just finished writing a book

I’m spent and content. Moments ago, I wrote the last few words for a book I kinda needed to finish today. It’s a book about the change needed in youth ministry, built on the framework of the closing general session talk I gave at last fall’s national youth workers conventions.

I tried to crank it out over the chrismas holidays, but only got 4500 words written. It’s not meant to be a long book, by any stretch of the imagination. But 4500 words is a long article, or a pamphlet, not a book. Jay, our publisher, told me it needed to be more than 15,000 at a minimum, and hopefully more like 20,000 words. I hadn’t found time to work on it since christmas, so I carved out these last three days in my calendar a month ago.

Now, it has 21,188 words, plus 78 endnotes. What a relief.

I’m extremely pumped about this book, its message, and what ys is going to do with it (some very unconventional plans). We’re cranking it out and it should be available this fall.

Lots of editing and research to clean it up and finalize it, but I think I’ll get someone else to do most of that for me.

I needed somewhere quiet and distraction free to write these three days, so I’ve been getting dropped off at the house of a co-worker each day (she and her husband both work, and the house is empty). But my ride doesn’t come to pick me up for an hour yet, so I think I’ll take a nap!