Letting You Down, Letting You Down

Well, don't mean to be letting you down like this, but man, I'm pooped. I've been working on cleaning up the book, trying to get some sketches done for it, working a huge cover story for my local alternative paper, and working a cover due in three days for a business magazine. I've been getting up at 5 or 5:30 AM, reading a couple of papers on the net and then diving into work. I'm forgetting to shave, not getting the kitchen cleaned from the night before till the afternoon, and haven't vacuumed the house in two weeks.
Yeah, that's work mode.
So I have not had any great stories to tell you. I feel dry as an old bone right now. Juiced in some quarters, but still dry for looking coming up with great blog pieces.
I apologize, and think that in the next couple of weeks the air will clear and I'll have some good inspiration again.
But I think the work on the stories and the book will pay off. The guy I've got editing the book is my old parterner from our days editing the Highwitness News section of High Times, Bill Weinberg. He hates things like my book. He really sees the world in almost exclusively political terms. He also has a great web page WW4report.com
So an experiential book on shamanism is not up his alley at all. Which is what made him the right choice as copy editor. He sees something he thinks is the least bit phony he's gonna be all over my ass.
Which made it a nice surprise when we spoke yesterday and he begrudgingly said "I'll admit it's a great read" before noting that I should be talking more about Peruvian politics and the plight of the indigenous. I told him I've been writing politics for 25 years and that this book wasn't the place for it. "Well, I can see that, but I like political context..."
"Bill, it's about my experience with the spirit world while under the influence of ayahuasca, and how that gets translated back into this reality."
"Moving on," he said, "I don't know why you're publishing this yourself. You should have a big publisher handing you lots of dough for this."
"You really think it's a book? I mean..."
"Stop fishing for compliments. It's a damned good book and one that could even be better with politics in it, but be that as it may it's still a damned good book. You would have no problem getting a big publisher."
So I'm gonna let that be my fix for the next couple of days. He hates the subject but still thinks it's a real good read.
That said, I'm glad I picked him to be the editor. At least until I get his edits back.
And now that I've managed to get this piece into the "book" idea, why don't at least 20 of you go to the pgorman.com site or paypal, drop me $25 and buy a copy. I mean, imagine if Bill is right and it is good. Imagine if a publisher does want it. Then what? Those of you who bought these copies will have the only copies of these available and who knows, you might be able to sell them for $35 on ebay and make a couple of bucks. So get to it while the getting's good. Don't miss this chance of a lifetime.