Next Life in the Afternoon

This may be one of the most accurate statements ever made. Don’t get me wrong – I am not making that statement as a blanket claim, only to say that if it is true, it is also true that sleeping on concrete is one of the least pleasant things I have ever done.

Here is a brief paragraph taken from the section of my book about staying in Prachinburi. Read on:

So there I was, trying to sleep on one of the hardest surfaces ever discovered. Unlike a traditional western bed, marble does nothing to hug the curves of your body or provide crucial back support. Although I have never been so ill as to experience bedsores, I could certainly imagine the feeling as my skin got pressed against the floor under the weight of my body.

What? You have never slept on concrete or it’s harder cousin, marble? Well, bless you for that! Don’t start now just because that’s what I did. I am here to tell you, friends, that I describe in detail just how pleasant and comfortable concrete can be.

Phramaha Nattapong and I had stopped once in Khon Kaen and I tried to take a nap on a wooden platform porch. No luck. It was hard, lumpy and just plain uncomfortable. That night, and for about a week after, I slept on a concrete slab in Udon Thani. While the concrete never got to feel comfortable by any means, I got used to it after a couple nights.

On the way back south, we stopped at the same place in Khon Kaen. This time, I was shocked that the wooden deck felt absolutely luxurious. I knew intellectually that there was a hardness difference between wood and concrete but I had never expected to experience it so vividly.

So is sleeping on concrete good for the soul? I couldn’t tell you with any certainty but it does give a person an appreciation for other sleeping surfaces. And that, as a lesson, is good for the soul, without a doubt. Thanks, Thailand!

Technorati Tags: sleeping, concrete, Prachinburi, bedsores, Phramaha Nattapong, Khon Kaen, Udon Thani, Thailand

I like to tell people that I am writing a book – partly because I am trying to market it and let as many folks here about it as possible, but also because of the mystery involved in being a writer. It’s like I am a modern-day Rob Petri, who was also a writer, or maybe a Major Nelson or Mike Brady. Except I really dislike Mike Brady and his bunch. I honestly can’t tell you how delighted I am to not hear that theme music or hear references to the show.

The fact remains that nobody really knows what writers, astronauts or architects do. There are few enough of them that not everybody has one in their neighborhood or circle of friends. This is why they made for such great careers for sitcom characters. Not many people would say Rob Petri was not a realistic or believable writer. Nobody knows what writers do.

For me this is great because I don’t want people to know what I do on a day-to-day basis. The solitary life of writing is a double-edged sword of loneliness and productivity and the lack of excitement in such a life is anticlimactic after you have been built up with such a mysterious title as “writer” or “author.”

All mystery aside, I still need to learn how to talk about my project. I need to make an elevator speech so I can quickly bring people up to speed with what I am doing. I am thinking of adopting text I just rewrote for my “about” page:

Next Life in the Afternoon is a book I am writing about a trip I took to Thailand in February 2004. My friend Phramaha Nattapong, a Buddhist monk I had met in North Carolina, asked me if I wanted to come home with him and become a monk for a short period. How could I say no? When would I have that type of opportunity again?

Traveling is used as a vehicle for this story of spiritual seeking, personal growth, adoption and rejection of culture, intrapersonal investigation, doubt and reaffirmation of strength. The book challenges popular concepts of home, strength, travel and cultural interchange.

The story surrounds the various people I encountered and experiences I had while in Thailand and what happened when I was told that I could not be ordained, after having traveled 28 hours by plane to get there.

So what do you think, fellow netizens, who still think a writer’s life is one of mystery and passion and all manner of excitement? How would you craft this piece of prose into a 20-second spiel I could deliver to people when they ask what I am writing?

Technorati Tags: writing, Rob Petri, writer, Major Nelson, Mike Brady, solitary life, double-edged sword, mysterious, author, mystery, elevator speech, Thailand, Traveling

I won’t say I am nearing completion on the book but I am getting pretty close to being done. I guess that means the same thing but it seems more noncommittal to frame it in these terms.

When you tell someone you are almost done with something, that person expects to see the finished product in rather short order. Well, don’t hold your breath. I am working on it but it takes quite a while to write and edit this much content.

Currently I am in the editing phase, having created probably about 90% of the content that will be in the book. That’s a lot. Now I am editing, which is a process of tweaking, rewriting, fact-checking, deleting, adding, expanding, contracting, massaging and watching my hair get more and more gray every morning.

Editing is an important process but one that is a little too revealing sometimes, showing where I have lost sight of the ultimate story, where I strayed from my path of storytelling and trod along wandering roads, abandoning the straight and narrow razor’s edge for the meandering stream. It is important to follow the stream from time to time. I suppose that is why writers have to go through an editing phase with any project.

My goal is to be absolutely done and have the manuscript handed off to an agent or publisher by the end of the year. At very least the book will be in final form and will have been submitted to a number of folks. That I can guarantee.

So am I nearing completion? Of the writing, yes. Of the editing, maybe. Of the process? Not by a long shot. The next step is to start researching literary agents and publishers. Know one? Hook me up.

The journey is long but I think I am almost there. I can just about taste completion from where I sit. Or maybe that’s the coffee I just had.

Technorati Tags: editing, writing, writer, manuscript, publisher, literary agent

I was just working on editing the book and came across this interchange I had while in northeast Thailand. Read on:

In the daytime, mosquitoes zoomed around my head, although they rarely bit. My mosquito repellent was 100% DEET, which is about three times stronger than anything I have seen recommended for regular use. Slathering this stuff on my skin made me wonder whether I was better off getting dengue and malaria rather than being exposed to such chemicals. The trade-off was between a damaged liver and spleen from the diseases or else possibly chemical-induced cancers. Who’s to know which would have the more serious implication in the long run?

I have read that the daytime mosquitoes apparently spread dengue, while the nighttime ones spread malaria, so even if you want to limit your exposure to chemicals by applying them for only half a day, you still do not have a very good chance of timing it right to avoid the type of mosquitoes you want to avoid. When I think of malaria, the first thing that pops into my head is the image of a sweaty, lethargic Humphrey Bogart from “The African Queen.” How bad could the disease be, I wondered. Bogart was cured in ten minutes, nursed back to health by a young, beautiful Katherine Hepburn. If that’s malaria, then sign me up.

I had met a man in Udon Thani who had gotten dengue twice – once in Guatemala and once in Thailand. He was staying at a temple and studying Buddhism, on the path to ordination as a monk. “I’ve never met anyone in Thailand who had malaria, but dengue is a different story,” he said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Dengue is pretty common, but it isn’t that bad. All your joints ache for a couple weeks and you get a bad headache, but you only really want to die for about a day.” Thus my comfort with mosquito-borne disease was ever weakened and I made sure to apply my carcinogenic salve more diligently, even compulsively at times.

So that’s that. Enjoy. Current count: about 45,000 words.

Technorati Tags: Thailand, mosquitoes, DEET, dengue, malaria, Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, Udon Thani, carcinogen