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What's taking so long?

Since this blog was created initially to give progress reports on Post, I think I need to address the proverbial elephant standing in the corner. The book is not done as I have a few matters to attend to before I have a draft ready for printing. The timeframe is indefinite, but I'm hoping this situation will be different in a few months' time.

First of all, the interviews. As much as it would be easy to use all second-hand sources (ie, articles and interviews), I have strived for authentic, straight-from-the-horse's-mouth material with my own interviews. A few notable people will not have new quotes for the book, but they definitely get coverage via articles and such. Believe me, I've contacted them for input, but looking at some signs on the wall, they are saying they're not going to participate. While I'd still love to have their input, I have plenty of input already.

I honestly don't know how many people I've interviewed (I lost count after fifty), but doing my own interviews helps me out with my project specifically in mind. Instead of taking stuff a little out of context with an article, this stuff is coming right off of the tape and into a Word document.

A major stumbling block in doing interviews with musicians is their schedules. Sometimes they're impossible to get a hold of because of being on tour and nobody seems to know their contact info. I've been incredibly lucky with the people I've talked to on the phone, via e-mail and best of all, in-person at a show. Sure, trying to find somebody for input for two years may be a pain in the ass, but believe me, when you get to talk to the person and the interview turns out really well, the feeling is incredible. I have about a handful of people left to interview and then I'll start full-on editing.

Second of all, writing. In my two-plus years of writing this book, I really had to learn to write. I knew how type and write before, but I had to really learn how to write in my own voice. I hope to do book readings with this, so I read aloud to make sure the stuff is flowing well. That takes time and so does the development of what is written. I keep going back to stuff I've written months (sometimes, years) ago and look and see if I still believe in what I wrote. If a line/sentence/paragraph feels stale, it gets the heave-ho.

Third, other things in my life. With my ever-changing work schedule, I've had a lot of time in the last few months to write, edit and research. In that time, I've done a handful of interviews and have my last three chapters finally taking shape. Some days I've spent seven or eight hours working at the computer. Some days I've worked more and some days I've worked less. The drive is there, but that drive gets put off by other things going on in my life. Namely, my mood swings and the current job situation. I'm ready to move onto a different field right now after months of being rather gun-shy about such change. Where I'll end up in the next few weeks, I don't know, but the change is going to happen. Not helping matters is my timid, hard-headed side. That said, I've reached a point where I've run out of excuses.

With the temperature averaging 94-100 degrees everyday and the price of gas being so high, I only go out when I have to. Oftentimes that's for work purposes, dog walking, grocery shopping, band practice and the occasional show. I tend to forget that I should do some things for fun every once in a while.

Lastly, the publishing angle. Nick and I are weighing our options with how we can go about this and part of that is "shopping" the book around to some places. We have some places in mind, but we're open to other suggestions. Whoever puts the book out, I scoff at the thought of bending over backwards for a narrow demographic. I've always maintained that this is a book for anyone that's interested, but it's especially a tribute to people in my age group.

So there's the book update for now. Hopefully I'll have a rough draft ready to edit when I do my next book update. Stay tuned.

Comments

Anonymous said…
who/what kind of musicians/songwriters are you interested in talking to? known/unknown? shoot me an e-mail, if you'd like, i'm curious about your book. george@stridentzend.com
Eric said…
Git 'r done!

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