Cancer 37

I thought I would change the subject and not talk about cancer and illness. Through this process of diagnosis and calamity I have been attempting to finish my book. I think I mentioned that I managed to work on it while I was in hospital and submitted the manuscript. I finished it early as it was not due to be submitted until June, so not bad timing despite the little problem of major surgery and a death sentence.

The problem is, for those who haven’t written books, is that while submitting the manuscript is a great feeling, comparable with that moment when a publisher accepts your proposal, the next stages are utterly tedious. If it was just submit the manuscript, wait a while, and then the shiny new book comes in the post then it would be good – but alas it isn’t like that.

I am sensible enough to keep up with my references as I write the book, but they still need to be checked, every one on every page to make sure that they are all there – and there will be some missing, particularly the ones that are hard to find. Because Applied Narrative Psychology is an academic book and I need to provide evidence for my assertions, there are around 350 references to check. Once I have checked it the publisher will check it and still find something wrong. I do like to try and catch them out occasionally. In my last book I referenced The Bible, written by God, and either no one noticed or they understood the joke.

The other day I received some attachments from the publisher, providing details of what I need to do now – there will be another list once the book is edited and formatted. The first one is the marketing questionnaire. This is hell. There is the easy stuff such as name and address. My affiliation was difficult. I put University of Nottingham but added that by the time the book comes out I will be either retired or dead. Let’s see (or not see) how they handle that). Then there are questions about me. What are my key achievements and prizes, particularly in relation to the material in the book? It even said don’t be modest. Right, I won a five a side competition in the first year at school (I was the goalie). I have a medal for completing a half marathon when I was in my 20s, and another one given me by the vice president of Iran. I was the secretary of the allotment society for a time, and the footpaths officer for the parish. None of this is relevant, so I wrote some gumph about narratives.

They also wanted me to write a short piece for librarians and why they should buy the book, and the blurb for the back cover. Then they wanted me to name people who would write something nice about the book, so I listed some people I know who are mentioned in the book in a positive way. Competing books? None of course, mine is completely original and nothing like it has ever been written before (no modesty there). Then it is a question about journals that might publish a book review about it, so I have to search through all the journals to find out which ones publish book reviews because nowadays nobody ever actually reads a physical journal, we all just search for relevant stuff.

Anyway, with those and similar questions it took me about a week to complete. I sent it off today and the Cambridge folk seem happy. They have already edited the blurb etc to make it sound much better than what I wrote so there is a winner!

The next stage, the one I am on now, and the reason why I am writing a blog instead of getting on with my work, is to complete an Excel spreadsheet listing the titles of the chapters, the authors of the chapters, up to 10 keywords for each chapter, and an abstract of up to 200 words per chapter, along with keywords and abstract for the book as a whole. So I have to write another 3,000 words! I have just finished chapter 3.

Another task was to provide ideas for the cover. Given my aesthetic ability is about as good as my written Japanese someone else really should take this on. I suggested, vaguely, some sheets of written stuff scattered about. Lo and behold that picture came back to me and I think it will be going ahead. Achievement!

The easiest element was obtaining permissions for the illustrations. There are no illustrations. Achievement!

Finally, I have just received an email saying that the manuscript is looking good, so as soon as I sort out the references they can get on with the next stage. I thought they might have comments about some elements of the manuscript such as my comments on multi-culturalism but no, perhaps that will come later when the legal boffins have had their beady eyes on it.

So my top tip is don’t write books. Not only do they take forever to write, edit, etc, most of them don’t make much money. In the 31 years since my first book was published I can only say it is a good thing that I have had a paying job as well.

So why is it that If I can succeed better than Knut and stem the tide of cancer I want to write more books? I will never learn.