The Holy Glow of a Tight Ship

"Thank God for talkers. I grew up at the knee of front-porch talkers...I owe those storytellers, all of them, because without them I would have no skills, no foundation, no accent, no voice."

--Rick Bragg, Somebody Told Me

 Today was the first time I had to show an outline of the new book to the production manager. To the right of his desk is a picture of a group of Monks seated around a table, and the one on the end is flashing the peace sign at the camera. Above his desk is a photo of him and the Dalai Lama. I knew he was Buddhist, but I had no idea he was, "that hard core." His response was "I get around." Next to the window overlooking his desk is a framed photo of Johnny Cash, and a harmonica Johnny Cash threw to him in a 1970s performance. We talked a little about the last book -- mostly from a production perspective (fonts and such) -- but I felt compelled to acknowledge, "I was pretty bitter then." (You could judge that book by its cover -- it seemed harsh and angry...like I was.) He shrugged his shoulders and good-naturedly said, "ehhh, karma."

I got down all the timeline details -- everything has to go to the press on August 16th in order for the books to arrive in late September; he has to style the first live column next week to establish style and layout; it'll be 6x9 and 320 pages. I have to shop for a cover artist, and this time I get to have pictures (if I want them). We also talked about electronic delivery methods and kindles and iPods and iPads and all I heard about that was "blah blah blah Ginger."

To be honest, all I could really think about was how long it's going to take me to grow out this currently unfortunate haircut for a presentable jacket photo.... Then I spent some more time thinking about what I'd wear to the signing. I ripped this out of Vogue, but it's entirely possible it'll be out of style by October. [I can't explain that splash of light. But when I sent it out as a text (inadvertently) to every single person in my BlackBerry last night, one of my Ex-es responded that it was probably "just the holy glow emanating from my 'tight ship.'" ]

And I think we have our "dedication page."