We have a pub date

And the first round is on me. Unfortunately, I've got no time for that right now. My publisher has just announced that my book, The Secular Conscience, will be released in March 2008, and I'm too busy with pre-flight preparations.

It seems like this has been a long time coming. In one sense, I've been working on this book for ten years. In another sense, I wrote it in nine months. And now here it is just weeks away. Making a book is not at all like building a bridge if only because bridges come with a built-in a notion of what it means for them to be complete. With a book, the author has to make up not only what goes inside but also what counts as done. Did I finish, or did I just stop?

What I hope is that the ideas of The Secular Conscience will get to go on in their own ways, and what I want to believe is that the time will be right for them. Maybe I'll have that drink, after all.