We did it! We did it! After 2 days, 21 hours, 150 pages, and 43,000 words, we finished the third draft of The Usual Error! It was so fun. The third draft is so good. And we are so exhausted!

We’ll merge the changes into the electronic version, futz with MS Word’s horrible HTML import capability, and send the editors’ copies out on Wednesday.

YAY! We are so proud of ourselves!

WOOT! I just bought Marty another birthday present: a super-awesome shirt from 200 Nipples! (Shh! Don’t tell him! He doesn’t read the internet.) And get this: I bought it for two frickin’ dollars! The $2 box was yellow, but I refreshed the instance it expired, and snagged it before anyone else could! It was really exciting!

I really love 200 Nipples. They’re a great example of excellent marketing and excellent business practices. They’re friendly and fun — check out their FAQ, it’s hilarious! They have a great concept, they market it amazingly well, their product is of high quality, and their execution is flawless. Their customer service is also excellent; they offer a money-back guarantee, and they respond to emails very promptly.

It’s amazing what three clever entrepreneurs can do. I’d love to patronize more businesses like 200 Nipples!

Today, Kyeli and I spent nine hours at Austin Java working on the third draft of The Usual Error, and we spent a huge chunk of that time in an awesome state of flow. We edited half of the entire book. The second draft took us a month and a half, working for a couple hours a day. But when we dedicated an entire day to it and focused entirely on editing, the hours flew by like water.

Oh yeah, water! Our environment was very important to supporting our flow. We had easy access to water from the drink machine, so we weren’t constantly interrupted by our server. There was background music playing, but it wasn’t too loud or distracting. The buzz of conversation was minimal. The food was yummy and nourishing. Our table and chairs were relatively comfortable, but next time we’ll bring a couple of pillows to set on the wooden chairs.

Next time — in just two days! — we’ll finish the third draft, and then we’ll send out copies for all our friends to edit! We’re so excited!

Pace and I spent the entire day, from 11:30a til 9:30p, in hard wooden chairs at Austin Java. We’ve edited half of the book!! We were really in the zone.

We learned that having a single task in large chunks of uninterrupted time really hones your focus. We got through half of the book in one go, and even though it was a very long go, it was really awesome work and we were amazingly productive.

Late in the day, I choked up. I realized that this book will change the world, no doubt about it. It’s well-written, clear, and told in several voices so as to reach more listeners. It’s funny, whimsical, serious, smart, witty, clever, and caring. It’s fucking amazing.

We agreed that it is our ethical imperative to do everything we can to get this book to as many readers as we can; the more people we reach, the better our world will become. It is our ethical imperative to succeed wildly; anything else is shorting the world a change so many of us crave with all our being – the change of connection.

We’re bringing it on.

Today, after nearly two months of work, we finished the second draft of the Usual Error book!! I’m so incredibly happy and excited!!

On Friday, we’ll print out two copies and go to Austin Java with our laptops, our manuscripts, and a set of colored markers, and spend the entire day editing and reviewing the book. Then, we’ll send it out to all our friends and family who’ve asked to be editors and proofers! After we make any changes they recommend, we’ll hire a professional editor, fix it up, and then it’s not too long til we publish!!

I’m so proud and happy!

Also, last night we bought out the third author of the book, so now the book is entirely ours!! The entire Usual Error Project is entirely ours!!

We’re so full of glee we couldn’t stop giggling all day. What amazing progress. As Pace said, we’re really in the river, because everything is coming along perfectly!

We just finished the second draft of The Usual Error! It took us about a month and a half. We ended up not just editing for flow, tone, style, and grammar, as we had originally planned; we made major revisions. The book is far smoother, far more consistent, and far more readable than it was in the first draft. It’s AWESOME!

For the third revision, this weekend we’re going to print out two copies and sit at Austin Java all day, reading it, marking it up with red pens, and reading it out loud to each other.

For the fourth revision, we’ll send copies to all our friends and fans who are interested, and they can mark up the copies with their edits, revisions, and comments. We’ll merge them into the master copy.

For the fifth revision, we’ll send it to a professional editor.

For the sixth and final revision, we’ll go back to Austin Java with the red pens again and make a final pass before publishing.

We’re so excited!!!

The other night, I had a weird food experience. I ate half a bag of Doritos, most of which I consumed well after I stopped wanting them. I mulled on this for a long time, trying to figure out why the hell I’d eat so much junk, especially after I stopped wanting it.

I think I figured it out. I think it was a starvation reaction.

My system has adjusted and now expects whole, alive, nourishing sustenance. When I fed us junk devoid of nourishment, my body panicked, thinking no goodness would come of the food I was ingesting and went into overdrive, needing to consume as much as possible in an attempt to scrounge some kind of life-sustainability from the chips. This created a need to continue eating them even well after I was consciously ready to stop, because my body was afraid of starving. I didn’t get full, either, because that kind of “food” doesn’t actually get processed and turned into anything useful, so it was being shuffled out as fast as I was putting it in.

When I eat life-giving real food, I get satisfied and only eat when I want to and can stop when I want. I don’t panic and don’t wonder why I’m eating so much, because I’m not eating so much. But every time I eat foods that aren’t as nourishing, I get that feeling and end up eating far more than I wanted, and far more than I needed, and I get over-full and feel icky.

Food is so interesting and exciting!! Our bodies are so amazing and interesting!

I just finished Persona 3, and I think it may be the best RPG I have ever played. Better than Grandia 3, and better than most if not all of the Final Fantasies. A lot of the Final Fantasy characters blur together in my mind (with some notable exceptions, e.g. Yuna), but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the characters in Persona 3.

Snapped this at the intersection of Lamar and Airport this afternoon. Apologies for the poor quality of my cell phone camera.

Best. Slogan. Ever.

I edited an entire section of the Usual Error book in one go today – that’s six chapters, an entire 1/5th of the book! A lot of it was hardcore revision, and I am both pleased and wiped out. I got on a roll and kept on rolling.

I am a Katamari of Editing! Roll me up, baby!