Things have been a little slow here on the ol' blog as of late, but for good reason. Outside of a schedule change that has thrown my writing off, I've been hard at work on my Huxley paper (which I actually just finished). Many thanks to everyone who helped by offering encouragement, sending papers, and answering questions; I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product in print in the near future.
Little did I know that working on the paper would give me enough self confidence to look for other opportunities, however, and now I've got a few other projects. I found a home for my piece of spotted hyenas (which you'll see this December) and I am presently busying myself with a proposal for a paper on Edward Tyson's 1699 dissection of a chimpanzee. Outside of that there's another "secret" project that's beginning to come together and I still have to reach my goal of finishing 3-4 book chapters in the next month. It's strange that in the course of about a month and a half I went from lamenting my lack of writing opportunities to having my schedule almost filled up.
Not to worry, though. This blog will keep on going even as I try to find acceptance for some of my other writing, Laelaps being a writing lab that lets me experiment with styles and ideas (and post lots of photos, too). A lot of what I set out to do has yet to fully come together but this blog has served as an excellent launching point for achieving some of the things I've always wanted to do (but doubted that I could). I definitely could not do it alone, and I am deeply appreciate everyone who has helped me and offered their support as I've tried to make writing about science a bigger part of what I do.
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Looking forward to it all! Just don't have any kids yet...
As Jennifer Ouellette says, her blog is her "writing lab". I think you've been making excellent use of Laelaps as your writing lab. Eventually, when you find something that works for you, you'll start producing quality work that sells!
Definitely looking forward to reading all of it--especially the book. You've inspired me to pick up where I left on my own stalled out book (five chapters down...22 to go.)
And yeah, don't have kids. I've got a hard drive full of half-finished projects that date back six years to my first daughter's birth. You'd think eventually you'd get more time, but it doesn't seem to happen. (As my dad told me: raising kids is easy, except for the difficult period between birth and 30.)
I've pared down my blog-reading considerably over the last couple years, in part because I don't have time, and in part because of what seems to me is a general decline in quality in many of the sites I used to read regularly. But this site remains high on my list of regular stops (Gene Expression is the one other ScienceBlogs blog that ranks as high). You do good work--hopefully you can make a career of it.
We never lost faith Brian!
writing progress indeed comes in spurts ... when it comes, grab on and run with it!
Which draft are we talking about?