I actually considered abandoning the whole thing. I’ve been stuck at 41,000 words which is – even with all the crappy photographs – an awfully damn short book. Uncle Joel was beginning to look like he didn’t have anything much to say, when he laid it all out to look at it.
There had to be more than that! For God’s sake, there are almost 4500 posts here, how can it be that maybe a dozen aren’t crap?
Then this morning I was surfing stats when long-time reader Phssthpok came to my rescue for at least one chapter, which is actually going to be titled The Phssthpok Chapter just because. He directly inspired a couple of reviews that really need to be included. So I’m going to write that today, and maybe it’ll get me restarted.
Wanna see a chapter list? It’s hopefully still only partial…
The Price You Pay
First Home
You Never Completely Lose
Ode to a Big Plastic Bucket
Joel’s Goddam Law, or The Extremely Complicated Road to Simplicity
On Scrounging
You Can Tell the Newbies by the Size of their Knives
On Carrying a Gun in a Small Desert Town
Ninja Bear Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Neighborhood Watch
Headshots
Shots Not Taken
Little Bear
Many Hands
It Takes a Village – Or At Least a Minivan Full of Mexicans
Sometimes Weird Stuff Happens
Learning to Make Fire – Without Making Too Much Fire
On Hygiene in Winter
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Don’t Be Quite So Cheap
Ian’s Dome
The World’s Ugliest Carbine
Paddle Faster! I Hear Banjos!
Sneaky Rat Should Be Sneaky – A Parable
The Hermitty People’s Armored Brigade
An Earth-Shattering Kaboom
How Commerce is Done in Quiet Places
Thus Conscience Doth Make Honest Men of Us All
Local Yokels
Growing Your Own Meat
I Expected to Murder Him. I Didn’t Expect to Enjoy it So Much
The Phssthpok Chapter
“That Was Intensely Unpleasant.”
Damn Cattle
The Story of the Hi-Point, or Paranoia in the Boonies
The Reddest Neck Of Them All
“Well. That Sucks.”
You Always Kill Your First Set of Batteries
Don’t Be Afrade to Maik Misteaks.
Life Ought to Have Sharp Edges
My own kind of freedom: I try not to bother being “anti.”
“I Don’t Know How You Can Stand to Live There.”
This book is going to be amazing. You have just GOT to get it published and promoted beyond the usual audience somehow. Lousy promoter that I am, I’m not sure how you should best do it. But this book has potential. Even people who have very little interest in making their own septic systems out of barrels or chasing cows off their land should love it just for its spirit and humor.
If you develop all of those headings even a little, I don’t see how it could be a short book. 🙂 But short or long, the value is in the content, not the word count. The best story I ever wrote covers exactly one typed page. Someday I may use it as a prologue to a full novel, but in the meantime it makes me cry a little each time I read it.
FOMCL reading the chapter names. I agree with Claire. Nonono, do not abandon the whole thing. BTW if you want to make your stove a bit airtight my recollection is that there is now high temperature caulk for iron stoves that may help. It might take a bit of disassembly to make a really good job of it, but you can handle that. The long inside stovepipe run is an issue looking for a thoughtful solution. I’ve rehabbed only one long run like that, years ago, my skills are not up to date but I bet there’s someone reading this with those skills.
There is nothing new about fire caulk. it’s been around for eons. It’s red, textured kinda like clay, and you use it liberally on all gaps and seams in your stovepipe, stove, or otherwise.
Stuff is the savior to anyone who understands that a leaking chimney is one o the best ways to bun your house down. Inject fresh oxygen into hot smoke? Bad idea, unless the plan is to start a fire, ’cause that’s what it’s gonna do!
Joel, did you include What I believed when I was a little boy from December 2012?
Goober, the stuff I’m thinking of is black, due to harvest don’t have time to look up the name which I’ve forgotten.
No, I hadn’t really considered including that, Zelda. I’ve tried to steer clear of too much philosophy, and want no politics at all. That one has both.
Imma be FAMOUS!