More Adventures In Writing

One of the cardinal sins of blogging is, well, not blogging. I owe my readers an apology. I haven’t posted anything here since my last post, way back in May. Much has been happening since then, so I guess we can start with that.

Jane and I went off on a sojourn from Florida, to Ohio, over to New England, down to Virginia, and then finally, home. We were gone something over a month. Jane took along proof copies of her book, Women Of The Way. Even though the book wasn’t quite ready yet, she felt she needed to be able to have something for potential readers as we traveled.

We had to wait for the book shipment to arrive, otherwise we would have left earlier. Jane was scheduled to do a presentation on Friday night, in Ohio, so that was cutting things close. The van was all packed and we were ready to go. I hit the starter and the engine just “clicked.” “Click, click.” The battery was dead. We didn’t have time to go get another, so I just grabbed my emergency battery pack and attempted to use it; that battery was dead too. I have another emergency pack, yes, it was dead too. I charge them often, but the batteries were old, too old. You would think an electrical engineer wouldn’t get caught like this. Hey, cobbler’s kids never have shoes. Finally, we took the jumper cables and started the van with the other car in the yard. I figured we could charge one of the emergency packs as we rode along. In retrospect, it would have been wise to go to a local auto parts place and just get another battery.

We left, much later than planned, on Thursday afternoon.

We stayed near Valdosta, GA, late on Thursday night. After some rest, we were up early. The van started right up and we were on our way. An hour later or so, we stopped for gas. After filling up, the battery was dead again. A good Samaritan in a pickup truck saw our plight and gave us a jump start, we didn’t even have to ask. We went down the road and found an auto repair center and for perhaps twice what it would have cost me to do it myself, they replaced the battery. This cost us another few hours. The clock was ticking.

Jane was scheduled to speak at 7 PM, and we rolled into Dayton, Ohio about 7:30 PM. We didn’t even have a contact number to call, so we could let them know. Rule #1 of public speaking events, be certain to have contact information for the event with you! Rule #2 is always be early to scope out the speaking venue. We knew better. It was poor planning on our part.

The folks at the convention center graciously rescheduled Jane to speak on Saturday night. Actually, it was two “wrongs” making a “right.” The folks managing the presentation found on Friday night that they didn’t have the electrical power and room set up for the presentation on time. So, even if we had arrived on time, they were not ready. Whew.

The rest of the weekend went smoothly and we both found lots of new readers. I had a presentation to deliver on Sunday morning, and it went off without a hitch. Life was good again.

The rest of the trip went well. Jane did a number of presentations in New England, and Virginia. In Charlottesville, VA, home of the University of VA, Jane presented at Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, on one night and I the next. She discussed the Camino de Santiago, and I, the Appalachian Trail. It was a nice audience and a fantastic outfitter. Check them out if you’re in the area.

Writing is an adventure, and you never know where it will take you. One word of advice: plan better than we did!