We are getting very close to the published book now. Today, the real ISBN number and the Library of Congress Control Number replaced the placeholders in the manuscript. The last details are being updated on the cover this week, and if all goes well, proof copies will be ordered next week.

It’s very rare that I do not complete a project. In fact, I cannot really remember a time when I didn’t at least not one of my own. They have not all succeeded. Some of them have failed catastrophically (remind me to tell you about my last guitar build), but I finished them all. It’s one reason I’m reluctant to start a project sometimes: because I know it will haunt me until it is done, so I do not start it unless I know I can finish it.

This project seemed a little more unobtainable. Somehow a little more daunting. I can normally see the end of something before I begin. I’ve always been very visual that way. I design and build very large-scale projects that take years to complete at work. Part of my job is to see the entire scope before we begin. I’m good at it and always have been. With this project, however, I couldn’t see the end. I couldn’t see the start of it for 22 years, so it only makes sense that the end would be obscure. But I still felt compelled to start.

You don’t know what you don’t know, and with this project, there was a lot I just didn’t know or even know that I needed to know.

I’ve had to learn about developmental editing, copyediting, how books traditionally get published, and all about self-publishing. Marketing, podcasting, YouTube hosting, social media, cover design, page layout, drop fonts, copyright laws and regulations, ISBN numbers, custom barcodes, exclusive rights, Library of Congress Control Numbers, trademarks, corporate structure, tax laws, and on and on and on. You get the idea.

But I just wanted to write a book, a book I couldn’t start, and I didn’t know how to end.

Doubletalk. That’s what it sounds like in my head. Gibberish, a smokescreen, noise. It’s always noisy until I pick up the proverbial pen. Once I remembered that this all started there, with that basic understanding that it would become clear once I just started writing, I started. Something about writing with a pen or a keyboard makes no difference to me. It’s the commitment of just doing it that quiets the storm, that silences my doubts. Somewhere along the journey, the end finds me; I never have to look for it. I suspect that’s how life works: just live it. It will be done when it’s supposed to be.

Update: The book is out — read more (and grab a copy) in Fragmented.

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~ Ryan