The end! After spending the entire previous weekend reading, and re-reading, every nuance of prose, I posted the final draft first thing in the morning. I didn’t get much sleep the night before: not because I was worried, but because I was on the phone for a couple of hours with one of my proof readers, and going through the networking section. My Internet connection was broken, and so edits were made in the slowest possible manner: the spoken words of “Page 4, line 12, 2nd word” This was made tortuously worse by the fact that our two versions no longer corresponded. We somehow managed it.
By the end of the month (29th) I got my first editorial review of the draft. The first major change was to split chapter 7 (System I/O), into separate sections for Audio, Graphics, Input and Networking. This was something I’d thought about myself, and was good to have it confirmed. In addition to renaming all the chapters, I had to re-order all the diagrams and update all the inter-chapter “see chapter…” links. The other change was actually the addition of a CD-ROM.
We had originally intended to release no disc with the book, even though it had been budgeted for. The amount of source code was fairly minimal, and totalled less than 100 KB. But due to pressure, I caved in, and tracked down my list of “interesting things to fill up a CD.”
The second draft was submitted on the 8th December 2004, with the CD-ROM following afterwards on the 21st.
I then took a well-earned Christmas break.