We get asked a lot about what our favorite chapters are in the book, but here’s what no one ever asks us: what were our least favorite chapters to write?
I’ll spoil the suspense by confessing right away that neither of us has a “least favorite” chapter – one of the great pieces of advice our editor gave us was, “if it’s not fun to write, it’s not going to be fun to read,” so anything that was making us feel like stabbing ourselves in the eyes was automatically out. But there were a couple of chapters that had me dragging my feet a little -- at least until I started actually writing them.
The most surprisingly fun chapter to write: for me, that would be bird-watching. Living in downtown Philadelphia, most of my birdwatching experience involves pigeons, the street birds nesting in the Bank of America sign near Market Street, and the occasional hawk that swoops down to terrorize children in Rittenhouse Square. So I began the chapter with some trepidation -- but by the time I’d finished all the research and writing, I was hooked. And after writing it, I was thrilled to be able to identify a bird we saw soaring from tree to tree as we walked in the wilds of New Jersey: it was a red-tailed hawk (which I knew from my chapter was a bird of prey that can live as long as 21 years).
The most surprisingly fun chapter to read: softball, hands-down! As a kid, I was always the one way out in left field, daydreaming and hoping the ball wouldn’t ever come my way, but by the time I got to the end of Miriam’s treatise on the finer points of the game, I wanted to get myself a good broken-in glove, get outside, and play ball!
-Andi Buchanan
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