And We’re Back

Well hello there!

When I last posted here, Hailee and I were speeding south out of tropical far north Queensland. I was full of promises to write about our adventures on Fraser Island, and then follow up with some sort of thoughtful retrospective about a year on the road in Australia. But instead, like a checked-out father who’s “just headed down to the shops for a pack of Winnie Reds,” I disappeared and never came back.

Well, almost two years have come and gone, and here I am again. And while you probably didn’t miss my irregular and self-indulgent attention that much, just like that deadbeat dad I come swearing that this time it’ll all be different.

You see, during Hailee and I’s big drive around Australia and our subsequent settled lives here in Seattle I have been working — steadily and oh-so-slowly — on a book about the time I tried and (spoiler alert!) failed to ride a bicycle named Baxter from Canada to Argentina. Many of you probably remember me writing about that journey on this very blog. (The rest of you can catch up here.)

As that book is now nearing completion (see that manuscript!?), I have a few things to report:

1. Its working title is “The Guest.” This is the current front runner ahead of “Porridge Days,” which loses points for the confusion “porridge” would cause American readers — and “Oatmeal Days” sounds kinda lame.
2. Writing a book is hard! Especially when you’re trying to sculpt a coherent and interesting narrative out of a pretty random sequence of true events. And especially especially when…
3. …the main characters are you, your girlfriend and one of your closest friends. Yikes.
4. Despite your best efforts, it’s highly unlikely that any publisher or agent will bother to put the thing in print. After all, why would anyone read this book about cycling from Canada to El Salvador when some Instagram “influencer” wrote his own book where he pedalled even further — and he’s got all the Cheryl Strayed and Outside Magazine endorsements to boot?

That last point is, unfortunately, pretty important. I know that you guys will be among the first to download this thing onto your e-reader when it eventually goes up there. I’m very excited and more than a bit nervous for you all to read it. But before I go down the self-publishing path and email everyone an Amazon link, I’m going to have a red hot crack at getting this thing published by an actual publisher. As far as I can tell, the prerequisites for this are:

1. A story that keeps you turning pages (I think it’s getting close),
2. An engaging voice and great writing (Fingers crossed on that one),
3. A story that’s not only engaging and marketable, but appreciably different to everything else in the same genre (Just quietly, I think I might have this one down),
4. Have written articles for reputable publications like literary journals and magazines — basically somewhere other than Global Hobo (I’m working on this as we speak. Also: no offense Global Hobo, you know you’ll always have a special place in my heart), and
5. Some kind of existing audience (Which is where you lot come in).

As much as I love you all, a handful of friends and family doesn’t really count as much of a “platform” in the eyes of big shot book publishers. So I have dusted off the old blog and you’ll notice its nice new look. You’re also going to notice me writing here with relative frequency — hopefully about once a week — for (hopefully) the foreseeable future.

I’m also going to be more respectful of your time. Gone are the days where months of silence would jarringly end with a 3,000-word dump that you would have to plan your week around. We’re keeping it short and sweet (a relative term when this post has already blown past 500 words) from here on out. I have fond memories of engaging with many of you through this blog in the past, and I hope this latest incarnation can bring some of the magic back. The goal, essentially, is to show that I am capable of consistently producing internet words — words which real humans sometimes read!

Now, if you happen to enjoy what you read here over the next several weeks, and you would like to help in this whole “Oh Lordy Now Cousin Quint’s Gone And Written A Bloody Book” endeavour, you can do so by encouraging your own friends and family to follow along via social media (here’s Facebook, here’s Twitter) or email (by subscribing over on the right-hand side of this page). You will have my undying gratitude, and plenty more random stuff to read here real soon.

With so much love,
Q