Ken Getz is a pain in the ass!

There I said it. I realize this is not the nicest thing to say about someone who’s been generous enough to invite me into his home this coming weekend, but I felt I had to get it out before I saw him in person.

In truth, Ken is a pain in my ass because I (well, actually, my editors) asked him to be and he was nice enough to agree to do it. He’s one of the technical reviewers for my book, and his comments have caused me no end of grief because: a) he feels free to comment at length about the shortcomings of my writing, and b) he’s usually pretty on the money. The way I’ve been working is to edit a chapter first and then look at the comments the reviewers had about it. I’m pretty much guaranteed that if I skim over some weak passage and weasel by with the thought “Hmmm. I’m not sure that’s such a good passage. Ah, well, I’m sure it’s OK…”, then Ken’s going to have a comment calling me out on it. Very valuable stuff, but I tell you: after ten or so chapters of it, I’ve started to steel myself before flipping to his comments. I’m going to be very grateful for all his insight… when I’m done editing the damn book.

(And in saying all this, I am not meaning to slight any of the other reviewers, all of whom have been providing insightful and invaluable comments of their own. I just call Ken out here because he seems to have the knack for writing comments that particularly bedevil me.)

As a side note, you’ll notice that I haven’t been posting a lot of happy, chatty entries about getting this book finished, the way, say, ChrisAn has about getting his presentation done for the PDC. I’m not sure what Chris has been taking, but I missed it when they handed out the happy pills. Me, I’m just slogging it out as best I can. Maybe I need a life-size Chris Sells looking over my shoulder…

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