Reposted from the TAAOnline blog
When I wrote my last series of posts,
I was waiting to hear whether a publisher would offer me a contract for
my book for graduate students. The publisher—Routledge—did make an
offer, marking the pleasant culmination of the 10+ month proposal
process, and I could begin to look forward to publication, most likely
in 2020 of my book titled Literature Review and Research Design: A Guide to Effective Research Practice.
Getting the offer was a great milestone, but it didn’t put an end to
the larger process of getting published. The next phase began with the
question of whether to accept the offered contract and whether and how
to negotiate for changes. As with my previous series of posts, I offer
the reflections of a relative novice, not the advice of an expert.
With the offer came the question of contractual terms and negotiating
a contract. The initial offer came with basic terms—royalty rates and
some other points. A few days later, it was followed by the formal
contract which brought a large number of additional issues into play.
The excitement of getting the contract offer was significant, but not so
exciting that I would just accept any contract, either. Getting an
offer increases my confidence in my book. Although I don’t want to look
for a new publisher to make an offer, nor do I want to self-publish
again, they’re real options rather than taking what I perceive to be a
bad contract. Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure what makes a good or
bad contract.
Once before, I was involved in negotiating a publication contract,
also with Routledge, when they published the scholarly book of which I
was second author. With one contract already under my belt, I had
slightly more experience than none at all. I knew what a Routledge
contract looked like ten years ago, and not much more. For that previous
contract, I had simply followed the lead of my first author, and he
wasn’t particularly concerned with details, so we basically accepted the
contract they offered. But this time, I had no first author to follow;
this time, I was in charge, with the corresponding privileges and
responsibilities, and the anxieties, too. Being a careful and cautious
person, dealing with the myriad specific issues covered in a contract
was/is quite intimidating.
The contract I received was about 13 pages long, with about 25 main
clauses, many of which had several subclauses. I read through it all
carefully. Some of it was obvious, some less so. Some of it seemed
totally reasonable, some less so. Not surprisingly, I suppose, it was
not all exactly as I would have best liked it. But to what extent could I
negotiate changes? Did I have any power to negotiate, or was I simply
at the mercy of the publisher’s offer? I decided I had enough power to
at least negotiate a little but not very aggressively.
Although I was not desperate to sign, I really didn’t want to get
back into the process of sending out proposals. This was a strong
incentive to accept their terms. The fact that I would prefer to work
with Routledge (a preference that might be naive) was also incentive.
Furthermore, I did not perceive myself has having a great deal of
leverage: I am not already famous; I do not have any prestige stemming
from institutional affiliation. These considerations weighed in favor of
just accepting their terms without negotiation for fear of losing the
contract.
Balanced against that was my confidence in the quality of my work,
and in my ability to either find another publisher or self-publish.
Essentially, as I saw it, I had only the leverage of the book itself,
plus, perhaps, a little added because the editor had invested her effort in it. It is a strong book, I believe, and good enough that
the editor had invested her time and budget to look at it, get reviews,
and promote it for a contract—for that matter, she used the time of the
publishers, too, when she presented it as a possible project. So,
whatever general weakness in position I suffered as an unknown, I did
have the book going for me. I focused on this bit of negotiating
leverage for emotional support because it was better than having
nothing.
For a large number of clauses, I had questions or concerns, including
those that covered royalties, copyright infringement, right to future
editions, permissions, and the book title. Many of these seemed to me
like they favored the publisher more than I felt appropriate, but it
seems to me that most contracts I sign or agree to are filled with
unavoidable unpleasantness, and can’t be changed. (For example, the
Terms of Service contracts that I accept on myriad websites don’t leave
any room for negotiation, must be accepted to use the service, and
contain all sorts of unpleasant clauses). For this contract, I felt like
I did have the opportunity to negotiate because it was a contract
written specifically for me. And so, I asked my editor lots of questions
as a way of approaching possible negotiation.
If there is an overall theme to this series of posts, it would be
that it doesn’t hurt to ask. I asked a lot of questions and in response,
Routledge made a few changes in my favor.
Because of my appreciation of the value of the contract and the
desire to avoid alienating Routledge, I asked with courtesy and without
contention. Realistically, I was mostly ready to accept what they had
offered, and didn’t expect that they would make changes in my favor.
But, to protect my own interests, I asked. And it was a contract that I
could actually negotiate. In this case, I did have the chance to
negotiate; I decided I ought to use it.
On the general point of having negotiating leverage, it is worth
keeping in mind that even if you have no leverage beyond that of your
book, you do have that. You didn’t get a contract offer unless the
publisher had some hopes it could sell; they may be willing to make some
concessions to keep the rights.
In my second post in this series, “Reflections on Negotiating a
Contract 2: Myriad Details”, I will consider the wide variety of issues
that came up as I read my contract.
Friday, February 22, 2019
Monday, February 18, 2019
Reposted from my new blog
Writer’s block typically arises from a complex of issues. In this post, I discuss one factor that can contribute to writer’s block and how writing multiple drafts and thinking about the different roles of those drafts can help deal with that one difficulty. The idea of writing multiple drafts of a single work is hardly a novel one, but I have not seen this particular take on multiple drafts in relations to writer’s block (and now that I typed that, I’m definitely not going to go look to see if any one else written something similar! I wouldn’t actually be surprised).
One problem that can contribute to writer’s block is the conflict between writing to learn and writing to communicate/writing for presentation. When writing early drafts of a work, writers are often seeking their argument and their focus, and in such cases, the concern for learning about the work can conflict with concerns for presentation. This can occur in a number of different ways: concern for grammar, spelling and punctuation distract attention from finding an argument. Worries about how readers will respond the work—fear of rejection or memories of previous difficult feedback—can create emotional stress that distracts attention. One such conflict that can cause problems, which I’ve seen several times with academic writers, is the conflict created using a theorist that you don’t want to cite. In one case in my experience, a writer who was interested in some ideas from Freud had a professor who hated Freud. Because his professor would respond poorly to works citing Freud, he quite reasonably wanted to avoid citing Freud. At the same time, however, he relied on Freud as an intellectual landmark. He associated many of the ideas he used with Freud, and so when seeking to understand his own arguments, he turned to Freud. And this created a block: in trying to work through ideas, he would think of Freud, but then he would get stuck because he didn’t want to write about Freud, so his process of intellectual exploration was interrupted by his concern about how his work would be received.
Thinking about the different (and potentially competing) roles of drafts, can, perhaps, help reduce this specific conflict of interests. If the specific role of your present draft is to learn and explore (and will be mostly private), then maybe you can set aside concerns for presentation and just explore. Ask yourself: do you have a good sense of your argument—do you need to write to learn?—or do you already have a good focus and now need to think about communicating with your audience—do you need to write for presentation?
Generally, in early drafts, the purpose is to learn—to learn what you really care about and what is most important for the project. Later, once you’ve committed to a sufficiently tight focus, then you start thinking about how to present ideas and communicate with your audience. This is something of a simplification: you may never stop learning and changing what you think most important (thus stories of people frantically rewriting at the last minute), even as you try to complete a mature project; and you can gain some benefit from thinking about how to communicate (or at least with whom to communicate) even early in the process of research design.
As a matter of process, this scenario with the writer trying to write around Freud displays how the two concerns—of learning and of presentation—are in conflict for a writer who is not certain of the precise content, focus and argument of the work. By specifying the role of a draft as exploratory (and private), then he can go ahead and write about Freud as a point of reference that helps him learn about the shape and scope of his own argument. Because that first draft is only for learning, there is no need to avoid Freud, who can thus play an important role as an intellectual landmark in the exploration of ideas that is occurring during the writing of the early draft. Putting aside the concern for presentation allows greater freedom in the exploration of ideas, which is crucial in the process of finding one’s own voice and in developing original research.
Once the argument comes into better focus, the writer can switch her/his efforts from learning and intellectual exploration to the question of presentation. If a draft has already been completed, and the scope of the argument has already been set while using Freud as a point of reference, then the writer then has a much better position from which to work on the question of how best to present his/her own argument.
Basically, if you are not yet sure what you want to say, you benefit from exploring that first. If you are not sure of what you want to say, it is crucial to explore those ideas with freedom before getting bogged down in presentational details. If you think of some scholar—Dr.X—when trying to explain your work, explore that connection, explore that relationship. Why is Dr.X important to you? What aspects of Dr.X’s theory are like or unlike yours? What is it about Dr.X’s work that makes it a useful point of reference? Write these things out to learn about the intellectual terrain on which your work is situated. Use the landmark of Dr.X help you see the whole landscape of ideas, and thus help you understand your own position better, and also identify other scholars whose work provides useful intellectual landmarks for use in later drafts that get written once your argument has clarified. [This post is about writer’s block and using separate drafts with distinct roles, so I’m not going to get into the question of whether a scholar who “hides” a source by using alternative sources for citations is committing some ethical breach.]
The process of writing about a Dr.X in an early draft can help clarify a sense of purpose and a sense of argument. Once you have a better sense of direction and focus, then you can turn your attention to crafting an effective presentation that doesn’t rely on Dr.X, ideally by citing alternative scholars who have expressed similar ideas with less problematic context, for example, as might be done by replacing Freud citations with citations from more modern psychodynamic theorists.
I recently wrote about trusting the process in writing. This is, I think, one issue where it’s necessary (1) to recognize that there is an ongoing process, and (2) to give that process space and time to work. If you don’t see your process as including both drafts for learning and drafts to refine presentation, then you’re forcing yourself into a situation in which your concerns for presentation will work against the necessary process of exploration, and that can contribute to a larger writing block.
If you’re stuck and having trouble finding your voice, put aside your concerns for presentation. First, write to learn, then, later, write for presentation.
Writer’s block typically arises from a complex of issues. In this post, I discuss one factor that can contribute to writer’s block and how writing multiple drafts and thinking about the different roles of those drafts can help deal with that one difficulty. The idea of writing multiple drafts of a single work is hardly a novel one, but I have not seen this particular take on multiple drafts in relations to writer’s block (and now that I typed that, I’m definitely not going to go look to see if any one else written something similar! I wouldn’t actually be surprised).
One problem that can contribute to writer’s block is the conflict between writing to learn and writing to communicate/writing for presentation. When writing early drafts of a work, writers are often seeking their argument and their focus, and in such cases, the concern for learning about the work can conflict with concerns for presentation. This can occur in a number of different ways: concern for grammar, spelling and punctuation distract attention from finding an argument. Worries about how readers will respond the work—fear of rejection or memories of previous difficult feedback—can create emotional stress that distracts attention. One such conflict that can cause problems, which I’ve seen several times with academic writers, is the conflict created using a theorist that you don’t want to cite. In one case in my experience, a writer who was interested in some ideas from Freud had a professor who hated Freud. Because his professor would respond poorly to works citing Freud, he quite reasonably wanted to avoid citing Freud. At the same time, however, he relied on Freud as an intellectual landmark. He associated many of the ideas he used with Freud, and so when seeking to understand his own arguments, he turned to Freud. And this created a block: in trying to work through ideas, he would think of Freud, but then he would get stuck because he didn’t want to write about Freud, so his process of intellectual exploration was interrupted by his concern about how his work would be received.
Thinking about the different (and potentially competing) roles of drafts, can, perhaps, help reduce this specific conflict of interests. If the specific role of your present draft is to learn and explore (and will be mostly private), then maybe you can set aside concerns for presentation and just explore. Ask yourself: do you have a good sense of your argument—do you need to write to learn?—or do you already have a good focus and now need to think about communicating with your audience—do you need to write for presentation?
Generally, in early drafts, the purpose is to learn—to learn what you really care about and what is most important for the project. Later, once you’ve committed to a sufficiently tight focus, then you start thinking about how to present ideas and communicate with your audience. This is something of a simplification: you may never stop learning and changing what you think most important (thus stories of people frantically rewriting at the last minute), even as you try to complete a mature project; and you can gain some benefit from thinking about how to communicate (or at least with whom to communicate) even early in the process of research design.
As a matter of process, this scenario with the writer trying to write around Freud displays how the two concerns—of learning and of presentation—are in conflict for a writer who is not certain of the precise content, focus and argument of the work. By specifying the role of a draft as exploratory (and private), then he can go ahead and write about Freud as a point of reference that helps him learn about the shape and scope of his own argument. Because that first draft is only for learning, there is no need to avoid Freud, who can thus play an important role as an intellectual landmark in the exploration of ideas that is occurring during the writing of the early draft. Putting aside the concern for presentation allows greater freedom in the exploration of ideas, which is crucial in the process of finding one’s own voice and in developing original research.
Once the argument comes into better focus, the writer can switch her/his efforts from learning and intellectual exploration to the question of presentation. If a draft has already been completed, and the scope of the argument has already been set while using Freud as a point of reference, then the writer then has a much better position from which to work on the question of how best to present his/her own argument.
Basically, if you are not yet sure what you want to say, you benefit from exploring that first. If you are not sure of what you want to say, it is crucial to explore those ideas with freedom before getting bogged down in presentational details. If you think of some scholar—Dr.X—when trying to explain your work, explore that connection, explore that relationship. Why is Dr.X important to you? What aspects of Dr.X’s theory are like or unlike yours? What is it about Dr.X’s work that makes it a useful point of reference? Write these things out to learn about the intellectual terrain on which your work is situated. Use the landmark of Dr.X help you see the whole landscape of ideas, and thus help you understand your own position better, and also identify other scholars whose work provides useful intellectual landmarks for use in later drafts that get written once your argument has clarified. [This post is about writer’s block and using separate drafts with distinct roles, so I’m not going to get into the question of whether a scholar who “hides” a source by using alternative sources for citations is committing some ethical breach.]
The process of writing about a Dr.X in an early draft can help clarify a sense of purpose and a sense of argument. Once you have a better sense of direction and focus, then you can turn your attention to crafting an effective presentation that doesn’t rely on Dr.X, ideally by citing alternative scholars who have expressed similar ideas with less problematic context, for example, as might be done by replacing Freud citations with citations from more modern psychodynamic theorists.
I recently wrote about trusting the process in writing. This is, I think, one issue where it’s necessary (1) to recognize that there is an ongoing process, and (2) to give that process space and time to work. If you don’t see your process as including both drafts for learning and drafts to refine presentation, then you’re forcing yourself into a situation in which your concerns for presentation will work against the necessary process of exploration, and that can contribute to a larger writing block.
If you’re stuck and having trouble finding your voice, put aside your concerns for presentation. First, write to learn, then, later, write for presentation.
Monday, February 11, 2019
Reflections on seeking a publisher 4: On writing proposals
Here's another reposted from the TAAOnline blog.
In my experience, proposals are more difficult and nerve-wracking than writing the book. When I work on my book, I think about the strengths and about what I can offer to people through my writing. When I work on a proposal, it’s hard not to think about the possibility of acceptance and rejection, which is rather more stressful.
In writing, I find it crucial to hold on to my ideas as a foundation and focus first, before considering other people’s interests. But for a proposal, especially, I have to speak to someone else’s interests. It’s all well and good for me to believe that I have great ideas and that everyone could benefit from reading my book, but, realistically, the editor at a publishing house doesn’t much care about me; they care about their job and about finding books that will sell, and who knows what else? If I want that editor to do something—like read my proposal, or offer me a contract—it’s important to know what they want, because that knowledge gives me a better chance of writing something that will suit that editor.
A proposal is an attempt to get someone to go along with an idea. It’s not just a description of the idea, it’s an offer of a bargain. A book proposal is a request for an exchange: the publisher gives an author the resources to turn a manuscript into a book that can be sold and their promotional and distributional recourses and abilities, and the author gives them a manuscript that can become a book. For both the publisher and the author, the hope is that the collaboration will lead to a something that sells enough to justify the effort. From a published book, an author immediately receives the prestige of having published, and may also receive some financial reward and exposure to a wider audience (I won’t go so far as to say “fame”, but certainly reputation). The publisher is unlikely to gain much prestige or fame for publishing most books (they are, of course, hoping to find those few rare big sellers, of course); their main hope is to make a profit.
Thinking about the proposal in this light focuses attention on the person who is going to receive the proposal: how are they going to benefit from engaging with the proposal’s author? That’s what the proposal is doing: beyond saying “my book is great!”, it says to an editor: “here’s how you/your company will benefit.”
If this seems obvious to you, I think you’re ahead of the game. My experience of helping other people with proposals for books and grants (and even research), is that people talk about what they are doing or who they are themselves without attempting to address the interests of the person to whom the proposal is ostensibly addressed.
Different Proposals for Each Publisher?
For me, this focus on the proposal’s intended audience makes me pay close attention to the details of how each proposal template frames its questions, as well as to considerations of what other factors I know about the specific publisher.
For me, the focus on the specific recipient strongly leads toward writing a separate distinct proposal for each different publisher. Even though I have, at times, engaged proposal writing with the intention of writing a general proposal that I could send to many publishers at once, every time I look at the specific proposal questions for a specific publisher, I want to revise my general proposal to meet the specific context provided by that publisher.
One such difference that influenced me in my recent process which related books that specific publisher had published. For the publisher with no direct competitor, I wrote about there being a market niche worth entering; for the publisher with several direct competitors, I wrote about why my book is different from the ones they already have.
Perhaps the biggest issue that forces the most revision from publisher to publisher is the order of material and how I present it. The opening of the proposal has to grab the attention of the reader, and so it’s a place where sensitivity to the reader’s interests is most crucial. And everything that follows the introduction is shaped by that beginning and by my desire to avoid repetition. For one publisher, I might start with a comparison to a specific book, but that would mean not discussing that book later. Or perhaps I open with a specific way of pitching my book that suits one publisher but not another. For a textbook publisher I might propose it in terms of its potential use in classes; for a more general publisher, I might propose it as more of a self-help book, and thus alter the order in which I discuss these two aspects. The differences play out through the whole proposal in terms of which points I mention first and which I mention later. Thus, even if I generally retain the same information, each proposal can be significantly different in order of presentation.
Whether or not this level of care is worth it in terms of the overall efficiency of finding a publisher is uncertain: perhaps it’s better to write one proposal and send it to many publishers. For a given period of time, do I increase my chance of getting accepted more by writing fewer proposals detailed to specific publishers, or do increase my chance more by sending out many proposals that may each have less chance of being accepted because they are not tailored to the audience, but increase my overall chance because I have more opportunities to get accepted? (I have a better chance of winning one coin toss than I do trying to roll a 1 on a normal six-sided die; but if I get to roll the six-sided die enough times, I have a better chance of getting a 1 than I do if only try to win only one coin flip.)
My sense of the importance of writing each proposal specifically for each publisher strongly influences my decision with respect to the question that I address in my next post: whether to give publishers sole consideration of your work.
In my experience, proposals are more difficult and nerve-wracking than writing the book. When I work on my book, I think about the strengths and about what I can offer to people through my writing. When I work on a proposal, it’s hard not to think about the possibility of acceptance and rejection, which is rather more stressful.
In writing, I find it crucial to hold on to my ideas as a foundation and focus first, before considering other people’s interests. But for a proposal, especially, I have to speak to someone else’s interests. It’s all well and good for me to believe that I have great ideas and that everyone could benefit from reading my book, but, realistically, the editor at a publishing house doesn’t much care about me; they care about their job and about finding books that will sell, and who knows what else? If I want that editor to do something—like read my proposal, or offer me a contract—it’s important to know what they want, because that knowledge gives me a better chance of writing something that will suit that editor.
A proposal is an attempt to get someone to go along with an idea. It’s not just a description of the idea, it’s an offer of a bargain. A book proposal is a request for an exchange: the publisher gives an author the resources to turn a manuscript into a book that can be sold and their promotional and distributional recourses and abilities, and the author gives them a manuscript that can become a book. For both the publisher and the author, the hope is that the collaboration will lead to a something that sells enough to justify the effort. From a published book, an author immediately receives the prestige of having published, and may also receive some financial reward and exposure to a wider audience (I won’t go so far as to say “fame”, but certainly reputation). The publisher is unlikely to gain much prestige or fame for publishing most books (they are, of course, hoping to find those few rare big sellers, of course); their main hope is to make a profit.
Thinking about the proposal in this light focuses attention on the person who is going to receive the proposal: how are they going to benefit from engaging with the proposal’s author? That’s what the proposal is doing: beyond saying “my book is great!”, it says to an editor: “here’s how you/your company will benefit.”
If this seems obvious to you, I think you’re ahead of the game. My experience of helping other people with proposals for books and grants (and even research), is that people talk about what they are doing or who they are themselves without attempting to address the interests of the person to whom the proposal is ostensibly addressed.
Different Proposals for Each Publisher?
For me, this focus on the proposal’s intended audience makes me pay close attention to the details of how each proposal template frames its questions, as well as to considerations of what other factors I know about the specific publisher.
For me, the focus on the specific recipient strongly leads toward writing a separate distinct proposal for each different publisher. Even though I have, at times, engaged proposal writing with the intention of writing a general proposal that I could send to many publishers at once, every time I look at the specific proposal questions for a specific publisher, I want to revise my general proposal to meet the specific context provided by that publisher.
One such difference that influenced me in my recent process which related books that specific publisher had published. For the publisher with no direct competitor, I wrote about there being a market niche worth entering; for the publisher with several direct competitors, I wrote about why my book is different from the ones they already have.
Perhaps the biggest issue that forces the most revision from publisher to publisher is the order of material and how I present it. The opening of the proposal has to grab the attention of the reader, and so it’s a place where sensitivity to the reader’s interests is most crucial. And everything that follows the introduction is shaped by that beginning and by my desire to avoid repetition. For one publisher, I might start with a comparison to a specific book, but that would mean not discussing that book later. Or perhaps I open with a specific way of pitching my book that suits one publisher but not another. For a textbook publisher I might propose it in terms of its potential use in classes; for a more general publisher, I might propose it as more of a self-help book, and thus alter the order in which I discuss these two aspects. The differences play out through the whole proposal in terms of which points I mention first and which I mention later. Thus, even if I generally retain the same information, each proposal can be significantly different in order of presentation.
Whether or not this level of care is worth it in terms of the overall efficiency of finding a publisher is uncertain: perhaps it’s better to write one proposal and send it to many publishers. For a given period of time, do I increase my chance of getting accepted more by writing fewer proposals detailed to specific publishers, or do increase my chance more by sending out many proposals that may each have less chance of being accepted because they are not tailored to the audience, but increase my overall chance because I have more opportunities to get accepted? (I have a better chance of winning one coin toss than I do trying to roll a 1 on a normal six-sided die; but if I get to roll the six-sided die enough times, I have a better chance of getting a 1 than I do if only try to win only one coin flip.)
My sense of the importance of writing each proposal specifically for each publisher strongly influences my decision with respect to the question that I address in my next post: whether to give publishers sole consideration of your work.
Listening to Yourself
Here's another reposted from my new blog.
Recently, I saw a motivational quotation on the order of “Do what you love and it isn’t work.” It struck me as unrealistic and unhelpful. It fails to capture the difficult and intimate interplay between love and work—whatever kind of love we may be talking about. Love calls on us to do things that are difficult, even unpleasant or painful. Often we surmount difficulties and minor discomforts for our proudest achievements and best experiences. But it’s possible to face too much difficulty, and too much pain, and then love can be destructive. To have a healthy relationship with the things we love—whether people or activities or otherwise—it helps to be able to listen to ourselves and make good judgements about how much difficulty is the right amount of difficulty.
Passion often lies where there is great difficulty. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues that the best moments in people’s lives occur in activities that present significant challenges—the “Flow” state that Csikszentmihalyi has researched occurs in difficult activities, not easy ones. The activities that he describes as flow activities are ones where there is a danger of failure and a possibility for growth.
Shortly after seeing that motivational quotation, I was out for a run. (I’m not sure I go fast enough to call what I do “running” anymore, but I’ll call it running.) While running, I was thinking about the practice of listening to myself and the value of self-knowledge, and thinking about that in the context of writing and developing a writing practice, as well as the context of going running.
Going running is difficult and it is also something that I love. When running well, I feel better than I do at any other time. But I’m liable to aches and pains. Tendonitis is a frequent issue, as is tightness or cramping. Understanding these pains and being able to self-diagnose—listening to myself—helps me decide when to run harder and when to stop and engage in some treatment (like stretching). You don’t want to keep running if running is going to cause more damage or prevent damage from healing; you do want to keep running if the exercise will help resolve the problem. Being able to listen to yourself helps you make a good judgement.
This ability to listen to oneself is valuable in all cases where love leads us to a difficulty: do we continue to follow our passion, or do we pull back because our passion is causing damage?
To develop a successful writing practice, it’s important to listen to oneself, and to understand which difficulties are a sign to stop and tend to yourself, and which are just difficulty and discomfort to work through.
This is true at both the physical and emotional levels. Physically, to write, and to work on writing has real dangers—I have known more than one researcher whose work was brought to a near standstill by repetitive stress injuries. RSIs are better understood now than when I was in graduate school, so fewer people are crippled by them—partly because we better understand the danger and the danger signs (as well as appropriate responses).
Danger of overwork also exists on the emotional level, I believe. It is possible to turn a work practice into something so unpleasant that it becomes hard to work. The idea that obstacles to writing stem from psychological issues is hardly a new or inventive one. Two sources where I have seen this idea are Neil Fiore’s The Now Habit and Keith Hjortshoj’s book on writing blocks, both of which discuss different psychological issues that inhibit writing.
Whether the pain is physical or emotional, being able to listen to yourself and correctly diagnose the severity of various discomforts can help you develop a more effective writing practice. And that understanding can help your realize a project that is important to you and also difficult—a project of the sort that is often called a “labor of love.”
A labor of love requires a positive and beneficial practice that provides sufficient rewards to justify the difficulties involved, and part of that requires the ability to listen to yourself in order to understand what the costs are relative to the benefits.
The “do what you love and it isn’t work” trope fails to explain or understand the idea of a labor of love, and so cannot support such a work. If you think that doing what you love means that you don’t have to work, then you will almost certainly interpret all difficulties as a sign of something wrong—perhaps, even that you don’t love what you’re dong enough. A more realistic view of what constitutes a good relationship recognizes that significant difficulties are part of the best things in life.
For me, the difficulty and frustration of not knowing what to write, of feeling that my ideas are weak or of limited interest, of not knowing how to make a coherent argument, of feeling that my hoped-for and intended argument has totally fallen apart, all of these are real pains. There is real difficulty and distress related to these things. But is it suffering that will cause long-term damage? Knowing yourself and listening to yourself helps prevent engagement from becoming unhealthy.
Doing what you love takes work. It involves real frustrations and difficulties. That work and those frustrations and difficulties are not necessarily signs that you’re doing something wrong or that you don’t love enough. That’s where listening to yourself is about: by listening to yourself, you get information about your processes and you can use that information to develop better, healthier practices.
In this post, I have focused on listening to yourself with respect to managing a writing practice, but as a final note, I want to point out that for a writer being able to listen to yourself—hearing your own voice, and trusting your own judgments—is crucial not only in managing the practice of writing, but in finding material to write. To write original work, there is no other source than your own voice—but that’s a subject for a different post.
Recently, I saw a motivational quotation on the order of “Do what you love and it isn’t work.” It struck me as unrealistic and unhelpful. It fails to capture the difficult and intimate interplay between love and work—whatever kind of love we may be talking about. Love calls on us to do things that are difficult, even unpleasant or painful. Often we surmount difficulties and minor discomforts for our proudest achievements and best experiences. But it’s possible to face too much difficulty, and too much pain, and then love can be destructive. To have a healthy relationship with the things we love—whether people or activities or otherwise—it helps to be able to listen to ourselves and make good judgements about how much difficulty is the right amount of difficulty.
Passion often lies where there is great difficulty. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argues that the best moments in people’s lives occur in activities that present significant challenges—the “Flow” state that Csikszentmihalyi has researched occurs in difficult activities, not easy ones. The activities that he describes as flow activities are ones where there is a danger of failure and a possibility for growth.
Shortly after seeing that motivational quotation, I was out for a run. (I’m not sure I go fast enough to call what I do “running” anymore, but I’ll call it running.) While running, I was thinking about the practice of listening to myself and the value of self-knowledge, and thinking about that in the context of writing and developing a writing practice, as well as the context of going running.
Going running is difficult and it is also something that I love. When running well, I feel better than I do at any other time. But I’m liable to aches and pains. Tendonitis is a frequent issue, as is tightness or cramping. Understanding these pains and being able to self-diagnose—listening to myself—helps me decide when to run harder and when to stop and engage in some treatment (like stretching). You don’t want to keep running if running is going to cause more damage or prevent damage from healing; you do want to keep running if the exercise will help resolve the problem. Being able to listen to yourself helps you make a good judgement.
This ability to listen to oneself is valuable in all cases where love leads us to a difficulty: do we continue to follow our passion, or do we pull back because our passion is causing damage?
To develop a successful writing practice, it’s important to listen to oneself, and to understand which difficulties are a sign to stop and tend to yourself, and which are just difficulty and discomfort to work through.
This is true at both the physical and emotional levels. Physically, to write, and to work on writing has real dangers—I have known more than one researcher whose work was brought to a near standstill by repetitive stress injuries. RSIs are better understood now than when I was in graduate school, so fewer people are crippled by them—partly because we better understand the danger and the danger signs (as well as appropriate responses).
Danger of overwork also exists on the emotional level, I believe. It is possible to turn a work practice into something so unpleasant that it becomes hard to work. The idea that obstacles to writing stem from psychological issues is hardly a new or inventive one. Two sources where I have seen this idea are Neil Fiore’s The Now Habit and Keith Hjortshoj’s book on writing blocks, both of which discuss different psychological issues that inhibit writing.
Whether the pain is physical or emotional, being able to listen to yourself and correctly diagnose the severity of various discomforts can help you develop a more effective writing practice. And that understanding can help your realize a project that is important to you and also difficult—a project of the sort that is often called a “labor of love.”
A labor of love requires a positive and beneficial practice that provides sufficient rewards to justify the difficulties involved, and part of that requires the ability to listen to yourself in order to understand what the costs are relative to the benefits.
The “do what you love and it isn’t work” trope fails to explain or understand the idea of a labor of love, and so cannot support such a work. If you think that doing what you love means that you don’t have to work, then you will almost certainly interpret all difficulties as a sign of something wrong—perhaps, even that you don’t love what you’re dong enough. A more realistic view of what constitutes a good relationship recognizes that significant difficulties are part of the best things in life.
For me, the difficulty and frustration of not knowing what to write, of feeling that my ideas are weak or of limited interest, of not knowing how to make a coherent argument, of feeling that my hoped-for and intended argument has totally fallen apart, all of these are real pains. There is real difficulty and distress related to these things. But is it suffering that will cause long-term damage? Knowing yourself and listening to yourself helps prevent engagement from becoming unhealthy.
Doing what you love takes work. It involves real frustrations and difficulties. That work and those frustrations and difficulties are not necessarily signs that you’re doing something wrong or that you don’t love enough. That’s where listening to yourself is about: by listening to yourself, you get information about your processes and you can use that information to develop better, healthier practices.
In this post, I have focused on listening to yourself with respect to managing a writing practice, but as a final note, I want to point out that for a writer being able to listen to yourself—hearing your own voice, and trusting your own judgments—is crucial not only in managing the practice of writing, but in finding material to write. To write original work, there is no other source than your own voice—but that’s a subject for a different post.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Reflections on seeking a publisher 3: Write the proposal before the book?
Another reposted from the TAAOnline Blog
Before I started the proposal process for my book, I had written a complete draft (as well as two almost-complete early drafts), and also hired an editor to check that draft. I had, in short, a pretty mature draft. But the questions publishers ask about the completeness of the draft, led me to wonder whether that was the best plan for seeking publication.
Common proposal questions ask: “When do you plan to finish the book?”, and “When can you deliver the manuscript?”, which seem primarily relevant for proposals written by people who have not yet completed their book.
Given the length of the process of proposing (at least as I have gone about it), and given the desire of publishers to shape books to suit their publishing list, I wonder whether I might have been better off proposing the book before I wrote it.
Intellectually, I have been aware that one can propose a book before one writes it, and, indeed, that most projects are proposed before they are carried out, but this has never before felt like a real consideration to me; it feels wrong to propose a book before it’s written. That could reflect a lack of self-confidence, or maybe it reflects uncertainty caused by the exploratory nature of writing: I learn a lot as I write, and there is usually a pretty big difference between successive drafts, especially early ones. Or maybe it reflects my fear of committing to a large writing project, because writing under a deadline (which would occur if I had a contract but no book) is an added emotional burden.
In terms of writing productively, it’s valuable to know how different choices affect the process, including the emotional dimension. But it’s also hard to predict how all the factors will play out. In this case, perhaps the emotional difficulties associated with writing the proposal first would balance out the emotional difficulties related to the length of time the process takes. As I discussed in the previous post, my proposal process has taken over 9 months. If I had proposed the book at an earlier point, I might have saved time with respect to any ultimate publication date.
Aside from the question of saving time in the overall process, one idea that has occurred to me in these considerations is about the value of writing a proposal in helping guide a successful writing project. Thinking of my book through the publisher’s perspective provides additional ideas about how to write a good book. For me at least, although I generally make a point of thinking about the audience, when writing a proposal, the focus is much more explicitly directed towards considering my audience, and particularly towards the big concern of most publishers: who will buy the work? This forces forces me to be much more explicit about who that audience is and what their needs and interests are, and that can help me write a book that will serve my intended audience and also please a publisher.
Additionally, the proposal forces consideration of the books that compete with mine, and to be able to explain why mine is different (and better!). I do, of course, want my book to be delivering something that is original, so, in a very strict sense, there may be no direct competitor, but even so, there are many books in the general area. While no one may be writing quite the book that I am, there are plenty of books written for graduate students to support them in the general process of developing research. The process of comparing my book to potential competitors helps me refine what makes my message special, and thus helps me write my book better in terms of expressing my strengths.
Looking to the future, I suppose that I will spend more time writing book proposals as part of the larger process of writing books. Indeed, at present, I have shifted efforts from writing a draft of my next book, to writing a proposal for that book. As I already have a substantial draft (about 25,000 words), I can’t write a proposal before writing any draft, but I can write a proposal before I try to write the next draft.
Before I started the proposal process for my book, I had written a complete draft (as well as two almost-complete early drafts), and also hired an editor to check that draft. I had, in short, a pretty mature draft. But the questions publishers ask about the completeness of the draft, led me to wonder whether that was the best plan for seeking publication.
Common proposal questions ask: “When do you plan to finish the book?”, and “When can you deliver the manuscript?”, which seem primarily relevant for proposals written by people who have not yet completed their book.
Given the length of the process of proposing (at least as I have gone about it), and given the desire of publishers to shape books to suit their publishing list, I wonder whether I might have been better off proposing the book before I wrote it.
Intellectually, I have been aware that one can propose a book before one writes it, and, indeed, that most projects are proposed before they are carried out, but this has never before felt like a real consideration to me; it feels wrong to propose a book before it’s written. That could reflect a lack of self-confidence, or maybe it reflects uncertainty caused by the exploratory nature of writing: I learn a lot as I write, and there is usually a pretty big difference between successive drafts, especially early ones. Or maybe it reflects my fear of committing to a large writing project, because writing under a deadline (which would occur if I had a contract but no book) is an added emotional burden.
In terms of writing productively, it’s valuable to know how different choices affect the process, including the emotional dimension. But it’s also hard to predict how all the factors will play out. In this case, perhaps the emotional difficulties associated with writing the proposal first would balance out the emotional difficulties related to the length of time the process takes. As I discussed in the previous post, my proposal process has taken over 9 months. If I had proposed the book at an earlier point, I might have saved time with respect to any ultimate publication date.
Aside from the question of saving time in the overall process, one idea that has occurred to me in these considerations is about the value of writing a proposal in helping guide a successful writing project. Thinking of my book through the publisher’s perspective provides additional ideas about how to write a good book. For me at least, although I generally make a point of thinking about the audience, when writing a proposal, the focus is much more explicitly directed towards considering my audience, and particularly towards the big concern of most publishers: who will buy the work? This forces forces me to be much more explicit about who that audience is and what their needs and interests are, and that can help me write a book that will serve my intended audience and also please a publisher.
Additionally, the proposal forces consideration of the books that compete with mine, and to be able to explain why mine is different (and better!). I do, of course, want my book to be delivering something that is original, so, in a very strict sense, there may be no direct competitor, but even so, there are many books in the general area. While no one may be writing quite the book that I am, there are plenty of books written for graduate students to support them in the general process of developing research. The process of comparing my book to potential competitors helps me refine what makes my message special, and thus helps me write my book better in terms of expressing my strengths.
Looking to the future, I suppose that I will spend more time writing book proposals as part of the larger process of writing books. Indeed, at present, I have shifted efforts from writing a draft of my next book, to writing a proposal for that book. As I already have a substantial draft (about 25,000 words), I can’t write a proposal before writing any draft, but I can write a proposal before I try to write the next draft.
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