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!)
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