I finished The Alleys of Olde Architecture this afternoon. Like, really finished it. No more revisions, no more ‘final’ read-thru’s. No more nothings. It’s done. Done, done, done, done, and done.
On the other hand, there is still a lot of work to do! Artwork to finish. Decisions to make. Letters to write. Mountains to climb.
So, is the manuscript set in stone? Yes… for now. I have no intention of making any further changes unless I happen to be flipping though random pages and notice a glaring typo. Aside from that, though, yes, it is set in stone. If I end up getting a publisher to publish this (which is the whole point!), undoubtedly they will try to request additional editing/revisions, at which time I will either have to roll my sleeves up and dig back in, or tell them it’s already perfect the way it is, and storm out!
It is a bit like a parent sending a kid off to college… on the one hand, your job is done. On the other hand, you know they will be coming back for holidays and will probably end up living in your basement for a few years after school, and you resign yourself to the fact that your job is never really done.
Here are some numbers, because I am just about out of words:
This book took me nine and a half years to write, from start to finish. Approximately 10,000 hours. I went through two desk chairs, two printers, two computers, three changes of address, and spent a small fortune on ink cartridges (before I started filling my own to save money, and that before I finally bought an ink-tank printer to save even more money.) Probably 40 reams of paper, at 500 pages each. Countless red pens.
I started writing this before I met my wife, and before I met Bill, who I worked with for nearly seven years. I had no gray hair back then, I was delivering pizzas part-time, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. When I started, I had two nieces; now, I have four, and two nephews, as well. There have been numerous weddings—and funerals—two presidential elections, one global pandemic, and even a Cubs World Series.
The manuscript, as currently formatted, is 1,518 pages long. That is 526,896 words. For reference, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is only 455,000 words.
I would be happy to let anybody read it who is interested, but it will take some brainstorming as to how we make that happen. I am not comfortable disseminating digital copies just yet, and it is hardly economical to print out 3 reams-worth of paper and deliver a 15 lb. stack of pages to would-be readers. I may have a few ‘sample’ copies printed-on-demand, but that will take some figuring out, and will likely (based on the little research I have done so far) have to be split into two volumes and would have no artwork. Which is fine, for now. Just to be able to put something on the shelf, or to pass along to friends and family who don’t want to wait for a published copy, which could take years.
I am going to take the rest of the day off, and next week I will be starting the long, uphill battle of getting this thing published. More updates on the details of that process as we go along.