it’s in the mail
I’ve heard it said that no woman would ever have a second child if she really remembered what it was like to give birth to the first one.
Without in the LEAST implying that it’s as bad as birthing a baby, lemme say the same is true of writing a book: If I remembered from one to the next how hard it was, I’d never do it again.
Raising Freethinkers consists of 106 activities, 108 common questions from nonreligious parents with extended answers, and 224 recommended books, films, and websites. And it’s the details that get ya — the permissions, the citations, the 138 footnotes and two appendices. It’s trying to remember if you forgot to remember to include something. Or if you included it twice. Or accidentally included Satan in the Acknowledgements. Or accidentally left him out.
It’s the editing and proofing. I mailed it 45 minutes ago and just found two more errors. Shit.
It’s the wondering if you said something juuuust the right way — especially in a book like this.
It was completely fabulous working with Amanda Metskas of Camp Quest, Jan Devor of First Unitarian Minneapolis, and Molleen Matsumura of Sweet Reason and NCSE. To hear all my whining, you’d think I did it all myself. In fact, most of whatever real brilliance is in the thing is theirs.
At any rate, my life just got a heck of a lot easier. I just sat down at the piano, as if I had nothing better to do, and played the first ten bars of “Because” by the Beatles — ten of the most incredible measures in all of music, incredible for reasons I would only bore a music theory class with. Then I played a computer game. Now I’m blogging.
I think that brings you up to date.
[Update: I’ve now updated Northing at Midlife and Ten Wonderfull Things and will once again spend daily time in the discussion forum. Please join me there. I have also begun a complete overhaul of the Resources page to include books and videos featured in Raising Freethinkers.]