I did not write the 5th Edition of THIS BUSINESS OF BOOKS.

So I’m doing that one now. This January, 2010. Really. I mean it. Absolutely for reals. I may have to buy an interest in Mars Candy Company to recoup my investment in M&Ms to get through it, but I’m doing it. Right now. Seriously.

For six years now—six years?!  What’s the matter with you? Just write the damn thing!—I’ve promised myself to slam-dunk this revision in a matter of ten to fourteen days. A month at the outside. Six, eight weeks, tops. Definitely within a fiscal quarter.

And for six years—six years?!—I’ve found good reason to not even crack the thing open. I had clients’ work to do. I was backed up on my bookkeeping. It was still selling as is. I had other stuff to write. I didn’t want to self-publish again and I didn’t want to create a proposal. I’d gotten two negative reviews (out of about forty-five or fifty, the rest all positive —so sue me, I’m an author, just like you). Other books had taken its place. I didn’t know what I wanted to change.

I didn’t want to do all that work.

But this year—this glorious 2010 year, this tenth year since we stopped saying “nineteen” and started saying “two thousand” and now say “twenty,” this fantabulous year wherein my husband goes forth with his reinvigorated career, my daughter and her fiancée move to Boston, I sell SECRETS OF A GHOSTWRITER and even find a new agent for HIRED BODIES—this year I’m knuckling down and doing the 5th Edition.

In fact, I’ve already started. Mostly by pretty much catching up on everything else so I have no excuse left, but also by making notes in the margins of my desk copy. I’ve created a new file with a new file name that I can fold, spindle, and mutilate. I’ve collected articles and URLs with important albeit already outdated information. I’ve figured out exactly what I want to change and how I’m going to adjust the cover. I’ve determined the best BISAC Subject heading. I’ve even seriously thought about maybe starting a possible book proposal!

Whew! Is it time to take a break yet?

But no—I slog on. Neither rain nor sleet nor beckoning dirty toilets shall stay me from actually rewriting the obsolete stuff, editing the perennial stuff, updating the transient stuff, and throwing out the rest. The revision-needy text and its accompanying diagrams, tables, and sheaf of amendments sits right here before me, slightly right of my monitor, on the very top of the manuscript pile, obvious, relentless, demanding. I shall persevere. I shall overcome. I shall write the 5th edition.

But as Harry Truman would say: don’t quote me, that’s strictly off the record.

As with any conference, there was no way to absorb all the fantastic information being offered FOR FREE by the myriad presenters. But unlike costly in-person conferences, you could drop in on any workshop at any time to catch up with what was going on, post a question, or throw in your own two cents.

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If you want to take advantage of one of the greatest Internet writer opportunities, sign up now for next year’s conference at http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/2010MuseConferenceRegistration/.
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So I gave her permission to not be current. I also gave her permission to not know everything she needs to know about the book business, because there is too much to know for anyone to know everything. I have no cosmic authority to bestow such permission, but my friend felt better for receiving it.

It gave her pause; it made her realize that no one can possibly keep up with the news from so many sources (so we get a variety of perspectives, of course), plus the news of their own industry, plus the new techniques and innovations of the web and other media AND still have the time to get their own work done.

Sometimes it’s even too much to get through all the newsletters that condense the daily changes. We’re not only suffering from information overload, we’re battered by excessive information availability.

So here’s my global Holiday gift for all my female readers who have the weight of the world on their shoulders and flaming whips urging them ever onward:

This is a reusable gift that flourishes when given away.

Unless you’re dealing with fire, flood, chest pains, difficulty breathing, or copious blood loss, you have my permission to stop, sit, and daydream about totally irrelevant matters. And to eat something that makes you happy.

This isn’t Oz and I don’t have a curtain and giant head, but the Great Ghost hath spoken.

You have my permission to not be perfect today.