Argh.
It is week 8 (seriously? already?) of Another Damned Notorious Writing Group and I have been tootling around my article instead of working on job apps or grading essays. It's really getting there, if you look at it from one direction; if you look at it from another direction, there's a long long way still to go. This is what I hate about writing ---- how do you know when you are done? When can you cross off a writing task from your day's to-do list?
Anyway, I need to get this article movin' along. I need faster progress than I have been doing. But I'm not going to be able to do the tough parts of revising late at night when I am so tired I can't see straight, so I am making a big list of stupid little fixes I need to make and I will work on those in the evenings.
I have a journal all picked out that I really really want to get published in even though I find them snooty and I hate them. Oh, and they have rejected my articles before. And were obnoxious. And yet their articles are delicious tasty mental snacks and I want to be listed alongside those big name snooty-mac-snoots. So one of my little mindless tasks is to find their submission guidelines and suggested article length and make a list of biblio stuff to finish.
I had forgotten these idiots use Chicago Style. Oh fuck me.
Do you know how many freakin' parenthetical citations are in this damn thing??? This is gonna be a mess.
Showing posts with label Another Damned Notorious Writing Group. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Another Damned Notorious Writing Group. Show all posts
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Another Damned Notorious Writing Group Week 2: Haha!
I am going to declare my week's goal met ---- fix all the bolded parts of sections 1 and 2 ---- even though I am still missing a subhead title for the section. Titles don't really come to me when I think about them but appear on their own time instead, so I don't want to hold things up while waiting. I have a list of nouns; maybe I could thumbtack them up over my bed and the perfect witty phrase will drift into my mind while I am sleeping.
So last week I was complaining about time to write, and just the overall exhaustion of teaching four classes when you are making them do piddly homework and quiz crap every day. And I just got essays, oh god! Wait, don't let me distract myself. Anyway, I tried putting in a short writing period immediately after my yoga practices and it sorta works but it is a far from ideal situation. Monday I skipped yoga but got in 30 minutes of revising; Wed I did a short yoga and did 30 min of revising; and today I skipped yoga and spent all day except for when I was actually collecting my essays revising. Hmm. And yes, this blog really is going to get this boring for the next few weeks. Maybe if you are lucky I will take pictures of my cats and pretend they are in yoga poses. That's as exciting as it's gonna get.
Part of the problem there is I slipped and fell and banged up my knee, which still has a massive scab like I am five. It made doing any sort of yoga that involved kneeling impossible. And then I went straight into cramps for my period and that just adds to the amount of self-discipline I need to make me get up at 6 am and actually do exercise. Dammit. I don't want to fall off the exercise habit, not when I spent so long building it up this summer! I will do a make-up session tomorrow morning and see if that helps get be back on track.
Writing between exercising and teaching isn't the best spot either, since I want to do it undisturbed at home yet feel very worried and antsy until I actually make it on campus and know that nothing is going to prevent me from getting there ---- I know, I'm such a worrier, what the hell can I do about it? ---- but at least I kept my mind semi-involved in the article and on track and polished up a few bits. I would never be able to do this at the writing stage, so I am soooo glad I got it pretty much drafted before school hit. No, wait, I am pissed that I only got it mostly drafted! I wanted to send that completely polished fucker out and not have to deal with it during the school year! Ah well. Make the best of whatever stupid situation you find yourself in, I guess.
Ok, now I know I promised to say how I found stuff and finally read the "scoop" article which is not actually on my argument or even particularly interesting, and I will, some day, but those will go in my "lit review" section and other than that the lit review is pretty much done. So it is not next on my to-do list. Nope, the center subsection is next and it is a mess --- there are two pages that basically need writing (as in they are a bulleted to-do list) and the rest are very rough and drafty. I must get this section polished next. So that is my goal for next week for the ADNWG! Actually, I think, given the roughness of the section, that I will need two weeks on it, so: I will have it half done on Fri, Sept 30, and completely polished up on Fri, Oct 7. If I then take two weeks on the final section and one week on the intro/lit review stuff, I could be done with it by the end of Oct and then just go proofy-proofy and fix up the bibliography. I do think that schedule will slide a bit though as I hit even more grading and do some damn job apps. Argh. In fact, I want to work on this all day tomorrow, but think I will have to do job app stuff instead. Double argh.
Anyway, if I wasn't always tired and overwhelmed and trying to get out from under one pile of something or another, I'd be able to tell you something interesting. Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath, because these days, when it comes down to a choice between blogging and taking a nap, blogging is coming in a distant second.
So last week I was complaining about time to write, and just the overall exhaustion of teaching four classes when you are making them do piddly homework and quiz crap every day. And I just got essays, oh god! Wait, don't let me distract myself. Anyway, I tried putting in a short writing period immediately after my yoga practices and it sorta works but it is a far from ideal situation. Monday I skipped yoga but got in 30 minutes of revising; Wed I did a short yoga and did 30 min of revising; and today I skipped yoga and spent all day except for when I was actually collecting my essays revising. Hmm. And yes, this blog really is going to get this boring for the next few weeks. Maybe if you are lucky I will take pictures of my cats and pretend they are in yoga poses. That's as exciting as it's gonna get.
Part of the problem there is I slipped and fell and banged up my knee, which still has a massive scab like I am five. It made doing any sort of yoga that involved kneeling impossible. And then I went straight into cramps for my period and that just adds to the amount of self-discipline I need to make me get up at 6 am and actually do exercise. Dammit. I don't want to fall off the exercise habit, not when I spent so long building it up this summer! I will do a make-up session tomorrow morning and see if that helps get be back on track.
Writing between exercising and teaching isn't the best spot either, since I want to do it undisturbed at home yet feel very worried and antsy until I actually make it on campus and know that nothing is going to prevent me from getting there ---- I know, I'm such a worrier, what the hell can I do about it? ---- but at least I kept my mind semi-involved in the article and on track and polished up a few bits. I would never be able to do this at the writing stage, so I am soooo glad I got it pretty much drafted before school hit. No, wait, I am pissed that I only got it mostly drafted! I wanted to send that completely polished fucker out and not have to deal with it during the school year! Ah well. Make the best of whatever stupid situation you find yourself in, I guess.
Ok, now I know I promised to say how I found stuff and finally read the "scoop" article which is not actually on my argument or even particularly interesting, and I will, some day, but those will go in my "lit review" section and other than that the lit review is pretty much done. So it is not next on my to-do list. Nope, the center subsection is next and it is a mess --- there are two pages that basically need writing (as in they are a bulleted to-do list) and the rest are very rough and drafty. I must get this section polished next. So that is my goal for next week for the ADNWG! Actually, I think, given the roughness of the section, that I will need two weeks on it, so: I will have it half done on Fri, Sept 30, and completely polished up on Fri, Oct 7. If I then take two weeks on the final section and one week on the intro/lit review stuff, I could be done with it by the end of Oct and then just go proofy-proofy and fix up the bibliography. I do think that schedule will slide a bit though as I hit even more grading and do some damn job apps. Argh. In fact, I want to work on this all day tomorrow, but think I will have to do job app stuff instead. Double argh.
Anyway, if I wasn't always tired and overwhelmed and trying to get out from under one pile of something or another, I'd be able to tell you something interesting. Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath, because these days, when it comes down to a choice between blogging and taking a nap, blogging is coming in a distant second.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Another Damned Notorious Writing Group Week 1: It could have been worse
At least, I think it could have been worse. Part of the problem is that this is not week 1 at school for me, but week 4, and I have gotten stacks of essays from all four of my classes already. Yeah, I know, I am the one scheduling and so on, but really, if you need the comp students to do 4 essays in a semester, you don't really have that much leeway for scheduling since stuff is going to be constantly coming in. Plus I have stacks and stacks of quizzes and homeworks I need to at least check off that they did them (these are the other classes) which is also kinda weighing on me right now.
On the happier side, my Fruit Studies class is doing all the reading, brings their books and loves to talk, so that class is such a joy compared to the last time I taught it. And the stripey class just got an average of zero on their first quiz and I pointed out that getting a zero on the midterm would probably be A Bad Thing, so I'm hoping that this lesson has now been learned.
Anyway, Floyd the article. I worked on Floyd last weekend and Monday, and then was buried by grading all week. I always feel so harried and behind on it and have anxious students wondering how soon they will get material back. But! They are only part of my job. And i need to make sure I make time for my article writing and my job search applying. (Applicating? whatever.) So my goal is, even more importantly than cleaning up the middle sections, to look at my schedule and my semester assignment schedule and give some priority time to revising. As part of that, I promise to write first thing tomorrow morning, as soon as my coffee has kicked in, and then do my planning.
(I am most willing to do unpleasant or stressful stuff first thing in the morning --- my "sweet spot" for energy and alertness. But so far this semester I have missed only one 6 am MWF yoga dvd session, and I really don't want to give that up. But there's not really time afterwards to do anything besides shower and go to teach, and I won't do anything so unpleasant as exercise at any other time of the day. Get it over with and off the plate, you know. Will have to ponder this.)
I looked on the MLA Job List and it was like lancing a boil: painful but great afterwards. I haven't had the urge to look at it again or do any applicating since. I mean, I printed out anything that looked remotely possible and put it in my big binder organized by due date, so I know when the apps are going to start coming due. It's just strange to me how I had to *know,* like I was worried there would not be any jobs at all on the JIL and once I reassured myself I could stop compulsively checking to see if it was up. I'm weird, I know.
I am so tired. Later I will tell you about The Scooped Article That Totally Was Not, and the Potential Exciting Crazy Thing I accidentally discovered about my author. Now, though, I'm going to bed. ZZZZZZ.
On the happier side, my Fruit Studies class is doing all the reading, brings their books and loves to talk, so that class is such a joy compared to the last time I taught it. And the stripey class just got an average of zero on their first quiz and I pointed out that getting a zero on the midterm would probably be A Bad Thing, so I'm hoping that this lesson has now been learned.
Anyway, Floyd the article. I worked on Floyd last weekend and Monday, and then was buried by grading all week. I always feel so harried and behind on it and have anxious students wondering how soon they will get material back. But! They are only part of my job. And i need to make sure I make time for my article writing and my job search applying. (Applicating? whatever.) So my goal is, even more importantly than cleaning up the middle sections, to look at my schedule and my semester assignment schedule and give some priority time to revising. As part of that, I promise to write first thing tomorrow morning, as soon as my coffee has kicked in, and then do my planning.
(I am most willing to do unpleasant or stressful stuff first thing in the morning --- my "sweet spot" for energy and alertness. But so far this semester I have missed only one 6 am MWF yoga dvd session, and I really don't want to give that up. But there's not really time afterwards to do anything besides shower and go to teach, and I won't do anything so unpleasant as exercise at any other time of the day. Get it over with and off the plate, you know. Will have to ponder this.)
I looked on the MLA Job List and it was like lancing a boil: painful but great afterwards. I haven't had the urge to look at it again or do any applicating since. I mean, I printed out anything that looked remotely possible and put it in my big binder organized by due date, so I know when the apps are going to start coming due. It's just strange to me how I had to *know,* like I was worried there would not be any jobs at all on the JIL and once I reassured myself I could stop compulsively checking to see if it was up. I'm weird, I know.
I am so tired. Later I will tell you about The Scooped Article That Totally Was Not, and the Potential Exciting Crazy Thing I accidentally discovered about my author. Now, though, I'm going to bed. ZZZZZZ.
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