More (Then) Than You Can Imagine

I have been working off and on for a full year trying to gather my thoughts for my ninth book, TEACH LIKE IT’S MUSIC: An Artful Approach to Education. I spent Saturday entering the changes from my thorough and meticulous copy-editor and then went through it all again this morning. Three times. And STILL found little mistakes!!! Some missing end-quotes, a few misspelled words, using the wrong word (“then” instead of “than”), finding inconsistencies (book titles italicized some places, underlined others). It simply is extraordinary how much the human eye and mind can miss and just when you think you’ve finally got it, well, there’s another one. Writing a book is hard!!

But though I care greatly for accuracy, grammar, spelling, punctuation and such, at some point, one just has to say, “I did what I could. And at the end of the day, its it’s the thought that counts.”

Of course, it doesn’t help that English is the most maddingly confusing language on the planet—it’s/ its, there/their/they’re, where/wear, etc. etc. and yet, again etc. I’d say about 50% of my good friends speak English as a second language and my admiration for them has increased a thousand-fold.  

At any rate, the punch line is that I was so happy today to send this off to my layout person!!! Still the cover art and design to do, but am hoping that the presses will start rolling soon and I will soon hold this baby I’ve carried for at least six years, when I first began writing down some of the ideas. These fly-by-night blog posts are fun to write, but there is a deep satisfaction from the kind of attention I gave each chapter, paragraph, sentence, word in this ambitious project. Hopefully in six weeks or so, I’ll show you pictures of the baby.

Until then, I have classes to prepare.