Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Book Binge Weekend by Andy Scheer



By the end of the day Friday, I was beat. I'd just finished editing a 70,000-word nonfiction manuscript that had taken me on an emotional roller coaster. I needed to unwind.

Fortunately, the weather had turned cold, with light snow forecast all day Saturday. So I was off the hook for any outdoor projects. Inside, I had only a few chores, which I could complete quickly. With the football season ended and baseball still months away, there was nothing on television.

A near-perfect combination for a weekend of reading.

Colorado was cold and snowy, and I'd spent the week working on computers. So I escaped to the Caribbean . . . on the deck of a British Navy frigate . . . in the year 1799.

Friday evening as I sat by my fireplace, I could almost smell the gunpowder as the Juno's broadside of twelve-pounders raked the French frigate approaching Martinique. Or maybe it was just that our fireplace doesn't always draw well.

I'd rejoined the story late that afternoon at about the two-thirds point. The pages of the best part of the story flew by.

Finished already? It's not all that late . . . I'll treat myself to book eight in the series. This author almost always picks up right where the previous book left off.

But he also tends to start each story slowly--in this case refitting the ship for the next voyage. So I resisted temptation and turned out the lights before it set sail.

But Saturday, glorious Saturday. By the time Car Talk ended on NPR, I'd finished my chores and could rejoin the crew of the frigate. Good thing I didn't start any later; it took me until a half-hour past my bedtime to finish the tale.

Sunday my wife and I didn't get home from church until noon. A little snow-shoveling, then into book nine. It gets mighty hot and dry around the Dutch island of Curacao, but I and Captain Ramage's crew persevered . . . all day long through 316 danger-filled trade paperback pages. By the end of the day the daunting mission, and the book, were complete.

And I had recharged myself to face a new week of editing and evaluating manuscripts.

3 comments:

Rick Barry said...

Thanks for taking us along on your voyages. However, I can almost hear Car Talk's "Tappet Brothers" teasing about your frigate and asking how many horse power you get out of those sails. Glad you found a fun way to recharge.

Diana Flegal said...

Envious. Such a nice word picture here. Pun intended. :-) I am booking a train to Philly this weekend for a get together with a few authors. Planing on reading the whole 8 hours while sneaking in a bit of people watching time to rest my eyes.

Linda Glaz said...

Seems like the reading never ends, right?