The Trout Book is Off to Readers

The three years writing my book on trout fishing felt grand. I had an alternative to come home to every night after a day spent at my working-class life. (Thanks to my wife, we do better than that, and I mustn't fail to thank the publishers that pay me, either.) The book is off to various readers. One of them has read it completely and says, "It's very interesting. It's like no other book on trout fishing. I wouldn't change a word." 

My son is into chapter 2 and tells me I need a better title and that I shouldn't describe myself as "conservative with regard to the outdoors and intellectual values" because I'm very forward-thinking about the environment. What else is the outdoors? I don't know what I will do about the sentence as yet. I am also very backward-looking with regard to the outdoors...well aware the practices predate civilization.

The book takes especially microlight method, a way of fishing salmon eggs on three-and-a-half-foot spinning rods, but other methods also--there's even mention of fly fishing here and there--as a portal to go through to the big picture. Microlight method is explained in every detail I can produce for a 156-page book, which will be longer if photos are accepted. I loved writing about how to do it, and yet, as I say, there's more to the fishing than the grab of a hook.

The big picture ultimately amounts to a philosophical view, so I go into mine. It's been no less than thrilling to write about. The book comes to a climax--as if it is a single story with a narrative arc--when I discuss what I believe is the central issue of Western Civilization. I didn't frame it. Aristotle framed it almost 2500 years ago. I merely walked into the picture.