There are lots of parts of writing a book that are not all they're cracked up to be.  Lots of times that aren't about creativity, they are just about sort of like, slamming your hands against the keyboard until the thing comes out revision is often, you know, going through line by line to make sure that you want every word to be in the document that is in the document and every sentence deserves to be there and every sentence that should be there is and that is not the worst part.  

The worst part begins today.  We are 82 days away from the publication of my book and I no longer can change it.  WHAT.  I make YouTube videos for a living and when I do that, I do what I'm doing right now.  It's 3:02 on a Wednesday and at 4:02 on this Wednesday, this video will be on the internet and people will look at it and they will tell me what they think.  They will respond to me and to my creative endeavor, which admittedly, has not had as much work put into it as this book.

This is it, by the way.  I wonder what you just saw there.  Page 393.  Oh, that's, that's not literally the end of the book.  It has this line:  "What are you?" He said, his voice quavering.  "Ugh," I replied standing up, "I wish I knew."  

There's that.

I have gone through it a number of times and I believe that I have officially read it for the last time.  I thought I might read my last book after it came out in solid form, but I didn't and I am not unique in that.  I have heard this is a thing for most people.  One, you've read this book more than you've read any other book, so like, you don't need to read it again.  You know what's in the book.  Second, it's terrible.  It doesn't matter how long you work on something as complicated as a novel.  You will always want to change something about it. 

In fact, in this last round, it was basically like, hey, Hank, we need you to comment on these last ten things and I was also like, I want to change this and this.  Like it doesn't make any sense that this person is doing this at this point and needs to respond to this previous stimulus that is still a part of her life but we're kind of ignoring it right.

Like, it's so frustrating for me that it's like, what is this 80 day wall, and this is, by the way, a short amount of time to go from a locked manuscript to a public--to published and why that is is complicated and I don't really get it myself, but like, I trust that publishing knows what it's doing, but it, you know, and the reason it's short for me, mostly is because I missed deadlines.  There's a couple of later deadlines that got missed because a lot of things in my life became more complicated.  

Yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of work on my plate for the last uh...couple months.  Part of me is relieved to have a manuscript and to not be looking at it anymore 'cause I have a lot to do, but part of me just wants to keep working on the book.  With songs, it's always this way.  

This is a fascinating thing.  So, there are a couple of songs that I love from bands that I love that are performed differently than they are on the album and this is consistent, so I'm big They Might be Giants fan, and they have this with some of their songs, where they like, consistently perform the song with different words than it is on the album, and this is obviously a creative choice and there are reasons and like, I get to speculate about what those reasons are, but it's generally not done.  It's pretty unusual, because once you've released something to people, then that for me is when it's done, when it's locked.  I can't change it once you read it, because then I'm changing that universe.  Then it really is something I can't change anymore and I believe it and I understand that I can't change it and absolutely is--I have created this thing and if I change it, then I'm altering the universe.

With a book, you can't like, say like, Oh well, in the next edition we're gonna add another paragraph about X, Y, or Z.  You can't do that.  Like, it just--that's--you can't have different people read a different book and Disney's dealing with this right now, them changing stuff that's going up on Disney+ to not have certain scenes in it 'cause they're too risque or cover up Daryl Hannah's butt or something, and they've been doing it to Star Wars forever.  That Greedo scene just keeps getting mangled, but I want the book to come out not only so that I can hear from people and like, have it in the world, but so that I know that it's locked, right?  Until and it is. 

I know objectively that it is, but it doesn't feel like it is because it gets locked when it's in your head.  Not when it's in the book and like, that is the trigger for me where the book--there's nothing else I can do to it and that uncomfortable space between when in reality, I can't change it because of publishing stuff and in my head, I can't change it because it's now inside of the reader's mind and it's--it is a solid work that is going to be appreciated and consumed in the same way by, you know, many different people.  That space is so long.  

When I upload--when I edit this video, it may be that I see something that I said that I didn't like and I will change it and I will be able to change it right up until the moment when I click publish and that space is very short, like, from export to publish during which I can sort of like, mill about and have this like, okay, this thing is done but it is not locked, and right now, I have entered into the 84 days of done but not locked, and this is a cognitive thing because it is locked, but it's not, because it's not inside you yet, and I don't know how better to explain it than that.  I hope that that makes some amount  of sense, but this is, for me, the worst part of publishing a book.  This very long period of time during which I just want it to be available and I can't do anything to speed the process along and that sucks.

So I wish I could say go order it now and it'll come out sooner, but it will come out on July 7th whatever you do, but everybody knows one thing: Almost every independent bookstore in America is still open for business, you just can't go to them, so call them up, e-mail them, order online, and they will get the book to you.  Many of those stores will have signed copies available as well and--I don't know exactly how that works, but I know that many bookstores, indie bookstores, will have signed copies.  Amazon also has a signed copy, a link that you can get right now, and I'm signing like crazy right now.  That is--that is the thing that this has freed me up to do.  I am a little behind on my signing schedule but I'm gonna catch up now.  

So I should be done by my signing deadline, which is quite soon, and that's another thing that takes a little bit of time.  You gotta get the tip-ins to the place where they get made and then they gotta shuffle them into the printing machine that does binding, probably, I don't know.

La la la la la la la la.  La la la la la la la la.  Well, baby, baby, I (?~8:05) tonight.  Is she in the bathroom, is she smoking up upsmide--upsmide?  Oh, oh baby, baby, does she take a piece of lime for the drink that I'm a-buyin', do you notice what she likes?  Oh, oh, tell me have you seen her cause I'm so, I can't seem to get her off my brain.  I just want to go to the body she gon' go, can somebody take me home?  Ah-ha-hee-hee-ha-ha-ho.  Love me, hate me, say what you want 'bout me, but all the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy.  Love me, hate me, but can't you see what I see, but all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to see if you seek Amy.