Monday 06 January 2025
During the Holidays, I steadily worked on revising my Katyn manuscript’s Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages, two parts of my future Katyn book I waited until the end of my writing journey to complete. As I am about to start the final stage of my writing process (proofreading the revised manuscript) this week, perhaps I should begin to reflect more deeply than I have done in previous blogs on how I composed the Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages.
I insisted upon an exact order of finalizing my Katyn manuscript: to sign off on each part of the future book in sequential order. I couldn’t proofread the entire manuscript and declare that Chapters 1, 2, and so forth are now finalized if the opening pages—the Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages—of the manuscript are still unfinished. I needed to proofread everything from the absolute beginning: Title Page, Dedication Page, Acknowledgements Page…. Therefore, I first needed to finish straightaway composing the Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages.
Unlike the drafting of my Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages for my Herman Melville book, these parts of my new book manuscript challenged me as a writer. The Melville Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages were as genuine and heartfelt as the Katyn manuscript’s Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages. What was different for the Katyn project from the Melville project is: everything—including the Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages—I had written for the Katyn manuscript became more nuanced, carefully measured than ever before.
The Melville book Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages were simple, straightforward. Writing such content for the first time, I mimicked what previous dissertation and first book writers wrote in their dedications and acknowledgements. At the same time, I didn’t know exactly how to imitate what others had done; I couldn’t exactly copy word for word what those writers wrote. Moreover, in my drive to graduate quickly to have my Ph.D. in hand to start my first teaching job, I wrote the Melville Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages quickly. I still like what I wrote there, but the expressions of gratitude on those pages reflected who I was then. I am not that same person, let alone, the same writer I once was. Therefore, the Katyn manuscript’s Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages need to depict who I am now. And since what that current portrait right now is—more intricate in its details and complexities—then those two Katyn manuscript Pages need to be intricate, too.
Every word, every phrase was debated by me. Many writing composition instructors will advise their students to “just” write. Don’t second-guess yourself as you’re writing your content. Don’t start revising your newly drafted sentences before you have a complete first draft.
I didn’t heed any of those words of advice while drafting the Dedication and Acknowledgments Pages. I revised while composing. Did I write them—did I do it—wrong? Not exactly, but I—like every other part of the Katyn manuscript—was aiming for “different,” one of Steve’s most powerful lessons he taught me, while drafting the Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages. By “different,” I mean be you. And by “you,” I mean who I am: the quirky Intellectual I have become.
The first observation I noted while drafting the Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages for the Katyn manuscript was they needed to be long, relatively. They couldn’t have been brief, one-liners. I seduced myself into thinking that; again, am I right? wrong? Since the manuscript itself is long, then the Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages simply cannot be short “shout-outs” respectively. I think I’m right about these Pages needing to be long. I have a lot to say to my acknowledged people.
Everything about the Katyn Massacres was complicated; even writing a book about Katyn was complicated. Therefore, even my Dedication Page became complicated; I tried to replicate the complex political realities of the Katyn Massacres, phrasing the lines deliberately, carefully.
The journey to write this future, to-be published book took me a long time to accomplish. Many people influenced me along the way. I couldn’t just write, “Thank you! You’re awesome. You mean so much to me.’ Some Acknowledgements Pages read and sound that way. I needed to be more personal. I needed to be specific about how the people I relied upon encouraged me in the ways they had done so. I was chasing perfectionism, again; however, this time, while curbing the anxiety that could have crept into my writing room and could have hovered over my writer’s desk because I was trying to be “perfect,” I was more mindful about pacing myself—not rushing the writing process for those Pages—and wrote what I felt and wrote what I needed to say without the pressure to be absolutely perfect. If completing the Dedication and Acknowledgements Pages took several days to accomplish, then… so what! I completed both documents without the burnout.
I know being nuanced and careful while composing written content can quickly become overwritten writing and, equally as bad, can easily instigate writer’s block. Dedication and Acknowledgments Pages can be saccharine and can be the opposite: cold, austere, utterly professional and objective. I fret over the first kind, not at all over the second one.
So, what could go wrong?
By “overwritten” I mean to write hyperbolized sentiments. The written content becomes bloated. Superficial observations take on an air of artificial importance. There is a fine line separating refinement from ostentation. Knowing when you’ve crossed it as a writer sometimes isn’t so obvious. Searching for that perfect word also can become belabored or overdramatic. As a writer, expressing gratitude but avoiding sounding obsequious isn’t always self-evident either. Being sincere shouldn’t be so nerve-wracking, and yet it was. Walking away from my writer’s desk and walking the dog, I re-taught myself, daily, how to strike that delicate balance between authenticity and flamboyance. The secret: trial and error… writing and rewriting…. The writer needs to be patient with themselves.
Some citations were easier than others to write. And to be honest, I’m not sure why. Each person I single out in my Acknowledgements Page played, in varying degrees, important roles. Initially, I worried about sounding mawkish, even melodramatic; however, the new sensibility of not worrying about time… the time to finish writing … allowed me to say what I both wanted and needed to write. I also stopped worrying about the length of each entry. Sometimes, conciseness felt more appropriate for an individual person. And sometimes, that conciseness revealed deeper, more moving expressions of gratitude.
Once I have uploaded this blog on my website, I will begin the proofreading stage for my Katyn manuscript. I no longer foolishly believe in the false expectation or demand of ASAP thinking, of ASAP proofreading, as soon as possible writing process. At this point, what’s an additional day or week? Mindfulness is more important now. There is a difference between mindfulness and hyperconsciousness, between awareness and anxiety. And this newly discovered sensibility being applied by myself is the difference between my Herman Melville and Katyn projects. And I think as well that Steve would be pleased, even astonished by this new insight. Indeed, I am different.