especially my grandchildren’s birthdays. It’s a beautiful day for a party.

In spite of the festivities I managed to get a little work in this morning on the third Cryptid Hunter (no title yet) installment. I’m still in the research stage, but my work on this book will be put on hold tomorrow because I received the edits for the first book in the “Storm Runners” series today. There will be three books in the series eventually. The first will published Spring 2011…not that far away…so I have some long revision hours to put in.

I’m still excited about the publication of “I,Q Book Two: The White House” And I hope you are tooPlease help me spread the word. If you received a newsletter announcement, forward it to people you know. Watch my YouTube video and forward it to your friends. (You can find the video on my Home page). If you read the book post a review on the Amazon or Barnes and Noble webpages.

Thank you for letting everyone know that “I,Q Book Two: The White House” is finally out!

We’re on our way up to the Seattle area this morning to celebrate Jack’s (grandson #3) birthday. We got him a pair of nice binoculars (all 6 year olds should have good pair of binoculars). Quit trip. We’ll be back tomorrow with Jack and his younger brother, Ethan, in tow, and their new puppy Peaches, for
a few days at the farm.

Last night I finished my re-read of Cryptid Hunters and Tentacles. It took longer than I thought it would (as it always does), but it yielded 10 pages if notes for the 3rd and 4th books in the series. I’m just about ready to start the draft, which I’m pretty excited about. If I can squeeze in even half of what I want to in the next installment it will be one heck of a book.

Finally, yesterday I got a copy of I,Q2 sent by overnight mail. It’s not officially out yet, but the fact that I have one in hand means you’ll be able to read it too in a matter of days. Stay tuned. I will announce the real publication date as soon as I’ve verified that it’s readily available in bookstores across the country.

I’ve been to Alaska many times as a biologist and an author, and it always has the feel of a foreign country to me. I mean this in a positive way. Alaskans seem to have a different world outlook, and they certainly have great pride in state they live in, with good reason. It’s a magnificent place

Alaskans are wonderfully opinionated and not shy about sharing those opinions whether you want to hear them or not. I like this attitude. At the same time, they are very laid back.

And I have a family connection to Alaska. Marie’s mother Yupik, born in the far north before Alaska was a state.

As I fly north I’m working on the First Chapter of the 3rd I,Q book, which we will put at end of I,Q2 (if that makes sense). This does not mean I,Q3 is underway…but I am thinking about it. I have some other novels to finish before I start in on I,Q3.

I had dinner with my host in Ketchikan, librarian Charlotte Glover and her husband, David, who is a jazz muscian and the Mayor of Ketchikan.

I guess I should mention this, because it’s kind of related to writing… I bought a new laptop yesterday. This will not be huge news to anyone who knows me, especially Marie, as I usually buy a new one every year or so. I bought a medium size 64 bit bright one with a long battery life, despite the fact that my previous road machine was perfectly fine, although quite a bit slower then this shiny new one. I wanted to get something slightly bigger and clearer for all the web conferencing and Skype visits I’m doing. At least that was the justification, which doesn’t take much for me when I stumble across a new machine that I covet. The truth is that I get a bit bored typing on the same machine day in and day out. And my family is delighted when I get a new one because they know that they will get the new one as soon as I get tired of it. I supose there could be worse vices. The strange thing about this is that Marie knows I’m going to get a new laptop before I know I’m going to get it. It’s a little scary when your spouse knows you bettter than you know yourself. I texted her from the computer store and told her. Her response was: “I knew that.” Even though I didn’t “know that” until I saw it on the shelf. I was in the computer store killing time because my dry cleaner wasn’t open yet.

Long flight to Atlanta then Richmond. Then I’ll wait up for Marie to join me in Richmond from DC. She won’t get in until late, so I hope to get in a lot of work on IQ2 on the long flight and at the hotel.

It’s amazing what 24 hours at the farm does for me. It’s like going to a spa. I can breath there.

As I stepped out the back door this morning, leading my carry on like a medium sized black dog, it started to rain (which is why everthing is green here in Oregon). Below is the view on the way to PDX. Our car can drive to the airport by itself.

I spoke at Westbrook Intermediate in Friendswood, TX this morning, and Clear Lake Intermediate in Houston, TX this afternoon.

Westwood did a “read it forward” program with I,Q1 and the students were curious to know when I,Q2 is coming out. I still don’t know the exact day, or even the month, but it will be soon…and I still have finish it of course. There were a number of McDonalds origami cranes perched in the library, which were to see. And there were Tasty Cakes (from IQ1), which were fun to eat.

The Clear Lake students read Peak.  They had a climbing montage playing on the screen before I spoke to the sound what I think was the theme for Top Gun.  It was very cool.

Yesterday after packing, or I should say re-packing, I spent the rest of the day transcribing what I had scratched into the Moleskine the previous week into my laptop. To my horror I discovered several pages that did not need to go into I,Q2. There was nothing wrong with the words except they weren’t necessary. They didn’t move the story forward. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I put them down, but I’m pretty sure the mornings I wrote those words I must have had a bout of “my readers won’t understand!” Lack of faith in your readers can ruin a story, causing the writer to overwrite and over explain. Anything that doesn’t move the story forward, doesn’t just stop the story, it moves the story backwards. It’s been years since I’ve done this. I must have been tired.

The bottom line is that I wasted a couple short days of writing that I couldn’t afford to wasite.  But you just have to throw those words away and move on.

On the bright side…  There’s a point in every novel where it comes together.  This is usually happens towards the end of the first draft.  You can’t force it.  You just show up everyday and write and hope that it knocks on your door.  I’ve been waiting about a month for this and on the flight to Houston it came to me.  It’s like getting a glimpse of  a detailed map with every turn carefully drawn out, then the map disappears, but it’s so vivid you can redraw it from memory.

But what happens in the end of a story affects almost everything that happens before it.  I got to my hotel room and started rewriting the “before” in anticipation of the end.  It will be a late night, but I don’t mind because it’s getting very close now.  I’m not done, but hang with me.  The end is near.

I promised my editor that I would send her the pages that I have tonight so she can start getting a sense of the story and start doing some  edits.  It’s a bit premature, but because we want to have this book out in the next couple of months she needs to get a head start.  Stay tuned!

]]> http://rolandsmith.com/blog/2010/03/iq-two-final-40-flying-to-texas-writing-backwards/feed/ 6 http://rolandsmith.com/blog/2010/03/iq-two-final-37-jim-jackson-virogua-schools/ http://rolandsmith.com/blog/2010/03/iq-two-final-37-jim-jackson-virogua-schools/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:18:37 +0000 roland http://rolandsmith.com/blog/?p=1081 I woke up in Viroqua, WI a little late this morning because of my late arrival into Lacrosse about 25 miles away from here…which direction I’m not certain. This is my first trip to this part of Wisconsin.

I got some very sad news yesterday when I was speaking in Warrensburg. My good friend Jim Jackson passed away in Panama. Jim was a great supporter of wildlife conservation and the former owner of the Fossil Rim Wildlife Park in Glen Rose, Texas. He was a tremendous help to me when I was working on the red wolf reintroduction program. I miss him and it was difficult to get through the red wolf part if my talk. Over 20 years of wonderful memories flooded in as the images came onto the screen. Years ago Jim invited Marie and I to sail around the world with him. At the very end we decided that we couldn’t goo. I’ve often wondered what our lives would be like now if we’d gone on that adventure with our old friend. Jim was a gentle soul and one of a kind. Wildlife lost one of its foremost advocates in my old friend, Mr. Jim Jackson.

Because of the late start I’ll have to wait to work on I,Q until after the school visits today after I get to next hotel, which I understand is a couples  hours away from here.

I had a great time at the Viroqua & Cashton Schools.  Very polite students with wonderful questions.  Thank you for inviting me!

After signing I was back at the hotel to get some more work in on IQ2.

This evening I headed back to Fire Prairie to speak at their “Family Literacy Night.”

It’s a wonderful event with kids, parents, teachers, games,  a Scholastic Book Fair, and over 40 teacher’s volunteering their evening to help out with all of the literacy events throughout the school.  Outstanding!

Drove down to Independence, MO after school and I’m in my room working on I,Q2 and figuring out my travel schedule for the next few weeks.