Anatomy of a Book Proposal

I've started working seriously—well, not that seriously, but I'm picking at it—on my book proposal for CURSE OF THE HIPPO.

Book proposal writing is no fun. My last one took months and was over 40 pages long. But I'm better at it now and I already know how to write one, so it's going faster this time.

Here's the basic structure of a non-fiction book proposal:

TITLE PAGE
SUMMARY
THE AUTHOR
MARKETING SECTION
COMPETITION/SIMILAR BOOKS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER BREAKDOWN
SAMPLE CHAPTERS

You can rearrange the elements a bit but don't stray too far from the basic setup.

I was tinkering with the MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS section last night. That's where you explain why your book is needed, why people will buy it, how it can be pitched, and how it could be successfully promoted.

And I realized I was a bit short on gimmicks this time 'round. Last time, I pulled out all the stops. Solo woman circumnavigates the world live on the internet. I threw in the Ethiopian truck accident, being harassed on the Trans-Mongolian Railway, and being shaken down by the Uzbekistan police in the Tashkent subway for extra credit. Okay, I didn't plan that stuff but it helped.

But this time there is no quest, no manufactured excuse for travel. No "Because it's there." Nothing trite that I can glibly trot out and state was my mission, no pogo stick up Mt. Fuji for me, as I first fled my own demons from Namibia to Cape Town to Uganda, then took shelter in comic books in Kuwait, and finally went to Cairo for no particular reason aside from the head office asked nicely.

And I ended up starting the marketing section with this. Which will do nicely.

Since the dawn of time, men and women have traveled the world for fame, fortune, and to satisfy their curiosity. People also travel for other, less conventional, but no less compelling reasons: a fascination with a person or place, to settle a bet, and for what can only be called whimsy.

-Library Journal 12/15/06

And then there are those who travel out of desperation, taking jobs in the Arabian Gulf once the money, love, and biological clock has run out.

Might As Well Smoke

CAIRO, Oct 19 (IPS/IFEJ) - Air pollution is so bad in Cairo that living in the sprawling city of 18 million residents is said to be akin to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. According to the World Health Organisation, the average Cairene ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day.

Oh.

Joy.

What Exactly Does a Dik-Dik Sound Like?

My blog got a mysterious number of hits on Wednesday by people looking for "dik-dik on a stick." A little sleuthing revealed that the dik-dik on a stick photo mocked up by Steve had total strangers wondering what dik-dik tastes like.

Which sounds obscene. But I promise it is not.

Even stranger: The Google ads showing at the top at the time promised "dik-dik ringtones." What the hell is a dik-dik ringtone?

Go Ro!

My pal Roberta has been granted an expense-paid month-long residency at the largest international artist and writer studio residency program in the United States. This is courtesy the Dodge Foundation.

Ro gets discouraged sometimes at being an artist in a world where it's hard to make a living at it, the same way I frequently wallow in despair over trying to make money as a writer. This is great news about the grant to Ro.

Yay Ro! Here she is with her masterpiece done in electrical tape on a garage door.

Stalking the Wild Small Antelope

"Ix-nay on the..." What? I can't remember what I was talking about in these goofy little work web videos. It was unfortunately just those of us in the New York office in June, so you won't see Captain M or Mr. Fixit or my pals from the Cairo or Kuwait offices. I'd gone sleeveless that day and had to put on a thick winter sweater out of respect to our audience.

The first video is kind of funny, but to see me truly making a fool of myself, be sure to click on the menu bar labelled "group dynamics" and choose my name.

Given the bit at the end of the me segment, I have a feeling the ix-nay was in reference to me saying the word dik-dik onscreen.

Here on my blog I can say it all I want. Dik-dik! DIK-DIK! DIK-DIK!

Keeps Me Up at Night Too

My train ride to work takes about 17 minutes.

Normally, it annoys me. That's 17 minutes too long.

But for the last few days, it's been pissing me off because it's too short. Too short for me to finish reading "Who Hates Whom" by pudu-aficionado Bob Harris. It's subtitled "Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up: A Woefully Incomplete Guide."

This book is just wonderful. Clear, conversational, and hilarious. What's that? Funny? How can a book describing civil wars, genocide, and power-mad dictators be funny?

But somehow it is. And somehow, in spite of describing bleak situations from Zimbabwe to Sri Lanka, from Somalia to Haiti, somehow Bob Harris makes the world out to be kind of a hopeful place. Or at least a place with a good sense of humor. After all, how bad can a place be where one of the Guineas was once called Poo?

Alternate Energy

I'm trying a little experiment. Let's call it sustainable power on a micro-scale.



It's a tiny solar charger that supposedly is going to charge my mobile phone.* And my iPod too.

I realize my solar charger is not going to save the world or stop global warming, but it's kind of exciting. Of course, I can't try out my new toy right now. It's dark out. The down side of being sustainable.

This could be useful If I ever end up living somewhere without electricity again. Like New York City on a hot summer day.

*Don't laugh at my cheap prepaid phone. Twenty bucks every three months and I can read my e-mail on it, so there.

Not So Dangerous After All

Last time I looked at Burundi, it seemed pretty dangerous.

It was 2005, and I was trying to figure out if I could catch the Lake Tanganyika ferry from Burundi to Zambia. From there, it was easy enough to get to Namibia, where I was renting an apartment for the next month. I was trying to avoid the long way around, which involved an overnight bus from Kampala to Nairobi, then an overland trip to Dar es Salaam, then a long train or bus journey to Zambia. I'd done it in reverse in 2001. It takes forever—the thrill wears off after the first 30 or so hours—and I was trying to avoid repeating it. Plus, a ferry across Lake Tanganyika sounded fun.

The journey from Kampala to Rwanda is simple enough. But going through Burundi seemed like a bad idea. The country was internally at war, though muggings were more likely than fighting. I decided that now was not the time to go to Burundi. I ended up flying one-way to Windhoek, then taking the bus back from Cape Town three months later.

So when Craig told me he was off to Burundi on Sunday, I was worried.

I realize this is ridiculous. One point I always make is how threats are exaggerated and there is more likelihood of violence at home than in other countries. The biggest threat, I say, when traveling in Africa, is road accidents. And when people say to me, "You're really going to (country x)? Are you crazy," I always defend my choices and point out that sensationalist attitudes are rooted in lack of awareness.

So in the case of me worrying about Craig going to Burundi, I'd decided to keep my mouth shut. Or more or less shut. He's a big boy. He's been all over the world. He's reported from war zones. He's braved the Cairo Carrefour during back-to-school season. A little mugging wouldn't scare him.

Then I decided to educate myself instead of worrying, since not worrying aloud only translating into worrying to Yasir by e-mail. Yeah, right, worry about a little crime to a guy who has had to hit the deck while nearby soldiers were disemboweled by grenades. That'll look real Lara Croft of you.

Turns out Burundi has been at peace for 14 months. And Craig is more likely to get malaria than a mugging. Backpackers are already going overland and talking about it on the Lonely Planet message board.

Furthermore, it turns out that if he wants to, Craig can visit the spot where Stanley found Livingstone, though in fact Livingstone was not exactly missing.

And now, I'm no longer worried.

Now I'm just jealous. I want to go to Burundi too.

Could Have Been Worse

I had just left Brett after a pleasant dinner at one of my favorite East Village restaurants, Boca Chica. Brett and I used to hang out all the time when he lived on East 7th and I lived on B and 13th. But that was the late 90s and things have changed. Brett lives in Brooklyn with his wife and kids, and I live in... well, it varies.

I took the V up to 14th, then heard "JOURNAL SQUARE TRAIN, JOURNAL SQUARE" as I approached the PATH entrance.

Maybe I could catch it.

I raced through the turnstiles and right to the closing doors. They were almost shut. So as all New Yorkers do when faced with a wait of ten or more minutes for the next train, I threw myself into the eight-inch space.

And ended up with only my foot wedged in the door.

I didn't look up, knowing the icy glares I'd get from the inhabitants of the car. The "Wait for the next one, you idiot" glares.

I waited a beat, but the doors didn't open again. It seemed pointless to just stand there, so I removed my foot to wait for the next train. Ten minutes would go fast enough. I had an issue of Wanderlust magazine to read.

Unfortunately, while my foot cooperated, my shoe did not. My shoe, caught by the toe in the rubber insulation of the Journal Square train door, was about to go to New Jersey without me.

Visions of me riding the train in one shoe, then limping down the street (or maybe just to the shoestore) crossed my mind.

I bent down and wrestled the shoe. The train was moving ever so slightly when, to my great relief, my shoe came free in my grasp.

And I was standing on the platform in one bare foot, holding a shoe, as the train sped away only inches from my face.

I dared not look behind me to see the amused or disgusted looks of the other commuters. I simply placed the shoe on the platform, stuck my foot in it, and skulked to the end of the platform.

I caught the next train rather than hang around. It went to Hoboken, not to my stop. But that's okay. Anywhere But Here would do nicely.

Luck in Disguise

A year ago, my condo was for sale.

I'd been kind of pushed out. It was my choice to sell, but the reason I had to sell was that the other condo owners in the building had--in my view--made some unsustainable plans that would result in bills I could not pay. I'd poured a lot of life and energy into the building. So had Turbo. But in the end, what mattered was money.

I begged and pleaded--"Just repair the leak on the roof. It's only three years old. Don't tear it all off and start over."

They voted to spend. I told them we had emergencies all the time, to be more fiscally conservative. That a roof would mean permits, would mean the city would notice us and property taxes could be reassessed. Pointed out that the roof we had already might last another six to ten years, and that everyone who had bought in 2002 had moved on already in spite of plans to stay long term. Life has a way of changing your plans.

I didn't want to sell but neither did I want to be at the mercy of people whose good intentions meant a future filled with expenses every time someone spotted a crack.

I reckoned I had until Thanksgiving. If there was no contract on the place by Thanksgiving, I might as well get comfortable and start looking into home equity loans. Few people look in the winter, and by spring I'd have lost at least $20,000 off the value, given how I thought housing was going.

I got a contract on October 30, and closed on Dec. 13. I was homeless a few months, living in an East Village sublet. Then I moved to Cairo.

Through a former neighbor, I learned that after I left, the condo board doubled the maintenance. And then their wonderfully low taxes, last assessed in the early 90s, were reassessed.

And the taxes went up 400 percent. From $100 a month to $400 a month. The basement started flooding, the windows leaking, and they say there is some problem with carbon monoxide.

And guess what?

The new roof still leaks.