America's Coolest Station Wagons in 3-D!!!

It's true! My advance copy of the wagon book arrived this week. I actually held it in my hands for the first time, after a year and a half of wondering what the finished product would look like. It looks good (in my biased opinion). It feels nice in my hands and even smells good!

When I build a car, I'm constantly pushing it out of the shop to get some perspective on it. I'll walk around it a few times, checking my work for flow and balance, then roll it back inside, knowing what I have to do next. I have no such luxury while writing. I can see the text, or the photo captions, or the images themselves (one at a time), but this old wind-up computer isn't equipped to show me the big picture and I don't do my own layouts anyway. That's done back at the CarTech offices in Minnesota, as they're not ready to trust me with that make-or-break aspect of the creative process yet. So imagine my relief to open my copy of the book and find surgically clean editing by Scott Parkhurst and tasty layout and design work by Monica Seiberlich. I didn't realize how stressed I was about this until cracking the book open, browsing a few pages, then closing my eyes and deflating into my chair for a good five minutes, before continuing.

That was two days ago and I'm still grinning. I'm happy to report that the paper is high quality, the images reproduced beautifully, the font is easy on the eyes and it reads well. Like the cover, the interior layout is crisp and bright, evoking an upbeat energy that enhances the text nicely.. Being trusted with the wagon owner's personal stories meant that emotional connections were inevitable, rendering me instantly biased.  So I'm too close to the text to judge it. You'll have to do that for me.

It's been a long twisted road from racing the backstreets and working the wrecking yards to authoring my first book. Who knew you could get here from there? Not me. This book should be on the shelves of your nearest bookstore by April 15th. Check it out and let me know what you think, okay?
Thanks,
Scotty