Galleys

When you receive the gal­ley of your book, you are look­ing at it in print for the first time. That is a big psy­cho­log­i­cal change.

[For those unfa­mil­iar with the term, gal­ley refers to the first print­ing of a book, a tri­al print­ing of the book, so to speak. It is not bound, and is usu­al­ly in loose sheets, or a long roll. The pro­duc­tion team and the author read the book in this form, and make what­ev­er changes or cor­rec­tions that are deemed nec­es­sary, every­thing from typos, changes in words struc­ture, and some­times, big alter­ations. There will be in fact, at least two oth­er tri­al print­ings.] Speak­ing for myself, this first gal­ley pulls my book away from my sub­jec­tive per­cep­tion, and begins the shift it to some­thing that is beyond me, a book that belongs to the read­er, not me. Because the gal­ley is com­plete­ly for­mat­ted to look like the book it will become, (designed with mar­gins, type­face, dec­o­ra­tions, chap­ter head­ings, num­ber­ing, etc.) I can read it some­what objec­tive­ly. Indeed, there are moments when read­ing a gal­ley that I tru­ly ask myself, did I write this? (That may be a pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive reflec­tion.) I for­get the strug­gle to get such and such a word or chap­ter right, to smooth the tran­si­tion from this plot spot to the next—it’s all done.

And if I am strug­gling with writ­ing anoth­er book (and I am always strug­gling with writ­ing anoth­er book), I con­sid­er the gal­ley some­what wist­ful­ly. This book is done.

When I send back my cor­rec­tions and changes I need nev­er read the book again.

The book in gal­ley form was fun to write.

The cur­rent project is so hard.

My wife reminds me, “You always say that.”