Only one week after approving the proof copy from the printer, our listing for Dear Walt on Amazon.com appeared today. Information on the web site had indicated that it would take 15 days for that to happen, so we were very surprised and pleased.

Our “to-do” list now includes learning how to maximize our Amazon listing to supplement our other marketing efforts.

You can see the Dear Walt page on Amazon.com HERE!

WOW! It’s finally here, and “excitement” doesn’t even begin to describe the mood around here. After weeks of anticipation, the first copy of “Dear Walt” has finally arrived … and just in time for a fantastic celebration of Ron’s birthday. For his wife, who has always believed Ron’s extraordinary ‘gifts’ should be shared with others, “Dear Walt” is a long-awaited milestone.

From the first glimpse of the riveting mountain scene on the cover, through 287 pages of Andy’s compelling story - plus a sneak preview of Ron’s next book-in-progress “Welcome to Ricochet,” - readers will find themselves caught up in Andy’s life as he searches for an elusive peace. Many will, no doubt, identify with Andy’s often troubled journey … for they, too, have sought a similar harmony in their own lives.

Ultimately, one will find “Dear Walt” brings together an intriguing cast of characters whose lives are all touched by Andy’s retreat from “a place he could no longer live” to his eventual reconciliation within his own spirit.

We took another small, but important step in the publishing process today by requesting our “proof” copy from CreateSpace. After a small, irritating hitch in the order process via the online CreateSpace dashboard we were finally successful in requesting the proof. We had to use the online-only (no phone support) customer support feature to alert them that their process was not working properly. this resulted in a delay of about two days. We are now waiting to see if the projected delivery date of next Tuesday, July 22, 2008 is correct.

Still, it was exciting to finally get the process underway to get our first novel for sale online. After we receive the “proof” we will have the opportunity to either approve the book for release, or make any corrections or adjustments in the uploaded files and request yet another proof. We’re praying that we can give a thumbs-up on the proof on the first attempt.

Today we began the final phase of actual publication of Dear Walt.

We elected to go with CreateSpace, an amazon.com online print-on-demand, self-publishing company because there is very little cost involved in actually getting salable books online almost immediately.

In our case we were able to leverage our previous graphic design, layout, writing, editing, and web design experience into real dollar savings over other print-on-demand publishing companies which offer varying cost packages which include combinations of these services.

So, today we uploaded Dear Walt into the CreateSpace sytem and are awaiting review of the uploaded files. After their review to make sure the files are to their specifications, we’ll be able to order a proof copy before the book actually goes “online” for sale in two locations, the CreateSpace E-Store and Amazon.com.

The E-Store page is still in its preliminary stages today, but you are welcome to look at it. I believe the thumbnail image of the book cover will be added after the book is finally available for purchase. Right now there is only a placeholder for it. To view the E-Store page click here.

There were many steps involved in getting to this point, and a few more before the book acctually appears for sale on the web. We will chronicle these steps in future posts and give you more step-by-step instruction on how we got to this point later, when we have the chance. Stay tuned!

August 1, 2008 ???????

We are now in the process of completing final review and editing of the manuscript as well as development of collateral material such as the author’s biography and back cover promotional copy. After the final revisions and additions we expect to go to press sometime in mid to late July, 2008. Of course there will still be a proofing process before the actual retail release.

August 1 is now our target date for retail release. If you would like to be one of the first to obtain a copy please let us know ahead of time by using the comment form on most pages on this web site and we’ll notify you via email when “Dear Walt” actually goes on sale. At that time you will be able to purchase a copy online at our “e-Store.” A link to the Dear Walt page at the e-Store will be provided in your notification email.

Stay tuned to this web site for updates as they are posted.

This little book subtitled “A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends” was on my mind the entire eighteen months I was writing “Dear Walt.” In fact, it provided the basic framework for the correspondence between Andy and Walt, because that is what was really happening in their long-distance conversation over those thirty years. The balance of the book rests entirely on this “spiritual conversation.”

Several years ago I was enrolled in a class which required that we read The Wisdom of Each Other in addition to the regular class attendance, study and homework. This is a fascinating little book of a little over a hundred pages comprised entirely of letters from Eugene Peterson to Gunnar Thorkildsson, a not entirely fictional correspondent. Gunnar is actually a composite of the people with whom Peterson has corresponded during his career as a pastor, and the letters are a composite of the responses Peterson has made to them over the years.

The letters cover a wide spectrum of situations a pastor might be asked to address within his congregation or while responding to a friend in a letter. Each letter brings new insights to every day Christian life and the common influences of American life.

Since each letter is a short, insightful message on a single subject it is easy to read this book in pieces as we grab a minute here and there in our busy schedules.

And don’t miss the foreword and introduction, they are worth the price of the book simply for the perspective they bring.

Today we adopted our preliminary cover design. We’ll be making a few detail changes to it when we get the back cover copy finished. But, we thought you might want to see a thumbnail view of where we’re headed with the design, so here it is.

This particular photo captures the daydream-like quality image that Andy (and possibly Bronson) had in their minds while sitting on that boulder in Platteville looking West. Read the book after it comes out and tell me if you agree.

I was a professional photographer in Cheyenne at the time, and this photograph was what I call an “opportunity” shot because of the fluidity of scene change due to lighting, clouds and waning light just before sunset. The photo was taken in Colorado over 25 years ago when we were heading back to Cheyenne from a day of skiing at a Colorado ski resort somewhere West of Boulder. I was able to capture only a few frames before the clouds completely enveloped the snow covered peaks. A few minutes later the scene completely changed character and I packed up the camera and we headed back to Cheyenne.

The camera I was using was a wooden Tachihara 4″x5″ inch view camera. The film was Ektachrome Professional and the lens was a Schnieder 180mm Symmar.

After sixteen months of writing, I finally finished the first draft of the complete manuscript last Saturday!

Today I provided “working draft” printed copies to three people to read and comment. I’ve also asked them to proof read as they go, and mark up their copies any way they want. I know that is not a very high tech way to do it, but at least they can take their copies with them wherever they like to read, whether it be over lunch as I do, or anywhere else they would normally read a novel.

While they are reading I am about the business of exploring marketing options for my first novel.

Hmmmn! Let’s see, we have no budget and we’ve never marketed a novel before. Where should we start?

I’ll research it on the web and get back to you on that.

Good night!

“Dear Walt” was not premeditated!

Quite the contrary … after an extraordinary Sunday morning portrayal of Moses’ exile to Midian, unrelenting words invaded my thoughts, demanding to be heard, until I set them down on paper. Even so, I still cannot explain the insistence of those beginning words that I write them in a letter to someone named “Walt” that very Sunday afternoon.

There is no one person named Walt in my conscious memory of any particular consequence, and therein may lie the attraction of the name … that “Walt” is not associated with a specific person, but instead represents a composite of lives that have consistently steered me in this particular direction, even during the times I was in my own Midian desert.

I did not set out to write a novel. In fact, as I wrote the first few pages, I was hoping I could develop it into my first real short story. But as the characters took on their respective lives and relationships, they required the same thorough development and inclusion as the text of the Dear Walt letter that very first Sunday. The plot took shape and extended through its own energy, due in part to Pastor Dan’s continuing multi-Sunday treatise on the early days of Moses.

I simply could not dismiss the compelling parallels of Moses’ flight from Egypt because it was “a place he could no longer live” in his self-imposed exile, to Andy’s bus journey to Denver and his first days in Platteville. For Moses, Midian offered refuge from the immediate storms of life, as Platteville had for Andy. But over time, Midian was also the place where God prepared Moses for his eventual calling by transforming him into a shepherd, the same occupation which Jesus himself claims in the New Testament. Unwittingly, Andy was trained, much like a shepherd, to deal with difficult situations in other people’s lives as well, all the while kicking and screaming against God, and repeatedly dismissing the call to earnest prayer in the burning bush dreams.

In today’s society many of us have taken similar journeys away from “places where we can no longer live.” I know I have. My journey lasted three and a half decades. Sometimes our journeys are initiated by difficult family circumstances, or an overwhelming urge to express newfound independence as we grow into adulthood. In other cases we may feel hurt or slighted by a church or other untenable religious connection and rebel, as surely as Andy did, against God himself because of it. But if we are truly called by God, he will eventually find us in our everyday circumstance and confront us with our own burning bush experience, often in the middle of life threatening circumstance or our own self-constructed mess. The challenge is to understand in our own burning bush moment that we are standing on holy ground and have no choice but to acknowledge that we were never really in charge of our lives in the first place. The comfort in that moment comes only when we surrender control to Him and realize that with God there are no limits on healing.

Instead of turning away from the burning bush, perhaps we should seek it out.