Spiraling
On Friday and Saturday, I became tangled up in what I call "spiraling". I decide there is some aspect I have to include in my writing and can't find what I need to support it and, thus, exactly how I want to say it. But, it quickly becomes a way to not get much real progress made toward the actual goal of writing words, sentences, paragraphs, and, ultimately, pages. I have to break that nasty habit. Just like I had to take Solitaire off my computer when I did the first revision to the dissertation back in the mid-90s.
There's also some issues to work through on presidential transitions given that we are also experiencing one now. On the other hand, much of it probably ultimately belongs somewhere else and not in that book. And, it's still a challenge to not worry about every single source as you do when you are writing a dissertation versus providing "enough" documentation suitable for a monograph. Luckily, the university press guidelines on this are generally good ones.
I also read an article in a recent Historical Speaking by Vernon Burton, the author of a recently published award-winning book on Lincoln. He clearly articulated whey we actually needed another book on Lincoln - especially one that sees the end of Reconstruction not as being the traditional "mark" of 1877 but, instead, 1896 and the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. Furthermore, Burton explained that scholars also traditionally ignore religion as an instrumental force in social change and argues that it was indeed central to understanding this issue. It reminds me of the "better angels of our nature" . . .
Today will be one of getting back on track and actually moving forward.
