Thursday, September 20, 2007

This c-note brought to you by Hershey's

2 hours writing, 4 hours reading, page count = 138

Spent an enjoyable afternoon reading 19th century history. Malcolm Deas, an Englishman who splits his time between Oxford and Bogota, is a leading historian of this period in Colombia, as well as a wonderfully droll writer. (I had the pleasure of meeting him on my last trip to Bogota, he gave me very good advice and pointers.) I appreciate his high tolerance for ambiguity, as well as his eye for the telling detail. Paper money was only introduced in Colombia in the 1880s, and at a certain point during the 1899-1902 "War of a Thousand Days," the government ran out of paper. Thanks to a, uh, public-private partnership, a solution was found. For a while, government-issued banknotes said "Republica de Colombia" on one side and "Chocolates Chaves" on the other.

Continued working on the 19th century chapter. I may not have a complete draft by the end of this week, but I'll be close. Onward!

3 comments:

Geordan said...

I guess your chances back then of getting a "golden ticket" would be a lot greater...

And it looks like you're putting up some impressive stats. Your PPD* is trending at 4.50 for the week, so if you keep up this solid work you'll be done in no time!

* Pages Per Day average

Christa said...

The last two days have been very productive writing days. Does this mean that your ideas and thoughts are coming together to produce pages and brilliance?

I can see a real commitment to moving forward.

On the chocolate front (an area I know a lot about), I am not proud of your choice of Hershey. Have I not taught you anything about quality over quantity? I guess that is also describes your working style.

Be well my friend.

Chris said...

Thanks guys!

Christa, I thought about Nestle or Cadbury, but it had to be a domestic producer to make the analogy work...next time you come to New York, we should go to Jacques Torres in my neighborhood, it's like a French Willy Wonka factory! But without the oompa-loompas, because french oompa-loompas would just be terrifying.