Writing a Book by Ricki T Thues

Writing a Book - a collaboration

by Ricki T Thues 2025

Every book we bring into the world teaches us something about ourselves.

It started, as most quiet revolutions do, with a blinking cursor and a promise.

I had agreed to help a friend publish his novel, A Death in Home Park — a manuscript that had been sitting in digital limbo, neatly typed but not yet born into the world. The author had written the story over time, poured into it the kind of lived wisdom that only accumulates after decades of paying attention. All that remained was to “format and publish,” as if that were the easy part.

But I knew better. I had traveled the long road of publishing before — had wrestled with Kindle Direct Publishing’s (KDP) formatting demons, danced with Word’s invisible paragraph marks and paragraph indents. I had stared down the dreaded “TOC not detected” warning that haunted so many self-publishers. Still, I said yes because some stories deserve to live in print.

The first days felt familiar, almost comforting. I opened the manuscript and began shaping it — checking the margins, setting styles, making sure each chapter heading would show up when Amazon’s algorithm went sniffing for structure.

The story itself was compelling — a Los Angeles mayor with her finger on the pulse of something real. But formatting the manuscript proved to be its own kind of puzzle. The page numbers refused to align. The title page would shift like a mischievous cat, curling itself around the copyright notice without the precise insertion of page breaks.

At one point, I discovered that modern eBooks require a Table of Contents (TOC) for e-readers to navigate the prose, even though the chapter names were just numbers. The KDP previewer blinked its digital eye and whispered No TOC found. I sighed, leaned back in my chair, and consulted Noema, my trusty assistant. She had the simplest of solutions when and where I needed them. So I stripped the TOC of its page numbers, linked it cleanly to each chapter heading, and hit “Update.” This time, the KDP previewer smiled.

I thought about all the unseen hands that try to bring a book to life — the author, the editors, the proofers, the designers — each one trying to coax words into a form that would travel gracefully through readers’ minds.

As the days went on, I began to see the project not just as a favor but as a kind of quiet collaboration — a bridge between my own lifelong love of language and my friend’s vision. I found myself absorbed in the rhythm of the work: checking line spacing, adjusting gutters, making sure mirrored margins behaved on both left and right pages. Every technical tweak carried a deeper question: What does this story deserve to look like?

I remembered my own books — Skydivers Know Why Birds Sing and Technically Human — and the lessons they had taught me about patience. Publishing wasn’t about perfection; it was about integrity. About giving a story a vessel worthy of its contents.

When it came time to create the cover, I faced a different challenge — scale. I knew that KDP required specific pixel dimensions, but I also knew the image had to breathe. It had to feel right on a Kindle or a large e-reader screen, not stretched or cramped. I tested sizes — 2560 by 1600 pixels, then 3200 by 2000 — holding each one up to my imagination like an artist comparing brushstrokes. The art itself, and KDP’s flow algorithm, would do the rest.

By now, A Death in Home Park was beginning to take shape, not just as a file but as a presence. The story was coming alive in new ways, echoing through KDP previews and PDF proofs. The characters, long confined to a desktop document, had found their way to the surface. And so had I.

There were setbacks, of course. KDP’s review messages arrived with the tone of polite bureaucracy: “Your eBook does not contain a linked Table of Contents.” “We detected an irregular layout.” “Your copyright page follows the title page — please verify order.” Each time, I would take a breath and remember the larger picture. This wasn’t about rules. It was about preservation — ensuring that a voice from one corner of the world could reach another.

I revisited the story late at night, not to fix it but to feel it. A Death In Home Park came more alive each time, reflecting something universal about people, focus, politics and purpose.

It was, in its way, a story about curation — and how easily it can slip through our grasp unless someone chooses to hold it steady.

The day the proof copy arrived, I cleared a space on my desk and opened the package slowly, the way one might unwrap an old photograph. There it was — a book. Solid. Tangible. The cover gleamed softly under the lamplight. The spine aligned just so. The interior — the fonts, the spacing, even the page breaks — looked right. It wasn’t perfect, but it was true.

I turned to the first page and ran my hand over the print. Every moment of frustration, every technical fix, every “why won’t this align” had led to this small miracle — a story that could now outlive its creators.

I sent a message to my friend: “Your story’s out there now. It is live.” The reply came a few minutes later — just a short note of gratitude, but one that carried weight. “Thank you for giving it a home,” said my friend.

That night, I sat by the window with a bottle of beer, watching the glow of my computer fade into darkness. I thought about how many stories never make it this far — how many manuscripts linger in drawers or drives, waiting for someone to take them the last few steps. Publishing isn’t just about formatting. It is about faith — faith that the written word still matters, that even the smallest stories can ripple outward into lives we will never see.

I opened my own notebook and began jotting ideas for my next iMentor Hints and Rants post. Maybe I’ll call it Making A Book. Maybe I’ll just write about how each project, no matter how technical it seems, is really an act of love.

Either way, I smiled as I wrote the first line:
“Every book we bring into the world teaches us something about ourselves.”

And somewhere on a shelf, A Death in Home Park waits to be read — printed, bound, and alive at last.