Posted: 2008-01-01

After writing The Flying Crossbeam, it struck me that I should post some essays on the topic of how the Sica would address the problems of the Twenty-First Century. My sweet wife started referring to these as blessays (blog-essays). A few months after coining this term, she found that Stephen Fry refers to his web postings using the same word — further evidence that everything is connected. I have written one blessay per week for a year now. The experience has been valuable. Few readers commented on this web site but many commented by e-mail and on other web sites. The ideas and suggestions have corrected me and enriched my understanding and I deeply appreciate them.

A good friend said that my novel wasn't the sort of book she'd read and suggested I make an audio book. This I did. I recorded it late in 2006 and spent all of 2007 editing it on the bus to and from work. In the process of listening to it fifty times or more, I found problems that were not clear simply from reading. As a result, I began making changes to the paper book. I corrected a few typos and also reorganized it fairly extensively. My next book will not be released until the audio book is complete. I can't imagine how much I would have to pay a professional editor to catch all of the things that production of the audio book did. The audio book is based on the second edition of the paper book which will be printed soon. To see the second edition now, feel free to peruse the online version.

I have discovered that The Flying Crossbeam is a fairly long book. It is longer than I intended but I am unable to figure a way to abridge it without losing key aspects of the story. I know this because the audio book is more than twice as long as Hans Küng's The Catholic Church. It is longer than any audio book by Douglas Adams, but it isn't inordinately long for an unabridged book. It doesn't approach the thirty one hours required for Jeff Shaara's To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War. Perhaps, with further experience, I will be able to provide an abridged variant. As it stands, the audio book is twenty hours long. Those who have listened to it have commented that it tends to move quickly and has numerous "driveway moments." I can only hope that others will find it enjoyable. The first chapter may be reviewed here.

I am taking a break from these blessays for a while in support of a new project that will require my uninterrupted attention. If you are new to this site, I encourage you to review the blessays from last year. Some regard current affairs of the time but many are applicable to any day of any year. I'll return from time to time but my weekly discipline is suspended for a while. Please feel free to comment on the blessays. I do ask that you provide a login, in order to comment, but that's because I'm a stickler about putting cookies on people's browsers. The login identity just assures that you are who you think you are (a useful thing to know in any case). If you forget your password, we'll happily clear it for you so you can enter a new one.

If the topics presented here are interesting to you then you may well enjoy reading The Flying Crossbeam. Consider purchasing and downloading the audio book. I'll announce the second edition of the paper book when it is available.

Fare well for now.

Julian S. Taylor