Look at that mess. Supposedly there is a book there, about the Lanterne Rouges of the Tour de France, yet unwritten, blank pages wanting for words, experiences waiting to bloom, questions unanswered, friendships renewed, some to begin.I'm entering into that fun/chaotic/question-my-sanity phase of writing a book, and this one doesn't have a photo outline to guide the vision - only historical confetti... after the parade... I'm knee deep in it. I feel like a street sweeper, pushing a broom about the last 108 years of French cycling history trying to clean up this mess. Scary part, it's only about to begin, I know it. Somewhere in my dimly lit memory I did this sort of thing before. Maybe it's that, that memory, and know I must be alive to have it, that makes this possible. Almost a weird creative mantra; "yes, I wrote a book before. I found the words. I survived the editors. I met the deadlines. I am alive to tell about it."
The odd part - part deux - after assembling over 120 pages of writing on this book - I'm now about to start. It feels like 120 page Prologue - luckily I wasn't up against Fabian Cancellara (see my bike blog for what that means).
Next week I leave for Paris and Liege (why Liege? more about that in a minute) and I feel like the photo above will not change - it will look like that for 10 hours on the flight to Charles De Gaul (sans food stains I hope - the wine will be another issue), on the TGV heading to Belgium, in my hotel rooms in Liege and Paris, and probably, out of having a brain ready to burst with facts, anecdotes and trivia, look like that on the flight back to Portland.
Am I prepared - god no.
My French lessons have fallen into a crevasse somewhere between a lung infection and procrastination. I know some of it has permeated my memory, but beyond pleasantries and a few basic directional aids the vocabulary is pretty pathetic - I'll need my agent Joel to shadow me through every interview and negotiation for access. Ya know, it was easier working in the Congo.
Jenn came home from work the other evening and said my blog entry over on Gerry's Daily Ride totally lost her. After trying to read it for the third time she raised the white flag and pedaled home. Ya, my brain had too many facts, it was doing a defrag looking for more hard-drive space.
Writing a book is like that, different than a magazine piece. Every once in a while I think, I do anyway, need to download all that stuff I have been storing. For example, I now have read and re-read how le Tour de France got started to the point I'm beginning to feel like I AM founder Henri Desgrange (I wish I could at least speak and write French as well). My first book we hired a writer skilled at the abbreviated format of a magazine, it and he never crossed over. One chapter and several months later we went searching for another author.
So why Liege? Liege is the kinda sidetrack that writing books take you on. Required rambling. On your first book or two you don't trust it, it costs money and you favor your wallet not your intuition. Now I go only knowing partially why and over time realize, with patience and outstretched antennae, that it will come, it will come. In Liege I'm trying to lock down an interview with a few cyclists, done deal, and the two icons of cycling broadcasting Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin, not done. It hasn't happen yet, but the race Liège-Bastogne-Liège is there, they will be broadcasting, and I'm buying the beers, it will come.
And finally, look at that mess again - notice anything? No camera. Ya, I plan to take them, actually plan to use them, as a diversion - never thought of them, photography, that way, but I think a daily walk with Jenn on the streets of Paris with camera in hand may help write this book. It will come.
