4. Production headaches of "The Self-Empowed Woman"

Dear Followers,

In an effort to make sure that The Self-Empowered Woman can go on sale in September I've spent the past week carefully rereading every word of the galleys sent to me by Amazon/Booksurge. By noon today (Friday) I was ready to throw all 297 pages out the window in frustration. Three other people proofread the manuscript before Tony and I typed in the last changes and yet on this latest go round I still found things that need to be changed.

This weekend's project will be deciding which mistakes were mine, which were theirs, and which ones don't really have to be altered. This production part of publishing is not nearly as much fun (for either me or for Tony) as the research.

For today's question, what do comedienne Sandra Bernhard, U.S. Olympic Softball Medalist Crystl Bustos, TV and movie writer/director Diane English, and actress Sandra Oh have in common?

One follower suggested that yesterday's women (Czechoslovakian tennis player Martina Hingis, Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, Canadian singer Anne Murray, and Italian film director Lina Wertmuller) all had lengthy names. Nice try, but no cigar. These achievers were lucky enough to identify their life goal or dream at a young age, which is a trait that can be really beneficial.

I started "dictating" the book on Mother's Day 2008 and finished twelve months later. Compulsive researcher that I am, however, I've continued to collect stories about additional high-achieving women, and now have over 100 additional names (like Sonia Sotomayor) to add to the 238 that already appear in the book.

Your comments are really welcome, and I look forward to our online conversations...