Having just now finished, I mean just this very minute, having just now finished a two-year writing project, I think I’ll... write for a little while!

I estimate that I spent about 300 hours over the past few weeks preparing my indexes. In that amount of time I probably could have written a paperback romance novel, which would have been far less stressful and far more lucrative.

The moral here is that you must never, ever decide to write a reference text. The project took me—again this is a vague estimate—took me 3,000 hours. (For comparison, a full-time, 40-hour job constitutes 2,080 hours in a year.) That’s a lot of weekends, evenings, holidays, and vacations devoted to a book that will, if I’m lucky, net me $2500. You do the math.

No, really. You do the math. I’m not gonna. Let’s just say that my first job, giving tuba lessons at the age of fourteen, paid significantly better wages per hour, and I didn’t even have to report my taxes on that. (If, um, anyone wants tuba lessons? Let me know, okay?)

It is at this point that I will accept congratulatory alcohol and food. I will make my point very plainly here, for any of you might have difficulty reading subtext: For the the first time in two years I have a free weekend—no library, no bookstore, no manuscript—and if I have to spend it huddled quietly in my apartment, drinking wine from a box and eating bad Chinese takeout that I had to buy for myself, lonely, unloved, and unmissed, in the rain (I assume it would be raining), well, be it on your own heads if you can live with that knowledge.

So there is no confusion, I will also accept congratulatory alcohol and food when the book is actually published.

I checked my book on Amazon again, and while my sales rank has slipped to two-million-somethingth place, I am very pleased to see that it now has some decent recommended purchases under the “Customers who bought related items also bought” section. Last time I looked, it was all yucky generic titles. This evening I looked, and...

...it was all graphic novels. Awesome. Not relevant, not related to my book whatsoever, completely useless really, but awesome. If you are thinking of buying Women’s Nonfiction: A Guide to Reading Interests, then according to Amazon you may also be interested in these titles:

• Northlanders v. 1. This is a graphic novel about a Viking. I liked it okay.
• Fables v. 12. I love the Fables series. I gotta read volume 12, now that you mention it.
• 100 Bullets v. 13. This series rocks. We just got v. 13 at the library today. I totally need to read it, but since the series has a complicated plot, I really ought to re-read the first twelve volumes... o’course, I have time now to do that kind of thing. Whee!
• DMZ v. 7. dunno, haven’t read it
• The Walking Dead v. 10. Eh. I read the first volume. Not impressed.
• DMZ v. 6. Twice Amazon recommended this series. Maybe I should look into it.

Apparently someone with good reading tastes (except for The Walking Dead, I thought it was hokey) has pre-ordered my book. I hope this knowledge will be able to sustain my spirits through the weekend, though actually that won’t be necessary, what with all the celebrations and all, do I make myself clear?