Write on....

That book about Strange Music that I've wanted to write since age 22 might actually get done within my lifetime. I've made more progress on it in the last two weeks than I have in five years. I'm somewhere past 27,000 words written, now. Maybe a third to halfway finished.
If all goes as planned, I expect LISTEN TO THIS! will review progressive-rock albums I loved (or hated) back in the day, some very off-the-wall noise I've reviewed here (Cromagnon's CAVE ROCK, Borbetomagus, etc.), and that batch of prog I went through a few years back only to be disappointed when I discovered that a lot of it ... kind of sucked.
Even though I've got some big blank spots, I've heard a lot over the years and I haven't given up yet, so I ought to put all that listening-time and money-spent to good use.
My biggest problem was I couldn't seem to organize what I knew into a format that I could work with, that would allow me to write what I wanted, so the book would sound like me and not just like any other record-review book out there.
A couple weeks ago, I figured out a format that would work, and I've been working with it ever since. For me, a lot of these albums are tied up with memories, old friendships, and good and bad times, so you can trust a lot of that will get into the book.
So far, I have over 300 albums either reviewed, mentioned or at least listed -- everything from DARK SIDE OF THE MOON to ZERO TOLERANCE FOR SILENCE (don't know that one? Good luck....). Hopefully I'll be able to add more as I continue writing. Plus I've got stuff at home that I still haven't given a fair listening to yet....
I'll keep you posted as this project continues. Mentioning it here is part of my plan to force myself to keep working on it. I've seriously wanted to do this at least since I started reviewing off-the-wall music for newspapers, so....

If I slack off on the Strange Music book, I have other projects to keep me writing.
I've been working since September on a second GAS NAZI book. I'm about 25,000 words in. Things have changed a bit at my job in the past couple of years, and hilarious and outrageous new atrocities happen there every week, so as soon as I have enough to fill up another Kindle e-book, I'll let you know.
While I was on vacation from the blog, I was still writing. Last spring I wrote a LONG sort-of "family history" for an old friend back home in Idaho, and from that I hope to do a growing-up memoir called WHEN YOU WAKE UP that traces my growing up from age 11 on -- back to the days when I discovered music and books and that I could maybe write a little. Everything seemed much more magical then. And I can remember 45 years ago better than I can remember last week. So. I'm about 20,000 words into that one.
I hope these books aren't just an attempt to write I-I-I -- I like to think there's more to them. If there wasn't, I wouldn't write them. These e-books aren't making me rich (yet), but at least I feel like I'm accomplishing something, not wasting my life and my talent. If I'm full of shit, nobody's told me so yet. (Here's your chance, Crabby....)
I'll keep you posted on all this stuff, and definitely let you know when the books are done and available for sale. I'd still love to "retire" and write for a living....

COMING SOON: I've bagged another batch of books, including a Bowie biography and a memoir by Ray Davies of the Kinks. I'll report on these soonest....