Holy MFin’ Baby Donuts, The Book Is Done

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In case anyone thinks I’m exaggerating when I say I’m a person who works best at the last-minute, it is 5 minutes to 4 p.m. central time — i.e., 5 p.m. eastern — and I have just this second put the final touches on our manuscript, which was due today at, oh, 5 p.m. eastern time.

Okay, technically, our editor said we could turn it in on Monday, because she had a half day today anyway, but 5 p.m. on August 1 is the deadline I’ve thought I was working toward for the last five months, so 4:55 on August 1 is when I finished my half. This is how I work, y’all. I have already told Marianne that if there’s another book, she and our editor should pick a just deadline together and tell me it’s a month (or, I don’t know, a year) earlier than that date, ’cause the chances of getting me to step it up any other way are pretty fucking slim at this point. Everyone should send Marianne lots of healing thoughts and dumb internet hugs to help soften the sting of having me for a co-author. 

But holy motherfuckin’ baby donuts, it’s done. IT’S DONE!!!! Baby-flavored champagne all around!

115 thoughts on “Holy MFin’ Baby Donuts, The Book Is Done”

  12. Congrats to you both. You are an inspiration to me (well, maybe not the procrastination part!), and I sincerely look forward to reading the book.

  17. KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!

    (I am screaming your name like WAAAAAAAAAAAALT out of pure happiness for you, in case you can’t tell.)

    That is AWESOME. Baby-flavored CAVIAR for you, girl!

    I’m so in the trenches with mine right now (due at the end of the month). Mind if I just hang out here for a while and enjoy the contact high?

  20. Pre-order day on Amazon is a lot of fun. You go up and up in the listings and suddenly, for a day, you’re ahead of Deepak Chopra or someone and fuck, that’s awesome!!!

  23. Congrats! I am really looking forward to reading your book!!

    And about procrastination? I totally work that way, too :)

  30. Congratulations! There seems to be nothing like the relief on an author’s face when they finally turn in the manuscript and realize they can think about something else for awhile. (I currently work for a publisher and am married to a novelist whose second book was published today so I have observed the despair to joy cycle and have thanked my lucky stars many times that I don’t write books!)

  33. Just FYI – the manuscript, which I was formatting and doing some final tweaking with, has been DELIVERED. Gods, I love the internet because otherwise we’d have had to mail this thing.

  34. Meowser, we’ll get it back from our editor at least once, I’m sure, but this is the first completed draft we’ve had. We’ve bounced these chapters back at forth between each other at least a couple of times, so there has been on-going editing but we’ve not had the whole thing all in one big file.

  35. Yay!!! *Happy Dancing for Kate & Marianne*

    Here, have a glass of wine. Sit down, put your feet up. Marianne, come on over and get some of this.

    You guys earned it. :)

  42. CAN’T WAIT TO BUY IT!! Just today I had paper accepted for the next ACA (American Counseling Association) convention. It’s called “Fat Bias, Fat Acceptance, and Health at Every Size: A Counselor’s Guide to the Fatosphere.” Given that I’m VERY MUCH new to the Fatosphere, I’m hoping the book will be out before I have to write the paper (March 2009). If it is, I’d be happy to plug the book while I’m there.

  43. So, where does all this baby stuff come in?

    I’m so late to the party on that one. Or at least I’m the nerdy outcast trying to understand the cool kids’ inside jokes.

  44. Yaaaaay both of you! I can’t wait to read it!

    And Kate, I’m selfishly so glad to see successful and all-around-awesome people like you function like that with respect to deadlines. It makes me feel like I’m not doomed to failure in life. :)

  53. There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said. Can’t effing wait!

    I’m a horrible deadliner. Can’t do anything until it’s almost late. Arrrrrgh.

    Congrats to TC’s partner, too!

    Stella, would love to read your paper!

  54. I haven’t commented here for five hundred years but fortunately for me I am still reading every day–so I too can add to the chorus of YAY WOO PARTY WOO.

  55. I cannot even tell you how many of my friends and relatives are getting this book as part of their next Christmas/birthday present, and this is the first book I’ve ever felt that way about — that people I love NEED to read it.

    And congratulations! YOU WROTE A BOOK! That will never stop being true, or awesome.

  56. Woooooooohooooooo!

    And you finished with a whole five minutes to spare…by my standards, you were really quite early. :)

  57. OH! Oh oh OH! CONGA RATS!

    That’s totally amazingly exhilaratingly WONDERFUL! I’m very happy for you.

    And don’t worry, you’re incredibly early. I’ve been saying I’m going to finish a book for publishing for years and years now, and bloody heck if I still haven’t done it. Don’t know what the hell I think I’m waiting for. SO. YOU ARE INCREDIBLY EARLY AND ALSO INCREDIBLY ON TIME, BY A MIRACLE NO ONE CAN EXPLAIN.

    :D

    *hugs, high fives, and um… congratulatory puppy-lickings. yes.*

  58. Kate, As you know who would say, “Ya done good, Peggy!” I’m really proud of you.

    You, too, Marianne! WTG!!!

    You two must be feeling — you should forgive the expression — a thousand pounds lighter!

  59. woohoo kate and marianne good for you!!!!

    you guys are seriously inspiring. :) can’t wait to get the book!!!!

  64. Totally congrats you guys ^___^ That must be an awesome feeling one I’ll never understand as i can’t even manage to finish cleaning my kitchen go figure xD

    Anyway I can not wait to buy it and read it and tell all my friends to buy it and read it. With much love so maybe we can try to make you guys teh richies folk ^__^

  67. Wheeeee! Congrats, Kate and Marianne! So, will there be a book tour? I’ll plan a roadtrip to the nearest locale to get this baby signed. Srsly.

  70. *sings badly, like Anne Hathaway in “Devil Wears Prada”, mimicking the Stones*

    THE BOOK IS DONE .. AH SAID THE BOOK IS DONE!!!

    Now to important things. When’s the party?!? :D

  72. Kate! This has nothing to do with your book, but I’m up with insomnia so I’m watching an old episode of Murder, She Wrote (no, not on cable – I got it FROM THE LIBRARY on PURPOSE because tomorrow’s my birthday and I’m not ashamed to say that, yes, watching Murder She Wrote is my idea of a hootenanny!)

    Well, anyway, there was a walk-on actress who looked just like you!! It was the epi. from season 7 called “The Family Jewels.”

    hee!!

  73. Incidentally in this episode there’s a woman who I’d judge to be probably about a US size 22, who is rich, stylish, has worked her way up in the world, and has a handsome beau — and her size is not a plot point in any way. (She’s also a compulsive shoplifter and adulteress, but since she’s wrongly accused of murder she’s still the sympathetic character.)

  74. And in the episode I’m watching now a character just delivered the line, “I’m the only one who’s gonna spray my wife with vitality!” SRSLY.

    Okay, I’ll stop.

  77. Liza, the baby donut jokes started here.

    I’ll be damned, I haven’t read that in a while… I thought “baby donuts” was mine, but it’s Kate’s! I did start the Sanity Watchers joke, though.

    Kate, congrats on starting an internet meme AND on finishing your MS! This is totally fucking exciting.

  78. emmy – Kate and I have talked a little about book tour stuff. We’ll have to, most likely, organize and plan it on our own because we aren’t big time authors just yet. *grin* But we would like to visit at least a couple of cities together – we might canvas our respective corners of the country a little bit on our own as well.

  82. (Ok, I’m done with the name experimenting. I haven’t seen any other LauraAnne posting and Laura FatChick, while descriptive, just wasn’t doing it for me)

    Kate, congrats on starting an internet meme AND on finishing your MS! This is totally fucking exciting.

    It is SO reflective of my own journey in life that I saw this and the first thought was, “What? She got a Master’s of Science? I thought she was writing a book! I wonder what it is in?!” before reality whopped me upside the head.

    Congratulations!

  85. It is SO reflective of my own journey in life that I saw this and the first thought was, “What? She got a Master’s of Science? I thought she was writing a book! I wonder what it is in?!” before reality whopped me upside the head.

    I have this experience when people on wedding forums talk about STDs.

    And you two would be fools not to hit DC on your book tour… it’s like right in the middle! Are they willing to spring for any publicity? I worked for a real small press and we could often squeeze out a couple cities for our bigger authors. I dunno what kind of a run they’re doing for you but I imagine Penguin’s smallest authors are about as big as our biggest authors (we’re talking printings of like 5000). In conclusion, make them cough up for a book tour!

  87. I have this experience when people on wedding forums talk about STDs.

    Err, you are referring to the disconnect between reading about weddings and STDs? I’m confused.

    (That is not, by the way, indicative of my own journey in life.)

    Important clarification, that. Duly noted. ;)

  90. I have this experience when people on wedding forums talk about STDs.

    Is that a reference to the Doctor of Sacred Theology degree offered by certain Catholic institutions of higher learning? (e.g. “I’m going to go to the Gregorianum in Rome to get an STD.”)

  94. I am so happy for you, I have gathered all of the enthusiasm I can possibly express with a hangover.

    Here we go:

    Woo!

    ow…..

  96. STD also means Short-Term Disability, as in the leave that your company will give you beyond ordinary sick days, but less than “this person may possibly never return to work, ever” LTD.

    Which made me choke on my coffee once when I was working in an HR department and someone said, “We basically treat pregnancy as an STD.”

    And then made all of THEM choke on their coffee when I finally twigged and said, “Oh, you mean SHORT-TERM DISABILITY.”

  97. Which made me choke on my coffee once when I was working in an HR department and someone said, “We basically treat pregnancy as an STD.”

    LOL!!!

    AND CONGRATS KATE!!! I cannot wait to read it. Sorry if I’ve been a little absent from comment threads of late – been reading, I’m just too busy to comment (trying to get ready to move in a month, take out loans, working full time – ya know, life). But this is really exciting news, and I am stoked.

    *dances*

    ^_^

  98. CONGRATS!!! Be sure to stop by here in Germany on your book signing tour! We’ll have baby-flavored pretzels and beer ready for you. ;-)

  99. Ah! Yes, I get it now.

    Is that a reference to the Doctor of Sacred Theology degree offered by certain Catholic institutions of higher learning? (e.g. “I’m going to go to the Gregorianum in Rome to get an STD.”)

    A Sarah, being both Catholic and a former nun, you have NO idea how much that amused me. I want one now. If only to be able to say that it took me a whole bunch of years, a ton of effort and x thousand dollars, but I finally got my STD.

  100. LOL LauraAnne!!! Hey, if you’re in the states and you don’t want to go all the way to Rome, Catholic University of America in DC also offers an STD. I learned this from an ex-boyfriend who taught there, oddly enough.

  104. I’m late to the chorus — didn’t check in over the weekend — but I too am yelling WOO HOO !

    I can hardly wait to read it!

  105. I’ll be damned, I haven’t read that in a while… I thought “baby donuts” was mine, but it’s Kate’s!

    Heh, I knew that when you took credit for it recently, but I wasn’t sure how to politely point that out. :) Props for Sanity Watchers, though.

  107. I knew that when you took credit for it recently, but I wasn’t sure how to politely point that out. :)

    “Dumbass, that was my joke.”

  110. if any of the Chicago folks are watching this, how bad was the storm just now? It’s headed our way and I’m trying to figure out whether to wake my kids and go to a friends’ house where there’s a basement. The weather predictions on television are kind of apocalyptic.

  112. Thanks! It turned out okay for us, but central Indiana is getting pounded. There are a few central IN hoosiers among the Shapelings, IIRC… are y’all okay? I heard Valpo had a tornado.

    It’s weird, but storms seem always to lose their enthusiasm and verve when they get here. South Bend has the same effect on me, though, so I can understand.

    Kate, hope you’re having fun in Minnesota! And congratulations again on the book!

  113. O_O I’m glad you escaped the wrath A Sarah…

    I always thought A Sarah was so cool she had to live in some really awesome major city on one of the coasts, but she’s the state over from me weird-ish

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