A Different Kind of Vacation Reading

 In Blog

My time in Majuro, the capital island of the Marshall Islands, has come to an end. I am home at my desk, and I want to tell you about the amazing experience of blending business with pleasure.

The trip went just as I planned it. I had one fabulous escapade after the next, and I enjoyed blogging about each one on the website I oversee that focuses on literary pursuits; check it out if you’re interested in adventure.

The more productive start of my stay, though, started in my third week in Majuro, when my daughter Molly returned to her teaching job after a break for the holidays. Molly’s kitchen table became my office, and the sea out back became my break room.

I went to the South Pacific with two major projects to work on, and it was truly a pleasure to have dedicated time to devote to them without the interruptions posed by email—as wifi often did not work—and other, more deadline-oriented projects.

I got my head deeper into the book that I’m writing on behalf of a local man. I don’t want to offer up too much about this project at this point except to say that my client had an experience in the workplace that traumatized him and his family, and he wants me to get the story down on paper.

I had the luxury of rereading all the interviews I did with him, further fleshing out the chapter summaries, conducting some research online and writing four new chapters. I loved every minute of it and still have plenty to do.

The other project I focused on was an editing job. A man I once went to church with, who now lives in Canada, wrote a book about losing his brother in a traffic accident when they were both in their mid-teens.

I read the client’s manuscript while en route to Majuro in late December and on my first long trip to the island of Eneko, and then I began the process of content editing.

My work was about giving the client feedback on such things as where readers need to hear more from him in the book, where passages run long, and where there are inconsistencies, redundancies and areas that raise questions or confuse the reader.

I edited the book’s introduction and first four chapters, and in several key chapters, found myself weeping. I will begin editing chapters five through eight this week.

Both of these books are compelling and powerful.  I can’t wait to be able to tell you that both of them—and a third I’ve been working on for several years—are available for purchase.

Stay tuned! And start thinking about how you can combine business with pleasure.

Recommended Posts

Leave a Comment

Contact Us

We're not around right now. But you can send us an email and we'll get back to you, asap.

Not readable? Change text.