DATELINE: Twin Cities, MN, 28 December 2005

Got up this morn and wrote from 0800 until 1430, adding 6k to the already large Esquire article's text. In the end, I pass 13.5k to Warren.

I hope he was joking when he said space for only 4k was reserved. There was an amazing amount of material (500 pages of notes and transcripts) I did not use, writing only what I felt was essential to cover the five main characters of the piece (Abizaid, Schoomaker, Wallace, Mattis and Petraeus). In the end, I feel I have a unique piece that no one else has written.

If I had turned it over to anyone but Warren, I'd be freaked right now, but he is a very special talent.

Still, great to have that monkey off my back. Once first draft is out of me, I consider hard work done. Fiddling on text is, to me, just plain fun when the editor is as super as Mark.

Now several days of family time.