Today I got home from work and barely still had my pants on when a knock on the door stayed my hand above the belt buckle. My neighbor smelling smoke and meds, had a box in his hand. The delivery guy had left it with him as he is helpful that way. I was not expecting a box or anything of that nature as my author copies had arrived just a couple of days before. I leaned the box against the folding table that is the center of all my creative endeavors and some not so creative I might add. I finished flinging my clothes off, took a shower and found some non-work clothes and came back to the box. I opened it and inside was the proof for my manuscript, Ahead of the Flaming Front: A Life on Fire. I was so stoked to see this, but at the same time daunted in a way that I hadn’t been when I sent the original manuscript off right before my October 1 deadline. Now we hope to get this read and the publisher and editor sign off on what I have to say by the end of April. This is my third deadline with this book. The first were sample chapters the publisher wanted to see and then the afore mentioned manuscript deadline.
Funny thing is that I took some of the chapters and tried to excerpt/revise them into essays. I looked at them differently and now I’m thinking about reading through the proof and how much will I change and how much is acceptable to the publisher? I don’t know. But I am sure going to find out. It is also an issue I never thought I’d have in the sense that I didn’t know how much I’d want to tinker with it after I’d shipped it off. Strange. Robert Morgan once told a class that the book is done when they cut the check. I think it might not be done even then. I have no proof of that, but I do have a proof.
