In the past two weeks, I’ve been on nine flights, through seven airports in six countries, and I’ve slept in six different hotel rooms. Strange as it may seem, my busy travels have allowed for unusual stretches of uninterrupted time to think and reflect. Six to nine time zones away from my family, we didn’t have much time to talk, so a backlog of stories began to accumulate in my mind. Inspired by a friend’s good habit of writing journals when he travels to exotic locales, I started writing in the evenings, and found it to be a relaxing practice. During the trip, I met with clients, attended a conference, visited the Sicilian village of my great-great-grandfather, and the political structure of Europe had fractured possibly beyond recognition. I find that writing helps me to think, and there has been lots to think about in these two weeks.
When I got back to the US, I decided to try a self-publishing experiment. I created a book layout using the typesetting system LaTeX [wikipedia.org], a strange and powerful markup language that I’ve been using to write proposals and reports in the last few years. From that, I created a print-on-demand version of the book using Amazon CreateSpace, and a Kindle version following the advice of Scott Nesbitt [scottnesbitt.io]. Instant book, published in print and online in about a day. I think Gutenberg would agree: we are living in the future.
I wrote Finding Lorenzo for my own amusement, as a time capsule to remember this eventful time. If you would like to follow my path through Scandinavia, Germany, Sicily (including Sciacca and Catania), and #BREXIT, here are some ways to obtain print or electronic copies:
- Paperback edition [Amazon.com] ($6.00)
- Kindle edition [Amazon.com] ($0.99)
- EPUB edition for iPad or other e-reader [dropbox.com] (free)
- PDF edition [dropbox.com] (free)
Photos from my travels are in the Finding Lorenzo [flickr.com] album.