Walter White Wednesday 80

This is a post I've been waiting for nearly two years to write - the edited draft of Wanna Cook? (insert drumroll, please!) is done.  Done, do you hear me?  Episodes have been watched, notes have been taken, a first draft has been created, extras have been researched, extras have been drafted, all that's been reviewed and sent to Our Dear Editor (like North Korea's Dear Leader, but ours has both a far better haircut and sense of humor) who marked it up with line edits and sent it back to us.  Changes made, or not made and argued about, then sent back. When that hurdle was cleared, it was on to the copy-editing stage - smaller nits to pick, but very important ones were caught there.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  For 5 seasons, the last of which was split into two parts by a year.  Done.  There really should be cake at this juncture, but I'll settle for jazz hands.

Soon we'll get galley pages, which have been typeset, with graphics and so forth added in for our final pass and a proofreader is hunkering over things with a magnifying glass and a thick style manual to make sure we have been consistent throughout the book.  (Wait, wait - does "Hector" have an accent mark or not?)

Then Wanna Cook? goes to the translation folks, since the book is being released simultaneously in English ("the meth") and German ("die meth." Or maybe "das meth." Heck, it could be "der meth."  OK, that alone explains why someone else is translating the text.) I won't really consider the project "finished" until I can hold the bound book in my hands, but this is a point well worth celebrating.  And, as a reminder, Wanna Cook? is scheduled to hit bookstore shelves (and be ready for delivery from online booksellers) May 1. That day also happens to be my and Ensley's anniversary - not a traditional gift, to be sure, but what can you do?

So until we get the galley pages in a few weeks, there's a lull of quiet at the writing desk.  Well, at least for the Wanna Cook? project.  We both still have our day jobs to attend to. Also, on Nov. 15, we're presenting at a one-day conference at Converse College in Spartanburg, SC (here's the schedule) and our presentations need some fine-tuning for that.  (Mine's a longer version of an extra in Wanna Cook? that deals with negative fan reaction to Skyler, by the way.)

But we also plan to carve out some time to just savor reaching this point in a project that has mattered so very much to both of us.

Ahhhhhh.

I say it's time to dance!  So click and enjoy!  (I thought about just cutting this to the Bryan Cranston intro, but nah.  This is choice stuff all the way through and we all deserve four minutes to laugh!)