A Meditation

I went to bed wide awake and that never works. As I lay too caffeinated to sleep it occurred to me what I had to do. I had to stop blogging for a bit to work exclusively on my book. I regard writing it as far more important than blogging or running for Congress. Readers will recall that I joked some weeks ago that my running for Congress might only be a means of hawking my book. The truth is it is a means to hawk my book. However it is not “only” a means to hawk my book.

The fact of the matter is that I’ve wanted to be in Congress for most of my adult lifetime. That ambition has paled in recent years. I’m 61. I’ve planned a writing career for myself late in life. My grandsons and children are close by. Congress is a snake-pit of vanity and money raising. Who needs that?……. Apparently I do. Or at least I need the chase.

But the chase and the blogging are interfering with my book writing at the moment. Three weeks ago I had an epiphany. After a dozen false starts I realized just how to begin my book. I dashed out the first two and a half pages and then got mired in distractions. Ten days with the grandsons I love. First a mini vacation followed by a week of sick days followed by a Leap Day blizzard and snowdays off of daycare with them. That was followed by my rushing around for another five days shoveling snow and building the one shot I would have this winter at a snow sculpture. I’ve done at least one every year for a quarter century thanks to my daughter getting me started when she was starting first grade. Besides, the sculpture would be a fun ironic statement about my lot in life. Don Quixote the man who tilts at windmills was me – Harry Welty perennial candidate.

Then I needed a week to figure out my website software and time to buy a domain name and set up an at least rudimentary website. As I did all this the epiphany grew dim. I even forgot what I’d written.

To top it off I felt a pang of guilt about not attending to the writing. I mentioned a few days ago that I finally had that conversation with my wife and suggested it would be worthy of a post. I’ll make it very brief. Claudia is not impressed with my stab at a Congressional run. As she told me I’ve never heeded her advice before to resist running for office. That’s true. I guess its my one vice and I’m too selfish not to run no matter how much it disrupts our life. I was cursed with a spouse who hates politics but blessed with one who has made the best of my obsession.

It was her comment to me about my betraying a friends trust that was harder to take. The friend, Don Boyd, is the subject of my book. He’s had a tough bout of illness recently. He’s in his eighties. I’ve told him several times in recent years that I couldn’t guarantee that I’d finish the book about him before he moved on to his great reward. He’s seen me plunge into several politial forays over the six years I’ve fussed with his book and each foray distracted me from the book. I don’t owe him anything. But the story about him is just damn interesting. He was screwed royally by a lot of powerful people and I don’t want to be the last one to let him down.

I’m going to abandon the blog for a while to get the book written or at least started but not just for my friend. I really think his story is so fascinating that I can used it to pay for a serious congressional campaign. As this page in my campaign website points out I first conceived the idea of using the proceeds from selling a book for political purposes twenty years ago. Book sales seem clean and the idea of grubbing for donations really sticks in my craw. I’m not quite ready to become a political prostitute.

There is no reason that I have to keep blogging to keep interest in my campaign going. There are only a couple thousand folks visiting every month. If I start selling a completed book or one that is close to completion I’ll be able to build a campaign around it. By itself my blog isn’t that compelling. As I lay in bed the old phrase from our Revolutionary War kept drumming in my head, “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.” Well the whites of the other congressional candidate’s eyes won’t really be visible until about a month out from the primary election in September. That gives me March through July to crank out 300 pages. Hopefully it will be even less although I’m sure I could fill twice that many pages easily.

I sort of expect that I may find out tomorrow that I just set a record for the number of people who visited my site in a day. I really hate going on vacation when sales are up but I need that book. My friend needs that book. My campaign needs that book.

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