Every now and then I think about writing an essay (or series of essays when I'm feeling really ambitious) about growing up in rural South Dakota. And yet, for numerous reasons, I've never followed through with that. That may be in part because the genre--creative non-fiction--is a little foreign to me. I'm used to research writing, and its familiar cadences. Since I haven't practiced writing in that mode very much, I have a harder time sustaining the narrative. I will have bursts of great prose and then my thoughts fizzle out. I suppose practicing my craft would improve it over time.
The bigger issue that I have had this continual stream of academic projects: book #1, play indexing, various and sundry committee obligations, book #2, rare book school, digital humanities presentation, rare book school again. These are all good and appropriate things for me to put my time into, but it leaves me less mental energy for other types of writing (thus my absence from blogging for so long).
Book #2 should be published in mid-August, and our final review of the galleys is due next week. Next week is RBS #1 with the DH presentation following close on its heels. RBS #2 doesn't come around until the last week of July, right after my soon-to-be epic road trip to South Dakota. Oh, summer, why do you always slip by so quickly?
Maybe when all of the summer scholarship/professional development stuff
dies down, not that something else won't quickly fill the void. I think I need to carve out time to write if I'm serious about it, which is unfortunately easier said than done. But like academic writing, creative non-fiction doesn't tend to happen in one fell swoop. It's one page, one paragraph, sometimes even one sentence at a time. I just need to start and then keep taking steps towards completion. Wish me luck!
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Thursday, December 02, 2010
really real
Today when I got home from work, a box rested on my doorstep. A different package, one I had been expecting, had been delivered over the lunch hour, so I wasn't really anticipating anything more. As soon as I stooped to pick it up, I realized what it contained.
My author copies of the book finally arrived. Five, pristine copies, hot off the press, are all mine. It's. It finally exists. People will read it, and libraries will buy it.
Even though I've been expecting my book to arrive in the mail any day, I'm still in shock. I burst into tears when I took the first copy from the box and held it in my time. It was all really overwhelming. I can't even say why I cried, but it was the only thing I really could do at the moment.
As I type, the shock is fading into relief with some inklings of joy. It has been such a long journey, and I'm just so glad to finally see the finished product at the end of it all.
My author copies of the book finally arrived. Five, pristine copies, hot off the press, are all mine. It's. It finally exists. People will read it, and libraries will buy it.
Even though I've been expecting my book to arrive in the mail any day, I'm still in shock. I burst into tears when I took the first copy from the box and held it in my time. It was all really overwhelming. I can't even say why I cried, but it was the only thing I really could do at the moment.
As I type, the shock is fading into relief with some inklings of joy. It has been such a long journey, and I'm just so glad to finally see the finished product at the end of it all.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
thoughts on writing a book
It's been a while since my last post, I know. Between then and now I revised my book manuscript twice, and I guess I just really wanted to finish and have been focusing on that. I haven't written much about the book-writing process over the last couple years even though many of you have heard periodic updates about my progress.
On Tuesday earlier this week, I e-mailed the final revised chapters and accompanying materials to my editors. They've gone through the entire manuscript twice, and now it's in the hands of the editor above them. He may have some feedback, in which case my editors will pass that on to me. If not, it goes straight to production from there. The production phase could take up to 6 months, so my best estimate is that the book will be published and available for sale sometime this fall.
It feels amazing to have finished what I set out to accomplish. Even though there is still some work yet to be done, most of what remains is on the publisher's end. I may have a few minor revisions to make here and there, and I definitely will have to review the page proofs when they're ready. For all intents and purposes, however, I've done my part.
When I submitted the proposal in March 2008, I felt confident that I could write this book. I felt I knew enough about Victorian literature and library research to teach others how to research it as well. I don't think that I had an overly-inflated view of my own knowledge and skills, but looking back, I'm amazed at how much I didn't know when this project began. I have learned so much about research and writing and literature, and now I can say that I wrote the book on researching Victorian literature. How cool is that? I wish that I had known what I know now back when I was working on my MA. How much more would I have gotten out of my classes?
I feel like this is something I can really be proud of. Because Victorian literature is so heavily researched, I felt a lot of pressure to do this right. I imagined my two Victorian literature professors--Emily Haddad (USD) and Jen Hill (UNR)--reading the book and using it in their classes. All of their writing advice bounced around in my head throughout the writing process. I hope that they're pleased with the outcome.
So far the feedback I've gotten from my editors has been really great. They said it "is a wonderful volume" and that they enjoyed reading it. I can't wait to see the page proofs and to hold the printed volume and to read the first reviews (although that part scares me a bit).
Anyway, thanks for bearing with me through this process :) I know it has been a very long ride.
On Tuesday earlier this week, I e-mailed the final revised chapters and accompanying materials to my editors. They've gone through the entire manuscript twice, and now it's in the hands of the editor above them. He may have some feedback, in which case my editors will pass that on to me. If not, it goes straight to production from there. The production phase could take up to 6 months, so my best estimate is that the book will be published and available for sale sometime this fall.
It feels amazing to have finished what I set out to accomplish. Even though there is still some work yet to be done, most of what remains is on the publisher's end. I may have a few minor revisions to make here and there, and I definitely will have to review the page proofs when they're ready. For all intents and purposes, however, I've done my part.
When I submitted the proposal in March 2008, I felt confident that I could write this book. I felt I knew enough about Victorian literature and library research to teach others how to research it as well. I don't think that I had an overly-inflated view of my own knowledge and skills, but looking back, I'm amazed at how much I didn't know when this project began. I have learned so much about research and writing and literature, and now I can say that I wrote the book on researching Victorian literature. How cool is that? I wish that I had known what I know now back when I was working on my MA. How much more would I have gotten out of my classes?
I feel like this is something I can really be proud of. Because Victorian literature is so heavily researched, I felt a lot of pressure to do this right. I imagined my two Victorian literature professors--Emily Haddad (USD) and Jen Hill (UNR)--reading the book and using it in their classes. All of their writing advice bounced around in my head throughout the writing process. I hope that they're pleased with the outcome.
So far the feedback I've gotten from my editors has been really great. They said it "is a wonderful volume" and that they enjoyed reading it. I can't wait to see the page proofs and to hold the printed volume and to read the first reviews (although that part scares me a bit).
Anyway, thanks for bearing with me through this process :) I know it has been a very long ride.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
time has flown
When April began several weeks ago, it seemed so full of promise and opportunity and time. Time was what I was most excited about. I would have time to work on my play indexing, time to complete a few more book chapters, and time to exercise and lose those irritating pounds before my sister's wedding. Of course, that time was whisked away by planning for the impending construction of Starbucks in our reference area, reassigning reference books, countless meetings, a general slump in motivation outside of work hours, and a little bit of personal drama for kicks. Then just when I was recouping from all that, allergies hit with a vengeance, followed by a particularly evil sinus infection, from which I am just now recovering.
The bottom line is yesterday I finally woke up from all that yuck and funk of the last 6 weeks and realized that it's nearly mid-May already. How did that happen? I need that time back! No seriously, I need that time back. Somehow I don't think I'm going to get a rain check on this one. The coming weeks don't look good for productivity either. C'est la vie!
This post brought to you by the number 13, the color gray, and a general overwhelming sense of gloom and doom.
The bottom line is yesterday I finally woke up from all that yuck and funk of the last 6 weeks and realized that it's nearly mid-May already. How did that happen? I need that time back! No seriously, I need that time back. Somehow I don't think I'm going to get a rain check on this one. The coming weeks don't look good for productivity either. C'est la vie!
This post brought to you by the number 13, the color gray, and a general overwhelming sense of gloom and doom.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
at long last
Somethings are just a long time in coming. Two of those things would be the sidewalk in front of my apartment and a journal article I wrote with one of the English professors. Both are finally complete :)
After two months of ducking under ever-fading caution tape, I finally have a nice new cement sidewalk leading up to and past the front door of my apartment. Happy days! I'm still slightly irritated with the management that it took two months (TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!!) to lay 15 feet of sidewalk, but all griping aside, the new sidewalk is lovely (if sidewalks can be such a thing).
The journal article was written an entire year ago and just made it into print last week. Those of you who are friends with me on Google Talk would have seen the random link all last week. I was just a bit slower getting that announcement to the blog. The article is very academic. Heck, it has the word pedagogy in the title. But seriously, this is me we're talking about; it can't surprise you. If you're interested in taking a look-see at it, I've put the citation and URL below.
Bankert, Dabney A., and Melissa S. Van Vuuren. "Stranger in a Strange Land: The Undergraduate in the Academic Library. A Collaborative Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research." CEA Forum 37.1 (2008). http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/371bankertvanvuuren.htm.
I am fairly positive that you should be able to access the article from any computer because the journal is open-access. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
In other news, I still haven't dropped the ESL class. I know deep down that I really need to, and I convince myself that I'm going to do it each and every time I spend an entire evening prepping for the class. And each and every time I tell myself that after I get home from class I'm going to e-mail Deb to tell her I'm stepping down. But then class happens, and I see how eager the students are to learn and how grateful they are and I chicken out and don't send the e-mail. The thing is that I do enjoy it and definitely see the value in it, but the time commitment is just too great. Sigh.
After two months of ducking under ever-fading caution tape, I finally have a nice new cement sidewalk leading up to and past the front door of my apartment. Happy days! I'm still slightly irritated with the management that it took two months (TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!!) to lay 15 feet of sidewalk, but all griping aside, the new sidewalk is lovely (if sidewalks can be such a thing).
The journal article was written an entire year ago and just made it into print last week. Those of you who are friends with me on Google Talk would have seen the random link all last week. I was just a bit slower getting that announcement to the blog. The article is very academic. Heck, it has the word pedagogy in the title. But seriously, this is me we're talking about; it can't surprise you. If you're interested in taking a look-see at it, I've put the citation and URL below.
Bankert, Dabney A., and Melissa S. Van Vuuren. "Stranger in a Strange Land: The Undergraduate in the Academic Library. A Collaborative Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research." CEA Forum 37.1 (2008). http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/371bankertvanvuuren.htm.
I am fairly positive that you should be able to access the article from any computer because the journal is open-access. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
In other news, I still haven't dropped the ESL class. I know deep down that I really need to, and I convince myself that I'm going to do it each and every time I spend an entire evening prepping for the class. And each and every time I tell myself that after I get home from class I'm going to e-mail Deb to tell her I'm stepping down. But then class happens, and I see how eager the students are to learn and how grateful they are and I chicken out and don't send the e-mail. The thing is that I do enjoy it and definitely see the value in it, but the time commitment is just too great. Sigh.
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