There is one expert on boys, who shall remain nameless here, who I have been trying to contact since 2009. This person has done some well-respected research on the mother-son relationship, which I refer to - with attribution of course - in my book.
One my editor's requests is that I rely less on secondary sources - that is, don't just quote the study, interview the author directly. And she particularly requested that I speak to this boy expert. Heaven knows I tried long before I turned in the manuscript. It wasn't that he totally shut me out. We would get tantalizingly close and then it would fall apart. There would be emails to arrange a time to chat, but when I'd call at the arranged time, I would get voice mail. A month or so later, there would be a message apologizing, we'd start over again to schedule something, and again, there would be a problem.
I have an electronic "to do" list on my computer's homepage. "Interview XXXXXX" was on it for more than a year, until I deleted it in frustration. But now I've been told to track him down again. For the last three weeks, we've been at it again. We had another interview scheduled for Tuesday that fell through. Today we are on for 2:30 this afternoon. Will he pick up the phone? And more to the point - what is going on? Does he simply not want to talk to me, but won't tell me directly, or is he wildly disorganized, or overwhelmed or what?
Grrrrrrr......When and if I complete this interview, I will be done with my second round of research and ready to re-write chapter 7 and complete the revisions. Hooray!
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