Heading West, still
I’ve been working away on this book, Heading West, for a long while.
Much was originally lifted directly from my initial cycle touring blog, which I wrote each day while I was on the road, wherever I was in Australia. I jotted it down with my mechanical pencil in my A6-sized notebook, which was later typed into my first blog, then transferred to someone else’s website, and finally to my own permanent blog for a third iteration. Each of those processes involved some editing and embellishment.
Turning a blog into a book involved changing from a blog’s mostly present tense to the past tense. Yes, books are often written in the past tense. The blog also featured a single image for each day, which provided plenty of information. It was prudent to add some description to the text to provide a clear picture of what it was actually like.
That went through an editing process, where I initially listed each chunk of the book to ensure I wasn’t overly repeating myself or leaving a hole in the story.
I printed out the whole book numerous times, eight in total, I think, and made extensive clarifications, adding useful chunks, eliminating others. Substitutions for overly repeated words were made. Typos mostly eliminated. I read the entire text aloud to ensure it sounded natural and flowed smoothly.
That process took over a year, with occasional breaks to return to the book with renewed enthusiasm and clarity.
It was then published as an e-book. It started selling and continues to do so after 10 years.
About six years ago, I began converting it to a paperback. You would think that it would be straightforward to format the text, but it turned out not to be quite that easy.
I added maps, which all needed to be on the left-hand page, with the start of the next chapter on the right. Sounds simple, but this needed occasional half-page additions or subtractions of text to fit.
I was ruthless.
A couple of times, I added another day that I hadn’t previously included. About 10% of my blog posts hadn’t made the cut, due to being repetitive, uninteresting, or not adding much.
Linking passages were written for the beginning of each chapter.
Each daily subsection needed to have at least three lines of body text if it was near the bottom of the page. That all required massaging of lines, sometimes substituting a longer or shorter word, or adding/eliminating complete sentences.
All this helps the book look consistent, ie, professional.
It helps if you have that meticulous eye for detail and don’t mind killing your darlings.
This has involved more printouts and minor changes as I worked out what I really meant.
I still have the cover to complete, as, unlike an e-book, where you only have a poster, with a book, the cover has a front and back, together with the spine. Plus the blurb for the back.
So, I’m on the last pass, this time using Grammarly to point out when I’m diverting from accepted writing practice.
To be honest, I’ve had a pretty long break, and I have new enthusiasm.
This time I’ll be finished by Christmas.