Well, dear readers, I have finished a book. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, have finished my twelfth book. Once I’d had the epiphany I realized I could probably finish it yesterday. I didn’t get up until ten-thirty, but once up I finessed the previous days whopping thirty-something pages. Based on the epiphany, I rewrote, I excised, I added, I moved stuff around and all that took almost two hours. I then began writing new pages and I did not take a break until the family Hollis arrived to go have dinner, which was at five. It took me a while to get into the rhythm that I wanted the last chapter to have, but once I found it, as always happens, the book began writing me. This entire book has just poured out of me like water from a tap. Once I started, I just wanted to get this story down as quickly as possible, before it became a jumble in my head. I have never worked this hard or written this many pages so fast. That said, I didn’t write them sloppily and I did my usual daily finessing, never ever moving on until I was happy with the previous day’s pages. The difference with this book was that I basically became a hermit and did nothing else, save for the first Kritzerland show. I did not talk to people as much as I usually do, I let e-mails slide, and I really only left the home environment to eat and go to the mail place and do occasional bill paying and banking. Also, it’s just easier to write a memoir more quickly than fiction – the story has already happened and one isn’t creating scenes and characters. And I’d already been down the memoir road once before so I knew how to write it.
In any case, I had a big note writ large next to my computer, which I’d written last night after the epiphany. It’s still there – it says: “This is a positive story, about survival, positivity, and rebirth! DON’T FORGET IT!”
And I didn’t. Anytime I found myself getting whiny or negative I immediately stopped and rewrote. I never lost sight of my note writ large. I covered three years in twenty-two pages, just touching on things that were important and a few times going into some details about certain things that needed it. And literally as the family Hollis was walking up to my front door, I wrote the final line of the last chapter and clicked “save.”
We then went to Mo’s and had a lovelier than lovely dinner. Then I came home and still had the outroduction to write. That took me another ninety minutes and I got to the end of it, needing my last line, and I struggled with that for about thirty minutes. I kind of knew what I wanted it to be but could not figure out how to phrase it right – I needed it to give me the goose bump factor. It finally came to me, I wrote it, and realized I’d just written 523 manuscript pages in three weeks. I got emotional, as I always do, and let that happen, as I must.
Then I got an e-mail from David Levy, my former partner at a record label. Earlier, I’d sent him all the pages pertaining to that label – not from the very beginning, from the formation, but from the time we actually went live. He read them and told me he thought they were great. He had a couple of pages of notes. I had several timelines wrong, but because the book is modular all I had to do was cut and paste and everything got to its proper place and actually made much more sense in the correct order. He also had a few details that he remembered that I hadn’t and I added most of those because they were short and added texture to the storytelling. He asked why I hadn’t mentioned any of the reissues we’d done and I’d actually meant to talk about them, but never found the place that wouldn’t slow down the story at a critical point. I went back and tried to find a place to drop it in, but there wasn’t any, and it’s just not that important in the scheme of things. That was the case with a couple of other tiny details – they just weren’t germane enough to stop for. But the stuff that got added was really good – I’d forgotten to put in about my not doing the mix on the Sherman Brother album, and that’s a great story and I did it in one short paragraph. All of the little additions did not even add a page to the book.
I went to my CD closet to check one final detail on the Sherman Brothers album and I happened to see Christiane Noll’s Ira Gershwin CD – I’d completely forgotten to mention it. I added it – just two lines and I was done.
I literally could not move except to get myself to the couch so I could sit like so much fish. I watched the beginnings of several things I’d TIVOd and then it was time to write these here notes. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I am spent and need as much beauty sleep as I can get.
Today, I shall be up at nine sharp. I shall finesse the pages I wrote yesterday, then I shall print out the 232 pages that muse Margaret hasn’t seen, then I’ll get them Xeroxed and to her by eleven. With that many pages I’m sure it will take her a day or two to get through them. I’m really hoping she likes them. I had her in my head all during this last third of the book so I hope I’ve avoided some of the traps I occasionally fall into. After that, I’ll eat something light but amusing, hopefully pick up some packages, and then I have a rehearsal with the New York singer and Lanny. Oh, and the piano is getting tuned at noon.
Tomorrow, I shall begin jogging again. Then I’ll assign songs and get people their CD and music – we’re really behind on this one, but we’re now fully cast. Then I have another rehearsal with the New York singer. Wednesday is another rehearsal and so is Thursday. Then Friday is our first Kritzerland rehearsal. So, a nice busy week. And then I think we’ll be announcing two Kritzerland titles.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, finesse, print, Xerox, get pages to muse Margaret, have a piano tuned, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and have a rehearsal. Today’s topic of discussion: What single thing has been the most rewarding thing you’ve ever done in your life thus far? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, having made a book where there never was a book.