Looking Back, and Forward
Let me catch you up a little bit on JoeBlogs and what’s going on in my life, because it has been a whirlwind the last few months, and I feel like I’m finally at a moment when I can take a deep breath. Well, maybe not a DEEP breath, you know, but at least a quick breath. Since September, I’ve:
Published WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL.
Gone on an amazing and wild book tour that has taken me to 30 different cities.
Also done LOTS of interviews along the way.
Also wrote a new introduction and chapter for the UK edition, which comes out on May 28.
Written and edited WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL, which, you probably know, is coming out on Sept. 17.
Written 191 JoeBlogs posts.
Recorded 16 PosCasts with Mike, during which we raised more than $60k for the amazing folks at Project Main Street.
Started putting together plans for the next book.
Written the narration script for the upcoming film, “The Diamond King,” which I think you’ll really love.
Lost 30 pounds(!)
Popped the strings on both of my tennis rackets. Siri, remind me that I need to get them restrung.
There’s some other stuff, too, but I’ll stop there… I list all that not to impress you, but to hopefully have you say, as my wife often does, “Take a breath, Joe!”
I won’t really take a breath. Because the way my dumb brain works, I’ve spent the last few months thinking less about what I have been doing and more about what I have not. I have not had time to get back to our countdown of the 50 most famous baseball players over the last 50 years. I have not published my up-to-the-minute 100 best players in baseball list. I have not had time to add to the JoeBlogs Hall of Fame. I have not gotten to a whole bunch of other fun stories that I’ve thought about.
And things aren’t exactly slowing down. This week, I’ll be in Chicago, and sometime on Wednesday afternoon, I’ll be stopping in at both Unabridged and Roscoe Books to sign some books. These are not actual events; we couldn’t quite work out the timing for those, but I’m planning on stopping in both spots that afternoon and going to the Cubs game against the Astros that evening. I realize that’s not a lot to go on, but if you happen to be around, I’d love to see you. I’ll try to lock in times for those.
Then there’s a lot of football stuff to do, and there are a few things I can’t yet talk about, and there’s a book festival in Gaithersburg, Md., in mid-May, and I’ll be in the UK for the London Series in early June, and so on. But comparatively speaking, it looks just a bit less hectic than it has been. Maybe?
And so, yeah, I’m going to try to get to as many of those missed things as I can—the Fame Series, the JBHOF, the 100 best players in baseball list, the iPad review, etc.
With the NFL draft this week, I’m going to give you a couple football things in the next few days… starting today with a few thoughts on WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL. This Thursday, I’ll be sending out the final introduction to all of you who have already (months early!) preordered a signed and inscribed copy of WWLF from the good folks at Quail Ridge Books. The preorder campaign will be going on until Father’s Day, but if you would like an early look at the introduction, you have until Thursday to place your order and then Gmail me the receipt.
People often ask me how long it takes me to write a book. It’s a difficult question to answer, because the actual writing tends to be the quickest part of my process. Research can be time-consuming, of course, especially when rabbit holes open up, which is all the time.
But the bulk of my time writing a book is spent