Late papers?

Are there any survivors of the Winter Writing Group who want to report on progress at this point? Leave a comment!

On my other online writing group, the Stupid Motivational Writing group run by Jonathan Mayhew (private blog, invitation only), someone asked a question about the MMP that forced me to articulate exactly what I'm doing and why. That is, not what I'm arguing but why the project needs all this non-writing activity. That was amazingly helpful. After explaining, I said, "I get a certain amount of other people encouraging me to do what I consider would be a crappy job ('you don't have to have the last word, just start the conversation'), which makes me doubt my approach. But basically I want to do what I think is right, good, and thorough, and it's less wearing in the long run to do the job right in the first place than it is to try to do the rush job and then feel unhappy about it."

Actually, and this is one of the things that was slowing me down, this is now the second place, since I've already given two conference papers on this material and thought at first that all I had to do was blend them together. But they were both based on a preliminary survey of the data; they were the fast-and-dirty version, long though I struggled over them.

I don't want to be a conversation-starting scholar. There are plenty of people who do and are; they are happy being talked about and cited, even when their work is getting corrected, even when it's being repeated as if it were Gospel although at some point some more obscure scholar who isn't part of the fan group has shown them to be wrong. That's neither my style nor my training. I don't imagine there will be a huge conversation about the MMP. I don't have the writing-personality to start one, and the skills required to do this kind of work are too rare to get a lot of followers. What I can do is take the time necessary to make my article solid, accurate, and reliable. So it's already taken more than two years. If I do it right, it will still be useful in 50.

And that's the kind of scholar I want to be.

Winter Writing Workshop report

I am disappointed with my progress. Despite fairly steady work, including some 3000 new words, the MMP is not done. It's finicky work. I'm not satisfied with my original classification of the marginalia, done a couple of years ago, and I keep dithering about how many hands comment. For the last week or two, I've been working on ways to attack the problem: not even doing the analysis I think I need to do, but setting up materials so that I can do it. And I'm discouraged that I am still working on this project, because it has dragged on for a long time and I would like to be done with it.

What's more, I'm getting anxious about this spring's conference papers, and though I have carried on with the MMP, I'm not sure it's the best use of my time. Sir John thinks I should be working on the Unexpected Book, because it's a project that has got a lot of good feedback from the people who know about it, because it's a book and he recognizes the importance of books for literature scholars, and because it was going so well through the summer and fall. I think he has a point (several points); but I also feel a bit sick about the idea of putting the MMP aside yet again.

Multi-tasking is really not my thing. It took me most of my life to figure this out, because academia encourages juggling projects: you start by taking several different courses at a time in college; later, you teach however many different preps you have, plus try to keep a research program going, plus attending to your service commitments. And I have to admit that I keep getting attracted by new ideas and want to wander off to play with the new shiny thing instead of concentrating on finishing the old drab one. I want, have been trying, to stop doing that, to put new ideas on a list and try to finish the old ones, but I still feel tangled up in unfinished work.

At any rate, the discouragement is a bigger problem than the work itself. I put off revising a syllabus and putting together my documents for annual review so I could concentrate on the MMP, and now those things are past due and I regret not having just done them sooner.

Oh well. Time to dig in and do those things I ought to have done, and get back to working on a set schedule, because that was incredibly helpful. I'm going to spend till the end of January fussing with the MMP to see if I can either get it done or at least leave it with a clear sense of what will have to be done when I come back to it.

Tell me something good! How are you doing with your writing projects? Feel free to post your achievements and goals even if you're not on the list here.

Another Damned Medievalist: I am madly trying to get my classes together. And I have to write that book review.

Contingent Cassandra: the goal for the week is to complete a full, condensed draft of the article-in-revision, and also to complete some related correspondence (e.g. permissions letters). I think I'll also have time for one session with the article-in-progress this week, just to stay acquainted.

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell: I think my goal this spring semester is to triage the dissertation: contact my readers, send them some chapters. Oh, and move mid-semester.

Good Enough Woman: By next Monday, I hope to have the 12 pages I promised.

Ink: If I can make it through this new chapter before Monday, I will have met my goals for break. . . .I have planned for this term to keep one scheduled block a week for this project.

Lost in Academe: the goal is 15-60 minutes of writing 4-5 times a week.

Matilda: Goal for next week: finishing the half of the rest of the encyclopaedia work; having at least two hours a day for my own research; writing at least 15 minutes a day.

Naked Philologist: still FINISH THE SECTION. I'm also going to try my hardest to do readings in the mornings and write in the afternoon.

Rented Life: I also added several more pages of notes to my journal so I'm in a bit of a loop. Type notes, cross of to-do list, write more notes, need to type said notes, it's back on list.

Sapience: I don't expect to be done by next week, but I might be close.

Sitzfleisch: My goal: again, to meet my 14.5 hours. With the long holiday weekend, I will have even more time, and I plan to have a complete draft of my proposal letter and my introduction done by next Tuesday evening.

Trapped in Canadia: This week's goal - 500 words and writing for one hour a day

Zcat abroad: write at least 500 words a day.

Transitions

Most people think of the new year as a beginning, but for northern-hemisphere academics it's the middle of the year, which really begins in September (Zcat, of course, gets to have all the new beginnings at once). Similarly, this first meeting of the Winter Writing Workshop in 2012 is also our mid-point, or at least my mid-point, though for some of you it's the point at which you can finally get down to something, and for others, you're about to be back in the classroom.

My plan to work 9-1 last week worked out very well, except on Friday, when the Shakespearean Heroine had an early vet appointment that couldn't be switched around; after that, I didn't settle into a proper work routine, but I did read a whole Renaissance play that had to be read, so that was something. As for writing, my focused free-writing on topics I hope will lead to a good, big-picture framework for the MMP is up to about 3500 words. I really need to produce an outline. I have plenty of words, but they need to be in the right order. I also need to re-analyze some of my manuscript data, and to do this, at least to do it really comfortably, I'd like to acquire a larger monitor instead of squinting at my laptop. So, goals for this week: outline, continue scheduled routine, invest in a monitor, outline, fiddle with data. Outline. And try to do some other work, like write up the syllabus for my spring classes, without letting that distract me from outlining the MMP.

Last week, Contingent Cassandra wrote, "I'm not as good as I need to be at switching from writing and research early in the morning (6/7-9 a.m.) to other work for the rest of the morning (9-12/1)." This sort of transition is hard for me, too, especially if I'm not going elsewhere (say, to campus) to do whatever the next thing is. Once I get settled in with a task, I like to keep at it. It can help to move around, to break the attachment to the desk and the particular task: walk around the block, or just make a cup of tea. But really, if you have the discipline to get up and do either of those things, then you don't have a big problem with transitions.

So far, I haven't worried too much about this. On some days, I set a timer for 25-minute stretches, and if I feel like continuing rather than taking a break, I just re-set it at once. Other days, I forget about the timer and submerge myself in work till I have to come up for air. If I feel stuck on a task, I look at my list (my hideously long list) of things that need to get done and just do something, anything, because they all need to get done so anything I feel like is fine.

But with two weeks till classes start, I feel like I should get a bit more methodical, and that is going to mean more attention to breaks and transitions, to doing a certain amount on one thing and then moving to another. So that's the topic for the week: how are you with shifting focus? If it's easy, why is that, and what do you do that other people might copy? If it's hard, what have you tried, and how has that worked for you?

And, of course, what are your writing goals for this week?

Time is not infinitely elastic

Welcome to the Winter Writing Workshop! Most of you have a clear goal that sounds reachable in 4-6 weeks’ steady work. Some of you may still be doing triage: what absolutely has to be done, now? How much distraction will there be from holiday shopping and parties, or from job market angst and conference-going? How much time do we need for getting back to a good exercise routine, or for excavating the laundry pile, or any other necessary real-life activities?

So let me urge you to Pick One. We all have lists. Give yours the hairy eyeball.

But first, think about your time. How many weeks do you actually have? Where will you be during that time? How much time must you spend on non-work activities? How understanding is your family about your need to work during “vacation”? Winter breaks can be hard to work in, because they’re short, they involve holiday stress, they come at what for most of us is a cold, dark, depressing time of year (Zcat, can all of us with SAD come and visit you down under?), and our libraries and universities may close to save money during at least part of them.

So, can you schedule two hours a day in a coffee shop? Can you put in four hours a day at home? Do you reliably have one hour in the evening, and other less predictable time here and there? Add up that time first; then look at your list again, and figure out which item you can do in that amount of time.

Consider, as well, your longer-term goals and term-time work habits. Will you be better served by getting an ugly rough draft of something that is now only notes, so you can revise it when you go back to teaching? Or would you prefer to get something almost-ready revised and out the door before you go back?

Make a plan, and post a comment about it. And again, welcome. Turn on your broad-spectrum lamps, crank up the space heaters, pour yourself a drink and stick a little paper umbrella in it, and we’ll all pretend we’re writing around the pool at some tropical resort. (If you actually like winter, carry on, but don’t tell me about it.)

My goal is to read/write at least 2 hours a day. Four will be ideal. But if I do two, that's enough. Because, you know, the gym, the excavation, and so on. I'd like to turn this into a game, and see how many days and weeks I can get up to four.

The current participants:

Another Damned Medievalist (hereafter ADM): finish revisions

Contingent Cassandra: finish article

Digger: finish project

Good Enough Woman (hereafter GEW): not come to a standstill

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (hereafter EAM): lit review

Highly Eccentric (Naked Philologist): either atoning for sins or committing more; I can’t tell.

Ink: fiction?

Matilda: finish draft of paper

nicoleandmaggie: finish draft?

Sapience: article due 15 Jan.

Sisyphus: finish article

Theologoumenathon: hang onto groove

Trapped in Canadia: finish book chapter

Zcat: Finish article

Updated to add:
Luo Lin: finish article

Profacero: resubmit one article (that might be two combined, or two separate)

Weekend bullets

• Sir John has had a cold for several days. I think I'm finally getting it. So I'm staying up late to try to finish grading before I feel awful.
• Of course I should have finished already.
  
• Why, with all the "teaching to the test" that presumably happens in schools these days, can my students not manage to read and follow simple instructions?
  
• Grading the outlines of essays (on exams) goes much faster than grading translations.
• I can't believe I made it through the whole semester without getting sick; but then, why now? Why could I not just avoid illness altogether?
• I would much rather be working on the MMP, and this morning I procrastinated for awhile by staring at handwriting snippets trying to decide if one A resembled another. Or not.
• On a related handwriting question, I found a reference to an opinion of Ian Doyle's that was . . . wrong. Not in a major way, but he left out a perfectly legible* letter. My world reeled.
• *Perfectly legible if you read English secretary hands.
• Every time I look at an example of secretary, I panic and think all my skills have fled, or maybe I was deluding myself all along. It takes several minutes to get my eye in and start seeing the shapes again.
• Really I should be thinking big-picture thoughts about the MMP, not tiny-detail thoughts. Have I mentioned that I'm nearsighted?
• Must finish grading translations. Then if I'm sick tomorrow I can spend days lying on the couch watching B5 DVDs and drinking toddies, guilt-free.
  

Hard/not

Yesterday I had a conversation with a distinguished senior scholar. When I mentioned one of the projects I'm working on, he said about the area of study it falls into, "It's hard." He said this a couple more times about this field, once explaining why there are few people currently working in it, and once more along the lines of lamenting that more people aren't being trained to go into it.

Every time, I thought, "No, it's not. It's easy."

Finally, when he began to explain what it takes to do this well, the "hard" comments began to make sense to me. As graduate education is normally comprised, this area is interdisciplinary, and so people trained in one department don't usually have any significant acquaintance with the other one necessary to do this work; and furthermore, the general attitude of scholars in at least one of the disciplines is dismissive about this area.

But I had a checkered undergradate past, and an interdisciplinary graduate education, and so I am in fact very well trained to do this work, besides having a native talent for the underlying skills. So it is easy for me. So easy that it doesn't really occur to me that not everyone finds it easy and fun, and that really I ought to be focusing my energies here and making a name for myself in this area.

I'm putting it on the list. Once I work through all the various current and sidelined projects, I will turn to this thing that is easy for me.

And because Profacero has sensitized me to the question of whom it serves to say that writing (or anything else) is hard, I am going to try to use this experience to adjust my own way of speaking. Rather than saying "X is hard," I will prefer "If you have good basic skills in Y and Z, and a talent for Q, then X is easy. And if you haven't got those basic skills in Y and Z, then you must work at acquiring them."

Some people will still find this discouraging, but the statement specifies what you need, and so even for those who lack the prerequisites, it may lead to the question "How do I get those skills?" rather than to the thought "oh, it's hard, I won't be able to."

Re-booting the semester

Even before Notorious Ph.D. suggested the theme of the re-set button, I had been thinking that I need to re-boot my semester. While I have achieved a couple of significant goals (submitting the fellowship application; adding some polish to a drafted chapter), other areas of my life have suffered: I'm slower than usual to return papers, am not exercising enough, and often don't get enough sleep. I'd like to start over and aim at a better balance for the remaining weeks of term.

Fortunately, I don't have any more conferences to go to (I think in general it is a mistake to go to conferences during term-time, at least in three-course semesters). And I have no more hugely significant deadlines, either. There are six more weeks, I guess, for the current ADNWG term, and about the same before I have to turn in a book review (IIRC; maybe I should check that e-mail).

Last week I was suffering a bit of let-down after getting the application done, and also from withdrawal symptoms (oh, am I not supposed to admit being a research addict?). I enjoyed the focus I needed to exert on the application and sample chapter, the feeling that this was the most important thing I had to do and that I could justify dropping everything else lower on the priority list. I also enjoyed having an external deadline, which forced me to put aside some of my perfectionist tendencies. Put those things together with a resolution made earlier this year to submit something, somewhere, in 2011, and I had to look over my various projects to see what I might be able to finish in the next couple of months.

(I know it's a good thing to have a book that really wants to be written, and I love the conference-paper-turned-book project. But I was so set on sending it out as an article this year. I want more publications!)

So there's the Macedonian Marginalia Project, which could probably be done in a couple of months; but not these months, when I need to catch up on grading and then prep and grade final exams and projects. I planned to work on the MMP in January-March 2012, and that still seems like a good idea. I will have two courses with the same prep in the spring, and (most likely) a lighter workload on my major committee; that will give me more head-space to think about a fairly complex project in which the argument stands or falls on tiny details. I'd like to wrap it up by spring break, on the theory that the second part of the semester tends to have more grading in it, and also that I will have at least one conference paper to prepare in the later spring.

Then there's the Unexpected Project that was a conference paper in the summer. When I got that digitized scan that proved I had a third manuscript to deal with, I got all excited and thought maybe that was the piece that I would push out the door by the end of December. And then I checked on what the manuscript actually is and realized that I have a huge problem with the dates, and because of that, I have far less of a viable draft than I had thought. I have to start all over on part of the research for that essay, which is rather discouraging. I wish I'd thought more about this third manuscript at some earlier stage. I knew it was a possibility, but no scholarly source I found said for certain it was the same hand, and I hadn't seen it myself, and so I just pushed the possibility aside and tracked something that seemed plausible. But "plausible" is now "provably wrong."

Another possibility for a submission this year was a note related to the Big Volume of Manuscript. But the issues involved are similar to those in the Unexpected Project, and so now I'm spooked about that kind of research and want to be very sure that I'm right before trying to publish anything along those lines. It's bad enough feeling that I've given conference papers that are so wrong; at least I didn't publish the incorrect Unexpected details.

Anyway, those were the options for alternate goals for this fall. And none is viable, so I'm back to Plan A: finish a decent draft of another chapter of the book, and work steadily if slowly on the Big Translation. It's a relief, really; my motto for the past few years has been "stick to Plan A," which works for both small and large plans. I can drive myself crazy thinking up alternate plans and wondering which would be best, for everything from "what to wear tomorrow" to much more significant decisions. I am so much happier when I make a plan and stick to it, with only minor modifications (if it's colder, wear a wool blazer instead of a linen one; if it rains, wear the rain boots; if short on sleep, stare at a draft of the writing project and tinker with sentences instead of trying to work on the organization).

As an aside, I think a lot of my difficulties with planning and organization are not native, but learned. For me, the Myers-Briggs categories explain a lot. By temperament, I'm fairly strongly J (in the sense of wanting plans and to stick to them; there are other elements to J-ness, and I think finer granularity in the sub-elements makes the MB types work better: when I took the test, each of the four axes had ten sub-elements), but I grew up with parents who must have been super-P. Thus I both had to learn to tolerate the chaos of our household and did not get any decent modeling of how to plan and stay organized. It's only relatively late in life that I've realized how stressful and irritating I find P-ness, in most areas. Sometimes I want to put off a decision while I collect information, but that is something I plan for, and once I make up my mind I don't want to revisit the decision.

Then wouldn't I just have stuck to the plan about the chapter all along? No, see, the original Plan A was to write an article, not a book. That's where the recent thrashing came from. Must. Have. Article. But no. The better part of valor, considering long-term goals, is to accept the change from article to book, and get a chapter finished this fall, so that I can cannibalize it for a conference paper in the spring (if that abstract is accepted) and have two reasonably complete chapters when I start (oh please oh please) a fellowship year of writing.

So the plan for the weekend was to get all caught up on stuff, get enough sleep, get enough exercise, and re-boot the semester this coming week. Goals: continue to write every day, but stop after half an hour or so (unless I really am caught up on everything else). Turn back papers promptly. Prep more thoroughly for the grad class. Exercise an optimal amount on non-teaching days, and a sub-optimal but acceptable amount on campus days. Set a manageable sleep schedule, and stick to it.

It's a great plan. Sadly, I think Sir John and I both accidentally got caffeinated coffee earlier today. So I'm still wide awake, and expect to be up for awhile yet. I have things to do, of course: grading, notes on books I want to get off my desk, planning. I may not get the sleep schedule sorted out this weekend, but I can at least get caught up (if I don't start remembering more things I have dropped the ball on!), and I'll keep working on the sleep thing.

Dating is hell

The new MS is all kinds of interesting, but there is a problem: since the hand is the same, and the MS is securely dated, my identification of last summer is wrong.

Just plain wrong. Impossible. Factually incorrect. As I said then, there's no way to hand-wave my way out of this.

At least I haven't made the claim in print. But still: a lot of research and clever connections that I thought had me well on the way to a cool publication, all that is right down the drain.

Calvinball. Humph. I think I just scored against my own side.

OMG ponies!!! Elebenty!!11!

A manuscript scan popped into my inbox this morning.

It's the same hand.

This is very exciting.

I know you have no idea what I'm talking about. But it's good news.

So I have to think about whether I'm sticking with my goal of finishing a book chapter this fall, or whether I want to get on with this other project while it's relatively fresh in my mind. There is a bit of a problem about visiting this other manuscript, given my teaching schedule. But that's a mere detail.

Writing, pacing, sports metaphors and aging

As usual, posting about progress and goals in ADNWG makes me want to write a very long comment that I wind up bringing back to my own blog. I've got a decent draft of my fellowship proposal, exactly the right length, which probably means my RL writing group will suggest substantial changes that will mean a lot more editing to get it back to length. But at least that much is done.

It got done, as I predicted, mostly in a series of baby steps. Monday: 264 words. Tuesday and Wednesday: tiny bits of tinkering, a new sentence or two, a spot of editing. Thursday: combined the new framework with the old chapter descriptions. Today: wrote the 100-word abstract (98 words: I am awesome at writing to length), and edited the rest of it so it "flowed," in undergraduate parlance, and came to the right length. It's funny how (reluctantly) cutting a phrase that I feel really does a good job of expanding the implications of what I just said actually makes the argument spring up sharp and clear. So I came to terms with what I thought I was losing in nuance.

There's a lot more stuff to do with the proposal, what I think of as technical details: bibliography for the project, CV (do I have a reasonably up-to-date version in normal format, rather than the weird format required for my annual reviews at school?), a form to fill in that basically reproduces a lot of CV info. This seems like good "tired work," things to do on days when I'm low energy, or when I couldn't manage to work when I was really sharp and am trying to do something useful in the evening just so I keep moving forward. Or maybe, to introduce the sports metaphors, this is my yoga work.

In my more energetic moments, I will work on revising my most complete chapter into a good sample chapter. This, then, would be the more vigorous running or cycling.

For a brief period, I was a runner, and I loved it. But then I hurt my ankle, and ever since have been cautious about weight-bearing exercise. Swimming is good. Long walks seem to be okay. Elliptical trainers, stair climbers, and exercise bikes seem to be okay. Jogging . . . iffy. So my marathons, or triathlons, whatever, are virtual, done in the gym. All the same, for a long time I have thought about writing/research in terms of training, keeping in shape with the daily stint, even if it's a 20-minute walk or 2-sentence writing session rather than an hour on the elliptical or 90 minutes of writing.

My body has been recalcitrant for a long time. It's hard to frame this suitably: I've never had anything the least bit life-threatening, nor even anything so immediately unpleasant as migraines, and the only meds I take regularly are for allergies. But on the other hand, I've never been very tough, either. When ADM says, "My digestive system seems more sensitive. I can’t drink as much as I used to be able to—and especially not if I want to avoid a hangover," I think, well, I've never been able to drink enough to have a hangover: I get sick long before drinking hangover-worthy quantities. And my digestive system has been sensitive since I was around 13, and since my mid-30s I've had to be very careful about, oh, let's call them "lifestyle issues." What I mean is, skipping the gym or powering through the day on caffeine are both right out, for me. I have to exercise and do yoga every day, and I have to limit caffeine severely, in order to remain functional. In some ways, I have the body of a person much older than I am; but since I've been dealing with this for over 10 years already, the "normal" aging issues just aren't hitting me that hard. (Knock on wood.)

So this is why I, personally, insist on that little-bit-every-day thing. The body is no better at coping with insane schedules and ridiculous amounts of work than it is with running an actual marathon. The metaphorical sprint wasn't really my thing even as an undergraduate. I've never been any good at pulling all-nighters. Even when I write at the last minute, I've been thinking and outlining for a long time. I can come up with a sprint every now and then if I really, really have to—or maybe I mean I can run if I really, really have to—but the rest of the time I want to be on the elliptical trainer instead of stressing my ankles and knees. The physical consequences of overwork are, indeed, very real.

Certainly I have days that fill up with teaching and meetings. It would be easy not to write on those days. It would be easy not to exercise, too. But I know how awful I'll feel if I don't at least go for a walk and do some stretching, and I know how much harder it will be to start in again on the writing if I take 2-3 days off. And I know it'll be easier to get through the meetings and the classes if I do some "actual real work" in the morning, before all the rest of the world starts demanding things of me.

This may also have something to do with what people think of as "actual real work." I am a conscientious teacher and committee member, but I am not gifted at either teaching or administration. Research is what I love, the reason I'm here and not working as a tax accountant on the west coast. I don't get to do it full time, but if I didn't do it at all I would be very unhappy. I am, at best, at mid-career: maybe a bit later than mid-. If I'm going to do something about what I love, it has to happen now. Today, and every day. A sentence at a time. Love has to manifest as commitment.

Done!

I finished the not-so-small task and sent it off to another team member today. My thoughtful estimate of the time it would take (as opposed to my initial off-the-cuff and off-the-mark guesstimate) was exactly right. I thought I would finish and send tomorrow, and if I had stuck to my plan of how much to do each day, I would have . . . but when I finished this morning's stint, knowing I was so close to being done, I went back to it this afternoon. It feels good to get it done.

Since the reward for a job well done is another job, I'll have something else to work on in tomorrow's writing time. I am trying to clear out several tasks not related to the article-turning-book project, so I can focus properly on that. Soon, soon.

A question: when you ask someone to write a recommendation letter for you, how long is it polite to wait for an answer? I know this is a busy time of year. That's why, if people are going to say no, I'd like them to say it so I can give other people a decent amount of lead time. Is a week enough time to think?

And we're off . . .

Faculty meeting, scanning, picking up a graduate exam to read, making copies, returning books, pulling books for reserves, such is the day ahead of me. I have turned in one syllabus, just minutes ago, though I can see that the other is going to get done over the weekend, and I have written 340 words.

I wish I didn't always revise my syllabi. Given the number of times I have taught Chaucer, you'd think I could just re-use one of the dozen or so old ones. But no, I always have to tinker. This year, we're starting with intensive language work, so the first three weeks need a lot of revision (and extra handouts and exercises, as well). After that the class will look a little more like past versions, but I'm still swapping a couple of Tales around, and the books are different, and I'm sure I'll think of some other things to mess with while I'm at it this weekend.

Of course I wish I'd done this long ago. I did start thinking about it long ago. But I wrote 15,000 words of what is going to be a monograph this summer. I haven't exactly been . . . no, actually, I have been, precisely, sitting on my ass. It's just that I was applying ass to chair in order to produce those words, not to produce an undergraduate syllabus.

Not-quite-random: books and writing update

My missing book revealed itself. It was not, after all, at school. Once I got back from campus, I found it hiding among the books about medieval reading, on a shelf below one of its more plausible homes. I don't think there's any book-list application that will reveal where I've absent-mindedly put a book when it isn't where it ought to be. This is why I want space for a proper LC-ordered library (and time enough to get all the books labeled and organized), so I'll put books back where they belong in the system, rather than stuffing them where there's room on a subject-related shelf. Or, in this case, near a subject-related shelf.

I really would put them back. I'm a little obsessive about proper shelving, once books are visibly coded.

My RL writing group thinks well of my outlines for mini-essays in my summer project. This is encouraging.

They also think one of the mini-essays should be a full-size essay of its own. This is, at the moment, discouraging. I'm hoping to feel better about it soon. After all, I've already done a lot of research and some organizing for such an essay. It's not as if I'd be writing from scratch.

But I already have another spin-off from this summer's project. It's not so closely related, but it's more exciting. And I'm trying to clear the decks so I can write the Putative Book that has been haunting me for years now.

While I'm wishing for a bigger study, view of trees, etc., I wish the Writing Elves would stop by now and then. I know it's no good hoping. They're undoubtedly terrified of Basement Cat.

Dame Eleanor Hull to the Lordly Elves of Scrivening sends greeting! I would let you know that Basement Cat is shut in his own room at night, and my study is available to you. It is true that the Grammarian sometimes sleeps there, but he's much more gentle than BC, and really I'd be willing to shut all the cats out of my study if you'd come and help with all my projects. Or even one of them. Please let me know what I should leave for you in exchange: milk as for brownies' household help? Whisky? Coffee and cookies? Quill pens made from doves' feathers? Genuine linen paper? Silken cushions upon which to rest between sessions? Your wishes are my commands. I remain your most humble and well-wishing servant.

Another use for spreadsheets

They're useful for keeping track of cognate manuscripts, and I'm setting up one to do that for a manuscript collection I've been working with for some time. As an aside, you can't tell that from my recent publications, as I've just realized, so I'm wondering what I could quickly throw together as a note, just to put something out there with my name on it and keep marking my territory. Discussions of scoopage at Notorious's place have me slightly spooked.

But anyway: a cognate manuscript is one that shares texts with another. Since the collection I have in mind is a large one, I'm not interested in manuscripts that share only one text with this one (though if you had a smaller batch of texts, you might be). Two or more shared texts, however, and I'm paying attention. So here a spreadsheet is very helpful: it's easily searchable, and gives a clear visual representation of which texts appear in different cognate manuscripts.

I think I'd need a three-dimensional spreadsheet to do a perfect job, because ideally I'd want to show all the contents of the other manuscripts, to indicate what they have that my main interest doesn't. I can imagine this in some sort of holographic device, color-coded so that the shared texts would really stand out. But I'm not so technologically inclined as to be able to create the holograph-cube.

I'll just make a note of it for my sci-fi novel about manuscript study . . . .

If the paper's crap . . .

I have reflected before that people who need to do archival research Elsewhere in the summer ought not to have gardens, or only the most self-sustaining kind (or hire gardeners, but then what is the point?). Alternatively, perhaps people with gardens ought not to go to libraries and so on that are Elsewhere in the height of growing season.

A large chunk of time today that might have been better spent on the paper went to finishing a chunk of digging and re-planting that I started two weeks ago and then bogged down on. If it were left till I get back, it would all be to do again, not to mention how dreadful it would look in the meantime. More weeding is called for, as is mulch in quantity, but I truly do not have time for that; I will just have to resign myself to hours more when I get back. But at least the front of the house looks like I made some effort.

Really I should leave things like collecting cat meds and cat litter to Sir John (and he'd be the first to say so), but I did those errands, too. So the garden is okay, and the cats have what they need, but I have yet to pack, and I feel I need more time with my books. But maybe the books are just a sort of security blanket.

Finishing the week

I was going to just do a boring post about what I've managed to do this week (not enough!) but Renaissance Girl's comment on my last post inspires me:

"Spreadsheet with data for article.

(blinks.)

(blinks.)

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a different field from...you know, other folks in my field."

Well, I am in a different field from other folks in my field! Maybe because I was once a STEM-field major. I'm a concrete rather than an abstract thinker. I don't get on well with theory. I like manuscripts because they're concrete things, and I like research projects where I can count things like corrections, or marginal comments, or uses of a particular language or type of vocabulary. For a long time, especially in grad school but continuing afterwards, people found me weird (or "naive"), and I struggled to be different (that is, more like the people who thought I was an unsophisticated thinker) but I have finally said, "Screw it, I'm doing what I do well (or at least what I love enough to work at)," and it's working for me.

That is, I like what I'm doing. Two acceptances in the last 6 months, both a bit outside my real field, but all the same, those decks are getting cleared. The article with the spreadsheet was a conference paper last year, that was solicited for a journal after a member of the editorial board heard it. I'm doing something right.

And I have to remind myself of that because the conference paper in progress is a hot mess. The initial stage, last winter, was so promising, but now I need all kinds of non-circulating material that is available only in places that take at least an hour to get to, mostly more. And in some ways work is going backward: a connection I thought was direct turns out to be a step-relationship, not blood, and that may be a problem. I have a feeling I'm going to be finishing up the research in the BL, in hours snatched between other scheduled library visits and meetings, and writing the final version of the paper on the train the day before I give it.

I still have a week before I leave. There's some time to sort some of this out. It will be all right.

It better be all right, because I really can't hand-wave my way out of this one. This is the problem with concrete, spread-sheetable research: you have it or you don't. And when you don't, it's obvious.

the promised boring post

The work report: there was some reading yesterday, but not much else. Errands, yeah, a bunch of those.

Up at 6:30 this morning, and I've taken notes on a book for the article in progress, added some more entries to a spreadsheet that has to do with data for that article, edited 104 lines of the translation, and . . . jeez . . . is that all? Renewed books. Ordered another book ILL. Sent some e-mail. Reviewed the present state of outlines for article-in-progress and for conference paper (for the latter, it's not so much an outline as a series of questions).

Tomorrow I'll be on campus again, and my plan this time is to do less bureaucratic stuff and make more use of my office's large monitor and high-speed internet connection. I need to do some searches of archives and staring at digitized MSS, and that's easier with my official equipment.

I had an idea for an actual interesting post, but when it didn't get my immediate attention, it wandered off somewhere into the ether. Sorry about that.

Travel plans

I found out this week that next summer, I will be teaching in one of LRU's summer-abroad programs, in the UK. Woot and all that—yes, it's awesome, and it's been 10 years since I got to do this, but as I've done it before and have a good friend who does it more often, I know that it is also a lot of work and a whole lot of interaction (morning noon and night) with students. In some ways, that can be a very good thing, but if you get a difficult person on the trip, it can turn nightmarish. And one has to be even more extremely focused and goal-oriented than at home in order to get any scholarly work done, even with one of the world's great libraries right down the street, because there are so many distractions, of both the teacherly and the historical/cultural kind.

But I am pleased, and I am trying to think about next summer's research (and conferences), and the class I'll be teaching, even as I begin to panic about this summer's work (more on that shortly). What will I be likely to be working on in a year's time?

As for actual travel plans, the trip that is still a year off keeps bleeding into the one that is coming up much sooner, as I think about what to pack, what arrangements to make, and how to get organized. Even at Kalamazoo, I had strong reasons to believe that the next-summer trip would happen; and unfortunately, I think knowing about it helped me procrastinate on things like booking places to stay this summer, because, of course, next year I'll have a place to stay, no booking necessary on my part. I'm bad about these things anyway, because I am so afraid of flying that anything that reminds me I will be flying creates considerable anxiety. So, although I arranged for my flight months ago, I put off dealing with the rest of the trip, hoping there would come a day when I felt stronger . . . . Well, there came a day, yesterday, when I was too panicky about the possibility of not having somewhere to stay that I faced up to the task. Panic strength works, too.

So I'm staying where I wanted to in London; and somewhere more expensive (but probably nicer) in the UK's Second City than I probably would if I'd booked months ago (query: do I delay on purpose so I have an excuse to stay in nicer hotels?); and have e-mailed a B&B elsewhere about availability. I really hope this last place comes through, because they have a cat. It would be nice to be able to indulge my addiction to felines while I'm gone.

This means that now I am free to panic over the conference paper (and oh boy am I doing that well, or at least plentifully). And, more generally, panic about trying to achieve as much as possible in the next 10 weeks because, once classes start, I will have only fairly short breaks between teaching responsibilities for the following 21 months.

One reason I like to get up early to write is that my conscious mind hasn't fully kicked in with all its anxieties. Another is so that I can get something done before Irritating People and Life Events can start getting in the way. Yesterday I got a bit of a late start; at least I read and took notes on an essay before the day started to go downhill. An unexpected House Thing required an urgent trip to the hardware store and time dealing with the Thing; an expected House Maintenance Guy did not show up in his window of opportunity, which meant a call to the company to complain and reschedule, and time hanging around the house (trying to work but getting distracted) when I could have been driving to campus or going to the gym. I achieved the most urgent things on campus, but stayed late to do so, and so I was up late last night, and then slept late and am dragging today.

Today, then, I think I need to do easy things, like taking notes and organizing bibliographies. Stuff that's useful but not brain-intensive. And hit the gym.

A mediocre day

I've been waking up before my alarm goes off, around 5:30, so last night I didn't set it. Whoops. I slept till almost 7:00. My plans also changed in that I decided last night not to go to school today but to put that trip off till Thursday (weather, cats, Sir John's schedule all figured into this decision). I don't adapt well to changes in plans, so maybe these two differences made it harder to stick to my usual routine today, on top of being done with the rough translation of my sample thousand lines (no point in going on with that, for now, though I could have either started with reading further or with polishing what I have).

Instead, I spent my work time today reading (skimming) various books and articles that I have around my study, looking to see what anyone has had to say about the topic I was working on yesterday. I also did a JSTOR search and downloaded three PDFs. They each have something relevant but not threatening. Many of the items I have looked at have similar tit-bits, useful for a quotation or a ritual footnote, but not something that steals my thunder. I have a few more books at home to look at, and I want to collect a few more from the library, but I'm feeling hopeful that my article in progress will contribute to another conversation about the author I'm studying.

All together, I have about 600 new words from today: all belonging to other people, which is why I'm calling this a mediocre day. Mediocre is fine; it's still forward progress, though I'll probably end up using only a fraction of today's words in the essay. And I worked during my scheduled work period, though with a late start, some longer-than-usual breaks, and a later end point. So I'm sticking to the plan in that way. I wish I had broken off at some point to work on the translation, or on the conference paper, but at the same time, I greatly enjoy the luxury of being able to spend a long time on a single task like this, being able to chase down ideas without losing the thread. That is something I'm rarely able to do while I'm teaching.

Reflections on this article-in-progress: despite an auditor's request, last year, that I submit a tidied-up version to a journal on whose editorial board he serves, I am glad that I'm taking the time to expand it to what I want it to be. I don't want to let it expand indefinitely, but I do want to do my "right" version of it, not my quicker-and-dirtier conference-paper version. I did expect the process to be shorter and easier than it is proving, but even though I'm still kind of in-the-middle-of-a-mess, with stints of outlining alternating with stints of free-writing and note-taking, I can see the pony starting to take shape under the heap of manure. I can see that there's progress, and I'm interested in what will happen as I continue my work.

A few years ago, I would have seen yesterday's insight as a suitable paper in itself, perhaps for a conference paper, perhaps a note somewhere. And that would not have been a bad thing, but I think making it part of a bigger argument is a better thing. I'm learning to be not just a better writer, but, I hope, a better thinker, and that is deeply satisfying. This is why I have workaholic tendencies, and am not very good about "real vacations," and have trouble explaining to non-academic friends why I don't want to take advantage of my "time off": this work is more "fun," for me, than most of what other people understand as "fun." I mean, if you offered me a good hike followed by a hot tub and a Bellini, I'd be there, but since there's nothing I consider good hiking within several hundred miles of here, I'm really happy to get up at the crack of dawn and surround myself with books and papers for hours. It's way better than going to a stupid movie or an over-loud party full of people I don't know who want to talk about what was on TV last night.

One of the key elements in what makes it fun is the time I have for it, since I'm not grading, not meeting classes, not showing up for committee meetings or reading piles of stuff to prepare for said meetings. Trying to do research in little snippets of time among other responsibilities is much more stressful, and I find it hard to shift gears from one thing to a very different kind of thing. Along with learning to be a better writer and thinker, I'm learning what kinds of work I can do in difference circumstances. This is along the lines of advice that Tenured Radical says she got from Paul Fussell: if what you can do is read, then read. If you have a day that can be spent on skimming the critical literature on a new topic, then do that. It's actually easier for me to spend 15-30 minutes between classes generating some prose on an interesting question I hope to answer in a conference paper than it is to read in that sort of a time slot. The work I achieved today would have taken me a week in term time.

Anyway, tomorrow I really do have to go to campus and take care of a lot of bureaucratic things, along with a raid on the library, and some teaching-related things like recommendation letters that I could do at home but hope I can get done at school. I'm still going to get up early and do my 6-8 a.m. stint, starting with translation-polishing, I think. Then Friday I'll be back to my usual routine, and I'll have to think about how to leave work wrapped up in such a way that just a couple of hours a day will suffice over the weekend. I actually don't like taking weekends completely off. One day, maybe; more than that, and I lose too many threads.

Starting out well

After reading all the comments here, I decided I should listen to Trevelia, Notorious Ph.D., and myself, and get myself onto my Ideal Schedule. Ideal Schedule has the added advantage of being good jet-lag-reduction preparation for my trip to England: if I'm going to bed at 3:00 a.m. Greenwich time, and getting up at noon there, it's a little easier to adapt than if I were going to bed at 6:00 a.m. Greenwich and getting up in mid-afternoon.

Even if I manage to shift back to 2:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. in the last few days before I leave, there will still be jet lag. It just isn't so cruel as it might be.

Anyway, I got to my desk by 6:00 a.m. local time, and today I have outlined another mini-essay section of the Summer Submission Project (suspiciously easily: will this one break down when I go to write it?), done some translating, begun to assemble bibliography for the better-read-fast conference paper (including putting in ILL requests), and taken some notes for the Pedagogical Project. That's an excellent day's work. Now it's time to stretch and exercise and enjoy a summer's day for awhile, before it's time to cook dinner and watch some cycling. And remember to go to bed early. That's the hardest part of the Ideal Schedule. I wish I could do without sleep, but that never works for me.

I'm hoping to get all the mini-essay chunks outlined this week. Also to finish 1000 lines of very very rough translation, and begin the polishing process. There must be more reading and note-taking. Much more. Starting tomorrow.