A month before that last post, I got sick - so sick that I poured all of my remaining energy into finishing the Field Guide because I was certain I was going to die within a few weeks. Life isn't fair, but I thought it would be a gross injustice to leave that book unfinished after all the time my "dream team" of Sheaffer experts and I had invested in the project.
I spent most of 2023 recovering, and by the end of the year it was clear that whatever it was that I had wouldn't kill me ("Long Covid" was the only diagnosis that made any sense). I'm fine now -- thanks to Janet -- and I only bring up the experience to explain where my head was at the time and where it has been ever since. I now have a permanent appreciation that every new day in this world is a gift, and I know how important it is to make the most of each and every one of them.
Since writing is like breathing to me, as things slowly returned to normal I started jotting down a few short, random articles -- just to clear the pipes while I decided what I wanted to do. One morning in February I took inventory of all my unfinished projects and thought about which one of them should be my next book.
"Next book."
The phrase hung in the air for a moment like a slow exhale of cigar smoke without any breeze to disturb it, lazily reshaping itself in front of me. It occurred to me that "next" assumes there will be others that follow. The Field Guide wasn't my next book; it was my penultimate one -- the "next to last" written with the hope that I might live to write another.
Had I never written another, and had the Field Guide become my ultimate book rather than my penultimate one, it would have been a suitable end to my writing career. The Field Guide took three medals at the 2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, including a gold for Best Non-Fiction book overall, and it was a Silver Medalist in the 2024 Ben Franklin Book Awards.
Whatever project I would choose as my "next" book, I knew it would likewise need to be my penultimate book - it wasn't anything already in progress, but I knew what it should be. For 25 years it is a subject I have researched, a brand I have collected, and my "first love," as I've referred to it here at the blog: the Eversharp.
The subject is enormous, and no one had yet fully explored it in book form to the extent it deserves. As a study of industrial history, no company's history contains more spectacular successes and equally spectacular failures. That history is underpinned by equally fascinating people who, despite their flaws, managed to create something beautiful out of nothing.
"The Eversharp book" proved far more challenging than I dreamed it would be that February morning. The 127 articles I've posted about the brand here over the years were a good start, but as I strung them together they proved to be just a few pieces of a much greater story. The research was intense, nearly all of the photographs had to be retaken, and entire chapters were written from scratch. I met many new people, both alive and dead. I connected with fellow enthusiasts who shared information, who consented to my use of their images, and who loaned me things to include in the book.
It was the largest, the most intricate, the most demanding, and the most rewarding project I've ever undertaken.
I am now thoroughly exhausted, but my 434-page study, Eversharp: Cornerstone of an Industry, is finished and in the hands of my production team. According to the schedule they have provided to me, the finished project should be in hand for release at the Ohio Show in November.
This book is an expensive production. In addition to its massive size, it will be hardbound and printed on heavy, glossy paper. It will be my first book with printed "endpapers" - the paper glued to the insides of the covers. For these endpapers, I designed a collage of the covers from the 1921 and 1922 issues of Tips and Nibs, Wahl's in-house (and nearly impossible to find) magazine for dealers:
Preordering is now up on the website - the link is here. I had to set the cover price at $100 ($103 to cover the paypal fees), because when the Amazon version is released their fees will eat up all but a few dollars. Those who preorder at the cover price get a few extra perks. First, the order includes free shipping within the continental US for those who won't be at the Ohio Show to pick up their copy.
Second, I'm going to do something I haven't done before as a thank you to those who helped me defray the huge up-front printing costs. As I write my books, I print off each chapter double-sided to make a coilbound working copy to make sure everything looks good -- it also helps me spot things that invariably look different on paper than they do on the computer. I did the same thing for this project, and I've been carrying my working copy around with me since February. It was displayed at the Chicago, Raleigh and DC pen shows this year:
As always, all buyers of the book will be inducted into the Order of the Leadheads and will receive their numbered presentation stickers to put in the book (all current members of the Order will retain their existing numbers).
Here's a few sample pages from the book:
Then again, the same was true about all my previous books. My "penultimate" masterpiece, we'll call it.
