It never ends...

So hopefully the final versions of all the stories/poems for publication have been put to rest today. It went down to the wire, with lots of confusion and misunderstanding over the collective rules we were all following for grammar and punctuation. I personally could have been the final to submit a completed draft, so I might be the crown-holder for least organized.

It's amazing how just when I thought things were done...like really finished, new wrinkles turn up in our writing in the least expected of places. But as of this evening, we can say with near-certainty that the content portion of the book is complete. Next, of course, is the layout, the design, the printing, the publicity, the advertising, the hype, the hucksterdom of getting it sold, the hoopla of the launch, and so on. There'll be more about these details as the days roll by, which they are doing all too fast lately.

In the end, the book is about the stories and poem of the members of the Trinity writing program. Everything else is just a ribbon on the box, but the work is the gift. For all of the eventual readers out there, the gift has been purchased, and is hidden underneath your parents' bed until we can get together some really swell wrapping paper and ribbons.

Say it to yourself -- sixteen. after. ten. -- it isn't far off, everybody.