This is an unsettling stretch, the time after a manuscript leaves one’s hands and before it surfaces again between two covers. If you are sitting on a work of timely controversy, this is the calm before the storm. For most others — as one cheeky book editor (not mine) likes to say — it’s the calm before the calm. Either way, what’s unsettling is that the world goes on, and your manuscript is in no position to defend itself. In the case of The Number, there could be a huge market crash (not likely, but always possible); or something on the order of a legislative overhaul of Social Security (fat chance).

So far, the biggest news story of the interregnum has been Katrina, and the devastation it has wreaked on poor and rich alike, from society’s most powerless all the way up to Trent Lott. Now that Katrina’s floodwaters are receding, reporters find themselves sifting through rubble in search of story lines that were (deservedly) overlooked in the immediate aftermath. Last week, The New York Times ran a piece about how it’s smart to keep one’s financial records stored on a handy U.S.B. drive, something easily grabbed along with pooch and photo albums in the rush of a panicky escape. The piece reassuringly noted that all you need to do to get ready is spend a few weekend hours gathering and scanning account numbers, legal papers, credit card info, bank statements, insurance policies, and other financial documents you’ll need during reconstruction.

Sound advice. The items listed happen to be the same raw ingredients a decent financial adviser will tell you one needs to work up a comprehensive financial plan for the future — a task, by the way, best undertaken while the sun shines. Yet very few of us ever go to the trouble, in good weather or bad. Preparedness? Brownie, you’re not alone here. We don’t do a heck of a job, either.