As I’ve emerged from under my book-writing, here are my lessons for aspiring authors:

–DISCONNECT YOUR CABLE TV: I’m not a big TV watcher, but it became an irresistible distraction while writing the book because, well, anything is a good distraction from writing a book. I watched “SportsCenter” reruns over and over. I’ve seen certain episodes of “Punk’d” three times. At one point I put my remote in my closet, but then realized that only wasted more time, because I would have to get up, go to the closet, take out the remote, and then turn on the TV.

–FIND A NICE WORK SPACE: I did all my writing in my ill-furnished studio apartment. I sat on a metal folding chair for almost a year until I couldn’t take it anymore and I fashioned a sort of stand-up desk from leftover moving boxes. Books and papers were everywhere, so I had to tip-toe around the place. Needless to say this doesn’t make for a very restful living environment. So my advice: write in one place, and live in another (or at least do it in separate rooms).

–KEEP REGULAR HOURS: I inevitably slid back to my college schedule of staying up until 4 AM. This totally screwed up my sleep pattern. At first I thought the challenge was staying awake-so I guzzled venti cappuccinos and 20-ounce Mountain Dews. Then, as I got further over deadline and more desperate, the trouble became going sleep, which is a much harder problem than staying awake. It would have been much wiser never to have gotten off a fairly normal work schedule.

–NEVER SAY “ALMOST FINISHED”: No matter how much you think you’re “almost finished,” you’re not-so don’t tell people you are. Derb actually hit on this when I told him when he asked once, that I had “almost finished” the manuscript. “Oh,” he replied, “so, you’re not finished.” Exactly. If you are going to say “almost finished,” you will have to find ways to modify it: “not quite almost finished,” “marginally almost finished,” “almost almost finished,” “truly almost finished,” “very, very almost finished.”