"I warned earlier that revision is really at transformation out of one form of writing into another. That transformation might be thought of this way: the dissertation is the historical record of others' ideas, supplemented by your own important insights; the book is the narrative of thinking on the subject, but primarily it's your own thinking, even though it is supplemented by the historical record of others' ideas. If this generalization is valid, it means that a young author can't write a book without risking intellectual self-exposure. That risk, by the way, is one of the most important parts of being a writer, even a scholarly writer. And it isn't the risk of being found wrong, for scholars are always moving an idea along by fits and starts. It's the risk of finding you have nothing to say. Learning to take that risk, even to want to take that risk, is part of a scholar's development" (pg 67, William Germano, From Dissertation to Book).
"Writing is a risk, and a risk is exciting, and excitement is something you will fight to sustain in your professional life as you age and your students don't" (125).
I am one of the most risk-averse people I know.
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