Hooray!

Just sent the manuscript to a friend here at Wofford who is going to give it a final read-through and edit. Only 14 days until it gets mailed away!!!!

Whoopee!

Talking To The Editor

Seems a bit like talking to God, doesn't it?  I mean, this person has so much power!  If she just decided she didn't like me, or I was a pain in the butt, the book could be history, right?

OK, there is a little thing called a contract, but still.  I'm terrified of editors.

But I really shouldn't be.  Alex Moore, who I worked with at USC Press, was wonderful, and so is Meredith Morris-Babb, who works for UFP and is my current "boss" on this project.  She's very helpful with answering questions and will even take them on the weekend.  She's excited that I'm on track to make my deadline, and I'm excited that I don't have to do all the wicked word processing changes that I thought I would have to do.  So we're both happy.

But to tell you something about how things get done, I needed to call her on my cell phone, which will not work here in my mother's house, because we live too far in the boonies.  I didn't get her the first time, but she called me back as I was driving home from Madison (where Id gone to place the call).  So there I am, car parked halfway in the ditch, asking questions and making notes.  Somehow, I suspect that important writers don't have these problems---probably because they live in places were you can actually get cell phone service!!!!

Photo Archives Fun

Worked at the Florida photographic archives today.  It was a lot of fun, despite the fact that my jaw is killing me from my dental work yesterday.  It's delightful to just stumble up on pictures.  Check out this one of a female hunting party from the late 1800s, a time when most Florida tourists were interested in hunting, fishing, and roughing it.  Here's why you don't want to mess around with those Florida gals---they are pistol pistol packin' mamas!

Some Pictures From Silver Springs

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Well, obviously I haven't figure out this whole picture business yet!  But here are three shots I made last summer at Silver Springs.  It's one of the oldest Florida tourist attractions.  People have been coming here since the 1850s.  Many early arrivals came on steamboats.  The glass-bottom boats that you see in the picture are world famous, but you may notice (if you look closely) that they are in terrible shape, as is the fake alligator that lives in the reptile exhibit.  I can't begin to imagine how many people have pictures with their heads in its mouth.  This is part of the argument that I'm making in my book---so many of Florida's great old attractions are in terrible shape and may not have much longer to live. 

Tell Me Again Why I Do This? (Illustrated!)

Finally, yesterday, I got to the State Library in Tallahassee to (hopefully) finish that portion for my research.  And, as always, the day was a mix of revelations and frustrations.

For those of you unfamiliar with Tallahassee, the State Library is located in the R. A. Gray Building, just a short distance from the capitol.  The building also houses the State Archives and the Museum of Florida History.  I've spent many long days at this place, both doing research and working as an intern at the museum during my Master's program.  It used to have a really wonderful library until our idiot governor Jeb Bush chopped it up and now it only has the "Florida Room" available to patrons.  The books are still there, but librarians have to go to the stacks and pull them, and there's very little in the way of places to spread out and really work. The people who run the place are terrific, but just for the record, I have hated the way our government in Florida has been run ever since Gov. Chiles died.  Most of the people in government have absolutely NO sense of history or state identity or...arrrggghhhhh!!!!! 

But I digress....

I arrived and signed in at 9:20.  I live about an hour and a half from Tallahassee, so I always try to make trips over there count.  I grabbed breakfast at Chic-Fillet (yum!) and once I got seated I didn't get up until almost 4.  Yes, I was that busy, pouring through books and magazines, double checking things, and finding extra little bits of information that the readers had requested.  By the time I finished, I didn't feel that going down to the photographic archives to look at pictures would be profitable, especially since my eyes felt like they would bleed out of my head.  Fortunately, the photographs are on-line, but I find that its always better to go and look at them in person when selecting illustrations.  The great thing about using the photographic archives is that the pictures are free---yes, there is a processing charge for copying them, but no charge for using them in a book.  And when you know you won't make money on a book anyhow, that really matters.

So today I spend time adding the new information into the manuscript.  Tomorrow afternoon I have a dentist's appointment, but I'm going to spend the morning re-reading and doing another edit.  Then Friday I'll be back at the archives, hopefully for the last time.  I hate to say this, but right now I am thoroughly tired of this work.  I tend to go through ups and downs, which I'm sure the students understand as well.  No matter how exciting the work is at first, there are moments when you just want to say "WHY DID I EVER START THIS????"

And because I'm so jealous of how the students put pretty pictures in their blogs, I'm going to give it a try with some images of Florida tourist attractions.  But it looks like I'm going to need some practice, because so far I keep putting the image in the wrong place.  More later, when I think this over.  (The picture, by the way, is from a fountain in St. Augustine!)

Another Apology (And How To Do Really CHEAP Research!)

I apologize for being behind in my blog and in my work. As a few people at Wofford know, the interim called "The Life Abundant," headed by Drs. Davis and Moeller, ran into problems on Monday. Since I was in charge of getting those two to the airport, I also had to stick around and see whether the interim would depart or whether everyone would head back to campus. Sadly, it was the latter of the two options. We spent most of the day unsure of what the next move would be for them, whether at any moment I might be driving then back to GSP or some more exotic destination. Hopefully, all the problems have been resolved and the entire group will get off tomorrow morning! But it brought home to me once again why one should never procrastinate on one's work. You never know what emergency will lead you off, or when you will need to help someone else out.

Quite frankly, I have no idea how people with spouses and children, or people who are primary caregivers of any type, ever get an academic work done!

But I did manage a few little things today. So much of writing and research is, frankly, dumb luck. I mean that! Today I stopped by the bookstore on the way home and stumbled across a newer biography of Walt Disney. Why is this significant? Florida tourism---Disney World---how was it developed, what were Walt's real intentions....you get the picture. While I didn't really expect to find anything new (and I didn't) I still felt that I should cite this book in the appropriate chapter. So, on the floor of Barnes and Nobles, I quickly skimmed through the index, found a good bit of information, and realized I had NOTHING to write the page number down with.

Yes, I suppose I could have bought the book, but $20 for a footnote? That seemed pricey.

Muttering the pertinent page numbers over and over to myself, I hurried to the counter, made my original purchase, and borrowed the clerk's pen to scribble the numbers onto my receipt. Then I rushed home and looked the book up on Amazon to make sure I had all the proper information (author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication). While looking that up, I stumbled across yet ANOTHER new book I had not seen in previous research. Fortunately, the "Look Inside" feature was enable, and I was able to do some quick scanning which resulted in a nice footnote and another bibliography entry. Does any of this change the major thesis? Of course not. But I like to be as up-to-date as possible, and it's actually kind of nice to get ever more confirmation that one is on the right path.

I hope it's not some ethical violation to do research in a bookstore. I figure if they don't mind people carrying coffee and lattes around, they probably don't mind me scanning a few extra pages.

Two Days Behind On Saluting The Students!

Sorry to be behind already! I spend most of yesterday dealing with car issues at the DMV (no, please, don't ask!) and other errands that have to be performed before I leave for Florida on Tuesday. I bet students never realize just how much "real life"---i.e. paying bills, buying groceries, etc.---interferes with "great thoughts" and "flashes of insight into research." There really are days when I wish I had some form of personal assistant, like all the movie stars do. Or, lacking that, a grad student to boss around.

But speaking of students, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed our first meeting on Thursday night. Most of the independent research students in the Humanities were there, except for a few who are already on site at their destinations. I confess I wasn't looking forward to it---mainly because it was scheduled to snow on Thursday night and as a Floridian I have an absolute terror of driving in snow---but once we got rolling I began to thoroughly enjoy just being around the young people and listening to them talk about their projects. All of the folks are scientists (even the ones doing Humanities work!) so there's a different vibe. I'd be hard pressed to explain it, but science types ask questions differently to history types. They will get at each other about experimental design far more rapidly than a history student will dive into another student about 'what library did you use?' It's the nature of the discipline, I suppose. And one thing that I've learned over the past two years, ever since I was involved in community of scholars, is that scientists work together, while so many people in the humanities work alone. History especially tends to be a very lonesome discipline. Now please understand, I'm not saying that one is better than the other (don't you dare gloat, biologists!) but I am saying it still amazes me how very differently our fields operate.

And I am thoroughly amazed by how smart and sharp our students are. After three weeks of break, I think I needed to be back around our Wofford young people. It was a brisk, refreshing experience. I'm really looking forward to reading their blogs and keeping up with all the events of their lives and projects.