An Update on My Next Book
I could’ve called this article “Why I haven’t been blogging much lately.” The reason I haven’t been blogging much is simple: my next book has occupied most of my free time, and this for several reasons.
To begin with, at forty (short) chapters totaling three hundred pages, this is the second longest book I’ve ever written. (My academic monograph Theology in Search of Foundations, published in 2009 with Oxford University Press, is the longest.)
Second, as a theological reflection rooted in personal reminiscences over my last forty years, this next book is also the most personal of all my works … by a wide margin. This kind of writing is particularly demanding. If most of my books are the equivalent of taking friends out for dinner, this book involves inviting the reader into my home. And when you’re inviting friends over for dinner you need to worry about everything from dusting the furniture to cleaning the toilet bowl. Who knew entertaining at home was so much work?
Finally, after eleven books, this is the first time I have ever self-published. While there are many advantages to self-publishing, in my case it meant taking on the task of typesetting the book. And that, let me tell you, is no mean feat. After six weeks of gradually learning the in and outs of Adobe InDesign, I have just handed the manuscript over to a friend to deal with a few remaining issues. I also outsourced the cover design. But beyond that, this work has my personal stamp on it from start to finish.
Back in February I posted an article titled “Today I finished the penultimate draft of my next book.” Penultimate draft? Hah! That post now seems perfectly quaint, especially since the manuscript I called penultimate has been in continuous revision for the last four months. But the upside is that the manuscript I have now is far better than that February draft.
To sum up, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The book should be out this summer and I’ll be releasing further information (including the new title, the cover, endorsements, and ordering information) in the days and weeks to come.
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