more on book proofs

I’m up to about page 40 on the proofs now, and my new method is working well. The new method is to look only for typographical errors, not to worry about whether the book is any good or not.

For one thing, it’s too late for that. For another thing, when you read book proofs the book always looks like crap. Maybe that’s not true for everyone, but it’s been true for all of my four sets of proofs, as well as for several author friends I’ve had to counsel back from the edge of nervous breakdown.

This is not the stage at which to wonder whether you wrote a good book or not. The time for that is later, and especially earlier. This stage exists only for looking for outright mistakes.

I’m not entirely sure of the psychology behind this; I just know that I’ve found it to be an empirical fact over the years. This is always the least enjoyable stage of the book’s maturation. The words somehow always look very stupid on the page at this stage, or maybe “presumptuous” would be a better word. I remember rewriting these first few chapters some 30 or 40 times on the computer (only minor changes after about draft 4) and now it seems weird that they have finally been admitted to the ranks of books that will be on library shelves for a long time to come.

So, my new rule (working very well today) is not even to worry about that. I liked this book in the past, and I’m pretty self-critical, so it’s probably good. And I’ll probably like it again when reading it in paper format. But if I actually read it right now, rather than just proofing it, I will surely hate it.

All of my author friends in philosophy seem to have the same experience. I’m not sure about those outside my immediate circle, or those who write in other genres.