But Hey --- Since I'm "Here" (Illustrated!)

By the way: book update: The copyedits happened last month. Dealing with copyedits is my least favorite part of the production process, so I was glad to get that over.

Last week, I proofread the galley (what was my typed manuscript now formatted and laid out as it will appear in "print" with the fonts, the spacing, the page numbers, etc.) (NB: the images you see here include some technical, page-setting stuff that will NOT appear in the final book.)

Proofreading involves reading the entire manuscript, word by word, out loud, starting with the last word in the manuscript. (Because reading it from start to finish means the text makes sense and thus it's too easy to read quickly and miss a typo).

This week is my favorite part of the production process: creating the index. For reasons that aren't clear to me, I'm a superb indexer. That's not a boast. Rather, it's a statement of weird, weird fact about me. Ask any writer of books and odds are that he/she will shudder at the idea of creating an index.

Not me. There's something about the process that I find satisfying and challenging and immensely creative. What can I say? I'm a sick twisted soul.

This part of the process is very much deadline-driven. Stuff MUST be completely on schedule. MUST. BE. So I've had my head down.

Once I send the index back to the production editor (most likely next Monday, July 15), I won't see my baby again until the UPS guy pulls up to my house in late September, early October with a box full of books. So this is it: The end of a seven-year process.

And yes, it ends not with a bang but a whimper. Of relief and a certain amount of sadness. BUT: I've got this idea in my head, one that's been rolling around in there for about a year and so on Monday after I hit "send," I'll be thinking about my next project.

It's something about . . . yoga and alternative technology and capitalism and craft beer and the 1970s and 1980s . . .  well, something like that . . . . We shall see!