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I chose to re-type that conference paper from 11 years ago instead of trying to retrieve the file from an outdated floppy disk.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.

Two meanings of "book plus"

For very good political reasons, Booklab does not dispense tenure advice. The first of these is a practical one -- there are too many different departments with varying standards for any individual outside of those departments to be able to guess what constellation of publications will work for a tenure or promotion bid. The second is more subjective: tenure advice is really too much pressure to put on an individual or an office. After all, what if a professor were to ask for tenure advice, and then I gave it and was wrong? Does that mean the botched tenure bid is (gulp) my responsibility? Those are just two of probably many good reasons for Booklab staying out of the tenure advising business.

Therefore what follows is NOT tenure advice, but rather a definition of how some people have interpreted the variable statement "book plus." It often means a pattern of publishing over time where books -- if they are desired in the discipline -- are accompanied by a penumbra of articles both before and after the appearance of the book. Ideally these articles will be artfully spaced over time, but the author does not always have control over this because different journals have different incubation periods (anything from 6-8 months to as much as a year and a half, and very occasionally even more).

Then there is another competing meaning of "book plus" that involves one published book and significant progress toward a second one. I have heard faculty assert vociferously that the only correct meaning of "book plus" is one or another of these. Whichever one is used, however, it is generally done so in the context of distinguishing the university or department in question from what is known as a "one book" institution, meaning a place where you can get tenure for a book on its own, without accompanying articles or progress on a second book.

So what does your university mean when it uses the term? Have you heard another interpretation of the term "book plus"?

Testing the waters

Booklab receives many inquiries from authors who would like to write thrillers, and I welcome them. Washington, DC has always had more than its share of insiders who actually know first-hand how things work at the Pentagon, the White House, the FBI, and the CIA. I have seen many realistic, this-could-have-happened thrillers from first-time authors in DC. Now and then Georgetown University makes an appearance as part of the plot (apparently a lot of high-level operatives are running around campus).

But often the aspiring author pours everything into one book, and then announces that she or he is "testing the waters" with it. If the book sells, then that's a green light from the industry that this is a viable avocation. If it fails to sell, well, there's always the day job. This attitude isn't reserved for thriller fans by any means. Numerous authors give me a version of the the story that they have everything riding on one manuscript, and often a beginner one at that.

This is stinkin' thinkin' (to quote Zig Ziglar) on several levels. First, it puts way too much pressure on a novice effort. Second, it assumes that acceptance or rejection by agents and editors reflects reality (if that were the case, then the oft-rejected A Confederacy of Dunces would never have seen daylight, let alone won a Pulitzer). Third, it assumes that this plot and these exact characters are the ones readers will connect to, when many veteran thriller writers, for example John D. MacDonald, had whole series of published stories with prototype characters that morphed over time into memorables such as Travis McGee. Finally, it exempts the potential thriller author from one of the most important things any newcomer to category fiction can possibly do -- plan an encore, and another, and another. By the time a manuscript is making its rounds, the author should have two or three more in the pipeline, with at least one ready to go within a few months.

For a sense of how to do this and succeed at it, you might want to consider Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, one of the recommended books in the link at the right. He discusses thriller writing as a career. Another book I love is by Donald Maass, and Writing the Breakout Novel. Yes, they both address mechanics, but they also discuss big-picture what the life of a series fiction writer is like, and they will back up what I'm saying here. One test-market book is not an indicator of anything. Master the profession by reading everything you can, attending classes (mediabistro.com has some good ones) and writing many books. One of them just might be the one that breaks through.

Question from the mailbag

Anyone is welcome to ask questions and have them answered on the blog. You can be identified by first name, or kept anonymous. Today's question:

Q: Is there a rule of thumb within the political science field regarding the simultaneous submission of a book manuscript to university presses? Is it common practice, or is it frowned upon?

A: This is a particularly timely question now, because many university presses are in transition, moving from more traditional scholarly practices to ones that resemble practices at trade houses. My answer to you is based on what UP editors have told me (I've personally visited Chicago, Northwestern, Arizona, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Oxford, and NYU, plus the academic division of trade houses Alfred A. Knopf and W. W. Norton; my publisher was Farrar, Straus & Giroux). I also ran this answer by a roomful of university press staff, including editors at places like Yale and MIT, at the Association of American University Presses conference last spring, and it received a 100% positive response.

You may send a prospectus and sample chapter anywhere. To a university press, a submission is an entire manuscript sent to an editor in the hope of triggering the peer review process, so a prospectus and a sample chapter alone do not a full submission make. Just to be sure that the editor understands this, however, I also include a very brief cover note with this package that says clearly "This is an inquiry only, not a full submission." In other words, you're just trying to gauge interest, and that's perfectly fair. You may send as many of these as you wish, as long as that "inquiry only" language is up front.

My recommendation is that you research presses respected in your field (especially important if you are up for tenure or full professor), study their catalogues, and identify books in your field you admire. From this industry-based research, make a list of 3-4 editors who might be appropriate for your work, and send this inquiry package to all of them. Once the yeses and nos come back, rank the yes responses and then submit your full manuscript to them one at a time as per the traditional approach. Everyone will feel that you played fair with them. Two good rules to follow are to only inquire at a press where you would actually want to be published, and to be transparent whenever possible so that an editor does not mistakenly think she or he has a lock on your book.

This process is a huge blessing for academic authors who want to be able to weed out the no responses early, and get on to the potential yeses. This can save months if not years of time.

The William Morris Agency 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. I'll have more details on the blog closer to the date, but 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!

The book above is one of Eric's most recent titles.

The joy of the 8 o'clock hour

The first faculty writing group of the new season met this morning at 8 a.m. Although I'm traditionally a morning person, 8 a.m. for the first meeting of the day still seemed daunting. It's one thing to be at the office at 8, but quite another to be sharp and ready to roll.

It turned out to be one of the best groups. Fortified with hot coffee (I hope I made it strong enough), we updated one another on what we did since the summer groups ended, and what we want for (1) this entire semester; and (2) just the coming week. We assessed the past, looked to the future, and set specific goals that included writing time per day and thoughts about how to balance writing and teaching. This group was a technologically focused bunch, with the majority from the School of Foreign Service conducting research with an international aspect (Iraq, Afghanistan, China, and India).

Two more groups meet today: 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. There are still limited spaces available, so please notify Carole if you would like to reserve a place.


Tasty coffee image from The Coffee Company in Australia.

Wisdom from Robert Boice

I love the research of Robert Boice, author of the 1990 book Professors as Writers. Although his research has been incorporated and stated somewhat more accessibly by Paul Silvia in How to Write a Lot, which I also love, Boice is The Man when it comes to research, data, hard numbers, or whatever else you want to call it. They make a great pair. Booklab doesn't focus as much on how we feel about writing, and neither does Boice. Instead, we care what works, and that makes Boice our go-to guru.

Today's tidbit is from Boice Chapter Five, Generative Writing, and his fondness for what he calls the "results-first approach." Boice thinks you have to write something before you can edit or perfect it, but he notices that most academic authors do the opposite, trying to be perfect on the first bounce. He isn't recommending spontaneous writing (he thinks that's a big Fail for different reasons), nor is he suggesting binge writing. Generative writing is more substantive, but it is still produced without judgment. It creates the stuff that can then be edited by a completely different part of the brain.

Over the course of the semester I'll post tidbits from Boice. A great way to read him is to buy both books, read Silvia first, and then read Boice second for backup material.

And speaking of Peeps...

Speaking of Peeps, I'm also obsessed with the diary of Samuel Pepys (yes, his last name is pronounced just like the marshmallow confection). Pepys was one of the great diarists in English history, and his diary -- written in a shorthand code as many men did in his day, both for privacy and for expediency -- forms one of the best firsthand accounts of 17th-century England. Pepys lived through both the Great Fire of London and the Plague. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and he knew Isaac Newton. His remarkable library is one of the jewels of Magdalen College, Cambridge (as a classical radio announcer I learned to pronounce that "Maudlin." It's a sideways pronunciation, kinda like Peeps.).

An English web designer and actor named Phil Gyford runs the Best Site Ever if you're a 17th-century history geek like me -- The Diary of Samuel Pepys. This is Gyford's decade-long effort to put the entire magnum opus on the internet, day by day with links. Wowie. I like it so much that I read it every day and I also sent a monetary contribution to Project Gutenberg as he requested (he also has an Amazon wish list, so I sent him Season One of "Arrested Development" at his request -- he doesn't accept money, but he'll allow the occasional DVD of Gratitude).

Above is Pepys's signature from England's National Archives.

A new take on rejection

Publishing necessarily entails the "ask," the moment where an author offers work to an editor or agent (EoA) in the hope of having it accepted for publication, or representation. One might think of this as a yes/no moment, and sometimes it is, but the closer you get to "yes," the more complicated the transaction becomes. EoAs faced with the prospect of actually accepting something go through a complex internal process of gauging what this will cost them in time, effort, and actual dollars.

Yes, publishing your work costs them money. Surprised? Don't be. Most authors think about the $ coming in, without consider what those brave souls known as publishers have to pay to produce a work, and I'll consider this in detail in a future post. Beyond the warbucks, the act of publishing you or me will require an investment of their time, and also an emotional commitment. They're not just clerks processing Halloween peeps mindlessly in a marshmallow factory. Your work becomes part of their careers, too.

Interestingly, authors tend to hear "no" when an EoA actually said "maybe." For example, sometimes an EoA will say "This would be interesting if x happened" (e.g. if if were more narrative, if it was told from an eyewitness perspective, if it was more scholarly, less scholarly, etc.), and most of the time authors will return to me with "They rejected it." Another typical EoA answer is "The author has a great background, and it would be wonderful to see a book pitch that works off of that base." Again, the author usually hears this as "No," when in fact the EoA was making a bid for a potential future relationship. "Try me again" usually means just that as well -- the EoA sees potential and wants to hear more. But the typical author simply tucks tail and skedaddles.

The next time you think you're hearing no, stop and wait through it. Instead of responding, just be quiet with it for a while, maybe even a day or two. Is it really a rejection? Did the person actually say no? Or is that the pre-recording in your head left over from the fifth grade, and was the answer actually more ambiguous, and potentially much more interesting?

Image from Sugar Shop.

Fiction and the academic author

Most of us who work in the publishing-focused realms of academia are here because we love research and scholarship. We like archives, libraries dusty books, and obscure stuff. We don't think it's dry at all, we think it's tasty! However, once the academic publishing is well underway or comfortably accepted at a great university press or a journal, many academic authors confess to me that something else lurks in their computer files or desk drawers: Novels, poetry, essays, plays and more. Fiction! Yes! I said it!

The new fiction group starts this week at Booklab, and another will begin in January. Just like the scholarly book groups, this one will run for twelve weeks, meeting once a week. Some of the fiction group members will work through the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Since 2002 I have facilitated five groups based on The Artist's Way, and they're wonderful. Other group members who choose to work on their own (either because they've done AW or because it isn't quite their cup o' tea), will simply check in and let us know how their fiction progresses.

Each week we will also focus on a different literary journal, viewing examples and discussing how to learn more about a journal, and how to submit work to it. For week one beginning Wednesday, September 9, we will focus on Ploughshares, published by Emerson College.

This new season of book groups comes with a pledge to you, my readers. I commit to publishing at least one post per day for this entire book group season, beginning today and ending December 11. This means several things:

**	A revival of The Journal Experiments (whoo-hoo!);
**	Exploration of how each of the ten book groups is going. Participants will be anonymous, but the blog will feature real-life book publishing trials, tribulations and joys;
**	More about my own day-to-day publishing process. Much has happened since I began a scholarly book last year based on research and writing from the past 15 years, and I'll include it in the third person under the name Fortuna.

The new Folger poetry schedule is available

Sometimes poets come to Booklab, asking me about the market for their poetry. Believe it or not there is one, although I don't call it a market per se.

Naysayers who insist poets "can't earn a living" are -- to put it gently -- wildly mistaken, and just a few evenings with some of the world's successful poets will lay that misconception to rest. There are a number of distinguished literary worlds wherein poetry is read, published, and valued, and (yes) where poets are paid.

One of these worlds is exemplified by the reading series available at the Library of Congress, and another one across the street at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Hmmm... I've often wondered if they compete. Whatever the case, each of these institutions works hard to bring in prominent poets for events that are usually low cost or free and just terrific. If you live in Georgetown, there is even a direct bus from Wisconsin Avenue to the Hill! Here is the reading list for the Folger. If you want to sign up to attend, the link is here.

10/9	O.B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize Reading: Juliana Spahr
11/3	Arthur Sze and Afaa Michael Weaver
12/14	Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute: Lucie Brock-Broido
1/11	Kim Addonizio & Kyle Dargan
2/8	Charles Wright
3/1	Patricia Smith & John Burnside
5/3	W.S. Merwin
5/18	Folger Poetry Board Reading: Richard Wilbur

The above image is from the Folger's own archives.

Tracy Kidder's writing life

One of the most helpful things in my world as a writer has been going to readings or other live events and hearing how famous authors discuss their process. Some of them complain about being asked what they perceive as a silly question ("How do you write each day"), but the answers are more illuminating than most of them realize. For example, I learned from a reading with Jane Smiley that she only writes about a page a day. She is slow, but methodical, because she writes every day and over a year it adds up. Most of the authors I've seen live (John Irving, Sebastian Junger, Michael Crichton, Anne Perry, Harry Shearer, Anthony Bourdain -- there have been many of them) do report one consistent thing -- they tend to write on a predictable schedule rather than catch-as-catch-can. Writing becomes part of the fabric of their lives, rather than some sort of marathon they run once in a while.

Here's a bit from today's New York Times about Tracy Kidder's work schedule. You can read the entire piece here. He's known for many books, but the one above -- for which he won the Pulitzer Prize -- is also the one I liked the best.

What is a typical day in your writing life?

I tend to start early in the morning, the time of day when l feel most nearly capable of thought. When I’m writing a rough draft, I have a hard time staying with it for more than a few hours. I used to be able to spend 12 hours or more a day when rewriting, but I can’t do that for many days in a row anymore. In the summertime, I go fishing after writing, for me a lovely antidote to frustration.

The Google Books Finger

I admit to being a bit of a Google books junkie when it comes to 19th-century stuff. This old, hard-to-find, well-out-of-print material was often the thankless task of the literary sleuth who just wanted to find (for example) as many 19th-century references as possible to one obscure 18th-century author. If the name is unique enough, Google books can bring up a lot of references.

It can also bring up a lot of fingers. Turns out that people scanning Google books have also reasonably often inadvertently scanned their fingers or whole hands, sometimes in color. I wish I was the first to notice this, but as soon as it occurred to me to blog about it I checked for "google books finger" and came up with plenty of hits. Others have noticed. Others have laughed.

Feeling embarrassed over a draft

I've isolated a particular moment in the writing process that can lock up scholars -- finding an error in a draft, and feeling embarrassed about it! Now, one would think that the draft stage would be the appropriate place to identify errors, but for some reason I felt an enormous sense of not only shame, but potential public humiliation, when I saw a mistake in the title of a draft of one of my book chapters this morning. Immediately thoughts popped to mind: "What if it had gone out that way?" "What if the editor saw it and thought how stupid I am?" "How could I have missed that after looking at it so many times?" None of these recriminating questions was particularly helpful, but they made up for that by being loud and persistent (or as a version of the old saying goes, he was slovenly, but he made up for it by being rude).

The frog above agrees that shame is the only appropriate response to any mistake. Visit him and other disapproving critters at one of my favorite websites, Cuteoverload.com.

Booklab takes your questions

Are you an author or author-to-be? Do you have a pressing question about book publishing? Write to Booklab, and I'll answer for free if your question is selected, and if you agree to have it posted on the blog. It's all anonymous unless you wish to be identified. Booklab does charge for classes and professional literary advising, so this is a great way to communicate gratis. Maybe it will turn into a column!

HINT: To really keep it anonymous, post your question as an unsigned reply to any blog entry.

The never-ending quest to spout the best book advice, ever

After a bit of a hiatus from NPC events and festivities, your book blogger will be back at the National Press Club tonight for a panel event, "Make Your Book a Reality," sponsored by the Club's Professional Development Committee. My copanelists will be Paul Dickson, an accomplished author and fellow club member, Howard Yoon, an agent with the DC's venerable Gail Ross Agency, and editorial expert Barbara Hart.

We will each speak for about 10 minutes on what we think makes a book successful, and I'm on the fence. Part of me wants to say "Model greatness" by looking at what has succeeded before, and another part of me wants to say "Forget all that" since so many wonderful books have arisen out of their authors' own quirky vision of the world. Part of me wants to say "Write about something you love and care about," when my more pragmatic side whispers that many excellent books have been written because someone commissioned the book, or because the author did it for the money. There is nothing wrong with doing something for profit, and sometimes fine work is the result. I think the bottom line is to build your workbox of professional tools by writing a lot and publishing everywhere you can, so that you're really good at what you do when you sit down to write the book. But then again, I know first-timers who wrote terrific books, so maybe that's wrong, too.

Write or wrong (pun!), I'll be there tonight with fellow book lovers. If you want to come, the sign-up information is at the link above. And the photo is of your book blogger looking as geeky and happy as possible standing next to Anne Perry. The National Press Club is a great place to meet famous authors and pretend you know them. :-)

Save August!

Summer book group participants are starting to flag. The excuses are pouring in (we're leaving for vacation on Thursday and I have to get the car inspected; my husband had the kids for all of June and July after day camp, and now it's my turn; I'm already anticipating September and all the work that will hit me when the students return; blah, blah, blah), and groups are smaller.

But ladies and gentlemen of the summer book groups, I am here to remind you of one profound, inarguable fact: August is 1/3 of summer! It's still a big chunk! Giving up on August would be as silly as giving up on July. August is a spectacular writing month, and unless you are going on vacation (I believe in true vacation), if you're in town then you can and should be cranking on that manuscript.

Here are some tips from this week's groups for making August work for you:

1. If looming work in September is starting to freak you out, write your woes down on a sheet of paper. Put the sheet of paper in a mason jar, and tighten the lid. Set it aside during your writing time, with a promise that you'll take it out of the jar and worry when you're finished writing. This trick has been known to appease the scientifically identified Worry Center of the brain.

2. If your days are feeling even blobbier than usual, make a schedule, share it with a friend, and check in with each other every morning to commit to it. This can be a nice excuse to meet someone for coffee. Yes -- check in every morning. August requires desperate measures.

3. Try to define a chunk of writing that -- when completed -- will represent a successful August. Then break that chunk down into smaller pieces that will become your weekly and daily tasks. It is only August 4 today, so imagine what can and should be true 27 days from now.

4. If you've tried and you're still flagging, make an appointment to write at Booklab every day if you have to.


Image from August: Osage County, a play I saw in NYC in June.

Shapeless days and shapeless nights . . .

Yesterday in one of our faculty summer book writing groups, a professor commented that her days have been feeling "shapeless" in the summer time. We're all supposed to be writing and oh-so-productive, but in the absence of a daily office structure that can be more difficult than it sounds.

The groups have come up with several smart ways to impose add shape to our summer days and get your academic book done. First -- and most important to all of us -- is joining and committing to a weekly faculty book writing group. We find that peer pressure is a terrific motivator, and that on days when we just don't feel like writing, the sense that friends/colleagues who care about our progress will want a full report is often enough to get us moving.

Second is setting up regular -- even daily -- writing dates with fellow authors. For example, it's Friday and I don't have any faculty book writing groups today, so it might be tempting to whittle away my whole morning on e-mail and low-value busywork. However, a faculty member is coming over to write for an hour and a half at 10 a.m., so I need to have my act together when he gets here. He has been here to write every day at 10 all week. Voila, structure!

If you're worried about wearing out a colleague's good will, then spread the energy around by writing with more people. Five authors come here at different times of the week to write (I write during most of these sessions, too), and in the fall there will be more.

Parking your car on the downhill slope

Two of the nine summer book writing groups for faculty have yielded the same tidbit of writing advice that they heard "somewhere." It goes like this. When you're having a great writing day and the time you allotted for writing is up, instead of going on and on until you burn out, stop your work while you're still on a roll, and leave yourself notes for where to pick it up the next day. Then you'll be excited and eager to return to the task, and you'll have a much better time getting started.

Hmmm. Has anyone heard this before? Any idea where it comes from? And does it work?

A completely lazy web search yielded these links about it, and suggest that it may come from the book Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day:

http://www.43folders.com/2005/04/27/park-on-a-downhill-slope
http://is.gd/1FOp3


Above image for sale at art.com.