Ulp! A 15-hour flight and I can never sleep a wink on airplanes. I get in to HK 7 PM, and next morning at 9, will head out to printers via subway and shuttle. The book will take 3-4 days to print. Once the (Mitsubishi 3000 sheet-fed) press is rolling, I’ll be doing press checks every 3 hours or so, probably staying in a room at the plant while it’s rolling. I’m really excited to be at this stage, even with the weird sleeping pattern for press checks. I get to see two years’ work flying off the press. “Can we up the red in here a bit…” and etc. It always makes a difference to be there.

I’ve always loved pressmen. I like the smell of ink and the hustle and the atmosphere. It’s a highly-sophisticated skill. There’s no room for mistakes. There’s a definite brotherhood here, centered around putting ink on paper. I’ve been on the presses for the first run of every one of our color books. In the old days I did press checks on each 1-color book we printed, whether in Massachussets, Virginia, Indiana, or Tennessee.

Since I was going to be in that part of the world, I was  going to go to Borneo, or maybe to Hainan, an island off the coast of China, but a screwed-up shoulder scratched those plans. Seems to be a long healing process, so I need to get back and get it working again. Boy is it frustrating not to be able to paddle or swim. Can’t even run. I’m always impatient, but the body (just about always) heals itself, it’s always a wonder.

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

  -Mark Twain

Every once in a while I Google this to get the words right. So true. I’m really a slow writer.

Here are a lot of other great MT quotes. A guy after my own heart. https://thinkexist.com/quotation/i_didn-t_have_time_to_write_a_short_letter-so_i/338386.html

When I got back from Germany (a week at the Frankfurt Book Fair), I reviewed all the comments (on various posts) that I’ve received recently, and they’re quite wonderful. I’m learning a lot. People are amplifying (and correcting) the info in the posts, as well as letting me know when I’m connecting. Inspiration to keep going.

I have about 1000-1500 visitors a day. Not exactly viral, but a nice-sized community. I love doing this, to tell the truth. Blogging is foremost in my mind when I come into the studio each morning, even tho it’s non-remunerative. I’m excited about what I see in the world, and want to tell others. It’s communication, pure and simple, which has fascinated me since my high school course in journalism. I’d love to work on a newspaper, but I can’t write that fast, and my stomach wouldn’t handle the deadline pressure. So I publish the (very) occasional book, and now try to get out a blog post each day. I don’t have time to respond to many comments, and could never take the time to do Facebook as it’s being done. But this, a daily shot or two, works for me. The web allows me to broadcast.

This blog community reminds me a bit of the booklovers in Fahrenheit 451, who were semi-outlaws on the outskirts of the regulated society and dedicated to books and the earth and freedom.

This is the most intense place at the Book Fair. There are about 500 agents from all over the world and the demand (for their services) is way greater than the supply (of willing agents). Luckily, much of it dating back to my Random House days, I have some wonderful agents. But with Japan, for example, I’ve had very little luck in even getting a meeting with agents. They’re already overbooked.

Access to this room is guarded. It helps to walk past the Monitors of the Gateway as if you belong. Agents have meetings every half hour, so you need to move along smartly. It’s a very exciting place.

Kind of a miracle: I really fucked up my shoulder yesterday, couldn’t sleep because of pain, was stressing over having 3 full days and 19 appointments, how am I even gonna get thru the first day, etc. No ice, so applied cold bottle of soda, took advil, tried to breathe into the injury,thought about my Mom and her Christian Science (lived to 103, never had a doctor) and how she healed herself and us again and again “…by holding the right thought” and lo and behold dawn broke and I was OK and I went off and had an exciting and wonderful day in the world of books, within which The Frankfurt Buchmesse is the Super Bowl, World Cup and Big Kahuna.

People loved the Tiny Homes book. Just loved it. People that had time went thru the entire book, every page. It feels like we’ve connected here. Today: meetings with publishers, editors or distributors from Canada, Poland, UK, Germany, South Africa, Australia. There’s a buzz. Same reaction. (I’m so proud of the people in this book!) Everyone gets it. Haven’t had this feeling since 1973 when we were putting together Shelter and hit the wave of counterculture building. This time it’s a wave of doing for oneself (once again), and scaling back.

Lots to tell, including some stunning antique books I saw today (one was 38,000 Euros!), will try to catch up on the weekend.