The book is done!

  At the beginning of the summer — oh, it seems so very long ago now — I contracted with Avalon Travel Publishing to write the next Moon Handbook on Charleston and Savannah. They needed the 400-page manuscript with photos from me by last week in order to meet their publication date of Fall ‘08. Amazingly, they got it.

Basically what this means is that for the last six months I did my regular job here at the paper during the week and spent nights and weekends working on this book, at the exclusion of pretty much all else in my life other than occasionally eating and sleeping. This was a huge step forward for me professionally and I don’t regret it for a second. But I did learn a few things along the way that I want to pass on to you:

1) Have a support network: To a certain extent, writing a travel guide lends itself to a short deadline. It’s very detail-oriented, dense work, dependent less on sudden bursts of creativity than on getting into a steady, slogging groove and really working it. This means if you’re a good time manager, which I am, you can crank out big chunks of copy. The flip side is, be prepared to trade away much of your personal life. Had I not had the unflinching support of my family, the thing would not have gotten done on time. Not anywhere near on time.

2) Watch your health: This may sound silly to anyone who does physical labor for a living, but writing a book can take an enormous toll on you physically. This effect was doubled because I already spent my regular work week staring at a computer monitor, only to continue staring at the computer for another several hours a day after a short dinner break. Over the last six months my vision has gone all wacky, I’m stiff all over, and just sadly out of shape. The easiest answer is to just have more time in which to write the book, but barring that, for God’s sake try to work in some exercise.

3) Keep your eyes on the prize: I haven’t done the math, but I fully suspect that if I factored in all the hours I’ve spent on this book, I wrote it for less than minimum wage. Honestly, probably far less than minimum wage. This became abundantly clear very early in the process. But what kept me going was the image of going into most any Barnes and Noble in the country one day and being able to find a couple of copies of my book on the shelves, with my little name on the cover. Bottom line: Even though Samuel Johnson said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money” — I’m telling you, write for something other than money.

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