I’m writing this entry at about 4:30 a.m. You’ll understand why in a minute. I’m certainly overdue to check in! But, it’s not like I haven’t been doing anything though. Running a company and traveling as much as I do challenges me to keep many balls in the air at the same time. I realize the ‘blog ball’ was about to hit the ground. Here’s an update.
First off, you know by now I’m deeply involved in writing my next book which is due November 15th. I’ve very excited about it and I wish I could tell you some of the very cool things going on because of it. But I can’t just yet.
Under normal circumstances, I’d be deeply involved. I tend to throw myself completely into projects. But in this case, it wasn’t like there was a choice. This 357 page book is due in less than five weeks. If that wasn’t bad enough, remember I travel? I sure do and it’s weighing on me more than ever.
My editor (God bless him) was kind enough to break it down for me in a recent email. Here’s an excerpt:
The schedule I sent you assumes you're going to have weekends off to actually have a life, writing 8 hours a day, five days a week. But it seems to me that you may need to forget about many personal weekends off until this book is done, don't you think? But however you get it done is up to you of course. As Bill you-know-who said, "I feel your pain."
From here on out you need to write an average of about 3600-4000 words per day——and that doesn't include if you get behind or need to get ahead to make up for missed time. That's one 400- to 600-word tip per hour! For six weeks without letup. And there's not much allowance for time for any rewrites, which puts even more pressure on you for tremendous quantity of output that's right on the money, quality-wise, first draft. Whew. Talk about pressure!
REALLY??? Thanks Michael! Honestly, after recovering from my sudden heart attack, I realized I needed this email to appreciate just how precious my time is between now and then. Breaking it down into words per hour hit home hard, causing me to count time like I’ve never done so before.
So, since I’ve now spent 18 minutes and 34 seconds writing this entry, I need to wrap it up. I just cut into my words per hour deadline. The pressure just went up.
JL