60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 12

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

Okay, for every triumph there must be a corresponding writing crisis, or at least that seems to be the pattern of my life. Remember the article that was "writing itself"? Hah! Famous last words. I'm suddenly a bundle of insecurities about it, and starting to question everything (the decision to change from the interdisciplinary project, the suitability of this one to the journals I love, my worthiness to breathe the same air as the scholars I admire).

The only comfort I take is that struggling is more appealing than smug, so running into problems now could potentially be endearing. If writing this paper was simply a matter of "typing it up" (to quote author David Gewanter from a really funny anecdote I may later relate), then what would be the point of having Booklab or thinking together or uniting faculty in the shared cause of Writing (and Publishing) A Lot?

Wendy Belcher's book Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks is still brilliant, and I trust it. This struggle is normal. Besides, it's only the start of Week 3. There's time! There's time! I'll sleep on it and write more about the sorta-crisis tomorrow.

Thank goodness for the structure of the book.

60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 11

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

This is the start of Week 3 in the workbook Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks . Week 3 contains a great deal of detail in the teaching section, so much so that I'm going to spread it out over a week instead of trying to read it all at once. Author Wendy Belcher analyzes the main reasons why journal articles are rejected -- she should know, since she edited a journal for 11 years. She then discusses how to make arguments substantive enough to warrant inclusion in a journal, and also where/how to place arguments within both the paper and the abstract.

I'm still ecstatic about this book.

30 Days of Return to the Journal Experiments

The literary journal experiments went on hiatus while I dealt with the influx of new faculty scholarly authors to Georgetown's Office of Scholarly and Literary Publications. But we have one fiction group, and I promised to write with the group for all of October -- 30 glorious days -- even though I'm also working on a scholarly article with the Articles-Only group. Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks is going so wonderfully that it makes sense to take on a new thing now that the old thing is well on its way.

This means structure, dates, deadlines, goals. For October 'tis thus: produce a piece for The Georgia Review to submit by October 23. Why that date? Because October 31 is the deadline for a call for submissions, and I want to send it one week early. That will mean devoting a special hour each day for 23 days to this one creative writing task.

RESOLVED

1. Although I'm typically more of a morning scholarly writer, I choose evenings for this writing, from 8-9 p.m. If that time is filled because of an evening event, I will spend a quiet hour before leaving for said event, or a quiet later-night hour after coming home.

2. Even though I don't know what to write, I will trust that coming to the page will yield something. Much of this theory comes from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way that several of the fiction group are reading and working through together.

3. No matter what happens, I will keep this commitment every day, and I will submit something, however poor and miserable, on the 23rd. This is writing as bricklaying, writing as plumbing, writing as a regular-person job. Artists take commissions all the time, and this is my commission.

4. To prepare myself for this I will read back issues of The Georgia Review and blog about them. This office is also a subscriber, but knowing a literary magazine well is a good way to submit to it successfully.

5. We're all in this together. I'm writing with them and they're writing with me. Teamwork.

The image above, of an albino peacock, is a hint of what the call for submissions is about.

Leech lover

I have an internet problem, I admit it. But I don't have to accept it, and this week thanks to a suggestion from a faculty author I looked into software to tame the web. The author suggested Freedom, but it is only for Macs. Then I read about Leechblock, downloaded it for Firefox, and got busy setting it up to block certain sites after certain lengths of time.

This article by Farhad Manjoo of the The New York Times is illuminating and also a little nauseating -- he's right when he says of RescueTime, "[it] keeps track of everything that happens on your computer, and then reports your habits in a series of charts and graphs. I found the software’s analysis tremendously illuminating. I learned, for instance, that during a typical month I spend more than 70 hours surfing the Web, much of it on news and social-networking sites. By comparison, I spend only about half as much time in Microsoft Word, which, as a writer, is where I do my work. Seeing these stats knocked me over; clearly, I wasn’t using my time very wisely."

Me either.

And so far so good with Leechblock, but I'll post an update later.

William Morris literary agent Eric Lupfer at Booklab

Eric Lupfer of the William Morris Agency will be my guest for a Georgetown University faculty book talk at noon on October 15. If you are a Georgetown faculty member and would like to attend for lunch, chat and a Q&A, by all means let us know by sending e-mail at the right or contacting me in person.

If you are not a faculty member but would still like to attend, non-faculty can participate in all Booklab offerings on an academic/course fee basis. Please contact us for more details!

Want to know what an editor thinks? Ask an editor.

Some authors spend a lot of energy trying to guess what editors want. They think about it, read books about it, ask their mentors, and ask one another. The people they tend not to ask, however, are the editors themselves, often out of a misplaced sense of propriety.

Here are some typical misconceptions:

* That you only get one chance to query an editor about your book. Not true! You asked a simple question, you didn't key someone's car or threaten their families. You can certainly ask again in the future, especially if you have significantly re-thought your project.

* That you are "out" at a press for future books if they turn down one of your pitches now. Again, nonsense! Most editors won't even remember who you are if it never got past the inquiry stage.

* That it is easier to publish at a lower-tier house than at a higher one. Actually, the opposite is sometimes true. There are exceptions, and prestige is a relative thing depending on your field and the standards for promotion at your institution, but many editors at higher-tier houses report frustration that they sometimes never even see certain projects because of erroneous author assumptions about how unapproachable those editors must be.

* That you have to hold your mouth exactly just so and submit one particular way versus another or they'll never look at it. In reality, any good editor is happy to consider a good pitch, however it arrives. Some of them don't even know what's on the publishing house website about the "rules" of submission. Most are fine with an e-mailed inquiry, and 85% of the editors I speak to want to use e-mail for everything... most don't want paper at all, although a minority still do. The ones who do will tell you after you inquire.

The bottom line is to let editors decide what editors want, and the only way to do that is to ask them. Learn to write amazingly effective, to-the-point inquiry letters that say succinctly what you're working on, how you think it fits with their stated list/press/vision, and why you're the perfect person to write this now. Then get those letters out there, to editors you admire and would like to work with. The less you second-guess editors and the more you give them the opportunity to think for themselves about your research and whether it will work for them, the better.

Oh-so-true illustration from that old internet classic, i can has cheezburger.

60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 10

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

It's the end of Week 2, and I'm so happy that I'm probably boring all of the faculty book writing groups with joy. Working with the book Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks has yielded a miracle: The Article That Writes Itself.

As background, I began this semester planning to write a different article, but the workbook and feedback from the articles group convinced me not to do it, at least not yet. The article was based on a conference paper I gave at Notre Dame some years ago, and although it succeeded as a paper on a panel, the project was deeply interdisciplinary. Author Wendy Belcher's brilliant workbook helped me figure this out before I invested weeks in research and writing, however. Instead, I was able to see that now is not the time; after I've published a few articles I can re-consider it, from a stronger basis of having established myself as a scholar in that field.

Instead, I turned to an old cliché from the business world by going for "low-hanging fruit" -- reaching for a topic I understand well (it comes from the book I'm writing), and exploring it in more detail in a journal article. This is a perfect balance, because the level of detail required for the article would be ridiculous in a book -- it wouldn't even make sense in a long footnote -- but it is perfect for scholarly consideration in a self-contained published piece. I have the joy of running down these long, twisty alleyways of scholarly research, but without being pulled off of the main task of writing the book. The two projects nurture one another, yet they are not the same, i.e. the article does not incorporate much content from the book and anyone would consider them substantively different.

There is also a negative meaning to low-hanging fruit... the sense that such projects can be easy, obvious, and in many cases somewhat overripe and past their prime. Tenure committees are good at seeing through these sorts of c.v.-padding ploys. This is a potential problem, but also one that Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks addresses with its exhaustive list of projects in which one out not to get bogged down, or that may be considered too low-value for tenure and promotion. I've made certain that my article is potentially of high academic value.

Therefore I'm thinking of low-hanging fruit in the positive sense: this project is a natural outgrowth of my research, and it will help other scholars. It is interesting, it's arguably important, and because I know the subject so well it does feel as though it is writing itself. I'm working hard at it, but the labor is such a pleasure because thanks to author Wendy Belcher, I know and understand my daily writing tasks. The Articles-Only Group meets on Thursday, and I'm ready to greet it with the kind of scholarly excitement I haven't felt in many years.

I'm a little ahead on the blogging front with this book, so I'll post again after the Articles-Only group meets on Thursday.

Such compelling excuses

Some members of the scholarly book groups and the article group are starting to e-mail in with excuses (I have trained them please not to phone). From scheduling to grading to general mayhem, a small percentage of Booklab authors are letting life sweep writing out of the way. We've had engaging discussions about how scholarly writing and publishing is as important as teaching (not more important, not less). It's different, though, because teaching always happens. No excuses. Faculty show up for every class period unless something has been prearranged with ample advance notice.

So question: if you don't show up for your book group, what will happen? Answer: nothing. The group will sail on. Its members will publish (we are publishing -- it's a miracle to observe!). Only you will know what's happening in your own world, on your own c.v. But if you are always there for your students, year in, year out, then it is also possible to make certain that you are always there for your scholarly writing. We've already proven your time at the page need not be long or burdensome. Curious about this? Then send e-mail for more information.

(The above photo depicts teaching in Healy Hall, one of my favorite venues. I have taught many a class there.)

60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 9

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

After working through the exercises in Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks and getting up to this point, I realized that I needed to change projects. The beauty of this book, however, is that it brings this sort of crisis point at the beginning of the writing process, not at the end after you've already done so much work. The key problem with my original article idea -- based on that old conference paper -- was its interdisciplinarity. That's fine at a conference where work is as much entertaining as it is informative, and you can cross boundaries without fear of being called out for not being an expert in the second field. But journals demand more, and for a 12-week project I just didn't have the serious scholarly background in either music or medicine necessary to publish the article I originally planned.

Instead, I broke the "rules" slightly by launching a new piece, albeit one based on a section of my book that is also underway. This is going much better, partly because I'm already immersed in the necessary literature because of the work for the book, and also because it is 100% on my home turf academically. I don't have to stretch into a new field or two. This feels entirely natural, and the research has been such a joy that I don't mind writing something fresh for the 12-week project. As I continue to blog this book there may be snags, but right now I can see my way through the next ten weeks, and it feels great.

The picture above offers a large hint as to what I'm writing about.

60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 8

It is just so much easier living through other people vicariously. Now that I'm working on publishable pieces alongside the members of the articles-only group, it's obvious that my "Go get 'em" style needs work. Specifically, perspective. It feels weird to corral scholarly research for potential submission. Today as I ponder the next step in Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks I feel interestingly vulnerable.

Besides the first article that I vetted with the group yesterday, I'm going to begin researching a second article to write along with the Spring articles group. That should create a nice balance -- research one while writing another, and then moving them through the pipeline. The goal? Two or three per year. Seriously. Watch this space for details.

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

Change your pattern, change your output

One of our faculty authors ran into the classic problem of getting sucked into department busywork/life if she tried to write in her office. From colleagues, to students sitting in the hall waiting for her even if it wasn't her office hour, to mail in the cubbyhole, the office was turning into the last place she could work productively. So she signed up for a carrel in the library, and she began going there when she arrived on campus instead of directly to the department. It's working. She gets a couple of hours of writing done before she ever sets foot in that beehive known as the typical academic department. Then no matter what happens the rest of the day, she has done her writing.

Quote from one of the groups

Today Michael told one of our groups something he learned in a theology class: "Discipline takes desires and turns them into destiny."

I found a couple of other versions online:

Discipline, not desire, equals destiny
Discipline + desire = destiny

I like them all. Know any others?

60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 7, Part II

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

You knew I was going to say this, but it wasn't that bad. I read my assignment from Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks to my articles group this morning, and they liked it. Okay, they had to sort of say that because I'm leading the group and there's a kiss-kiss factor, but it felt like more than that. One of the group members actually had a piece of music by my composer on her iPod! He's sufficiently obscure that it truly pointed to a connection that went beyond just "getting it."

They brought up the same issue that I worried about -- that it might be overly interdisciplinary, but one of the group members suggested that I consider a different journal as well -- one more targeted to the aspect of my paper that focuses on medical history. That's a great idea, and it will make a great fallback strategy if my first-choice journal doesn't bite.

But the relief was that it went over very well... and that I'm still working on it, but now with feedback from two writing partners. Whew. Onward.

60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 7, Part I

ANXIETY. There, I said it. The idea of speaking to a scholarly writing partner now about the article I'm going to produce in the next 53 days is making me squirm. I don' wanna do it! As my brother -- who sent me the above -- quoted from one of our favorite comic strips, Pearls Before Swine, "Stay home. Play Wii." And of course that's all I want to do, but instead at 10 a.m. I will face the articles group with (gulp) my assignment from Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks .

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 6

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

DAY SIX

Although I don't want to give away too much of the book Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks on this blog, I will say that by the beginning of the second "week" (really a five-day period that you can schedule during the work week or run consecutively, as you wish) I'm starting to get a bigger-picture sense of her logic, and this book really does work. It will clear out the cobwebs whether you are on your first article, or your fifth. I love this book and I can envision publishing many articles with its sensible help as a guide.

Today's exercise requires a partner, so I'm going to wait until the articles group meets tomorrow morning and then ask them all for input. It's great that Belcher includes partner exercises, because it forces you (against all instincts, sometimes) to socialize your work before writing too much of it. By getting authors to achieve certain points of clarity early, Belcher gets to the heart of various complaints that journal editors have about articles that are fuzzy or of uncertain value.

One note about discussing work with an academic partner. I feel shy about it! Even though I run groups at Booklab, for some reason I really want to hide my work right now, but Belcher advises the opposite. This feels scary, vulnerable, weird, you name it.

(The image above is from a book I'm reading on writer's groups. I'll report on it later, but it seemed appropriate for this partner-writing exercise.)

More on pre-conference planning

One of Booklab's faculty authors returned from a recent conference with feedback on how his pre-conference preparation went. He viewed the university press booths completely differently based on discussions we had about publisher lists. One of the presses had been courting him, and he was able to see what else they published in his field, look at the actual books, and speak to an editor.

One of the advantages to going to the booth at your professional association's big annual meeting rather than just looking at catalogues is specialization. The press will go out of its way to identify itself to you and your colleagues in terms of your specialty. Also, book are expensive and time-consuming to gather (most libraries won't have all of them), so you'll be able to go through many of them all at once and make more informed decisions about the suitability of a particular publisher for your work. Imagine how much easier it will be to create a targeted prospectus with this kind of understanding.

Lindsay Waters of Harvard University Press

This is so useful for academic authors, and I hope to find more of these soon. Don't forget to check out Ken Wissoker of Duke University Press in an earlier post here. Booklab believes (okay, I believe, but I like speaking as Booklab -- so authoritative) that there is no substitute for knowing actual editors at actual presses. More about Lindsay Waters here.

60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing -- Day 5

For background on the 60 Days of Scholarly Journal Article Writing, please click here.

DAY FIVE

Remember December 3! More about why in a moment.

Today ends the first week of blogging Write Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks. Week 1 ends with a focus on your calendar and on potential challenges to writing. It reminds me how odd/amusing/frustrating it is to speak to some faculty about their writing and hear their arguments for their old methods that aren't working. Not all faculty do this -- most are eager to try new things. But occasionally you get someone who fights for what's familiar. As long as that person publishes, then great. But if the books and articles aren't coming, then it's time to explore some new tricks.

One example from the Belcher book is the author who insists s/he needs large blocks of time to write, even though research shows time and again that smaller blocks on a steady schedule are more effective. Belcher tells us, "The first thing I like to ask people who make such claims is: Have you ever tried it any other way? ... It is unscientific to have such firm beliefs without having tested them. According to actual writing tests, there are two problems with this big block of time theory. One, such stretches are elusive, and virtually nonexistent once you become a professor. Two, people who use only big blocks of time to write are less productive and more unhappy than those who write daily" (38). She then goes on to back it up with studies from Boice and others.

So at the end of Week 1, the first five days, thanks to Belcher, I have (1) identified a conference paper that can be turned into a journal article; (2) dug it out of the archives and shaken the dust off of it; (3) retyped it; and (4) set a research and writing schedule for the coming semester with a goal of submitting the completed article 11 weeks from last Thursday, or December 3.

Booklab Loves Sage Publishing Ltd.

Two titles that faculty have found useful in Booklab come from Sage Publishing, Ltd. Both Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks and Designing Research for Publication have been of enormous benefit to authors. Have a look at some of these exciting titles (exciting if you love research, writing and publishing, that is).

Just one note to the publisher if they happen to read this. Spend some moola to sexy up the book covers a bit! For example, we had no idea until we got deeply into Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks that Wendy Belcher is a faculty member at Princeton, or that she was a journal editor for eleven years. This important information should be on the book cover, along with blurbs from opinion makers among faculty, and more specific cover art. This is no slam to your artists (designing books is challenging, and I applaud the professionals who do it well, especially given time constraints and tight budgets), but such strong information can really sell a book title. Credentials count in this business, so let us see them!

Pre-Conference Planning

Why is Booklab getting involved in pre-conference planning? Simple -- our authors make deals there. University presses are well-represented at most major academic conferences, and it can be a great place to make contact with an editor at a top-tier press who might be interested in publishing your field-specific book.

But don't just show up at the conference and expect to get a meeting. Although that can happen, the odds are against you given how busy most publishers are at their booths, how challenging it can be for you to present your concept quickly and effectively, and also what a brief time many university press editors actually spend at the conference; some just fly in and out -- you'll often find other staff actually working the booths for the full days, depending on the press and the importance of the conference.

The best way to approach a conference with a book is to come to one of Booklab's faculty author groups and ask about pre-conference planning. This is always done in a group setting rather than one-on-one, so that your colleagues can benefit from the discussion. You'll learn how to think about university press editors and their lists, how to craft a conference package that will get an editor's attention, and what to say to the editor long before the conference (as much as several months ahead) that will get you the meeting you want.

The image above comes from Yale University Press's web site, and it shows some of the staff at the Ecological Society of America meeting in San Jose, 2007.

The Chicago Manual of Style Does Q&A

I saw this ad in mediabistro.com's Daily Media News Feed today. Clever!

Book titles

One of Booklab's authors, Andy, found this on Crooked Timber, and it linked back to Your Monkey Called. I googled it, and it's running around the web a bit. So funny.

60 Days of Journal Article Writing -- Day 4

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

DAY FOUR

I chose to re-type that conference paper from 11 years ago instead of trying to retrieve the file from an outdated floppy disk. The retyping process is so useful, both for helping me remember the paper's details, and for reminding me of its inherent inter-disciplinarity. The conference panel had been organized by Fr. Alvaro Ribeiro, and it was titled "Words and Music," reflecting his long, expert interest in the English musicologist and music historian Charles Burney (1726-1814).

Wendy Belcher rightly cautions against using interdisciplinary papers for this particular exercise because one risks attempting to publish in a field in which one is not credentialed. She writes, "It is harder than most... think to write for another discipline. Just because you took one film class and wrote a paper for it, despite being in the political science department, does not mean that you know how to write for film scholars." Hmmmm, I'm feeling that. Sure, I was a classical radio host, but that doesn't mean I'm a musical scholar. It means I know how to play CDs and read liner notes. So should I attempt to publish this scholarly paper at all?

In the interest of the blog and the group I will, and here's why: the research isn't pure musicology. I'm focusing on words, and music is just part of it. The piece is also literary history, and medical history. Although I risk being judged by standards outside of my field, I will assume that risk with the understanding that the readers for 18th-Century Studies may take me to task for aesthetics I'm too naieve to incorporate. I can live with that... I really want this paper to see the light of day. So onward.

Day 4 of Week 1 has many notes about obstacles and writing tasks that I won't detail here because you should buy the book! It is just so valuable for writers. I'll keep blogging it, but with the understanding that there's nothing like the real thing (a mere $35 investment in your publishing future).

Image above taken from the website of The Early Music Man.

Dr. Fathali Moghaddam on the Georgetown University Forum

I interview many Georgetown authors for the radio program "Georgetown University Forum," a half-hour talk show that has existed in one form or another since the 1940s (it was even on television for a while). On Friday I spoke to Dr. Fathali Moghaddam who is a fascinating author of books about how and why terrorists think, what is happening to the cultures in which they live, and how globalization actually leads to terrorism. The interview will be available this week and I'll link to it, but meantime check out these books.

One of his most interesting points: he sees women and their changing the role and status globally, particularly in the Islamic world, as key to cultural shifts toward peace.

Coffee shop politics

Have you ever been a coffee-shop author? I certainly have, but I've also experienced a phenomenon that Belcher mentions in Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: "Some [authors] tell me that they are itinerant writers. Fixing on one writing spot doesn't work because, after working in a space for a week or two, the place becomes tainted for them.... notice when a place is no longer working for you, and move on to the next. May you live in a town with many coffee shops!" (18)

This odd burnout certainly happened to me. When I lived in Beverly Hills, a tree-lined neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia, I used to go to nearby Del Ray and sit at St. Elmo's Coffee Pub to write. But eventually denizens of the pub would plop down at my table for a chat. Authors-to-be figured out that I liked it there, and some showed up unannounced. It was usually flattering, but I became quite nervous when one espionage author used his CIA connections to track me down even when I hadn't told him where I lived, and I used a PO box specifically to elude writer/stalkers! When the morning barista began asking me to do chores like I was staff, I realized the honeymoon was over. After two happy years at St. Elmo's I moved on.

Once in DC in my comfy Georgetown neighborhood, I was thrilled when Saxby's coffee opened just one block away a month after my arrival. For the better part of two years I was there almost daily, sitting in a corner with my latte and trying to be careful about how much time I spent (purchasing a drink or food every hour is a reasonable suggestion). I love the owners of Saxby's, but eventually I got less and less work done as my faculty authors learned where to find me. I love my authors, but writing time gots to be sacred.

A year after Saxby's opened, a nifty, brand-new little Starbucks arrived just down the hill at the corner of 34th and M Street, and I enjoyed it for its corporate anonymity. It was busy enough to feel friendly, but quiet enough (i.e. no faculty authors, no friends, no distractions) to work as a writing space. So imagine my distress when a disaster involving a car and a fire hydrant resulted in a severe water-main break that even made the evening news. The destroyed shop did not re-open, and the space is still empty.

Now I write at home, at the same groovy wooden desk that I bought in grad school from an antiques shop in the Charlottesville hills. I wrote many papers and a fun dissertation at this desk, and now it is my writing space. Other times if I need a distraction I go to Lauinger Library two blocks away. I still love Saxby's and its free wireless, and I sneak in there sometimes if I think the table visitors won't find me! :-)

60 Days of Journal Article Writing -- Day 3

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

DAY THREE

This one's easy. Belcher has a long discussion about where to write, and I already have a good place to write. But if you don't, I recommend strongly that you spend some time with this section, and that you also read Paul Silvia's section in How to Write a Lot where he discusses writing space. Some of the Booklab authors have almost wept with relief when they negotiated a private space in their homes just for their writing (the tiniest thing can do, it doesn't have to be an elaborate library), and also time to write. Partners were generally cooperative if the author in question would also commit a certain amount of non-writing family time as well. Fair to everyone. We'll discuss work/life balance in another post, but one of the happy outcomes of the faculty book groups has been saner writing schedules and more time for family, friends, and life outside of work.

Image of the writing space above from a Poets and Writers feature on writing spaces. It is the space of fiction writer and essayist Debbie Zeitman.

60 Days of Journal Article Writing -- Day 2

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

DAY TWO

One of the challenges of writing a journal article in twelve weeks is choosing something to write about. Belcher recommends revising existing research -- something you've already written for a class or given as a talk that was considered publishable by other scholars. I can understand why, for although it is perfectly reasonable to think that one could take the steps toward publication in twelve measurable weeks, finding and researching a topic can sometimes take longer.

For me the choice was straightforward. Although I considered going back to the dissertation or even rooting around in some interesting graduate school research, I instead remembered a conference paper from eleven years ago (deep breath) at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference at Notre Dame. I lived that paper for several weeks, gleefully digging (ah, research!) in the special collections division of the National Institutes of Health. It combined three strong interests: music (I have worked as a classical radio announcer), late-17th- and early-18th-century studies, and the history of medicine. Researching and giving this paper was a baroque, multi-sensory experience, and I was so grateful for the enthusiastic reaction of scholars in the audience.

Then it went into a folder, it trundled from one house to the next, and it wound up dust-covered and so far under the bed in an archival box that at first I feared I had thrown it out. But no, it was there, the original printed pages with handwritten notes on them, and even a tucked-away and now-obsolete computer disk with the original document on it.

Do you have any older work gathering dust that might be revised for publication? Has it ever occurred to you that it might be perfectly usable now? I'm thrilled at the prospect. How lovely to think that something providing so much interest and pleasure eleven years ago in such an elegant place can live again, and perhaps even find its way into a journal so that other scholars can use it.

I won't yet give away what it is about, but the image on this post provides a hint.

Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks

60 Days of Journal Article Writing -- Day 1

For more information on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

Day 1's assignment is so easy -- all I have to do is read pages 1-10 that precede it. I'll go read now (some of this is re-reading for me, but that never hurts when one is a Bear of Very Little Brain), and then report back.

[Later]

Wow. No wonder Wendy Belcher made reading pages 1-10 the only assignment for day one. They're great pages! I learned so much about scholarly writing, and I do this for a living (note to self: never stop learning). She asks readers to do all of the written exercises, including signing a contract to commit to the work for 12 weeks (corny but effective -- I've used these before), listing common elements in my negative feelings about writing, and also listing common elements of the positive.

Negative elements for me included thinking about my dissertation committee who had expected me to publish this particular book a while ago (these memories are surprisingly visual/auditory); worries that anything I'm writing has all been done better by others; and regret for not having done more faster . . . a variation on the old refrain "What's the use? This should have been done years ago."

Positive elements included the euphoria I feel whenever I bring a chapter in for a landing; the pleasure I take in final revisions (polishing is fun!); the sheer joy of library research; and the fact that I like this job, my life, and my chosen area of research, and that when I'm writing and publishing I experience a general sense of well-being.

I also asterisked sections that will form the basis of future posts. Some are original to Belcher and I will credit her at those times, others come from Boice (about whom I've blogged before). So far my three favorite authors about academic writing are Boice, Silvia, and Belcher, although I'm sure there will continue to be more. If you don't know who I mean by these authors, please click the book list at the upper right of this blog page for details.

Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks

60 days of journal article writing

One of the characteristics of Booklab faculty author writing groups is that I'm writing along with the team. After all, what good is a publishing guidance office unless the Director publishes too? And although I have published in the past, once this job got underway in 2006 my output went from "okay but probably not enough" to "hmmm, needs more." Meh. Time to get back to it. In other posts I've blogged about the book I'm writing on an 18th-century woman author, but now I'm ready to stare down the Scariest Thing Since Grad School: the scholarly article.

The role of articles in academic life varies depending on the department and the field. I can't speak for the world, but based on faculty anecdotes I have learned quite a bit about some campuses similar to Georgetown. Fields like psychology, philosophy and business are articles-only disciplines. You can publish a book if you want to, but articles are the lingua franca, and for tenure or promotion they have to be in certain scholarly journals. Who ranks what journal how high is a fraught process that I won't detail here (I actually can't -- it's subjective), but each department comes up with its own way of communicating what it values for tenure, various pay grades, and promotion to full professor. Other departments such as Spanish & Portuguese, English, and History, consider books more of the cornerstone, with articles like satellites circling the planets -- important and necessary, but not the key documents in promotion decisions. Scholars should still have articles, and some departments communicate a sense of how many and where they should appear, but books must happen as well, and the emphasis remains there.

Since I came from the English Department and that was my core background training (although truth be told, if I had my education to do over again I would have figured out a way to be a psychologist as well as a literary historian, and that day may yet come), I will focus my publishing efforts on the field that I studied and still love: the English Stuart era from 1660 until about 1714. My dissertation was broader, but the early part is most interesting. In the future after this next book I will begin learning more about early American/colonial literature as well.

So here we go. 12 five-day weeks of working through the book Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks , and working on a scholarly article for submission to the journal Eighteenth-Century Studies. I will blog about the daily exercises in the book, and how it feels to work with my authors on a project that feels, well, unfamiliar and scary. I'm excited about doing it, but also filled with the good kind of trepidation (humbled by my predecessors, cognizant of my strengths and weaknesses, hoping I can measure up).

Do you know the publishing prizes in your field?

Although I am currently writing on an 18th-century subject, and although I'm a life member of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (when my new copy of the journal Eighteenth-Century Studies arrives, I usually jump around the house with glee), I didn't know so much about possible publishing prizes in my field. This week when I asked scholars from anthropology, history, English, Spanish & Portuguese, and more if they knew about prizes in their fields, most said no. But guess what? Knowing about prizes is crucial. Often you can even self-nominate.

Here is just one of the prizes listed on the website for ASECS. I became so interested in James L. Clifford (a scholar whose name I recognized from Johnson studies) that I looked up his New York Times obituary. He died at age 77 in 1978 after a remarkable career. He had an engineering degree from MIT, and he might have stayed in that field had he not read Boswell's Life of Johnson in 1929 during a course at Columbia. He joined Columbia's faculty in 1946 after the second World War, and he stayed there until his retirement. What a guy. And what an honor it would be to win the prize named for him.

Clifford Prize
The James L. Clifford Prize goes to the author of an article on an outstanding study of some aspect of eighteenth-century culture, interesting to any eighteenth-century specialist, regardless of discipline. It carries an award of $500.
Rules:
· The article should be no longer than 15,000 words.
· The article must have appeared in print in a journal, festschrift, or other serial publication between July 2008 and June 2009.
· The article may be nominated by a member of the society, by its author, or by an editor of the publishing journal. Self-nominations are limited to one article per year.
· Nominations must be accompanied by nine (9) copies of the article and must be received in the ASECS office no later than 1 January 2010.
· The author must be a member of the ASECS at the time of submission.

On-target observations about grad school

Anne Sigismund Huff is the author of an interesting book, Designing Research for Publication, that was recommended through another title we use in Booklab, Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks by Wendy Laura Belcher. Check out this paragraph on page four of Chapter 1, "Finding the Right Conversation," and see if it doesn't remind you of grad school:

The powerful idea that scholarship is an interactive and collective activity was not salient in my doctoral education. I was certainly trying to make sense of my new profession as I listened to lectures, read, and interacted with others. The expectation of giving something back might have (or should have) influenced designing and writing my dissertation, but instead I began and ended with an individual agenda. In frustration, I thought that more successful people were part of a conversation that excluded me.

Reading this paragraph makes me ask why the roles for which we were preparing were not clearer in grad school. I was fortunate to have a wonderful director and dissertation committee all of whom aided in my professional development, but there was no institutional discussion of what the profession is and how we learn to contribute to it as scholars. At that level it was catch-as-catch-can. If you are a faculty member who wonders how everyone else got the clues and you missed out, books like this can be such a sane relief.

Khayaal: The South Asia Book Club

This notice comes from Dr. Aparna Vaidik, who is the faculty mentor for this group:

Georgetown University’s Mortara Center for International Studies
in association with the South Asia Forum, International Certificate for Development,
Asian Studies Certificate Program, and South Asian Society
invite you to a book discussion organized by

Khayaal
An informal book club for Georgetown book lovers with a focus on
South Asian writers and literature on

Khaled Hosseini
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
6:00 pm
Mortara Center
(corner of 36th and N Streets)
*Refreshments will be served

The discussion will be led by Aparna Ramesh, (SFS ’11)

Devonthink vs. Evernote vs. ??

Some of our scholars use data management software. I've never tried one of these programs, but yesterday as an author waxed romantical about her committed relationship to Devonthink, I got to thinking about whether this would help with The Morgue of Scraps and other data problems such as so much on the hard drive that you forget what you have. The classic is going to a lot of time and trouble to find an article, only to realize while reading it that you read it two years ago, took notes on it, and saved it on your hard drive where it is now a needle in an overstuffed haystack.

Here's a link to a website that compares Devonthink to Evernote. Any thoughts on all of this?

The morgue of scraps

One frustrated scholarly author detailed how she edits and excises material. She doesn't want to discard it entirely, but she also doesn't want to use it in the present work, so she saves it in what she drily referred to as "the morgue of scraps." We all laughed. I have one of those -- bits of articles, stories, and ideas from heaven-knows-where, collected over the years on computer files and too good to toss. When computers changed from floppy discs to CD-rom to flash drives, over time some of these scraps became inaccessible (or not easily retrieved), so I resolved to let them go, like throwing out memories from a bygone relationship.

Do you have a morgue of scraps? Or is there a gentler name for it? Are all writers like packrats with yarn and fabric stuffed away in closets, attics and drawers, ready to be used "someday?"

Image from Little White Paw.

Our 12-week adventure into scholarly articles

The articles-only group has taken the plunge, working together on the introduction and Chapter 1 of Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks. Interestingly, though, authors in the book groups are considering it, too, as a way to think about book chapters. 12 weeks seems a bit long to work on just one chapter (that's almost a whole semester!), so some of the book people are experimenting with doing two units a day from the articles book. Two chapters a semester sounds great for someone who is really focused and writing daily. That would provide the December break for revisions, and the following summer to go over all four chapters and complete the prospectus. Some books are longer than others, but this schedule would produce a well-considered eight-chapter scholarly book in two years.

Petrified Squid at Booklab

One of my favorite blogs is The Daily Coyote, where photographer Shreve Stockton documents her life in Wyoming raising a coyote her friend rescued and gave to her when it was a puppy. My preferred way to read The Daily Coyote was from the beginning, clicking back to the early days and working my way forward a few pages at a time. Gradually what began as a photographic journal became a story, and sure enough, Ms. Stockton got a great book deal.

What I love about this is a validation of the process of blogging as a way to work through ideas with an audience, and of letting them take natural shape. Your blog need not have millions of readers. My Booklab blog has only seven, but they are all dedicated. Instead, the blog is a way to socialize ideas (thanks to Gary in one of my scholarly groups for that term), and to get comfortable with them in an environment that's a near-perfect combination of scratch pad and microphone on stage. I believe that she did end up with zillions of readers, but her audience grew naturally as the blog matured.

Shreve Stockton sells petrified squid that she finds on her property in Wyoming (she says this is legal). I bought some and it will sit in a bowl on the mantel above the fireplace at Booklab as a reminder to anyone who asks that blogging is actually real writing, and it can lead to very real books.

The so-called tyranny of the blank page

The faculty fiction writers' group just left, and one of the last things some stragglers and I discussed was the ridiculous notion that writers are supposed to sit in front of blank pages or blinking computer cursors and suffer. What kind of self-flagellator does that? We're big fans of getting out into life, notebook in hand, and doing or discovering something worth writing about. Stumped for something to write? Then grab a notebook or a digital audio recorder and go to the farmer's market, the waiting room at the county jail, a rodeo, or the local rowers' boathouse.

It baffles us that how-to-write books often discuss the writer's office as a necessary dungeon, and the ritual before blank paper with attendant suffering as some inherent part of the creative process. As if! All of those horrid lines about gluing oneself to the chair or chaining oneself to the desk. Twaddle! Guilt-producing gahr-bage.

This fiction group is amazing and I love it. Booklab has ten groups for scholarly writers, and one for fiction as a fun middle-of-the-week respite. Everyone is focusing on different kinds of things. We dove into literary magazines today, with actual copies on hand. I did a short presentation on The Missouri Review, to set up a model, and then Chris took a copy of Ploughshares to discuss next week. Matt walked out with a copy of VQR, which he'll study and dissect for us two weeks from now.

We do not believe in butts in chairs until we know why we're there and what we have to say. We believe in butts out in nature, in the big, bad city, or on the ranch, cowboy. We believe in writers as actors, participants, observers, creators, anything but inmates in office-prisons.

Weird chairs above from coolbuzz.org.

Another question from the web page -- proposals!

A blog reader writes in with this timely question: "I've just written a nonfiction book. What do I do next?"

First order of business is congratulating yourself on having completed something so challenging. Second is stepping back from your masterpiece and thinking about a professional nonfiction book proposal. Usually I recommend these before you write your book, since most nonfiction trade books are sold on the basis of a proposal and a couple of sample chapters rather than a whole manuscript. Why? Because nonfiction editors often like to think with the author on the crafting of the book -- it has to work on their particular list. But there is certainly no rule one way or the other. You can create a proposal now based on the book you have already written.

Think of a proposal as a business plan for your book. It demonstrates to a publisher who you are, how your qualifications make you the perfect author for this book, who will read it and why, and how you plan to promote your work. There are other aspects as well. Your future editor will likely take copies of your proposal to an acquisitions meeting where it will be discussed in business terms. Different houses have different ways of deciding what books to acquire, but a great proposal is the basis of just about everyone's system. If you click the link at the upper right of this page you'll see a list of books I recommend, and there are two proposal titles.

If you're a tenure-line faculty member at Georgetown this is free. If you are not on Georgetown's faculty, you can hire Booklab to work with you on a professional nonfiction book proposal. Please send e-mail for a sheet that details just some of the ways we work with authors on this all-important aspect of nonfiction book publishing.


The image above shows a different kind of proposal.

The Booklab Workout

Authors sit a lot, and therefore need to think a bit more about fitness than perhaps people who have on-your-feet kinds of jobs. So voila the Booklab Workout. All that butt-in-the-seat is especially destructive when it comes to muscle tone in the lower abs!



We're thinking of installing treadmills at workstations (ones that move v-e-r-y slowly, apparently all the rage among lawyers). Oh, and I'm wondering if it makes sense to buy a Pilates machine. Ideas? Anyone?


Image from engadget.

Speaking of feeling a little crazy somtimes

I rarely comment on pop culture, because I don't really get it. That's not a snob attitude, it's a clueless one... and I've been that way since childhood. But the video that's all over the news about the Kanye West/Taylor Swift moment at the VMA awards last night brought up something different for me... the sense that they enacted right there on the stage most authors' secret fears -- that someone will come rushing up and shout "Imposter!" right when you're ready to celebrate an achievement.

One of my friends is a judge, and even after almost two decades on the bench, he said he still sometimes thinks someone will burst into the courtroom and shout "You're not a judge, take off that robe and leave the bench this minute." Another friend reported that the night she received a major international book award, she wasn't happy, she was terrified and a bit blue for all those who hadn't won (she told me she wanted to be first runner-up). When she did get to the stage, she kept waiting for someone to say "We're sorry, there has been some mistake, that's supposed to go to a real writer."

I've felt like a fraud in public many times. Others with far more achievements than mine say the same thing. Without judging the parties involved (it doesn't feel appropriate given that I can't name a song by either artist), I will say this much: wow... watching that video was like living out my worst nightmare.

Now on to another day at Booklab where we all reassure each other that we're whatever it is we need to be (not perfect, not the living end, but good enough on most days and committed to professionalism and perspective).

Illustration by Sir John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland.

Is your book making you crazy?

Quick question -- has anyone ever thought you were going crazy because of a book that wasn't going well? An author this week told me that he felt that way, and it reminded me of my own state of mind in 1999. Nuts! (Things are much better now, thank you -- Booklab= happiness.)

Any and all "crazy author" stories are welcome.

Are Writers Conferences Helpful or Necessary?

I'm going to admit -- publicly! -- that I am somewhat edgy about the subject of writer's conferences. Even though every year that they'll have me I'm a fiction judge for the Maryland Writers Association (love them), and even though I've spoken at three writers' conferences, I still have nagging concerns about the format, based on admittedly small-sample experiences. They just felt all kinds of awkward, and I was unconvinced that writers got what they hungered for at most of them.

Instead of opining, however, I'll open the question up to all five of my readers, some of whom send me personal mail even when they don't comment here. What's your opinion of writer's conferences? Have you been to, say, Bread Loaf? Was it a good experience? You may be (as always) anonymous, or else first-name only.

The hilarious illustration is from palblog, the blog of comics artist Peter Laird.

Authors and editors sometimes want different things

Sometimes there is an inherent conflict between a typical author's goals (publish me, publish me, publish ME!), and an editor's goals (I want to enhance my list... when you see my list you see what I value and why... to get published, fit on my list). Average authors are all about individual recognition, whereas typical editors focus on the content and message of their lists as intellectual and artistic collections.

Authors frequently ask "Why didn't the publisher advertise ME more," whereas editors more typically ask "What's the best use of promotional resources for the group, for the imprint, for the house?" It's not that authors are all ego-maniacal while editors are altruistic. That simple split can't work, since so many editors are also authors. But their goals are sometimes at variance when they inhabit their respective roles. It's also no wonder that some editors become successful authors, because they learn to think like editors and so they often make more successful publishing bids. The more that authors focus on editors' complete lists, the more likely the two camps are to gradually share goals, or at least come at divergent goals from more harmonious bases.

How do you find editors? Follow the trail of books you admire. Sites like Amazon have advanced search features that let you see all the offerings from a particular publishing house. Choose an appropriate house, select a range of books in your field, and find out who edited them. This can be more accurate than simply looking on the website and finding the editor who handles "all" of a particular type of book, since there is often a bit of overlap, and editors can wander onto one another's turf.

By the way, getting to know editors and their lists is not the only way to go about getting published. I know some authors who don't give a hoot and who are extraordinarily well- published. The only rule is that there are no rules, but knowing editors and their works is one of my personal preferences.

Journal Experiments: Starting Again, and Again

I'm still energized by the Journal Experiments, and every time I return it is with wonder and amazement at just how useful/fruitful they are. For those of you unfamiliar with them, the original post is here, from a year ago. We examined some cool journals between then and now, but with the new faculty fiction-writing group starting last week, it's time to get into them again even more seriously.

This week's journal is The Missouri Review, a 30-year-old literary magazine based at the University of Missouri. It is extremely high on my list of must-subscribes, and I encourage anyone who is thinking about submitting to it to read back issues from the library to get a feel for it, and then subscribe as a way of supporting this amazing world.

The editor, Speer Morgan, is also a literary practitioner, with several novels, plus award-winning fiction in The Atlantic Monthly. I was struck by the fact that although -- as is customary -- his essay about this edition precedes the entries, he chose to list that essay at the end of the Contents. Hard to say if that was a deliberate nod to his authors to put them first, but it sure seemed that way and I liked it. Poetry editor for the summer '09 issue Katy Didden has a number of publication credits as well, and she is a doctoral student. The poetry editor listed on the website, Marc McKee, has a similar background.

Why do I pay attention to editors? Because I have a personal bias toward knowing who editors are and thinking about them as people with tastes and preferences before submitting to a journal. Usually the individual editors do not make all decisions (it tends to be more collaborative), but they are often the first readers of submissions. I admire editors, and I consider myself as an author an applicant for a position on their lists, not just someone saying "Hey you! Publish me!"

Journals are such little worlds. The Missouri Review is a spectacular one. I will soon add it and other much-loved literary magazines to the recommended list at the upper right of this blog. As I read this issue, I'll post more about contents.

Marketing James Patterson

The next time I hear an author whine that the publisher didn't do enough to promote his or her book, I'll send them to this Harvard Business School study of author James Patterson. Authors are usually shocked, shocked to learn that their platform is their responsibility, but the example of Patterson can offer a bit of consolation. Even rich writers sometimes put their own money in the game (Grisham did it, Patterson did it, there is nothing wrong with it), and the bestsellers get there for a reason.

Related article from Forbes.com, "Why James Patterson is Worth $150 Million."

If you wonder what this has to do with scholarly book and article publishing at Georgetown, the answer is "everything." We learn from the playbook of the great trade success stories in order to adapt some of their real-world savvy to our own boutique titles. And why not? A smart idea is a smart idea, whether it's for a beach read or for a book about history, biology, psychology, and more.

Handwriting at Booklab?

There's a handwriting craze going on, and I'm tapping in (accidental pun!). My own handwriting used to be pretty, but has degenerated to a scrawl over time. Apparently that's normal, and fixable. Emily Yoffe (an interesting Slate writer who may wish to explore more serious books -- she'd be great) embarked on a handwriting experiment with her eighth-grade daughter, and they both came out with a happy result. Now I want to seek out the same Maryland-based guru, Nan Jay Barchowsky, and learn more about how to have elegant, readable, italic (not the droopy Palmer loops you probably learned if you're over 40) handwriting.

Hmmm, I wonder if those skills will help me read old wills and other original documents I encounter from the 1680s through the 1710s?

If you're interested in studying handwriting at Booklab, let me know and I'll think about setting up a weekly class.

Finally an audiobook my aunt might use

I love audiobooks and I listen to them all the time on my field digital audio recorder, downloaded from audible.com. However, because of the tech hurdle, they tend to miss one of their most important audiences: older people who use computers rarely or not at all, but who would welcome the audible version of a story.

My aunt is a case in point. She does not read anymore because of her eyesight, but that exempts her from a computer as well. She isn't just unlikely to download something -- the act is impossible for her. So audible.com and its ilk are out, even though she has the potential to be a good user. Her grandsons might be able to load audiobooks onto an iPod for her, but she won't work the little buttons and she'll get confused about where she is in a book... she needs a large, easy interface.

A company called Playaway has a solution she might actually use. It's a device somewhat shaped like a book and marked like one, with large buttons and a headphone. You put on the headphones and press play. Instead of touting how many of the little suckers you can stuff onto one memory device, this is the opposite: one book per. It is admittedly expensive at about $40 per title, but on the other hand, it's the only way she's going to use audio, so it might make sense for her public library that serves many seniors.

Now the big question for me -- is there a way to adapt scholarly books to this? Seabiscuit and its ilk will always find their way to various formats, and that's fine. I love Seabiscuit. But what about books that aren't front-and-center in the big bookstores? Thinking... thinking...

David Gewanter and Deborah Tannen in Fall for the Book

I just received the new list and noticed that Georgetown University poet David Gewanter and nonfiction author Deborah Tannen will be part of 2009 Fall for the Book. Also, one of my former students in a Gothic fiction class at Georgetown, the incredibly talented Jayanti Tamm, will feature Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult.

Wow, now I'm combing through the lists to see if there's anyone else I know.