A book deal

Well, the big news this week is a contract to write FalconGuide's "Paddling Texas." I'm still a little floored by the whole thing.

They seem like nice folks with a great line of guide books and they're actually going to pay me to kayak the state's inland waterways. Okay, they're not going to pay me a lot, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

It's funny how things work. This actually isn't my first book deal. A couple of years ago I was going to write a wadefishing book. That fell apart with the rest of my life post-divorce, and I've been kicking myself ever since.

So this sort of feels like a second chance, a shot at redemption. And, oddly, I was pretty sure I was going to be writing a paddling book this year, I just wasn't contemplating this book.

Everything just kind of fell into place ... from the time I sent the first e-mail to the aquisition editor (also the founder of Falcon Press) until the time he put the contract in the mail, something like 14 hours had elapsed.

The book I thought I was going to write this year was a coastal kayaking book, a follow-on to a Texas Sporting Journal series that will take me from Boca Chica to Sabine Pass. And, ironically, Globe Pequot (the press that owns the FalconGuides imprint) was on my very short list of publishers to contact ....

So maybe I'll be writing that book, too, after all.

However it works out, I'm profoundly grateful for the opportunity. I'm going to be doing a loooooot of paddling over the next 12 months. Which means 2007 is probably going to be a pretty good year.