Dear Log,
Taking a break from banging away at the book tonight (to get it into production today), I picked up Debt to Pleasure and started reading. I found this very germane sentence in it:
We are all familiar with the after-the-fact tone -- weary, self-justificatory, aggrieved, apologetic -- shared by ship captains appearing before boards of inquiry to explain how they came to run their vessels aground, and by authors composing forewords.--Debt to Pleasure, John Lanchester, page xv.
That quote made me laugh out loud! Imagine a forward that begins:
Gentle reader, the work you now hold in your hands was the result of a troubled mind. The fickle forces of nature and nuture conspired to produce in the author a kind of fever that has been captured in this manuscript. Despite the valiant efforts of family, friends, and editors, little could be done to sharpen the dull edge of the author's reason. This work contains sentence fragments, muddy paragraphs, and tedious chapters that lead up to the most unfulling and, frankly, bewildering conclusion yet produced by a modern pen. In an effort to answer the question that you will mostly likely have after wading through this dreck, this foreword concludes with panacea of our times: These things happen.
