Just finished the 2nd draft of my book on the 1812-13 revolution in Texas. If you recall, this evolved out of my master's thesis. I was seriously considering doing a PhD program, but with a full time career and a family, and being a military reservist, it just wasn't in the cards. I wasn't so much interested in the PhD to get a piece of paper that I'm a certified historian, but because it does make you better. I learned so much in my masters' program that I can absolutely not conceive of trying do do this without that kind of experience. Still, my mentor from my masters' program has since retired and he's been amazing, providing a sounding board for ideas, feedback on research methods, you name it, so I really feel like my work has been through a thorough vetting process by a truly world-class expert, so I feel really good about it.
I wrote the first draft on my deployment to Afghanistan, based on two years of notes I had built up. When I got back, I was thinking the 2nd draft would be maybe 2 months of edits. Well, it ended up stretching out for a full year. It required several research trips, including to the National Archives in D.C. All that extra effort was absolutely worth it, because my first draft, in hindsight, looks amateurish. I am very confident of all my conclusions now, and also of the quality of my research. Now to move on to the third draft. I am telling myself it's 1-2 months, but then, I said that before. We will see.
The current draft is 341 pages (Microsoft word), which I estimate in book form would be nearly 500. 197,612 words. (That includes footnotes, so it's probably 450 pages of actual narrative). I want to pare it down in the 3rd draft, but I'll do that after the review process. I'm going to have some professional historians look at it. I need a lot of evidence to make my case, but they'll be able to say "you need more of this and you don't need so much of that" so it's best at this point to put everything and the kitchen sink in there now and then trim once I'm sure I've made my case effectively.
I wrote the first draft on my deployment to Afghanistan, based on two years of notes I had built up. When I got back, I was thinking the 2nd draft would be maybe 2 months of edits. Well, it ended up stretching out for a full year. It required several research trips, including to the National Archives in D.C. All that extra effort was absolutely worth it, because my first draft, in hindsight, looks amateurish. I am very confident of all my conclusions now, and also of the quality of my research. Now to move on to the third draft. I am telling myself it's 1-2 months, but then, I said that before. We will see.
The current draft is 341 pages (Microsoft word), which I estimate in book form would be nearly 500. 197,612 words. (That includes footnotes, so it's probably 450 pages of actual narrative). I want to pare it down in the 3rd draft, but I'll do that after the review process. I'm going to have some professional historians look at it. I need a lot of evidence to make my case, but they'll be able to say "you need more of this and you don't need so much of that" so it's best at this point to put everything and the kitchen sink in there now and then trim once I'm sure I've made my case effectively.
