United’s e-fares are my weekly dreams visited. Every Tuedsay I quickly review my United efare newsletter and I consider Boise, Seattle or Carlsbad as possible destinations. Every week I do this. Why? Because I love a quick cheap trip to Santa Barbara. Leave early Saturday morning – back Monday a.m. or p.m.. All for about $130RT. Typically it’s nearly $300 to Santa Barbara from San Francisco. This works for all of us. Sign up at www.ual.com and see for yourself. It’s a free indulgence. It’s empowering to consider going anywhwere you please every weekend. And just as empowering to say to yourself nope, staying home this weekend is what I really want to do. If you live near an international airport or a major hub city consider signing up at www.smarterliving.com for a consolidated list of all the efares out of your local airpot(s). This could include United, American, Delta, US Air an so on depending on wehre you live in the US. I live in San Francisco – so I have signed up for SFO, Oakland and San Jose. I also get efares for International destinations – I consider Mexico at least once a month for as little as $240 RT. Let me know if you are using efares – or after reading this end up using efares. Where did you go?

2 hard drives, 3 logic boards, endless telephone calls, 11 chapters, 3 Mac geniuses, and 1 corporate executive liaison and I have a brand spanking new PowerBook G4. Thank you God! Now I can get back to what I do – write! I have uploaded my Microsoft Office, my word files, and some of my applications. But I still have a ton of stuff I’ve got to get on my new computer. I named my new computer “Sparky” for all the sparks that have been flying for the past few two months.

FLY SOLO is due in 31 days and I have 11 chapters to finish. Most of the research is completed (thanks to the spectacular Sarah Naimark) and it’s a process of incorporating my experiences, my knowledge, my verve and wit into each destination.

It has been a monumental task to write this book. I have never done anything so difficult in my life. On March 1, 2006, Perigee Books (http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/aboutus/adult/perigee.html  ) will receive 50 chapters, over 500 pages of my passion and knowledge about travel and destinations spilled out on page after page. My editor will read over it in a month, and then I make her requested changes.

Writing a book is like producing a movie, you can’t do it by yourself. You have to lose the ego because your dream become part of a bigger, more important mission (to get women out and traveling alone!). Although I am the director, screenwriter, and producer, I have an amazing team of women backing me up. This book would not be real without their help. My biggest supporters in this book have been Sarah Naimaik, Stephanie Block, Patti Mangan, Cheri Molnar and Suzanne Dunning. I am forever grateful for their help.

And after I’m finish with writing all the chapters, the next step is to get them all fact-check. That is a tedious process where someone goes through each chapter with a critical eye and Internet connection and ensures e-mails, phone numbers, addresses and websites are correct.

So that’s where I’m at: 11 chapters and 31 days to go. It’s Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. and I want a glass of wine. Viva Tango Diva, and may 2006 be the best year ever!!

I dropped in to the Los Olivos Cafe this weekend on my way to Santa Barbara. Featured in the movie "Sideways" – its a great place for a glass of wine, delicious food and friendly patrons. Los Olivos itself was packed. For the first time it was hard to find a place to park! We spoke to a local merchant who said wine sales are up 60% since the film was released. I believe it! It was Saturday at 4 – so getting a table at the cafe was possible, but just. We shared a generous portion of Butternut Squash and Cranberry Salad with roasted butternut squash, sundried cranberries, crumbled gorgonzola and toasted pumpkin seeds on a field of greens and molasses vinaigrette for $7. Yum. Followed by the colorful Mykonos pizza with basil pesto, oven dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, geta and garlic for $12. I had a glass of 2004 Firestone Vineyard Central Coast Riesling – light and subtle sweetness. Perfect for my meal. It’s lively and confortable and it was hard to pull ourselves away but the Santa Barbara sunset was calling.

Sundance! It wasn’t sunny and I didn’t dance much, but I was six degrees of separation from stars in the ten degree weather! Here I am with Gwyneth Borden and Diva Ruby Dee at the premier of her film, No. 2, wherein she’s the matriarch of a Fijian family living in New Zealand. And not that I kiss and tell, but we did get leid in the lobby of the Egyptian theater where No. 2 was playing!

But here’s the question- with so many stars flooding the snowy red carpet, one wonders whether this so-called independent film festival is really all that indie. With major film behemoths spinning off ‘indie’ branches and bullying their way into Sundance with A-List stars (Ashley Judd was there, Jennifer Aniston for gosh sakes, and even Justin Timberlake stars in a movie!), it begs the question, what’s indie got to do, got to do with it??

A question I frequently get asked is,“What it is like writing a book that you know will be on bookstands next year?” Honestly, I can’t think that far in advance right now. I have around 45 days until my manuscript is due at Penguin Books in New York and my piece of crap Apple PowerBook G4 has created such a fear in me, that I have not had one second to think about how great it is to actually have a publisher and an nice cash advance! I think that if I didn’t have to suffer with the fear of losing my life’s work again – because of my useless Apple, I would be having way more fun. Once again, my hard drive froze and yesterday I had to hire a Mac specialist to come over and strip my computer and reload everything back up. I lost all my contacts and applications. So for the past two days I’ve been reloading software and going through the over 300 e-mails that have been stuck somewhere between my server and my desktop. This is driving me INSANE!!

Finally I understand why published authors can be so protective about their work. Getting to the place where you have a published book is damn hard and it’s not just about writing a book and sending it out into the universe where it magically gets published. This process has taken me over two years to get to – and instantly ruined by the inconsiderate staff at Apple. First, I had to come up with an idea, then I had to do all the market research to see if the idea would even sell. After creating a company to support the book idea, which included a web site, a weekly e-zine, and a team Tango Diva supporters, I had to go out and find a literary agent. You can’t get a book published with a reputable publisher without having an agent. Well, you can if you want to self-publish. But if you want to make money from your hard work, you need someone who also believes in your project and who’s willing to share it with publishers. Publishers are busy people and they only deal with literary agents. If they didn’t, every Tom, Dick and Harry who wanted their great American novel published would be knocking on their doors. So, then I got an agent who worked her butt off with me to create something that would really sell. That was a process of over 12 months. The first book I wrote was off target, so I had to write something different. That’s where Fly Solo: Top 50 was created. She sold it to Perigee Books, and imprint of Penguin, I got a contract, and then an advance. Now I just have to finish the book. I hope that nothing more goes wrong with my computer.

The draft will be finished on March 1, 2006 and it is scheduled to be in stores March 2007. This is a slow process, and if you really want to write a book, you’ll need patience and a good computer. I have not done this by myself. I have a team of incredible women who have been supporting me, directing me, and encouraging me through this gauntlet. Sara Naimark has been my researching godsend, Stephanie Block has been my writing coach, Cheri Molnar has been helping edit my writing, and Patti Mangan has been keeping the website going while I disappear into writing. There’s a bunch more incredible women and you’ll read all about them later.

Feel free to ask me questions about this process. If you are a new writer, or dream of getting published, I understand your passion. Just like anything that’s worthwhile, it’s lots of hard work, but it’s totally worth it.

Thinly sliced between the Atlantic and Pacific, Panama is the deli meat that holds the two bready continents of North and South America together. I indulged myself in its geographic, ecological, biological and canal-magical marvels until I was ready for a quick jaunt to nearby Cartagena, Colombia, where I met and fell in love with Pepe the Sloth.

What a harpy new years trip it was! The harpy eagle is Panama’s national bird, a fierce predator on the edge of extinction. These powerful birds snag sloths like Pepe and monkeys from treetops in their humungous bear-sized claws. Don’t worry, Pepe, I’ll save you!