SQLAuthority News – A Quick History of Writing Three Books in Year 2011

Writing three books in 2011 fulfilled a dream I had carried for years. I already wrote online and offline every day. Seeing that work become printed books was something different.

Looking back at 2011, I can see how much writing was already part of my routine. Emails, searches and blog posts filled the day. A quieter writing activity at home became one of my favorites.

Emails

At the time, work and personal messages had me writing more than 400 emails a day. Over 1,000 valid emails arrived daily, alongside large amounts of spam. The filters caught nearly all the spam, and I reported what slipped through.

I tried to give each person a useful, individual reply. Some answers needed research, which led to more reading and writing. After one day away, I could find myself writing more than 800 replies.

An empty inbox remained a dream. Still, those questions helped me understand what readers were trying to solve. Answering them was part of my learning, too.

Research and Social Media

An efficiency tool showed that I typed more than 2,000 words a day into search boxes. I was surprised by that number. Researching answers involved more writing than I had noticed.

In 2011, I also shared updates on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. I enjoyed exchanging ideas and answering technical questions. When I needed to concentrate, I stepped away from those conversations to finish the work.

Five Years of Blogging

By then, I had blogged every day for five years and was approaching my 2,000th post. At an average of about 500 words, that was roughly a million words. It was an estimate, but it helped me see what a daily habit could produce.

The word count was only one part of the story. I wanted the writing to help someone understand a problem or take the next step. That same aim mattered when I began writing books.

Writing Together at Home

One of my favorite writing activities was doing workbooks with my child, who was two and a quarter. I sometimes wrote the letter A hundreds of times to demonstrate it. Then came a moment I still cherish.

My child spotted an A in the newspaper, ran to me and proudly called it “Daddy’s A.” I loved that moment. Writing together was some of the best time I spent.

Three Books in 2011

I wanted to write books that would help the SQL Server community. In 2011, I was fortunate to contribute to three books covering different parts of the technology. Each gave me another way to share what I had learned.

SQL Programming

SQL Programming, Volume 4 of the SQL Server Joes 2 Pros development series, covers SQL programming objects. These include stored procedures, functions, constraints and triggers. The book explains how those objects support the applications that use a database.

SQL Wait Stats

SQL Wait Stats focuses on performance troubleshooting through waits and queues. When a system slows down, the first guess is not always the right answer. The book was written to help readers investigate those situations.

SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers

SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers grew from years of questions, discussions and shared experience. Its chapters offer a way to review SQL Server fundamentals. They are also useful for people who have taken on database administration alongside another role.

You can read sample questions and answers on SQLAuthority. I planned to share more about the writing experiences in later posts. For now, I wanted to mark a year that meant a great deal to me.

Writing three books was not a single burst of work, it was part of a much longer writing habit.

Published by Pinal Dave on SQLAuthority. More of my work at pinaldave.com.