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Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

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Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#21

Post by mpweiher »

neilv wrote: post #13
dflock wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone else was wondering: http://wiki.c2.com/?IntentionRevealingSelector > Name methods after what the method does, don't name methods after how it works.

This rule applies even more to API documentation. As soon as you mention how , that becomes part of the what interface you have to support. With internal method names, for tricky code, it's a bit more fuzzy, and sometimes I've found that putting how information into the name seems to be a great idea, for readability&correctness of code that calls it. This is more for functions/methods for which the how is relevant (o…

What vs. how was what made this click for me.

Apparently, there was a method to invert the screen

   >>>flashScreen
      self invertScreen.
      self delay:sometime.
      self invertScreen.
There was also the requirement to have a "visual beep" to accompany an acoustic beep. The way the visual beep was to be implemented was to invert the screen.

Now you could have just put "... invertScreen." where you were supposed to do the visual beep.

Or you could add a method:

   >>>visualBeep
       self flashScreen.
Before, I would have said this method is completely superfluous, after all it doesn't really do anything that isn't already in the system. However, the service it provides is giving something the correct name. This is highly valuable.

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#22

Post by umvi »

atom-morgan wrote: post #11
bostik wrote: post #6

Writing a book is easy. You sit down by the keyboard, slit your wrists, and pour your self out. (That's not a typo, btw.) I've written one, and in the process acquired a near limitless admiration for those who can do it for living, book after book, decade after another. Even for a topic you feel should be easy - every page that ends up being in the final result, you have written at least 3x. The editing process alone…

I can say the same. I self-published a 500+ page book last year and was so drained from the process I haven't even seriously thought about writing my second book. When your armchair fan is sitting back criticizing George Martin for not finishing his books, I empathize with him. I totally get it.

I allow myself to criticize Patrick Rothfuss though.

The absolute arrogance he displayed after publishing the first book of the series was astounding. He claimed the series was "already finished" and that each of the other 2 books would be released a year apart, simple as that. He wasn't like other authors, he assured us.

Here we are, 10 years later with Rothfuss literally doing everything except finishing the series (making tv shows, starting charities, making video games, board games, etc.)

My theory is that he painted himself into a corner and doesn't know how to finish it without it being a train wreck.

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#23

Post by derefr »

oceanghost wrote: post #20
sixhobbits wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's written for other writers. To help communicate the pain and process. It's easy to feel like it's "just you" and everyone else just shits perfect chapters, one per week, and hits publish. I enjoyed it.

There's an industry of writers providing advice to other writers about writing. Think of it like self-help but for writing. I used to attend some writers groups, but everyone was always looking for a method that would make writing easy, instead of just writing. Almost nobody knew what they were talking about. Figuring out what works for you is writing.

Presumably, the people who actually know how to "operationalize" writing, aren't writing self-help books, but rather are managing stables of prolific (if maybe schlocky!) writers.

I would love to hear writing advice from the managing editor of a publisher of pulp serial-fiction books, of the kind where the writers churn out multiple new books per year. Those books might not be the greatest thing ever written, but certainly they're better than failing to ever publish anything.

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#24

Post by ghaff »

vlehto wrote: post #16

I think the problem is totally different for those who live to see their projects finished. Then there are people like me who have no such urge. If a person like me can get into the routine of writing (which would be very difficult trick) then the writing itself would probably be quite easy. There is no fear of blank page, no depressive thoughts of "am I ever going to finish" etc. But there is no reward in the other…

What you describe seems more akin to why people write diaries rather than write books.

I'm sure I'm over-generalizing but anyone who sets out to write a book has publishing it in mind--and, if they're using a publisher, the publisher certainly does.

Things like blogs blur the boundaries to be sure. But I still view blogs as discrete published items rather than a process I enjoy for sake of the process.

For me, photography is probably more in the enjoying the process camp although I do publish it as well.

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#25

Post by munificent »

mikepurvis wrote: post #14
umvi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I myself write books in Markdown. Each chapter has a markdown file, the book is version controlled with Git, there is a "build script" that does a "build" (in this case it's a shell script that concatenates the markdown files and runs them through pandoc and calibre CLIs to generate eBooks and PDFs). When I send to my editor I just tell her to modify the files as she sees fit. When I get them back I put the new files…

I wanted to use a workflow like this years ago working with Apress. Possibly (hopefully) things are better now, but at least at the time, all their tooling expected Word docs as the input, and you had to use a very specific stylesheet (including goofy stuff like magic text strings to insert images). There were also some manual transformation steps occurring on their end, because there was a cutover point where the Wo…

> There were also some manual transformation steps occurring on their end, because there was a cutover point where the Word doc was no longer accepted

This was probably the point at which the text had been moved into InDesign for typesetting by the designer.

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#26

Post by ghaff »

derefr wrote: post #23
oceanghost wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an industry of writers providing advice to other writers about writing. Think of it like self-help but for writing. I used to attend some writers groups, but everyone was always looking for a method that would make writing easy, instead of just writing. Almost nobody knew what they were talking about. Figuring out what works for you is writing.

Presumably, the people who actually know how to "operationalize" writing, aren't writing self-help books, but rather are managing stables of prolific (if maybe schlocky!) writers. I would love to hear writing advice from the managing editor of a publisher of pulp serial-fiction books, of the kind where the writers churn out multiple new books per year. Those books might not be the greatest thing ever written, but cer…

For that matter, there are series of branded tech books of various sorts that are used by companies for marketing campaigns. They're written by freelancers and are often more successful at their objectives than you would like to know.

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#27

Post by ghaff »

umvi wrote: post #22
atom-morgan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can say the same. I self-published a 500+ page book last year and was so drained from the process I haven't even seriously thought about writing my second book. When your armchair fan is sitting back criticizing George Martin for not finishing his books, I empathize with him. I totally get it.

I allow myself to criticize Patrick Rothfuss though. The absolute arrogance he displayed after publishing the first book of the series was astounding. He claimed the series was "already finished" and that each of the other 2 books would be released a year apart, simple as that. He wasn't like other authors, he assured us. Here we are, 10 years later with Rothfuss literally doing everything except finishing the series…

People also just lose interest in things. And they'll find just about any excuse--"The doorknobs really needed polishing!" "There's a mistake on the Internet!"--to justify pushing off working on some project today. Days turn into months and years.

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#28

Post by wyldfire »

mikepurvis wrote: post #14
umvi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I myself write books in Markdown. Each chapter has a markdown file, the book is version controlled with Git, there is a "build script" that does a "build" (in this case it's a shell script that concatenates the markdown files and runs them through pandoc and calibre CLIs to generate eBooks and PDFs). When I send to my editor I just tell her to modify the files as she sees fit. When I get them back I put the new files…

I wanted to use a workflow like this years ago working with Apress. Possibly (hopefully) things are better now, but at least at the time, all their tooling expected Word docs as the input, and you had to use a very specific stylesheet (including goofy stuff like magic text strings to insert images). There were also some manual transformation steps occurring on their end, because there was a cutover point where the Wo…

Are there publishers who are more accommodating of inputs like LaTeX/pandoc/markdown/etc? It'd be great to know that kind of thing when considering publishers.

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#29

Post by app4soft »

acangiano wrote: post #12
bostik wrote: post #6

Writing a book is easy. You sit down by the keyboard, slit your wrists, and pour your self out. (That's not a typo, btw.) I've written one, and in the process acquired a near limitless admiration for those who can do it for living, book after book, decade after another. Even for a topic you feel should be easy - every page that ends up being in the final result, you have written at least 3x. The editing process alone…

As a side note, don't think writing a second edition makes the process any easier. I recently finished the second edition of my book on technical blogging and I'm left with the distinct feeling of having "changed little" while objectively having spent more time writing this than the first edition. Still, in the end, you get to hold your baby. As Winston Churchill said, "Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with i…

> As a side note, don't think writing a second edition makes the process any easier.

Why?

Just add "dot" on last page -- and second edition of your book is ready!

Re: Writing a book, still the same pain 15 years later

#30

Post by geerlingguy »

wyldfire wrote: post #28
mikepurvis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to use a workflow like this years ago working with Apress. Possibly (hopefully) things are better now, but at least at the time, all their tooling expected Word docs as the input, and you had to use a very specific stylesheet (including goofy stuff like magic text strings to insert images). There were also some manual transformation steps occurring on their end, because there was a cutover point where the Wo…

Are there publishers who are more accommodating of inputs like LaTeX/pandoc/markdown/etc? It'd be great to know that kind of thing when considering publishers.

You should check out LeanPub. They support a variety of formats, and do some really nice things if you want to self-publish.
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