Dec. 4, 2008

(11:43 p.m.): So, now I'm officially official. Made a little trip today to Wilmington, Ohio - home of Orange Frazer Press - so I could sign my book contract and pick up some pointers to figure out what it is I need to be doing with The Odyssey*. Needed to work out a few minor details to the contract, but it's signed and ready to go.

According to the contract, my full manuscript is due April 1, 2009 (wouldn't it be funny if I didn't write the book unbeknownst to O-F, showed up at the office April 1, shouted, "April Fool's!" and then walked out. I think that'd be hi-larious.) with a release date of Aug. 1. Basically, I'd better start getting some stuff together pretty soon.

Actually, I've started writing, which is a relief. I'm not writing every day - it's more like 1,500 words here, 2,500 words there - but that's going to have to change by the beginning of 2009. One friend who's written many books said he tries for 4-5 pages (double-spaced) per day. Me, I enjoy dealing in word counts. Originally, the contract called for something like 80,000 words. We've bumped that up to 100,000, but I'm wondering if I'll need more.

*My disclaimer since, despite my attempting to plant as many seeds as possible, people still don't know I'm writing a book: Well, I'm writing a book. About the University of Cincinnati football program and why, after more than 100 years of mostly mediocre teams, it's gotten to the point where it'll play in a BCS bowl game. The working title is "UC Bearcats: A Football Odyssey," but that will change at some point. Honestly, I kind of liked the title of "The Odyssey," but I think my publisher and editor will shoot down that idea.

Since I'm not finished interviewing subjects for various topics, I decided to start with something easy - I'm writing about last season's 10-3 team, and since I covered that squad all year, I have plenty of quotes and articles and good stories I wrote on which I can fall back.**

The writing has been relatively easy, though it's a slower process than I envisioned. Normally, if I have all the quotes and info I need for a newspaper article, I can bang out 800 words in about 30 minutes. This is taking longer, because I'm stewing on it longer, trying to make the prose sound as exciting as possible. Going back through and reading it again. Fixing it. Printing it out. Reading it out loud to myself on paper. Giving it to my wife (who couldn't care less about UC sports) for proofreading. Etc, etc. Before I started writing this chapter, I made a big, long formal outline of everything I wanted to throw in there. Turns out, I'm barely using that outline at all. It was just a big, fat waste of time. I think what I need is just a long semi-detailed list of what I'm going to write about in each chapter. A formal outline, I'm finding, is absolutely worthless to me. About eight hours of my time down the drain.

The one major problem I'm having - aside from the confusion about the bibliography - is how to put all of these words and chapters into a linear order that flows for the reader. I believe I've brought this up to you before. I originally thought this book would go about 20 chapters with about 5,000 words a piece. I even made - and revamped - a chapter order outline that made sense to me (somewhat), even as I rearranged the pieces. See, originally, the 2007 season fodder I'm writing up now was going to be toward the end of the book. But now, I don't have any earthly idea.

I've been advised by my editor not to worry about it. He doesn't believe in outlines; he says the material should carry the day and I, as the author, should react to it after it's already on the page. So, I've written more than 8,000 words on the 2007 season, and I'm only a ¼ of the way into the year. Too many good stories, player profiles, things that I'd forgotten but have since remembered. I don't want this book to seem unbalanced - too much time spent writing about the past two years, not enough time spent on the first 100-plus seasons of the program. But I guess I'm not going to worry about it; I'll let the material carry the day and then see what happens.

We also broached the topic of if we wanted somebody to write a forward for the book, somebody that's more of a national figure type who could write a few coherent sentences about UC football and what it's meant to him/her, his/her city, his/her whatever. For instance, in Michael Perry's new book, Xavier Tales, US Sen. Jim Bunning, an XU alum, wrote the forward (I swear, I wasn't trying to pimp my friends' books when I first started this post, but since I'm there already, here's one for Darren and one for Murph and one for Graham.) I came up with a list of about 5-6 potentials. Here are three of them (and please, please, please if you have a suggestion, let me know).

William Howard Taft - UC graduate, the 27th president of the US, Supreme Court justice (it might be tough getting in touch with his people, though. What? Too soon?).

Barack Obama - This guy seems like a hot topic of conversation these days. (Drawback, of course, is he mistakenly referred to the UC Bearcats as the UC Bobcats during a recent visit to 5/3. People here did not take kindly to that).

Heather Renee French and Kristen Haglund - 2000 and 2008 Miss Americas, respectively, and UC alums. (Don't know if they can write, but if you include their pictures on the cover, maybe you sell 1,000 more copies).

Other than that, I'm stumped. Seriously, if you have a good idea of somebody with Cincinnati or UC connections, let me hear them.

Meanwhile, I'll be writing.

Subjects interviewed (on the record): 36

Hours spent transcribing interviews: 12:01

Words written: 8,186

Blog posts: 14