Momentum

So the move to a new home completely thwarted a great deal of momentum that I was building up on my research. This should have been totally self-evident at the beginning of the process of selling, buying, moving, and settling in, but for whatever reason, my incurable optimism had me pairing those processes with a spate of writing projects, some of which got done, and some of which were left over for, well, now.

I only taught one course this spring, since I was on a pre-tenure course release (not a sabbatical at all). The course was the theatre tour which was unexpectedly involving in terms of time resources, and so along with the move, I really didn't have as much time, or more importantly, mental resources, to really dig into a lot of writing. I did get about 70 pages of the book manuscript into good shape, and I did a long talk for Nels' classes that will result in a publishable essay with a week's work or so, but hardly the goals I'd set for myself...indeed, hardly the deadlines that others had set for me.

So since the move two-plus weeks ago, I've had to re-emerge, find my bearings and get soem writing done before the Junebug arrives in about 3 weeks. So far, I've been able to manage my share of the last set of editorial tasks for the co-edited collection, which was mostly mindless, but important (acknowledgements, bibliography edits, pagination, bios, index edits, etc.). And now I am on to an article that was due, technically, March 31. I asked for an extension of a couple of weeks which was generously granted, but a couple of weeks has blossomed into seven. I am back at that particular grindstone, and have recently really gotten back down to work. Yesterday, i wrote about four new pages, and with a few days worth of work, hope to have a complete draft in hand--ideally by the end of the week. If that gets done (just a bit longer than Sisyphus's Magical Month of Academic Publishing), then I'll feel a little bit better about this process, and will dig into the book manuscript as much as possible before being the father of three intervenes, as it undoubtedly will.

In a sense, this very post is meant to be a warm up for writing the next section, and so I should close now, and devote the time and word count to writing about the politics of staging terrorism. Here's to new momentum...