And so it begins

Tonight I culled a list of 60 headings for a book. A new book that I will write. A book about Technical Direction. I have to write a book. Barbara says so, and Barbara knows what she's talking about. So I have to write a book.

I think I would like to be: "David Boevers, author of Theatrical Technical Direction." That would be cool.

Do you think the Excel people thought that the program would be used for outlining books? Is that why the default filename is "Book1?"

Will anyone want to publish a book about technical direction? There can't be too many people apt to buy the thing. I guess if it turns out to be a good college text there would be a few buyers and then maybe even a publisher. Could I then be one of those people that makes their class buy their book? That seems so crass to me. Maybe one's opinion changes once you're officially an author.

So, 60 syllabus entries with at least a once page lecture outline to go with each. So we're up to 60 pages and that's just the outline. A typical one page lecture outline generates between 2 and four pages of notes for someone in class. That would expand the thing to 180ish pages as a sentence outline. Expand that out to actual text and its likely 150-200% of that, between 270 and 360 pages. Charts, examples, and diagrams maybe another 30-40 and we're in the 400 page neighborhood.

That's too long. Too long by a bunch I think. I can't imagine any TD reading more than 150 pages about this crap. Guess I should look at some comparable texts for length. Still, nice to know there's something there before I really get started. I wonder what the next step will be.