Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 13 February 2004
Started the conclusion with an exploration of the generation to come, the Echo Boomers, treating my son Kevin as exemplar. Then I launch into quick descriptions of the several dozen "Heroes Yet Discovered" that will populate both the Blueprint for Action and the Future Worth Creating.
Felt like a very hopeful and rousing conclusion to the book. I can't believe it's basically done. Tomorrow I crank a short and very compelling (by Mark's suggestion) Preface. We still debate whether or not to include a glossary of key terms (which I favor) or simply making sure we re-introduce everything very early in the text.
I think I will crank my short Preface tomorrow and then gin up my preferred version of a Glossary as its companion and see how Mark responds.
Today's Conclusion rang in at just over 6,000 words, giving me roughly 124,000 with only tidbits and end notes to go. Not sure how much I'm going to pursue with endnotes this time. Almost all will be "for more information see"-types of entries. We shall see. The academic in me will probably make it so.
My author's box is basically full now. Room for just a little bit more.
Fired up my Mac laptop today. Fueled up one battery, then burned it down completely as instructed to "stretch" it, so to speak. Then fueled back up again and swapped out. Doing the same with second one now. Loaded up MS Office and transferred my current brief over just to see it work and everything checks out. Bought a nice RF clicker online, so I'm pretty much ready to roll now. Will take some getting used to, though. Like driving a stick after not doing so for many years. Shouldn't be too bad. Gives me a feeling of a new start.
God! I still can't believe I'll have another book out later this year!
