The first deadline is already looming ...

The first deadline is at the end of the month and I'm now settling into, "Oh my, what have I gotten myself into?" mode. The book is actually coming together nicely, but there's just so much and I haven't been able to spend near the time I'd like on it.

Yes, I got through the Capital One Bowl fine, but that was a lot of work combined with driving on both Christmas and New Year's Day, and every day since there have been breaking stories. Day off? Forget it.

So I've broken it down into week-long segments:

This week: Finish up the biggest section of the book.
Next week: Finish up the other sections.
Jan 16-22. Put it all together, write the introductions and edit the whole thing.

That'll give me one extra week to play with heading into the two other editions (February and March), but that's down from an extra month. That's when you start getting concerned because if something goes wrong ...

... but you can't think like that. Back at it in the morning.

Change in plans ...

So just when everything seemed to be going along well 0n the trivia books I got an email today that changed everything.

Ok, not everything, but one-third of things.

The third book, on the Vikings, is going to be put on hold until next year. Considering one of the team executives said about this season: "Dear God. We're just wondering what could possibly happen next," I really can't argue the decision.

So instead I'll be doing the Green Bay Packers, the last NFL team I covered. So it's Cowboys, Steelers and Packers editions hitting stores before the 2011 season.

The good thing is that this means the series is already slated to continue even before I've finished the first edition. Cool.

Progress report on the Cowboys book

It's less than two weeks before Christmas and I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss my self-imposed goal of finishing the Cowboys edition by the end of the month. Considering bowl practices start later this week that's to be expected and I'm not disappointed -- especially with the aggressive schedule I'm attempting: Have a draft done as close to Christmas as possible and proof and edit while in Orlando for the Capital One Bowl.

It might happen, it might not. But I'm on pace to do so. We'll see because that figures to be a hectic trip.

Unfortunately I'll be driving down Christmas Day and driving back New Year's Day after the game, maybe with a manuscript in tow.

First up, the Dallas Cowboys

Work on the first book has begun and I decided to use the Dallas Cowboys version as my test run, if you will.

Basically, I have to come up with 1,000 words a day, which wouldn't be much of an issue if I was writing in any sort of a regular style, but these are trivia books. I also need to get a working draft done by the end of the month, so my work is cut out for me over the next couple of weeks before bowl practices get under way (in addition to that whole Christmas thing).

I haven't come up with a name yet, but will soon. Maybe something with the word ultimate or something similar. My fear is that the questions I'm coming up with are too hard, so I'll try and balance it out a little and make the difficulty more progressive.

In other news, I submitted by Heisman ballot late tonight. Voters are asked not to disclose their ballot and just like last year I will not. Considering all the off-field turmoil it should make for an interesting week.

Finally, a new book deal

So after a nice little break as an author, I'm jumping back into it with three small NFL books that will come out next summer. Basically, my publisher asked me to out together some well-done trivia books for the Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers.

For those of you who don't know, I hail from Minnesota and have long joked that my dad said "It's a Vikings fan" before "It's a boy." Then again, maybe he did say that. He also had season tickets until the team moved inside the Metrodome.

I have no format, theme or name yet, but I'll start putting that together next week.

I hope it's not a bad omen that two of those three teams have already fired their coaches this season.

For those of you scoring at home, they'll be books No. 15, 16 and 17.

Still waiting on books, but more sales rankings:

Yep, I'm still waiting to hear from some people about the future of the Huddle Up series, but in the meantime here are the latest rankings.

There's new No. 1 in the series:

1. New York Giants

2. Alabama

3. Ohio State

4. Texas

5. Michigan

6. Notre Dame

7. Oklahoma

8. Tennessee

I can't believe Lane Kiffin didn't result in more sales. Yeah, right.

So here are the overall rankings in sales:

1. 100 Things Crimson Tide Fans Should Know or Do Before They Die

2. Where Football is King: A History of the SEC

3. Crimson Storm Surge: Alabama Football Then and Now

4. Huddle Up: New York Giants

5. Huddle Up: Alabama

6. Huddle Up: Ohio State

7. Huddle Up: Texas

8. Huddle Up: Michigan

9. Who's No. 1? 100-Plus Years of Controversial Champions in College Football

10. Huddle Up: Notre Dame

11. Huddle Up: Oklahoma

12. Huddle Up: Tennessee

13. No Time Outs: What It's Really Like to Be a Sportswriter Today

14. Return to Glory: The Story of Alabama's 2008 Season (NA).

Something old, something new ...

Things got a little hectic this summer as I had a couple of projects, and with no decision on the books I accepted an invitation to write the main stories for the game programs this season.

In addition to being good exposure for the web site it'll be nice to have a printed version of something I wrote, and maybe something to frame again. It's been a while.

So far I've cranked out everything for the first two games, which actually gets me through the first month of the season. I'll also be able to post some of the stories on the site on game days.

Hopefully I'll have some book news soon. In the meantime, the Game 1 cover is on the expansion of Bryant-Denny Stadium, and Game is on Joe Paterno vs. Nick Saban.

It's hard to believe the season is already here ...

Another appearance on College Football Live

So on Tuesday (yesterday) I was a guest on College Football Live as part of the summer's "What if" series, to talk about what might have happened had Rich Rodriguez said yes to Alabama, which instead went on to hire Nick Saban.

I wrote a column about it: http://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1100623

The funny thing to me, though, was the producers asked for a headshot to use since it was a phone interview, and I really don't have a good one. So I sent three pictures, an old headshot that was cropped too tight, a picture from a book signing, and this picture I took myself to use with potential book promos.

If you look carefully you can tell I took it in a mirror. The UNH Hockey logo is backwards.

Book sales update

Alas, the sales figures from my Taylor Trade books are finally in for July 1, 2009-Dec. 31, 2009. As expected it didn't change the rankings of my 14 books:

1. 100 Things Crimson Tide Fans should Know and Do Before They Die

2. Where Football is King: A History of the SEC

3. Huddle Up: New York Giants

4. Huddle Up: Alabama

5. Huddle Up: Ohio State

6. Huddle Up: Texas

7. Huddle Up: Michigan

8. Crimson Storm Surge: Alabama Football Then and Now

9. Huddle Up: Oklahoma

10. Huddle Up: Notre Dame

11. Who's No. 1? 100-Plus Years of Controversial Champions in College Football

12. Huddle Up: Tennessee

13. No Time Outs: What It's Really Like to be a Sportswriter Today

14. Return to Glory: The Story of Alabama's 2008 Season (contributing writer)

The first official day of summer means that summer's nearly over

In addition to the longest day of the year meaning it's time to celebrate my girlfriend's birthday (you just don't mess around with that), it also signals that the football offseason is about to end.

Seriously, things really start ramping up on the site (BamaOnline.com) July 1, and we're exactly a month away from Day 1 of SEC Media Days.

While you all check out the photo on the right, taken with my iphone Saturday evening on a boat heading back to Portland, Maine, some quick updates:

1) I did get quite a bit done on the novel, just not as much as I had hoped. Hopefully I'll have some more time to work on it over the next month before things get really crazy.

2) There's nothing new on the Huddle Up series but I'm still optimistic. Regardless, the soonest you might see a new edition is next summer.

3) There's a chance one of my older books might be updated and released in paperback. No details yet, though.