
It’s New Year’s Eve, my last full day at home here on the Canadian prairies before I fly off for a winter of sunshine and warmer temperatures in Ecuador. The backpacks have been filled with what we will need for three months, not a lot as we don’t wear much.
I am fortunate in that I will be able to live clothing-free for the most part within our casa which we rent, in Ecuador. Naturally, once we leave the casa, I wear clothing as it is a normal fishing village, not a naturist village. I accept that and actually respect that fact. The beach is not clothing optional, but a community beach meaning I will have to wear a bathing suit. I wish it could be otherwise, but that is the reality I live with in Ecuador.
As I said to open this post, it is New Year’s Eve. It’s a time when I look back at my naturist connections, whether they are online or face-to-face. I am blessed to have good friends who are naturists, such as Melvin and Sandy pictured here. This particular friendship has been growing over a few years and has resulted in both being frequently found in my posts here. There is a hope that 2019 will have us meet face-to-face.
This past year, I have been able to increase my presence in the world of naturism in various ways. With my friends, Will Forest and Paul Z. Walker, a Naturist Fiction site has come into existence. The three of us are writers of naturist fiction. I met Will a few years ago in Mexico after he had edited my naturist poetry books. Paul has been a writing buddy via NaNoWriMo for a few years. There is a real hope that Paul will become a face-to-face friend in the future when my wife and I travel to the Netherlands for another of our walking adventures.
In the early summer, I lost a face-to-face naturist friend, Brian Wappel. He was the president of the Prairie Sun Naturist group. In August, I became a Board member of the FCN, the national naturist federation for Canada. I managed to visit Green Haven, and a new-to-me site in Manitoba called Naturist Legacy.
Overall, it has been a good year with my naturist novel Small Company of Pilgrims having sold 126 paperback copies, and It’s Complicated selling 48 paperback copies. I have written another novel that will come out in 2019 once I come up with a title for the book and a cover. And now, here are the sales numbers for all-time for my books:
- A Small Company of Pilgrims – 248 print copies, and 416 eBook copies = 664
- It’s Complicated – 96 print copies, and 17 eBook copies = 113
- Naked Poetry 1 – 29 print copies, and 370 eBook copies = 399 *
- Naked Poetry 2 – 24 print copies, and 19 eBook copies = 43 *
- Naked Poetry 3 – 16 print copies, and 10 eBook copies = 26 *
And of course, there is this place, A Canadian Naturist which has managed to survive a drastic clean-up that saw it become a place with a bit more depth, and less trivial as a result. I have to thank so many who have allowed me to feature them and their images in the posts during the past year. And lastly, I want to thank you, my readers for your presence. Without you, this blog site would have never been resurrected from the ashes.
Happy New Year to each and every one of you.