Indecent Proposal 6

Spent much of the past two nights doing final, final (really, we hope) final edits on the proposal to go out to publishers--yep, actual editors at publishing houses--sometime early next week.Up since 2 a.m. today finalizing text and trying to write the bowling story. Going back and forth when one task became too fatiguing. Sent the bowling story off at 9 a.m., then edited it at 11 by phone. And then hit the send button to push the indecent proposal of 83 pages and 22,000 words off to the agency at noon.

Whew. Then off to the station to voice tracks after another flurry of emails to try and nail down the pronunciation of one of the guys in the story.

This among a blizzard of emails about titles. Spent a stunning 40 minutes in conference call yesterday trying to "nail down" the title. This while noting and having noted to me that the publishing house, should we be so lucky as to secure a contract, will in fact pick the title. This is how the nonfiction biz works. And it should, too. They have the whole marketing machine of know-how behind them, right? And yet. The phone calls and emails continued. Don't know what we were doing, actually. Except arguing the merits of tepid and incredibly long, or bizarre or boring, or zingy but meaningless titles. And moving the commas around on the final draft. 

THE EXERCISE: Chant to self: It will end. It will end. It will go out and be OK. Really.

SECONDARY EXERCISE: Feel gratitude. Radio reporting. Book proposal nearly done. Essays in circulation. It doesn't suck. It doesn't.