What's next

Many of you are wondering what happens now that I've turned in RC1. Except that there aren't many of you, and you weren't wondering that.

So I talked to my editor today and here's what it looks like:
- next couple of days-2 weeks: I get the next batch of edits back, which should, hopefully, be all minor polishes. I will be on vacation, working on my hot, hot, hot new MacBook Pro, which I totally don't have the money for and am hoping to sell used if it comes to that on my return.
- hopefully this means I'm not in Toledo, sipping on red wine while I fix things. Plus my ability to do research without my books and boxes on boxes of notes and photocopies is going to be pretty limited.

Side note: holy mackeral is this MacBook beautiful. Apple, to make sure the MacBook meets Apple's exacting standards for items I buy, took special care to make the keys at the top left look a little blistered. $3,000 laptop. One of the things Apple does really well is make opening the computer a pleasure - it's all so easy and each step is obvious, like unwrapping a candy. Design makes a difference.

- then when we've agreed on a version that can go to press, it goes to the manuscript people, who give it a severe series of readings for typos, fragmented sentences, and so on. That should be about 6 weeks from now, which is a good argument for me not to hurry back to work

- I fix everything the manuscript people come up with. I don't know how long that'll take, but typos aren't that tough to do edits on. So let's say it's... first week of October.

Then nothing happens for four months while it gets printed, and then bam! It comes out in February.

Now, whether I try and get another book project together or go back into IT is another thing entirely. We'll see, I guess. If I don't, it seems likely that I'd have to sell off this sweet-looking laptop with the slightly blistered keys.