A former U.S. Army general I worked for, upon discovering an error (such as something being done late, like this post), would say, “Don’t give me an excuse, there are no excuses. Just tell me how you’re going to fix the problem.” So rather than offer you an excuse, ladies and gentleman, I’ll just say, “There’s no excuse madames/sirs,” and get on with my day. Today I’ll be talking a bit more about organizing the nonfiction tech writing book.

A while back, I was trying to put everything into the right “buckets” so each section would have approximately the same amount of content in it. This week I’ve been honing the individual sections within each chapter so they flow in a logical manner. For example, in the “dealing with people” section, I shuffled things around so that introductions and first meetings are covered first, then follow-up meetings, then discussions/communications behaviors once you’re already on the job.

Likewise, on the process section, I’m rearranging content to move from simple tasks up to longer or more complicated ones.

Under “People & Politics,” I’ve created separate chapters/sections for people and politics.

I’ve broken out the “Professionalism” section into “Doing a Good Job for Others,” “Doing a Good Job for Yourself,” “Finding Work,” and “Taking Care of the Business of You, Inc.”

In these ways, I’m hoping that this whole business makes some sort of sense if you read it cover to cover. I’ll still have to dig into the actual writing and include transitions so one section flows to the next, but for now it’s all about making certain that the pieces are all in the right place, then I can worry about stitching them together.

Have a great day. No excuses.