Warming Up

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Wednesday 16th July 2003

The complete draft of the book came through today for me to check over and comment upon.
It's a bit long, coming in at 313 pages rather than the 265 that the editor was hoping for, so I'm looking for cuts as well, but he also wants to add more pictures because he's concerned there's too much text and he wants to make sure it looks like a comedy book to the casual shopper.
It's a difficult balance. The book is by turns, funny, disgusting, scholarly and serious. I hope we get the design right.
Being the anal perfectionist that I can sometimes be, my other fear is that mistakes will get through into the printed version, especially if the mistake has been made by someone transcribing what I've written incorrectly, or misunderstanding an instruction about a diagram or picture. So far I have to say everyone's done a pretty good job, but when you're re-reading something for the tenth time it is easy to assume that you know what it says and not bother to check it properly. I've found a few errors (most of which I think were my own original ones), but how many have I missed?
And what if I've made some stupid error in my research?
Ah well, it will be printed and there will be nothing that I can do. I have a few days to try and ensure those errors are kept to a minimum.
Meanwhile I have made no progress on the film. The book takes absolute priority, which perhaps shows my level of commitment to the new project.