In fact, when I first launched my website, Wonders & Marvels, so many years ago, I didn’t even put my name on it. I was afraid that I’d be “found out” and somehow viewed as less-than-serious in my work as a professor.

Over the past three years, I have received phenomenal encouragement and support from all corners: from blog subscribers, book readers, faculty colleagues to university administrators.

This tells me its time to connect–unapologetically–the formerly disparate parts of my academic, writerly, and online life.

With this in mind, I have redesigned and updated Wonders & Marvels. These changes make it easier to navigate W&M and also provide greater visual continuity with this author website.

And instead of keeping what I do online separate from my professor world, I’ve added the links to my Vanderbilt faculty site too. There’s just no sense keeping everything separate anymore.

With this in mind, the email lists have morphed a bit too.

The Monthly Newsletter will come out once a month. If you signed up for author updates or the W&M monthly newsletter, you’ll receive this newsletter. In it, I’ll update you on what’s new at W&M as well as what’s happening in my author life.

The W&M Digest will come out every two weeks or so. It will have links to all of the most recent posts from the website.

If you haven’t signed up for the newsletters, what are you waiting for?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Writing can be lonely business.  No one can write your book for you (unless you’re a celebrity or pseudo-celebrity and can hire a ghost writer).  Nope, it’s just you.  You have to wage your own battle with words and ideas…and wrestle them all to the ground.

Three years ago, I read a book that changed my writing life: How to Write a Lot:  A Guide to Productive Academic Writing by Paul Silvia.

It basically says what every serious writer already knows:  get your butt in the chair, set goals, and just do it.  Writing is not about inspiration.  It’s about discipline.

Silvia also talked about connecting with other writers.  You need someone to hold you accountable to your goals.  You need someone who knows how hard writing is and who can give you gentle encouragement or a swift kick when the going gets tough.

For nearly four years now, I have had the fantastic good fortune of being part of an online writing group.  It first started with my fellow professor-friend, Christine who was looking to jump start her research too.  Thanks to Google Docs, she and I kept a shared daily log of the time spent on each of our books and how many words written.  This keep each of us from falling off the radar for more than a few days.

Every Monday, we’d send each other an email outlining our goals for the upcoming week.  Those emails also became spaces where we could talk about whatever roadblocks, obstacles or–more happily–writing triumphs we were experiencing.  And at the end of every month, we did a “text swap.”

Christine and I soon learned that we could trust each other with even the roughest of writing.  Sometimes, I’d give her fragments of Blood Work that were nearly incomprehensible.  I’d ask her to do a “truffle hunt” on them–that is, she’d sniff out the more promising bits from what was otherwise a mess.  And then there were the “surgical strikes,” where I needed her to cut out the digressions and other sections to which I really too attached but needed to excise nonetheless.

She and I were always clear with each other about what we needed:  a proofread, a check of the main lines of the argument, attention to flow, to character, etc.  This helped us get input on precisely what we were needing, nothing more, nothing less. This is important in writing groups, because sometimes even the best-intentioned reader can inadvertently stifle the writing flow if the parameters are not set.

We also agreed that whatever idea or prose fragment that one of us offered to the other was theirs to keep.  This way, there would never be any confusion or hard feelings.  And I can tell you that every time I look at the first few paragraphs of Chapter 4 in Blood Work, I think of Christine and the week she spent at my house during one of our legendary “Writing Boot Camps.”  At different moments during the week, we did a writing swap.  (I love giving things names, so I called it our Freaky Friday speed write.  She’d take my computer; I’d take hers.  And then we’d write for each other.  Sometimes that alone could unlock all sorts of ideas.) There’s nearly an entire paragraph in Chapter 4 that she wrote.  And it’s beautiful.

Not long after we started working together, Christine mentioned our writing group to Eric, a professor-friend at her home university.  They decided to do something very similar…but in person, rather than at a distance. They actually met regularly and wrote together.  Nothing like making sure you’re not goofing around when you have someone across from you saying:  ”Get Busy!”  (Christine or Eric, could I talk you into sharing more details about this?)

In just two and a half years, our little writing group produced THREE books.  I finished the manuscript for Blood Work. Christine finished her book, which is now under review at a great university press.  And Eric finished his book, for which he is finishing up revisions this month.  It will be coming out soon with another fantastic university press.  I’ll let them decide whether they want to share additional details about their successes here.

The three of us are now hard at work on proposals for our next books.  We’ve also expanded the group to include three other members and use a free Wiki hosted through PBWorks to communicate together.

I’ll write more about the nuts and bolts of the Wiki later.  But believe me when I tell you that I could not imagine writing this next book without the support, encouragement and expertise of my generous writer-friends.

Repost from Wonders & Marvels

What a great ride the book tour for Blood Work was…nearly 3 months on the road. Lots of adventures, lots of stories to tell, and I met so many great new friends along the way.

I’m returning with great memories of book signings, NPR interviews, CSPAN Book TV, and lots of great print reviews for the book (The Economist, Boston Globe, starred review Publisher’s Weekly, etc).

But honestly, it feels so good to be home.

I’m getting a chance to catch up on errands, long dinners with friends and family, and the myriad other tasks that I left undone while I was away.

But still, as they say, you’re only as good as your next book.  And so I dive headlong into the process. And strangely, I feel gleeful about it.  Probably because I understand the process better than I did last time around.  And most definitely because I know I can do it now.

If things had gone according to the ideal plan that I had set for myself, I would have finished the next book proposal last fall–during that quiet moment between page proof and finished book.  That obviously didn’t happen.

I spent three months researching the topic that I thought would be the next book:  a biography of a very well-known 19th century French doctor, Louis Pasteur.  Pasteur’s life is interesting and, of course, his discoveries impact our daily lives still now.   I brought in an undergraduate research assistant to help me cull the 1,000s of articles and books already out there on Pasteur.  I started to structure the book narrative, though scribbles and random brainstorms.

In the end, I decided that I really didn’t feel like I could live exclusively with Louis for several years.  And that made the decision for me.  I couldn’t write this book. Back to the drawing board.

I know that some authors worry that maybe their latest book is the last book they have in them.  Definitely not the case for me. Research and writing are in my blood.  I can’t imagine not having a large project on my plate.

But the biggest dilemma that I faced was not the topic itself, but rather, whether I was willing to let the next book take over my life, as the last two had.  To be honest, I spent weeks after I finished the Blood Work manuscript putting my daily life back together again. To write that book, I literally went underground; I forgot to shower; I forgot to eat.  The only time that I would snap out of the book-writing stupor was to spend time with my daughter in the evenings after school.  And still then, it would take me some time to make the mental shift.  (I’ve written about that here.)

My biggest question as I was sniffing around for another great book topic was: How can I write this book and still have a real life?  And if I didn’t think this was possible, was I being fair to myself and my family?

In the end, I feel pretty good that I’ve put some new strategies in place to make sure that I keep a good balance between writing and my world.  I’ll talk about that in another post (heads-up: it includes an iPad and apps.)

And to my delight: I have settled on a topic that I’m so fascinated by and one that I know that I could spend the next two years researching and writing about. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that my editor will love the topic too.

I can do this.

In closing, I’d like to share a quote from fellow Nashvillian Anne Patchett on writing the next book from her All Things Considered interview this weekend:  ”Every single time I’m writing a book, I get to a certain place where I think, ‘I cannot do this. I can’t pull this off. And the only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that I have always pulled it off before.”

Repost from Wonders & Marvels

Blood Work is not only the story of this medical mystery, the death of Antoine Mauroy and the framing of Jean-Baptiste Denis. Tucker also provides a background to the history of early transfusion. In doing so, she sheds a great deal of light on the culture and beliefs of 17th century France and England, as well as explaining the previously omnipresent custom of bloodletting.

Holly Tucker has written an absolutely fascinating book. It is an extremely compelling read. Even with a stack of books in my bag and an even bigger pile on my Nook, when I picked up Blood Work on the airplane I did not put it back down until I had turned the last page. Part of this is simply Tucker’s writing style. She has clear, concise prose that makes even convoluted 17th century medical beliefs easy to follow. In addition, she clearly has a great command of her subject matter. When the author understands her material so well, she can explain even the most complex subjects with ease.

Holly Tucker is a French studies professor at Vanderbilt University, but she’s also huge medical history nut. Her book “Blood Work” just came out this Spring. She starts out by explaining just how poor of an idea 17th Century Europeans had of how blood works in the body. When William Harvey proposed the idea in 1628 that blood circulates, the medical community was outraged. The mostly widely agreed upon idea was that our bodies turned food into blood, then the heart acted as a furnace using up the blood. Doctors confirmed Harvey’s hypothesis by testing out transfusions in animals. They then took the next logical step- transfusing animal blood into humans. Why? Animals do not lie, cheat, or steal, argued 17th century physicians, making their blood more “pure” than that of humans. This animal-to-human transfusion thing didn’t work out very well for one Jean Denis. In 1667 his transfusion of lamb blood into a man left him on trial for murder. After that, France effectively banned all transfusions.

It may seem incredibly strange that the earliest transfusions used animals as donors. But this actually makes good sense, in a way. The first transfusionists were interested in finding the best and purest blood that they could use in their experiments. Animals fit the bill.

When’s the last time you’ve seen a dog speak? Or heard a cow swear? Or a lamb drink? The thought was that animals lived purely. They did not corrupt their blood with foul matter, like humans did.

Also, animals were – so they thought – expendable. Why risk the life of two human beings in these risky experiments when you could pluck animal off the street or have a local butcher bring one in?

Denis’ very first blood experiment on humans was performed on a feverish boy. The second on a butcher, likely the one who brought the lamb in for the first experiment. Both survived.

The next human transfusion was performed in England. But the English had shifted course. They focused their efforts on a mentally-ill man named Arthur Coga. Coga was well-educated and spoke fluent Latin. But there was something off about him. “Cracked in the head,” as a contemporary wrote.

Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution is multiple books in one: a historical recollection of medical practices, a murder mystery, and a study of society’s influence on advancements in the medical field. It’s quite the dense text; it’s not something one can sit down and read in one sitting. The level of research Holly performed to write this book astounded me; my book is literally littered with Post-It flags marking passages. Additionally, the detailed period illustrations throughout the book really add depth to the story, providing visual evidence of the practices of the time.

When I was pregnant, I craved tons of fruit. Truly, I could not get enough of it. At my local Smoothie King, they started the blenders the minute I walked in. And I walked in at least once or twice a day.

I should have guessed it. I should have known. I was going to have a daughter. The fruit was the tell-tale sign.

As part of my day job, I research early medicine. By early, I mean pre-1800. A single theory of the body permeated both the learned and lay communities for nearly a millennium. Humoralism held that the body was a murky mess of fluids (humors). There were four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Good health happened when the humors were in balance. Ill-health when they were not.

This helps explain why there was so much bloodletting done in early medicine. Bloodletting was simply the most efficient way to rebalance the humors.

But the humors also had a lot to do with babymaking. Men and boys tended toward a warmer humoral “complexion” [balance]. Women and girls tended toward a cooler complexion.

To be honest, I felt a lot like Sherlock Holmes. I knew there had been a murder. But why? What was it about blood transfusion that would lead someone to kill? In the first year or two of research, I had my sights set on a single man. I can’t name him here – because he still figures prominently in the book. I spent weeks in the archives of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris pouring over case reports and experiment records. Nothing. I found nothing that would allow me to say with certainty that he did it.

I spent the months that followed feeling dejected. Maybe no one had ever revealed the names of the murderer or murderers because their identities were simply unrecoverable. Still, I refused to give up. I headed back to France, three more times. I worked in the archives of the Paris Faculty of Medicine and the French National Library, as well as in the special collections at the Méjanes Library in Aix-en-Provence. Nothing.

I was truly ready to throw in the towel and actually began to box up my research materials. One by one, I skimmed through the hundreds of documents and manuscript reproductions that I had collected. One by one, they went into the box.