"OOH, SHINY!" lists of doom and Draft no. 3
What should I do with the forest of to-do lists in order to finish Draft no. 3 of HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY?
Hallo, readers!
I’m settling into the ballet-meets-gladiatoring assignment that is the next stage of book revisions. I just spent four weeks trying to rest (barring FINALLY upgrading to Mac OS Monterey and similar admin things on fire). I even succeeded some of the time. Then there was a magical week visiting a dear friend who was spending the semester in London, bouncing between The British Library and a couple of museums. Now I’m peering at my forest of to-do lists for HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY.
Here’s an inventory of lists/piles of stuff I have gathered over the years, much of which would contribute something to the book. But all of it together is waaaaay too much content and waaaaay too many ideas for a single book. In order of importance:
Feedback received from eight smart and generous readers (have worked through a bunch of it; more to do, and more feedback to come)
Primary source materials collected since the spring (partially added; must be very selective and save the rest for standalone essays to promote the book)
NEW STUFF docs of scraps of writing in Scrivener (not much, thankfully)
FOLDERS of downloaded articles, arranged by chapter
ALL THE BOOKS lying around the house, esp. the ones I’ve already annotated with Cool Thoughts
BINDERS of article printouts, partially read and annotated
ALL THE TO-DO LISTS docs on Scrivener (humungous bibliographic refs docs; must be selective)
SNIPPETS in my Evernote database (some are just bib refs that duplicate refs in other places).
WEB LINKS - all the things I’ve been saving on OneTab for the past three years instead of processing, keywording, and putting somewhere sensible (too many!!!)
My Zotero database (keyworded)
If you are still reading this and neither screaming nor crying, bravo and THANK YOU for sticking with me! I’m going to engage this pile of OOH, SHINY! proactively, rather than reactively. I shall centre the book draft, internalize what is already in it, figure out what else it needs, and then look for and digest that stuff and only that stuff.
Here are my goals for turning Draft no. 2 into Draft no. 3 - the draft that I shall, fates permitting, return to the press for line editing somewhen.
The right things in the right order, written to the right length
Limpidly clear and polished intros, conclusions, and transitions between ideas, examples, and sections
THAT’S IT.
The OOH, SHINY! lists of doom are the off-stage assistants, not the prima ballerina (and definitely not the gladiators), of the ballet-gladiatorial story of this book. The manuscript is in charge. Writing a compelling story that people don’t want to put down is what matters. My job is to gladiate the unnecessary shiny things out of the way, not help them climb onto the stage to giggle at the dancers.
What am I consciously trying to not do right now?
Give in to the scholarly internal monologue of “must read everything, must add every example” - this line-item falls into the DON’T EVER DO THIS! pile
Fact-checking - that’s the next stage, when I shall fact-check to Mars and back
Making each line gorgeous - the prose is half-way fun as it stands; the time to make it luminous and BookTok-worthy is once the right things are in the right place at the right length
***Can I manage this?!*** We shall see….
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