Hey all,

Some news on the Walk in Silence book project.  I shared this on my LiveJournal a short time ago (edited for clarity):

I think I may set aside Walk in Silence, the book.

I’ll finish it of course, for my own reasons, but I don’t think I’ll be releasing it as a self-published book, at least not for the foreseeable future. It’s a tough decision, but it’s one I’ve been thinking of ever since the start of the year, maybe even before then.

There are a few reasons…one is that it started feeling less like a book worth publishing and more of a vanity project. On a more personal note, writing this memoir version really felt like I was really just trying to finally purge it from my system once and for all so I could move on. While on a personal and emotional level this can be a good thing, and I may even be proud of the end result, it’s not something I’d be happy with on a professional level. I wouldn’t be embarrassed about it…I just don’t think it would be something worth putting out there professionally. As I said, it’s become a vanity project — it’s a story I want to tell, but I’m doubting there’s a significant audience for it. Maybe I’ll put it out there as a serial on [this] blog at some point. It feels that would be the best home for it, when all is said and done.

Do I feel sad about this? Not entirely. A bit let down, of course. That nagging feeling that I’ve wasted a few thousand hours of writing time on something that may or may not see the light of day. But I’ve had a hell of a fun time reading all those music bios and reference books for research, and I’ve come to appreciate and understand music a hell of a lot more over the years. Totally worth it just for that alone. I may also feel a bit embarrassed, having bloviated the idea and everything else about it over the last three or four years online, much to your wavering patience and tolerance, but I think I’ll get over it.

But really…the main thing is that I think I’ve outgrown the project. My heart and mind have moved on, probably some time ago, and it was high time for me to accept that.

…

…so yeah.  At this time, it’s no longer going to be an e-book/physical book project.

On a more professional level, I think it would have been problematic as a book, especially a self-published one.  There’s only so far I can go with Fair Use in regards to copyrighted music, and I don’t think I’d have done the project justice (to my standards, anyway) if I had to hold back for legal reasons.  Doing it as a blog series would give me more leeway and make it more interactive, as I’d be able to provide links, audio and/or video.

SO.

What’s in store for this project?  Well!  Glad you asked!

I’ve already gotten a good ways into it (it focuses mostly between 1984 to 1989, and I’m currently writing about late 1988), so instead of trunking it and erasing it from my mind, I will use my collected notes and writings for it and do a serial much along the lines of my Blogging the Beatles series from a few years ago.  It may start out as a once-a-week entry, but if time permits and I get myself into the groove, I may post more than that.

Another plus for me morphing it into a blog series is that I get to return to my originally planned release date again!  Yay!  It’s still in the planning stages, but I’m thinking a soft start date of April 19 or thereabouts, to celebrate thirty years of me obsessing over this damn genre.

April vacation, 1986, when a dorky teenage kid from a small town discovered a college radio station for the first time, and how it completely changed his life.

Thanks again for sticking by, folks.  🙂