Sunday, November 8, 2009

Glory Hallelujah

Last night, around a half past midnight, three minutes after I had turned off the computer for the night (isn't that always the way?), it suddenly hit me** how I could make my conference paper not suck.

Twenty minutes ago, I finished a revision of said paper. It's not going to change anybody's world, but I'm now fairly certain that I will not embarrass myself or Esteemed Adviser at the upcoming conference.

((sigh of relief))


**I know that good writers avoid the passive voice like the plague. But I just can't bring myself to claim agency in these late-night inspirations. They happen to me.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The "no passive voice" rule is just another of those Strunk & White shibboleths that lead to what the people at Language Log have named "nervous cluelessness"

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1357

("It hit me" isn't passive voice anyway--the passive voice version would be "I was hit by it." The distinction has to do with whether the verb is assigned to the actor or the acted-upon. But it can be ignored [passive] or [active] you can ignore it.)

Notorious Ph.D. said...

RootlessC, you're totally right. That is active voice.

Comrade PhysioProf said...

At least you had the fucking sense to get right back on the motherfucking computer. I can't tell you how many times I have had a Nobel Prize-winning idea after turning in, and told myself to remember it in the morning. So far, still no Nobel Prize.

Susan said...

Congratulations. I think it's interesting when we get those late night inspirations -- last week I woke up at 3:30 AM when I was leaving the house at 5 AM and realized how to focus MY conference presentation. I think it's that it's all in our head, and we let go of control, and then we can think.