The transport of books from the publisher, to actual stores, is something of a mystery. It’s supposed to take 10-15 days for books to leave the publisher, make it to distributors, and to stores. But since these things move of trucks, in big skids, and spend time in various warehouses, or waiting to be stocked on shelves, there’s no specific dates for these things. Just ranges of time.

Today i dropped by the local Borders and asked about my book. They told me it wasn’t in yet, but they didn’t know why, since it’s official publication date was 4/25/2005. They said they’d ordered 20 copies, and she told me where they’d be shelved. Beyond that, she had no idea.

So here’s a favor I’m asking: if you don’t see the book, ask. The more folks that ask about the book, the more likely they’ll order some if they weren’t planning on it. The more folks that ask about a book and buy it, the more likely it is they’ll stock it, or put it somewhere others might find it.

Each of these QC reviews took an enormous amount of time. I sat down and read through the entire book on each one. No joke. I sat with red pen in hand, and read through everything. It’s the only way I can edit – I have to know what came before, reading it in order, and do it in big sittings. Otherwise I don’t have enough context to know what’s redundant with the last chapter or not.

It’s tough work – Like driving late at night when you’re tired, as soon as i get bored I have to snap out of it and focus – I’m the writer here. I’m the one that has to know what the hell he’s doing.

For QC2, effectively the 4th draft of the book, I spent as much time as possible cutting – crossing out sentences or entire paragraphs. The most effective editing is just ripping shit out. A clunky paragraph, or series of paragraphs is often best served by death. Just rip it out. No one will know what else I was going to say except for me – and in many cases they’re better off not knowing.

But it’s been brutal. I totally underestimated how much emotional energy the last 1/3rd of the book process would take.

Good day. Happy Day. Marlowe sent me the index for my book – MY BOOK HAS AN INDEX. SOME INDEXER SOMEWHERE RAN INDEXER SOFTWARE AND MADE THE INDEX FOR MY BOOK. Somehow this is one of those signifiers of the book’s real existence. Looking at the index it’s like seeing something from another planet – indexes come from books, and books are written by OTHER people. Totally wild and bizarre. I’m uplifted by the existence of an index.

Blah. Woke up this morning expecting some email from various people about various things – and there is nothing. Writing books seems to involve ridiculous amounts of waiting. Then it’s hurry up/why isn’t this done, followed by panic and rushing, and then…. more inexplicable waiting. That’s what book making seems to be – a long series of syncopated workings, panics, and waitings.

It’s one of those “gee, it’s lonely being solo” kinds of moments. I’ve been moping around for 10 minutes or so, but now I’m thinking that my success is probably dependent on how I handle these mope-worthy, pity-party moments when it seems like I don’t really exist outside of this room.

If I find my own energy and convert the mopeness into so vague kind of motivation, and work on things, I’ll feel better, will make progress, and will reduce the odds I’ll feel this way again tomorrow. So it’s a choice: indulge the pity, or convert it into some kind of useful action.

The revision and review process is slow. Molasses slow. It seems so trivial, all these little details with words and paragraphs, but the details matter. How can I not put in the time to get these little things right? It’s so tempting to just sign off on these things, or to push whoever at the publisher to do more – but my name is going to be on this thing. Even if it sucks, I want to feel like it sucks because of me, not because of what someone else did. It’d be my suckage.

This part – this reviewing and editing and revisioning is the work part – getting here was more dramatic and emotional. It was a charge. This. This is a war of attrition. Fighting bordom. And there’s an infinity of details that require attention.

Somehow i expected when the draft finished, things would take off. Teams of copyeditors and illustrators would arrive, pick up my work and run with it.

NOT HOW IT WORKS.

As far as I can tell, I’m just one of many books that gets published. And for everyone that works at a publisher, each book is just a book. Not a life’s work. Not a special dream. Not a work of art or vision. It’s just one of 50 books that they’ll touch in a year.

So there’s no one waiting for my draft. My work is just one more in an endless series of books these folks will produce in their book publishing careers. Even if they love books, even if they love reading books, the nature of book production doesn’t give them much of a chance to express that love in the actual making of books.

So my draft is sitting around, waiting for the publishing process to be ready for it. I probably could have had another few weeks on the schedule, and it wouldn’t have impacted the publication process at *all*. I think like most industries, anything that arrives on 11/01/04, just before thanksgiving, doesn’t see the light of day until 01/05/05.

Draft 2 is now complete. I told Mike, my editor, I thought i was done. He didn’t disagree.

According to my records we slipped the schedule once for about 5 weeks. Instead of taking 7 months it took 8.

A funny thing I just realized. Sometimes I sit here stumbling over half-ideas, and then finally connect with one and get it down. Then I smile and think “Gee, I’d be so productive if I could just stop stumbling over half-ideas”. But of course this is ridiculous. The stumbling over of ideas IS THE WORK.

Working on draft 2 – Currently on Chapter 4.

The problem with feedback on draft 1 is that I have no easy way to calibrate the feedback. Someone might be very annoyed at something I’ve written, but I can’t put that easily into a context of: their other feedback, what feedback they might have given if I’d actually done whatever they’re suggesting in the first place. So the frustrating thing is it’s hard to know where they’re scoring from. Is it a -1? -10? -100? Points?

Still not over the hump. Poking at it. Calling it names.

Had yoga class this morning. Was relaxing in the same way as tai-chi. Major bonus seems you get to lie on the floor all the time. Teacher is funny, but odd – odd in that “yoga dude” way. It seems all yoga men have that same kind of strange creepy posture – I don’t know why. Anyway, it’s me and a bunch of near middle aged women, twice a week for the next month

First: Woohoo!

(big long pause)

Second: There is a big psychological hump on starting this second draft. Do I reread all the notes? Do I reread all of my chapters? Fuck. A big stinking heap of threads, all of which are worthy of attention, but none of which seems more important than others. I need to find a way to break it back down again to simple pieces. Haven’t found it yet. Currently choking on chapter 1. It wasn’t written in the same way as the others, and I find myself falling into the trap of grandstanding and trying to swing big right hands. First chapter should be a small number of well paced solid jabs, yes? Don’t know why my fingers seem to want to do something grand and swing for the stands. (And what’s with the boxing analogies, hmm?)

Ha. Ha ha ha. I am on chapter 12. What would you be doing right now had you stayed at Microsoft? eh? I bet you wouldn’t have even read a book up to chapter twelve. Yet here I am. La de da. Woo hoo. Look at me.

For reasons I can not explain a persistent craving I’ve had for the last two months is for Charleston chews. Yes, that’s right. The original flavor. I even tried to satisify said craving, twice: once on my road trip to Denver. Once again after I got back. But it’s still there.