Just because I have not been writing much here doesn't mean I have not been writing. This week I have devoted most of my energy to tidying up the chapter of my book on human evolution, and I am pleased to say that it is now practically complete.
The chapter, as it is now, stretches about 41 pages long. I asked my wife to read it and tell me what I could cut out or compress, but she told me she could not think of anything. I will give it one more round of editing, but it is unavoidable that this will be the longest chapter in the book. It is not meant to be a summary of everything you need to know about human evolution but a story of how we have come to understand what T.H. Huxley called "[our] place in nature." I think I have contributed an original synthesis, but now comes the tricky part.
Up until this point the main factor stifling my progress has been myself. Whenever I wrote something I was not sure of I admonished myself for being a poor researcher and went back to the literature to make sure I could support what I was saying. I have spent what feels like an eternity editing this chapter to make sure it is as up-to-date and accurate as I can make it. Now, though, I am nearly ready to send out my proposal to agents. I am going to look over the chapters on whales and dinosaurs/birds to make sure they are as good as I can make them, but soon I will be presenting my work to people who can (hopefully) turn my hobby into a paying gig.
more animals
While my proposal is making the rounds I will move on to other chapters, even though I am not sure which I will tackle first. Perhaps the early tetrapods. I hope that someone will take an interest before I complete the entire manuscript, but I guess I will just have to wait and see.
Here is the latest Wordle for the chapter;
title="Wordle: Untitled">
src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/425212/Untitled"
alt="Wordle: Untitled"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">
For previous posts dealing with this project, see the "Books" and "Great Book Project" archives.