U2-A Diary

Last night at about 11:00 pm, I finished the manuscript and all associated documents for the 2nd edition of U2-A Diary! I’ll be sending Omnibus a little more than 40,000 words and the new book should be 400 pages total when it comes out this summer.

But I have one last question for U2 fans.

I’ve written a short, three-paragraph Introduction that covers only the new material – 2008 through 2010. The Introduction is sort of a big picture, high-level assessment of the material in the diary. I reviewed these past three years and found the major themes/events to include

• relatively poor album sales compared to past U2 albums
• poor sales/response to U2′s singles
• shut out at all the major awards, even the Meteor Irish Music Awards in their own country
• Bono’s back injury
• the long-running Spider-Man problems
• huge success for the U2 360 tour

The Introduction as I’ve written it basically says that this was a difficult three years for U2 and that there were more negatives than positives.

The question to you: Is that accurate/fair? Or, were the past three years better for U2 than I’ve painted them? Your feedback is appreciated! Please leave a comment below and I’ll process them for posting as quickly as possible.

At exactly 12:11 a.m. today (Wednesday, January 2), I made the final edit on U2, A Diary, saved the massive MS Word document, and declared the manuscript finished. I think I smiled. :) I sent it via e-mail to Omnibus Press shortly after that, and then crashed into bed and slept. Zzzzzzz. So, now, several things…

First and foremost:

Thank you deeply and sincerely for all your help with this book. As I said a few posts back, U2 fans are amazing. If you’ve ever commented on this blog, or sent me a helpful e-mail, you’ve made the book better. I’ve been doing my best to keep a master list of everyone who has directly affected the text in some way, and your names will be included in the acknowledgments. (I’ll do my best to limit the number of names I forget to include.)

Secondly:

As soon as I have details from the photo editor, I’ll be posting here on the blog about how to submit photos, what types of photos we’re looking for, and so forth. Please stay tuned for that, because no matter how good my manuscript may (or may not) be, you’ll like the book a lot better if it has great pictures.

Third:

Over on the right here are my final stats from the MS Word file. Almost 204,000 words. Heheheheee. I was supposed to write 150,000, so … ummm … I went 33% over my target. Whoops! I’ll be curious to see how much gets edited. I can see the discussion now:

Me: “Seriously, that time when Bono stubbed his toe just has to be in the book! You can’t edit that out!”

Chris (editor): “Sorry, Matt. It’s gone.”

Just kidding. There are no mentions of stubbed toes in the book.

Lastly: I can’t say this enough…

The snow’s coming down (Christmas)
I’m watching it fall (Christmas)
Just my family around (Christmas)
And I’m almost done…

Santa Claus brought me a stack of new CDs, which has made today’s writing a very enjoyable musical journey (when not interrupted by the occasional break to help a child put together a train set, for example … or the occasional break to watch the snow fall).

I began with Reason, a 2003 EP from The Fray which was recently released now that they’ve become popular. After that it was Huey Lewis & The News – Greatest Hits and then The Best of Barry White, which makes for excellent background music since I don’t know any words. And now Collective Soul’s new album, afterwords, is finishing up; that’s one is really good. Such an underrated band.

Still to come from my Christmas bounty: Bob Marley’s Legend, Def Leppard’s Vault, and Al Green’s The Definitive Greatest Hits.

The writing is almost done and I think I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Hope everyone’s having a wonderful Christmas and/or Happy Holidays!

Just wanted to let you all know that U2 Diary will include everyone’s favorite pre-album Bono quote:

“Edge, right now, is on fire. He’s really rockin’. He’s playing guitar like I’ve never seen him playing guitar.”

I won’t tell you the exact date/diary entry the quote is associated with (there are several possibilities!), so you can have fun looking for it if you buy the book. :)

Just an FYI … I mean, what U2 book would be complete without that quote? Right?

Whew! After what seems like forever, I’m finally done putting all of the concert dates into the book. What a colossal project that was….

Next up: adding/confirming all the various dates of releases of albums, singles, and so forth. Another mammoth project, I’m assuming.

182,000+ words in the manuscript at the moment, in case you’re keeping track. :)