Welcome friends.

In a few months Carry Tiger to Mountain – The Tao of Activism and Leadership will be released on the unsuspecting public. I’m getting a little nervous about it. The book has been just a concept for so long that now that it’s nearly complete, I’m having a few doubts. There are a lot of deeply personal experiences laid bare in Carry Tiger to Mountain. There are also a lot of ideas in this book that may, or may not, go over like a tonne of bricks. In thinking about the books launch, I’m trying to let go of any expectations – for better or for worse – and just accept that much of my work is now done. The book is one or two edits away from being printed, and my substantial writing is now complete.

It’s been an intense journey. In January of 2005 I sent out proposals for three separate book ideas to about fifteen publishers. Carry Tiger to Mountain was one of them, and was sent to five different publishing houses.

I’m no stranger to book proposals. My first book proposal was made in 1995 after I wrote my first, and likely last, article for the Globe and Mail (I screwed up pretty badly on the research for the story). It was a story about wolves in southern Alberta, and I thought a book on the subject would be a good idea. Nobody else did.

Since that time I’ve been sending out flurries of book proposals on no less than fifteen different book ideas. I’ve come close (I think) twice to getting a yes – once from Stoddart publishing for a collection of short stories. That proposal died when the editor I was dealing with moved to a different publishing house. No forwarding address was given. The second time was with Fulcrum when I thought I was getting close to them accepting a proposal to photograph and pen a book on the Green River in Canyon lands National Park, Utah. Likewise, that one never came to fruition. Aside from that, ten years have passed and I’ve gotten pretty good at accepting rejection with grace. As William Faulkner once said, I could paper my walls with rejection letters.

And then came the spring of 2005. That’s when Arsenal Pulp Press responded to my query on Carry Tiger to Mountain and said that they would like to chat about the book. Fate would have it that I was to be in Vancouver two weeks hence as my family and I made our long anticipated move from Alberta’s Rocky Mountains to Victoria, BC. A meeting was set, and when it was done, I had a contract in my grubby little hands.

The production end of writing a book takes some time, so the first draft of the book had to be complete by the end of October, 2005. I was wrapping up my work with Wildcanada.net when I signed the contract in May, settling into Victoria, and volunteering for NDP candidates David Cubberley and Gregor Robertson during the run up to the May 17 election, so I really didn’t start writing until June. In July I started my new business, and had two big contracts to work on immediately. I penned 75,000 words in three months, rising between 5 and 6am to get a jump on our early-bird son Rio, and the ever-jangling phone. When Silas (see photo of us collaborating on some sleep) was born in July I was half way through the book.

In late August I was able to print a first draft, and for nearly two weeks I went to Cadboro Bay every afternoon and sat on the beach for a few hours to edit (life is hard). Then I worked to incorporate the edits and printed again, this time handing a copy of the manuscript to my partner (herself an amazing writer) Kathleen, while I kept a copy to edit again. By early October I was able to take both of those drafts and work through the thousands upon thousands of changes. This was the hardest part of writing the book. Kat is very, very thorough. On some pages I could hardly see the words for all the red....

But in the last week of October I was able to plunk a copy of the manuscript down on Brian Lam’s desk at Arsenal. It was an extraordinary feeling. After more than eleven years of effort, and much longer of dreaming, I had finished by first book.

There have been more edits since. Over Christmas I expanded on some of the stories in the book, and did some additional copy editing. But now it is largely done. The design is being completed. A final once over for copy editing will be done. And then printed. And then…. Who knows what happens next?

There has never been a moment throughout this process where I have been confident that this material would be well received. I’ve sought to be humble in my approach to writing this book, as Loa Tzu would insist. I’m frankly just a little concerned that the book will raise more ire than hope; will result in a deafening silence not a roar of approval. But I think that I’ve managed to let go of my expectations. If nothing else, Carry Tiger to Mountain will be a 300 page post-it note to myself about how to live life well, and to remember what I need to do in my own world to be an effective activist and leader. And if like Henry David Thoreau I end up with a library of 2,500 volumes, all but one hundred of them mine, I’ll know I am in good company.