Booking it to the Finish Line

To my delight–not to mention the delight of my family, colleagues, and publisher–I’m almost done with the book!

I went into this project suspecting that book writing wouldn’t be quite like blogging, and that suspicion is now a certainty. I know that the manuscript is short by book standards (not quite 100 pages), and that a few months of writing while holding down a day job is a walk in the park compared to what I’ve heard from bona fide writers.

Nonetheless, I haven’t written anything of this size since my dissertation, and the tempo is quite different from the instant gratification of blogging. Moreover, I quickly realized couldn’t lazily cite Wikipedia whenever I’d needed a source–though I must say that Wikipedia was a very good friend to me over the last few months, often performing the thankless task of guiding me to primary source material.

I’m not quite done, and here is where you come in–if you’re interested in joining me for the tail end of this marathon. While I am lucky to have Candy Schwartz professionally reviewing my draft, I would certainly appreciate any volunteer efforts. I discussed this with my publisher, and she laid down the ground rules:

• All suggestions due by Monday, April 27. (Amazon and Barnes & Noble are already promising a June 15th publication date!)
• No circulating the draft–and of course no putting it on the open web. Please be considerate to both me and the publisher.

If you’re interested and undaunted by the schedule, please let me know as soon as possible (through comments / Twitter / email), and I’ll send you a copy of the draft. Meanwhile, you can be sure I’ll post updates here at The Noisy Channel.