Rogues Gallery 3

Epignosis wrote: A few weeks ago I got asked to step on stage as a guest to sit in on a familiar Lynyrd Skynyrd tune. I'm the only guy up there who looks like he doesn't belong at a southern rock event.

Nice job!

Great timing - taken mid sneeze!

Jim Garten wrote: Great timing - taken mid sneeze!

really?

[/QUOTE]Always nice to put a face to a name

Just had to have a professional photo taken for PR purposes related to the imminent publication of my book (http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Truce-Memory-First-World/dp/0813166152/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1440946917&sr=8-13&keywords=christmas+truce).  Here I am in full-out "serious author" mode:

^ The topic still fascinates me, even after spending four years of my life on it (well, part time, I work too).  Hard to believe there is anything you are more passionate about than music but I'll take the sale!  Please let me know what you think afterwards, I'm curious.

of course... I certainly will.  I worked for 10 years on mine but real life got in the way.. and lost the drive to finish it.  How did the project take you.. start to finish? 

The research was the best part for me, the actual writing of the book became almost secondary for all I learned criss-crossing the south. Perhaps that is why dropping the book really didn't bother me that much.. the journey was important to me.. not the destination.

The book started as a paper for a grad course, then morphed into a master's thesis, then while I was transforming it into a dissertation, one of my advisors said "This would make a great book!"  I didn't buy it at first ("I bet you say that to all the students" was my first response) but drafted up a book proposal and an academic publishing house showed interest so.....From first idea to reading the proofs, about four years, but I went at it flat-out whenever I had time.

emigre80 wrote: The book started as a paper for a grad course, then morphed into a master's thesis, then while I was transforming it into a dissertation, one of my advisors said "This would make a great book!"  I didn't buy it at first ("I bet you say that to all the students" was my first response) but drafted up a book proposal and an academic publishing house showed interest so.....From first idea to reading the proofs, about four years, but I went at it flat-out whenever I had time. Now I'm trying to understand how I got so motivated, because since I finished it I have slowed to a crawl.  Just burn-out, I guess, because now I have two incompletes to finish and spend all my time listening to prog and visiting PA, just couldn't care less even though the end of the PhD is only about a year away, and I'm kind of looking forward to being Dr. Émigré80.

  that is exactly how my project started out... it was going to be my dissertation and once I dropped out and started upon my new path in life I stuck with it for many years...but once my first marriage started seriously going in the toilet I lost the drive to complete it and took refuge/escape in music... and this site.  Even with the relative stability and definite happiness I have in life these days with Raff I haven't returned to it.

Perhaps some day I'll return to it. I'll definitely let you know what I think of the book. Congratulations on the perseverance!