Take a look at this picture of Mr. Fancy-Pants Author. Yes, that is me after a week of "hold onto your goods because the workload is going to plant a size 10 in your ding-ding" work. 

This is another entry in the "where the hell has Scott been" department. For the past week, ARealGirl and I have been in the San Francisco studio recording THE MVP audiobook. It's been a blast. This definitely falls into the "work hard, play hard, collapse due to stress and get shocked with those electrical thingies the doctors on TV use" kind of week. 

On our best day, we recorded 153 pages. That's 38,250 words in one day. In more understandable terms, that's 273 minutes of podcast (my performance rate is about 140 words per minute of story). This is for standard manuscript pages, which are 250 words a page -- at that size, THE MVP is 830 pages long, or a little bit less girthy than THE ALL-PRO.

My voice held up well, thanks to hot tea, cough drops, pineapple juice and lots (and lots) of water. There was also copious amounts of sushi from Sushi Rock, which makes a thing called the "Khotbito Roll" that is so good I would kill any of you for it. Sorry, that's just the truth. 

Keep in mind, that's just recording. We still have to edit it and add sound FX, which takes about twice as long to do as the recording itself. So, we're only 1/3 done. 

So why am I so flippin' tired? Well, I also wasn't finished with THE MVP final draft. So, we record for 10-12 hours a day, then I go home and write for 4-5 hours, depending on when it's time to pass out and piddle myself. I need a frickin' nap, I tell ya. 

But, we're almost done! I finished THE MVP final draft last night. Today, ARealGirl is sending that to Ms.Information, our Diva øf Design, for layout, which means the book be in your hot little hands come September. What? You haven't pre-ordered Book IV of the GFL sereis? Shoot, mang, click here and get crack-a-lackin'!

We have 2-3 more days of the raw recording, and then I'm gutting a Ton-Ton, crawling into it's smelly guts and taking a goddamn nap.

Junkies: "Well, young man, would you care to explain just where the hell you've been all this time? Have you been hiding?"

Scott: "Oh, you know, there was this thing at the Senior Center where I volunteer, then this rapist pedophile werewolf showed up at the day care center down the block, so I had to--"

Junkies: "Don't you lie to us, young man ... you've been working again!"

Scott: "(sigh) ... yeah, I have. I'm doing 14-hour days to finish up THE MVP final draft edit so I can start recording the audiobook/podcast on June 4. Then eight days of recording that, then finish up the first draft of PANDEMIC -- which, I admit, I've been doing research on all along. Plus, the Døg of Evil was pretty sick for a spell, and as old as she is that took some time and some thinking about what's best for her. She's pretty perky this morning, though."

Junkies: "So, work ... that's why you're not on the site, and why you aren't doing your own podcast intro? Is that redheaded enabler helping you use again?"

Scott: "Fine! I'll admit it! If it wasn't for ARealGirl, I wouldn't be able to get any of this done! Is that what you wanted to hear? Are you happy now, Junkies?"

Junkies: "Happy? Sometimes we miss the olden days, the long-ago days, where you'd just promise us new works and then miss deadlines over and over again. You used to lie to us about delivering new stories -- that's how we knew you loved us! ARealGirl ruined it all by making you efficient!"

Scott: "How dare you call me efficient! How dare you, sirs and ma'ams! I assure you, as soon as this deadline is done, I'll be back to playing three games of FIFA a day, surfing the web for pictures of Chocodiles, and creating fake accounts on JC Hutchinsssss' site to mess wtih his head."

Junkies: "We've heard it all before. You're just not the same FDØ we used to know."

Scott: "You know what? I can't do this right now. I've got to go ... uh ... look online for ALIENS fan sites."

Junkies: "Liar! You're going back to work again, aren't you? Tell us the truth!"

Scott: "Yes, I'm going back to work. I'm sorry it has to be this way ... I just can't stop. I'm going to cut a big fat line of words and snort it back through a straw of editing. Later, Junkies -- I'll see you in a couple of weeks after I recover from this bender."