> -----Original Message----- > From: Ken Padgett [mailto:kpadgett1 at cox.net] > Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 4:37 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Authors and their produce > > > It occurred to me as I was devouring The Paths of the Dead, > that an Author might be a bit ambivalent about his works > finally being released. I am sure there must be a feeling of > great satisfaction, especially, as seems to be the case here, > when the Readers find the fruits of his labor to be sweet. To > the left, after the Author has spent some months or years (or > decades in the case of some Historians)toiling over his > manuscript, that sweet fruit is consumed in mere hours, > leaving the Reader with (if I may mix the metaphor) an > unquenchable thirst for more. How does this delicate calculus > of satisfaction of a job well done against the thunderous and > immediate calls for the next work balance in the Author's > mind? Perhaps if the Author would deign to comment, I would > cease to wonder and move to, if not knowledge, at least > cessation of wondering. Hrm. I think it's enough I was able to underrstand the above, without trying to talk in it. I can write scientific papers which is nearly the same thing. (Nearly, in the sense that Paarfi uses it.) Speaking of which, I wondered if the publication of a book is similar to the publication of a scientific paper. It all begins with the experiment. After much labor, usually involving tearing one's hair out (literally in the case of a fellow student of mine who has a habit of twisting her hair when she's worried, which actually leaves a bald spot), and shedding tears and blood (as the mice bite you), one finally gets some exciting data. It is exciting not only in its own right, as it confirms something previously not known or only suspected, it is all the more exciting because after months, or even years, of frustrating ambiguous results and that evil stuff "method development", it is the first (but hopefully not the last) actual data. All that remains is to write it up and publish it, right? Wrong. Usually it can't be written up until you are sure of the results, which means you have to repeat it, and if you want it published in a *good* journal you also have to repeat it in different ways, so as to confirm that the finding is not an artifact. I imagine this is analogous to the revising & polishing of a novel. Then you can actually write it. Not all the excitement is lost because at any point after the initial data, you can begin presenting your data at meetings, in the form of posters or short seminars. Now I have something written and am waiting on just one tiny last bit of data to be collected before I can submit the paper. Hopefully the tiny last bit of data will be what we have every reason to expect it to be, and I won't have to actually rewrite half the paper, but can slip it in where it belongs. Then we can submit the paper, it will hopefully be accepted although not likely without revisions, and after months sending it in, revising it, sending it around to all the co-authors for approval, revising it, etc, it will finally be published. This, by the way, is data I mostly collected 3 years ago (except for that one bit I'm waiting on). Oh. That sounds like a rant. Well, I feel better! Rachel