8:06 p.m. - December 11, 2002
Get over it, he says
The book is coming along well if I don't count the days left until the deadline. Or the hours. Or the minutes. Today on the train I tallied exactly how long I have until the book is complete and due on Barbara-the-Editor's desk. Folks, it wasn't a comforting sum, motivating me to count hours and then minutes. There aren't even that many minutes between now and then, and the train ride ended before I could compute seconds. Understandably I'm feeling anxious; but strangely, rather positive. I am caught up in the momentum and it will carry me to the finish line.
Teleconference tomorrow with Barbara-the-Editor and she will tell me about more deadlines, marketing, and money. The teacher's guide must be completed around April 2003; I must approve or deride the biography the company will post on the web site; and must also decide how I want the royalties to be handled. I'm uneasy about the web site; right now it's bare bones (Shannon, we should talk about this) but the specs faxed to me last week intimidate me in the scope planned. They want to post units, develop a topic place for me to pontificate and play expert, outline the other books, capture the market. I'm okay with all that except for the privacy thing; I'm big on my privacy and it's a matter of time (or more accurately, it's a matter of how popular the books are) before I become one of those public figures. Earlier, I nixed the request to put an author's photo on the book, a topic Barbara will likely resurrect; with the biography, I feel weird about having my trumpet blown. Wait, is that right? (Damn, when I want to use a cliche I can't remember it!) Ideally, the book would be published under a pen name but unlike poetry, the textbook market frowns on this and even better would be its release to the public while I hide, and then when the (universal) acclaim thunders, meekly raise my head and say Lo! I am he! and bask.... The key word to this mini-fantasy was ideal. Keep that in mind.
Silliness over.
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I mailed a gift to Spec today, something I had bought a long time ago and didn't give him. This bothers me as I'm uncertain of my reasoning, motivation, and whichever weakness it is that engenders doing stupid things like this. I confess that I miss him. I won't acknowledge that I think of him more often than I'll admit.
When will this end?
