A Book is Coming

Ambient temperature was to climb to 60 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday. It made it to 61. Spring is in the air, even if that thought is not rational given the calendar. I sat down and outlined the path to finalizing my book.

I finished the initial draft on Jan. 5, and am 37 chapters into the first pass of revisions. What are reasonable next steps toward publication? I laid them out.

It will take two to four weeks to finish this pass of the remaining 12 chapters. After our child leaves Iowa after college in the story, the chapters have a different focus. I wrote them quickly, now I must revise them slowly. Given three to four hours of early morning darkness, that should be doable. With each passing day, I lose darkness, yet I will persevere.

After this pass, I plan a structural review. The purpose here is to ensure the book has continuity, that it is going somewhere with intent. I laid out a sheet of 8×11 paper with a chapter title on each, and arranged them in the current order. On each sheet I will define where the chapter starts, where it ends, and then summarize in a sentence or two what story movement is included. I already see some order-switching at hand.

Once structural concerns are addressed, it’s time for a reality check. Is the book saying what I want? Is it meaningful? Once those questions are adequately addressed, it is time for a second pass with re-writing, if needed.

This pass leads to proofreading and getting the book formatted for a local printing in either spiral or comb binding. I will pick the printer and make a dozen or so copies for early readers.

If everything comes together, by Memorial Day, manuscripts have been distributed to a small group of trusted readers whose screening process answered the questions: Did they read the first book when delivered? Did they provide meaningful comments? I have a couple of new readers in mind, with whom I’ve had conversations about my book, yet haven’t read it yet. While I will be in a hurry at this point, the book then becomes potential summer reading for this group.

The next goal is to collect feedback as it comes, in whatever format it is. No later than Labor Day I enter a decision table: Do I print privately as in the first book, or take steps to use a printing service to make the book into various formats: eBook, paper book, and audio book and distribute more broadly? The answer to this question is not made and I would be happy with either outcome.

The three to four hours of writing each day leaves plenty of time for a life. In my eighth decade, every bit of life is important.

Here is the draft preface from my autobiography in progress, with working title, A Working Life: A Memoir. It is a record of lived participation in work, place, institutions, and time. The book will be as good as I can make it, and with diligence, finished this year.

PREFACE

My story resumes after returning from visiting friends in the American South to Iowa City where I would work as a writer. I just finished my master’s degree and had enough resources to get started.

The first book, An Iowa Life: A Memoir, reflects an extended childhood and education. Next, I began writing.

I take you with me as our family moved to Cedar Rapids, then to Indiana and finally back to our present home. When our child left home, and then left Iowa, the story breaks loose into individual essays about ways I lived, worked, and engaged in society.

When I began work at CRST, Inc. I had no career plan. What I learned though my work in transportation and logistics was the country was changing. Industries repeatedly restructured and I spent years listening to thousands of people explain what had just been taken from them. The experience changed me.

To indicate passages drawn from journals, notes, and my public writing, I use italics.

I have limited names and altered identifying details for those who are not public figures.