The day I sat down to begin writing “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” was a huge moment in my life. That was January 6, 2016. The day I finished principal writing was also huge, and emotional. That was October 20, 2016. Then came months of editing, drilling down to the word-by-word level to sort it out, clean it up, and make it right. That wasn’t much fun, but the day I submitted the manuscript was enormous. When I received a glowing review from the publisher, that was a huge day as well.

This week, another gigantic milestone was met and it was one that was very different than the others. After going through the process of selecting my enhanced formatting options, a layout designer at Outskirts Press put together sample proofs of how the book will look once it’s printed. When the email came, I was as nervous as I was excited. I was not wholly prepared, though, for the wave of feelings that overtook me when I took a look.

After more than a year of seeing my book come to life as a simple word-processing document, I had yet to see it in an actual book format. And when I opened the PDF attachment, there it was. Samples of the copyright page, the forward from Del Worsham, the dedication page, and bits of the first two chapters, all formatted and designed just as they’ll be in printed form. They even sent me a proof of the first two pages of the photo section that will be at the back of the book. Talk about things “getting real” in a hurry. I was speechless.

I don’t want to share any of that here. I want to wait until the book comes out to have other people see what it looks like and read the words. But, there’s no way I could do a Thursday blog without leading it off with this news. It was epic. It was the birth of a book.

I signed off on all the elements and approved the formatting. Now, the entire book goes into production and it should be just a matter of a few weeks before I get the first full “galley proof” of the entire thing. Of all the big days in this process, that day will likely move right to the top of the list, to soon thereafter be supplanted by the day I hold my first published copy in my hands.

And, of course, as I waded through it again late last week I found a few more typos. I didn’t want to slow the process by asking to resubmit the manuscript again, but I gained approval to make one final set of changes and edits when we get to the galley stage.

So that’s what I’ve been doing this week. Page by page again. Paragraph by paragraph. Word by word. I’ve been keeping a list of everything I see that will need to be fixed. One odd thing that kept popping up was a slew of words that were somehow missing their final letter. I couldn’t figure out how that happened. How did the final letter on a dozen words, sprinkled randomly through the book, suddenly turn up missing? Abducted by aliens? I had no clue.

Then it hit me. One of the last big passes I made through the book was a style edit to make it more concise. I was on that famous “comma hunt” I blogged about before. Apparently, a few times I deleted a comma I must have hit the delete button twice instead of once, and that not only removed the comma it also removed the final letter of that word. Weird.

I’ll keep you posted as we move forward. We’re almost there, gang!

Back to the theme of running photos that didn’t quite make the cut in the book, here’s one of my favorites. At the St. Louis race in 1999, my parents came over to see their youngest son in action with this so-called “Funny Car team” he worked for. My mom, Taffy, had always loved fast cars. During the 1960s we seemed to always have a Chevy Camaro in the driveway, and they weren’t my dad’s cars.

Both of my folks became big fans of the team and Del Worsham, and Taffy was pretty much over the moon when they came and spent a day with us at Gateway that summer.

My dad watched a lot of the races on TV, and I filled him in regularly on the phone each weekend, but he never quite got the hang of how these cars ran or how hard it was to tune them.

I’ll never forget the time we smoked the tires and lost and he said, on the phone, “Tell your guy to stop spinning the tires like that. You never seem to win when he does that.”

I told him I’d relay the message.

A few years later, after Big Del passed away, my oldest brother Del Jr. and his wife Kay were in Las Vegas when we raced there, and they came out to the track for a day. It was a first for both of them, and they were unabashedly blown away by all of it. As a life-long sports marketing guy, Del was floored by the hands-on interaction between the racers, the sponsors, and the fans. As a sports fan he was impressed by the competition.

As a human being, he was nothing short of amazed by the power and noise. After we took him to the starting line for a qualifying run, he giggled nonstop for about 20 minutes. It was fantastic to have him and Kay there with me.

And then there’s this…

For some reason, I’ve been all about the band Kansas for the last few months. I was a big fan when they were hitting it big back in the mid 70s, and I’ve always respected and liked them, but like just about everyone I kind of lost track of them and let them slip off my radar screen. I was on to bigger and supposedly better things.

Now, more than 40 years later, I’ve rediscovered just how talented they were. I think stumbling onto the “Miracles Out Of Nowhere” documentary on TV was what started it. They really were a miracle out of nowhere. Six guys from Topeka, somehow hitting it big and playing amazing music.

The albums “Point Of No Return” and “Leftoverture” are my go-to playlists for the gym now. Just last night I was doing my 45-minute walk and lifting some weights to both of those albums.

“Leftoverture” was a critical album for the band. They were selling a lot of records, and building a fan base, but they hadn’t scored that one big “breakout” song that would take them to the next level. Kerry Livgren and Steve Walsh did the songwriting for Kansas, but when they convened to record “Leftoverture” Walsh had writer’s block. He had nothing to contribute, and in a flurry of creativity even he didn’t understand, Kerry Livgren rose to the occasion. Day after day, he’d arrive at the studio and say, “Well, I kinda put this together last night” and each song was better than the last. He capped it off by showing up on the last day with “Carry On Wayward Son” and nothing was ever the same again for the band.

My favorite song on the album, back then, was “The Wall” but I don’t know why, and I couldn’t have seen the future to know why it would mean so much to me now.

The song is basically an allegorical look at challenges we all face. Of getting stale or getting off track and then arriving at that critical point where the biggest challenge of them all is staring right at us. It’s the sort of song that mentions nothing specific, but which almost anyone could hear and say, “Wow, that’s just like what I’m going through.”

When I was spinning that album on my turntable in college, I couldn’t have known how perfect “The Wall” would sound to me in 2017. I think I listen to it once a day now.

I’d been doing PR for Del and Wilk for 19 years. I was getting stale and tired of the travel. I was doing it because I was good at it and I loved the guys, but it was no longer a journey. It was a job. And I knew, deep in my heart, there was something bigger and more important out there. But, throwing it all away to take on my book was a huge wall. I had no idea if I could get over it and get to the other side, but I had to take the risk and try it. On January 6, 2016 I began my assault on the wall.

These words speak to me.

I’m woven in a fantasy, I can’t believe the things I see
The path that I have chosen now has led me to a wall
And with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost
It rises now before me, a dark and silent barrier between
All I am and all that I would ever want to be
It’s just a travesty, towering, marking off the boundaries
My spirit would erase

To pass beyond is what I seek, I fear that I may be too weak
And those are few who’ve seen it through to glimpse the other side
The promised land is waiting like a maiden that is soon to be a bride
The moment is a masterpiece, the weight of indecision’s in the air
It’s standing there, the symbol and the sum of all that’s me
It’s just a travesty, towering, blocking out the light and blinding me
I want to see

Gold and diamonds cast a spell, it’s not for me to know it well
The treasures that I seek are waiting on the other side
There’s more that I can measure in the treasure of the love that I can find
And though it’s always been with me
I must tear down the wall and let it be
All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be, in harmony
Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross
There is no loss

When I’m walking at the gym and that song comes through my earbuds, I walk a little faster and feel a little more motivated about everything. In 1976 Kerry Livgren wrote it. In 2016 I lived it.

And my favorite line is “The moment is a masterpiece.” That’s exactly what it felt like when I sat down to write. It was all in front of me, but I had no idea how the process would play out. I had no idea if I had what it took to make it happen.

I hope Kerry Livgren has heard from hundreds, if not thousands, of people about how much that song meant to them. The song is a masterpiece, and Steve Walsh’s incredible soaring vocals help make it so.

See you next week.

Bob Wilber, at your service and on the other side of the wall.