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So now that I have a few people looking at the draft of the Traveller's Guide so I can do a last few tweaks before submitting the manuscript to publisher(s), I'm working on the project that has been referred to on the Cauldron for a while as the onion-hoeing book.
It is amazing how different this project is.
Okay, here's the thing: the Traveller's Guide was a romp. It is a thoroughly academically researched, information-dense romp, but not only is the premise pretty much a gigantic joke it has stuff in it like a limerick about the importance of raising the djed pillar, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. It has a lot of stuff in it from a Kemetic perspective, and I think it has a lot of stuff that might be of use to a magician-type who wants to deal with a reasonably authentically Egyptian flavoring to stuff they're doing, but mostly what that book is is a lot of fun that also happens to be chock full of data.
The onion-hoeing book isn't like that at all.
First of all: the Traveller's Guide is a really tightly focused thing. I was reading a book at the end of my project review and coming across cool stuff and trying to figure out where to put it in that manuscript, and eventually I had to stop, back up, and say, "This has nothing to do with the Duat. Put it down. Put it in a later project. It doesn't go here." A tight, very specific focus makes for a much easier writing project, because everything folds in around one subject. Can't do that with something intended as an overview work.
Then there's the mode problem. The onion-hoer's project is in response to my perception of a need for a very down-to-earth, practical approach to Egyptian paganism that's oriented towards the exoteric and the day-to-day. And I know this is needful because of the number of people who have thanked me for The Theology of Shopping Carts. And the thing I do, with the making connections between things, and the telling little stories, it means that I can do this thing that needs done. (And I amuse![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
teinedreugan, who was treated to a bit of a rant yesterday when I saw something in the grocery store labelled "Reduced Guilt", in which I explained - at some length - why I consider the concept of "Reduced Guilt" food to be contrary to my religion.)
But I don't know how much to put in, there. The reason I'm a good person to do this work is that I make the connections, but here's the thing: I don't know how much information people-who-aren't-me need to make the same connections. If I tell you that the plural form of the word "ka" also means "victuals" can you figure out the reason I started fuming in the frozen foods? How many steps do you need me to sketch in to get there? Fucked if I know! So I seesaw wildly between "totally opaque" and "condescendingly pedantic" - or at least I worry about doing so. I'm not writing for an audience that's stupid, I'm writing for an audience that isn't Wepwawet's, so I need to show people the doors but not explain how to move their feet. I don't always know how to not sound like I'm doing the latter, so I fret.
I also don't know how much to put in in the sense of subject areas. I asked for some help with this in TC chat the other day, things people considered essential. I know I'm putting in the food-ma'at section because I've been ranting about that a lot lately (not just yesterday in Trader Joe's), but what else? Calendar? Gods? Rituals? It's not supposed to be ritual-heavy, I suspect Reidy's book (which I need to get and am weirdly anxious about) is good for the ritual-heavy stuff, but I think I want to write a chunk of ritual stuff sections before I read Reidy so that I don't feel like I'm cribbing his work. And it's not going to be god-heavy, because the other rant lately is "GODS ARE NOT RELIGION" and I just what I don't even know.
Meanwhile, on a less ranty note, the Traveller's Guide is a you-book. When you visit here, if you want to do this, if you're going this way, if you're booking this boat. The onion-hoer's thing is far more personal; it is turning out to be an I-book. Figuring out the intimacy level is tricky.
But the really tricky thing is, okay. Practices are easy to write about. Lay out the procedure, fill in why each step is done that way if you want, explain it, expected results, boom. Facts are easy to write about (and this was the Traveller's Guide: here are the facts about how the Duat is approached, thought of, etc.). This isn't a facts-and-procedures book, it's a "How to think about this" book. How to make the jump from ma'at as a cosmic concept to putting the shopping carts away, how to get from an etymological bit of data to rejecting the concept of "Reduced Guilt" frozen food.
I need to lay out some of these things with sufficient breadcrumb-trails that people can follow my lines of logic, but I can't possibly lay out every damn thing that anyone would ever need to think through, so I have to also have the trail-laying lead to a reasonable expectation of people being able to generalise it. (I can't tell you how I think you should vote on Ballot Issue #3 in 2016, and wouldn't even if I could, but I want to show that hypothetical you how to take the core concepts and manners of thinking and come up with a vote on Ballot Issue #3 that is consistent with ma'at. Whatever the going issues are at that time where you are.)
A month ago I was sure I knew how to organise this thing, and now that I'm trying to do so it's coming apart in my hands in weird ways. And it's hard stuff, and I need to do at least a half-decent job on it.
It is amazing how different this project is.
Okay, here's the thing: the Traveller's Guide was a romp. It is a thoroughly academically researched, information-dense romp, but not only is the premise pretty much a gigantic joke it has stuff in it like a limerick about the importance of raising the djed pillar, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. It has a lot of stuff in it from a Kemetic perspective, and I think it has a lot of stuff that might be of use to a magician-type who wants to deal with a reasonably authentically Egyptian flavoring to stuff they're doing, but mostly what that book is is a lot of fun that also happens to be chock full of data.
The onion-hoeing book isn't like that at all.
First of all: the Traveller's Guide is a really tightly focused thing. I was reading a book at the end of my project review and coming across cool stuff and trying to figure out where to put it in that manuscript, and eventually I had to stop, back up, and say, "This has nothing to do with the Duat. Put it down. Put it in a later project. It doesn't go here." A tight, very specific focus makes for a much easier writing project, because everything folds in around one subject. Can't do that with something intended as an overview work.
Then there's the mode problem. The onion-hoer's project is in response to my perception of a need for a very down-to-earth, practical approach to Egyptian paganism that's oriented towards the exoteric and the day-to-day. And I know this is needful because of the number of people who have thanked me for The Theology of Shopping Carts. And the thing I do, with the making connections between things, and the telling little stories, it means that I can do this thing that needs done. (And I amuse
teinedreugan, who was treated to a bit of a rant yesterday when I saw something in the grocery store labelled "Reduced Guilt", in which I explained - at some length - why I consider the concept of "Reduced Guilt" food to be contrary to my religion.)But I don't know how much to put in, there. The reason I'm a good person to do this work is that I make the connections, but here's the thing: I don't know how much information people-who-aren't-me need to make the same connections. If I tell you that the plural form of the word "ka" also means "victuals" can you figure out the reason I started fuming in the frozen foods? How many steps do you need me to sketch in to get there? Fucked if I know! So I seesaw wildly between "totally opaque" and "condescendingly pedantic" - or at least I worry about doing so. I'm not writing for an audience that's stupid, I'm writing for an audience that isn't Wepwawet's, so I need to show people the doors but not explain how to move their feet. I don't always know how to not sound like I'm doing the latter, so I fret.
I also don't know how much to put in in the sense of subject areas. I asked for some help with this in TC chat the other day, things people considered essential. I know I'm putting in the food-ma'at section because I've been ranting about that a lot lately (not just yesterday in Trader Joe's), but what else? Calendar? Gods? Rituals? It's not supposed to be ritual-heavy, I suspect Reidy's book (which I need to get and am weirdly anxious about) is good for the ritual-heavy stuff, but I think I want to write a chunk of ritual stuff sections before I read Reidy so that I don't feel like I'm cribbing his work. And it's not going to be god-heavy, because the other rant lately is "GODS ARE NOT RELIGION" and I just what I don't even know.
Meanwhile, on a less ranty note, the Traveller's Guide is a you-book. When you visit here, if you want to do this, if you're going this way, if you're booking this boat. The onion-hoer's thing is far more personal; it is turning out to be an I-book. Figuring out the intimacy level is tricky.
But the really tricky thing is, okay. Practices are easy to write about. Lay out the procedure, fill in why each step is done that way if you want, explain it, expected results, boom. Facts are easy to write about (and this was the Traveller's Guide: here are the facts about how the Duat is approached, thought of, etc.). This isn't a facts-and-procedures book, it's a "How to think about this" book. How to make the jump from ma'at as a cosmic concept to putting the shopping carts away, how to get from an etymological bit of data to rejecting the concept of "Reduced Guilt" frozen food.
I need to lay out some of these things with sufficient breadcrumb-trails that people can follow my lines of logic, but I can't possibly lay out every damn thing that anyone would ever need to think through, so I have to also have the trail-laying lead to a reasonable expectation of people being able to generalise it. (I can't tell you how I think you should vote on Ballot Issue #3 in 2016, and wouldn't even if I could, but I want to show that hypothetical you how to take the core concepts and manners of thinking and come up with a vote on Ballot Issue #3 that is consistent with ma'at. Whatever the going issues are at that time where you are.)
A month ago I was sure I knew how to organise this thing, and now that I'm trying to do so it's coming apart in my hands in weird ways. And it's hard stuff, and I need to do at least a half-decent job on it.
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For a datapoint, it took me a moment to pull my thoughts in the right direction to figure out the frozen foods thing. I think sufficient clues are there for people to figure it out intellectually, but maybe it might need more elaboration/set-up to get the 'right' visceral reaction? But then there might well be sufficient set-up in whatever other stuff is written before that (or in assumed background knowledge/worldview of the reader). And... yeah, tricksy.
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Would you be willing to expand the datapoint a little? Can you reconstruct your thought processes at all?
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Particularly since, in my own theology, the 'vital spirit' thing is typically portrayed as fire, so freezing it would extinguish it. And if freezing it extinguishes the ka, then thawing it won't bring it back, so you'd be eating sort of empty food. <-I don't think I thought this paragraph consciously, it's me thinking through what my reaction must be founded on.
I don't know if this matches your thoughts at all? but hopefully helpful.
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(The rant was about the concept of 'reduced guilt', specifically as applying the concept of guilt as normal to food, which is syntactically identical with the vital-energy-soul, which basically means that one treats one's own soul as a vessel of shame, and, whut.)
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From:
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I got all of that just from "ka also means victuals", but y'know, fat activist and mystic here, so I may not be your typical reader.