Three Things Thursday: Chapters, Bakken, and Bibliography

Yesterday, I managed to finish  draft of my book manuscript. Oddly, I don’t have a title for the book. Right now, I call it stuff like “The MC11 Project,” “something I’m writing on oil, photography, and the Bakken,” or “Workforce Housing” (and even sometimes Work Force Housing). 

Not having a title is a relatively minor problem and it won’t dim my excitement about having finished at very rough, very preliminary draft of my book manuscript. I still have a lot of work today, but I think that the heaviest lifting is over. For this week’s Three Things Thursday, I want to outline the three big tasks ahead as much for myself as for anyone who still reads this blog and wonders what the hell I do all day.

Thing the First 

I organized around a lose constellation of interconnected ideas. When I started to write, I started with a set of nine fragments that I then developed in 1000-1500 word sections. Because I wrote these fragments in a kind of order, there is a loosely discursive character to the book, but for a reader, the book will still appear very fragmentary.  

My next step is to write some little introduction to each group of three fragments as a way to turn them into a chapter. This will provide the connective tissue for my fragments and try to make clear how they constitute an argument.

Thing the Second

I need to bring in the Bakken. One of the downsides of my fragmented approach to the book is that sometimes I become so distracted by the fragment that I lost track of the larger project. This is particular striking in some of the sections that focus on fragments and photography. As I worked to articulate how my ideas about modernism and photography and archaeology fit into larger conversations, I drifted a good bit from the Bakken and oil. I need to go back now and fold that into my discussions. This will give the book a greater sense of coherence.

At the same time, I want to avoid using the photographs specifically as evidence for a theoretical position or narrative. After all, the entire point of the book is the publication of an open ended archive. I need to fold in the Bakken without fencing in the archive.

Thing the Third

The final and most challenging part of the revision will be dealing with bibliography. On the one hand, I’ve tried to write this without being tethered to existing scholarship. Of course, I read and was influenced by a very wide range of scholars, but instead of looking to these scholars to validate my ideas (which is a habit that I fall into far too easily), I tried to articulate my own position.

What I need to do now is connect my own position to those of others and show how what I’m doing is both significant and part of a wider trajectory of practice in the discipline.

Stay tuned for a few more Writing Wednesdays this month before I shift my attention over the grant writing!