Hi there. My name is Scott Duffy, and welcome to my book writing log. I have documented the process of writing my last two books on this site, and have started my third. This book will be called Visual Studio Team System In Action, and should be available in 2005.

Chapter 1 Out The Door

It's 4:30 am once again. This will become a familar theme in the coming months, although I was hoping to avoid that this time around. I find, though, that the middle of the night is perfect for writing as there are no distractions. No TV, no wife (sorry, honey). I can sit in my office undisturbed and focused.

Unfortunately, these late nights usually ruin me the next day. So I will definitely try to keep these late nights to a minimum.

Anyways, at 8,423 words, I am ready to send chapter 1 to my publisher for review. I am fairly happy with it - I achieved all of the key things I wanted to. I set the stage for all the cool features in Team System, set a light hearted tone, provided some good figures for illustration... all in all, I'm happy with it. I hope my editor agrees.

Mood: 7/10. Glad to be done, but tired.

Chapter 1 Interim Update

It's 4:30am, and I think I should try and get a few hours sleep before resuming writing in the morning. I am at 5,187 words and have made some great progress tonight. Before you drop your jaw and think "Hey, he only wrote 1,400 words in 12 hours or so", I should say my wife and I spent several hours having dinner with friends tonight, so I only resumed writing at 1am...

1,400 words in three hours gives you a reasonable idea on how long it takes to write a book...

Mood: 6/10
On the plus side: Made good progress tonight
On the minus side: It's 4:30am, and I'm not feeling very well

Still Trying to Deliver Chapter 1

Here I sit, on Saturday October 23, trying to complete the first chapter of what I think will be a great book on Team System. I say this because there are tons of cool features to cover. Having an extremely interesting subject matter makes writing a book so much easier.

Writing has been going good today, and I've added a few more pages. I am at 3,748 words so far, but I will get that closer to 6,000 words before submitting it to the publisher tomorrow.

Mood: 8/10

Good Writing Day

I had an excellent few hours of writing today. Unfortunately, it was cut short to run off for Thanksgiving dinner. Now at this point, my American friends are saying, "Thanksgiving in October? Are you out of your mind?"

Well, Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in Canada. We are celebrating the fall harvest, which happens a little earlier up here due to the cold.

Overall, today was a 8/10. Slow start, but got into a groove.

It's All Coming Back To Me

Today, I spent most of the day installing the Visual Studio Team System software -- getting to know my patient, so to speak. For the next few months, I will be poking and prodding this thing, trying to convince it to surrender it's secrets. And today is the day I let it know who was boss.

OK, maybe that's a tad melodramatic. You can forgive a guy for looking at such a mundane task as installing software all day as something a bit more exciting than it is.

I feel a bit like Wil Wheaton tonight. "I am a professional author." Sure, I only earn a small percentage of my income from writing, but that qualifies as an author nonetheless. It's odd, but for the last few years I have pretty much gotten into a daily habit of writing. I write this blog, and 3 or 4 others. Besides programming, I spend a little of each day at work writing specifications and other technical documents. And some would say my emails tend to be on the long side - I can spend several hours crafting the perfect email.

So, in writing a book, the actual writing is not a problem for me. If I know what I want to say, I can say it.

That's a big "if"...

The thing about writing a book is that publishers, of course, expect their books to be in a certain format. In the olden days, before the Microsoft Word and the personal computer changed the face of writing, an author just had to ensure his typewriter was set to double space. Now, authors must make their manuscript conform to specific MS Word templates - ensuring every character is formatted correctly.

The challenge is learning all of the template styles, and when to use them. How do I format a bullet list again? How can I insert a table here?

Luckily, the publisher provides several examples and other documents to help you figure this all out. But this is the hardest part of writing Chapter 1... not what to write, but how to format it. It's all coming back to me now.