The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
The apex of my college years occurred on an October Sunday afternoon in 1982. Just after 2 p.m., I typed the last word of a paper on Egyptian boat-building techniques, pulled the sheet from the old-school manual typewriter and placed it on a stack with nine others. I had finished a 10-page writing assignment nearly 24 hours before it was due. It felt good. It felt weird.
When it comes to completing assignments, I have always been a procrastinator, waiting until the last possible minute to begin working on them and typically pulling all-nighters or marathon two-day sessions to get them in on time. On the positive side, I have learned to perform under pressure. On the negative, it’s a nerve-wracking way to do things.
My latest book, “Such Is Life in Vacationland,” hit the shelves yesterday, and true to form, I was making edits and changing the order of the chapters right up until the publisher’s final due date. And maybe that’s why I tend to procrastinate. Even if I technically finish something days or weeks in advance, I will continue to tinker with it until the last possible minute anyway, so why not just wait.
The content of “Such Is Life in Vacationland” will be familiar to regular readers of this column. Roughly two-thirds of the book consists of slightly edited versions of “Field Notes” essays relating to my formative years growing up in Ohio. The other third is new material, including a couple of drafts of columns that I decided not to run. For instance, “Coronavirus and the Right to Not Be Sick” was written as the first wave of COVID started to wane. But a couple of high-profile cases in the community would have made publishing it come across as tone-deaf at the time.
The new book is available on Amazon as a paperback ($12) or ebook ($6), but for those of you regular readers who don’t want to pay full price for a book you’ve already read two-thirds of, I am offering a special discounted rate Memorial Day weekend of $1.99 for the ebook. The paperback will also be available at Speckled Paw locations for $5 with any beverage purchase beginning June 6. You can also read the first couple of chapters, which are new material, for free on my Amazon author page, johnbmarek.com.