Seth Godin, a writer of some acclaim,
blogged an interesting piece that I’d like to share. I’m on his
mailing list and without fail, he sends out copies of his blog each
day that are usually thought provoking and inspirational. The one
that caught my eye today was titled: Civilization.

As is Seth’s way, he can take a topic
that is mundane and obvious, and explore it and awaken you to aspects
of the topic you may never have considered. A good portion of the
world lives in “civilization” today, but many do not. People that
live in places where 14 year-old girls are shot for blogging, or
people have their heads removed because they “look different” are
not living in civilizations.

One line he wrote really caught my eye:
“We don’t need more stuff. We need more civilization.” How
true. When I wrote my story about hiking the Appalachian Trail, Three Hundred Zeroes, I finished the last chapter with that theme. I
discovered that, even though I was walking through some very remote
country, I was walking through a civilization that was comfortable
with itself. I started the walk in the deep south of the United
States and ended up in the farthest northern region and yet there was
a common bond to be found all along the way. Everywhere I went I was
greeted by friendly people and made to feel at home.

Many, if not most of those I met, had
very little in the way of worldly goods, yet what they had, they
shared willingly. Total strangers invited me into their homes, fed me
and asked nothing in return. They could all “use” more stuff,
many would be considered “poor,” but they didn’t measure their
wealth in the size of their car (if they had one) but rather in the
size of their hearts. I’ll never forget those people.

In the book’s last chapter I talked
about the impact all of this and the effect it had on me. When Jane
and I went off to walk the Camino de Santiago last year, we carried
our world on our backs, in our backpacks, and we were walking in
bliss. As long as we had enough to eat and a place to sleep at night,
we were content.

Sometimes, less, truly is more.

Civilization

Philip Werner has an outstanding blog site for hikers, and things hiking related at:

There was an interesting piece on CNN today by Mark Coker, creator of Smashwords, and ebook publishing company. He discusses the Agency Pricing Model (APM) that several of the publishing houses and Apple have collaborated on. I think he worded the piece a bit oddly. He contends that he is for authors pricing their books as they see fit and that the Dept. of Justice lawsuit is a bad thing, but he failed to make his argument clear. 

I just received word that I was featured in a new book about up and coming bloggers and authors. Actually, it is more about the current state of publishing and represents a snapshot of what works for people at the moment, both traditional publishers and indie publishers.

HOW THEY DID IT: 25 bloggers, authors and writers share all their secrets about earning a living and how you can do it too

Chapter seven of the book is an interview with me and my approach to publishing. I don’t honestly feel that I’m of the caliber of some of the others in the book, but I think the book’s author, Diana Bocco, had a different opinion. I haven’t yet read the whole book, but what I have read is both interesting and informative. I’ll report back later when I have more time.

Dennis, K1

In this morning’s paper, it was talking about temperatures in the midwest running 30° F above normal. Chicago has been running like this for 8 out of the last 9 days! It claimed the low temperatures for the day are running above the high records for the day. It is still March folks! This morning I was looking at a trail journal report from some friends that are currently hiking the Appalachian Trail and they’ve been bothered by gnats:

Authors are a strange lot. When we’re
not writing, we’re trying to figure out if we’re getting new readers.
Of course that translates into book sales, which can technically keep
an author from starving to death. I haven’t figured out how authors
that have free books find food. Do they live in a Salvation Army
Center? “Buy my book, and I’ll contribute a portion of it to the
center that I live in.”

Recently, I started using HootSuite.com
to follow my Twitter stuff and it has a “klout” (“klout”
is German for “klout”) factor that it displays. Twitter allows me
to take the pulse of reader interest in my book (soon to be books).
Now, take the following with a grain of salt, I may not know what I’m
talking about here (even more than usual!).

There are software tools that
Klout.com, which HootSuite uses to follow my Twitter account, which
uses, oh never mind, it gets really convoluted. Anyway, Klout.com
measures how much activity an individual “creates” on the
Internet. I suspect they’re measuring such things as Google hits,
Facebook views/hits, Twitter hits/re-Tweets, RBI’s, pork belly
futures, etc. Who knows, I wouldn’t be surprised they track how many
toilet paper rolls I use, and how much my followers use. Watch out
folks, 1-ply vs. 2-ply could really screw up your “klout!” When I
was hiking the Appalachian Trail it may have been a leaf count.

On a 0-100 scale (that Klout.com
actually uses) you’d think that an
average person would have a score of 50. But nnnnoooooooo,
not these guys. That would be too logical, an average person is, you
guessed it, 20. Twenty is the new fifty. Man, I could have used that
grading system in my school days, I would have been a genius! I’m
certain I broke 25 a few times. Those kinds of scores I did obtain,
although it was a struggle.

Anyway, they roll (excuse the pun) all
that data up and come up with some magic number that shows how much
“klout” you wield on the Internet. If you use Internet
steroids, can they tell? This could open up a whole new field,
Internet Drug Testing. Will my hard drive turn state’s evidence? I
wonder what Osama bin Laden’s numbers looked like?

In the old days of DOS we called people
with clout “Power users.” According to the Klout website,
there are places that use these numbers and mix them in a vat with
bat wings, newt toes, goat entrails and come up with some potion that
is consumed in a corporate board room during a full moon, along with
tequila.

As far as I’m concerned it is one more
thing that I’m not going to worry about. Oh look, I just posted this
and my Klout has jumped to 31! Maybe if I Tweet this….hmmm.

Things have been very busy here at the Blanchard’s residence. I often joke that I thought retirement was sitting on the porch, watching the grass grow. Nothing could be further from the truth!

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been working on my next book, A FEW MORE ZEROES. This blog has been strangely quiet because I’ve discovered that there are only so many hours in the day, and I’ve been using all 28 already.

THREE HUNDRED ZEROES is now on bookshare.org. This website offers books to readers that are sightless, blind or visually impaired. It has been over a year since the book was submitted for publication there and I am happy to say that it was published there today.