The White Turret

The third floor window looking out on to the street is the window of my new office in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  I have a fellowship at Harvard and I am desperately hoping to have a full draft of "Book Y" by July 15th.  

The semester is usually filled with so many professional responsibilities that it is almost impossible to do any kind of sustained writing.  Many professors long for the summer, not because we get to go on vacation, but because it is the first opportunity we get to do our own research and writing.

As of today, I intend to be finished with my first round of line edits. I will begin the grueling process of inputting them into the electronic document (I still do all of my line editing by hand).  I am hoping to have a complete second draft of the manuscript by the end of next week.  

At that point, my plan is to do another full round of line edits (by hand) before inputting them to create a complete third draft of the book.  Once the third draft is ready, I will do a final round of electronic line edits.  I do this using the computer "speech" function; the Stephen Hawking voice reads me each chapter so that I can listen rather than look for typos and awkward syntax.  Once this is done, I will ship the fourth draft out to three friendly readers in mid-July.  

When (if) I hear back from my friendly readers, I will make a final round of revisions before (hopefully) shipping the manuscript out to a press by the end of September.  

This is a lot to try to do in a short period of time.  In order to do it all, I am planning to become a complete hermit in my new third-floor office in the white turret.  

Note: the resemblance of my white turret to an ivory tower is purely coincidental.