20 April 2013

Independent Study: This Is A Book.

A few months ago, Dad came to visit me. He had been working on some course writing about 45 minutes away from campus, and we decided to have lunch together.

It was a Friday, so I had choir. We met at SG just before noon so I could buy him coffee with Bethel Bucks, and he sat here writing for an hour. (Nehemiah visited him while he was here and they talked about the lists of names. You'll be able to read about it after we publish.)

After lunch (Chipotle!), and some grocery shopping, we sat in the Shupe lounge for a while. We talked about the project and he shared his insights about the lists. And this is when he said it:

"We're writing a book, aren't we?"

I'm not sure it had ever been said out loud, and it was a major shift in my thinking about the project. It's not a very long book, and I don't know whether we'll have it printed, but it's still a book. We are self-publishing a book.

Dad's the author, obviously. Nehemiah might get contributor credit. I'm working as editor and copyeditor. Big thanks go to Terry, Mom, and those who have let Dad talk about Nehemiah for the past year.

I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself here. All we have at this point is a manuscript and a dream.

Okay, it's a little bit more than a dream, but it was poetic. It could be a song in a musical about an aspiring writer. Maybe that will be my next project.

For now, we'll be polishing the first five chapters for early publication.

And I'll be posting daily for the next week.

Tomorrow I'll be asking the question "why should we publish this?"

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