Some of you know that I’ve been working on a book for a while — it’s called “The Elephant in the Room,” and it’s a memoir about my life as a fat man in a growing America. Just after midnight last night, I wrote the final sentence and then typed -30-, which is old newspaper lingo for the end of a story. I emailed the draft to my agent. Most of my columns for the Charlotte Observer were about 600 words. One of the features I write for ESPN might run 4,000. This was 61,000 words. I hope a few of them are good.
This is just the end of the beginning. A few trusted readers are going to take a look and give me some thoughts. I’ll read those and make some changes. Then my book editor at Simon & Schuster will get ahold of it, and he’ll have more ideas. What we end up with will be different than what I turned in today. That’s how it works and how it ought to work. I don’t know when there will be a book for you to buy. But you can bet I’ll let you know through this blog, Twitter, Facebook, emails, town crier, etc.
There’s still a long way to go. But for now: I wrote a book! I think I’ll go sleep for a couple of days.