Notes on Book Revisions

With lessons from Brandon

I haven’t set out a progress report on my book in several weeks. For a time, I was writing weekly updates, and then life got in the way, I began to think that it wasn’t worth it to send out an update if I did not have substantial progress to report. I do not want updates to be sent out purely for the sake of sending out an update. My time in the corporate world has made me allergic to fake benchmarks and phony updates.

I also haven’t sent my editor much writing recently. She and I have spoken, and she pointed out that now that the book exists in some partial form, editing a 5,000-10,000-word portion is not particularly useful. (We spent a good amount of time on the first chapter, which is approximately 8,000 words, and this was fruitful.) We need a sense of the whole in order to start shaping the parts.

I am happy to say that I now have a real sense of the whole. My manuscript is now at 37,000 words, putting it approximately at the halfway point. (Megan, if you’re reading this: you’ll be getting an email soon.)

Those of you who are closely following this progress might think this doesn’t sound like much, as I had about 30,000 words more than a month ago. What I have found in the last few months is that progress is no longer cumulative; rather, it is holistic.

At the beginning of this project, the primary task was to generate as many words as I could, putting my thoughts to paper. The result was a scattered, fragmented document. This is normal, but you cannot stop there. I’ve been reading quite a few popular nonfiction books, and I’ve found plenty of examples of books that lacked a point. Individual chapters might be good – they might even be great – but the book as a whole suffers from a lack of vision. What I needed to do was properly define the project and its trajectory so that future additions would be contributing to the book in its entirety.

This has led to a painful few weeks of reading and revising.

For those who are missing some context, you can check out my announcement:

You can also read about how I got my book deal: