Keeping The Tryst: The proof copy has arrived!

It arrived yesterday, actually...

As you can see it has a "Not for Resale" watermark wrapped around it.  I think there might be a few other things that will also differ from the final product.  I've also changed some of the text on the back cover since submitting this version for printing.

This being the proof copy, intended for review before the finished product rolls off the assembly line, I've spent much of the time since yesterday looking it over, finding places that need correcting and improving.  There have been some of those, things that I didn't catch already.  A few chapters for whatever reason had an extra bit of space padding the distance between separate paragraphs.  Don't know how that happened in Microsoft Word, but those are all fixed now.

And late last night I got the notice from Amazon: Keeping the Tryst, both the print edition and the ebook, are set to go on sale on October 1st at 12:00 A.M. UTC (that's 7:00 P.M Eastern Standard Time on September 30th for those of us here on the east side of the United States... I think).

This copy has a nice feel and heft to it.  It's also printed on cream paper.  A lot of friends suggested that it would be better for the eyes instead of pure white.  And I might be biased but reading it has a nice "flow" to it.  I like to think that for all its size, it's going to be a nice book to read.  It's going to go by fairly quickly (sort of like a Game of Thrones novel, back when George R.R. Martin actually did write Game of Thrones books!).

Now, if I can only figure out the best way to market my book.  I'll admit that I'm not the best when it comes to presenting a product.  The best I ever did was when I ran for school board in 2006 (although if we're to be honest, it IS a bit hard to not get people's attention when you're using the Death Star to blow up schoolhouses!).

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And the book's title is.........

 Coming October 1st, 2025, the memoir of Yours Truly.

I present to you: Keeping The Tryst.

Look!  Front cover!

You can thank my friends on Facebook for wanting the title reveal.  I was going to unveil it next Sunday but then I figured "They've waited a year and a half.  Why not show it now?"

It will be available on Amazon, in hardcover and also for Kindle readers and apps.

EDIT: I uploaded the Kindle version this afternoon and was expecting it to be within the next 72 hours when I would be notified that it had passed review.  But I just checked e-mail and they already approved it!

Here is the Keeping The Tryst for Kindle product page on Amazon.  You can find the description but not much else at the moment.  You can pre-order it though and have it ready to deliver to your device on October 1st.

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Book status this week: We have a product!

It could have been easy to upload the manuscript as an ebook and have Amazon derive a printed edition from that.  But that's not what I wanted.  I desire and need something that has shown real effort made toward something beautiful.  Or at least as beautiful as a guy without a strong background in visual design can pull off.

So it is, that after a lot of work in the past several days, a finished book - from front title to description and author picture on the back cover - now exists.  And it looks BEAUTIFUL, if I do say so myself.

The hardest part has been coming up with a description.  My life has been such a complex thing, that it's been very hard to boil it down to the space of a few brief paragraphs.  But I came up with something and perhaps it will catch the attention of potential readers.

Well, it's done.  There is now a hardcover volume that after it goes through Amazon's approval process (something I'll admit some concern about, there's no telling what could result in it getting rejected and sent back for revision) will be soon available for purchase.  I don't know when that will be.  But I'm thinking on a Tuesday would be good.  That seems to be the day that most books get released on.  The plan is still to have the hardcover, the softcover, and the paperback released at the same time.

I hope this sells some.  When I ran for school board I told everyone that I was going to be very happy if just ten people voted for me.  I wound up getting almost forty-seven hundred votes.  If only two or three people buy my book, I will be thankful.

More soon.

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Book report for last week of August 2025

 The latest lowdown on my book:

As was reported last time, there are three versions of the manuscript to publish: the hardcover, the softcover, and the ebook.  Each one is formatted for their respective media.  The plan as always is to publish all three at the same time.  If the sales are strong I'm going to release a "special edition" of the softcover that includes some photos.  I'm hoping to be able to include this photo in it:

Photo by Ted Richardson

That's Dad with his friend and fellow farmer John Ashe, in a photo taken in February 2012 for a syndicated newspaper story about the state of tobacco farming especially for independent operators.  I got in touch with Richardson a short while later and got his permission to share the photo on my blog (Richardson told me that this was the best photo assignment he had ever done).  I love this photo and want to include it in the enhanced softcover edition.  Going to take some investment in order to pay the licensing fee but it will be worth it.  If there's demand for it, I'm going to make the new edition as good as it can possibly be.

In the meantime, the hardcover edition's text is now 100% stitched together.  The last substantial thing to get added is the acknowledgments, which were a lot of fun to come up with.  There is going to be some figuring out where to add blank pages in order to have it all looking proper once printed, and that's going to be a project for this coming weekend.  But after the hardcover edition is formatted properly, I think the softcover will quickly follow suit.

I've also got to figure out the author bio and brief synopsis of the book.  I've found out that I'm no good at describing myself in a few sentences.  So I'm sort of contracting that task out to friends who know me best.  Maybe they can come up with something.

Finally, will come designing the covers.  Which has to be done after precisely determining the page count.  Coming up with the covers won't be any problem.  I already know what they're going to look like.

What this all means is that at the rate things are going, my book is going to be published by the end of September.  Well ahead of the original intent to have it on sale by the end of the year.  And then it will be out in the wild, for anyone to buy and read.  We'll see what happens then.  But as things stand now, it's going to be in y'all's grubby little paws within the next few weeks.

I hope you guys will enjoy it :-) 

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Book update: Three editions to choose from! And a bio pic.

As of last night there are three versions of the manuscript that will be used in the publishing of my book.

There is the ebooks manuscript, which has already been used to generate the product for Kindle devices (and I suppose any other ebook reader that comes about for whatever reason).  It looks nice.

And then there are the other two manuscripts, which will be used respectively for the softcover and hardcover editions.  And here is where some issues arose...

Hardcover books published by Amazon's service are limited to 550 pages.  The hardcover version of my manuscript is 490 or so pages.  There is much more room, up to 820 pages, in the softcover format.  My softcover manuscript is 404 pages.  I had to do some serious gymnastics with fonts and spacing to get each version of the manuscript to fit.

Where is this going, you may be asking?  Just this: I've a LOT more available space in the softcover version to use for additional material.

I'm now thinking of making an "enhanced edition" of the softcover with a few photos spread here and there.  It wouldn't add too much else to the cost of the book, only a few cents.  It would be in color also, making it all the prettier.  This would be in addition to the "standard" softcover.

I''m only going to be able to do that if the book sells well.  There is one photo in particular, the one of Dad and a farmer friend sitting on the back of a truck together, that I absolutely want to include but it's a licensed photo so it will cost something to use it.  Maybe if the book sells enough to justify it I'll be able to pay for that.

I hope I can do this.  It would be an opportunity to highlight some of the people who have been in my life and who helped bring me here, past so much that has happened along the way.  This book is their triumph too, as much as anybody's.

In other news, there is the matter of the author's photo that will go on the back cover along with the brief (emphasis on "brief", *laugh out loud*) bio.  I narrowed the possibilities down to four finalists.  Yesterday I put it to a vote with my friends on Facebook.  Which photo of me did they think would be the best one to use?  Here they are:

The runaway winner, with ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the vote, is #4: the one at the bottom right.  That one got a lot of good remarks about it.  I'm glad that the voting went so wildly in favor of it also.  That particular photo was taken by a friend, who passed away not long afterward.  José had an AMAZING eye for photography and it's going to be great to honor his memory with that.

So, where do things stand now overall?  The ebook/Kindle edition is done, apart from designing the cover.  The hardcover and softcover need covers too, and each will have to be custom fitted for their edition's completed manuscript.

My stated goal earlier was to have the book on sale by the end of the year, and hopefully by the one-year anniversary of the completion of the first draft of the manuscript.  It now looks like this will be on sale by the end of next month.  I plan to have all three versions released together.

And then?  It will be in the hands of whoever comes along to read it.  Hopefully it will be time well spent for them.  My book has three big "E"s to deliver on: educating, edifying, and entertaining.  Time will tell if I succeeded in that.

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Update on the book: it is coming together (literally!)

A lot has gotten accomplished with my book during the past several days.  I guess the biggest thing to report is that after ten years of on and off labor, with each chapter getting its own Word document, those have all been stitched together into one single massive master manuscript!  That's what I had done just after noon.

It's now twelve hours later.

The result is a 540-page long, 140,000 word file weighing in at a little under half a megabyte.  Which would be about a third of the capacity of the 3.5" floppy disks that we used back in the day.  And that probably says more than is necessary about how your friend and humble narrator still gauges computer technology (laugh out loud).

For most of the past eight hours I ran the complete manuscript through Microsoft Word, and fixed a few things that Grammarly didn't catch in the course of the past few weeks.  Satisfied with the result, I imported the manuscript into the Kindle Create app that Amazon makes available (for free) to anyone who wants to make ebooks, or even prepare a book for physical printing.  Had a few fits and starts, figuring out how to do what... but after an evening's work there is now an almost completely formatted project file.  I'm taking a break for the night and will get back to formatting tomorrow.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing can handle a hardcover book that's 550 pages or less.  I'm having to edit my manuscript to make it fit.  The chapter about Adderall, and what it did to me (pretty much made me feel like a god) is now gone.  A few other things have been trimmed down.  Maybe it's for the best though, especially the Adderall chapter.  Don't want to get in any kind of legal trouble.  Lord knows that there are some things in this piece of work that are daring enough as they are.

I finally hit on a design for the cover that I really, really like.  It's using the image from the Codex Manesse that I found a couple of months ago, that I really loved as soon as I saw it.  I saw this pic and instantly knew that I had found the basic element of my book's cover.  So when the page numbers have been tabulated and it's found to be something printable, I'm going to take that cover design and get into Photoshop on my iPad and make a fully trimmed and marginalized cover file.  And then, theoretically, I should have a sellable book.  But I'm going to hold off on releasing it until sometime next month.  Got a few things going on in the meantime that need my attention also.

But as things stand now, there is going to be a fully processed manuscript, fit for publication, by the end of the weekend.  I am really astounded and amazed at the state of this project.  A year ago I was focused on writing the first draft of my book.  That was completed the week before Thanksgiving, and I felt proud and accomplished.  But the work was far from finished.  I've intended to do this the right way, no cut corners.  This has to be the best possible product that I can offer to a potential audience.  Lord willing it's not going to come out looking rough and sloppy at all.  It's going to be a polished book, one that I hope will entertain and edify and enlighten.

Anyhoo, that's where things are at 12:39 am on Friday morning.  More soon.

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The book: It is finished.

Well, it's done.

As of twenty-five minutes ago, I have completed putting the entire manuscript through Grammarly, checking for grammar and syntax.  That's the better part of three weeks that it took to accomplish that.

There will be some going through it with a fine tooth comb, no doubt making a few minor changes here and there.  But otherwise, the text of my book is complete.  It has underwent multiple revisions and checks.  It's pretty much as good as it's going to be.

From completing the first draft last November on through its final form today, it's been eight and a half months of work.  The grammar checking has been done well ahead of schedule.

I've been focused, very nearly wholly dedicated on completing my book, since January of 2024.  And here it is, early August 2025.  I like to think that I'm coming out of the process none the worse for wear.

All that needs doing now is formatting for publishing.  And that won't take long.

I'm going to allow myself to feel good tonight.

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Twenty-four hours later...

...since the previous post.

I have just finished writing an epilogue for my book.  It wasn't planned.  It just kinda hit me between the eyes a few hours ago and I needed to commit it to Microsoft Word.

The book has a much more beautiful ending now.

Final word of it: "grail".

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Semi-regular book update for end of July 2025

Where things regarding my manuscript currently stand:

The more that I have looked into it, the more it seems that publishing through Amazon - which would make my memoir available as an ebook on Kindle devices/apps as well as printed as softcover or hardcover - is going to be the way to go.  I've been keeping a list of all the agents who I've queried with about representation and, well... it's a lot who I haven't heard from.  A few have contacted me back to tell me that they're turning me down.

Regrettable, but also understandable.  A very good book will still have to struggle to find an agent, going about things the old-fashioned way.  And I've always known that this book is going to be a very difficult proposition.  But publishing isn't what it used to be twenty or ten or even five years ago.  There are ways to get a book out there for readers to discover.  I'm going to make the most of that opportunity.  On the day it's first available I intend to have the ebook, the softcover, and the hardcover ready to order.

The other week I set a goal: to have my book up for sale by the end of the year.  And maybe even by late November, which would mark the first anniversary of the first draft being finished.  That would be nice.

I think that one thing I need to be better at is marketing the book.  Only now am I discovering what "marketing" means exactly.  To that end, and at the suggestion of a friend who has gone on to be a published author, I will be setting up a website devote to my writing.  I'm also going to try to put together an e-mail list.  And create a Facebook group.  So far as X/Twitter goes, I can't arouse new followers on there to save my life!  If I could figure out what I'm doing wrong I would absolutely take steps to remedying that

Okay, let's get into the technical status of the manuscript itself...

Right now I am doing something that perhaps I should have been doing all along: running the chapters through the Grammarly writing assistant.  I was very reluctant to take this step at first.  I don't like involving artificial intelligence into what should be a pure human effort.  But a fellow author convinced me that Grammarly's free edition does nothing more but catch grammatical errors, repeated words, misspellings... very basic things.  This author told me that the free version of Grammarly is very good at this.  But that if I were to use the premium version, which is $30 month to month, there would be the risk of the document coming across as "enhanced" by AI.  So I'm choosing to be content with basic Grammarly.

So, that's what I'm doing to my manuscript right now.  I'm running it through Grammarly... one chapter at a time.  And there are a lot of chapters to process.  But it's making a difference.  And I'm catching a bunch of places that could use improvement.  It might be another week before they're all finished in this part of production.  And then I'll go over the manuscript with a fine eye and whatever else.  And then... then... maybe, finally putting this together for publication.  It's going to be a positivalutely MASSIVE Word document.  The biggest I've ever worked with.  Going to have to learn how it's formatted for publishing.

A lot more still to tend to.  But over the course of this past year and a half of dedicated work a lot has been done.  This project has come a very long way and I'm letting myself feel accomplished.  The finish line is almost in sight.  Just a few more things to fall into place and my first book will be out in the wild.  A friend remarked a few days ago that it's a sign that you've really arrived when you have written a book.  This will indeed be a fine feather in my cap.

Oh, by the way, this book will have its own ISBN number.  I'm going all out.

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Book Report: My challenge to myself

The search for a literary agent continues.  But I'm afraid that I really might have written something that cannot be represented as most other books can.  I've said it a few times already: the book I 've written may be too liturgical for a secular audience, and too worldly for more religious readers.  There are a lot of elements in it that would fit in something found on the shelves of the average Christian bookstore.  But there are also a lot of things within its pages that would absolutely disqualify it from that kind of retail market.  For an agent to pick it up for representation would be a risk.  I can understand that.

Dad was the one who most believed in this book.  A lot of people have told me that they wanted me to write my story.  But Dad especially.  I wrote this in his memory, more than for others.  Well, I may have written it for my dog also.  Tammy doesn't come into the book until a bit later, but she has definitely inspired and encouraged me to stay the course.

So I'm considering other options for getting my book out.  I believe in it.  It's going to find an audience.  It doesn't necessarily have to get to them through traditional publishing.  But there have been other books that have seen distribution outside the normal channels, and they have gone on to great things (The Martian by Andy Weir and Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown come to mind).  Who knows, maybe mine will find a little bit of success too.

Well, I've written a book.  It's now well past the first draft that  I completed the week before this past Thanksgiving.  It's not going to get out there just sitting on my iPad Pro.  Some initiative on my part is called for...

Here is the goal I have set for myself.  It's going to be hard, it certainly won't be as easy as many if not most people think it might be.  I'm going to have to learn quite a bit about proper formatting.  But this is what I'm setting out to accomplish.  I'm going to aim to have my book on sale on Amazon by the end of the year.  Maybe even by the one year anniversary of the first draft's completion.  New Year's 2026 is going to find my autobiography available on Kindle tablets and apps, as well as printed form in softcover and hardback.  Which would include a proper jacket, and I've some ideas about what I want that to look like (the photo of Tammy and me on the beach in San Diego on Thanksgiving Day 2016 would be great for the back cover).

Between then and now is some editing and proofreading (trusted friends have been doing some of that), as well as legal counseling.  There are things in this book that I need to be really careful about.  A lot of people get mentioned in my book and I have to do right by each of them.  I like to think that they will be honored.  This is my chance to give them credit where it's due.  And also to do my best to make up for some things that I regret.  As I've said in the proposal that I've been sending out, one of the things that my book is, is an act of penance.  Maybe that will be made clear if it comes out.

Hey who knows.  It might even be ready for the holiday season!  THAT would be pretty neat, to give out my book as Christmas and Hanukkah presents.  Hey, sometimes Dad would make knives to give to friends and family for Christmas gifts.  I would be following in his stead.

That is my plan.  To have the book available for purchase by the new year.  We'll see if I can pull it off.

I've shared this before recently.  It is a picture I came upon the other week.  It's from the Codex Manesse, a German illuminated text dating to 1304 A.D.  This image is perfect for the cover of my book.  It says so much, without giving anything away at all.  I've already got a draft of the cover, just needs a bit of fine tuning.

When you see this picture on the front of a book, you will know that I've succeeded.

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Book Update: I am in LOVE with this picture

I'm starting to wonder if the most realistic route to getting my book out there might be publishing on Amazon.  It's not really self-publishing, it's pretty much like traditional publishing in many ways.  As much as I would love to see my book on the store shelves that may not be possible right out of the gate.  Going through Amazon would let me keep the rights to my work, it gets released, and maybe it will sell well enough that a proper publishing house will want to buy it.

I've noted before, that this book is probably too Christian for the secular market and it's much too secular for Christian audiences.  Maybe this gets to be something that breaks new ground for other books that can't be readily defined.  Which would be a great honor if that happens.

So yesterday afternoon I had some time on my hands and I decided to work on a cover for my book, if it goes to Amazon first.  I went looking for pictures depicting men of chivalry.  My first resource to investigate was a website that hosts a big image of the Bayeux Tapestry.  For an hour I looked all over that thing and found nothing that really jibed with what I had in mind.

About 45 minutes later though I came upon this pic.  It's from the Codex Manesse and dates back to the very early 1300s:

It's perfect.  It absolutely fits with the themes of my book.  It's very beautiful too.  I honestly can't believe that I came across this image.  I could have been looking forever and not found an adequate pic for the cover.  But this one absolutely fits with what I have written.

It will make even more sense when the title is revealed.  I'm still not ready to reveal that.  It's not time for it.  But I can't but think that the time for that is drawing closer.

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Book status report for June 2025: Proposal, agents, subtitle

This was supposed to be a weekly feature.  That notion has obviously fallen by the wayside.  But many of y'all have asked how is the book coming along.  So here's an update...

The manuscript is in as good a shape as it's likely to be, barring someone with a better mind than mine for this kind of thing going over it and marking places where it can be improved upon.  I'm looking forward to working with such a person.  Writing this book has been a process that is germinating enormous growth of mind and spirit within me.  I'm eager to experience what else might be coming along in that regard.

The search for an agent has been erratic, I must admit.  This also has been a growth experience.  In looking over the query letters I've sent out across the past several months, I can tell that there has been drastic improvement.  There's a lot of confidence that has been built up about this project.  The other week I shared what a friend had to say about the subject of humbleness.  I've been called humble before but I wonder if I've had too much of that.  My queries are reflecting much more boldness now, and that's been building up for awhile already.  I believe that I have written a heck of a book, and I believe that somewhere out there is someone who is going to take notice.  My looking for an agent has been re-invigorated.  I harbor no delusions: this part of the process is tough.  And my project was already going to be a hard sell before I ever set my hands on the keyboard.  But I believe in it.  The people who have been reading along the way believe in it, and they have been very honest and forthcoming in their judgements about it.  And now?  Now... there is a manuscript as mighty as any that has come along for a memoir.  So I'm going to keep sending out those queries and be praying that something will result from that.

One thing that has really gotten better is the nonfiction proposal.  That's a formal document that the author uses to present his or her project to the agents and publishers.  It's a business plan for the the book: who its audience is intended to be, what titles are comparable to it, a summary of its contents, a biography of the author... anything that can be done in the space of fifty pages to pitch and sell what the writer is presenting.  My first attempts at writing a proposal were, well... bad.  For much of March and April I spent some time studying proposals that others had put together.  Then I started fresh and worked on and off for a month and a half.  And now, I think I've assembled a pretty solid proposal.  People who've seen it have said they are impressed by it.  So I've started sending that out to agents who ask to see a proposal.

Here are a couple of pages of the summaries from my book's proposal (click to enlarge):

Okay, now finally: a lot of people keep asking me what the title of the book is.  Apart from the agents I've been querying with, less than ten individuals know the title.  It's something I'm keeping close to the vest for now.  There should be some mysteries in life, yes?  It's had a title for a year and a half now and I believe it's a beautiful title.  A team of wild horses couldn't tear it out of me though.  But I am looking forward to sharing it with the world in due time.

What I can share though is the subtitle.  It took awhile to settle on one.  But I believe it has at last presented itself.  Although it seems too easy in retrospect.  It doesn't really portend much more than has already been known: that this is a memoir about someone who is very much a child of the Eighties (a decade that gets a chapter all its own).  I think that right now I can tease y'all a bit.

So here is the subtitle: "A Generation-Xer's Quest Through Life".

It says what it means.  It means what it says.  It might still change though.  But that's the subtitle that's going out on all the queries right now.  It's as good as anything I suppose.

And that's pretty much all for now.

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Book status for early February 2025

It's been over a month and a half or so since I've posted an update about the manuscript I spent a decade of on and off work on, that I finished writing a few days before Thanksgiving.  As with a lot of other things in my life since I began this blog, some chronicling is in order.  Because this site is all about documenting the human condition and also for sake of anyone who might come across it and find themselves likewise wanting to write a book.

I guess the biggest thing (pun intended, maybe) is that it's occurred to me that I have not written a memoir, but a full-size autobiography.  Or perhaps it's two or three memoirs bound up cohesively with one another.  A memoir is supposed to be a personal reflection about just a few or even only one situation in a person's life.  That is not what my book is and I don't honestly know if what it became could have really been avoided.  My life today is the product of fifty years of many bad things as well as quite a few good things, and that is a tapestry from which removing even a few threads diminishes and even destroys the work entire.  I could have written an entire book about the swindling operation episode, or made it about pop culture as seen through the eyes of someone who was at the cutting edge of fan-driven Internet activity, or a how-to manual about running for public office.  My life has enveloped all of those things and so many more.

This may make pitching the book to a potential agent considerably more difficult.  Autobiographies by people who aren't established celebrities can be a tough thing to sell, no matter how colorful their lives may have been.

Then there is the lingering issue with the inherent nature of the book.  I may have written something that per the marketplace is nigh on unpublishable.  It's too Christian for strictly secular audiences and it's too secular for more spiritual readers.  One example: there is a point later in the book where I drive to a cemetery to conduct a ritual at the stroke of midnight.  What sensible Christians are going to approve of my doing such a thing as that?  And it may rub others the wrong way, also.

Other than those matters, I've been editing and revising and shifting elements around.  I've also been letting a few trusted friends read parts of it.  Recently I shared the prelude, which is an account of my first attempt at suicide.  Many told me that it was especially powerful and that it drew them in to wanting to read more.  I guess it's nice that something good came out of that experience after all.  I just don't ever want to be in that kind of place again.

I'm not giving up on my dream of seeing this on a store's shelf.  Dad believed in me and so have a lot of other people who have asked for a book about my life all these many years.  But I'm also having to accept the reality that this is going to perhaps be more difficult to bring to market than most other books are.  And I'm discovering that it is a hard thing indeed.

Perhaps next time I'll be able to post something more upbeat.

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What's up with my book's manuscript the past few weeks

Still doing editing and revisions.  But I'm comfortable enough with the first several chapters that I'm including them in some of the queries I've started sending out.  This is the next step in the life of a new book: looking for someone to represent it to a publisher.  I could self-publish, and there are a variety of ways to do that.  But ever since Dad especially told me that I should write a book about my life, my dream has been to see it sitting on a real "brick and mortar" bookstore's shelves.

So, I'm looking for an agent.  And that isn't going to be easy.  But it's part and parcel to the process of seeing any book get traditional publishing.  And really, would I want it to be any different?  This entire thing has been something to grow and develop from.  It took a lot to finally commit to finishing ten-some years of on and off work, and that's what I did between August and November.  I've grown from the journey already and now it's time to grow with the next part of it.

I'm discovering that querying for a fiction book and then for a nonfiction book are two entirely different matters entirely.  An agent looking for fiction usually requires the first few chapters to look over and grab their attention, along with a query letter describing what the book is about.  Someone looking for nonfiction like a memoir wants to see a proposal: a document describing the book, a short biography, qualifications for writing the work, how and where it would fit in the competitive book marketplace, and maybe the first ten or so pages if the manuscript is complete.  Which for nonfiction doesn't have to be 100% complete, but it helps.  My manuscript is like 95% finished.  All that's required is for me to make a short trip out of state to fulfill a "secret mission" and it will be all done.  With the vast bulk of it written I've decided to go ahead and start querying.

I'm also discovering that agents looking for nonfiction works have wildly different requirements for the proposal.  Some are fine with the proposal being five to ten pages.  Others call for fifty, and that includes summaries of each chapter.  Which would be a challenge for my book.  There is a point in it where the chapters come very fast and hard.  It's how I'm depicting having manic depression at its worst, from the period of 2004 through 2010 or so.  It's a lot to cover and I did my best to keep the manuscript well within the suggested word count for a memoir by a first-time author.  But it has to be this way.  The driving philosophy of this has been to show mental illness with as much brutal honesty as is possible.  In that regard I believe that it succeeds.

This may be the last of the weekly-or-so book statuses that I post for awhile.  There isn't really much more to report, other than that I'm sending out query letters.  I'm only making this report to keep my readers informed about what I'm learning about the book publishing process, from the start on through its hoped-for conclusion as a real volume for sale at your friendly local book store or an online retailer.  Maybe as what happened when I ran for office, my sharing about this will encourage others to begin to write their own books.  If I have helped motivate others to hopefully finish and publish their work, I would really be honored to know that.

And when I know more, if it is wise, I'll have more to share in the fullness of time.

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This week's book status

I need to start referring to it more as my "manuscript."  It's not a full-blown book until it's got a few hundred pages nicely bound together with a beautiful cover, and maybe a dust jacket if it's a hardcover.  Perhaps there will be a photo on the inside back cover.  Maybe a pic of Tammy and me.

That is still awhile ahead of us.

Since completing the manuscript nine days ago I've been doing some revisioning.  Right now I'm looking at part three, which is about my years at Elon.  It's now striking me that the depiction of that is a foreshadowing of the greater drama to come.  The bad things but also the great good.

(I'm coming to realize what the book's moment of climax is.  It's three words.  And I'm looking forward to the person it pertains to discovering it.)

I'm going over it all, seeing what things can be improved upon, where the prose can use some tightening.  I'm not sure at what point this escalates away from being "first draft" but it's definitely got forward momentum behind it.

Meanwhile, I'm writing other stuff too.  The last several weeks of finishing the manuscript thrust me "into the zone" and I want to make the most of that however long it lasts.  Which I hope will be for awhile.

Maybe I'll commit to posting more to this blog.  I feel like a neglectful parent to it sometimes, and that's not right.

More next week!

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Book Status: MANUSCRIPT FINISHED!

 It's time to celebrate!!

A little less than an hour ago I finished the draft of the manuscript of my memoir.  So very thrilled!  I had wanted to have this done by Thanksgiving and I beat it be a week and a half.

It is packed.  Pretty much every moderate to major event of my life, from birth to where I am today: An artificial intelligence trainer, op-ed writer, and crisis line counselor.

The next to last chapter, I'm particularly fond of that one.  It's a "where are they now?" of most of the characters who appear.  And there are PLENTY.  I'm turning a lot of people who have been in my life into literary characters.

What happens now?  I take a break for a week or so.  And then I'll return to the manuscript with refreshed eyes, no doubt making edits and revisions (I made one earlier today, of the beginning of the chapter about my wedding, that is much nicer than it had been).

I'm also going to let a few friends, sworn to secrecy, read parts of it.  I've already shared some chapters with them.  They have each responded that these chapters are everything from "powerful" to "raw and visceral".

And then, well... we'll see.

But in the meantime, it's really happened!  At long last I have written a book.  I've got a really positive feeling about this.

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Book status for week of November 11th

Five chapters written this past week.  And three of those were written on Thursday.  Also, a chapter that I wrote over ten years ago now has a home in the manuscript.

The draft has now reached the 100,000 words mark.  As things stand now it's looking like it will all fit within 150,000 words, which is the goal.

At the rate this is going the entire first draft will be done by Thanksgiving.

It's been a lot of effort, but it really is quite something to see this all come together.  I'm soon going to have "written a full length book" notched on my belt. Maybe if this gets published that will give me street cred enough to sell my children's book too :-) 

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Six new chapters to report this week

Since last time I did a status report on how my book is coming along there have been six chapters added to the manuscript.

It is also nearly 100,000 words in size.

I've been trying to write something since yesterday but I'm having difficulty.  Maybe I've been pushing myself too hard?  Perhaps I need to take a break.  Spend some time in nature, play with my dog, read a good book.

Well, what I composed in the past week is good stuff.  Some comedic material also.  There is an entire chapter devoted to the delusions I had about my hair: one of the rationales I had for going off the meds.  Which ended in disaster.  It's funny and also not funny, if you know what I mean.

As things look right now, I may have the draft of the entire book finished by Thanksgiving.

And then I'll go back over it and edit and revise and add and delete stuff.  After that, well... we will see what we shall see.

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Weekly book status: Wow!

Want to know a secret?  I haven't showered in thirteen days!  I've been that determined to work on this project.  If I haven't been sleeping or job or eating or taking care of and playing with Tammy, I've been writing.

I look terrible.  I've dry-shaved every few days.  That and brushing my teeth have for the most part been my only hygiene.

But what has come out of that has been amazing.

Twelve chapters written this past week!  But it must be emphasized that these were smaller chapters than most of what have been composed so far.  Still, I'm very happy with the progress made.

I'm still writing this book out of sequence.  But as of yesterday my life from birth up to winter of 2002 has been chronicled as thoroughly as is feasible for a project like this.  And I've also got 2016 on through the present day written about.

Also, the book is split into eight parts.  Other than a few chapters still needed for the one about my college years, and the very last chapters, there's only one part left to be written.  All the others are complete.

I'm striving to keep the manuscript within 150,000 words.  As of last night it's at 90,000 written.  Sixty thousand remaining to use on one part sounds like a lot, but this part, titled "Years of Heaven, Years of Hell" is absolutely the biggest of them.  Sooooo much happened in this period.  It's going to be tough to pack it all in.  I think the episode involving the newspaper may be two chapters.

I'm not making myself out to be a saint in writing this.  I'm already coming across as a very horrible person.  But that's just the truth of it all.  I'm only writing about what happened, and trying to be as honest and forthcoming as I can be.

No writing today.  I'm taking a break.  And there is my "real life job" that must be tended to also.  But I think I've earned a day's rest, after writing most during most of my free time for the past two weeks.

Okay, me go shower now.  And play with the dog.  She's earned a new toy for putting up with me as she has.

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Book Progress Report: Five new chapters and a home for the very first

A little over two years ago I wrote the first chapter of what was going to be the book I had always intended to write.  It's not one that the reader is supposed to find early on in the tome.  It's actually a chapter that comes in quite late into the book.

For various reasons I needed to write that one first.  It more or less establishes the tone of the work still to come.

As of a few days ago that first chapter written now has its place in the manuscript as a whole.  I didn't have to change a thing to it.  It just slid right into place without any mess at all.

It joins five chapters that I've been able to finish the first drafts of since a week ago today.

So far, it's gone well. I've consistently been composing chapters, around five a week. There have been three significant events in my life that I've been able to reach down deep and write about. I dare not say I'm feeling proud of myself but there is a sense of some accomplishment.

But this, all of this, is still just tip-toeing across the minefield.

 

There is something massive that I haven't come close to beginning to address, in this book. It's about the very worst place that I found myself in because of manic depression. All the grief and pain and worst, that *I* was causing even more horrible things to the people I cared most about.

 

I feel like a coward. How I've been able to work on a little of everything else so far. Except for that.

 

For the past few months I've been doing the best work on this project that I've been able to have since Dad first told me he wanted me to write a book. I'm grateful to have found myself in such a groove. After a very long period of being stuck, there has been a LOT of movement forward.

 

But really, so far I've been doing nothing but pulling rabbits out of my hat.

 

Now it's well past time that I be able to pull out an alligator.

 

 

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