May Auld Acquaintance

Keith here.

In 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, I started a new book in January. Each year I finished that manuscript by December. About three weeks ago, I sent off my latest to my agent. What does that mean? I reckon that I should get started on something new. Right?

Like most writers, the most common question I'm asked is "Where do you get your ideas from?" I do have an idea for a book and like my Dot Dead and Smasher, it's set against a Silicon Valley background. Weirdly though, this time it's non-fiction. Here in the Valley, history is written and rewritten every day. Way back before I was a software guy, I was a history grad student. Maybe I can combine both those earlier callings with my current one as a writer. I'm going to call an editor friend of mine who specializes in business books and see if my idea makes sense to him. Wish me luck.

Any other resolutions for 2011 besides to get going on whatever comes next? One more is to read more books. I've stopped subscribing to The Economist, which I love, but reading what a mess our world is in doesn't seem to help in fixing it. So I'll escape this world for a couple of extra hours a week and spend the time in another world some author has created.

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BTW, I did want to mention the book that had the greatest impact on me in 2010. The memoir, Serenade to the Big Bird, reminded me of Anne Frank's Diary. The author, Bert Stiles, was a B-17 co-pilot in his early twenties during World War II. As with Anne Frank, you know before starting to read the book that he didn't live to see the end of the war. His language is stark and moving and cynical. He gets a medal and reports, "The citation was mimeographed, with my name typed in. The mimeograph was just about out of ink when it got to mine. The exceptional gallantry part was pretty thin.... We were late for chow and all the seats were taken." But like all the best American heroes, under the cynicism runs a streak of old-fashioned idealism:

"There are all kinds of people: senators and whores and barristers and bankers and dishwashers. There are Chinamen and Cockneys and Gypsies and Negroes. There are Lesbians and and cornhuskers and longshoremen.... And some day we are going to catch on that no matter where people are born, or how their eyes slant, and what their blood type, they are just people.... They are not masses.... And until we call them people, and know they are people, all of them, we are going to have a sick world on our hands."

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As I've mentioned, I'm sending out a literary quote each weekday on Twitter (@writerkeith) and here are two for the new year with slightly different outlooks . A wonderful 2011 to you all!

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." Edith Lovejoy Pierce

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual." Mark Twain