Two Week Wonder

We had a great trip over to Las Vegas to hear Celine Dion and back. I appreciated each of the terrific comments about our anniversary.

On the trip over and back, I was reading through the May 7th The New Yorker. Typically when I travel, I've only been reading from takeoff until the plane reaches 10,000 feet so I've limited my reading time. On a regular basis, The New Yorker will include in-depth profiles of various authors. This week's issue includes an article about novelist Paulo Coelho. As of this morning, only the abstract is online. According to the article, Coelho has over 100 million books in print. Several months ago, my wife read The Alchemist for her local book group. Here’s the remarkable passage in the article about this book and is also in the abstract: "Life and letters about Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho. Paulo Coelho wrote The Alchemist in two weeks, in 1987. The book has been translated into fifty-six languages and has sold over twenty million copies." Now that’s what I call pretty good work for two weeks if you can get it. It's why I call this post the the two week wonder.

You may be asking, "What I do after they ring the little bell on a plane that they've reached 10,000 feet and the plane continues to climb?" I reach into the back seat pocket and pull out my AlphaSmart. They don't allow laptops in that pocket but no one has ever objected to my AlphaSmart keyboard. I get more weird looks from the people around me but I switch on the machine and begin pounding the keys. I admit that I'm a hard typist. It's a trait leftover from learning on a manual typewriter. I've managed to get a great deal of writing done in a short amount of time on these flights. For example, the flight from Las Vegas to Phoenix is only about 45 minutes. It's been a great tool--even if it is a strange-looking thing.