Book Progress to Date

Without assistance it is a slow progress for the book.  I am editing the women one by one using the edits of my friends.  Then I send them off three at a time to my final personal editor.
I am e-mailing and snailmailing the stories of the living women to them for permission to publish and also for their editing if they want.  Then I will compile all the stories in the book.
Then the work begins because I can already see the word count will be too high.  I may just send it off to my editor for him to make the cuts.  The longer version will be posted on the website I have been told.
I have finally received my royalty advance and I have been asked to supply art for the book cover so this is going to happen!
I have taking some similar books out of the library and purchased one to see what format for the book should be.  I am learning a lot about book publishing and editing on the fly.  My next book, if any will be better.
I am looking forward to a vacation for a while after this and then launch into the next project.
In order to releive my stress, I will go back to having a massage and I go to Yoga practice at the Y every Friday.  It is a Yoga class at 6:15 Am  on Friday, but noone shows up but me.  So I have free private lesson.  The instructor does not mind.  Sometimes she needs it as well.

That's all for now.
Jeannette

Book Progress to Date and Happy New Year

OK.  You know you never publish the first draft of any book.  I found that out the hard way last month.  My former assistant edited my work and pulled it to pieces.  Another person had already edited it and I was working on it but my assistant did not pull any punches.  She is my former assistant by her choice as she is writing her PhD thesis and my work took too much of her time.  That is unfortunate for me because even though she was rough and made me cry I respected her edits as I did those of my other editor.  She also got started on all the other stuff that one must do to produce a book.  Since nothing that I write is new, I have to get permissions for everything!  Therefore, I have asked my editor for a one-month extension. He agreed that I must give him a good book.

I have been doing stream of conscience writing so I just plugged in the citations but not in Chicago Manual of Style.  I finally downloaded the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and I am following it.  I am also paraphrasing more material rather than direct citations.  I will have a reference section in the appendix.  I wish I had someone to follow up on the permissions because having to do rewrite and also follow up on permissions is time consuming.  It is hard to get some of the women in the book to send me back permissions in a
timely manner.

I still have one woman whose oral history that I must take by phone.  I have tried for two years to get to her but she never responds to my phone calls or when she does, she does not have time to talk.  I will have to push harder because she is one of the original Double Bind women and the only information I have about her is in another book.  I would like more information.

I always wondered how celebrities turned out books so rapidly.  I now know.  They hire people to help them write.  I e-mailed one woman who is too busy but when
she does have time, her fee is $100.00 per hour.  I do not have money like that.  Academics can write grants to support their publications and have graduate students who may work for them for nothing or very little.  Independent scholars have a problem.  I did note that the National Academy of Science send out proposals for independent scholars to write a book.  That is how Margaret Rossiter got her money for her books about women in science.  However, if they are doing this now, I do not have the time to write the proposal and wait for funding.  I suppose I should have been writing when I was at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, but I was still doing research then.  In fact, I love research, I hate writing.  I guess
that is the problem!  I write like a chemist is trained to write in the passive voice.  It is so hard to change that.

Having said that I am pushing on.  I cannot stop now.  So the publication date of the book will be later than August, but it will be published. That is my goal for 2011.

Oh, here is a comic that I saw today.  It refers to me.  http://www.gocomics.com/ziggy/2011/01/01/  I need a book writing for dummies.

Jeannette Brown

Book Progress and Administration 2

OK. 

Book Progress and Administration

We are working on getting the photos.  We found one that Oxford U press already owns so that was good.   The next step will be copyediting.

I am still writing the history chapter.  It is going slowly because I have so many sources.  Someone will have to put it in some sort of order so that it flows well.  I found a time line on the African American Studies website.  I copied the pertinent items to another time line.  I have two other time lines that will have to be combined.

I still have to write the introductory chapeter and there are some women that I have to interview.

Next week I will try to interview the women.  I have given them enough time to get ready and I want to do it before the holidays.

I fianally worked on the administration part of the book.  I am now the owner of Sister Chemists LLC.  I have a tax id so that I can set up a checking account and get my royality advance.  The LLC is to manage the royalties, if any other than the advance.  Right now I need to money for the book expenses.  Some of the companies charge for the photos.

Now that the business part is done I will get down to writing next week.

Jeannette Brown

Background History

Well my assistant is working on getting photos from the book.  This means we are politely begging some of the women in the book for photos which is the best way to do it.  The publisher can scan them for printing better than we can.  The next best is to have a high resolution scan made.  Sometimes we have to pay for this service.
OK While she is doing that I am struggeling with the background history chapter.  I have a lot of information the problem is how to consolidate it into one chapter.  I will put the references at the back of the chapter for further reading.
Well since I took the Web 2.0 course which says I need to keep blogging, I am doing it.  But I also have to get back to the book.
More later.
Jeannette Brown

News about the book and other things

The good news about the book is that we are making progress!  I say we because I have a team helping me. I have hired a young woman who is studying for a PhD in African American History at Rutgers University. Her name is Shannen and she has experience in putting a book together.  We started last Friday searching for photos for the book.  I also have a young woman whom I am calling an intern, who will work for me.  She was recommended by one of the women from the Princeton Research Forum of which I am a member.  This young woman lives in Trenton, she goes to Mercer County Community College, and she wants to learn about publishing a book.  She will start next week.  So hopefully we are on track to get the book finished in December.

There is still a lot of work to do.  Besides getting the photos and the photo permissions, we have to get
permissions to use some of the text in the book and then copy edit the entire book to see that it fits into the size dictated by my contract so we have a long hard road to go.

I have dedicated all my time togetting this done.

However, as I look at the book I realize there is a lot more to say so that I have material for another book!  I have only talked about the women for whom there is a lot of public
information.  I have a list of women whom were listed in who's who in Black America that I would have to research or take their oral history.

Speaking of oral history, I did take a break to attend the Oral History Organization meeting in Atlanta last week.  I presented a paper about one of the women whose oral history had been released to the Chemical Heritage Foundation.  Her name is Reatha Clark King.   Since oral histories are private until they are released to the public, I could only talk about the women who have released their oral history.

This is not true for the book since most of the information in the book is already public.

While in Atlanta I did some research at Emory University archives.  The archives of Sinah Kelley one of the women in the book was there.  I waited through seven boxes of stuff. It was like wading through the attic of a person.  Sinah was born in 1916 so she was one of the pioneers in chemistry.  Her diary was there along with baby photos and a photo of her college graduation.  She went to Radcliff College so ten year and twenty-five year alumni books were there.  The good news is that she wrote about what she had been doing since college graduation so that I have some of her life in her own
words!  It is an interesting story.

At the Oral History conference, I took a short course in Web 2.0.  Blogging is Web 2.0 and I learned I need to blog more often.  Therefore, look for posts that are more frequent from me.

Jeannette Brown

Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night

I will be walking the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Light the Night Walk for the fifth year in a row. I have worked on this fund raiser every year since I was first diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. It is truly an inspiring evening of walking with lighted balloons, red for supporters and white for survivors and gold for those who have lost the battle.
I not only walk for myself but for all those who have suffered from blood cancers some of them in silence.

I have become a patient advocate to spread the word about blood cancer. Few people know that SEPTEMBER IS BLOOD CANCER AWARENESS MONTH IN NEW JERSEY.

The LLS is trying to make September blood cancer awareness month nationwide. You can help by contacting your congress person. Here is the link:Act now to make September Blood Cancer Awareness Month

The Light the Night New Jersey Team will be on Good Morning America on Channel 7 ABC on Wednesday September 22. I don't know if it is an interview or just in the audience as I have been. The show airs from 7 AM to 9 AM when I am usually exercising so I will watch it on the Internet.

I am walking the Light the Night walk on Saturday October 2 at Princeton Forrestal Village. The ceremony starts at 5:00 PM and is usually over by 9:00 PM. We walk rain or shine in warm weather and cold weather and I have had all of that.

If you would like to donate to my team my web page is :

http://pages.lightthenight.org/nj/Colonial10/jbrown_LTN45



I hope you donate the cost of one less cup of Starbucks coffee or Latte even more if your company will match.

You have until JANUARY 31 TO DONATE! Think about your tax deductions.

Remember I am walking for a cure. The researchers are close to getting cures for some blood cancers but they need money for this. Researchers are humans who have families and houses and need to eat so you will be stimulating the economy by donating to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society!!! Think of that!

Jeannette Brown