Ah, bibiliographies and resource lists.

I am so not into this part of the book work. It’s grunt work, it’s monotonous in a mind-numbing way (rather than, say, the meditative space something monotonous like painting a wall one uniform color can nurture), and it’s just bloody boring. Plus, I am SO tired of spending my day sitting, I could scream.

On the other hand, I love giving back, I love acknowledging others and tramping all over the all-too-common arrogance one sees in waaaaaaaaay too many authors setting forth, directly or via omission, the ridiculous premise that every idea they have is original, rather than a historical and evolutionary process; a creation myth of turtles stacked to the sky.

I’m always so jazzed when I’m reading a book I really like and either find myself quoted or my work listed in the text or the biblio. So, it’s cool to be able to do that for other people. There is also something profoundly cool about the sort of intellectual history a bibiliography and resource list makes. For instance, while I don’t quite anything directly from Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses, or from Audre Lorde or Foucault; from Susie’s Sexual State of the Union, or all of Shere Hite’s reports (I worship that woman), I know for a fact that all have at some point been a part of my process in terms of a certain chapter or approach, so I get to include them and document that.

(Of course, you can’t get TOO crazy with this, especialy when you’re a compulsive reader like myself, otherwise your biblio/resource list ends up in the same sort of overwhelmed, double-stacked disarray as my bookshelves. I mean, sure, everything Blake ever did, the works of John Donne and Mary Daly, the art of Judy Chicago and Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington and three hundred and fifty-seven types of mythology from Greece to New Zealand have all had influences on how I approach sexuality and sex education, too, but this damn book is long enough as it is.)

Right now, my editor is sending back her teeny edits to my last big edits, so I’m tending to those and to the front and back matter of the book. We’re supposed to have the whole big pile into the copyeditor by the 1st, but I’m aiming for Friday. I’m glad to be finishing this long process, but I’d really, really rather be finishED.

Of course, that’s a bit delusional on my part, because until we’ve also handled the cover, the illustrations and other design elements, the making of the site expressly for the book and the supporting pages at Scarleteen, the edits back from the CE, the checking and return of those, the galleys, the press stuff and the thing is on the shelves and has been for at least six months or more, I’m not going to be The Big Done.

Trying not to think about that right now, though. I don’t know if ignorance is bliss, but in this case, intentional denial is mighty helpful.

At this particular juncture in time, I am the whining child desperately in need of a nap, kicking the front seat from the back, making everyone else’s ears bleed with an endless loop of “Are we there yet?” I’m sick of sitting in this car: I need a rest stop, a primal scream and some big green grass to roll round in.

filed under Heather Corinna | bookish bits | s.e.x.
posted on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 11:35 am

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