Seven Things: Work, Writing and Research

Thanks to Janice Horton for including me in the Versatile Blogger Awards, whereby I am supposed to mention seven things people might not already know about me. Since I tend to live a peripatetic life, I've decided to list seven places that I've lived before, in no particular order. So without further ado:

1. Cleveland, Ohio: I grew up in Southern California, but I was actually born in Cleveland, where I lived for the first three and a half years of my life.

2. Toowoomba, Australia: I was a foreign exchange student here in this small town in Queensland.

3. On a boat in San Francisco Bay: A friend of mine offered to let me live on his boat in Sausalito once for nine months while I worked on writing a few screenplays. I loved falling asleep to the rocking and rolling of the waves.

4. On a ship in the Pacific: I worked in the engine room on a ship laying fiber optic cable from California to China. We spent a month straight at sea with no sight of land.

5. Washington, DC: I went to visit a friend once in our nations capitol and loved it. I ended up renting a place and staying for three years.

6. Budapest, Hungary: Two years ago I spent the summer in Budapest. It was a wonderful place to write; cheap rent, great cafes, and a fabulous library in an old converted palace.

7. Tallinn, Estonia: Nine years ago I spent four months in this lovely medieval city on the Baltic Sea. In fact, I loved it so much I've decided to go back. My flight leaves in ten days.

So that's it! If anyone else wants to join in, copy and paste the logo above on your blog and comment here so we can check your page out. Thanks again, Janice!

Sweet Ophelia excerpt

Well, I'm still working away at revisions on Sweet Ophelia and the Tinseltown Blues and I feel pretty good about how things are coming along. I'm not quite sure when I'll be able to consider it finished yet. At some point I'll have to just walk away and leave it, for better or for worse, but at the moment I think I can still make some improvements. In the meantime I've decided to put an excerpt up on my website. If anyone is interested in taking a look, you can find it here:

http://kennethrosenberg.com/ophelia.html

Any thoughts or comments appreciated. Thanks!

Sweet Ophelia update part II

Ah, just a day later and already I'm taking a step back on my estimated completion date for Sweet Ophelia and the Tinseltown Blues... I'm nearly done with my latest draft, which I'm fairly happy with, though I know it could be even better, so I'm going to take the time I need to go through the whole thing once more from start to finish. I'd definitely rather take my time to get it right than to rush it and feel dissatisfied with the final outcome. Just when I thought I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, too! Oh well, it's more about the journey than the destination in any case, right? I'll enjoy the process as much as possible and be sure to put forth my very best effort, however long that takes...

Sweet Ophelia update

Well, I'm getting close now! I'm nearly done with my next book, Sweet Ophelia and the Tinseltown Blues. At the moment I'm putting the finishing touches on a draft, and then I'll pass it along to friends and family. After that I'll do one last revision based on their comments and then hopefully that will be it! Of course I still don't know how long this will take, since it depends in part on how long my friends take going over it, and in part on how much they think needs changing. I'm leaving for Europe on May 24th and my goal has always been to have it done and up on Amazon before I head off. Will I make this deadline? It's going to be touch and go. It is much better to get it done right than to get it done quickly, so I'll take the time I need, but fingers crossed! Either way I'm enthused about the way it's going so far and am looking forward to seeing what other people think of it. And if I'm delusional, at least I hope they let me down easy... :-)

The perfect sleeping bag...

I was reading an article the other day in The New Yorker by the author Jonathan Franzen about a trip he took to a remote island off the coast of South America. As with many New Yorker articles, it was a little bit long and rambling, but the one thing that stuck out to me personally was when he mentioned going through a trying day and then finally feeling happy when he curled up at night in the sleeping bag he’d had since high school. Up until last summer, I also had the same sleeping bag that I'd had since high school. Actually, I remember when my dad first bought it for me at a sporting goods shop back in what was probably the sixth grade. This bag was perfect in every way; powder blue with the perfect loft, the bag was warm and light and served me well over the years on countless trips throughout the West. Then I went on a camping trip in Oregon last July. While I was off hiking with some friends, our car was broken into. The thieves made off with my camera, my clothes, wallet, cash, credit cards, drivers license, cell phone, electric razor, two backpacks, my favorite hat, and sadly, my perfect sleeping bag. I can never go out and buy another “sleeping bag that I’ve had since high school.” I could get the nicest, most expensive bag on the planet, but it still wouldn’t have that personal history. And what did the thief do with it? Probably tossed it in the garbage.

I did go out and buy another bag. I didn't want to spend the money on a down bag this time, so I just got a cheap one to hold me over. This is all apropos as I am heading off tomorrow for a few days camping in the desert at Joshua Tree National Park. Unfortunately there's no sense crying over spilled milk or stolen sleeping bags. The bottom line is, tomorrow night I'll be curled up under the desert sky, and though my bag may be different, the stars will be the same.