This seven-part series will cover the 2 ½-year time span between the day I set out to become an author and the day I became one.

Becoming an Author – Part Six
July 2007-February 2008

After a year of homeschooling, we knew it wasn’t a long-term solution for us, so we did our research and chose the school district we wanted our kids to attend. We just needed to buy a house and move there. Our summer was spent doing that, and preparing to enter a new chapter in our lives.

I was also offered a part-time school counselor position in the same district, which turned out to be the perfect fit. This way I could be selective about my writing pursuits, without needing to worry as much about income. I chose not to take work-for-hire writing contracts that came my way, but rather narrowed my focus and reestablished my goals as a writer.

Throughout the next eight months, I completed several edits, usually with a month or so in-between revisions. My editor posed clarifying questions and insightful nudges to help me to tighten the focus and better define sections that were too gray. So in this way, we took turns sculpting the manuscript — each time handing off a cleaner, more readable and fine-tuned document to fresh eyes that could read the manuscript more like it was the first time. Each trade brought this little book a little closer to the final product.

During this time, I also started the overwhelmingly mundane process of requesting permission from publishers and authors for the research and diagrams that were referenced in the book. This tedious aspect of authorship was not my favorite piece of the process, but it was necessary nonetheless.

The designer finished the book cover in January and I felt a rush of “reality” when my editor forwarded the very professional-looking pdf file to me. Several focused weeks of editing followed, but most of the work at this stage was done by my editor, assistant editor, page designer and other invisible and crucial roles in the publishing puzzle.

The editing team sent the manuscript to numerous reviewers within the youth development field, to ask for feedback, and the questions and suggestions posed by these reviewers significantly contributed to the validity of our finished book.

Each time I received the edited manuscript, it would feel a little more polished, a little more focused, and a lot closer to something I’d eventually find on the shelf in a book store. Each time I read the revised chapters, after being away from them for two months, I’d look at the words with fresh eyes and be pleased with most that I saw, but irritated by an overused or repeated word I allowed to slip by. The changes I made at this point were rather small, and more because of vanity and OCD, than because of a significant need to change.

In February, my editor sent me the proofs for the designed pages. It’s hard to describe the difference between reading a version of a manuscript that LOOKS like pages in a book, versus 200 pages of double-spaced text. It’s more readable, more attractive, and at this point, it’s virtually error-free. We did have one more shot at changes even after this typesetting, but the revisions were pretty minute at this point.

Please return next week for the final installment for Becoming an Author…

Becoming an Author series:
Part One — Winter 2006
Part Two — Spring 2006
Part Three — Summer 2006
Part Four — Fall 2006
Part Five — Winter-Spring 2007
Part Six — July 2007-February 2008
Part Seven — Spring 2008
Photos of Search Institute Press

My book, Empowering Youth: How to Encourage Young Leaders to Do Great Things, will soon be available at Search Institute Press.