With the thank-you's out of the way, where to start next? At the beginning? That's boring. However, I will say that I wrote this book in preparation for my next book, which should appeal to a much larger or wider market. I would like to add one thing quite interesting about starting to write a book that has nothing to do with starting to write a book. Several years ago I built a stone patio in my backyard. I did it all by hand, one shovel and wheelbarrow full of dirt at a time and then one shovel full of gravel and stack of patio stones, laid down one by one. I started this on Memorial weekend, and finished just before Labor Day. Building this patio taught me a valuable lesson in persistence. A few years after building my patio I competed in my first Olympic distance triathlon. (Olympic distance, not Olympics.) I used the same principals in training for this that I learned in building a patio. Just keep swimming. Just keep riding. Just keep running. No one cares but you, and you care, so keep moving.

Writing this book I used the same lessons in building my patio or competing in a Triathlon. Just keep writing. No one cares about this but you, and you care, so keep writing. (Then Amanda Kudron found me and suddenly two of us cared.)

How did I choose my topic? I think the first lesson I heard about writing was, 'Write what you know.' Well, I know Catholicism. I know Mid-Michigan. I know Detroit. I started writing Father John with those principles in mind. Then I included Zimbabwe, Africa in my book and realized I had a problem. I have never been to Africa, and know nothing first hand about the place. I had to do some research. I wanted to give the reader a sense of being there, even though I had never been. One of the things I wanted to do was talk about sleeping conditions in Zimbabwe. For instance, do most visitors sleep on a bed with a mattress? After a ton of research I still do not know. I know that many homes absolutely have beds with mattresses. I also know that many homes/huts absolutely do not have beds and mattresses. I have no idea what the norm is. My solution? I cheated, (and then was told by someone who lives in Africa that my cheat was actually her experience). What was my cheat? Go to: Amazon.com - Father John - A Life in Season to find out.

Enough for today. Next post: Learning to weave... storylines together.