Thoughts on the official first week of book-writing

Monday night, I had that breakthrough moment (driving home from DeKalb at 9 p.m., headlights, brain churning, radio off, insulated in the Hyundai) where you go from two years of best buds saying to each other "We should write a book together!" to deciding to do it and narrowing your focus enough to make a plan. I left myself voicemails (safer than trying to write in the car). I went home and took notes, made two pages of outlines, and emailed my friend my ideas.

Throughout the week, we kept it going. She opened a google account; we began sharing documents through Google Docs. She asked me who my dream publisher would be, then went to their homepage and found all the submission guidelines for authors. I feel like we're on our way.

Since it's going to be a book for English teachers, we're keeping careful track of everything we do in the classroom this year, making lists of copyrighted stuff we'll need permissions for, noting what works and what doesn't, and hopefully finally trying all the stuff that might really work even better.

Surprising to me is that this is the way a book starts - voicemails and emails - not by opening a laptop and typing. And I'm surprised that I'm surprised. Maybe it's just surprising to me that after all this time I'm actually doing it. And I really think we have something here.