Well, dear readers, you won’t believe it. I could barely believe it myself and yet I must believe it because it is true. Last night I finished writing Kritzer 3. I still have a tiny bit of cleaning and adding to do, but the book is basically finished and I feel both elation and depression in equal doses. Writing these books I’ve traversed a rather large emotional terrain – but with the first and second book I knew that I’d get to start a new one soon after I’d finished. But with Kritzer 3 it’s the end of this particular saga. Writing the last 100 pages was very difficult emotionally, knowing I was coming to the end of what has been an incredible journey for me. I was a basket case all last week and I’m afraid I was not a lot of fun to be around. I finished the book proper on the weekend and then did the Epilogue over the last three days. After I do the few cleanups and additions I shall take a week or two away from it, then I’ll begin the arduous task of doing corrections and fixes with my most excellent editors. Because this book is two hundred pages longer than Kritzerland (and two hundred and seventy-five pages longer than Benjamin Kritzer) this process will probably take two months. Still, when you think about it, I wrote thefirst book in eight months and the second book in seven, I find it rather unbelievable that I did this one in six months and one week. Part of it is that unlike the first two books I wrote practically every day, never taking any time off or letting weeks go by. Even the last seven weeks while I’ve been working I’ve written every single day on my lunch hour or at some point during the day. I’ve averaged twenty-five pages a week since I first began the book. Whew! My friend Margaret has really been wonderful – kept me going when I would get insecure (it’s happened on each of the books and she’s been there every step of the way), keeping me focused, being supportive and thankfully loving everything she read – plus offering great suggestions all along the way. Apparently I did okay on the final one hundred pages because her reaction to them was everything I could have hoped for and then some. She’ll be getting the Epilogue in the next day or two and as long as she likes it and thinks it works, I’m done. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
I think they finally like and appreciate me at work. This week the tone has been one hundred percent different. I think one of the reasons is because the network has had so few notes on the first two shows, which has never happened before in the history of this particular show. So, I’m probably here until this show is wrapped up, most likely the end of October/early November. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button because these here notes have too much me in them. These here notes are just brimming with me and I feel that in the next section they should be brimming with something other than me. I feel these here notes are chockful of me or chockful of nuts which is, after all, the same thing.
Has anyone noticed that these here notes have been swimming with me? There shall be no more me in these here notes because frankly I’ve had it with me. From now on these here notes are going to have everything but me in them. For example, these here notes are going to have curds and whey in them, just for a change of pace. I may add a dash of minced onions to these here notes and a pinch of snuff. All right, now I’ve gone and done it. I have lost the sense of these notes. I have lost the point of these notes. I’m just being incoherent and obtuse and also oblique and abstract. I need to get back on track. I need to put some me back into these here notes. For without me in these here notes what are these here notes but words on a page. That reminds me of working with Paige O’Hara – I wrote some words on her hand and then I had words on a Paige. We don’t allow groaning here at haineshisway.com
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must work all the livelong day, I must stick to my diet, and then I must come home. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite songs of hope and inspiration? The topic is appropriate – let us offer our thoughts and prayers to those who lost their lives on a dark day two years ago.