Christen Dalsgaard, \u201cA Carpenter\u2019s Workshop\u201d (1855)
Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Several people have inquired about the \u201cmanuscripts\u201d that I\u2019ve been citing and from which I\u2019ve been drawing in my posts over the past few months. \u00a0They want to know what they\u2019re for, and when they might actually appear. \u00a0Permit me to explain:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of them \u2014 including a few from which I haven\u2019t yet quoted much if at all \u2014 really deserve<\/em> the term manuscript<\/em>. \u00a0The materials that I\u2019ve been posting about Muhammad and about the Jewish and Christian religious history preceding his appearance certainly do; I hope to have the entire thing finished and off to the publisher perhaps in the spring. \u00a0It consists of a reworking and expansion \u2014 and, particularly in the last two chapters \u2014 of a complete replacement of my earlier book Abraham Divided<\/em>, which went through two editions. \u00a0This new version will be so substantially different, I think, that it will, on the whole, be best to describe it as a new book rather than as a third edition.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve explained previously\u00a0that my blogging had been tending to be at war with, and to come at the expense of, my writing for publication. \u00a0(I don\u2019t, personally, consider blogging \u201cpublication.\u201d \u00a0I keep track of the numbers of words that I write for publication each day and each week, and have done so for years; I don\u2019t include blog posts in that word count.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
When, responding to a request from Google, Patheos requested that my blog entries always weigh in at 400+ words, I was already in a bit of a personal crisis over blogging. \u00a0It was, simply, taking too much of my (very limited) time, and ephemeral things were interfering\u00a0projects that I valued more highly. \u00a0The \u201curgent\u201d task of regular blogging was thwarting my attempts to devote sufficient time to what I deem more important tasks.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
So I hit on the idea of using the blog, in the case of the Abraham Divided<\/em> revision, to go through the already-written book passage by passage, making changes to the wording where I thought it advisable and, offline, making notes to myself of places where I wanted to make more substantial alterations or additions. \u00a0In this fashion, the blog becomes an asset for my writing for publication, rather than a liability. \u00a0And, of course, I hoped that readers might find what I posted helpful and interesting, and that these scattered posts might even serve as a \u201cteaser\u201d for when the finished book appears, encouraging some, at least, to consider buying it.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others among the \u201cmanuscripts\u201d that I\u2019ve cited \u2014 notably, the one on science \u2014 are really files<\/em>\u00a0more than manuscripts proper. \u00a0That is, they contain some short original passages, but they\u2019re mostly full of notes, quotations, close paraphrases, suggestions for (my own) further reading, specimens of arguments, one-word or one-phrase reminders of topics that I want to treat or of potential challenges that I should address, and so forth. \u00a0They\u2019re organized very roughly according to a broad preliminary outline that I\u2019ve had formulated for the argument I intend to make, but they\u2019re nowhere near \u2014 and, in the case of the science file, probably not within several years\u00a0<\/em>of \u2014 being ready to go to a publisher.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
How does excerpting things from this file advance my glacial pace toward its completion and\u00a0publication? \u00a0When I draw material from the science file, I\u2019m reminding myself what\u2019s there. \u00a0(I haven\u2019t really been working on it for several years, so this is helpful to me.) \u00a0And often, when I post quotations about science, I\u2019m excerpting them from books that I\u2019ve read but from which I haven\u2019t yet copied the quotes. \u00a0So this helps because, after I\u2019ve blogged a quotation that I liked, I copy and paste it into that science file. \u00a0But they remain undigested, unintegrated, raw material.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
A small handful of zealous and industrious critics have discovered that there are unmistakable\u00a0similarities between some of those notes and certain sources from which I\u2019ve plainly drawn them. \u00a0Yep. \u00a0That\u2019s why I call them \u201cnotes.\u201d \u00a0They\u2019re not finished works.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
When and if the science manuscript (for example) is ever completed for publication, those notes will have been re-ordered, considerably\u00a0supplemented or overlaid with\u00a0yet further materials (some from items already read but not yet excerpted, some from books and articles still on my to-read list), and heavily re-written, and very few of the lengthy quotations will survive untrimmed.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But \u201cblogging the books\u201d that I have in process \u2014 at various levels of completion (or incompletion) \u2014 is proving helpful to me, and I hope that at least some of the materials that I\u2019ve shared here have been of interest to others.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Several people have inquired about the \u201cmanuscripts\u201d that I\u2019ve been citing and from which I\u2019ve been drawing in my posts over the past few months. \u00a0They want to know what they\u2019re for, and when they might actually appear. \u00a0Permit me to explain: \u00a0 Some of them \u2014 including a few from which I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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