I’ve finished the first draft of ‘Da Book’ and have sent it off to the publishers who will no doubt return it with lots of red marking all over it and a huge letter from the lawyers asking for a thousand and one changes.

I’m still not satisfied with it though – especially the introduction.

Oh well…

I’m also a fair bit nervous, will my publishers like it?  Will they laughingly throw it in the bin?  Will I look like a complete idiot with ideas above my station?  Who knows – the die has been cast.

My hands are now soaking in a bucket of ice and dreading the thought of a second/third/fourth draft.

Time for a little relaxation before I head off to work.

Someone (who I can’t mention on pain of death) pointed out an Amazon page to me…

Where Da Book is listed

Which means that I better finish writing it…

It’s definitely a weird feeling to see it up on a website I buy most of my books from.  I’m currently polishing the ‘final’ first draft before sending it off to the publishers so they can edit it into something approaching English.  I’m having a bit of a crisis of confidence at the moment.  Reading through my old posts I’m constantly worried that my writing skills are not good enough to be published.

One thing that leaps out when you look at a collected bunch of posts is how I seem to spend a lot of time trying to get a cup of tea, or worrying about sleep.

At one point we seriously considered subtitling the book “One man’s quest for a cup of tea”.

It’ll be finished before the end of the week, so I’ll see what my publishers have to say.  Until then I’m afraid I’m going to be neglecting this blog and email.  Maybe I’ll post something from work via my mobile phone, but unless I come across a job that I simply must write about, the next post might take until Wednesday to write.

So I shall leave you to ponder an important life lesson about ‘ass-hair’.

As Neil Gaiman just wrote…

Writing away on about three different deadlines right now, so the blogging is probably going to suffer for a week or so. (Traditionally I either follow a post like that by disappearing completely or by posting twice as much.)

I never thought I’d share anything with him, but the first draft of ‘da book’ needs to be in by the end of the month, so blogging may be a bit light for the next two weeks or so.  I’ve got some stuff to write about last nights ORG meeting, some in private emails, some of which may end up in this blog.  There also may be some scribbling over a little project I’m doing – this may however remain private.

If I get something really interesting in the next two night-shifts I’ll let you know, but I may be a little to busy to turn belly-aches into interesting posts.

The Amazon adbox (the only ad I’ll ever have) has been turned into a “what I’m reading now” box.  Do with it as thou wilt.