First Draft

Yesterday morning I flew back home to Tokyo, after six weeks In Adelaide. It’s good to be home and the break did me the world of good; travelling to Adelaide always seems to have a positive effect on my soul.

I ended almost every day of those six weeks the same way, seated in a red leather couch, tucked into a corner of my (quaint little) holiday house, typing away. Now, back in Tokyo, I have a full first draft of a book here on the desk next to me.

My Kind Of Terrible Book Idea

I had an idea, some time ago, to try and turn a few of the articles from this blog into a book. So, I gathered together the best 50 or so blogposts, going back to 2004, into a Scrivener project and soon realised this idea kind of sucked. OK, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea, but I could do better.

There were common themes to be found. And, some of the posts were fine as they were, or at least contained good thoughts. But, I needed to dedicate a block of time to do some a lot of fresh writing, connecting the themes and thoughts if I was to turn this assorted jumble of reflections into something more substantial and helpful.

Thankfully, six cold, wintery weeks, with no TV, limited internet and few social obligations was just what this project needed.

Next Steps

So, now I have 29,127 words, which loosely fit into 8 chapters and an appendix, all organised in Scrivener. The next step is to go through every chapter and section, editing and rewriting until I have a strong second draft.

Scrivener lets me easily see an overview of which sections have not been recently updated, so I’m starting with the sections that haven’t been touched since mid July and working forward. The project is organised in such a way that no section is longer than about 500 words (roughly a page and a half to two pages), so editing any section doesn’t feel like a huge commitment.

I’ll post some more details about the book (and maybe even share the title and what it’s about), once I get to the second draft stage. If you want to know more, you can always sign up to my mailing list, where I will be sharing some more details about the book, including how to get a pre-release e-copy.

Until then, I just want to say a big thank you for reading my blog. Going through all those old posts made me realise how far I’ve travelled in the last ten years and how many wonderful people like yourself have stopped by to say hello, offer some encouragement, support or other helpful input. Thank you!