Alaska On the Go - It Went!

The family "peaceful place," important because we do need some peace after all this.

I really, really, REALLY wanted to get the manuscript completed by the time our family hopped aboard an airplane to our former home of Port Angeles, Washington. Since the trip was vacation and not work, it was important to all of us that The Book not impede with fun, and I tried to honor that request by my husband.

As anyone who has ever written a book can tell you, a manuscript becomes an infant, needing constant care and attention to thrive, so being able to launch the words back to the Production Editor at University of Alaska Press was a welcome concept, indeed.

And so I did that via dropbox last week.

Web Guy is making maps that should provide a little bit of orientation to readers, even if they have a GPS and local tourism guide. I have photos all safely tucked away at UA Press.

The coolest part? Seeing the freelance editor adding changed files to our shared dropbox folder, knowing that he/she is creating an actual book out of words that came from my brain. My brain - MINE. The one that is so often scattered with schedules and deadlines and grocery lists and worry for bills to pay.

That's amazing.

Am I too Attached?

There it is. 

I've been staring at my laptop for several hours today, wondering if the end is near. Boxes checked on the University of Alaska Press guidlines sheet, photos and captions sent, individual chapters saved in a new folder.

Wow.

Perhaps I'm ready to send in the manuscript for the final time? I'm as apprehensive about this as I was ushering my son to kindergarten a few years ago. Am I ready? Are you ready? Is Alaska ready?

The psyche vs. intellect duel is an interesting one, and today I feel like the psyche is winning. Writers are always told to "end at the ending" and "quit dragging," but in this case the ending seems to be there, it's just my helicopter parenting of this book that's keeping me from hitting the "send" button.

But I think it might be time.

After two years, I'm sure my husband would say so.

Ready, set......

The Many-Headed Monster

Thanks Manyheadedmonster.wordpress

I like these guys. Part comfort-keeper from my childhood watching "The Muppets," part definition of how I feel, today.

Today the book looks like an algebra equation married to a term paper. My checklist requires a spell-checked MS (manuscript), saved text, in both a single document and one divided by chapters, and the heads. 

Lots and lots of heads. 

Heads, for those of you who don't know (and I didn't before I became a journalist), are the quantifiable divisions of any manuscript. Introductions, chapters, sections, and sub-sections are all heads. In the average manuscript, there are usually two or three, depending upon the subject.

A guidebook, as you can imagine, has a lot. 

So, today has been spent labeling [A], [B], [C], [D]. I'd like to add an additional one for [F]..udge. 

Read, label, count, lose count, re-read, label again; it's an exercise that appears eerily similar to math. 

I hate math. 

But I love this book. 

Perhaps this is all a ploy to keep it that way.

Building a Book!

Cute little sand angel diversion.....so little, this kid was.

I never gave much thought to the mechanics of "building" a book until I became an author. Never will I take for granted the hours of work by lots of people to create the book I reach for on a store or library shelf.

Photographs have to be viewed, sorted, discarded, sorted again, and eventually converted to TIF files with captions and [ ] and .tif and "quotes" in a very particular way before bundling them all up and sending to University of Alaska Press. The guidelines sheet sent to me by Acquisitions Editor is full of scratchy notes and little doodles I made during phone calls. I'm still trying to figure out what some terms mean, and have to break down some sections, word by word.

Maps need to be made, a huge undertaking, and the past few weeks were full of desperate emails and frantic telephone conversations with all sorts of entities before I finally wizened up and emailed my web guy who said, "Sure I can."

Once all boxes on the checklist have been crossed out, everything is shipped up to Fairbanks, where a team of freelancers works in collaboration with the production editor who ultimately becomes my touchstone concering all things draft and galley proof, and eventually, final copy of Alaska On the Go: Exploring the 49th state with children.

I haven't even touched the text itself, yet. That's the easy part.

Who would have thought that 95,000 words would be considered "easy"?


Countdown to deadline: 29 days