2014...as it relates to 2015

The Akashic Records. Okay, no, not really. It's actually Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo courtesy of navitascoach.com)

Once again it's time for my customary look back at the previous year, and a peek ahead at what's to come next year. Without further ado, here's a list of the things I accomplished in 2014: 

•  brewed a bunch of beers with the guys, including a lip-smackin' ginger IPA
•  completed The Art of Manliness's 30 Days to a Better Man challenge (January)
•  submitted a query, along with 10 pages of my manuscript, to Ace & Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy in January; sent in the full manuscript in August; rejected in October
•  took a trip to Sapporo, Hokkaido in February
•  rode the train through all the way through Japan (took a full day and then some) 
•  said farewell to Adam in Busan
•  moved to Gangnam-gu in March
•  got my appendix out in May
•  sent my full manuscript to Baen Books in June; rejected in December
•  traveled through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong from July 12 to August 7
•  took the Reunification Express through Vietnam, from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City
•  ate lo mai gai, bun cha, banh mi, and pigeon-heart pho in Vietnam
•  traveled across Cambodia by bus, and ate khmer amok and beef loklak
•  drank cocktails at the top of Bangkok's tallest building and watched a thunderstorm
•  took the train from Bangkok to Butterworth, and hung around in the Hong Kong Bar on Penang Island, drinking cheap Tiger beers and talking to Chinese, Brits, Russians, and Brazilians 
•  rode a miserable bus through Malaysia
•  spent a hot, humid, overpriced weekend in Singapore drinking eponymous slings and riding open-top buses (and the Flyer)
•  met up with Miss H in Hong Kong and spent four lovely days there, eating Hokkaido ramen and Moroccan lamb and MSG-laden Cantonese and English beer (and going to Disneyland)
•  saw Miss H go back home before me in September
•  moved into a oneroomtel in Gwangjin-gu that same month
•  finished reading Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in November
•  read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, The Terror by Dan Simmons, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Kowloon Tong by Paul Theroux, Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks, Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, The Korean War: A History by Bruce Cumings, Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, Dune by Frank Herbert, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany, and some other stuff
•  found the best burger in Seoul (at Bartwo, a beer-and-burger pub in Oksu-dong)
•  ...and the best Mexican in Seoul (Gusto Taco, near Sangsu Station in the Hongdae area)
•  tasted seolleongtang, makchang (large beef intestines), fermented soybean paste, hoe deopbap (raw fish over rice), chicken bulgogi, shrimp gimbap, and barbecued ox hearts
•  ate at the Casablanca Sandwicherie in Itaewon (lamb chili sandwich and a Berber omelette, yum!)
•  completed the shooter challenge at Gecko's Terrace in Itaewon, and now have my name inscribed on a brass plaque above the bar with the following motto: Bibo Ergo Sum
•  discovered Jack White, The White Stripes, Jeff Buckley, Sky Sailing, Cage the Elephant, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis
•  took up pipe-smoking and honed my appreciation for good pipe tobacco (with a nip of bourbon or rye)
•  completed another NaNoWriMo and took my first steps toward becoming a paperless writer 
• started two new novels and abandoned a third
•  submitted ten short science fiction stories to Clarkesworld, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov's Science Fiction, Space Squid, Daily Science Fiction, 3LBE, and Fiction Vortex (all rejected)
•  joined Twitter (11 followers so far!) and revamped my blog and Google Plus pages (to build my writer's platform)
•  added some delicious dishes to my cooking and baking repertoire, such as chicken piccata, vegetarian lasagna, penne pasta with vodka sauce, New York cheesecake, and stuffed bell peppers
•  wrote and submitted pieces to ElectRow magazine
•  went to the HBC Festival and drank beer and ate doner kebab
•  rode my bike all the way to Gwacheon 
•  walked from Gwangjin-gu to Itaewon 
•  walked 10 miles in one day 
•  went to the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art
•  hiked Achasan and Yongmasan
•  hiked Namhansanseong, the ninth of Korea's UNESCO World Heritage sites I've seen (out of 11 total)
•  tried the hamburgers at Fire Bell, Libertine, and Left Coast
•  visited the doctor about some heart palpitations, and started taking magnesium supplements for excessive stress
• on a related note, I lost 20 pounds between August and December
• visited a buddy in Gunsan, North Jeolla (and rode first class on the KTX back to Seoul)
•  planned a wedding in April 2015 (my own!)
•  scored an interview with a tech start-up in Las Vegas 
•  made dozens of new friends in seven countries
•  finished my final semester at Sejong University
•  prepared to depart Korea on January 7, 2015

And here's what I hope for 2015: a job in January, a wedding with the love of my life in April, a wedding in England (congratulations, Jeff & Jenn!) in July, Wasteland Weekend in September, a literary agent by December, and burning off the rest of my gut at the gym. And keeping it off. Twenty pounds gone already, as you saw above.

Postie out. 

writing updates, 12/24/2014

Baen Books has rejected my manuscript. 

...but also very gently.

I got back to my apartment after stepping out to see The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (overlong and excruciatingly over-acted) and I see this email in my inbox:

Dear Mr. Post,


Thank you for your patience as we considered your novel. While your narrative style was entertaining, unfortunately we will not be able to find a place for this story in our lineup.

Due to the volume of manuscripts we receive and the press of other business it is impossible for us to go into particulars. Please do not take this rejection as necessarily a reflection on your work; we can accept fewer than one percent of the manuscripts submitted to us.

Best of luck in another market. We hope you will consider submitting again, when you have another story you think will fit the Baen line.


Sincerely,

Gray Rinehart
Contributing Editor
Baen Books

While not as detailed as my rejection from Ace & Roc, this is still benign. Benignity is probably par for the course for these things, I realize. People are so hypersensitive these days that one whiff of brusqueness from an editor would invite an expletive-packed tirade from the irate, insecure author. Editors have probably learned to tiptoe quite carefully around a rejection email like this one, hand-picking the most vaguely encouraging euphemisms. 

Even so, Mr. Rinehart didn't have to say that my narrative style was entertaining. That was mighty big of him. I guess that earns me one point in the cosmic scheme of things. Huzzah!

That wasn't all, though. Today I received a rejection email from Daily Science Fiction, letting me know that they weren't interested in my 1500-word short story "Letter from the E.T. Killer."

My own stupid fault, really. Stories about serial killers are a dime a dozen. I should have realized that before I wrote it. Oh well. I can't help what my Muse tells me. 

[sigh]

So that's it. No more lines in the water. The manuscript of my first novel, my baby, my magnum opus, the reason God or Zeus or the Great Green Arkleseizure put me on this planet, the glorious creation I was brought into existence to bring into existence, has been rejected by two major publishers. Every story I've written and/or submitted this year has been hurled back in my face with an F.O. letter attached. 

Bummer, dude.  

But let's recap. Since I began keeping track of my submissions in late 2012, here's where things stand: 

1. Tues, 12/11/12 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Maze," 770 words) - REJECTED

 2. Sun, 12/23/12 - Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine ("Incommunicado," 3,440 words) - REJECTED

 3. Fri, 1/4/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 4. Wed, 1/16/13 - Fantastic Frontiers ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 5. Fri, 2/8/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 6. Fri, 4/19/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 7. Thurs, 6/03/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," 1,740 words) - MADE 2ND ROUND OF REVIEW - REJECTED 

 8. Fri, 6/26/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Only One Boot," 980 words) - REJECTED

 9. Wed, 8/14/13 - 3LBE ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 10. Wed, 8/14/13 - Space Squid ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 11. Thurs, 1/23/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 12. Wed, 1/29/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 13. Wed, 1/29/14 - Ace and Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy ("Revival," 112,000 words) - REQUESTED MANUSCRIPT 8/27/14 - REJECTED

 14. Mon, 2/10/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First 25 Years," [R] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 15. Wed, 3/12/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Body Politic," 2,600 words) - REJECTED

 16. Tues, 3/18/14 - Analog Science Fiction & Fact ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 17. Mon, 4/21/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("That's Gratitude For You," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 18. Fri, 5/2/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("Boxing Day," 1,080 words) - REJECTED

 19. Mon, 6/30/2014 - Baen Books ("Revival," 114,500 words) - ID No: 10240 - REJECTED

 20. Mon, 10/20/2014 - Daily Science Fiction ("Emeritus," 1,630 words) - REJECTED

 21. Thurs, 10/30/2014 - Fiction Vortex ("The First 25 Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 22. Mon, 11/17/2014 - Clarkesworld ("The First 25 Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 23. Mon, 12/8/2014 - Daily Science Fiction ("Letter from the E.T. Killer," 1,500 words) - REJECTED

Well, looky here. Two measly submissions in 2012. Eight in 2013. Twelve in 2014...getting better. And two (going on four) more novels written since then. 

I guess I must be serious about becoming a writer, huh? 

Twenty-three submissions, twenty-three rejections. I'm going to try to triple that next year. My New Year's resolutions for 2015 are: write every day; submit at least two or three times a month; finish up Novel #4 and Novel #5, and finish Novel #6 (whatever that may be). Do another NaNoWriMo (Novel #7, I guess). And most importantly, find an agent. I've decided to start querying them anyway, even if I don't have a body of published work. I may be shouting into the void, but there may be a faint echo. Who knows? 

Wish me luck. 

6 splendiferous books I read in 2014

Jamie Todd Rubin, of whom I am now a steadfast devotee, just did a similar post on his wicked-cool blog, so I thought I'd do one of my own. I didn't read quite as many books as I wanted to in 2014 (between two moves, Miss H going home, two semesters at Sejong University, a train trip through the Japanese Home Islands in February, and an overland transect of Indochina in summer), but at least I made it into the double digits. Some of the titles I picked were real jim-dandies.

Without further ado: 

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
I'd read Heart of Darkness, and appreciated it for all it was by itself. But there was something about Conrad's oeuvre—his flair for painting vivid pictures of the exotic corners of the earth, and the colorful folk who people them (born of his own experience as a sailor)—that captivated me. That same flair wasn't lacking in Lord Jim. Conrad tackles questions of duty, conscience, guilt, penance, and moral courage, all while weaving a colorful tapestry of both human and natural scenery in Indochina and the South Pacific islands. A heck of a good read, and an absolutely flabbergasting ending. It'll either reaffirm or destroy your belief in karma. 

Dune by Frank Herbert
A friend bullied me into reading this. I'd caught snippets of the 2003 TV miniseries with James McAvoy, and heard bits and bobs around the Internet from those teeming millions of slavering fans, but never really considered it to be up my alley. Well, I wasn't wrong; I don't think I'll be continuing with the series. But I can easily see why this book has been called the greatest masterwork of the science fiction genre. Herbert does a spectacular job of world-building, touching on economics, politics, sociology, religion, and biology, while never losing sight of the overarching narrative nor the gigantic cast of characters, giving each one enough limelight as he or she deserves. It was so well done that I didn't even realize it was an allegory about oil politics in the Middle East.

I have to admit, the shai-hulud were pretty freakin' awesome.

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Don't get me wrong: I absolutely hated this book. But I can hate a book and still acknowledge its intrinsic worth. I'd like to give you a synopsis of this door-stopper, but I'm afraid it's...impossible to describe. Even William Gibson, the noir prophet, the father of cyberpunk, the man who coined the term "cyberspace," the first winner of the science fiction "triple crown" (the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award), and the author of the masterful Sprawl trilogy (which I have yet to read), doesn't quite understand what Dhalgren is about, and admits as much in his foreword. Whoever did the jacket copy couldn't quite verbalize it, either. But therein lies the book's pull: it teases you into believing that you have the story and its deeper meanings pinned down, then erases them and lays something completely different over them, until you wind up with a palimpsest of cultural significance and societal commentary that's impossible to sift into a nugget of moral truth. Even the title's meaning is left up to the imagination. It's a book that reads like a poem (and indeed, Delany was a prolific poet), and is just as enigmatic and florid. I hated it because I wasn't smart enough to figure it out. 

Kowloon Tong by Paul Theroux
I'd read plenty of Theroux's travel writing, but never his fiction. This was my first taste. (I intend to read Saint Jack and perhaps The Lower River at some point in the future.) A chilling tale of Britain's handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, as told from the viewpoint of Bunt, a milquetoast business owner and British citizen born and raised in the city by his domineering mum. The bad guys are sinister, their motives devious, and even the innocent are guilty of something. A book I could hardly put down, thanks to its faithfully-reproduced setting and sizzling characters. 

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux
A bit of a cheat to stick in two books by Theroux, perhaps. But this title is nonfiction, at least. A follow-up to Theroux's epic journey through Asia by train in 1975 (chronicled in The Great Railway Bazaar), Ghost Train is Theroux retracing his former route 33 years later, as an older and wiser but just as curmudgeonly man. So much has changed since he last came this way that he has to change his line of march; chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan force him to deviate through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan instead; Vietnam is no longer divided in two, and he may now travel from Ho Chi Minh City to Kunming, China, in an uninterrupted line; and he stops off at a few disused gulags in Russia, just because he can. He meets old friends and makes new ones along the journey, seeking, as he himself says, trains...and finding passengers. 

The Korean War by Bruce Cumings
I'd wanted a straight, no-nonsense, battle-by-battle account of the war, and I didn't get it. What I got was an examination of the social context, geopolitical causes, and back-room wheeling and dealing surrounding the war, and a scathingly revisionist one at that. Cumings takes the United States sharply to task for, among other things, assisting Syngman Rhee to quell the Yeosu Rebellion and thereby stifling true democracy in the nascent Republic of Korea; committing the No Gun Ri Massacre; and for making no effort to understand or sympathize with thousands of years of established Korean cultural norms and traditions before slashing a line down the 38th Parallel and calling it even. The book was tough to swallow—especially as my grandfather fought in that forgotten war, and almost certainly lost some buddies in the process—but on the whole, I'm glad I read it. If you want an unvarnished account of the political, social, and cultural fronts of the Korean War, this is the quickest and simplest book to read. 

There, that's done! As you can see from my new widget from Goodreads at the bottom right of this page, there, I'm knee-deep in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (fantastic; "Me Imperturbe" is my favorite poem so far) and The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. Miss H and I are reading that one together. She's never read any Vonnegut (gasp!) and I needed to read more, and I figured TSoA was as good a place as any to resume.

One more thing: I don't think I managed to even read 20 books this year. Horrendous ratio, not at all up to my standards in high school. I have some friends on Goodreads who read fifty books this year! It's all because I was bound up in Anna Karenina since October of 2013, and then a coworker gave me Dhalgren. Well, 2015's going to be different. I'm going to do 35 books, or I'll be a Rhode Island Red.

Until next time, fellow bibliophiles...

writing updates, 5/14/2014 + sci-fi art, entry #4

This post is all about my scribbles, yes, but since I write science fiction, it's a good place to give you some more sci-fi art. So here you go:

Now, on to the meat of the matter.

June 29 is the day that's circled on my calendar. On that day, it will have been exactly five months since I submitted a query to Ace & Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy, imprints of the Penguin Group. I'll know for sure by then if Penguin is interested in my novel or if they aren't. If the latter is the case—and their continued silence indicates to me that it is—then I have a backup plan. 

Baen Books, a renowned sci-fi press, doesn't just accept unsolicited queries: they accept unsolicited manuscripts. I checked their submission guide and it seems they prefer works between 100,000-130,000 words. Mine is 114,000. They prefer a simple style and judge works primarily on plot and characterization, and if it's one thing my work is oozing with, it's plot and characterization. My style is simple, with a few sesquipedalian terms scattered in here and there (crucial to the plot, of course). Baen also offers "competitive" payment rates. Vague wording, yes, but then Ace & Roc didn't breathe a word about payment at all. 

The only downside is that the "reporting time" (response time) is 9-12 months. Ouch. 

Well, can't win 'em all. As Baen sheepishly admits, they get a lot of manuscripts. So I'd basically have to wait until next April or possibly next July to find out if Baen wants to publish my baby or not. Miss H and I shall be gone from Korea by then, and hopefully installed in a tasteful, spacious two-bedroom apartment in Henderson, Nevada and engaged upon entry-level jobs with wondrous prospects, blabbity blabbity blah. 

At least I have a timeline. 

No joy yet on the short fiction front. Daily Science Fiction is considering my 1,100-word short story "Boxing Day," which I submitted on May 2. I expect a reply within a fortnight. 

In the meantime, to keep myself busy, I've conducted yet another full-blown proofread-and-line-edit of Novel #1. Gawd, this feels like the zillionth one I've done, and it probably is. When I finish I'll do the same thing to Novel #3 (not for the first or the last time) and then following that I'll finish Novel #4. (Novel #2, as you'll recall, is a work of historical fiction unrelated to my humongous sci-fi opus). I really want to get started on Novel #5 before the year's out. That one's going to be fun. I've been taking long walks and brainstorming it for a long while now and I've had some spectacular ideas, wheezes which will keep the fans happy and my fingers busy. 

As for nonfiction, well...Korail just instigated another scenic train route. You remember how I told you about the O-Train and V-Train? Well, those were so successful that they started up another sightseer, the S-Train, down in the southern part of the peninsula. There's talk of G- and B-Trains to travel up the east and west coasts of Korea as well. But the big one is the DMZ-Train, which...well, I don't know much more about than you do. But I do know that the end of the line is the infamous Dorasan Station, a fully-equipped and squeaky-clean yet abandoned and ghostly whistle stop. It's the last one before the DMZ, and the railway line stretches on emptily into the distance, a high road to nowhere. It was part of the USO tour that Miss H and I did in 2012. It'd be cool to roll up to it in an actual train, though, and see the countryside in between Seoul and the DMZ. Dorasan Station was built during a rare period of amity between the two Koreas and was intended to serve as a gateway for trade and industry (and perhaps passenger service) between Seoul and Pyongyang, but the creeping enmity between the two nations killed the dream and left the station derelict. I imagine I could write a pretty travel article about a ride on the DMZ-Train and submit it anywhere I liked, using some of the vivid imagery and florid prose for which I am renowned. 

Oh, and I imagine the big Z-shaped train trip I'm taking through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore this summer (not to mention the week I'm spending in Hong Kong afterward) would be fine travel-journalism fodder too. 

So. That's where I am. 

Wish me luck. 

fiction vs. science fiction

On Friday I spoke to my mother on the phone for the first time in four months. We're not estranged or anything; far from it. I'm just a horrible son, even when you don't apply the Confucian lens. We talked around Christmastime and...well, the time just slipped away. Life intervened. The trip to Sapporo, the move to Gangnam, and all that jazz. It's hard for me to remember that I have to contact her; she has no way of contacting me (I call my parents via Skype, but they have a land line).

Anyway, Mum said something interesting, as she always does. We were discussing my younger brother, a young actor in Hollywood searching for his big break, and how a big-name studio asked him and his crew to do a short film. You can catch some snippets of it here, if you don't mind strong language. (He's on IMDB, too.) That dark-haired fellow with the Mel Gibson looks and the chip on his shoulder and the what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about expression on his face is who I grew up with, folks. 

Anyway, I finally managed to inform my mum that I've submitted my first novel to Penguin Books, and am awaiting a reply. Among the many pithy observations she made was that my brother and I have both chosen extremely tough and competitive careers, and we are both on the threshold of success (she's great with the encouraging comments). It gave me pause. She was right in more ways than she knew. Not only have I decided to make my name in fiction, but science fiction to boot. The requirements of the genre are a bit more stringent than mainstream fiction. I don't mean to imply that mainstream fiction is a cakewalk or anything like that. Not at all. To be a writer in any genre requires patience, skill, practice, a certain degree of natural talent, patience, confidence, dedication, and hard work (especially the last one). It's not much different from being an actor in that respect. That was my mum's whole point. 

But to be a sci-fi writer you need all that and more, I've realized. First, you have to understand the fundamental ways in which technology, science and progress affect human lives. You have to see the human story behind the inhuman gadgets and gizmos. You must march to the same fife as a mainstream fiction writer by composing a compelling story, a tale of ordinary human (or inhuman) beings in challenging situations, relatable characters with the same age-old problems, seasoning the tale with conflict and drama and triumph and failure and character development, not forgetting correct pacing and florid language and all the other ingredients which fiction is heir to; but that ain't all. Into the fabric of fiction you must weave the scintillating threads of the fantastic. You must wed your human story to the extraordinary technology of the future, the advanced science of impending ages, the limitless world of wonder that lies beyond the borders of imagination. One e-zine I've submitted to won't even consider a manuscript unless it's "a good character-driven story wherein the technology is so vital to the plot that the narrative would be indelibly altered were it absent." 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I consistently fail to do. 

Writing is like herding cats. Staying on top of what every good story needs—plot, pacing, vivid characters, sizzling prose, universal mores—while trying to throw in the novel aspects of science fiction like mind-blowing tech and aliens and starships and whatnot is...challenging. It's rather like trying to cook a four-course dinner. You're boiling the pasta and stirring the sauce and grating the cheese and pounding the breadcrumbs, and just as finish you realize that you've let the mushrooms (which were supposed to be lightly sautéed) burn to ashes in the skillet. Despite your best efforts, the meal leaves a carcinogenic taste in the mouth of anyone who eats it. That, apparently, is what my stories are doing to the editors at Asimov's, Analog, and Daily Science Fiction. I haven't sold a story yet. 

But at least I know what I'm doing wrong. The trick is that happy marriage of the unreal and imaginary to the tried-and-true fictive formula. I haven't had much success combining memorable characters, fantastic settings, incredible technology and a classic plot into one single story, but I'm getting better. Like anything else, all it takes is practice. You have to get a feel for it, and I can feel that I'm getting a feel for it. Enough to realize that some stories need to be aborted before I waste time and energy on them (such as the idea I had while shopping with Miss H last weekend, "Incheon Airport Post-Rapture"—ha!). 

I can write good stories, and I can dream up good sci-fi concepts, but getting the two to merge in my brain and slide all the way down through my arms and fingers to the keyboard is another matter. 

Tomorrow is Wednesday, my day off. I'll see what I can do about it then. Wish me luck. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 29: conquer a fear

I thought long and hard about what I'd do to meet this challenge. I mean, there's not much that frightens me. In desperation I compiled a list of fears to help narrow the field, and I discovered to my dismay that it was narrow enough to begin with. 

Here are all the things in this world that frighten me:

• Solifugae (or sun spiders, as my family calls 'em)
• stalling or spinning a small airplane
• murky water
• Raiders fans
• tuberculosis
• senility
• progressives
• some schmuck plagiarizing my unborn novel
• starting a novel
• finishing a novel
• not finishing a novel
• having someone read my novel
• having no one read my novel
• submitting a novel to a literary agent
• submitting a novel to a publisher
• submitting a novel to an editor
• querying literary agents
• being turned down by literary agents
• being accepted by literary agents
• having my novel rejected 
• having my novel published

Wow, that turned into a longer list than I thought. Okay then. [cough]

You can easily see the pattern, however. Most of those fears are location-specific. I can't conquer my fear of sun spiders over here in Korea, nor can I stall an airplane and face my fear of falling out of the sky. But maybe those aren't my highest priority. As you can see from the list, most of my fears revolve around writing. Some of them I have already conquered and beaten back; they're still floating around in my soul, but they've been hamstrung and crippled. They're harmless. Some, on the other hand...

My mother once told me that I might be afraid of success. At the time, I had no clue what she was talking about. Afraid of success? What did that even mean? Success is a good thing. It means you've won. Victory is yours. You've hurdled all the obstacles, mowed down the competition, beaten the odds. You've paid your dues and now you're finally being recognized for your hard work. How could that be frightening? 

Now I see what she means. Novel #1 was finished in late 2011 and is only now, in early 2014, ready for publication. I think there may be a reason for that. I was just too chicken to edit and fix it and send it off to someone. I just kept making change after edit after rewrite, spinning my wheels and chasing my tail. On a subconscious level, the thought of some stranger I'd never met sitting in a remote office and gazing down at my poor, puny manuscript with objective, merciless, scrutinizing eyes just made me shrivel up. The looming specter of the publication process — criticism, revision, endless rewrites, discussions of intent and purpose and characterization and prose and style — or worse, rejection — was like a hooded cobra rearing its ugly head at me, and it put the same look on my face that poor ol' Indy has in that photo at the top of this post.

Well, no more. Time to shove a torch in that ugly viper's face. Time to get that monkey off my back. Time to take the bull by the horns and hitch my wagon to a star and all them other syrupy metaphors. It is time, in other words, to chase down my lifelong dream.

So today, I am querying literary agents. I've spent the last nine days painstakingly editing and proofreading Novel #1, making sure that it's polished and ready for an agent's (and editor's) remorseless gaze. As of 1:14 a.m. this morning, it's finished. I trimmed the fat: 2,000 words and seven pages expunged. I tightened the prose. I removed every single discrepancy and inconsistency. I beefed up dialogue, removed unnecessary description, rounded out characters and fleshed out the story. It's ready. It's finally, finally ready.

Now I just need to conquer that fear of success. Off them e-mail queries go, then. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Start the final countdown for Day 30. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 22: improve your posture

I kind of cheated with this one. After I finished Day One's post, I clicked through the rest of them just to see what they were all about. Forethought never hurts, you know. As I was reading through today's article, a startling fact jumped out me: my gut could be partially due to my bad posture!

That was something I'd never suspected before. I should have realized it, of course. Just as women's innards are rearranged by a tight corset, men's guts are squished by their rib cages whenever they hunch over. Fancy that. I've been trying to ditch this gut for ages, and by slouching I was working against myself the whole time.

Well, no more. I've been subtly working on my posture all through the past three weeks of this challenge. I stand straight enough, but my sitting posture is atrocious. I've made a conscious effort to sit up straighter, or "sit at attention" as AoM explains. (And I've been making a heartier effort at the gym, too, for obvious reasons. Between that and sitting straighter, I'll have this beer gut licked in 2014, hell or high water.)

Today being the actual day of the challenge, I was more conscientious. I actually performed the tests which AoM recommends in the article. I did the "wall test" to see if my standing posture was good, and it was. The only bad habit I have while standing is to suck in my gut, which will probably give me hypertension at some point. 

Sitting was more challenging. My couch doesn't lend itself to leaving a "hollow" in the small of my back, and I often became tired. But I stuck to it. I'm going to keep at it when the spring semester begins and I'm at my desk for long periods. I didn't do the "string" test that the article suggests, because I have a feeling my gut would interfere with it. But I don't need no string to tell me to sit up straight.

Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.

This sucks.

This might be the worst challenge yet.

Can't a man slouch if he wants to?!

Stand tall for Day 23...   

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 21: write your own eulogy

Read the article before you do anything else. It explains how today's challenge isn't really as morbid as it sounds. What better way to understand that your life is finite and that you need to get off your duff and live it than writing your own eulogy? Facing your mortality will give you greater cause to live each day with purpose. 

In fact, writing my own eulogy gave me almost too much perspective. Knowing that life is fleeting and temporary made me wonder about all those hours I've been spending at the gym. Surely I could be out in the fresh air or sampling the finest wines and foods instead of breathing recirculated air, grunting and sweating. One of the reasons I've never managed to stick with any exercise regimen is that I always get the creeping sense that I'm wasting my time. The two hours I spend lifting weights and jogging on a treadmill could be used in so many more constructive ways: writing short stories, planning novel plot lines, researching historical epochs, learning Korean, exploring Seoul, etc, etc. I always get the feeling that I'm using up an insane amount of my precious lifespan doing something that's of no material benefit. 

Not true, of course. Working out is healthy. And I don't mean to insinuate that I actually would use those extra two hours constructively if I stopped going to the gym. But hey, I never said my mind was logical. I just said that I found it hard to stick with exercise plans because my mind started working against me.

Anyway. Here's my eulogy: 

Andrew Post was a wanderer from the beginning. He was born in 1986 in Auburn, California, but didn't stay there very long. He called many places home during his youth: southern Ohio, rural Tennessee, urban Virginia, the California desert, the plains of Wyoming. As a small boy he kept his nose glued to the airplane windows, looking at the big world going by beneath him and vowing that he would see it all someday. 

It was this same intrepidity which drew him to North Dakota State University, far from his home in Southern California. (That, and the lack of an admission deadline.) He felt that a career in zoology was his ticket to travel and adventure. After a bad run-in with advanced chemistry, however, he switched his major to communication, graduating in 2007 with a degree in journalism and broadcasting and an English minor. If he couldn't study the big wide world of mountains, trees, animals and people, he figured he would write about it instead. 

A nationwide job market slump forced Andrew to seek his fortunes abroad. He spent four nonconsecutive years as an expatriate English teacher in South Korea, two as a professor at Sejong University in Seoul. During this time, he became an avid blogger, sold travel articles to online magazines and wrote several historical and science fiction novels. Despite his journalistic pursuits, it had always been Andrew's intention to be a writer. His debut novel Revival won him fame and fortune when it was published in 2016. He'd sent one of the first drafts to me a few months earlier. I remember critiquing it harshly and telling him flat-out that it was crap. "Thanks," he said. "Now I know I need to do better." And he did. He told me afterward that the greatest accomplishment of his life, besides finding a woman who was willing to reproduce with him, was winning the Nebula Award for Best Novel that same year. 

In August of 2013, Andrew proposed to his long-time girlfriend at Tokyo Disneyland. He would always say, "It was the smartest thing I ever did, asking that woman to marry me." The two wed upon their return from South Korea in 2015 and had three beautiful children, Zebulon, Aurora and Gilbert. Though Andrew was often far from home on one globetrotting adventure or another, he always made sure to be there for his children, for birthdays and Christmases, triumphs and tragedies. He raised his kids to be independent, forthright and principled people who pursued their dreams without fear or compunction. 

Anyone who met Andrew knew that his list of hobbies and interests was a long one. He was an energetic auto-didact and read whatever he could find about history, astronomy, technology, and the natural sciences. On the fiction front, he adored adventure tales, notably science fiction but occasionally dipping into fantasy and mainstream fiction as well. He loved aviation, becoming a pilot at the age of 24 and flying throughout his life. He took a great interest in classic and vintage cocktails, mixing and sampling as many as he could and even inventing a few of his own. The cocktail bar he ran out of his first apartment in South Korea was legendary among the expatriate community. Shooting was another hobby of his, and whenever he was able he'd get a group of friends together and head to the range. He was happiest after a long day of trapshooting, off-roading, flying, or hiking, sitting in a comfortable chair within view of a good sunset, a glass of Scotch in his hand and a lit pipe between his teeth. His greatest love, however, was travel. There were very few countries that Andrew didn't want to see, and he spent a lifetime traveling all over the world and writing about it in his journals. He sent me many postcards and pictures from the road. The best of these was the one I got in the winter of 2023. It was a photo of Andy standing in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary on San Cristóbal Hill in Santiago, Chile. He'd scrawled a message to me on the back: "This town is great! I might just retire here." In his lifetime he set foot on all seven continents and explored over sixty countries. He told me once that if there was a single place on his bucket list that he missed, he'd die a regretful man. I think he managed to avoid that unpleasant scenario. He and his wife retired to Santiago in 2046, just before Andy's 60th birthday. He opened a bar and spent the last two decades of his life plying thirsty Chileans and expatriates with delicious drinks and regaling them with tales of his life.

Andrew, or Andy as his friends called him, was a rare soul: a fellow who went against the grain, but didn't hold it against you if you didn't follow. He thrived in adversity, worked hard under pressure and always put a cheerful face on things. He could lighten any awkward situation with a lame but well-timed pun. He was intensely loyal to his friends and would never speak ill about one of them behind their backs. He did his level best at work and maintained a professional and industrious demeanor while on the job. His employers and friends alike could rely on him to go the extra mile. He always had an interesting tidbit to share about any given topic, and had away of explaining things that made them interesting and worthwhile. He would never pass a bum on the street without flipping him a quarter. He often failed to live up to his own standards, but he never quit trying.

I will miss Andy's intolerable puns. I'll miss his goofy grin. I'll miss his impeccable taste in movies, whiskey, and cigars. I'll miss flying with him over the Mojave Desert and the Alaskan wilderness. I'll miss his mouth-watering vegetarian lasagna. I'll miss his kindness, his optimism and his endless cheer. I'll miss the Santa Claus beard he grew in his old age, and the free gin and pipe tobacco he'd ply me with whenever I visited him in Chile. I'll miss the roaring adventures he wrote about in his novels, and the adventures the two of us had together. I'll miss the sight of him climbing, grinning, out of his trusty Jeep after a particularly challenging hill or patch of mud. But most of all I'll miss his imagination. Nothing was impossible for Andy; he dreamed big and he never lost sight of his goals. He'd always see the funny or wacky side to any situation. With his passing, the world has become a bit darker. But I know that we've all learned a little something from his novelist's mind, his punster's mouth and his go-getter style. Wherever he wanders now, I wish him all the best. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 12: create your bucket list

Seems easy, right? Especially since I've already done it. It's down there at the bottom right-hand side of this webpage, and has been for a couple of years now.

But wait a minute. That's not all. According to the directions, you're not just supposed to create the bucket list. You're supposed to pick one item on it and actually do something that gets the ball rolling on it.

I was intrigued by the idea that you should have different categories in your bucket list: travel, relationships, career, finances, education, health, etc. What I've got is basically just travel-oriented stuff. Some hobbies and geek-outs, too.

But most importantly, my old bucket list is waaaaaaaaaay out of date. I threw together in I knocked a few things off of it last year — grow a beard, eat a scorpion, start home brewing and buy a pipe, among others — but there are some items which don't really apply anymore. I've since learned that living in Japan isn't the best way to make money, so that's gone. And there are some things I really must add to the list, too, and other items which I must clarify or refine.

So! New-and-improved bucket list below. Check it out:

TRAVEL: 

 1. go on a long sailing voyage
 2. visit New York City
 3. travel by train across Australia 
 4. traverse Central Asia overland
 5. take the train from Beijing, China to St. Petersburg, Russia
 6. stargaze under a Class 1 sky on the Bortle scale 
 7. stay in a five-star hotel
 8. set foot in Antarctica
 9. view both the aurora borealis and the aurora australis
10. go to a jimjilbang (Korean bathhouse)
11. explore Gangwon Province
12. swim in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan
13. see Pyongyang from the ground and the air
14. safari in Uganda
15. gaze upon the some of the world's most exotic mountain ranges 
16. eat bouillabaisse in Marseilles
17. trek through Patagonia (not all the way, just a picturesque chunk of it)

FINANCES:

 1. pay off my college loans (significantly less than $10,000 remaining)
 2. save enough money for car payments and stateside rent

CAREER:

 1. continue my flight training: tailwheel, high-performance, multi-engine, floatplane, and possibly instrument ratings, plus a commercial pilot's license
 2. conquer my fear of stalls and spins in airplanes
 3. get my first novel published this year
 4. e-publish my 2012 NaNoWriMo project
 5. sell at least ten or twelve more travel articles before I die (enough for an anthology)
 6. write a travelogue or two, in the style of Mark Twain or Paul Theroux
 7. become an established short science fiction writer
 8. find work as a talk radio host back in the U.S.A. 
 9. get a job that keeps me in Scotch, guns, and airplane fuel 
10. own a bar (gastropub) in my declining years, either in Alaska or Chile 

RELATIONSHIPS/FAMILY:

 1. marry the love of my life (Miss H)
 2. honeymoon somewhere tropical
 3. produce two or three children
 4. cultivate a thoroughly weird family with plenty of hobbies, athletic activities, goofy traditions, beloved rituals, and fun customs from overseas, like Burns suppers

MISCELLANY: 

 1. build a fire on a rainy day
 2. fly upside-down
 3. buy my very own seaplane
 4. take up black powder shooting
 5. acquire an impressive gun collection: I'd say a Stoeger coach gun, a Remington 870, a CZ P-07 Duty, a pair of Uberti-built Colt .36-caliber Navy revolvers, and a Springfield M1903 will do for starters
 6. finish learning Korean, brush up on Spanish, and dabble in Japanese, German and Swahili
 7. familiarize myself with physics
 8. ride an elephant
 9. compete on an episode of Jeopardy!
10. get in shape and stay in shape
11. try my hand at boxing

And there you have it! That's all I could think of. Believe it or not, the list you just read is the inside of my head: the dreams that have been bouncing off the inside of my skull since I was ten years old and younger. It's different from the "master to-do list" which you'll find at the top of the page; a lot of that stuff isn't imperative. I'm not sure I want to fly for money anymore. But you can thank Mark Twain, Lafcadio Hearn, Paul Theroux, Steve Irwin, Chris and Martin Kratt, Marty Stouffer, David Attenborough, Steven Spielberg, Frederick Townsend Ward, Wiley Post, Mort Mason, and every other TV host, film director, writer, adventurer, pilot, traveler or mercenary whose work I read or watched and admired for putting all these fancy ideas into my head.

We shall continue tomorrow with Day 13. I still haven't memorized that dang poem yet, but I figure as long as I do it before the month's out, nobody will be the wiser. Except you. 'Cause I just told you.

Postie out.

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 10: memorize "If"

There's a splendid poem, which I pride myself on having been familiar with before I took up this challenge. 

“If”
By: Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

My task for Day 10 was to memorize this 'ere poem. Commit it to memory in its entirety. Which was just as well, as I had a touch of food poisoning today — either raw oysters or expired mayonnaise, I'll warrant — and there was precious little else to do. So I got straight to the memorizin', thank you very much. The website says it's okay if it takes you one or two days to complete this challenge, so I'll let you know how it went tomorrow.

All aboard for Day 11!

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 2: shine your shoes

from Flickr

Thank goodness I have a father who has nice shoes and takes care of them, and taught me how to shine properly. This daily challenge was a breeze.

I followed the instructions in AoM's article to the letter, right down to the swabbing-with-rubbing-alcohol-to-rid-the-shoes-of-any-dirt-jammed-into-cracks-along-with-the-old-polish bit. I didn't do every pair I own; my black Oxfords are secure in their dust-free box, waiting for me to trot out my best (and only) three-piece suit. Not to mention that it's already 11:19 p.m. and I want to finish this challenge before midnight. I got up at nine o'clock and left the house at noon to head to Yangcheon-gu to brew beer with Brant and Joseph and we watched Hatari! and drank beer and had a great time and I only just got home —

Hold on a minute. This is sounding like an excuse. Integrity is one of the values I put down yesterday. So I went to the trouble of digging the Oxfords out of their hidey-hole and looking 'em over. They didn't need shining. Honestly. They didn't.

So, to business. I got out the bottle of rubbing alcohol that I normally use for cleaning my pipe...

 ...and my trusty old six-piece shoe polish kit from Target, given to me many moons ago by my parents as a Christmas gift (and never used)...

...and got straight to work. I've shined shoes before, so I wasn't bumbling my way along. The time flew by. I didn't have Blue Lincoln Wax that the article recommends, but I buffed and buffed until the shoes shined. See the results for yourself:

Stick around for Day 3!

beardly updates

As many of you may know, I'm trying to grow a beard. I grew a paltry, thin one last spring when the cherry blossoms were blooming (why should they have all the fun?) but shaved it off shortly thereafter. I sculpted the remains into a Van Dyke, which has sustained me ever since.

But with the approach of No-Shave November this year, I decided I wanted more. A month without shaving would be the perfect chance. That scraggly thing I'd had on my face in spring wouldn't suffice to knock "grow a beard" off my bucket list. I'm aiming for a real beard this time around. Something that would make a mountain man proud, or at least refrain from calling me "pilgrim."

But first, a confession: I have been a bit unfair. I quit shaving halfway through October, and it's halfway through December now, so my nascent beard is obviously a bit longer than it should be. My facial hair grows really slowly, you see. Dang genetics. None of the Post men can grow beards. I suppose my Germanic/Viking ancestors were like cats: they got to the warm, sunny New World and started shedding. The big, bushy, manly beards must've been the first things to go. Accordingly, I had to hedge my bets a little. So I started earlier than everybody else.

This is what I've got now:

These were taken, incidentally, under the Gwangjin Bridge, on the eastern shore of the Han River, during a lovely December day. That's my new Stanwell pipe clenched between my teeth.

I'm going to let nature run its course through Yuletide, January, and the ensuing February. After I get back from Hokkaido on February 9, I'll do another post and show you all what my new-and-improved beard looks like. I've come to terms with the fact that it'll never equal the thick, woolly thing Robert Redford had stuck on his face all through the film Jeremiah Johnson, but I think I've found a suitable middle ground: Jürgen Prochnow from Das Boot.

Minus the weary, haunted look of utter despair. 

I frickin' love that movie, not just for the drama, the splendid acting and the gritty realism, but for the epic beards that the crew sprout over the course of the film. Submarines and submariners have always fascinated me: the camaraderie they necessarily had to have, the insensate dangers they faced on a daily basis, the physical hardships of life in a metal tube, and their downright slovenliness (sanctioned under the circumstances). There was an enthralling article called "Sweat and Rum" in the BBC News Magazine a couple of days ago. It centered around the crew of the HMS Ocelot and other British submarines of the 1960s. "The Queen's Pirates" they were called. Feckin' awesome.

Anyway, Prochnow—who is one of my favorite actors on the basis of Das Boot alone—and I have a lot in common in the facial hair department. His beard runs along his jawline and flows down to his neck, steering clear of his cheeks. Mine does the exact same thing. So that manly chinwig you see in the picture above? That's what I'm going for. Sans blood and sinking submarines, of course.

See you in February... 

Paul Theroux kicks through again

Wow, that post about territoriality sure was pretentious, wasn't it? Well, there's a reason I christened this blog "sententious" from the get-go. I know what I am and I know most people won't have the patience for me—least of all me, when I've grow up and matured a bit.
 
That's partly why I like traveling, you know. It's a growing experience. A revolution. The world gets thrown on its ear, and without even knowing it you've ridden an elevator up through the clouds and can finally see all 'round. Your own little world looks smaller than it was, and everyone else's problems are thrown into sharp relief, and life seems just a little bit better.

But enough of me talking like I know anything. I just got kicked in the head again. And you-know-who was behind it all.

That's right, Paul Theroux has kicked through again.

I was talking to one of my coworkers a few months back. He also happens to be a fan of Theroux, and naturally we discussed his most famous work, The Great Railway Bazaar. Then the talk turned to the book Theroux wrote as a follow-up to that beast of a book: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. My colleague had read it; I hadn't. I came in to work this morning to find the book on my desk, deposited there by my saintly benefactor. Unable to resist temptation, I opened it up and thumbed through the first few pages.

The first thing that greeted my eyes was this:

Most writing about travel takes the form of jumping to conclusions, and so most travel books are superfluous, the thinnest, most transparent monologuing. Little better than a license to bore, travel writing is the lowest form of literary self-indulgence: dishonest complaining, creative mendacity, pointless heroics, and chronic posturing, much of it distorted with Munchausen syndrome. 

Well, that was a hell of a thing to crack a book and read. I should have known if I touched anything by Theroux that the old bugger would strike at the heart of the matter and unload a pithy magazine of weaponized wisdom at me. The words were simultaneously enlightening and humiliating. There was no denying that I'd indulged in every one of those cardinal sins in my own travel writing. I realized just how pretentious I've been. Even my mere intention to become a travel writer was the lowest form of conceit. And let's not get started on the prose itself: it dips toward the "mendacious, pointless posturing" end of the spectrum.

After about two minutes of genuine, unfiltered chagrin, I made myself a promise: no more. I'm not going to jump to conclusions. I'm not going to maunder, I'm not going to complain, I'm not going to criticize unduly. Heck, you'll say. You're only 27, kid. This is the time to be a stupid young dreamer with a lot of high-flown ideals based on stuff you've heard and seen and not experienced.

Well, yes. But for that same reason (that I'm 27 years old) I'm starting to get the idea that there's more to life than high-flown ideals and attainable perfection and lasting legacies. Case in point: I had an odd feeling the other day. I had the feeling that my life wasn't infinite, and that I wasn't invincible, and that the mark I'd planned to make on the world might not be as grandiose as I'd envisioned. I started to get an idea of just how fleeting and transient a single human existence (mine especially) really is, and the thought was humbling. I felt like I'd had a moment of real wisdom for the first time in my short life. I've known for a while now that all that posturing that I and others had done in high school hadn't been worth a squat, and hanging out with friends in their lower twenties has long been insufferable. But this was the first time I'd come close to feeling...well, old. It wasn't just the inchoate, vague fear of being old that all young people experience. The thing itself.

Crazy.

Anyway, I'm serious about this. As serious as I've ever been about anything. As serious as anybody who pretends to be wise can be. As serious as any former twenty-something who smoked and drank and partied and passed out in unmentionable places can portray himself to be. No more sanctimonious conclusions. No more unjust, inflammatory complaints. Let's just see what happens to my writing when I try to go for pure, unadulterated description. A little experiment, we'll call it.

I'll have lots to write about, trust me. I solved my dilemma: the final results of the V.D.Q. are in.

Remember the V.D.Q.? The Vacation Destination Quandary? It bedeviled me for the longest time. I couldn't figure out where I was going to go during my two months of vacation. I scratched Malaysia, as the only things you can do there, it seems, are eat delicious food and sprawl out on a beach. Not my cup of tea, not during the height of winter. I scratched Mongolia, too, as the only thing you can do there in the winter is freeze your man-marbles off. With much reluctance, I also scratched Australia, since the $1400 round-trip airline ticket was just too much. I waited too long, dang my hide.

So...Hokkaido it is. I'm making the reservations as I type this. And I had an epiphany in the shower this evening. Instead of taking the old Trans-Siberian Express back through Russia when I'm done in Korea, the way every expatriate under the sun, why don't I take the bull by the horns and go back via Central Asia? Go by train through Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, England, Scotland and Ireland? That's, what—26 countries? The Great Railway Bazaar in reverse, almost.

That would make me feel a lot more like a world traveler.