Thank
you to the many of you who've asked. Wanna hear a super-condensed story?:
Before
we headed off for our London/Amsterdam vacation, I made sure that any pending
book edit was done, sent, not in the back of my mind, and the publisher wasn't
expecting anything from me. As I stepped on the plane, I got the news that
we're going to print. In my daydreams, I'd be returning to a different life,
with all different kinds of new opportunities, positivities,
book sales, and shangri-la.
Five
days in, I get the following e-mail (highly, seriously, magnificently shortened
version):
Pub:
"Printed; problem."
Me:
"!"
Pub:
"...how you put the manuscript together doesn't render...yada yada
yada...stand behind product...blah blah blah...need you to redo...yakkety-yak...do
it like so, this plug-in, that emoji keyboard, this font, this size...something
something
something...need in 10 days lechatichila, 11 bidieved."
Me:
"?"
Pub:
"Hello?"
Me:
"Na'aseh v'nishma."
But I
was overseas, and had zero access to all these doodads on any device available.
I had to wait until I was home, and had 7 days left, to begin testing.
Once
home, it took a day to organize with the graphic desinger how this was all supposed to be done.
6
days left.
I
spent nearly every waking minute editing, recreating the entire manuscript,
from scratch, emoji by emoji, with a set that had 1,500 fewer characters than
the original set, forcing me to be re-creative, which takes up a lot of
head-room.
I
lost a full day because I couldn't get a heter to be mechallel Shabbos.
I
spent 6 hours Motzei
Shabbos doing nothing but.
Shluffy:
1:15 AM.
Wakey:
6:15 AM. Got right to work, not stopping (save for a 40-minute break at 11 AM
to daven/shower/breakfast/coffee
and a 10-minute break at 2 PM to fix some lunch) until 7:15 PM, having
completely recreated - in 6 days, ahead of lechatichila
deadline - what had taken me two years to compile.
I
then was finally able to watch the Super Bowl. I jumped in when it was 0-0 with
7:59 left in the 2nd. I heard the commercials sucked anyway.
My
wife, God bless her, accommodated me in a million different ways, and created
the space for me to put in this 13 hours of work. Thank you, Naomi.
Now I
have, multiple times, run for 12 hours straight, but I have to put this feat of
endurance up there alongside those. It's not the same physically, but I say
it's the same mentally. You just gotta keep going, especially if you want
something badly.
So
*now* we're going to print, and here's my new cover! Coming to a book store
near you!
