Thank you to all my supporters, pre-orderers and encouraging gestures in general.

How is a small town, a gas station, a farmers market and an insecure business school dropout a metaphor for contemporary America?

The writing is essentially complete. Here is the timeline

1. December: raise funds through Publishizer
2. January-February: Editing, formatting, art and photo
3. March: Release War and Vegetables at Spring Equinox

The title of the sample chapter at this link is Liberation

Paul Poznan is a Business School dropout who is putting a lot of pressure on himself. In most stories, the father and son are at odds because the son wants to follow his dreams and the father wants him to carry on the family business. In this case, Paul is a little thick, because his dad is trying to tell him to relax and be himself, but Paul has an unnecessary tendency to get in the way of his own liberation. He's always trying to appease his dad even though his dad is confident in him. He has a doting, and dynamic girlfriend. His best pal from childhood is worried about him, and the town is full of characters and anecdotes. All of this should make it clear to Paul that he needs to get out there and be who is is going to be, because -that- is what people need from him right now.

Here's a rundown on some of the main characters

The town of Sunny Knoll, Wisconsin: The town itself is a kind of co-protagonist with Paul. Like Paul, there is an identity crisis being dealt with.

Alexandra Chase: Alex's parents are disappointed that the daughter they raised to be independent, has left school to stay with Paul. She is very hands on, in the relationship and in business. Paul helps her figure out her issues with her parents.

Mint Young: Mint and Paul are practically brothers. Mint was orphaned at 16. Their parents bought Stellar Gas, the town gas station before they were born. Mint is an inventor, an engineer, and a waning Punk Rocker. He operates the business when Paul is out of town. He is much less oblivious than Paul. He gets a little frustrated that Paul does not appreciate his luck.

Antler Pestle: Antler was fifteen when the boys were born, he's known Paul's dad, Keith his whole life. Antler is the volunteer firefighter, living in the old firehouse, across the street from Stellar Gas. He's a Zen ex-ballplayer. He thought he was a freak, but he was merely weird.

Status

There have been a dozen or so revisions. I have to raise this money in order to pay for editing, formatting, and well done promotion. I want this to be a high quality product, and deliver the best I can to you. Very good editing costs something. There are some aspects of the book that are unusual and I'll need some expertise to figure out the formatting, this also costs. I hope you'll share my links with your friends, all over the place, and help me get this completed.

The original working title of War and Vegetables was 'Stellar Gas'

Here is an excerpt from an interview, which is what prompted me to change the title. I found this interview one evening when I was in the middle of the third or fourth revision.

Interviewer: Let's stick to the young people, and to the areas that you think are most fruitful to try to help in. I mean, again, I asked before where you thought young people were going and you said maybe there'll be a reaction to what they have now. How does this relate to the real world, as you see it, to issues of war and peace and family and country?

John Lennon: All issues are relative. So it relates like that. It's all just relative to each other... War... and vegetables... It's all just relative, you know. So there's relativity and absolute, and that's how it relates.

Paul McCartney: That's great Johnny.

Interviewer: That's kind of hard though, for some people, to interpret you.

John Lennon: Well, if they can't interpret it, maybe they will later, or come to their own conclusions, but that's the way I think it is.

You can listen to the entire interview on Soundcloud if you'd like. It's worth it.

Thanks for taking some time here. I can't wait for you to read my book.