Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 15 March 2005
I now know why I futzed around so much yesterday: I was pretty scared to dive into the editing. I feared reading the text, that I would find it amazingly wanting even after Mark's edit, and that would have depressed me. But it was an irrational fear. I didn't spend any time rereading the text this time around, like PNM, when I wrote much smaller sections each day and spent much time, late in the wee hours, working the text over and over again, so that by the time I sent it off to Mark, it wasn't that it was much better (my writing improves with time, like any muscle) but rather that I had a much better sense of its quality fixed in my memory. This time around, I edited plenty along the way, but only within the text as I wrote, not going back over the entirety several times before cashing in for the day.
I just didn't have the time this time around, because my schedule was so much more crowded, plus I was writing off an outline I had created not that much earlier (only a few weeks), while with PNM I was working off slides I had delivered orally several hundred times over several years. In short, it was a tougher row to hoe this time, but the quality of the output (not judging the ideas just yet) was just as good.
So I had no reason to fear Mark's edit. At first glance, it seemed like he had only a few inserts in this first chapter, or places where he called out for me (in bold) to add something or change something. But the 20 or so for the chapter was actually fairly similar to last time (three or four callouts for each of four to five sections in a chapter). If his instructions were easier or tighter in focus, it's because he has more confidence now to change things directly on his own, something I encouraged him strongly to do this second time because both he and I felt he would naturally be able to do so given that we've now collaborated on two books and three major articles. Plus, as I said before, I'm writing better this time around, something Mark noted, unsurprising to him, as I was cranking the first draft in January and the first half of February.
Of his 20 fixes, about half were 5-minute jobs, another five took about a half-hour each, three took a good hour, and two were about three hours each. The first three-hour job was to write the intro to the chapter. I wrote it very fast, in about 75 minutes, but then I edited it like crazy over and over again. Later on, when Mark had a note about making sure I reintroduced all the main terms (Core, Gap, etc.) formally in the text for the first time, I ended up going back over the early portions obsessively until I felt I had everything roughly under control (noting that I need to add both Leviathan and SysAdmin to both the Preface and the Glossary). [SOMEONE REMIND ME LATER IF I WRITE ABOUT EDITING THE PREFACE IN THE FUTURE AND FAIL TO MENTION DOING THAT.]
Overall, a fairly painless day. I don't mind editing or rewriting at all. In fact, I really like it. It's the original draft I think of as being hard to crank.
Yes, I had some dreams of getting through all the call-outs by noon and then doing a thorough read-and-edit of the text para by para, but my fallback position was to do that tomorrow, which I will between 0630 and 1230 (we're only talking 36 pages and about 22,000 words now—yes, I added back the 3k Mark cut by addressing all his callouts).
Got up at 0630 today. Watched baby while wife got started, then took dog for walk and carried out the garbage (we are sorting stuff like crazy, so our garbage is kinda outta control right now).
I have to admit, all this house cleaning and attic clearing and stacking of furniture and taking down of all wall pictures has so changed the look of the house on the inside that it already feels like we're moving. And when I think of it, we're probably here only about 120 more days.
And I have to admit, I'm really happy about that. I'm really happy about returning to the Midwest (although I think Indiana is actually considered part of the Central Lowlands).
I futz around some more, then take a shower and get dressed up for a business lunch, finally settling down with my Mac in the basement around 8am. I crank until 10:45, then a quick dog walk, take a couple of important calls, and then I hop in my Pilot for the drive to the lunch.
I sit with Dave Chesebrough, President of the Association for Enterprise Integration, and Steve DeAngelis, President and CEO of Enterra Solutions and we have a nice meal at Coddington Brewery near Gate 11 of the Naval Base.
Dave, I know from several years back, as I've kicked off their annual conference for two years straight and will do so again this year in DC (Reagan building—great theater!) in May. He wanted to prep me on the conference and talk over some other issues/possibilities. Steve, whom I never met before, struck me as a bit tongue-tied at first as Dave and I chatted, but when he launched into a description of his company, that man could speak as fast as I can at full throttle. Listening to him, I realized why people like to invest in what he does (he's successful from a long way back), because he talks like someone who really knows his stuff—I mean, REALLY. Since I know what it takes to get to that point (practice, practice, practice), I really admired his delivery. Very passionate guy, very interesting company, very on-target vision to do good. Enterra is like a SysAdmin company for the Core's private sector. Very cool.
Best part about Enterra, Steve used PNM in the business plan as a cite, and even sends out copies to future potential partners and clients to help them understand their perspective on business and the world. Gotta like that in a future collaborator!
Plus, Steve's a fellow adopting-from-China father, which is an added plus with me nowadays, for reasons I don't have to cite.
All in all, a real fascinating lunch that left me very jazzed about the connectivity coming my way since I left the college. I hope to do good and important things with both AFEI and Enterra.
Back home after the lunch, Vonne and I sit with a rep from the National Association of the Self-Employed, talking our way through a host of healthcare enrollment forms. Very nice deal. Also very portable. Beats our COBRA continuation by about 50%. My thanks to business manager Steffany Hedenkemp, fellow partner in The New Rule Sets Project LLC, for putting us on this track. After our time with Dr. Gil, to whom I'm pretty sure I sold a book, I go to pick up the older kids from school.
Then back after that, I slip back into editing from about 3:30 to 9pm, breaking for dinner and giving baths to Jer and Vonne Mei. Jerry got a bunch of Star Wars figures for his birthday (which I missed—ahem—a one-time habit I plan to break), and the coolest is the snowman monster from Empire Strikes Back—complete with detachable "cut-away" arm just like the one Luke severs with his light saber! Too cool! So I go at it with Jerry's Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls, stealing Minner and having Mickey rip my arm off repeatedly to rescue her. Mei Mei (as Jerry calls her, it actually means "little sister" in Chinese) thinks this is hilarious.
As for stories that catch my eye today:
■ George Melloan's op-ed in WSJ today, (A21), "Hu Faces Rising Distrust of the Communist Party," makes a solid point that has been my operating theory on this whole Taiwan law (and then quickly dismisses it): that Hu did this simply to solidify himself as new chair of Central Military Commission (remember it wasn't that long ago that Jiang Jemin gave up this post). To me, this is the best explanation for this "tough" step: Hu is insulating himself against future charges of being soft on Taiwan, which was the whisper campaign Jiang used on him for a long time as part of his strategy of keeping that important military post to himself in "retirement."
■ Interesting story on NYT front page "Reshaping Nuclear Rules: Bush Seeks to Close Loopholes in Treaty Letting Iran and Others Enrich Uranium," by David E. Sanger: seems queerly legalistic for an administration not given to respecting treaties all that much, but I guess it gives the White House some sense of building a case. Me, I am unimpressed, if this is the strategy.
■ Last one was "Huge Demonstration in Lebanon Demands End to Syrian Control," by Neil MacFarquhar on front page of NYT. Big thing about this one was opposition demonstrating same ability to mass the ranks as Hezbollah did last week. Tit for tat, and pretty cool at that.
Promised myself to exercise tonight. Really just an excuse to watch "Pride and Prejudice" while on the treadmill. Need to break the mind lock, and I've yet to answer any email today, so gotta run.
