One thought guided me during 15 years of Internet consulting work: If you don’t have anything useful to say, DON’T SAY ANYTHING.

Evidence of the wisdom of that often-ignored advice can be found across the landscape these days.

So the silence emanating from this Web site recently was intentional. I was working on a lot of things, but there was no progress to report … so I didn’t say anything.

I now have two announcements:

1. I sent the edited and proofed manuscript of my Viet Nam memoir to the designer this week. Damonza.com has created covers and interior designs for more than 3,000 published works. I’m excited to see the design concepts they come up with for HOTEL CONSTELLATION: Notes from America’s Secret War in Laos. I should have them in two weeks, and I’ll be asking for input.
2. I expect to release the self-published HOTEL CONSTELLATION on January 30, 2018, the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam. My book isn’t about Tet, but Tet changed everything about the war in Indochina, and I think it’s appropriate.

Now that I’ve progressed to this point, I’ll be posting more frequently. Because I have something to say (at last).

Hemingway on Writing

This quotation from Ernest Hemingway’s interview with the Paris Review in its Spring 1958 issue struck a chord:

 It is hard enough to write books and stories without being asked to explain them as well.