Draft Two 50% done
over 3 years ago – Wed, Feb 03, 2021 at 05:03:15 PM

Life on the Homestead

In early January I slaughtered three sheep, aged the carcasses for a week, and then butchered them.

The lamb chops look great, and we also got a ton of ground lamb / mutton, which I use for the world-famous (well, ok, perhaps not "world") "Thales-burgers".  Yes, the recipe is provided in the book!

After butchering, one is left with a lot of bones.  That's where a 10+ gallon stock pot comes in - it's time to make stock. 

I've also been cooking up beef ribs and duck leg confit.  Duck leg confit is amazing - the combination of the tenderness that comes from the low slow cooking, the crispiness that comes from being fried in duck fat, and the flavor that comes from a dry brine in salt, black pepper, garlic, and a few other spices is incomparable.  The recipe is in the book, of course.

Progress on the book

I had hoped to finish draft 2 entirely in the space of January, but that was, in retrospect, an insane and unachievable goal - that would have required revising and polishing 60 pages of text per day, seven days per week.

Especially combined with butchering season and the ongoing "barn saga", where I'm fighting local officials who are breaking dozens of laws and regulations (and part of this lawfare involves me knocking on hundreds of doors getting petitions signed, which has taken up five days and counting of my time), the schedule has slipped a bit.

The good news is that in between butchering three sheep, making 15 gallons of stock, and knocking on hundreds of doors in 5°F weather, I also pulled a lot of 12 hour days at the keyboard and manages to hit 50% on draft 2.

In the process of polishing draft 2, the document has grown by another 23,196 words (or 93 pages), to a total of 1,881 standard pages.  I realize I've slipped the schedule a bit, but I promised you 800 pages in the kickstarter, and I'm delivering a wee bit more!

[ I'll be formatting the book to have more than the "standard" of 250 words per paperback page - but even at 350 or 350 words per page, this is looking to be a monster of 1,050 - 1,350 pages (before  illustrations and photos). ]

Given that I'm now 50% of the way through draft 2, I think I've got a fair bit of data to extrapolate from, and I now project, with some decent degree of confidence, that that draft 2 will be finished at the end of February.

There's more good news: I've retained a copy editing firm, and - in order to catch up some of the schedule slip - I've started pipelining the project.  The first 1/4 of draft 2 (470 pages of text) has been handed to the copy editor and he's working on that, while I work on the second half of draft 2.  As soon as he finishes the first quarter of the document, I'll hand him the second quarter.

I've had several people tell me that the best way to get a good index and set of cross references for the book is to use LaTeX.  While I'm not entirely unexperienced w LaTeX (I used it to programatically compose / render shipping labels and invoices at the two companies I ran, SmartFlix and HeavyInk, back in the 2000s and early 2010s), it's not exactly an area where I have a Ricardoian comparative advantage.  I've contacted a firm that does LaTeX layout and gotten a quote.  While far from cheap, it seems like a plausible way to go, so there's a good chance that the book will be composited with LaTeX.

Github Access

If you don't already have access to the work-in-progress at github, contact me via the kickstarter direct-message facility, and I'll get you on ASAP.

You can track my progress on draft 2 by searching the text for the string "<========" ; this is the marker that shows where I am in the rewrite / polish each day.  Everything in the document before that marker is draft 2; everything after that has not yet been polished.

Next Steps

I will be in touch in one month with further updates.

Onward!

Draft one done, draft two starting ... today
over 3 years ago – Sat, Jan 02, 2021 at 12:20:41 AM

Life on the Homestead

Winter is the slow season on homesteads, but "slow" doesn't mean "stopped".

I finished draft one of "Escape the City" a week or so back, and took a brief vacation from writing, to work on other projects.  It was a good week ; I fired up the blacksmithing forge and made a hook for my wife to hang her kitchen apron on, ran Cat-5 to the workshop and hooked up a wireless access point (as part of a much larger project to get my CNC machine up and running), cut my dumbbell rack in half and stretched it by welding in some angle iron, fixed a broken hammer by making a new handle, and a half dozen other projects.

Christmas was good.  My wife drew the Christmas card, I carved the wooden block, and we printed our cards and got them out with hours to spare.

And then on Christmas day we cooked a goose that we'd raised here on the homestead, and my wife made her traditional English "pudding" (closer to a fruitcake, and cooked by steaming). Everything was delicious ...and both recipes are in the book!

Book Schedule

Vacation is now over, and I'm back to the book.  Today I start draft 2.  I'm hoping to have it polished by the end of this month (is that realistic?  I'm not sure - but I will be putting in 40+ hour weeks to get as close to that target as possible).

Once draft 2 is done, I've got proofreaders lined up (yes, plural - to speed up the proof reading process, I'll be breaking the book into pieces and hanging different chunks to different readers).  I've been told that this has a good chance of getting proofing done by the end of February.

If both of these estimates hold (???), then copies should ship in March.

Plans

The Kickstarter had lots of stretch goals - some of those were plans for various projects.

My CAD wizard has started converting my terrible graph-paper-and-pencil sketches into beautiful PDFs.

Github Early Access

If anyone hasn't gotten access to the work-in-progress on github, please message, email, DM on twitter, or send smoke signals to me.  Give me either your github username or email address, and I'll get you access to the content ASAP.

Locking Orders and Charging

I'll be locking orders 48 hours from now and charging (proofreaders don't work for free!).  I know that some Kickstarters have run into financial difficulty because the backers squandered the fees that they later needed for production.  Rest assured that that's now how we do things here at Morlock Heavy Industries - I've got a savings account set up for production costs and shipping, and $30,000 of the Kickstarter fees have been sitting there since the KS closed, slowly accruing a few pennies of interest.  Once the Backerkit charges in a few days, those funds will be moved over into the escrow account and held for shipping charges.

If you want to order additional copies, upgrade your order from ebook to trade, or trade to hardcover, or tell a friend to order copies, now is the time.  In 48 hours the backerkit store will be closed, and it will be impossible to order ebook or trade paperback copies for ~6 months, until the book goes up on Amazon.  Once the store closes it will likely NEVER be possible to order hardcovers again - Amazon does not offer hardcovers, and even if they did, I like to keep hardcovers of my homesteading books and novels as a limited run, hard to get, rare item just for early backers.

So: just 48 hours to order books.

Stay warm and safe this January, and I'll write again in a month or so and give another update on the the progress of Escape the City.  Thank you for your continued support!

- Travis

The Incredible Growing Homesteading Book
over 3 years ago – Tue, Dec 01, 2020 at 07:30:17 PM

Last month, I apologized for the fact that the book had grown from an estimated 800 pages to the third revised target of 1,400 pages.

You can take a guess as to what this update is about.

Yep, the target has slipped.  I've now got 1,568 pages written, and it looks like we're headed towards 1,600.  That's going to be two very thick books.

On the bright side, the schedule has slipped a tiny bit, but not nearly as much as the content growth would suggest.

One month ago I had 306 "xxx"s in the text (my marker for "more content goes here").  As of today, that count is down to 158 - almost (but not quite) exactly a 50% reduction.  We're definitely on the downhill slope, and the fact that "xxx" count is decreasing both monotonically and pretty linearly suggests that there might not be many more surprises.

My estimate is that the first draft will be finished around 31 Dec 2020. Then allowing one month for the second draft, and one month for third-party proofreading, I'm hoping that the project will be done around the end of February.

As always, if you don't yet have Github access, give me a yell, and I'll get you hooked up with the work-in-progress.

- Travis

The Farmpedia ?!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 03:43:51 PM

More content than you bargained for

A month ago I gave you an update, and said

the kickstarter said "800 pages of text"... but I changed the estimate from 800 pages of text to 1,000  pages...and then I blew through that target and realized that I still wasn't done. So the goal / estimate is now 1,200 pages of text.

Today I bring good news and bad news.

The good news is that I've been working steadily on the book, around 1-2 hours most weekdays, and an average of 6 hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

The bad news is even my third estimate on the final size has been proven to be wrong. I have now written 1,278 pages, exceeding what I said in the last update...and the goal is now 1,400 pages, or 175% of the original estimate.

Schedule

This new length estimate is perhaps more reasonable than the previous ones; I've been counting the number of occurrences of "xxx" tags in my text (i.e. "more content here, please"), and the number has stopped growing and started shrinking.

The 31 Dec 2020 estimate is still plausible, and I am seriously aiming at it, but there is a non zero chance that the date could slip a bit.  I'm hoping to wrap up my current contract gig / day job, so that I can work on this project 45-50 hrs/week, and that will increase the chances that I hit the originally estimated ship date.

Recent topics

Some recent topics have included tractor bills of sale, laying out vineyards, string levels, prepping, chest freezers, lawn tools, recipes, lawn sweepers and tow behind sprayers, hydraulic cylinders, safety, tung oil, polyurethane, danish oils, rebuilding old furniture, reviews of homesteading books, running a small business from your homestead (with lots on marketing, MVP, and brand definition), constructing ponds, stocking fish, soil horizons and soil science.

Github

A reminder: everyone who backed this Kickstarter has early access to the work-in-progress content, hosted at Github. If you didn't get a Github invite, or your invite has expired, DM me here on Kickstarter  with your github username or email address, and I'll send you an invite.

Backerkit charges - deferred 

In the last update I said that I might charge credit cards for shipping fees soon.

I've rethought that.  I'm going to defer pushing the button at Backerkit to charge credit cards for shipping until I'm closer to actually shipping.  If I'm in a position to ship by the end of this year, I'll charge in December, but if it slips, I'll charge in January.

Until next time

I hope you have a great fall and get to enjoy some outdoor time during the best season of the year.

I look forward to checking in with you again in around a month with more updates on the project's progress.

- Travis

On schedule! (...mostly)
over 3 years ago – Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 03:57:57 PM

Progress

TLDR: Progress on finishing the book is excellent!

Longer version:

During the kickstarter I said 

I expect the finished project to be around ..800 pages of text ... though that could change based on a lot of factors.  I've already written almost 700 pages

Since the kickstarter closed I've been writing and revising every day (1-2 hours per day on weekdays, and 4-8 hours most weekends), and in short order I finished writing the 800 pages of text I promised ... and realized that there was a lot more information I needed to get in the books.  So I changed the estimate from 800 pages of text to 1,000 pages.

...and then I blew through that target and realized that I still wasn't done.

So the goal / estimate is now 1,200 pages of text.

As of today, I've got 256,550 words (1,026 pages) written, or 128.25% of what was promised in the kickstarter, and I'm on my way towards delivering 150% of what was promised.

Over the past few weeks I've written about generators, solar power, log splitters, wells, pumps, water treatment systems, string trimmers and forestry brush cutters, food dehydrators, small town road categories and why that matters, mushrooms, slip clutches, rust prevention, milling your own lumber, establishing a three year plan, poison ivy, and more.

I'm working steadily and expect to hit the 1,200 page target on around 2 November, at which point I can hand it off to proof readers, and then - in parallel - start polishing parts of it, and start layout and compositing in photos.

There is still an excellent chance that it will ship on or before 31 December, as promised in the Kickstarter.

...but if I hit the 1,200 page estimate and there's still more information about homesteading, or if I hit the calendar target and the manuscript isn't as polished as I'd like, I'll slip the schedule before I'll ship something that isn't as good as I want it to be.

Github

I love the fact that everyone can follow along with my daily progress on github.  It gives you early access to the information, and it keeps me motivated to push daily updates.

Everyone should have gotten their github invites to view the work-in-progress book (and daily updates) a month or more ago.  If you still haven't, or lost the email, or the invite timed out, send me a message via Kickstarter, DM me on twitter, or email me (if you have my address) and tell me your github username or email address.

Life on the farm

The trees are golden, the sky is clear, and life is good.  My wife took delivery of a new ram to add some fresh genetics to our sheep herd, we cooked pot roast (a wonderfully seasonally appropriate meal) the other day using some veggies from the garden and some beef from the cow I butchered last winter.

I hope you're all doing well this fall too, and I hope to hear stories from at least a few of you in a year or two about how your escape from the cities went!

Backerkit charging

I'll probably charge credit cards at backerkit for shipping and add ons in the next month or so.  That'll be around 8 weeks before shipping, but I know, from having run consumer-facing companies in the past, that credit cards expire over time, so there's a trade off - the longer I wait, the higher a percentage of charges will bounce and then require tedious work to communicate with people and fix.

Storefront

Backerkit allows existing backers to checkout, but it also allows non-backers to order, up until things are finalized and ship.  Please tell friends about the book and direct them to the storefront.

Have a great fall.

TJIC