Happy 11th Birthday to My Book Project

It's easy to keep track of my book project's birthday because it all started in October of 2006, when Elias turned 6. Now he's 17, and I am so close to being done, I would love to whip up a cake and celebrate. But I will have to hold that out as an incentive while I finish this last important stage of the project: revision. Instead, I am marking the occasion (a few weeks late) with a slice of fresh-out-of-the-oven pumpkin bread.

My book project is 11 years old! My, how time flies.

I didn't set out to write a book in October 2006. I only intended to help my dad with some research about his paternal grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, in preparation for the St. Cloud Municipal Band's 120th anniversary concert the following spring. But the more I learned about my great-grandfather, who led the band for nearly twenty years, the more curious I became about his exploits as a turn-of-the-century band director, and his life with his accomplished pianist wife, Islea.

The research led me on all kinds of adventures, often accompanied by family members, and it introduced me to a number of remarkable people who knew my great-grandparents, my grandfather, and my great uncle. I eventually decided that the story of my musical ancestors—and the connections I made to their lives—was best told as a book of memoir and history. I finished the draft of the book at the end of June, wrote a book proposal in July, and am now in revising and cutting mode.

It's been a wonderful journey, and it's taken as long as it's needed to take—that's what I try to reassure myself when I'm feeling frustrated—but I am turning 50 in December, and it occurred to me the other day that I spent the entire decade of my 40s working on this book. I would love nothing more than to get it out into the world as I enter my 50s and then start thinking about, dare I say it, a new writing project?!

I don't know what it would be, at this point, but I'm hoping that it requires extensive research in Greece, Italy, and perhaps the south of France.