Today I emailed off the final chapter of my latest ASP.NET book to my editor, a feeling that is second only to receiving the first copy in the mail. The book is still far from done - there's editing from the publisher's side, then author review, and then layout, printing, and distributing, meaning it will probably be at least another three months before you can pick up a copy of the book at your local bookstore. But the writing, save for edits in the author review, is over! Done! Finito!
The book I just completed - and, yes, saying that never gets old, not in this post at least - is Sams Teach Yourself ASP.NET 2.0 in 24 Hours. It takes an ASP.NET novice from no experience with ASP.NET to creating a fully-functional, real-world online photo album, covering programming concepts, collecting user input, working with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, using the SqlDataSource control, editing, inserting, deleting, and viewing data with the GridView and DetailsView controls, using master pages, and understanding site navigation, using Membership.
The first 35% of the book's material was written quick enough as I was able to update the same material from my other book, Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 24 Hours. But the last 65% was all new content, in more ways than one. For starters, I, like everyone else, was learning ASP.NET 2.0 while writing this book. So things didn't progress as quickly as they would have if, say, I started writing this book two years from now. (For example, writing ASP.NET Data Web Controls was a virtual walk in the park since I started it after years of ASP.NET 1.x experience.) Needless to say, this book took a lot out of me, more so than books in the past, in part, I think, because while I was writing this particular title I was also doing consulting work two to three days a week, whereas with past books I dropped consulting work altogether during the two to three months it takes to churn out a book.
Regardless, I'm done writing now, and that's that!