September has been a really busy month. We have been proofing the book for the final time; the cover has been updated; and I just ordered another proof copy about 5 minutes ago. Hopefully, the publishing process will be over soon. It’s hard for me to concentrate creatively on multiple similar projects simultaneously. This is why I’m sometimes so quiet on the blog.
For me, the editing has meant some longs days and nights—there’s a big difference in scope between working on something which is 10 pages long and something which is more than 200 pages long. Also much much thanks to Zev for blocking off his weekends to correct my foreign dialect and fixing my grammar. With 10 pages, you go and you come out finished. With 200 pages, you go in, and you come out with 20 pages done. Next day, you go in, and you come out with 40 pages done. These aren’t heavily white-spaced fluffy pages—they’re 400 word pages. You begin to realize that this is going to take some time.
I still can’t quite understand how I managed to write it in the first place. More worrisome: I can’t imagine how I’m going to write a second one. I think the key is to take one day at a time. Simultaneously, but unrelated, my evenings have also been busy. Overall, I’ve been “free” for about 1.5 nights a week. I renewed my training commitment to showing up for every training night in shinkendo. That’s three times a week. I’ve been to all the Friday night short races on my regular boat. In addition, there’s been a long race every weekend the whole month (two different boats). This weekend I attended a shinkendo seminar. It was my plan to go all week, but after Saturday’s lunging my Achilles tendon started disagreeing with me and I didn’t want to risk my high deductible in my HDHP to go for Sunday. I did receive my Santen level certificate directly from Obata Kaiso after testing a few weeks ago.
When I looked at my calender for September a few weeks ago this all looked overwhelming. The key was really to take one day at a time and try not to think too much of all the activities I had to attend almost every day. Next weekend will be the final round: In the Island Tour Regatta, we’ll be sailing around Red Rock, Angel Island, Alcatraz (yes, that Alcatraz), and finishing up at Treasure Island—at least as far as I know. I’m not the tactigator.
Looking back on my “resolutions“, I’m getting pretty close. In sailing, winter season starts in a couple of weeks, and I’ll transfer to the foredeck. I have been in charge of mainsail trim over the summer season. Around here summer means heavy wind and challenging conditions, usually between 15-25 knots and choppy seas—diehards only. Winter means conditions more akin to what you see on promotional sailing videos: smooth water and 10 knots of wind. I thus figured it would be wise to wait for easier conditions because it’s easier to recover from a mistake. Incidentally, if you’ve ever raced, check out the foredeck union shirt (read the funny text) on Sailing Anarchy’s swag page. I’m sure, you’ll understand. I’d love to make a similar t-shirt for the “engineering compartment”(*) of the helm/mainsail team.
(*) You can think of the mainsail as the “accelerator” of the boat. Imagine driving in challenging bumpy off-road conditions. The trick is to apply the accelerator at just the right times to get over the obstacles.
Anyway, so how have you been? 🙂
