Done

Jan. 31st, 2002 03:54 pm
prog: (Default)
OK, just glarmfed in all the changes I've made throughout the Book over the last month, and declared that to be The Second Draft, Dammit. Erik is now busily prepping it for production. This gives him no additional stress, since this is what he does all day long with other books, anyway.

Last night I went out for coffee at 10:00 pm after declaring to Carla that I was going to pull an all-nighter. Upon my return, I messed around on the Net for four hours and then went to bed.

(Truth: I don't think caffeine has any appreciable effect on me after a certain point in my daily cycle. But that's not really the point of this story.)

I have done all I can with this thing for now. It will be a good book, and yet I take frustration from the fact that it won't be mine, not really. It's half-or-more Erik's words, in the end, and it's not on a topic I feel really impassioned about. I'm too tired to be proud of it yet.

Maybe tomorrow.

For now, hum. I should go watch a movie or something. On second thought, it's too cruddy out. Movie tomorrow. I go to Micro Center again and buy extremely time-wasting game. Mm: and tell Arcus that I'm ready to work again. $$$.


My entire opinion of the Superbowl thingy:

While walking around outside and thinking about stuff, I realized that the Rams' helmet design, with the stylized spiral on either side, suggests that the players' heads are actually horned, as per their team's eponymous animal. I find that kind of neat, and shows a level of subtle totemic identification that I haven't seen elsewhere in professional sports.

Book Happy

Jan. 15th, 2002 02:42 pm
prog: (Default)
Updates with The Book:

Yet another thing I did last Friday involved mailing thank-you notes to all the book's tech reviewers, since I wouldn't get a chance to study their critiques in-depth for several more days. One of them wrote back to make sure I knew that, even though he wrote a long critique (I think it may have been the longest), he still found the book a winning introduction to the topic. Bonus points come from the fact that this particular person was the fellow from whom we stole the book's authoring priveleges.

Then yesterday Tim stopped Erik in the hall to tell him that he gave the book a once-over and thought it was great. !! This has significance on a practical level, since books are receiving a lot more scrutiny in the latter stages of their respective pipelines -- bad economy means less willingness to spend money printing a book that isn't a sure win. Though it's always been a contractual option, only recently have books been under real threat of getting killed right when they're about to go out the door -- it happened for the first time, I think, right when I left the company in October. So, apparently ours officially fails to suck enough to trip this switch.

Needless to say, I am now entirely optimistic and charged about the project, and fairly certain I will remain so through the end of the month, when the magic To-Production date passes.

Even though the cover design's been known for months, I finally started showing it off to Internet friends en masse yesterday. The reaction made me puff up and also step back, as I explained severally that, no, it's not on the shelves yet. Now I am pondering my original notion of hyping it up a little bit on my own website. I think what I'll do is hold off until the second draft is done... that's only two more weeks. Letting hype and reality fall out of synch on any level is something best avoided.

But, as a special to my bloggy friends: lookit.
prog: (coffee_tummy)
Linda expressed optimism at today's meeting. Apparently, some books actually do get a big "Don't publish this!!" stamp on them from the tech review process; ours didn't. This is a good thing. All the reviewers agreed that one particular section needs a complete rewrite, but most everything beyond that is tweaks, suggestions regarding shifts of focus. I am not going to read these reviews in detail until I've read the first draft cover-to-cover myself, which I started to do last weekend. Cuppa coffee, a big stack of paper with wide margins, and a ballpoint. Yessa.

Erik and I might have switched places to some degree... after taking responsibility for most of the words in the first draft, he's now totally entangled in other stuff, at work and elsewhere. I, on the other hand, have plenty of time (I've even asked Arcus not to send me work for the time being) and, hmm, a variable level of optimism for the project. It flags quickly, and recharges just as quickly when I talk to someone about it, or even just get in a good working mode.

Now I will head to the Diesel and hope that there is a place to sit. If so, I will work for a while, and then the first meeting of the Zendonuts will come to order. I wonder what will happen!!!

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