Writer’s Log, 9/5/13: Book Interviews, Structure & Editing

It’s been nearly a month since my last Writer’s Log update, when I reached the 20,000 words mark in my book. Today’s update is focused less on word count and more on the work I’ve been doing interviewing people, editing, and iterating on the book’s structure.

For those people who don’t know, I’m writing a book about consumer health technology. My book is about how the Internet is revolutionizing the health and wellness industry, by empowering the consumer to take control of their day to day health.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been conducting my second big round of interviews for the book. I’ve spoken to some amazing people: a Cardiologist who founded a health startup, a doctor in New York City who’s also doing incredible work in health tech, a Quantified Self early adopter, the founder of my favorite food logging app, the founder of a popular smart watch company. I’ve still got a few interviews to go, but I now have most of the information I need to write this book.

Also over the past month I’ve settled on the final structure of the book. By that I mean the chapter outline, along with the overall style. I’ve been iterating on the book’s structure since I began the project, back in October last year. Sometimes I’ve tweaked things because of what I learned in interviews or research – for example I’ve de-emphasized genomics somewhat since I first started (although it’s still an important part of the book). Other times the iterations have been about finding the right way to tell the story. I haven’t yet made public what the book’s structure will be, but I will let you know in a future Writer’s Log.

The other, less sexy, work I’ve been doing over the past month is editing the first four chapters and starting to write the fifth chapter.

So that’s where I’m at with this project. Let me know if you have any questions, or you’d like me to do these updates, or post to Facebook/Twitter/Google+, more often. I do keep track of news, especially about consumer health tech, but I’m much more inclined these days to save it to Evernote than to “curate” it on social media. Let me know though if you have any feedback on the public face of my book progress.