Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Works in progress

Because I'm too lazy to do any work, I'll spend some time writing about the writing that I'm not doing.

Here are the things I'm currently working on:

  • God in the Driver's Seat. This book is a drawn-out modern-day parable, which I feel has a number of applications in Christian life. This work is currently in the editing phase; I've given the first draft of the manuscript to my pastor and my wife. My pastor has already given it back, rife with comments, and I've promptly set it aside, to collect dust until I can summon enough courage to work on it again. Let's be clear about this: I hate the editing phase! It doesn't matter how good my self esteem is; when I get back a manuscript, with changes, corrections, and "man, I can't believe you thought this was a good point" comments on every page, I get very close to depression.
    (To be fair, I haven't read any of my pastor's comments yet, so I don't know if he was that harsh on me. He can't be half as bad as the computer nerds who did the technical editing for my computer book... If you ever want to write a book, don't write a book about computers! Because it will be read by technical people, who will tear it to shreds, and have no pity on you! Computer nerds make the worst technical editors.)
  • There is also an as yet untitled novel I'm working on, about a computer nerd who becomes a spy. This, my friends, is an act of hubris by an author who hasn't yet earned the right to produce an act of hubris. Jeez; a spy novel? Sheesh! Luckily, I've gotten stuck on the plot, so it may never see the light of day, and I may never have to deal with the harsh criticism of my peers and betters.
  • There is Using Microsoft Word, which outlines some best practices for using the word processor to its best effect. Now this is the type of writing I do most often; it started as a simple little document, with some best practices for my coworkers. Then I added a little more, and a little more, and the next thing I knew I had over 80 pages written, and lots more I could write about. I probably won't try to sell this one or anything, I'll just continue distributing it for free. But there are enough people around who use Word badly that I have no problem trying to help them out.

So now that I have a blog, what will happen to my works in progress? Oh, the same thing that happened before I had a blog.

Nothing.

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