A Real Book

“It’s just snowballing for you!” Boss smiled and nodded with pride. “It happens like that sometimes – there’s nothing for a while, then everything comes together and builds on itself. I’m excited.”

“I’m thrilled!” I chirped happily. “It’s just been so good lately!”

I had printed out the email I received – my first ever invitation to submit an abstract to be considered for a book chapter! – and scampered to Boss’s office to share my news. Then we’d talked about the work I’d done this weekend, the progress I’d made overall, the study recruitment that officially opened this afternoon. I could get a patient anytime now. And I’ve been developing an idea on a book chapter with some early data.

Carrie responded to my “look at this!” email with some advice. “Apparently a book chapter is under a peer-reviewed publication on the priority scale, so don’t give the book people anything you could get published elsewhere. But you know enough to do a cute, little review with some of your current data – that’s an excellent idea!”

Friend nodded wisely when I shared my knowledge. “Peer review is better.” She noted. “I knew that.”

“But I want to write a book chapter.” I insisted. “I get a free copy if I’m accepted! With my name on the cover – all the contributors' names go on the cover! So I won’t give them my amazing data, but I could do something comparative and review-y. I think it might be really good for me to write regardless! And it might go in a book!”

So instead of thinking of a suitable blog post on the commute home, I spent my time plotting analysis algorithms that could be easily implemented and incorporated with some text describing the method options.

Work is good. I’m grateful and excited and quite happy. Now I must return to my internet searches and a sample dataset.