My odyssey through time has ended (#SFWApro)

Time Travel on Screen went off in the mail to McFarland yesterday. Phew! And no, the photo has nothing to do with it, but it’s been a gorgeous spring in Durham so I wanted to share.

It was a slightly insane last few days wrapping everything up, but less insane than I think it’s ever been before (you can find my previous books here), so I must be getting better at scheduling my work time. Still, due to watching stuff right up until the end, which I had not anticipated, I did have to hustle.

Over the weekend, I made some formatting changes to the appendices and completed the bibliography. Monday I spell-checked. Ever spell-check a 55o-page book? With several hundred foreign names? And some that need non-Roman letters added (I really should have done that as I went along. My very bad)? Not amusing.

After finishing everything ready for printing, I went to bed Monday, woke up, resumed work. I’d planned to print the book on our own printer, but we wound up with a couple of paper jams (I’m a little worried I have damaged the works in removing the paper, but it still works and fortunately we don’t use it that much) I decided to visit the library the next day $55, but it was much easier. Then it was UPS Store for a box (big, to fit one of the larger posters in its roll), then home to sort out all the photos and get everything in the box. Which was more complicated because after going out that morning and having to cage Plushie, he was feeling very needy. We’d planned to put the dogs in day care for the day, but they were still full up with the dogs boarded for Easter. So I had to work lots of petting and snuggling in while I was home.

McFarland recommended using a grease pencil on the back of the photos to tie them with the captions. I was going to use a regular pencil—guess what, doesn’t work? Then I thought of TYG’s makeup and sure enough, one of her makeup pencils worked fine. And that was better than caging Plushie while I went out to find a pencil, then coming back, letting him out, then caging him again.

Then to UPS for packing peanuts, then the Post Office. Dang, for all the smack the USPS gets, I’ve got to say their rates are incredibly reasonable. I was terrified that the cost of two day shipping for a big box would be insane, but it was under $20.

And then it was done. Well, until the proofs come back, and the indexing starts. I’ll spend the next couple of days relaxing, working on taxes (not so relaxes) and figuring out what to do next. Stay tuned.