Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Parts on the Floor

In between posts about gyms, bodies and weight loss, I am supposed to be re-writing this essay for the collection I'm editing. I presented an introductory version of the essay at a conference last summer, and it will likely be published online in the very near future. But that was only a 14 page version, and this version needs to be significantly more substantive.

So all this blogging is clearly a distraction from the other windows open on my computer: an outline, and old version of the essay, a document with chunks of the old version copied into the outline, but in an order no longer coherent, with huge gaps. Around me are new articles and books to consider and copies of the old essay with comments from the faculty research group.

This was supposed to be my first big project of the summer, and I want it done by the end of May. keep your fingers crossed, because instead of this essay being a smoothly running machine, right now it's just disassembled parts on the floor.

4 comments:

Tiruncula said...

I have parts on the floor, too. What an excellent metaphor. You have my sympathies!

(I was a little afraid when I saw the title that this was going to be about gyms, bodies, etc., and hence t.m.i.)

Horace said...

Heh. Yes, that would be TMI!

Dr. Crazy said...

Sometimes when I'm in that place I find it's good to take just one section of the outline and to deal with it - close all the other windows, just have one document with that section and hammer it out. You might try that.

Also, although I don't tend to use the blog for accountability most of the time, when I really have to get something done, I do find it's useful to warm up each morning with a big post that talks about all of what I'm planning to do and then to post updates - it helps to get the support, and it also helps to have a "break" that has me still thinking about work.

But you can do it! You can! Keep the faith!

(And yes, the parts on the floor metaphor is a superb one!)

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