This is turning into Janna week in the sailing blogs (and even here in the pseudosailing blog).
Bonnie featured Janna's book - The Motion of the Ocean - a few days ago, and Tillerman is making noises about doing a full-on review this week. I just got my review copy a few days ago and have only gotten through the first chapter, but like what I have read so far. Janna is not a sailor who decided to write a book about her adventures, she's a writer who went sailing. The difference is apparent right off. I'm looking forward to reading the book and to seeing Tillerman's take on it.
Janna's book is not mainly about sailing, although I guess you could read it just for the sailing bits. She's really looking at the realationship she's had with the guy who's now her husband but who was for many years 'the boyfriend'. And I suspect she gets into the lessons one learns about life and about one's self after spending two years with someone in the tiny space of a cruising boat.
Here's that someone, by the way:
His name is Graeme, which is pronounced like 'Graham', which is pronounced like 'gram'.
I met Graeme at a stop on Janna's book tour in the San Francisco Bay area a few weeks ago. (There's a short video from Janna's reading at the end of this post.) I'm afraid that poor Graeme has been sadly maligned by his wife in the interest of promoting her book. She begins by calling him a butthead (although she uses a more anglo-saxon term) and leads you to believe that that's her final assessment of him. I'm guessing that if you read the whole book, her opinion eventually changes.
My take was that Graeme is a nice, unassuming, mild-mannered, down-to-earth guy. Just the kind of temperament you'd want in someone you were going to go blue-water sailing with. Calm, and not overly-excited in the face of adversity. Why do our wives never see the good in us?
You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned Janna's last name yet. That's because it's extremely tough to get her whole name right all at once. Tillerman has called her 'Jenna'. Bonnie has called her 'Janna Cawrse Esaley'. I know her correct name is one of the following:
-Janna Of Course
-Janna Off Course
-Janna Causes Easterlies
-Janna With The Light Brown Hair
-Janna Janna Bo Hanna Banana Fanna Mohanna
-Janna Cawrse Esarey
.
Yeah, I noticed that we all seem to be suffering from "name block" when it comes to getting that author's name right.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, my browser has now started making "suggestions" for the verification words on these comments, based on previous words I have used in that box. Sometimes software is far too clever for its own good.
I did fix mine the same day I posted - but it is a complicated name, all sorts of ways to goof it up.
ReplyDeleteConfessions of a blog writer:
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing what were obvious typos in your blogs (you both had the name right in other places), I decided to have some fun here with Janna's name - I seem to be better at low-brow humor than at anything that takes real brain power.
But then I did some proofreading and discovered, of course, that I'd gotten the name wrong a few times, too. I think Janna needs to work on an easier to remember pen-name, like 'The Writer Formerly Known As Janna'.
Holy smokerolies. This is fantastic! Thank you so much, O Docker, for your video editing skills. That must have taken way too much of your time. I am grateful and muy impressed.
ReplyDeleteAnd about Graeme being a butthead. He and I discussed toning that first line down, but in the end he said I should stick with the raw emotion--sometimes that's just how you feel. Graeme says he, too, has felt that way about someone very close to him before. I can't imagine whom.
And, yeah, the name is a drag. Janna Cawrse Esarey. Banana Of Course Yesiree. Just think if you had to LIVE with a name like that. But it's what I got. And, frankly, I don't care how you spell it. I'm just appreciative that you're giving my book a shake.
Glad you like, Janna.
ReplyDeleteI think many bloggers are wannabe authors and are a bit in awe of those who have figured out a way to actually get paid for what they do, especially when the work includes sailing a boat across the Pacific. I know some people who would do that part for free.
Happy to help.
I didn't get a book! :( Not that I can read.....definitely can't write...occasionally take pictures and vomit on shoes.
ReplyDeleteI think somebody in Janna's family lost a bet over a set of Scrabble words. "If any word you use is not in the dictionary, then you have to take those words as your surname for the remainder of your natural life!"
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps they chose their surnames from some of these captcha verification words?
ReplyDeleteSo I'm changing my name to Conti Ressling Kilters.
But seriously, "choosing the name" is one of the many things that Janna worried away at during their voyage (while Graeme was doing the usual trivial easy stuff like fixing the boat and actually finding Micronesia.) It's all in the book.