Final Week in May

This month is full of surprises. Like a roller coaster with many ups and downs. There is much waiting and my patience is tested.  I waited patiently for my proofreader to complete the work and it was on time but it took me much longer to do the corrections as during the two weeks the proofreader was reading my book, I revised the book, about 20 percent which was a big deal and it took me close to middle of May before I sent my final manuscript to my printers.

Then more waiting as the printers took longer to respond, giving me a final quotation only about a week ago since the book to be printed had increased by 15 pages. In the beginning I thought since John 13-21 only has 9 chapters, I thought a commentary in the genre that I wanted required less than 60,000 words, but it ended with 69,000 words. I could have written more but every page added would to the cost of printing. 

Now I am still waiting since last Thursday when everything was finalised. I am waiting for the news that the book is finally printed and 10 or so copies would be sent to me by courier. For sure, I am hoping that the first copies will get to me by end of next week. 

So there is much waiting and much excitement as well as every new book is like a baby born when the mother has delivered she forgets the pain of child-birth and rejoices that a man is born into the world. Every new book is like a child born as it takes between 6 to 9 months of hard work. 

The writing of this commentary is unusual as it was written in two distinct periods from Sept-Oct 2024 for about 5 weeks before my pastorate from Dec 2024 to Feb 2026 put a stop to my writing. Wanting to finish my commentary on John's Gospel did play a part in my decision to resign and give writing my full attention and that was done over Feb-April 2026 mostly, with limited revision done in the first two weeks of May before my final manuscript was sent to the printers about 10 days ago. So at the end, it took less than 5 months in total in completing this second volume of John 13-21's commentary, which would be the quickest that I took to write a commentary, the fourth in a series of commentaries, three in Malay now and one in English.