...The American Humanitarian Spirit...1979-1986
Authorship is about more than writing. Someone's eye must always focus ahead to a six-month publishing debut.
With my husband's permission, I update progress on his book manuscript, partly to honor the details of developing a book for publishing. Here is a February 2015 update, with preliminary info, also added today to post archived at My News and Views Blog, May 17, 2014.
With my husband's permission, I update progress on his book manuscript, partly to honor the details of developing a book for publishing. Here is a February 2015 update, with preliminary info, also added today to post archived at My News and Views Blog, May 17, 2014.
Jim Purcell's MS is a massive work with narrative and field accounts before and after the Fall of Saigon, April 30, 1975. Vietnamese allies that rushed to the U. S. Embassy for a helicopter on a tower on the roof were only the beginning of an unfolding tragedy. What the U. S. had to learn from the events of the Vietnam-Cambodia-Laos triangle equipped the nation to lead the world to revive its humanitarian spirit internationally within citizenry, governments, communities, churches, synagogues, and volunteer organizations.
The refugee decade, as it came to be known, required the development of policies and procedures for quick, life-saving responses in Southeast Asia, Africa (Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia), the Middle East, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Russia. Millions of lives depended on decisions and protocols made by people near and far away. Refugees would rarely see these men and women honoring and seeking to save and protect their lives. That was OK as long as the missions were accomplished.
Files by category for the manuscript's news clippings and reports now allow faster fact-checking. End notes, the footnote-type info at the end of chapters, are fully referenced.
All MS sources have been listed according to Chicago Manual of Style formats for books, articles, journals, reports and other references according to chapters.
The list work by the author in long-hand by chapter is already typed and alphabetized in a Word document. The handwritten citations take up roughly 50 pages. I do not mind what I'm doing now, which is to type such details into pages for the end of each chapter.
Gathering publisher and copyright data online is what I volunteered for, as well as using front matter of print resources in the author's research collection.
Digital document tracking has gone along carefully, and still there are headache times for JNP and Andy Michaels. (If this interests you, use the link above, look at the graphics down the page, and see why Andy developed a system for the author.)
Two knowledgeable readers (link)--"they-were-there-too"--have digital and print copies to read and make comments. The link above goes to the sometimes underestimated Wikipedia, which has the best correct description and explanation of peer review(er) I have seen.
If the query letter (samples) succeeds in catching the interest of a key, professional, successful book agent, the book proposal (BP-sample ideas) will likely come into play; Jim's Work is not at that stage yet, but soon. The era of starting a book proposal helped additions, rethinking, and enlargement of the MS, for the better.
The author usually bears the bulk of work to gather and select resource information, as well as to keep track of the exact source of each quote, notation, or citation, including interviews by date. Plus organizing and writing the book well!
Every draft has made a better, stronger, more interesting, thrilling, and informative account of an era in U. S. history, leadership, and humanitarian response. That's my take on it.
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Copyright (c) 2015 James N. Purcell, Jr. and Jean P. Purcell
