Saturday, January 3, 2009.
Crunch Time On The Memoir.
I was supposed to have delivered my book to the publisher New Year's Eve. But I knew their offices were closed all this past week, and they wouldn't show up until Monday. So, I have until Monday morning to get it polished up and done. I worked a good part of the morning on that, with only a little bit left of the final chapter to write from scratch. I was rolling along, telling the story of GQ Magazine's incomprehensible slam job on New Orleans restaurants a year after the hurricane, then explaining why I think most restaurant critics are unnecessarily stringent, and why I give more five-star ratings than most of my colleagues.
Then I wrote this paragraph:
After I wrote that, I realized I'd said everything I wanted to say. It was the perfect place to end the book. I am writing these words about a week after those, and I still think that's true. Given that during most of my writing of the book I had no sure idea where I was going, that's a happy outcome. All it needs after that is a short epilog to tie up a few loose ends, and that is that.
That perfect final thought emerged, conveniently enough, just before time to go on the air with my radio show. Jude came in with an offer to make Philly cheese steak sandwiches, which I taught him a year or two ago. He acquired a taste for them during his three years at Georgetown Prep, apparently. He made mine bigger than I really needed to eat, given my new limitations on dining. But it was good.
I was on the radio until two, took a nap, and got right back into the book. The last chapter needs to be tightened up and reworked here and there. I thought I would get to the epilog, too, but by the time I finished the copy editing, I felt as if my eyeballs were hanging by their optic nerves. I quit for the night, Jude's cheese steak sandwich leaving me still unhungry.
