Lakers and Emil

     Dreamt I caught two lake trout last night.  Both were decent sized fish but lost a really big one when my line snapped.  I was in a hurry to show everyone the big trout and was trying to muscle it in.  Put too much pressure on the line.  My fault.  On the upside I did find where the fish were in the lake and drew a map for others to use.
     I figure the dream had to do with Uncle Emil and my trying to force a story out of him when he wasn't ready.  Called it 'Duel in the Boat.'  There was no spark in the tale.  All I was doing was putting words on a page instead of waiting for the old guy to tell me something on his own.  When he's ready he'll pop an idea into my head.  That's it.  Once the first few words hit the page, he tells me the rest.  Sometimes it comes out as fast as I can type, at others, in dribs and drabs.
     Simply put, I wiped it out.  No loss.  It sucked.  Should have waited.
   

What to Do, What to Do?

     I'm chicken.  Wrote this short novel in my uncleemiltales.blogspot.com blog about a fictitious fishing trip my Uncle Emil and I took to Manitoba back in 1961.  Not so much an adult novel as it has boys, or girls, in their tweener years in mind.  The me in the story who's also the narrator is a young fourteen.  So figure that as being the target group.  I'd like to move it from the pages of the blog onto those of an actual book.  Not many copies, perhaps a dozen or so.  Give one to each of my grandkids, a couple to the Pope, maybe one to Vladimir Putin.
     My son is a designer of some note and also a fair illustrator in an ink, line drawing sense.  If I could twist his arm for a few illustrations it'd sure perk the book up.  I might also draw a few maps to go with the pages.
     But it's hard for me to begin the printing process.  The book should have the look of something by Sigurd Olson or John Gierach.  Not that it's in their league but the classic look of their essays appeals to me.  To set mine apart, my son's illustrations could reflect the humor of the tale by adding a slight cartoon edge.
     Yeah, yeah, it all sounds so easy but at least for me it's not.