… and the only thing stirring is me, albeit fretfully!

It’s all a bit surreal, wrapping up this labor of two years, seven months around the world, 105,000 words, and untold hours of polishing and refining. Now it goes before the true arbiters… you. The general public.

Authors, and especially memoirists, are frequently accused of narcissism, of gratuitous self-involvement. Sometimes this is true… though hopefully, at our best, we deliver amusement, insight, perspective, and thought that makes our work laudable not for its self-congratulatory nature but for its capacity to provide something to the reader (and book buyer). It may surprise many to know that most authors shun the limelight — I’d often thought of using a pseudonym, and am honestly a bit nervous about the prospect of doing readings and appearances (and signing copies of my book with my decidedly un-penmanlike signature!)… just as as I was about bashing around the globe with a single pack slung over my shoulders. Hopefully the former experience will be as rewarding as was the latter.

Something tells me it will be. Promotion and publicity is part and parcel of our work, and hopefully augments the reader’s experience and enables us to hear from our audience in the flesh.

Overall, I hope I’ve delivered an experience you want to have; that I can impart to you prospective readers (and, hopefully, fans) the same insight and illumination I’ve tried to garner through the experiences depicted in my story.

But above all else, I offer in advance my heartfelt thanks — to everyone who’s helped make this project a reality, to everyone who’s expressed eagerness to read it or encouraged me to keep going, and — most especially — to those out there who don’t even know about me or this book yet but will find yourselves moved, inspired, or somehow edified by my words once you stumble upon it sometime in the future.

Until tomorrow — and launch!

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