Throw in the towel, embrace that I am a crap scholar with no staying power and a fundamental inability to frame, in introductory fashion, the various threads of my arguments, and write poems about pretty flowers for the rest of my life.
UPDATE (four hours later...)
Okay. Scratch that.
I actually had a pretty good day, productivity-wise. If I can pull another couple of those before school, I may have enough Mo (as in -mentum) to push me through the year on this chapter.
The output today: four pages on antenicene theology--just for you, Moria. I realized that I really do have to lay the historical groundwork for the argument I'm going to make, even if I depart from prior critical approaches to the issue. So that means: repeat some stuff that other scholars have said. But I'm also adding some other cool stuff (most of the antenicene material, frinstance) and making sure that the material that DOES retread is colored by the present project's concerns rather than just offering a "here's how this little corner of theology evolved in the Reformation" summary.
So. I guess the flower poems will have to wait a year or two.
(Actually, I am also working on a flower poem. But it's not so much pretty as creepy and pornographic and grotesque and, you know, secretly about representation. 'Cause that's how I roll.)
Portrait of Clara (as a chemist)
3 weeks ago
10 comments:
omg!
you too?
I would also add "birds," "weather," and "the seasons" to the subjects about which you might write poems for the rest of your life. Also, "my feelings."
And that would be *my* plan, right there.
Umm, LisaB, have you read my most recent book? Leave off "my feelings," and you've pretty much nailed my repertoire.
I call bullshit. Because that is what blogfriends are for. (?)
It's August. August should be banned.
Meanwhile, hugs.
tee-hee! But you frame blog posts so beautifully!
Noooo! Because if you do that, I'll have to do likewise. Having just been surfing for comfortable administrative jobs, I know the temptations of luxuriant despair. Keep going!
Wait...methinks you've done it. First comes the despair and almost-giving-up, THEN comes the Turning Point. At least that's an important part of my process. In fact, I'm wallowing in the despair part right now re: a project, so am very impressed that you made the turn in 4 hours!
Happy Future Writing!
Hello,
Hope you don't mind me butting in, but I wanted to let you know that I think your approach to the background problem sounds good. Outlines always feel much stronger to me when they're doing something productive for the project rather than just repeating prior wisdom, even if it's necessary as background. I especially admire the ones where the outline of the background or other approaches to the topic is used to expose underlying problems in the way the ideas have been conceived in prior work, and which provide a motive force for the argument undertaken in the study. Where it's done carefully, with recognition of the value of past work, despite its flaws, I think it's a great way to work through what might otherwise be a bit trying to read and write.
Anelida
Welcome, Anelida, and thanks for your encouragement.
I sometimes question the logic of this blog, which ends up recording the vicissitudes of my dysfunctional relationship with my book, but perhaps having that mess on display is useful, too. Helps to remind me that moods--euphoric and despairing alike--pass.
They do pass -- like a kidney stone. Ugh.
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