6 posts tagged “book”

I've been glancing over this blog, trying to figure it out. I think it has an identity crisis. It's random.

Now that my research and writing is back on, I've been wondering what role this blog can play. I think from here on out I'll use it exclusively to support the completion of my scholarly manuscript. That's my story for the next year, and I'm sticking to it.

So I hereby renew a few vows.

• I'm back to getting up early, writing first thing (after running).

• I'm also cutting out distractions. Eventually, I want a life full of all kinds of interesting goodies: travel, parties, kids, work, the outdoors, the arts, reading, cooking, community service, politics. But for now, I'm stripping it down. I'll still have some of all of these things, but less - UNTIL THE BOOK IS OUT. I want to stay out late and get a little wild. But instead, I go home at 11, so I can get up early and get back to work.  I want to start tutoring math at a local middle school. But instead, I reserve as much possible free time for cranking out the final leg of research and revision. I want to volunteer for the Obama campaign. But I will let the other many willing Austinites take on that role. Once the book is out, all bets are off. For now, I gotta drive this baby home.
  

• And I'm recommitting to what this blog can do: give me a sense of public identity to support the very solitary work of research and writing as an independent scholar.
  

So, buckle up. Here we go.

Eureka!  The chapter which I have been hating and wrestling with has suddenly resolved itself!

I finally realized that the focus of the chapter is not one particular genre, but the subject matters appearing in that genre. These subjects were originally formulated in different genres (which I had been excluding but I now see I can include). Hurrah!  Problems solved!  I don't have to pursue this weird little genre of colonial texts; the weird little genre becomes only one of the many lenses through which these subjects were refracted. I can now use the full range of materials, and the same sort of argumentative structure, that I've used in other chapters.

It is astonishing how so many writing problems disappear if you can simply find the right frame for your topic. I was struggling to fit a spiral into a square peg.  . . . Not. Working. (Grunt). In desperation, several days ago I had almost decided to relegate the entire 60-page chapter to a small 20-page epilogue to the book, slashing and burning all the elaborate but ultimately useless work I was doing there.

But now.
Ahhh.
I know what to do.

Can I count this as a blog entry if all I do is plug someone else's blog entry?

But I can't help myself. Thank you Notorious Ph.D., Girl Scholar, for blogging about your book proposal process!  A six-point memo, short and sweet, about "how to propose."

Mmmmm. Yummm. This is what social networking is all about!

Over at The Long Eighteenth blog, David Mazella has posted a few very helpful comments about the revising process from dissertation to book. He also includes a depressing (and slightly nauseating) sequence of photographs comparing the book proposal (looking good!) to the actual book (flat and deformed). And over at Serendipities, another post on the topic, this one accompanied by a short bibliography.

We need more spaces to talk about this process. It seems to disappear from scholarly conversations, as if we all know how to make that first book happen.

Germano's From Dissertation to Book, by the by, was not my favorite read on this subject. I've relied more frequently on Luey's Revising Your Dissertation and Germano's Getting It Published.

Is web 2.0 my friend or enemy? 

Today I sat down to take notes on Matt Brown's book and to begin revising my book prospectus. Within moments, I found my mind wandering back to the web -- other academics' blogs that I have begun following, this blog, my Goodreads page. Mind wandering, I contemplated the potential for these social networking sites to provide a scholarly community for someone writing on the fringes of academia. Or can blogging make the private work of writing more public, and therefore help me to stay focused and responsible to my schedule?

Meanwhile, I was not writing, or taking notes, or doing research.

Writing is HARD.  Thinking is HARD. The mind seeks distractions, and finds them. Writing is not a solitary process. It requires the support of a community. But it also requires time apart -- quiet time, alone time. Here's to finding the courage to sit alone for a little while, every morning, doing the hard work I love.