Winding down

The year is winding down and so are we. Sue celebrated Hanukkah in Boston with her local family, then again in California with her children there. Lil enjoyed Christmas with her local family and shared pictures with her New Mexico family. And through all of this we have tried to work, but it has been difficult.

Irwin has completed his rewrite of his medical reference section, so that was a big accomplishment. Lil and Sue expect to go through his last section by Tuesday. We just want to make sure what he has written is reader friendly for all of you.

The big news is that we have printed out the entire book (wow!) so we can each read a copy separately, on paper, which is different than reading on a computer. This is the final process making a few changes (maybe more than a few) so that we can bring you the best product. We are still expecting to have the manuscript to the publisher sometime in January. So keep your fingers crossed!

Next step.....

Well, we took the next step in the process today. We signed our contract with our publisher! And this was on Lil and Wayne's anniversary. So we celebrated with dinner in Sue and Irwin's kitchen over a Mediterranean diet (read the book to learn why this is important) of pasta and vegetables, wine and Wayne's homemade beer. And chocolate dipped biscotti for dessert.

We worked all afternoon tightening up the medical reference section of the book, and will continue on that tomorrow. Of course best laid plans, because Sue has a meeting Thursday morning and Lil has a meeting Friday morning, but we will maximize the time when we are finally together. We are currently aiming to have the book to the publisher the first week of January, and have a real book in our hands by late spring.

If you want us to send you a notice once When Sex Isn't Good is available for purchase, just drop us a note at whensexisntgood@comcast.net.

Vienna photos

Never let it be said that Sue traveled to a foreign land without bringing home pictures to share! For our wonderful followers, we want to share all our experiences. Sue spent the week in Vienna, where her father grew up, and saw lots of people and places.

The scientific sessions were excellent at the meeting, with a packed house at the first session on female sexual dysfunction (FSD), and the dinners to which we were invited were wonderful, including a private showing of the Chagall exhibit.

While Sue was sightseeing at the Schonbrunn (the summer palace) and sitting in at the conference held in the Hofburg (the winter palace),
Lil was home seeing new and old clients, and decorating her house for the holidays. Vienna was decorated with outdoor Christmas Markets and lights, and the pedestrian ways had street vendors and street performers. This is the home of the Lipizaner horses and the moving Anker clock, but what was most amazing was touring the world famous State Opera House, damaged but not destroyed by bombs and fire, magnificent and stately, and overwhelming to a woman who had sat by her father's knee as a child and listened to opera. Sue was there on the anniversary of Mozart's death (considered Austria's most famous citizen), one of the few days the Opera House held an event that was neither opera nor ballet.

Food and drink are always plentiful in the city, wienerscnitzel and gluhwein, Mozart candies, but it is always good to be home in one's own bed, eating some nice roast chicken and drinking a glass of Poland Spring water!



After recovering, we will be full steam ahead next week to work on revisions that have been given to us by our esteemed medical consultant, shown here drooling over hand made Viennese pastry. Maybe it was a good thing we hadn't yet completed proofing that section!!

Dedication

We try to set a goal each time we meet, and an overall goal for the week. Last week we were going to work on Monday and Tuesday, then Sue was off to Omaha until Friday, when she was to unpack and repack for her journey to Vienna on Saturday. That gave us two solid days to work and our goal was to do the final proofing of the glossary. Each section of the book has to be proofed for language (so we don't use the same words two sentences in a row or sound awkward or not easily understood), spelling (including uniformity of use of hyphens) and punctuation (including correct use of commas and only one space after the period after we had entered two). Each section was read once for language and spelling and an additional time for punctuation. This was to be the final punctuation read for the glossary—a reasonable task for two days.

Sue woke up sick on Monday. So we thought we would work on Tuesday. Tuesday she was still pretty weak, but she decided she was not well enough to go to Omaha and risk canceling Vienna. With that, we had an opportunity to work on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So we worked on Friday and got about half way through the task. We were right on target! Thursday Lil was exhausted, but we decided to fall back on our other technique since we were only "commatizing" as we fondly call it, and we worked for two hours Thursday evening on the phone, with only a few pages left to proof by the time we ended, tired but satisfied. We would finish Friday.

Best laid plans.... Lil had a client, then had to look after her mother. There was no way to spend any time on the book. Here comes the dedication: Sue called from Logan airport and we got through one more page--only two left and we had vowed to finish this before Sue left the country. JFK here we come, and we finished the last two pages on the phone from the airplane lounge. Finished..... and Sue was off to Vienna to attend the Europen Society for Sexual Medicine. Next week we will work more on proofing other parts of the reference section. The stories are done.

This is a really long post, but we wanted you to know the latest!

We promised....

We hope you all had a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving (for our American readers) and all had a peaceful weekend. We promised to show you the dress Lil wore to her daughter's wedding, which was at the start of our relationship. So here it is finally. Very different from Sue's dress but perfect for Lil and perfect for the day. We had no idea, when we looked at the wedding photos, that one day we would be writing a book together, and that we would have a significant impact on women's healthcare.

This week we will continue to proof the annotations. We are also starting the submission process with our publisher. We have compiled a list of questions, because WE ARE ALMOST THERE!!!

It's finally here!

No, not the book. It's still being proof read, although every day we get a step closer. Yesterday we finished proofing half the annotations in the medical reference section. What are those? Well, when someone writes a statement it can be because they believe it is so or because they know it is so. In science, they know if there is proof, and this proof is from valid research which has been published in reputable, peer review journals. We want you, the reader, to feel comfortable that the information in our reference section is based on knowledge rather than speculation, so after each section our consultants have included a list of references. Each reference is annotated with a few sentences telling you what that paper is about. This may help ease your worries about using a particular therapy, or help you bring to the attention of your physician why another medical issue may be causing your sexual health concern. We have attempted to provide you with a resource, in all aspects of the word, which is as user-friendly as possible.

So what's here? Our book website is finally live! You can find it at whensexisntgood.com, read a little about the stories we have included, and see the different therapies currently considered for the treatment of sexual health concerns in the woman for whom they cause distress.

From all of us at When Sex Isn't Good to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving!

Together again

We finally got to work together again after being separated for two and a half weeks. We worked on the last rewrite of a medical section--effects of childbirth. Now all the medical reference section is complete, waiting for us to proof it. We also have to make sure that it is in language that you, our reader, can understand. So we must go through it painstakingly, translating from "medicalese" to common language, then bringing it back to our medical consultant to ensure that we have not changed any of the meaning of the science. We have already done that for the very extensive glossary, which will be the last part we proof, but we must now tackle the annotations, trying to keep them simple but meaningful. We hope to get through as many of the annotations as possible before Thanksgiving, then finish them the week after, before Sue is on the road again, flying to a sexual medicine meeting in Vienna. She hopes to have dinner with her second cousin while she is over there.

On another note, Lil printed up the business cards for When Sex Isn't Good. They look fabulous, and have been in great demand. Visit one of us and we will be happy to share!

Choosing the Title

Some of you may wonder how we got our title, When Sex Isn't Good. We can tell you we went through a lot of different names, including The Missing Piece (as in of the puzzle) but that had too many sexual overtones, and others so bad we can no longer remember. We were together in the car, after dropping Lauren and Jeremy (Sue's daughter and her then boyfriend, now husband) off at the airport. We were brainstorming back and forth and the title When Sex Isn't Good emerged. We loved it immediately and started testing the name on friends and colleagues. We got great feedback and it felt so good to us we decided to go with it. We had the basic framework of the book, some of the interviews complete (the inspiration for the title of course), and we finally had a title. This made the book all the more real for us because now we had given it an "identity."

What are your thoughts about the title? Send your comments, and the best will be posted on our book website, whensexisntgood.com, set to go live very soon.

Still oceans apart...

Lil and Sue are still not together, but the good news is that Sue and Irwin (Dr. Goldstein, medical consultant) have been proof reading the medical material to make sure it is both correct and state of the art for you when the book goes into production. Lil is holding down the fort at home, and has checked in recently with our publisher. We are still all systems go for the new year.

Last week the traveling duo (Sue and Irwin) were in Japan. Here are some pictures, since we know how much our readers enjoy seeing them.

We started our trip by traveling to Kyoto, sister city to Boston. Here is a young couple in traditional dress, which got them discounted admission to the golden shrine. The shrines in Japan are shinto with no images, just mats on the floor, while the temples are Buddhist, with a figure of Buddha in the center and his bisexual companions on each side.

This is a picture of the largest Buddha in the world, housed in the temple at Nara, the largest wooden structure in the world. The temple is in deer park, where 12oo deer roam freely and are protected from harm.

See what I mean? Also in Deer Park is a shrine where we got to see the 3,5,7 festival. This is a time when 3, 5 and 7 years old children are dressed in traditional clothes and brought to the shrine for a blessing. Hundreds of beautiful stone lanterns line the walkways.

We also went to the Osaka Castle. Here are the castle and a gentleman practicing traditional prayers. We were there during the chrysanthemum festival (a traditional symbol of Japanese royalty) so flowers were everywhere!

How we met....

We may be thousands of miles apart, with Lil in Massachusetts and Sue in Japan, but we haven't stopped working or e-mailing. Hard to believe that a few years ago we didn't even know each other! So take a look at us now...and then....

Once upon a time Sue was responsible for educational programs in sexual medicine and Lil was a patient. They met and felt an immediate kinship. Lil sat on a patient panel Sue put together for a course for healthcare providers, and did a wonderful job expressing not only her physical problems but the emotional distress caused by the dysfunction. Before the start of the program Lil showed Sue pictures from her daughter's recent wedding. Lil looked beautiful, wearing the same color she is wearing here. Her dress was from a local shop, and she promised to take Sue there to look for a dress for her son's wedding. By the time that day was finished, they had become fast friends. It wasn't long before they were discussing the need for women to learn about their bodies, about sexual function, and about not having to give up enjoyment in the bedroom (or wherever).

By the time Lil and Sue drove to Salem, NH, to Michael's to buy her dress for the wedding, this book had already been conceived! Because we know how curious our readers are, here is a picture of Sue in the dress from her son's wedding. A picture of Lil in her dress from her daughter's wedding will be posted soon.

Sue's travels

Despite our desire to work together on a regular basis, we cannot always do so. Sue is traveling and Lil is taking care of her mother back home this week.

Here is Sue taking a little time off in Las Vegas where she attended the annual meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America. She and Irwin were recognized there for their work in Female Sexual Dysfunction.

Now they are in Japan for the rest of the week. More photos will follow....

Cover Design

Since we have shared with you the making of the back cover, we thought you might like to hear a little bit about the front. We had conceived of the name, When Sex Isn't Good (and we'll tell you that story another day) but we wanted a cover that would express our feelings. So we turned to Jeremy Mack of Gezamack Designs for something really special. Here's Jeremy himself on his wedding day (did we mention he is also Sue's son-in-law?)

Very early in our writing process, we realized that we needed to be thoughtful and deliberate regarding every detail of our book. Therefore, it was particularly important to us that every aspect of our cover metaphorically express a message of hope to our readers.

Historically, the rose has always been a symbol of beauty and of women. However, the rose on our cover has petals that are slightly folded, wrinkled, and discolored, with wilted edges.... still beautiful in its own way, but not as exquisite as a rose should be. Like the women in our stories, the rose still has its essence, we recognize it as a rose, but its petals are slowly dying one by one, atrophying as it were, losing its natural color and vitality and smoothness, much like a woman's genitalia. Our book is a collection of stories about women who have experienced, for whatever reason, what the rose is experiencing, but have found, or are on their way to finding, a renewal of their sexual health. And with that, both the women and the rose will be reborn to their essential and natural beauty. The multicolored background of our cover moves from shades of beige to red depicting how so many of the women in our stories felt before they received sexual health care... moving from the blandness of beige to the radiance of red.

We appreciate the way Jeremy took our thoughts and comments and made us a spectacular cover. BTW, Jeremy is now art director for Wolfgang's Vault.

Work and Play

Speaking of a day off, we have even gone on vacation together so we could continue to work on When Sex Isn't Good. Here we are relaxing after a hard day of writing, researching and, oh yeah, swimming.

Seriously, though, we have put in hours of work to bring you a book worth reading. If you are reading this blog, chances are you want to know where we are in the process. Well, the book itself is finished. We are in the proofing stage before sending it to our publisher. Almost half the book is finalized, and we will not stop until it is perfect for you, our friends and readers. So have faith, and check out future entries to see how we got here, and where we are going.

The back cover....

We took a much needed day off yesterday to prepare for the back cover of the book.

First we beautified ourselves—thanks Andrea and Stephanie of Energie Salon!

After grabbing a quick lunch we headed to Brian Phillips Photography for a photoshoot for our back cover. It was fun and a great change of pace.

Did we mention we took our medical reference section contributor along as well? We can never get him to stop working!

Then we grabbed dinner with our husbands to celebrate before watching the Pats win again! So if you didn't know before, now you know we are from Boston.

The Book!

Welcome to our blog about When Sex Isn't Good. Over the next several months we want to share with you how we conceived of this idea, and how we came to write this book. Today we took another big step toward publication, which will be early in 2007. Follow along with us as we take this book from our thoughts to your hands.