I just realized that I’ve been working on Isaac Bonewits’s biography for over a year.
Holy excrement!
I’ve got nine gigabytes of scanned files, hours of interviews, 65 pages of notes and links. And it feels like I’ve barely started. I haven’t seriously spoken with anyone from ADF yet. Or his mother. Or his sisters. Or…
I’m tempted to conduct a seance to ask him questions directly. But I already know he wouldn’t answer any of my questions. He’d say “Do your own research! I lived my life, but that doesn’t mean I know anything about it.”
Well there are people from ADF reading your journal. 😉
That’s good to know!
I’ve already contacted Ian Corrigan, but he chose to be interviewed by e-mail. I sent him a raft of questions that would require essay-length answers, along with an offer to turn it into a phone interview instead. I haven’t heard from him since, but it would take time to write down the answers to all the questions I asked.
I’ll get to ADF interviews in a year or so. I’m still focusing on the 70s.
This kind of research and write up is pretty slow. In general, a project like this is going to take years. But think about it—do you really want to be the guy who did a fast and sloppy bio of one of our most well-known Pagans? Take the time. Just cut off unnecessary delays whenever possible by brainstorming and develping innovative strategies, learning from people who have done it before and recruiting help.
Also, build in accountability, and have a secret “board of directors” to vent to and weep to when you are going crazy.
You want to be kept secret? Okay…
“No, folks, Sabrina isn’t comforting me on the latest setback in my book research. She’s… uh… telling me about her book ‘Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City.’ Only $34.20 on Amazon!”
I really love the writing I am doing now because it’s all reflective, compulsive and requires no outside research. It’s like all the pleasure without the pain—a diet of pure sushi and seafood and yummy treats with no boring, icky stuff. I hope to go for a long time without having to do a book-length research project again.
But sometimes you get called to a project and you just have to do it. And you just have to…it’s like a geas.
Hugging you…