Reflections in the Ice update2

I'm now sitting at 40,000 words and all the chapters have been drafted.  My approach now is to start editing the chapters in order, and approach getting them polished for publishing.  My current goal is to be ready to submit by February 1.

This has become quite the experience and I have to admit to you as my readers, that this has been a journey of sorts.  For those of you that don't know me, I have always wanted to be a nature writer since I first ready Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey back in the 1980s.  I now own a hard copy latest edition of the book.  The problem was, I didn't have the true experiences of nature for which to fully turn into a book, my life limited to raising a family and the years I spent in Anchorage, Ketchikan and Juneau.

But when I had to leave the University of Alaska  early, where I was pursuing a degree in Environmental Literature, I changed my major to film and television because I had to redo most of my English credits at the new university.  For a time I thought I was meant to become a nature environmental documentary filmmaker.  That could still be true...

But something awoke in me in 2017.  For one, I spent a summer in Olympic National Park and the winter at Mt. Rainier National Park, both as an interpretive ranger.  Coupled with my experience as an interpretive ranger in Alaska, the training and experiences there gave me two elements vital to writing my book:  fodder for stories and experiences, and the interpretive training for which to approach story telling.  Both of these elements have totally changed my approach to writing and made it essential in my completing this book.

And I discovered something within me sometime in 2017 a short time after I had totally lost a close friend to disagreement.  I found I was living my life for everyone else and it was time to live life on my own terms.  Something deep within me needed to come out.  I needed to tell the story.  And if I were ever wanting to read about Alaska and nature, I would want Reflections in the Ice to be an option.  Of all my books both bought and sought for (Arctic Dreams:  Barry Lopez, A Place Beyond and The Glacier Wolf by Nic Jans, Dominion of Bears by Sherry Simpson, Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams, Desert Solitaire and The Journey Home by Edward Abbey, A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, Travels in Alaska by John Muir among others), I have found that I'd like to read about the experiences I had held and the insights and philosophies I had discovered in my journeys as an interpretive ranger.  I would have looked for Reflections in the Ice.

And so I am just a few months away from submitting this book to publishers.  I need support!  Please advertise this book far and wide and get the word out.  I'm confident it will be a wonder work of literature.