As some of you might remember from my sporadic notes on my old blog, I'm in the middle of writing a book about evolution, the first draft of which I hope to have completed by the time I turn 25 on February 26 of next year. I was fairly productive for a few weeks but then hit a bit of a lull, but today I managed to bang out 5,200 words on evolution as fact and theory (modeled on my recent post dealing with the same subject). I tried to use a number of examples, but I gave the most detail to Steno's realization that the enigmatic glossopetrae ("tongue stones") of Malta were actually the fossilized teeth of sharks and that the island had once been under water, illustrating that science cannot merely be the orderly collection of facts. I didn't do a word count on the other documents and notes that I have previously written, but I'm essentially still trying to assemble the skeleton of the work and get it to stand upright before fleshing out all of my arguments (although I try to keep track of where I need more references and information).
I should be able to get more done over the winter break, especially the extended period over the holidays when school will be out and the office closed, although I may be so inundated with new books that writing comes second to taking in all the new information. That, I think, has been my greatest obstacle during my attempt to write my book; there's always something else that I want to know and that I need to check up on, and I could easily keep on accumulating information to the point where I never get things done as there will always be new studies or information being generated in relevant fields. Still, some of that will be mitigated by the fact that I want the book to have a more personal feel than some of the books about evolution I have recently read, although no one other than myself has seen it yet so I have no idea whether I'm succeeding or not. Who knows if anything will come of this project or not; I'm just glad to be writing.
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wow, good for you. incredible that you can find the time! an excellent pursuit - best of luck.
I look forward to reading your updates and your progress. What is your intended audience; a textbook or for the general public?
I can promise you that I'll pick up a copy if and when it's finished and published. I know that won't offset the enormous amount of time and money involved in getting it out there in the first place, but it's a start. It certainly will be a very impressive thing to put on your rèsumè.
Kate; Thanks. Finding the time and having a good idea of what I want to write is the hardest part. It actually helps that I don't have much money at the moment as I can't go out and do anything so I might as well sit down and write!
Mike; My intended audience is the general public; I don't think I could write a textbook or be taken seriously if I did. I want to do my best to share what I've come to learn about evolution both as a natural process and as a history of ideas about nature, explaining it in a way that's easy to understand. It has somewhat been born out of some conversations I've had with acquaintances and friends who are/were young earth creationists but had never heard about much of the actual science and history behind evolution.
Waterdog; Thank you! One of the main reasons why I've kept at this is because of encouragement from people like yourself. I don't know if it ever will be published, but as a relative once told me who works in the writing industry, she's never run into anyone that really wanted to get a book published (good or bad) that hasn't been able to do so.
How you manage to be so productive and be a student is a mystery to me. Congratulations, and I'll be among those that will pick up a copy (or two, or three...). Your birthday is a couple of days off from mine. Your birth year however... Ouch, I seem to have run out of typing space. Sorry, can't reveal how much you're off there.
Hmmm, I don't think I'll be able to start a big new writing project until mid-January. (I'm far too eager to say "yes" when somebody dangles a fun-sounding idea before me. . .) I had an idea for a book I was going to write during November, though, so when January fifteenth rolls around — I'll race you!
:-)
Seriously, good luck.
Makita; Thank you. Being a student actually gives me a fair amount of flexibility to read and write, and I think graduate students and professors have a much harder time of making time for projects that aren't directly related to school work. This book has also been "in the making" for about two years now, so I've gotten to the point where I've given myself enough background that I can just sit down and write.
Blake; You're on. Perhaps we should have a little tally bar up on our blogs to show our readers how our progress is coming along. You'll probably kick my butt, but it'll at least keep me focused!
A contest it is, then!
I'll be starting from scratch, but I'll also have the ability to drop chunks of my draft into my blog, thereby feeding the blogo-beast and getting actual progress made (do Seed's licensing rules affect what you can do in that regard?).