(Updates in red.)
Tomorrow is my first day back at school for the fall semester, which makes today the last day of summer for me. It would seem like a fine time for an update, right?
In terms of my three tasks for the summer...
1) Drafting my sole-authored superhero-and-philosophy book was my primary goal, and I had arbitrarily chosen last Wednesday as the "completion" date (in case I needed to go into the office on Friday, and graciously allowing myself a day before that as well). That worked out nicely to 12 weeks, 6 days a week, so 72 days total. As of the end of Wednesday I had about 92,000 words written, exceeding my target of 90K words, and I still have more to write. Given that my usual concern is having enough to say, I'm pleased with meeting my target, and a bit bewildered at being in the strange position of exceeding it. It's not the normal case of writing more than I need and then having to trim it down—if anything, I need to flesh out some material as well as add one more significant section. I hope to get this additional work done in September before confronting other writing responsibilities for the fall. All in all, I'm fine with my work on this book this summer, although it was a bit more up and down than I would have liked, and I wanted to be done done. (While I just started writing this summer, this book has been in the works for years.)
2) Work on Doctor Strange and Philosophy is also nearly finished—doing final editing on the last few chapters. ('Nuff said!) UPDATE: I submitted the manuscript on September 1, four days ahead of deadline, thanks to the timeliness and cooperation of my contributors.
3) Production of The Decline of the Individual is finished as far as I'm concerned. The release date was changed from August 25 (as confirmed by the project manager on August 10) to September 15 (according a change made to the website on August 11). (When I replied to the project manager about this, the email bounced back "address unknown." Same for the production editor.) But wait.... last week the date on the website became October 15, which happens to be close to the date my editor gave me when the whole thing started. As before... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. For my part, I'm constructing a proper index for the book which I will post here; I was hoping to have it done by now, but it still needs a little work. UPDATE: I finished the index on September 4—you can find it here.
--o-O-o--
Looking back, I wish I had done the summer differently—it became so intense that I'm looking forward to the semester for relaxation! Part of my problem was not spreading out the work as well as I could have; while I worked on the authored book most every day, I didn't always keep up with other work, which then built up at precisely the wrong time (as it inevitably will). However, besides the Oxford handbook I'm editing, I don't have a commitment for any other books going forward, so things are open for next summer to consider projects I've batted around with different editors, as well as some ideas of my own.
Finally, I did have one new post at Psychology Today last week that did fairly well: "Why Adultery Is Harmful Even Before It's Discovered," elaborating on what is by far my most "successful" tweet:
This -- THIS -- is what makes adultery harmful even if it's never revealed. https://t.co/HnGMuJ9Lcu pic.twitter.com/otQiTHu5iB
— Mark D. White (@profmdwhite) August 20, 2017
--o-O-o--
Looking ahead, this semester I need to finish up the summer tasks three, and then begin a few new things. In addition to the chapter and introduction for my handbook, I'll be contributing a chapter to an edited scholarly collection on Spider-Man (focusing on Civil War), and another chapter on ethics and economics to a very intriguing new project. And most important, I will be returning to the classroom for the first time in two years. It's a long story, but it comes down to teaching too many courses for many years before I became department chair, and now having to balance that out by a certain date while being chair, which already carries reduced teaching expectations as it is.
However you're spending it, I wish you a happy and successful fall, and I'll see you next time I have something to say. In the meantime, here's Sam... just pretend it's yesterday, OK?
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