There Is No Try, Only Do

You know those days when you seem to be running your ass off all day, but at the end, you feel like you've gotten nothing accomplished, and are perhaps even further behind than you were before? I know that I, at least, have them quite frequently.

Well, don't hate me, but: yesterday for me was the opposite of that day. I wrote over 600 words. I finished one last little touch-up edit on an essay that I'm going to send off today. I got the last of my grocery shopping done, riding my bike for the 30-min round trip so I even got some exercise in. And I still had time left over to set up a Goodreads library, make a delicious soup, read a bit for fun, and take a hot bath. And even with all that, I felt relaxed, with effort to spare.

Now, a day of effortless productivity is something I am NOT taking for granted -- in fact, the fact that I'm blogging about it should let you know that I recognize how extraordinary this is. But it reminds me of something my yoga instructor said in a class this week. I can't quote it exactly, but as we were doing some sort of difficult-for-me pose, she noted that "this pose can be difficult to hold because you're trying so hard."

Hm.

Just Not Feeling it Today

You know what? I plan not to write today.

I feel a twinge of guilt. I want to be a "write a little every day" person. But today, I'm just not feeling it. And even though I'm stuck at home all day waiting for a UPS delivery,** I just don't feel so into the writing.

I can't let one day become a week, and a month, and so on. But today, I need to not think about the documents and what they're saying. So my "three things" list for today doesn't feature the standard "write 600 words." I don't think that's such a bad thing. Except that maybe I do, or else I wouldn't be blogging it.

Whatevs. Here's a photo of people reading things:




**A pair of sensible work shoes, and a yoga mat to replace the one that was stolen (WTF? Who steals a yoga mat?), if you care.

Welcome to my "Process"

You know what I'm totally proud of in the 3-plus year history of this blog? My First Book Chronicles. Yeah, I'm enamored with my own wit and trenchant observations in the other posts, and there are all those pretty pictures (especially from the research trips), but the Chronicles are really the only part, so far, that might constitute a contribution to other academic writers trying to get a piece of creative work finished and into the light of day.

Creative work: My niece in action

But the one thing about the Chronicles is that they begin in the middle. I started this blog when I'd just won (but had not begun) a residential fellowship year to revise my first book MS. What you missed was the beginning of the whole thing, all the anxious fumbling that took place during the dissertation stage, the trying-to-figure-out-what-it-means as it became a book, the constant rearrangements, the grant writing...** In other words, what's missing is what real writers would call my "process." Now, perhaps you don't care about my process. And why should you? I won't be able to say whether it's a good model to follow until if and when the thing is actually a book. But you know what? If I keep writing this blog for the next five years, you're going to get a book project from start*** to finish. So -- appropriately enough, almost exactly a year from the first post on this new project -- here goes:

Since returning from Puddletown, I've been reacquainting myself with my writing. The goal has been to pick a few related documents every day, and to spend a couple of hours freewriting on them, with a goal of getting 600 words a day. Some days I get more; some days (like today) I fall slightly short. But I did crack 20,000 words a couple of days ago. Granted, these are "shitty first draft" words, really little more than freewriting. But I'm back to writing my way in.

Better yet: last night, I wrote up my first-ever rough outline of the project. Now, this is going to be the first of many, I know for a fact. That is the way of things. The project will organize and reorganize and take twists and turns. And I can't let myself think of this first outline as anything other than a guide, a set of rules made to be broken. In fact, I sincerely hope it will change and evolve, because right now, it's got no flash. But it's something.

Want to see it? Okay, here it is:

• Introduction (8,000 words)
• ch. 1: Background: The history of tuna-herding, and the great tuna mortality (8,000 words)
• ch. 2: tuna-herding in local/urban context -- social dimensions (20,000 words)
• ch. 3: tuna-herding in regional context -- political tensions (20,000 words)
• Interlude: sexy topic they made a movie about once (10,000 words)
• ch. 4: tuna-herding in broader "international" context (20,000 words)
• Conclusions (4,000 words)

Yeah, that's a bit short for a monograph, but it'll get bigger, likely. Maybe I'll just say "indeed" a lot. Each of the regular chapters also breaks down into two parts, so there may be a couple of article possibilities there, but really the interlude might make the best article.

To paraphrase something CPP once said in a comment thread here: "Saddle up, motherfuckers: WE RIDE!"


**Hell, you even missed a portion in my post-dissertation research where my entire fucking computer was stolen in a bus station. Complete with all my data, passport, credit cards -- my whole goddamned life in that foreign land. That, my friends, was dramatic.

***For "start," you could start here, with a typically anxiety-driven post. Or you could just click on the "another damn book" tag.

Open Thread: Happy Thoughts!

Hello, dear readers!

Well, the last couple of days have brought a few bits of downer news. Nothing serious, but things that are really harshing my mellow. I started this academic year trying to focus on the positive, but as the spring semester approaches, I find that events are making me cranky. Not a good way to kick things off.

In short: I could use some happy thoughts, and maybe others could, too. So I'd like to invite everyone to use the comment thread to post good news. I'll get started:

1. I've just heard through the grapevine that at least one review of my book is likely to be positive. Which is not to say that others won't; only that this is the one bit of advance news that I have. Also, the book recently cracked 100 libraries, which I suspect is pretty good for the first six months of a medieval book in this age of shrinking library budgets (and if it's not, then please don't tell me).
   
2. I'm really enjoying my new yoga studio -- lots of good, positive energy there, and I like how I'm getting physically stronger and more confident in the poses as I go along.
3. Still loving the new glasses.
4. An undergraduate who I've watched progress from good to excellent over the past few semesters has applied to work with me in the M.A. program.
5. My new foster nephew, who has faced more challenges than anyone ought to in their first twelve months of life, has found a loving home with my brother and his family, and is starting to thrive.
   

The new member of the family, gettin' into it.

I'll probably think of more, once my mood lifts. How about you? What's going well for you? What are you looking forward to?

Interrupting your conference weekend...

...to ask that we spend a few days at least consciously practicing whatever is the opposite of anger. Please.

To My Friends and Readers in Lit Fields...

...happy MLA to everyone! May the papers be good, and the socializing better. May you get the discount copy of that book you've always wanted but never been able to afford. May those of you with interviews impress the holy hell out of those hiring committees while remaining true to yourself. And may your eyewear be the most stylish of anyone's there.

Newly purchased nerdy-chic glasses: my way of being with my
infinitely hipper MLA brethren & sistren in spirit.
(And also of being able to actually, you know, see things.)

Cleaning House (NOT a New Year's Metaphor, I Promise)

As the parenthetical subtitle says: this is NOT a New Year's post about metaphorical housecleaning. This is a post about real housecleaning as a single person, a woman, and an ostensibly upper-middle-class person.

This post was inspired by an offhand comment overheard in the coffee shop I'm currently sitting in: one of the baristas, as she went out to clean the condiment counter, noted that she'd "called the maid about doing it." This was by way of a funny: we, the comment said, are the ones who do the cleaning-up. Household help is something so utterly foreign as to be silly. The foreign-ness comes partly from being a 20-something working in a coffee shop, but also, I suspect, from being a person living in this particular neighborhood in this particular city. Since this is the city and the neighborhood I grew up in, I felt myself included in the unspoken "we."

I thought most people in my peer group were like me. And here in Puddletown, they are. But do you know what? The four academic women I am closest to in my department all have someone clean their houses** once every one to two weeks. Granted, one of them only has a housecleaner because her husband had one, and when she moved in with him, the housekeeper was already installed. But honestly, I was shocked. Because all of a sudden, the thing I thought was a joke had become normal. I found myself an "us" on the "them" side of the line (or the other way around, depending on your point of view).

Now, "Why do people have housekeepers?" is a question with many answers. "Why do professional women have housekeepers?" is one I can answer myself: Because they'd rather be doing something else, and no one else is going to do it for them. And I can certainly appreciate that on an intellectual level, and don't begrudge any woman the choice of what to do with her own hard-earned money. If my friend is using her money to buy her way out of scrubbing the toilet, I can totally get behind that.

So, at this point, the question is: "Why don't I, when other people do?" Here's what I've come up with -- admittedly off the top of my head while on the second cup of coffee:

• I can't afford it.
• Okay, so maybe I could, but I'd have to give up something else that I value more than paid domestic labor.
• The Gender Thing: I have a hard time paying women in particular to do things that I've always successfully done for myself. This is why I only rarely get pedicures; the image of a woman more or less on her knees for me just to earn a lousy couple of bucks makes me want to scream with outrage.
• The Class Thing: I feel like I'd be exploiting the people I came from. Yes, I'd be providing employment, and any work is good work in these times. And I could pay a real living wage and tip generously. Yet somehow, it just feels wrong.
• The Race Thing: See both "class" and "gender" reasons, above. Since most "house help" in the Grit City area are immigrant women, all the above reasons apply here.
• I rent 500 square feet. Really, doesn't hiring someone to clean a teeny-tiny space that I don't even own seem like overkill?
• I'm the kind of person who takes perhaps unreasonable pride in doing for herself whenever possible. I can change my own bicycle tire; I can navigate my way solo around a foreign city's bus system; I can damn well sweep my own floors.
• I can't live in disorder, clutter, or filth, but do I really need floors I could eat off of at any given moment? If my bathtub or kitchen floors are only really thoroughly cleaned every two to three weeks, will something bad happen? Does anyone really look at the baseboards? The answer to all three, I've concluded, is: Probably not.

So, I guess that's kind of it. For me, personally, it's a list compelling enough to ensure that I will keep on doing my own half-assed housecleaning. So come on over to Casa Notorious, help yourself to what's in the kitchen... and keep your line of sight well above the level of the baseboards, okay?

Happy New Year, everyone.


**For what it's worth: 1 full-sized house, 2 two-bedroom condos, 1 two-bedroom apartment; all are women living with their spouses, no children, and no pets. If that makes a difference.