Tuesday, April 13, 2010

The sigh of relief

I started writing the little book on style the last week in February in the grip of a delusion that it might only take me about three weeks; it is based on lectures I wrote (two a week) over the fall semester, and in another sense it's based on a lifetime of reading, so that I felt the hard part was already behind me.

In fact it took longer than three weeks, more like seven, but I have just sent the full manuscript to my agent: it is just under 40,000 words, about a hundred and fifty pages, with a grand total of 31 footnotes.

I really like this little book!

Now it is just a question of waiting to see what happens next, which is not really my forte, but I can get started in the meantime on the ABCs of the novel (formerly known as bread-and-butter of the novel) and also have some seriously grand triathlon training (I'm doing a half-ironman in May and - amazingly - my first full Ironman race in Wisconsin in September).

(It is so crazy, really I am on a mission to stop doing things so much as if under a compulsion, but I feel that by getting this little book done relatively early during my year of sabbatical I have bought myself a bit more breathing space than I usually have - it would be good, though, if I could write most of the other book this year too - I do not know why it should be so much so that I only feel OK when I am madly writing, planning, training, racing, but it is certainly strongly the case...)

6 comments:

  1. you are an inspiration to all of us fellow compulsively busy insomniac mustbeproductiveorfailatlife academics! I miss you!

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  2. Wow. You are amazing. Not deleting this one. (Sam is comforting me by reminding me of the difference in our domestic circumstances, though really that is just an excuse.)

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  3. Wow, Jenny! That's amazing and such great news! It's also very inspiring to yours truly as I try to reach the finish of this dissertation. CONGRATULATIONS!

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  4. This is astounding. I wish I were wired more like you. (Maybe I just need some jumper cables?) Good luck with all the writing and training!

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  5. you have a mania-variant maybe? I don't mean that in a bad way at all. I wish I had it. Or maybe you are just productive and efficient? generative. enviable!

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