Another Trip to India

This is the three week countdown to another trip to India. I went on a circuitous route to get to this point. All must be seen as part of the writer's journey.

The big idea originally for this trip was to take my children to visit India for the first time. They were gung ho and all aboard, but then life happened. They are both entering those generative moments of young adulthood where their carreers and relationships are being established. Frankly, I couldn't be prouder of both of them. They have promised me that there will be a time when they will go to India with me (even if it ends up being my swan song).

It was a huge dissappointment that they both were unable to join me on this trip. Still, as in everything, I could not help but see the hand of Providence in all of this. I would not have gone if it had not been fixed in me to go by the original plan. The fact is that the writer's life has a tendency, at least with me, to be very isolating and inward focused. As I enter the last stage of writing the biography that I have worked on for the past five years, the intensity of focus becomes more accute. So I need things that get me out of my little world, and yet also help me sustain it and get it done.

A lot of people are asking me "So when will this book be finished?" And I have to answer, like Michelangelo when he was painting the Sistine Chapel, I must reply "When it is done!" [At least according to Irving Stone in The Agony and the Ecstasy] 

In preparing the Book Proposal for the book to present to publishers I have to make a case for how I plan to market my book. As a person who loves to travel, I cannot think of anything better than to go on a book tour. Then again, I really hate public speaking. So social media is my friendly outlet. I can write more confidently than I can speak, though people tell me I do all right when I speak. I love sharing images that tell better stories than what I can write. I get encouraging feedback. And I can be connected to the wider global community that feels more like home than home itself. So as much as I hate the idea of marketing myself, I'm asking you, my friendly reader, to share my blog and help me expand my network. 

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