In other news

I finished chapter 3 of the manuscript I'm ghosting this morning at 7:52 am. I've now done the front matter, chapters 1 - 3, and chapter 6, for a total of 357 manuscript pages. This makes me feel less bad about it having taken a month; that's a lot of channeling what somebody else would write if they could, um, write. I have about 48 hours left to finish the rest of it, and of course I had to sleep all day today. I know I can make it coherent; I just don't know that I can make enough of it coherent enough fast enough.
And, yes, not only can I rant endlessly about the news business, I have some good rantation stored up about book publishing, too. Mainly, I was trying really, really hard to make this not be one of those books where, um, chapters 1 - 3 are coherent and then the whole fucking thing just falls apart. However, no such luck. Because it is, as always, more important to get the book out in time for the New Year, New You promotions than to have a coherent book.
The folks in charge keep telling me I shouldn't be trying to make a perfect book. When did maintaining alphabetical order become perfectionism?