A Writer’s Race Against Time

Posted by Tom Colvin

June 13, 2008

This is an intensely personal post, my apologies. It is written as I make final preparations for a 4-week journey to Europe to deliver an academic paper at an international congress and to conduct more research on my major life’s project. By the time you read it, I’ll already be on the road.

At age 69, I’m working on my book with tense passion — doing further research [still, after 6 years], organizing my findings, and writing as often as I can. I’m facing a looming deadline: I’m going blind.

It’s been a frightening process that started when I was still an infant. In 1942, my mother wrote in her secret little black book”:

I cannot cry — for tears are not enough. I used to hold my breath at Tommy’s beauty — from the moment he was born his beauty was unusual. The golden curls we cut off a few months ago are in a box, and now his beautiful blue eyes will be forever shadowed by thick disfiguring lens. For we have just found his eyes are very bad — the doctors say they will never be any better and how much worse they get is is in God’s hands. He is only three — our baby. May his truly captivating personality ever remain triumphant over this physical handicap.

I’ve been lucky. I’ve been able to sustain an eyesight-intensive career right up until today. But each year has brought its slight deterioration. Now I’m left with only one working eye, and it’s field of vision is extremely narrow. I can look at a nose and recognize a face. If I look at an ear, the face dissolves into an unrecognizable murkiness. I’m just not sure how much longer the eye will hold up.

I’m working on a huge research project into the first international medical expedition in history, which set out from Spain in 1803 to carry the newly discovered smallpox vaccine throughout the sprawling Spanish empire. For me, telling this story has become a mission.

Long-term readers of this blog have read from time to time about the contest waged for my time: my blog calls for attention every day; my book wants long stretches of time.

On this trip, I will be delivering a paper at the 5th International Congress on Maritime History in Greenwich, England. I undertook the commitment primarily as a non-negotiable deadline to force me to finish a major portion of my research and to get it down on paper. It worked. I should write the final section tomorrow morning, one day before I depart.

I recommend such deadlines, whenever you can establish one. This deadline has certainly pushed my race against time forward by a major step. Next? Two polished chapters and a fully developed outline for the entire book — for the agent I’m pursuing. Deadline? I promised this package by mid-fall.

Soon I’ll post the rather personal description of why this project of mine has become so paramount: You see, I’m on a royal mission. I’ll explain.

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