i'm writing a book - right here!

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Originally Posted by spacecrow

Don't forget the movie rights!

yeah... the movie rights!

Reminds me of Richard Bach's Biplane.

funny you should say that - two of my pilots were bette bach-fineman, the mother of richard bach's six children, and her second husband, jon fineman.

Perhaps you could take it to a writer's workshop.

you guys are my writer's workshop.

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Hmm, Wonder if They're Still Out There

Originally Posted by Barrett

...and how many marriage proposals did you accept?

The short answer: None of the nine that were offered during my journey.

The slightly longer answer: Looking back, I wish I had had more time to find out if some of them were serious or could have become potential suitors. First comes to mind that handsome, young line dude with the dark brown hair, dark eyes and beautiful sweet smile, who popped the question across the wing to me as he was filling up our gas tanks at Scottsdale Airport. At the time I thought he was too young for me, but he was probably only ten years younger, and these days that’s okay. So if you recognize yourself as that guy, do look me up, but then again, you’re likely happily married by now, so forget it. But if you’re not…

The second and third impulsive marriage proposals that stay charmingly etched in my memory were made by two nicely dressed TV reporters who seemed to like me an awful lot. One was in Austin, Texas and the other was in Pine Lake, North Carolina. Again, if either of you guys still have most of your teeth, and aren’t married, I’m not that hard to find and I don’t fly away as quickly nor as often as I used to, but then, that was probably what attracted you in the first place.

Vitas, in Redondo Beach, California was a friend of one of my aviators and he was also the most persistent and biggest flirt I came across on my journey. I’ve only figured him once into the original count of nine proposals, but he alone must have asked me, rather, begged me to marry him at least nine times during my week-long tour of Southern California. Please don’t look me up, Vitas, but know I’ll always smile when I think of you.

I found the following “Yankee Wings” newsletter blurb from 1990 in one of my boxes of archives, and in order to spare myself from typing any more embarrassing words than I have to, I’ll let it shed a bit of light on the marriage proposal that I did accept that was made a little more than a year after my journey was over. Unfortunately, our marriage went south after eight years, but the good part is that we have been blessed with two terrific kids.

[spacecrow]

Originally Posted by AAC Cadet Leader

yeah... the movie rights! funny you should say that - two of my pilots were bette bach-fineman, the mother of richard bach's six children, and her second husband, jon fineman.

you guys are my writer's workshop.

It was a good read. I read it back in the 1970's, right before Jonathan Seagull came out.

When he needed help, people came through for him.

[frankie_bondo]

....my advice is this: just write...stream of conciousness...put words down...don't worry about spelling...grammer...structure....style...just write....all that other stuff gets corrected in the re-writes.....just write! Your story is nothing less than spectacular...throw those words out there!!!

[AAC Cadet Leader]

Nancy's Letter and its Effect on Me
After completing my journey in late November of 1988, I was offered a free spot at Flabob Airport where I could live in my old motorhome, beside “Repeat Aircraft.” This was a big hangar that housed a few aircraft restoration projects, one of which was a 1918 Jenny. Flabob, near Riverside, California, was one of the funkier, historic airfields I visited on my journey. In addition to the free camping spot, I was given the use of Flabob’s vacant old "control tower” for the purpose of a quiet place to write my book. Long before I got the use of it, it had been used as the viewing stand for airshows that frequently took place during Flabob’s heyday.


It was the perfect spot for me! I didn’t mind that I had to climb a ladder to get up into it and I loved its second story view of the lush California countryside and sunbaked asphalt runway, below me. My sunny little sky office, located next to the runway was isolated enough to get hours of writing done at a stretch, while at the same time being at the center of the airport activity happening above and around me. I watched the landings and takeoffs of the frequent classic and antique aeroplanes that were based in the individual, eclectic grouping of hangars there and always watched to see them turn their base leg short in the pattern so as not to run into Mount Roubidoux. At nighttime from my perch, I got hypnotized by the green, green, white rotating beacon I could see a few miles away coming from Corona Airport and it inspired one of the stories I added to the couple dozen chapters I typed from my longhand journey notes.

For about a year, I worked on my book in that little tower, and I made the mistake of sending my parents the unfinished 250 page 1st draft of it as a Christmas gift in 1989, thinking they would love it. Expecting to hear from them immediately, I was gravely disappointed when I was met instead with three weeks of silence. It killed my spirit that the silence was broken in a letter from my sister, Nancy, that Mom was embarrassed by a few of the passages in three or four of my chapters and that I hadn’t written the book the way she had expected. Nancy backed Mom up with what they didn’t like about my book.

What they wanted to see was a book that consisted of a short biography of each of the 199 pilots who took me in their aeroplanes and the hosts and all the other kind folks who helped me in one way or another to make my journey possible. It is true, I had promised the pilots I would put them in the book, so I owed it to them to do so. For inclusion in my book, while on the journey I took a picture of each pilot, made sure I had the correct spelling of their name, got a written quote to remember them by, and logged their aircraft data as well as their autograph in my pilot logbook. But I did not know how to write the longer encyclopedic biography my mother and sister wanted. Not only did I not know enough details about all of these pilots and hosts, but finding them again to gather all that they wanted me to tell the world about them would’ve cost me thousands of dollars. And I no longer had the energy - it had been depleted by my family’s disappointment.

Also, as one of my pilots started up the taxiway to drop me off after landing in Ohio, he spotted the TV news reporters on the tarmac pointing their cameras at us and stopped short of the ramp. He told me he was sorry but that I’d have to get out right there and he kind of ducked down a little behind the panel. I asked him what was wrong and he said that didn’t want to be on the news because his wife might see that he had taken me up in his plane. So I opened my cabin door against the idling prop wash and pulled my bags out of the backseat and onto the taxiway. He turned his sweet little fabric plane around and high-tailed it back to the runway – didn’t even stop or slow down to do a run up check on the engine before taking off on a straight out departure to the south. So, I have a feeling that he is one pilot who wouldn’t want much said about him in a book.

Not only that, but I think that the book Mom and Nancy wanted, a book listing the accomplishments, titles and awards of 200 plus people would wind up being one boring book. I had already spent a year writing about the more interesting adventures of the journey from my point of view and I thought it was pretty good. My other sister, Mary, expressed discomfort she felt that the story was all about me and not about all of the pilots – she felt embarrassed for me and thought I was braggadocios. Well, how could I not sound braggadocios? How would anyone keep from sounding so with such a brag list of aeroplanes, places and people? So, I just stopped writing with any consistency and tried to pick it up again from time to time, revising my chapters in a way that would please my parents and sisters. But as I revised or removed the parts of the story that bothered them, the chapters became watered down and I became more frustrated and depressed.




Tonight, before scanning and posting the above letter from my sister, I had serious sit down talks, individually with both my daughter and my son, telling them the details of the story of how I met their father through his best friend who was a Waco pilot on my journey and how that friend and I really liked each other, before their dad and I began our courtship… I also told them that I had written a long passage in my original book about the Waco pilot that Grandma (my mother) and Aunt Nancy advised me to leave out. Then I showed and read them the letter from Nancy and I asked each of them how they felt about the subject? My daughter laughed when I got to the part in Nancy's letter that said it "would seriously bug" a daughter and that she would be "seriously disturbed" by such written words.

I was releived when my daughter laughed, but asked her reluctantlly to make sure that she was really okay with me writing such passages for the public to read, and she said twice emphatically, "Mom, it's fine!"

My son said, "You should write about more stuff like that, Mom, because that's what people are interested in reading."

[mike_baram]

You have a couple of smart kids there. Trust their judgment.
And trust me....the last thing I want to read is a bunch of pilots' resumes. It's YOUR story, write it.
You go, Girl!

[Wind In The Wires]

I'm still waiting to read the chapter titled "Things I Shouldn't Tell You".

You've got the material for three books, one about a woman's adventure travelling the United States in an unusual way, one about flying in antique airplanes and an illustrated tome featuring the aircraft of our past.

The first one would have the widest audience and should be snapped up by a mainstream publisher.

The second one will sell to the same people who read the book about the two kids who flew a Cub to the west coast and back. (The passage in that book about bombing prarie dog towns with Eskimo pies had me in tears of laughter.)

The third one will be a coffee table book suitable for gifting to every antique aeroplane enthusiast and an interesting departure from the illustrated histories of just one marque.

Write Martha write.

[timjnf]

Martha,
Your kids and Mike are right. It is your story, tell it how you want. If the story of one of your pilots should be included to tell your own better, do so, otherwise skip the resume's of all the pilots. You can include an appendix at the end listing all the pilots by name, their aircraft type, etc.
My 2 cents,
Tim

[cfgray]

Martha,

What a bold thing to do with your kids, and what a swell son and swell daughter you have.

It's is difficult to write about yourself, which is why so many celebs hire people to ghost their memoirs.

You have a very substantial writing talent, and if you free yourself from concerns about what others will think of you and what you have to say, you'll find that you will be so charged up about writing that you will want to be doing it all day and half the night.

In that regard it is a lot like painting... paint as you see fit, not to suit someone else's perspective. Even on commission, the people paying you probably gave you the commission because they liked your view, your perspective.

Your epic journey deserves honesty and that honesty will pay dividends, as it already has. Would you have told your kids about all that if this hadn't been prompted by your writing? Well, maybe, but your writing and thinking about your dear departed sister Nancy brought the issue to a head.

This is great stuff, Martha, and you handle it in a really top-notch fashion. Devote a few months to finishing this, YOUR story of YOUR journey, of YOUR adventure, and you'll have a published book.

Stories such as yours are rare. The underlying concern about embarrassment to your family is nothing to worry about, because you are one person, AAC CL, who would never say anything improper or overly harsh. Stay on this side of that fence... listen to your son and daughter, they have your best interest at heart.

Best,
cfgray

[FliegerJG1]

AAC,

Speaking from experience....parents and siblings, while trying to have your best interests at heart, will often lead you in the wrong direction.

What is your gut instinct? What really makes your spirit soar?

Find that and let that be your writing guide. I do enjoy your writing style. It reads easily, flows well.

FliegerJG1