Is it possible?

I might actually be done with my galley proofs. Which means...

I might actually be done with this book.

I mean, I know, if all goes well, that I'll be promoting it and doing my best to sell it and that it's going to be a big part of my life for the next year or so. But once I hand this bundle of pages and Post-it notes in, that's it. It's locked. No more agonizing about the status of iPhones in China or Xiali taxis in Beijing or how many minutes it would plausibly take to buy a train ticket at the Beijing train station and make the departing train. Or whether words should be italicized. Or whether I left someone out in the acknowledgments.

It kills me that a person as messy and disorganized as I am in most regards can be this absurdly anal in this one particular area.

I'm sure even after all this fretting that I will have made some mistakes. China has changed and continues to change; my knowledge is incomplete and if I were writing this book now...well, in some ways I'm sure it would be a different book. But you can only do what you can do.

Mostly, I hope I did a good job.