Hi there. My name is Scott Duffy, and welcome to my book writing log. I have documented the process of writing my last two books on this site, and have started my third. This book will be called Visual Studio Team System In Action, and should be available in 2005.

Over the weekend I was sent the page proofs for chapters 12-15. Went through them and sent back a few minor corrections. What is interesting is that in the entire book, there must have been only three or four places where I had to make serious changes to the book's contents. The rest of the changes have been minor things like spacing and alignment. I must say my copy editor did an excellent job rewriting sentences when I wasn't making sense, and fixing all the typos and grammatical errors.

According to Osborne's web site, the book will be released February 28th. Can't wait.

I've already been asked to write my next book -- my third. I probably would have said, "No, I need a bit of a rest," except this book is on a topic I absolutely am dying to get into:

MCSD Study Guide: Analyzing Requirements and Defining .NET Solution Architectures (Exam 70-300)

Wow. Designing programs using .NET. Man oh man, how lucky am I? I'm jealous of myself. And I have a co-author on this project too boot!

Of course, I have no idea how I am going to get this done within the schedule I set for myself. But it will be like the HTDE JavaScript project, keep mindful of the calendar and work on it every day.

As long as I write 1 page, 2 pages, 5 pages every day -- no matter what -- I'll make the deadline. The moment I let several days go by without any progress is the moment I lose this game.

I'm marking that down as lesson number 1 from the last project. Constant progress, fast or slow, wins over no progress every time.

Lesson number 2 has to do with writing technique. I found it easier when starting a new chapter to work on the chapter outline as a whole first before putting final sentences and paragraphs in. A few hours invested in filling out the outline for each chapter more than pays for itself in the end.

It's about knowing what you're going to say before you start writing.

I'm not sure whether to keep this log going for the new project or start a new one. I'm inclined to keep this one going... I'll think about it over the next few days.

Best wishes to all,
Scott

In case you hadn't noticed, the new URL for this blog is http://www.mydemos.com/booklog. Thanks for stopping by and having a look around.

So I submitted the final chapter on Monday. That's it--there ain't no more. Well, that's not really true. I then had to sit down and write an "Introduction". My introduction sucked. I just did not know what to say.

I'm still going through a handful of page proofs. I've gone through Chapters 1-11 and two Appendices already, and have 12-15 still to go. Writing this book has been tougher than I imagined. With my programming experience, you would think writing a JavaScript book would be easy. But the difference between writing a book and programming is like the difference between playing baseball in the Major Leagues and playing it on a Playstation. That is, they're not that similar.

Chapter 13 was submitted with 3,490 words. The writing came easily, although I completely finished saying what I wanted to say after only 14 pages. As I said in my last post, it could have been combined with another chapter.

Chapter 14 is completely written as well. I sat down and wrote it in one day - 8 or 9 hours. 4,421 words to that one, spanning 21 pages. I couldn't believe how easy that one was to write. I had originally thought that "Making Your Program Error Proof" would have been difficult to write. After all, its much easier to talk about each of the properties and methods of the document object than to talk the "theory" of good program design. But I did it, and I love it This might be the best chapter so far.

Only one more chapter to go. Should be easy -- Using JavaScript with Multimedia. Some examples including Java applets, Flash animations, video files and music should be enough to fill all 16 pages that I planned to write.

I still have about half of the page proofs to go through. Some extra content, like the inner front cover and inner back cover. They changed the cover graphic slightly from what is currently being displayed on amazon.com. It looks better.

Anyways, will finish off Chapter 14 tonight and send it. Perhaps put a few pages into Chapter 15, although I wanted to do most of that over the weekend. Maybe I'll take a break from it all tonight...

Scott

Finished writing Chapter 12 today - 4,880 words. Time to take a break. I have to start Chapter 13 later tonight.

I kind of regret putting Chapters 13 and 14 in the book -- perhaps they both could have been rolled into one chapter. The good news is, they're going to be short. Perhaps 10 manuscript pages each. Those chapters are about JavaScript Debugging and Writing Error-Free Code. Ugh. JavaScript is not the best language in the world for debugging. And I don't really expect the amateur web developer to be putting try-catch statements everywhere.

Oh well. What can you do when you live in a shoe, as my wife likes to say.

Last night was a good night for writing. I cranked out 10 pages on style sheets. I sent in the second of the corrected page proofs, an have the third ready to go. The next seven days are going to be hectic -- pretty much writing day and night to get this puppy out the door.

I am still excited to see my baby on Amazon.com. I visit it every day to see if it's still there...

Take care,
Scott

When I signed my first book contract, I noticed it had an interesting clause. I would be entitled to 20 free copies of my book when published. I had a good laugh, because I don't know where I would store all those books. Other than the few copies I could give away, I would have 15 or so books left over and my condo is too small to stash away another cardbord box.

Of course, that book hasn't yet been published, so I have been spared that particular dilemma for now.

My second book contract entitled me to 10 free books. Again, never gave much thought to it at the time. 10 was better than 20 -- less left over books to store.

Now that my 2nd book is 1 month away from being published, I have given thought once again to what to do with the free books. I have come to the realization that I might not have enough of them -- I may in fact need to purchase more to give away to people. (I am also entitled to purchase my own book at a 50% discount.)

The thing is, I earn my living primarily as a consultant. This book could be a cool gift to clients and potential clients, better than a business card. It will hopefully be something they can keep on their bookshelf at the office. My name is on the books cover and spine, and will be a regular reminder that I exist. Better than a business card, that's for sure. Hopefully, some clients (or potential clients) will see it as an impressive accomplishment -- something that sets me apart from other consultants. "Hey, he must be good. He writes books." I must say, it would be nice if that happened, although I am happy just having a book.

That's the bottom line I guess. No matter what happens from this point forward. Whether the book rockets to the top of the best-seller list or collects dust on store shelves, I am happy. Just to have started this thing and seen it through to the end. Like running the a marathon or the iron man competition, I am happy to finish at all and don't care what place I was in.

All the best,
Scott

Now the real fun begins.

Last night I received the first nine chapters as page proofs. They were in the form of PDF files, although some publishers will send actual printed copies by FedEx. Page proofs look exactly like what the pages of the real book will look like. Very exciting to see.

And this is really my last chance to correct errors. I did manage to find a dozen or so in the first chapter. Either minor typos, or graphics in the wrong place, or other layout problems. It really is fun to sit down and read the book cover to cover -- it may actually be the last time I read it. After all, am I actually going to sit and read a book I just spent six months writing? (Well, I may. But probably not.)

At the same time, I have also been submitting the revisions to my Word documents for recent chapters, based on comments from the tech and copy editors. The first two chapters were a major headache in this regard, requiring mass rewrites, deletions and moving things around. Ever since the third chapter, it has never been more than a few lines or the occasional redone graphic. Either I have gotten better as a writer, or my editors have given up trying to get me to change. I don't know which.

This is the part of the book writing process that requires the most time. Consider that it took me a month to write the first chapter. Other chapters took two weeks simply because my "real life" had taken over and I was unable to contribute much to the book. But now, I am submitting a chapter every few days, and juggling revisions and page proofs at the same time. Good thing I have some time.

I'll also be glad when its over. ;)

Scott

The book cover, for those that are interested:

Good news, the book is now listed for sale on amazon.com. Please go and purchase many copies. They make good birthday gifts for kids under 12.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072228873

A lot has happened in the last eight days since I've posted to this blog. Chapter 10 (Frames) was eventually submitted to the publisher at 4,600 words. All went well with that chapter. I hope I was able to keep frames interesting. I spent many years developing JavaScript-intense web sites that contained frames, so I wanted to spend more time on the topic than many other books do.

I submitted Chapter 11 (DOM) yesterday at 3,600 words. It's more than the usual "this is an object and this is its properties" introduction, but not quite the definitive text on the topic. Many people don't know what can be done with the DOM (level 1 and 2) these days, so I hope the chapter is informative to existing web developers as well as newbies. I submitted the chapter at 2:00 AM this morning, and if you can believe it the tech reviewer sent me back an edited copy by 3:30 AM. Geez. I hope this guy lives in on the West coast, cause if he's in the Eastern time zone he's works some crazy hours.

Chapter 12 (JavaScript Animation) is underway. If I had more time, this could be a fun chapter to write. As it is, I want to be finished it by Friday night. That means sticking to the basics of web animation and not getting into the more difficult stuff.

That will leave Chapter 13 for next weekend. Chapter 14 for next week, and Chapter 15 for the weekend that follows. When do you think I should tell the Project Editor that I'll be at least 5 days late???

Scott