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LONG LAKE AND THE LONG RUN

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LONG LAKE AND THE LONG RUN

I am in Long Lake, Wisconsin at my college friend Dan Brown's hunting camp. The docks have been pulled out for the winter. A thick coat of ice still covers the surface. I flew in after coaching at The Ten Saturday night. One of my girls broke 5:00 for the mile for the first time. Got up at 5 the next morning for the drive to LAX. On the way, I saw a shadowy figure on the darkened tollway and swerved at the last minute. It was an owl, of all things. Enormous. Gray feathers. Flew away just in time. I have a thing for large birds of prey. Hawks, falcons, golden eagles, and owls. I would have been devastated if I had killed it. There's been quite enough death in my life recently.

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COMFORTABLY NUMB

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COMFORTABLY NUMB

Laid my sweetie to rest on Friday. I hear there's war with Iran, gas prices are soaring, and March Madness is in full swing. But I've been in a different place these past three weeks since she passed. She's all I think about. I haven't practiced my guitar or worked on my Duolingo French. I walk. I run. I feed the dogs. Keep the house clean, always using Windex to clean the counters because she thought that was important. I'm not hungry often, which is a first. I'm careful with my alcohol because I don't want to become a cliche — that guy who loses his wife and goes off the deep end.

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MARKETING

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MARKETING

You'd think I would know the difference between marketing and publicity after all these years writing books. This is probably why I've never excelled at marketing, something I'm going to correct with The Long Run. My publisher's marketing team has already put together some great images to promote the book. I'll be putting them up on my socials and in this space very soon so you can have a look.

But what else must be done? Specifically, what can I do to become a better marketeer?

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SATURDAY

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SATURDAY

This author life is a wonderful thing, equal parts strangers writing to tell me how much they enjoy Taking London and others emailing to say their hands are shaking in rage about something I wrote in Confronting the Presidents and they'll never read a word of mine again. I listen intently to the nice words and reply with a thank you. The haters get nothing, not even the nasty response they're praying to re-post on X to show my spiteful nature.

What can I say? The check cashed just fine. My job is to be the best I can be. Working someone into a hot lather is far preferable to people not caring at all.

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STARTING OVER

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STARTING OVER

I texted a friend in the middle of the fires last week. Checking in to see if everything was ok. That's something of a courtesy around here. We're all subject to wildfires, with the Santa Ana winds, smoke-filled skies, and the nuisance ash that covers cars and windshields. I live in the shadow of Saddleback Mountain, which was denuded by flames back in September. The vegetation is completely gone. Ever since, all that bare soil gets whipped up when the Santa Anas blow, dropping a fine layer of grit on my backyard. I've power washed it and bought a big industrial broom to sweep it all up, but no sooner do I clean it all up than a new layer of wind deposits more silt. It's maddening.

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POD

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POD

I'm starting a podcast. It's time. Bloomberg is reporting this morning that "the business of history is booming," which is a far cry from a recent comment by a prominent publisher that "non-fiction is dead." It's also been noted that academic history is being replaced by a trend towards popular history, in which I may have played a small role. Now it's time to capitalize. Cool but scary.

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SANTA ANAS

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SANTA ANAS

Our town backs up to the local mountains. Some cities have houses facing the sea. We have Mother Saddleback staring at our backyards. Fire ravaged the steep areas on the very edges of Rancho Santa Margarita a few months ago, burning all the way to the summit and up the slopes of the valley on the other side for miles. Last Wednesday Santa Ana winds roared through the pass connecting our town with cities on the other side of Saddleback.