I wrapped up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal late in the afternoon yesterday, Miss Terry got it proofed, and today we’ll send it over to our printer for final tweaking and printing. If all goes according to plan and if the angels are smiling on us, we’ll get it back and mailed by the end of the year. Still late, but it’s the best we can do under the circumstances.

With the paper finished, we needed a break, so we went out to Foley to a Chinese buffet for dinner, and by the time we got back to the campground it was cold! I am so tired of being cold, I just want to be someplace where we can sleep with the windows open, and not have to shiver every time we step out the door.

Back at the motorhome, I wrote a blog entry about my thoughts on some of the electronic gadgets I’ve experimented with over the last few months and my impressions looking back, then decided I didn’t really want to post it, and saved it for a day when I’m running late and have nothing to write about. Writers call that “banking” stories – saving a few in reserve for when they have a deadline and their brain turns to pudding and they need to fill a column or blog quickly. I don’t believe in such a thing as writer’s block, because I can always find something to write about. As I wrote in an article on my Publishing4Profit website, writer’s block is a crock. Anyone who has made their living in the daily or weekly newspaper business will tell you that. But sometimes it’s nice to have that extra cushion, just in case I get lazy, if nothing else.

I’ve been looking at our trip west, and though the easiest route would be to get on Interstate 10 and take it all the way into Arizona, I really don’t like that route. I-10 across Texas is long, boring, and we’ve done it too many times. I mean, how many dead armadillo, coyote, and deer can you stand to look at?

If the weather cooperates we may go up to Livingston, Texas for a couple of days, and then take U.S. Highways through Waco, Gatesville, Goldwaithe, Brownwood, Ballinger, and San Angelo before we eventually hook up with I-10 somewhere in west Texas. There are a couple of stories up in that area I’d like to stop and research for future issues of the paper. But as always, we never know exactly where we’ll be and which route we’ll take until after we’ve been there.

We may find something that catches our interest, and hang out somewhere or take a side trip along the way, and we may just as easily fall into “go fast” mode and just decide to get there and get settled in. We don’t have to be anyplace until early February, when we’ll be in Apache Junction, Arizona to help Terry’s parents celebrate their birthdays. That’s the great thing about the fulltime RV lifestyle, we have plenty of options and the freedom to exercise them at our whim. 

Thought For The Day – The future will be either what you make it to be or what you allow it to be.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

When we got back to Elkhart Campground on Thursday, we had a huge box of mail awaiting us, so we spent most of Friday getting orders ready to mail out, and we managed to make it to the post office a few minutes before closing time.

Yesterday we spent the day logging in all of the orders we had received, as well as some leftover paperwork from the FMCA rally in Ohio a couple of weeks ago. I also spent much of the day working on the seminar schedule for our upcoming Ohio Gypsy Gathering rally. It’s a balancing act to try to get everybody who wants to do a seminar scheduled in, and also in trying to avoid having two seminars at the same time that clash, as for example our For Women Only Roundtable, and the excellent What Every RVing Woman Should Know seminar.

We also don’t want to go the route of so many RV rallies and just have the same seminars over and over again, by the same people, at every rally. When that happens, people get bored pretty quick and stop returning. We do have some repeat seminars from last year’s Ohio rally, but we also have a lot of new offerings, including two different seminars on genealogy, a new seminar on making digital slideshows, and one on cooking on the road. And don’t forget that premier RV speakers and authors Joe and Vicki Kieva will be presenting their excellent RVing Alaska seminar, as well as a seminar on RV and Camping Tips. 

To check out our tentative seminar schedule, click the Rally Seminars link and scroll to the bottom of the page. As you can see, we still have a few holes to fill, but we’ve got a great lineup scheduled.   

I also spent some time exchanging e-mails with a fellow who has been reading my Publishing4Profit website, and wrote to ask my advice on a self-publishing project he wants to undertake. He told me he had read every word of the website, and just wanted to go over a few things with me.

I’m always happy to help someone out, if only as a sounding board to bounce ideas off. But this gentleman really didn’t want advice, he just wanted me to tell him that his manuscript which is by his description “an eclectic mixture of fiction, autobiography, poetry, and political musings,” was going to be a bestseller and make him bushel baskets full of money.

I try to explain to would be authors in my What Do I Write About page on the website that fiction and poetry does not sell, and unless you are a figure in the public eye, nobody wants to read your life story. Okay, your wife and kids will read it, but that’s just because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Still, this fellow was convinced that he was sitting on a gold mine. After all, everybody is always telling him “You should write a book.” What could I do, except try to tell him the facts of life, and then wish him well when it became apparent he wasn’t listening. I’ve made my living crunching words for much of my adult life, and I’ve managed to learn a thing or two along the way about what works and what doesn’t.

Several blog readers have written to me asking if we are going to see a Bad Nick Blog. My pal Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour is busy working on the format, and we should be launching the new blog in the next two or three weeks. But beware, like Berni Frees said in a comment in a blog post somewhere, she’s seen Bad Nick up close and personal, and it’s not gonna be pretty!

Thought For The Day – I may be schizophrenic, but at least I have each other.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

Yesterday was one of those days where it didn’t seem to me that we were all that busy, but looking back, I guess we were!

In the morning I printed off several of our booklets to fill orders that came in with our last mail delivery, which was waiting for us when we returned here yesterday, and Terry got them all packaged. Then we ran to the post office to mail them out, and stopped at the bank to make a deposit.

With those chores behind us, we drove ten miles or so to the small town of Bristol, where we stopped at Fluid Fun, a canoe and kayak dealer that stocks the most impressive line of boats we’ve seen anywhere in the country. I want to replace my Ocean Kayak Angler model with a different boat. It’s a great kayak, and I’ve only had it in the water a few times, but it just doesn’t fit me well. I found a couple of models that are better suited to my needs, and will probably stick my boat out in front of the bus today and see if anybody here in the RV park is looking for a good fishing kayak.

While we were in the area, we stopped and checked out a couple of public launch sites on the St. Joseph River for our next paddling outing. One was at a small park right in Bristol, with a good parking area and not one, but two, boat ramps.

When we left Bristol, we stopped at Phoenix Commercial Paint to visit with owner Michelle Henry. She had a Class C motorhome in the shop that she was in the process of stripping down for a new paint job. Michelle gave us a tour of the place, and explained how paint is mixed to create custom colors for the beautiful full body paint jobs she produces.

It is amazing how a custom paint job can transform a dated looking RV into a rolling work of art, and even more amazing that Michelle can turn out such quality work for half of what some places charge.

What’s the secret? Hard work, being willing to do a lot of the work herself instead of hiring expensive help, and a love of what she is doing. You can bet when we find the right coach to replace our bus, we’ll be talking to Michelle about a paint job!

Back at the bus, I actually did some work! A company called Pineapple Publications contacted me a while back and wanted to use some of the material from my Publishing4Profit website for a new book on self-publishing they are bringing out this summer. That led to an interview with the author, Christy Pinheiro, which in turn led to an offer to be listed as co-author of the book.

Christy sent me a copy of the final manuscript and asked me to give it a final proofing before it goes to print. So I spent the rest of the day and most of the evening doing that. The Step-By-Step Guide to Self-Publishing for Profit! will be available in just a few weeks, and I’m looking forward to seeing the book when it is published.

Speaking of books and publishing, several readers have written to ask me what I think of my Amazon Kindle, now that I’ve had it a while. Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news. I love the concept of the Kindle. It’s a great product, especially for RVers who have to consider the weight of books if they do a lot of reading. You can store hundreds of books digitally and carry a complete library in your Kindle. And having seen the new model Kindles, I’m glad I have the first generation model. It just feels better to me. But to be honest, I hardly use it.

Part of that is because just about the time I got the Kindle, Terry’s cousin, Carolyn Henley, who is about to become a fulltime RVer, gave us several big boxes of once read books that we have been working our way through in the last few months. With that much reading material, there just wasn’t much reason to buy anything.

Also, as convenient as it is to order a book online and download it to the Kindle, we just love prowling around both new and used bookstores. Terry and I can spend hours in a bookstore. Sometimes we buy a lot of books, and just as many times, we don’t buy a thing. Either way, we still have a good time, and we look forward to finding new bookstores to explore wherever we travel.

Thought For The Day – I wish the buck stopped here. I could use a few.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

We have been hearing all winter that with all of the RV factories closing down and taking their support businesses with them, Elkhart, Indiana has turned into a virtual ghost town. If you would believe the national news media (and who doesn’t take everything they say as gospel?), Elkhart’s streets are lined with empty storefronts and closed up shops.

Judging by what we have seen since we’ve been here, the news of Elkhart’s death has been greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase the great orator Mark Twain.

While we were out running some errands yesterday, we drove many of the streets we are familiar with, and we saw two storefronts that have closed since we were here last year. One was a truck and van accessory shop, in a building where we have seen small many businesses come and go over the years, and the other was a showroom that last had a small independent RV dealership as a tenant.

Meanwhile, we saw two or three new businesses that have opened since we left last September, and the established businesses we drove past all had busy parking lots. Elkhart Campground seems just as busy as always, and owner Bob Patel told me that they have not seen a dramatic downturn. So if you are coming through the area, stop in and stay a while. Elkhart is alive and well.  

Yesterday Terry was still not feeling much better, so we went to the MedPoint Express care center at one of the Martins Supermarkets here in Elkhart. The MedPoint Express centers have a nurse practioner on duty for non-emergency medical issues such as colds, flu, and such. After examining Terry, the nurse practioneer told her she has a serious ear and upper respiratory infection along with the flu, and prescribed amoxicillin for the ear infection and a cough suppressant. We were impressed to learn that the pharmacy at Martins does not charge for antibiotics if a customer has one of their free customer courtesy cards. 

As proof that paybacks will get you every time, it seems like the cold I had at Escapade and gave to Terry has come full circle and nailed me again. I spent most of yesterday coughing and sucking on Ricola throat lozenges.

Back at the bus, I gave a telephone interview to a very nice young woman from Pineapple Publications. She is writing a book on self-publishing on a budget and will be using some articles I have on my Publishing4Profit website. We covered everything from blogging to why I concentrate on writing and self-publishing non-fiction instead of fiction.

Actually, I wrote a couple of mystery novels back in the late 1970s that were published. By the time I wrote and re-wrote them to meet the publisher’s demands, and my agent got her slice, I made almost half of what I would have if I had put the same time into working behind the counter at a fast food restaurant.

I’ve got a couple of other mysteries sitting on my computer’s hard drive that I wrote a few years back, just for fun, but they’ll probably never see the light of day. Unless you get very, very lucky, you’re not going to become the next Stephen King or John Grisham, and I know I’m darned sure never going to be that lucky. I’ll stick with being a hack and doing what I do best.

Thought For The Day – Old age is when former classmates are so gray and wrinkled and bald they don’t recognize you.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally