I’m sitting on the couch, watching tv, when the dog comes in. “Hey, dude, what ever happened with that book, anyway?”
“What book?” I ask, distractedly.
“The one about me. What other book would I be asking about?”
“Oh, yeah. I sent the first draft off to my editor and a bunch of other people, and I’m waiting for their comments.”
“Oh. That must suck, huh?”
“What?”
“Waiting. I don’t like waiting.”
“I’ve noticed that.” She’s good for ten seconds or so, but more than that, and she starts creeping forward. “It’s not so bad, though. I’ve already gotten some comments, which have been very positive–“
“Of course, because I am the best.”
“–and anyway, I have other things to work on while I wait.”
“Can I suggest something to do while you wait?”
“Suggest away.”
She flops on her back. “Rub my belly.”
“Oh, all right…” There are worse ways to pass time.
At last report, I had finished a rough pass over the first draft, and was doing a little polishing before sending it off to the publisher. I spent the week after New Year’s going through the manuscript, looking to remove some of the extraneous “really”s and “very”s that afflict my writing, and generally tighten things up. It’s sort of amusing to look at how this affected the word count:
Introduction
Change: -9
Total Words: 1,301
Chapter 1: Particle-Wave Duality
Change: +54
Total Words: 5,333
Chapter 2: The Uncertainty Principle
Change: +2
Total Words: 4,501
Chapter 3: The Copenhagen Interpretation
Change: -24
Total Words: 4,777
Chapter 4: The Many-Worlds Interpretation
Change: -39
Total Words: 4,830
Chapter 5: The Quantum Zeno Effect
Change: +76
Total Words: 3,339
Chapter 6: Quantum Tunneling
Change: -16
Total Words: 4,410
Chapter 7: Entanglement
Change: +67
Total Words: 6,410
Chapter 8: Quantum Teleportation
Change: -138
Total Words: 4,892
Chapter 9: Extra Dimensions
Change: -141
Total Words: 5,108
Chapter 10: Virtual Particles
Change: -84
Total Words: 4,803
Chapter 11: Evil Squirrels
Change: -28
Total Words: 3,131
Net change: -280 words. That takes it from 53,000 words to, um, just under 53,000 words. Still a third more than requested.
Some of those changes are a little deceptive. The increases in Chapters 1 and 5 are mostly in the form of explanatory captions added to figures that I grabbed off the web, to preserve the sanity of my beta readers. Were it not for that, Chapters 1 and 2 would’ve decreased significantly, as they were written early, and I deleted a lot of extra adjectives from those. Chapters 9 and 10 were actually the first bits written, back when I was doing the book proposal, so they saw lots of trimming.
As I said above, early returns have been very positive. My very astute beta readers have been able to spot most of the places where I was deliberately fudging things a little bit, and have corrected a couple of physics and continuity errors. This is why I sent it to them, and they’re doing a great job.
In the meantime, I’m working on making better figures to replace the graphics I snagged off other people’s web pages. And rubbing the dog’s belly, of course…
Bonus Dog Dialogue: “I don’t know. It’s awfully Zen. ‘What is the pattern of one photon interfering?'”
“Hey, that’s pretty good.”
“Thanks. I have Buddha nature, you know.”