Phew!

It's been ages since I posted here, and who knows when I'll be doing it again on a regular basis--probably not for a while, I don't think...

I just sent a manuscript off to the publisher, fulfilling the main part of my contractual obligation (still have to do an index), but it's on its way.

My book: The Universe of Design: Horst rittel's Theories of Design and Planning. I'm credited as second author, but really I'm third author after the titular Horst Rittel and the listed first author Jean-Pierre Protzen.

This is an academic book, no question. It is, in many ways, very abstract and philosophical. But this abstraction has immediate relevance to our day-to-day lives, and especially our lives as acting, thinking people trying to make plans for a better life for ourselves or for others.
This book discusses the process of design, which, in the sense used in the book, is a process in which we all engage sometimes: we may not be planning a whole city, we may only be planning a menu for the week, or planning a budget. But we make plans that we use to help us solve our problems. As members of a democratic society, we are also called on to contribute to or evaluate plans for our society. We all engage in planning and design.
The book examines the nature of problems: design problems are "wicked": they are not easily defined, may be understood in many different ways, and any attempt at a solution counts significantly--we cannot attempt a plan without repercussions (e.g., if we plan a menu, buy the food and cook it, we have paid the costs of the meal in effort and money no matter how palatable the food may be).
The book also discusses the processes of design, the reasoning of designers, the use of rationality and other conceptual tools for design, and reasons designs/plans fail.

It's due out in six months or so, assuming no problems in the process.

49,000

If I were to cut this draft short at the 50,000-word, reduced goal, then I would be almost done. So, I'm starting to write and engage with the project more from a sense of "how do I complete this draft" rather than a sense of "what else can I say to make this cover all the issues that I think are important?"

I'm over 49,000 words tonight, but I know that a bunch of my recent additions will either be cut or necessitate cuts in the main text.

47,000

making a little progress...
writing right now, but got over 47,000 words and looked at the clock and wanted to post a blog before midnight, so I officially only missed one day since my last post.

some days, not so much

I struggled for hours with writing today. And to little avail. I console myself by remembering that there are bad days sprinkled in with the good (or vice versa, depending on how things are going), and that the bad days are often days when I'm struggling with important issues. Things were very productive in early June, not so much lately, but at least I put in the time.
I wrote a few hundred words and considered the elimination of significantly more.
My word count is still 46,000+, with about 4000 words to get to my low-end goal of 50,000, and 14,000 to get to my initial 60,000 word goal.

Problems, problems

It's funny how the problems shift.

About ten days ago, I was struggling to get writing done and thinking that I should just cut the draft at 50,000 words.
Today I got to 46,000+, and suddenly 50,000 almost seems like it won't be enough. I feel that there must be more than 4,000 words of material left. Not that I can actually think of it right now.

In any event, with the reduced goal of 50,000 just a short jog up ahead, it's funny how my sense of the problem shifted. Of course, it's not a problem at all: the 50,000 word goal is not a limit; I can go over if I want.

Whatever; for now I just want to keep on plugging so I can put the complete draft together, and then step back a little and try to see how the whole thing hangs together.

Getting back on the horse (again)

What's to do when circumstances keep one from a project? Berate yourself? Or get back on the horse?

In June I was cruising for a while, writing very productively--if I had kept that pace, I would have reached 60,000 words by now. I didn't. Should I hang my head in shame? Should I spend time lamenting what was lost? I don't know, but those don't seem like they will help me finish the book. If I spend time lamenting what was lost instead of working on the book, won't that give me something to lament in the future: the hours I spent lamenting instead of working?

So I want to get back on that horse every time I fall off, as quickly as I can.

I'm over 44,000 today (thanks, partly, to finding 1000 words I wrote years ago that will suit).

It may not be graceful, but I'm riding again.

Getting back on the horse

It always helps to get positive feedback and support...thanks!

I fell off the horse about a week ago, and didn't get any real writing done until tonight, and I'm just getting back into the same sense of knowing what I want to work on that I had last week.

The last three days I have spent some time with the book, but not actually writing--I did almost cut a thousand words though--may still; I'm undecided.

Tonight, I did some writing.
The word count is now at 42,000, though as I say, I'm looking to cut about 1000.

Still...just trying to get back to it and not let setbacks set me back any more than necessary; the lost time is lost, why lose more regretting it?