Book. Done.

After 10 months, 50 essays written and a trillion cups of coffee my book is done. I'm in production talks and last-minute this's and that's with my publisher now. Barring disaster Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books you Haven't Touched Since High School will be available at bookstores and online in February of 2013. 

I am thrilled to be done but don't quite know what to do with myself. Since last August, I've had June 1 of this year in my sights, a giant stone wall of reckoning to sprint towards but avoid hitting. I didn't exactly avoid hitting it (I turned in the manuscript on June 6) but that I finished at all, I'm calling a triumph. This was the longest thing I've ever written. And from what they tell me, 10 months is an aggressive deadline. I made, nearly almost. 

I emailed the last essay to my editor at about 7 in the evening. I had cancelled on dinner plans  (as I had 2 weddings, several birthdays and countless engagements important and small this last year) in order to finish writing. When I did I called my wife, my parents and brothers, then wasn't sure what to do next. I wasn't hungry, was far from home, and was too tired to find a rooftop to dance upon. I also havn't quite understood the enormity of it yet. If we can call it that. 

So I took myself for frozen yogurt. As the sun set and the Upper West Side of Manhatan swirled around me, I wondered if I would ever complete a creative project this large again in my life. 

And then I wanted to do it again, to try this nonsense with a whole new idea, to write smaller and bigger, in print, in print or for the radio and television and some medium that has not yet arrived. I imagined myself making this walk for frozen yogurt a dozen more times, in a dozen different places after finishing a dozen different projects. And for a moment, I had the idea that I would die well before I had said everything I needed to say. 

Practical Classics might be a complete bust. But I told myself and anyone who would listen this past year that the best I can gain from it is the idea that writing is regular to me, is something I do without torture or self-coersion, that it feels easier, that it feels more like me. 

I am closer now. I've been trying to put together an essay about finishing my book this week without much success. I wrote this post as practice. I hope gametime is easier. 

Next up is prepping for touring and promoting this thing, starting the proposal for book #3 and in general joining the world of the living again. I don't see myself being any less busy. But I do find myself filled with joy and wonder, with gratitude that I get to do this at all. And that it makes me feel like I can leap between mountain tops. 

• Category: My Rise to Fame