These are the days of our lives. Today I reached the 100% submission milestone on one of the most difficult writing projects of my life. I kept getting “nearly” done and then I’d be stuck again rolling a rock up a hill. This last piece, an appendix, took me at least three or four weeks more than it should of. Some of these deadlines were originally set for March!
I still have to review galleys for a bunch of chapters, and replace some illustrations now that the software the book is about has stabilized. Plus, there are endless postponed responsibilities that will come flooding into the open space, as well as long-neglected other writing projects, email that needs answering, stuff I meant to post about in this or that weblog that has probably already expired conceptually, an IRS audit for my 2001 tax returns (I think I didn’t issue all the 1099s I needed to for my subcontractors, so I’m hoping one that’s resolved there will be no other problems, but still who wants to go through that?!), a few consulting projects that seem like they might be about to start, some political activism I’ve been meaning to do, the cleaning up of my own web properties and some half-completed personal content-management projects, and oh the list goes on and on.
But right now I get to feel good about (finally) hitting that 100% mark. Plus it means they owe me my final advance check, and I can stop walking around with that guilty look on my face.
One thing I’ve learned is that if it’s going to be geeky technical stuff or web-related, I’d rather be consulting or training or teaching a class – there’s more human interaction and frankly it pays better than your typical technical book deal. I’d like to reserve my pure writing efforts, and especially any monumental book-length ordeals, to more humane topics, matters that engage a more full range of my senses and sensibilities.
