Back in November 2009, the folks at Tripbase had a clever idea. They picked several of their favorite travel bloggers and challenged them to write about their three best travel secrets. Those initial bloggers each had to “tag” three more travel bloggers to do likewise, and so on.

Travel Tips eBook

What was originally intended as a fun way to share the knowledge, experience, and expertise of a group of savvy world travelers quickly became an avalanche of insider tips so valuable that the folks at Tripbase decided to publish the information in a series of seven eBooks that are now available for free download on their site.

They compiled the 500+ travel secrets into seven different books, spearheaded by “Tripbase Best Kept Travel Secrets; 88 Essential Travel Secrets from the Top Travel Bloggers on the Internet Today,” which features valuable tips from industry giants like Peter Greenberg, Johnny Jet, Rolf Potts, and me, of course. The remaining tips were broken into six other books dealing with specific topics: beaches, Italy, U.S., family travel, worldwide travel, and food. Not only are all seven Best Kept Travel Secrets eBooks now available for free download, to celebrate the launch of the series the folks at Tripbase have partnered with Charity: Water, committing to donate $1 per download up to $5,000, half a dollar to $10,000, and 25 cents to $15,000.

I've contributeddownloads Download Free eBooks led by Tripbase

Access to water is, in my opinion, the most pressing issue facing the world today. Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us. Charity: Water is one of the best non-profit organizations working to provide clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. They use 100% of public donations to directly fund sustainable water solutions in areas of greatest need. Just $20 can give one person clean water for 20 years, so each dollar donated for downloading these free eBooks is providing someone with clean water for an entire year.

I’ve already got my set, now it’s your turn to download all seven or any one of the Best Kept Travel Secrets eBooks, without charge or obligation of any kind.

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Throughout the ages, religious orders have traditionally offered lodging and a bite to eat in return for a small donation. Although few were aware of it until very recently, this tradition continues today. Convents and monasteries around the globe supplement their income by offering cheap, clean, and safe accommodations for modern day pilgrims.

I first heard about this practice when I was traveling around the world in 2007. On the backpacker trail for six months, I learned that rooms at convents were available for astoundingly cheap rates. The only downside seemed to be that the residents retire early – guests who don’t return by 9 or 10 p.m. find themselves locked out for the night. That was no problem for me, as I’m not much interested in nightlife, so I decided to try to find a convent in Italy. I hoped to stay in one in Rome that was supposed to be across the street from the Colosseum. Unfortunately I never could find it and I left Europe without the experience of staying overnight in a convent.

I haven’t given up. Staying in monasteries and convents still appeals to me. And now, courtesy of the new book, Good Night & God Bless, the process of identifying, contacting and arranging for accommodations will simplify my next attempt. Backed by a  lifetime of travel and sleeping in religious facilities, author Trish Clark decided to share her wealth of information in a series of three novels with the first covering Austria, the Czech Republic, and Italy. Clark has listed both Open Houses (suitable for all travelers) as well as Spiritual Retreats, which are designed for those wishing to immerse themselves in a spiritual holiday such as meditation, retreats, or a pilgrimage. Each listing provides a thorough description of the facility, including information about meals, laundry service, reservation procedures, nearby local attractions, and whether the area is well served by restaurants and public transportation.

Clark also debunks the myth that staying in a religious establishment means adopting austerity, stating, “Pleasure does not necessarily go out the window the minute you book in. Wine is often served at lunch and dinner. Meals are sometimes prepared using the monastery’s home-grown herbs and vegetables and some convent dining rooms are popular with the locals.” Rooms are identified as being “ensuite” (bathroom in the room), or sharing a bath, and rates are quoted on prices quoted are approximate and are based on a twin share, per person, per night basis for the low season. The convent I sought near the Colosseum, Casa II Rosario, has rates beginning at 40 Euros per night per person.

Good Night and God Bless: A Guide to Convent & Monastery Accommodation in Europe: Austria, Czech Republic, Italy is available through Amazon.com for only $13.60, a savings of $6.40 off the suggested $20 retail price. Had this book been available when I visited Italy, I would have saved a great deal of money on accommodations. I’ll definitely use this guidebook the next time I visit Europe and I’m looking forward to Clark’s next two volumes, although I do hope she opts to create an electronic version for Kindle in the not too distant future.

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Moon Tahiti Guide Book

Several months ago, author David Stanley offered to send me a copy of his guide book “Moon Fiji,” for which I wrote a glowing review. Since I was so impressed, Stanley offered to send me Moon Tahiti for review as well.

Travel guides, while unquestionably useful, are hardly the kind of books one chooses for an afternoon of leisurely reading. Usually, when heading for a new destination, I throw a guide in my pack and never even crack it until I arrive. Upon arrival I use my guide to identify budget accommodations, vegetarian restaurants, and attractions worth seeing. But I never actually read them and, because they are heavy, almost always leave them behind at the conclusion of my trip.

Stanley’s guides are different. He has traveled the South Pacific so extensively that they beg to be read from cover to cover, and Moon Tahiti is no exception. Tahiti is just one of 118 islands in French Polynesia, a nation that encompasses a vast ocean area 18 times the size of California; any traveler who had not previously visited the area would be hard pressed to determine which islands are most worth a visit. As with his last guide, my favorite part of Moon Tahiti is in the very front of the book, where Stanley outlines seven, ten, and 14 day suggested itineraries that have been designed to coordinate with the schedules of local airlines and boats, many of which serve the outlying islands only once or twice a week. These itineraries alone, which could save hours or even weeks of research and planning, make Moon Tahiti well worth its modest price of $13.57 at Amazon.com.

Those on a budget will find this guide to be an especially valuable resource. Tahiti is a fairly expensive destination, thus Stanley’s thorough inventory of accommodations, which are broken into price categories, as well as his discoveries of locals restaurants where delicious, reasonably priced food can be found, are a tremendous help in holding costs down. And since French Polynesia is one of the world’s best diving destinations, Stanley has provided itineraries and extensive information specifically designed for dive vacations.

Moon Tahiti also is chock full of historical and cultural information that ensures visitors will get the most benefit from a visit – or take the proper precautions. I took note of Stanley’s advice for women traveling alone:

“Despite the laissez-faire attitude promoted in the travel brochures, female travelers should take care. There have been sexual assaults on foreign women by Polynesian men. In many Polynesian cultures there’s a custom known as “sleep crawling,” in which a boy silently enters a girl’s home at night and lies beside her to prove his bravery. Visiting women sometimes become objects of this type of unwanted attention, even in well-known resorts such as on Bora Bora or Morea. Women should avoid staying alone in isolated tourist bungalows or camping outside organized campgrounds.”

With Stanley’s guidebook in hand, travelers will know how to pick out a quality black pearl, understand the purported miraculous health benefits of traditional noni fruit, and know why Marquesans (residents of the Marquesas, one of the island groups that form French Polynesia) bite people on the head. With Stanley’s hints, you might even find part of the $1.8 million in gold treasure said to be buried on Tepoto atoll, although you would have to marry a local first, as only landowners are allowed to dig. Without doubt, Moon Tahiti will be in my backpack when I finally head for the South Pacific.

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A Rotten Person Travels The Caribbean, by Gary Buslik

A Rotten Person Travels The Caribbean by Gary Buslik, is an hysterically funny, make you choke on laughter, make tears run down your cheeks, novel about a lifetime of Caribbean travel.

I actually met Gary Buslik – briefly – at a gathering of travel bloggers. For some unknown reason, he decided that I would be a perfect candidate to review his travel narrative. I receive many such requests; sadly most of them turn out to be poorly written novels full of bad grammar and misspellings that leave me wondering what the point was. Not so with Buslik’s effort. From the moment I opened the front cover, I couldn’t put it down. I read most of it in a day, sitting in my favorite coffee shop while willfully ignoring the other patrons, who stared at me each time I laughed out loud – which was often.

Buslik’s singularly cynical life view – he is not kidding when he calls himself a rotten person – translates into some of the funniest stories I have ever read. While I don’t doubt for a moment that the stories are true (I believe he actually peed on Idi Amin and has discovered the secret of chicken rectums), but after reading chapters describing trips taken with his wife I need convincing that he’s been married to the same woman for more than 20 years. Whether his wife is mythical or just has a lot thicker skin than I do, their marital travels (and fights over potential trips) result in some gut-splitting situations.

If you want a good read that is guaranteed to make you laugh, buy A Rotten Person Travels The Caribbean (see link to Amazon.com below), but do not – I repeat DO NOT – try to read it while drinking coffee or you’ll be snorting java through your nostrils.

Buy Buslik’s book at Amazon.com

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Following two intense days at BlogHer 2009, I headed back into Chicago for Travel Blog Exchange ’09, a one day event for travel bloggers sponsored by TravelBlogExchange.com. The website was founded just last year by Kim Mance, host of Galavanting.tv, and editor-in-chief of GoGalavanting.com, as a place for those who blog about travel to connect with one another as well as members of the media, travel industry consultants, professionals, vendors, and advertisers.

Kim, along with fellow TBEXer Debbie Dubrow of DeliciousBaby.com, organized the inaugural event. And what an event! They envisioned that it would someday attract every person on their “dream list” of travel bloggers/writers they’d most like to meet. Even Kim and Debbie couldn’t have imagined their vision would become a reality on this first ever get-together, but that’s exactly what happened. Attendees included BootsnAll Travel, National Geographic Traveler ombudsman Chris Elliott, Wendy Perrin from Conde Nast Traveler, Disney, WorldHum, and Gadling, among others.

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that I fled from corporate life in December of 2006 to do what I love – travel writing and photography. Since then I have struggled to eke out an existence as a writer. The money part of it is challenging, but for the first time ever I can honestly say I love my life. I can’t wait to get up every day and write. My work has been published in numerous venues but my continued success demands that I get to know and interact with others in the industry, thus TBEX was a real boon for me. Hopefully, as my peers become familiar with my work, I will get more freelance assignments. Additionally, the four panels at TBEX provided so much information that my head is whirling with ideas for improving and marketing my blog.

Many, many thanks to Kim and Debie for all their hard work, and to the corporate sponsors who made the event possible: BootsnAll Travel; Vail Resorts; Explore Chicago, the City of Chicago’s Official Tourism Site; HomeAway, the world’s leading vacation rentals marketplace; GoGo Inflight Internet, the service that lets you surf the web from 30,000 feet; and TravelPod.

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Michaela Potter in the Galapagos. Photo courtesy of BriefcaseToBackpack.com.

A while back I wrote that Hole In The Donut was featured on the Briefcase to Backpack website.  The founders of the site, Michaela Potter and Sherry Ott, both took a mid-career break to travel around the world and in so doing discovered an interesting fact: although Brits, Aussies and many other cultures accept the value of such a break, the concept is virtually unknown in the U.S. Having benefited in many ways from their travels, the duo wanted to “inspire others to take a cultural career break and gain insightful lessons on life.” Thus Briefcase To Backpack was born, and my around the world trip was one of the first to be featured on their site.

Sherry Ott in India. Photo courtesy of BriefcaseToBackpack.com.

After my initial phone interview with Michaela, she asked if I would be willing to have a follow-up conversation where she would record my comments for a future podcast. Although I had no idea how they intended to use the audio, I was delighted when, just a few days ago, I discovered Michaela and Sherry had incorporated my comments into a podcast now appearing on the immensely popular Indie Travel Podcast. The site is run by Craig and Linda, full-time travelers who bring you tips and topics from the world of independent travel. They provide regular travel advice, review products and services they have found useful, or bring you an interview from someone they’ve met along the way.

I must admit to being somewhat surprised by the sound of my own voice – do I really sound like that???? But I was otherwise blown away when I listened to it. Perhaps half of the 21-minute podcast was devoted to my phone interview. I sounded articulate, humorous, engaged, energized…all I can say is, somebody must have some mighty fine editing skills! I subsequently realized that the podcast is also available through iTunes. If I’m not careful, I’m going to be famous soon. Kidding, although I would like my blog to be famous. Maybe I should send the podcast to Oprah….hmmmm.

Craig and Linda. Photo courtesy of IndieTravelPodcast.com

I hope you will check out Briefcase to Backpack and Indie Travel Podcast, both of which are excellent travel sites with volumes of helpful, informative content, especially for those contemplating long-term round-the-world travel. But whatever you do, please give a listen to my interview with Michaela and Sherry….let’s face it, I’m just a shameless self-promoter, and this may be my one time to be in the spotlight.

Briefcase to Backpack Interview on IndieTravelPodcast.com

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If you have noticed the UpTake badge on my sidebar at the right, you may be wondering what that’s all about. UpTake.com is a travel search start-up company based in Palo Alto, CA. The company’s mission is to improve online travel searches by offering vacation information about where to go, what to do and where to stay within the United States from local travel experts and writers. And guess what  – I am one of those travel writers!

Today UpTake officially launched their Travel Blog Network, which provides travelers with the ability to browse and search expert blogs across six categories that include attractions, beaches, hotels, lodging, restaurants and travel industry news. I write for both the Attractions Blog and the Beaches Blog (anyone who know me is aware that I am addicted to beaches).

In preparation for the company’s announcement I provided them with a personal photo and a bio, which they then included in a major article about the launch of the network. I must admit that it is a bit unsettling to see my face plastered across the Internet – I really never expected that my writing would lead to me being promoted. But frankly, anything that provides me with a platform where I can write about travel and show off my photography makes me very happy!

Use UpTake to ferret out great travel destinations, hotels, restaurants, beaches, and attractions

The next time you feel the need to get away but just don’t know where to go, check out the blogs at UpTake.com. You’re sure to come away with some fascinating ideas for day trips, weekend getaways, or full vacations.

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For the past two days I have been in Cincinnati, attending the first annual Writer’s Digest University Editors’ Intensive Event. For those of you who don’t know, Writer’s Digest is the definitive magazine for writers. It is published by FW Media, which also publishes Writer’sMarket and Guide to Literary Agents, the two writer’s bibles when it comes to getting published.

Among other things, the conference promised to teach me how to identify potential agents and write an effective one-page query letter for the purposes of soliciting an agent for my book. While it delivered on both counts, the most valuable part of the conference was a 30-minute review of the first 50 pages of my manuscript by one of the WD editors. My meeting occurred this afternoon and there was good news and bad news. The editor confirmed that I have good writing skills and commented that I have led a very interesting life, which is in my favor when trying to get a memoir published, however he also thought I had a lot of work to do on the manuscript before it is ready to submit to an agent. Although he loved the opening of my book, he recommended I completely rework the next four chapters, condensing them to one much shorter chapter.

It is a bit disheartening to think that I now have to go back and cut out so much of the writing that I sweated blood over, but I know the editor’s suggestions are very valid and these changes will make my book much stronger. I now realize that I went into this process with unrealistic expectations. Since I have been writing for years, I thought I could crank out the book in just a few months and be published in a year or so. I was so wrong. Someone commented today that, “Books are not written, they are rewritten,” and I am just now beginning to understand how much truth there is in this statement. By the time I finish revising, I will probably be sick of this book. Even so, it will be a labor of love. No matter how hard it is, I can’t stop now.

Another great thing that came out of the event was the writers I met. Being in the company of others who are so committed to the craft of writing was incredibly energizing and I feel like the friendships made this weekend will endure. After the conference ended several of us went to dinner, then hunted down the nearest book store, where we stood at the entrance and envisioned our respective books already sitting on the shelves. Totally fun. I’ve made a great contact with one particular writer who is an editor by profession, and she has agreed to edit my book in return for my help to bring her into the 21st century, electronically.

Before going our separate ways, we shared a group hug in the lobby of the hotel. But this wasn’t a forever kind of goodbye, because we’ve decided to form a support group through Facebook, which will allow us to stay in touch, exchange chapters of our ongoing work, and offer constructive criticism on our respective manuscripts. Since I have not been able to identify a similar group in my home town of Sarasota, this new peer group will undoubtedly become very important to me; already I feel some of them are soul mates whom I was destined to meet.

Upon returning to the hotel I decided to pack so that I could hit the road early in the morning. Unfortunately, I discovered that the charger for my camera battery was missing from my camera bag. When I checked the camera, the battery was also missing. I carry a spare battery in my backpack and it was still there, which makes no sense, because when I take the battery out of my camera to charge it, I always replace it with the fully charged battery from my pack in order to alternate use of the two batteries. The fact that the battery was missing from the camera leads me to believe that it was stolen from my room, but I am in an extended stay hotel where the rooms are not cleaned every day and my “do not disturb” sign has been hanging on my door since arriving. I really don’t know what to believe. It is possible (though I think unlikely) that I left it at the hotel in Clearwater Beach where I stayed last week. I will call them in the morning to see if they found it, but staying there was a pretty miserable experience to begin with, so even if I did leave it, I hold out little hope of it being returned.

It was definitely a day of ups and downs, but perhaps more ups than downs. I can handle the writing revisions and the occasional self-doubt about my ability to write. It’s the loss of the camera charger and battery that concerns me most. Did I really leave it plugged in at my previous hotel and walk away without it? It’s hard to imagine this, because I always make a last minute tour of a hotel room before departing, checking especially for any appliances that might have been plugged in. On the other hand, I can hardly make an accusation that something was stolen unless I know for sure that I had it before checking in to my current hotel. Sometimes I wonder if I am losing my mind. Can senility start at age 56?

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Just a quick note of thanks here. My blog placed seventh in the travel category at DivineCaroline.com, due in large part to all the wonderful readers who voted for me. Please accept my heartfelt thanks. Writing this blog is my passion and it would be meaningless without you.

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A few weeks ago, Hole In The Donut was nominated in the category of best travel blog over at Divine Caroline.com, a really great online woman’s magazine (I especially like them because they have a lot of content about travel). I excitedly emailed all my friends, and asked them to vote for me if they were so inclined, which resulted in an initial flurry of votes. But now I am stalled at 35 votes. The top site has 111 votes as of this writing and I certainly don’t expect to be able to beat that tally, but I would absolutely LOVE to be in the top ten!

So, where am I now? I am currently in 11th position, at the top of page two. In order to get into the top ten, I need at least three more votes. The contest ends on November 30th, so there isn’t a lot of time left. If you would be willing to vote for my blog, navigate over to Divine Caroline’s voting page and click on the button to the right of my blog that says “VOTE.” If you are not already a member of Divine Caroline, you will have to register, but it is free and you are given the opportunity to opt out of receiving any correspondence from them at the time you sign up. Thanks in advance to those of you who are willing to help, and a HUGE hug to those who have already voted for me.

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It is 5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. The day’s last rays of sunshine are streaming through my apartment windows. It looks like it was a lovely day, but I can’t really know for sure because I’ve been sitting in the same spot for hours, plugging away at the computer. You see, the design of my blog had been bothering me lately. It seemed a little dog-eared to me, a bit behind the times. I kept telling myself that it was just me, that I get tired of it because I look at it so much but that my readers are not tired of the way it looks. I don’t know who I thought I was kidding; when I get something rattling around in my brain, well, it usually won’t go away until I do something about it.

I finally just gave up and dug in. I started the revisions yesterday, stayed up until 6 a.m. this morning, slept for about five hours, and then got up and hit it again. Just ten minutes ago, I put the finishing touches on the new design. This new theme is crisp and clean and easy to read. I am SO pleased with the way it turned out. You may notice that I also chose new artwork for the header. The previous design featured a Hubble Space Telescope image of a “light echo” illuminating the dust around the Supergiant Star V838 Monocerotis. To me it looked like a giant donut, which was a particularly appropriate image when I began blogging, as it was symbolic of how I felt – like a donut that is solid on the outside but empty on the inside, yet bursting with energy to DO something in this life.

Two short years later, my life has changed dramatically. Gone is my soul searching. I no longer question who I am, why I am here, or what I am supposed to be doing with my life. Now I know I was put on this earth to travel, write, photograph the beauty of the world, and help others along the way. Every day of my life, I get to do what makes me joyful. The writing jobs are beginning to flow in, as are web design projects. An agent wants to read my book, a gallery on the Outer Banks of North Carolina is going to have a showing of my photography next fall, and a shop in Maine will be selling my photos beginning next spring. So, a symbolic donut hole is no longer an appropriate image for my masthead. Instead, I chose a design that features another space photograph, this one showing the sun bursting through the clouds and surrounded by the glow of the Aurora Borealis. To me, this new photo perfectly represents the journey I have been on for the past two years. It says anything is possible.

Dear readers, I hope you like the new design as well. And if I haven’t said it lately, thank you for coming back time and time again to read what spills out of my mind onto the page. I am grateful for each and every one of you.

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It’s been a two-year long journey but my unswerving commitment to remake myself as a travel writer is beginning to pay off. I have been hired by UpTake.com as a freelance travel writer for their “Attractions” blog (you may have noticed the new badge at the right that says “I travel and write about it on UpTake”).

UpTake is a travel search and discovery site that helps users make informed decisions about what best fits their travel preferences. There are so many travel sites, it is often hard to know which one is right for you. Like everything else, travel is becoming a very specialized field. If you already know exactly what you want to book, you should be on sites such as Expedia, Southwest, or Hilton. If you have a range of options in mind but are shopping for the lowest price, you should try FareCast, FareChase, or SideStep. If you want to read a travel review or skim trip journals, you’ll want to visit TripAdvisor, RealTravel, or Yahoo! Trip Planner. If you need help deciding what to book, where to go, where to stay, or what to do, go to UpTake first.

They scoured more than 1,000 sites to collect 400,000 places to go, things to do, and places to stay in the U.S. Then they analyzed and organized over 20 million travelers’ opinions to enable searches based on exact travel requirements and preferences. It’s sort of one-stop shopping for deciding where to go on your next vacation.

The UpTake blog is a sister to the main search engine. It is divided into seven categories (see the tabs across the top: vacations, attractions, beaches, hotels, lodging, restaurants, and travel industry). I am writing about attractions. My first two posts featured the lighthouses of North Carolina’s Outer Banks and Manatee Springs State Park in Chiefland, Florida.

Hope you’ll stop by and take a took. You may just discover some new places to visit!

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I have an anniversary coming up on November 15th. On that date two years ago I wrote my very first post on this blog. Initially, I created Hole In The Donut to allow my friends and family to follow me as I backpacked around the world. For six months I traveled to places I’d always dreamed of visiting and stayed up half of every night downloading photos and writing. By the time I returned home, in addition to being addicted to travel, I was addicted to blogging.

Of course, once I returned to the States my posts began to deal with subjects other than travel; these days I may upload an inspirational video one day and criticize the government the next. But at least half of my posts still deal with my true love – travel – and so I was delighted when I learned recently that the “T-List” has ranked Hole In The Donut as the 157th most popular travel blog according to Technorati, the website that is generally considered to be the largest index of blogs on the Internet.

This most prestigious list is painstakingly compiled by Guido over at HappyHotelier.com. Why Guido does this is a mystery. He certainly does not receive any compensation for his efforts and he is the first to point out that the whole process is something of a horror. But I am delighted that he does.

Guido is the proud (and happy) designer, developer, and owner of Haagsche Suites, a small and very luxurious hotel in The Hague, Netherlands. In his own words, he is also a happy doorman, bellman, concierge, front desk agent, technology engineer, limo driver, valet parking attendant, city guide, Sargent at Arms and photographer at wedding ceremonies, cleaning boy, gardener, pond and central heating technician, personal assistant, butler, and cook. Seems the same attention to detail that serves Guido in his tenacious creation of the T-List also serves him in the oversight of his boutique hotel. In case no one has thanked you lately for your devotion, let me say it. Thank you, Guido!

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For the last two days I’ve been in Richmond, Virginia, attending the James River Writers Conference. Since this is the first writers conference I have ever attended, I really did not know what to expect, but the event exceeded my every expectation. Not only were the various plenary and breakout sessions incredibly informative, but without exception, everyone associated with JRW bent over backward to offer assistance. One of the keynote speakers, author Adriana Trigiani, even went so far as to encourage us to send her our manuscripts, promising that she would force her agent to read them.

Prior to attending JRW, I was somewhat discouraged. I was beginning to think that writing a book and getting it published was a pipe dream. When I first started to pursue a career in writing I quickly discovered that I needed to be able to show potential publishers clippings of my articles that have appeared in print. Since I had not previously been published, I spent the last ten months begging local magazine editors to publish my writing for little or no pay in order to develop a portfolio of by-lined articles. My efforts resulted in three published magazine pieces and two online articles, with two more scheduled to appear in the next couple of months. My progress seemed agonizingly slow. Additionally, although I continue to work on my book, I have not yet finished it, and that, too, seems to be taking an inordinately long time. Basically, I was beating myself up and losing heart. I was about to abandon my dream.

What I learned at this conference is that I have accomplished more in a single year than most aspiring writers accomplish in two or even three years. Most of the authors explained that their books were written over the course of five to seven years. Several writers also told me that, as a new and unproven writer, having five articles published in the space of ten months is truly a remarkable achievement. Everyone pays their dues in this industry, and it seems I am moving along more rapidly than most.

Perhaps the most exciting event during the conference was being allowed to meet briefly with an agent. Having an agent will be crucial if I wish to get my book published. Editor after editor confirmed that sending an unsolicited manuscript directly to a publisher rather than through an agent is a waste of postage. My meeting went so well that the agent has agreed to read my manuscript; this is not something that is offered to every participant at the conference and I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity.

As a result, I have discovered I am doing more right than wrong, that I am farther along in my quest than I could have imagined, and that I MUST continue to write. I have much to do in preparation for sending my proposal to the agent, but at least now I have a renewed commitment and even a bit more confidence.

Since I now feel much better about myself, I’ve decided to stay in Richmond another day to attend their Folk Music Festival, which is being held on the banks of the James River, just a few short blocks from my hotel. Then Monday morning, I am headed to the northeast on a leaf-peeping tour. This is something I have long wanted to do, and I understand that the fall foliage is expected to be exceptionally beautiful this year due to bountiful summer rains. I am also hoping that the natural beauty will provide the inspiration I need to finally finish my manuscript. So, stay tuned, because not only will I be posting about the places I visit in the next couple of weeks (Vermont, New Hampshire, and maybe even Maine, if I get that far north), but I’ll also be sharing what I hope will be gorgeous photos of the fall foliage.

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You can tell a lot about a person by the way they write. The good writers are wide open. They don’t pull any punches. They’re honest about their feelings – sometimes to the point of being raw. They’re not afraid to integrate their lives, their feelings, and their experiences into what they write.

I am constantly appalled at the poor quality writing to be found on the Internet and in published materials. Conversely, I am always delighted when I discover well-written blogs that make me cry, wonder, sigh, gasp, ponder, or even laugh out loud. The following are a few of the later. I share them because I am sure you will enjoy them as much as I do:

Random Thoughts From The Beach
Colleen from the Outer Banks is a personal friend of mine who writes about her crazy life, thoughts, and moods with humor and feeling. Sometimes she makes me laugh and sometimes cry, but I always enjoy reading what she writes.
Jeff Baker Talks
Jeff Baker, the son of a preacher, grew up in the 60′s in Montgomery, Alabama. In his own words, he is a philosopher, he has an opinion, he is curious, he can be cynical. And he admits that he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for. I discovered him recently and I LOVE his writing.
Midlife Crisis Queen
At age 46 Laura Lee Carter got divorced. Three years later, when she lost her job, she whipped up enough courage to try her hand at freelance writing, crowning herself the “Midlife Crisis Queen” in October 2007. Her introspective writing is a road map of midlife questions.
The Boomer Chronicles
Rhea is a Boston-based journalist who realized she was having a midlife crisis when, at age 40, she suddenly felt an unlikely an inexplicable yearning to investigate RV’s.
The Fabulous Geezersisters’ Weblog
Two sisters in their 50s who were both born in Oklahoma and grew up mostly in West Texas. In 2007 Ellen moved to northern Poland to work as an English teacher. Ruth is still in Austin, Texas, where she recently quit her job to return to her own writing. This is some of the best writing out there. You will laugh as they take on the world.

What is really interesting to me is that I am actually making ‘friends’ out there in cyberland. In some cases this consists of leaving comments on my favorite blogs, but in other cases, these relationships have resulted in real-life contact and subsequent friendships. Lately, I have been conversing with Laura Lee Carter of MidlifeCrisisQueen.com about the trials and tribulations of becoming a published author. Laura Lee shares my dream of writing for a living and she, too, is frustrated with the process. She wants to write about important issues that are of concern to our Baby Boom generation – issues like how to deal with the death of a parent – but so far she has been unable to find a market for her writing.

Publishers are unwilling to authorize subjects such as these because they are “too depressing.” Frankly, most magazines would rather focus on trite celebrity gossip or the newest shade of eyeshadow. Like Laura Lee, I suspect that there is a market out there yearning for a publication that has the courage to address real life issues. And like Laura Lee, I think the venue for this publication is likely to be an online magazine. I am intrigued by this idea. Since our initial conversation, I have received emails from other women who are suggesting the same sort of thing, with variations on a theme. Over the years, I have also learned that when something – a thought, an idea, an activity – keeps being presented to me, I am supposed to pay attention.

I did a little research and discovered that there are few printed magazines that are targeted to the Baby Boom generation. The two online magazines I found were composed of information that had been scraped from other sites around the Internet and filled with advertising. The stores were shallow and contained no byline. I think there is an opportunity for an online publication that would carry bylined articles by reputable, respected authors; articles that would deal with a broad spectrum of issues, including the ‘tough’ issues that almost certainly begin to crop up as we age. I envision it as a sort of HuffingtonPost.com of Baby Boomer issues.

So here it is, dear readers. I am asking for your help. Is this or is this not a good idea. Would you read such an online magazine? If so, why? And if not, why not? Please leave your comments as I am really interested in your thoughts on this idea.

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