends out there who care.

Yesterday was another 6,500 word day for me, and Ka-Bar Karma is now done. It’s my fourth book for the year and I started it one month ago to the day I finished, and it came in at a little over 88K words. I will spend today reading through those last chapters I wrote and making corrections to them before I print them out to give to Terry to add to the stack she is already editing and proofreading. When she’s finished, I’ll make her corrections and send them off to Judy, my second proofreader. It’s always a satisfying feeling to complete another book. Though it may seem like I wrote this one pretty fast, which I did, I’ve been going over the story in my head for a long time, so it flowed out easily.

Besides editing and proofing previous chapters of the book yesterday, Terry also made a delicious dinner of spaghetti and meatballs from scratch which made me understand what people are talking about when they say that food is so good it’s to die for. It was amazing. I won’t even tell you about the fresh hot peanut butter cookies we had later as we watched TV. You’d just get jealous.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. I think these days teachers need this message more than ever.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of my book Overlooked Florida, featuring more than 30 interesting places in the Sunshine State that most tourists miss. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – How long will it take before we reach herd intelligence?