5 posts tagged “dissertation”

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.

Six pages read of Matt Brown’s Pilgrim and the Bee.

Fifty pages of chapter 4 printed and prepared for editing.

It’s not much to claim as progress, especially for an hour and fifteen minutes of work.  The rest of the time I spent reviewing my files, trying to figure out where I was when I last worked on this project.

I do a little bit here, a little bit there, every few weeks. Drip. Drip.  If only it all added up to something. But writing in fits and starts leads to lost time, lost focus, and a lost thread. You waste so much energy, as I did today, just trying to re-orient yourself.

So I’ve articulated some new goals for myself, and they’re really all about just keeping it going. Every single day. To make that happen, I have to:

1. Write every day.
2. Write first thing, before other obligations have a chance to shove the writing out of the way. (For me, a runner, “first thing” actually means after running but before starting work.)
3. Protect my sleeping and waking routine, so I can protect the morning writing time.
4. Stay on top of the rest of my life, so it cannot crowd out the writing routine.

And just in case I missed it the first time . . .
 5.  Write every day!

It sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? But somehow it’s so hard to focus, to protect that time, to actually venture forward rather than reading yet another chapter of some important tome that will change everything, of course. But I have resolved to create something that has never existed before, and I’m going to do it one steady bit at a time.

Today I begin what may be a short run, may be a very long run, of writing out loud.  I am a virgin blogger, unsure of myself and feeling a little naked. But I will begin by making my intentions towards you all (anyone?) clear.

This blog is about:

• blogging
• writing, and in particular turning a dissertation into a book
• while fitting scholarship into a nontraditional academic career
• figuring out that career
• while running (and biking or swimming) long distances each week

all while

• being a 30-something woman with a brain, a runner's body, a career, family & friends, creative ambitions, and a thirst for a full, balanced life not wholly dominated by any one of these elements