This is a follow up to my last update on the book.
The book is going well! Last time I said I wasn’t sure I would need three months of 1000 words-a-day writing to create the first rough draft. Well, I was right. A week ago I realized I was done with the initial phase, which was a “dump” of ideas onto a Pages document on my computer.
This week I went through my ideas, labelling each idea segment and creating a table of contents using bookmarks at the top of the document. Today I organized the segments into the overall sections based on topic.
The next step will be continuing to organize. Some of the ideas are full pages, some of them are a sentence or two. I will start thinking about how to combine them together into what will ultimately be chapters.
Meanwhile, I have started to talk to my students about what my book project. I will continue doing this as a way to get ideas from the demographic I am writing for. I am open to the format this project will ultimately take. What will be the best way to go? Will it be a standard book, written in prose from front to back? Or will a workbook format make more sense, incorporating sheet music and exercises? Or something else?
As I said when I first started this project, I see only good coming from it. It joins writing a book, something I have long been interested in, with teaching, which is something I have a long track record of professional success doing. No matter what the outcome, I think the book will only help my teaching. It may even open up other avenues I’m not currently aware of.
In summary, overall I am very pleased and satisfied to be doing this project!