Start New Year on right foot

Start New Year on right foot

We're well into January of 2019.    

Ice fishing shanties are out on the harbor.  Four-wheelers, or walking are the preferred methods of accessing the ice at this point.  It may be a few more days before pickup trucks and their drivers venture from shore.

It's been one year and a few months since my last entry, I realize, and with such a lapse there may be no one who reads this or cares to get started as a follower once again.   But, barring unforeseen incidents, I shall in the future continue to grind out some light news from our home on Detroit Harbor.

In August of 2017, I had just announced my new book, Island Stavkirke - Washington Island's Norwegian replica.   Initial, local sales went over pretty well, as I had hoped when I ordered (and then stored in our basement) over 2,000 copies from the printer.  These things take time to catch on, I remind myself.  Lacking backing for marketing, because I self-publish, I depend on word of mouth and my own limitations in contacts.

Well, here's a cover from my most recent book, entries compiled while I worked on the Stavkirke book and received from the printer this recent mid-December.

Words on Water II - Island Journal 2017. 

Because I received this publication at a time when the Christmas season was upon us, several copies were then sold as gifts.  A few more were sold via my website, www.Richardpurinton.com.  All sales at this time of year are appreciated, because book sales remain light until weather warms and tourism returns.  

I've had the distinction, and perhaps an added sales push, of having my title "Words on Water," which appeared on my ferry journal book of 2007, chosen to describe two separate, local literary events.

Last September, the sixth Washington Island Literary Festival borrowed the theme "Words on Water," having first asked my approval.  Unfortunately my new book, Words on Water II, wasn't yet ready, and potential readers came away disappointed.

  

In another few weeks, on Saturday, Feb. 2, Groundhog Day, a poetry and musical event guided by Write On! Door County is scheduled for the Door County Auditorium.  It will also be titled, "Words on Water."  All poems submitted to a selection panel were to have water as a main poem theme.  How my title came to be chosen, again, I'm not sure.  I first read about this event in a Peninsula Pulse notice in December.  

Just to be clear (for readers who might be confused), I didn't take my most recent book title from either of these events!  

If you enjoy reading about local, Island happenings, or learning how events beyond our shores might have local impact, then this newest book, based on my 2017 journal, might provide you with insights, connections, and just maybe, a bit of humor.  Lots of images, too, both in color and B & W, over 50 all told.  

A major inspiration in writing these blogs is to start with a photograph.  That usually gets me off-and-running, and excited to put the topic at hand into words.  Today, I began without such benefit - other than the book cover - because I've not taken as many photos of late.  Maybe in the future I'll come up with a historic photo or two, something that "relates and resonates."  

In the meantime, I'll state that Mary Jo and I plan to remain in place this winter in our Detroit Harbor home, imagining what it might be like to be elsewhere.  

I have several writing project ideas, still in the wings, to keep me busy, and also several wood carving projects. Some are intended for the Stavkirke, others are just for the fun of it.

   

It's good to be back after such an absence, and I must say, getting back wasn't easy.  I had to ask a friend for technical advice in how to get recognized by Google, in order to access the administrative side of this blog.  My old password was no longer recognized, for some reason, and it took a bit of sleuthing, trial and error, to figure it out the right combination.

With my absence from writing and posting a blog, I've had to re-learn the tricks in getting a blog into shape for posting, all in a rather reasonable time frame.

Here's to another winter and the beginning of a new year, along with resolve to continue the posting of these blogs.

  -  Dick Purinton