Saturday Edition

Get the Blog Feed
What is RSS?

Viagra Overnight Order

Welcome Back, Tom

Welcoming oneself back.
Ye gads.

It's been a long trip to... Book Hell.

As you know, I'm working on a new book—The Little BIG Things.

Our publisher read the Success Tips that had been accumulating here, and said, in effect, "You've written a book."

Sounded good to me.

Until I started editing. And the "ready to go" book was, I thought, anything but. In short, it took the whole bloody summer (no small loss at age 66, and given VT's short summers) to do the job.

About four full edits (not to mention about 50 or so new "Tips"). The last full round of "edits" (fullscale re-writes is more like it) was done during a 2-week trip to New Zealand, from which we just returned. Susan was busy with her own thing, and I had hoped to do a lot of hiking and reading.

Nope.

I do not exaggerate when I say I was up at 2:30AM or 3AM or, at the latest, 4AM every damn day we were there. The last day was 3AM to 11PM—and the next morning I sent the "completed" (for now!) manuscript of 526 pages and 92,000 words off to Erik and Cathy.

No Kubota in VT.
No hiking in NZ.

Has it been fun?
No!

Writing, for me, is not in any way, shape, or form "fun."

On Sunday it was off to the UK (4 speeches in 3 days in Glasgow, Manchester and London) via Amsterdam—where I am as I write. On the way over (Boston-Amsterdam), of course, I did some additions to the manuscript—which I just emailed to Cathy.

So I'm back.
I guess.
(Never used so many eye drops as I did in NZ, and now back home.)
(Weary.)
(Weary.)
(Weary.)

Tom Peters posted this on 08/31/09.

Comments

Welcome back to Europe Tom. Your writing schedule sounds like hard hard work. It reminds me of writing my (second) book last summer. Lots of early mornings, late nights and missed weekends when I'd rather be playing outside in the sun with my kids. It wasn't mcuh fun either, but seeing the book on the shelf in a bookstore made it all worth it. So okay, it wasn't fun for you writing it, but we all look forward to reading it. I'm sure it will inpsire...
Look forward to seeing you in London this Thursday. I am bringing my father as a guest. He'd read 'In Search Of...' when he worked in banking. That was a few years back and he's never seen TP 'live'.
Enjoy Amsterdam, I was there last week with my family. We stayed in a water home on a canal, beautiful city. Grab a coffee at Cafe Jaren, great views: http://www.diningcity.nl//cafedejaren/en/index.html

Posted by Ian Sanders at August 31, 2009 11:53 AM

The thought of publishing a book is exciting, but writing certainly is hard work. I had a schedule similar to Tom's when I wrote my book in the late 90s. And aspiring to write my second book, I thought it would be a smarter approach to write a blog regularly (http://www.pradeephenry.blogspot.com/) and then put it all into a book. If I remember correctly, Seth Godin did the same for one of his books.

Best wishes for your new book, Tom!

Posted by Pradeep Henry at August 31, 2009 12:35 PM

Go Tom!!!
Make it weird - make it loud - make it colorfull!

Posted by gerson barbosa at August 31, 2009 1:16 PM

What have you been doing in your spare time Tom? :-)

Welcome to UK this week - sorry I will miss your sessions this time. Good luck and enjoy a Real English Ale.

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 31, 2009 1:22 PM

Welcome Back.....Brother Yastrow has been keeping us busy thinking and arguing in your stead...Take a few more days and spend them "with" Susan and then get the hell back here with us dammit...

Posted by Todd Spare at August 31, 2009 1:28 PM

Lessons learned:
1. Do what you have to do to make a success - even if you don't like it (not everything worthwhile is fun)
2. Spouses should give each other space to do different things
3. Make things as perfect as you can - but eventually you have to draw a line
4. The world does not stop when you are weary
5. Nothing is as easy as it seems
6. Nothing is as glamorous as it seems
7....

Posted by Dennis at August 31, 2009 5:28 PM

Passive income is passion - so I travel, invest & do less & have more for three months - the still free flowing $500T derivatives free enterprise world abounds. Like being with beautiful women - the key is to enjoy as much as possible. :>)

Posted by TrueLove at August 31, 2009 6:06 PM

TP, sounds like that book has taken close to 1,000 hours to write = almost 2 hours per page. Definitely not fun, but definitely rewarding ... :-) Thank you.

Posted by Mike L. at August 31, 2009 6:33 PM

It's too easy to loose perspective in life and I always look for ways to find it. My good friend and neighbor just spent a little less than 72 hours and 6 flights to get home from Afghanistan after being gone for a year. His sacrifice allows me to enjoy your posts and the privilege to read your next book. Makes my problems and New Zealand seem pretty small in comparison...carpe diem

Posted by EL Paso at August 31, 2009 10:12 PM

Glad to have you back for sure, and thrilled to know your book is closer to finding its way to my hands (after those magic months of kimchi making that publishers seem to do after your last edits and the first printing).

I actually find writing a total blast, but I find EDITING horrible. I'm a terrible editor (and it shows in my book). But hey, we all have our places.

Welcome back.

Posted by Chris Brogan... at August 31, 2009 11:19 PM

Welcome back. It's fascinating to hear about the process. It seems to me that in many ways it would be harder than normal to transfer ever-shifting, evolving, on-the-fly blogged lists of Success Tips into the fixed, permanent, resolved state of a book. It stops being a discussion and instead becomes a very final statement, done, no going back. I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by RobCH at September 1, 2009 12:41 AM

Tom, thanks for letting us know more about "the process". I'm a person who has studied much of your work, religiously, and I have let your recommendations shape the way I do things. Can't say that everything's worked out perfectly, but then, I'm not unhappy with it either.

Posted by John Bugay at September 1, 2009 2:21 AM

And breathe.....

Posted by patrick at September 1, 2009 2:41 AM

Tom, welcome back. We will all benefit from the book. However, I've got to ask.....is it really worth it to you personally to miss time at your farm and with your family? Choices.......

Posted by anitamb at September 1, 2009 9:55 AM

Now that is something I look forward to reading.

I can feel your pain, Tom. One was enough for me.

Send me something when you can.

Jack

Posted by Jack Covert at September 1, 2009 2:41 PM

...if it's not fun, why do it? seems like something TP might say, eh?

Posted by Eric Lapp at September 1, 2009 6:54 PM

A lot of us are tired. A lot of us get out of bed early every morning, go to work, come home late, do housework, yardwork on the weekends, what-have-you. You certainly don't see us whining about it on our weblogs. Yet we are told by you how tough it is to jet around the world and write a book. Get over yourself.

Posted by Mike at September 3, 2009 6:27 AM

I second that, Mike.

Posted by zorro at September 3, 2009 8:24 AM

It's been awhile. Welcome back, David. Interesting. That actually felt good. Self-esteem restored. Thanks Tom.

Posted by David Porter at September 3, 2009 12:35 PM

Wow, Mike and Zorro. You must be so tired you can't manage to enter authentic email addresses. If you're going to give Tom a hard time, at least have the courage to identify yourselves. Feel free to disperse your negative energy elsewhere.

Posted by Shelley Dolley at September 3, 2009 4:49 PM

Funny stuff Shelley. How goes the editing?

Posted by David Porter at September 3, 2009 5:17 PM

It's going well, thanks for asking David. We have a terrific new Cool Friend interview in the works. Stay tuned...

Posted by Shelley Dolley at September 3, 2009 5:36 PM

To address Eric's (rhetorical?) question, there's process and there's result, very different things. We may cheerfully accept risk, hardship or pain (ie "not fun") in the process to achieve a result that we feel is worthwhile (ie "why do it"). To argue from an extreme, if the logic of "if it's not fun, why do it?" were adopted, then childbirth would have been a very early casualty.

And to go on to Mike's, all things are relative. I've read bloggers complaining about not being able to get a good cup of coffee, about traffic delays, about how Life Sucks in terms of relationships, jobs, iphone battery life and gun control. They themselves complain from the privileged position of not starving, not being in a war zone, of having a roof over their heads, living in a free society, having internet access, of not being interned in refugee camps, and so on. It's easy to mock someone else's perspective as disproportionate. From yet another viewpoint our own may appear just as skewed and unrealistic.

Posted by RobCH at September 4, 2009 2:38 AM

viagra uk paypal

RobCH - I agree with you. Its very easy to be critical of other people. The easiest job to do is someone else's :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at September 4, 2009 4:30 AM

Well put Rob. What's wrong is always available to us. And so is what's right. Life is difficult. And therein lies all of the juice!

Posted by David Porter at September 4, 2009 7:49 AM

Echoing the sentiments above... I (and a few others close to me) had some serious health issues a year ago that scared the crap out of me. Yet now I get almost as anxious about writing deadlines. Seems to be the nature of human beings (or at least the vast majority of us) to elevate mole hills to mountains in the absence of real survival issues. We humans are interesting critters... purchase viagra online without prescription

Posted by John O'Leary at September 4, 2009 8:26 AM

John - I catstrophise all the time .. I just love that grammatically 'ugly' word .....

If I miss a deadline .... in no time (in my head) I am unemployable, house re-possessed, homeless, sleeping in doorways on cardboard boxes and on the slippery slope to hell. No one else can take away how we feel. Of course relativity is good but I guess when push comes to shove we only truly have our own (very selfish) perspective. We are who we are :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at September 4, 2009 9:27 AM

Trevor, having been - at times - a homeless panhandler in my music years (and sleeping on or under a few park benches in NYC) I probably get more worked up over things now. As another NY singer said, "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose..."

Posted by John O'Leary at September 4, 2009 12:19 PM

Thanks, Tom.
Just when I was going to start writing a book,
you tell me what a pain it is going to be.
I really needed that. Really. Really.
John
Shakespeare's Debtor (Was it that hard for him?)

Posted by Shakespeare's Debtor at September 9, 2009 8:37 AM