As I mentioned, the Book and I are on a break right now. I've been working on an article on an entirely different subject, and what has been most amazing to me in this process is how much freaking fun I'm having! I've now finished the article and mailed it off to what I think is its appropriate home (we'll see, whatever), and I felt nothing but pleasure in mailing it off, but not in the way that would indicate a sudden unburdening, a sigh of relief. Rather, the pleasure of having written something good and then, without fanfare or crisis, finishing it.
This sensation has been, a bit, lost for me in the process of writing the Book. I have at various times felt exhausted by the Book, exasperated, overwhelmed, overmastered, and outclassed. I have at times felt like my entire human potential dangled from the Book's thin thread. And it made me forget how much pleasure there is in writing a persuasive argument about something cool you've noticed. There's something exciting about seeing some old text in a new way and drawing other folks' attentions to that new discovery.
I have another essay that I must get to work on, due at the end of the summer. And instead of feeling laden and stressed about writing it, I'm really just looking forward to it. This may be, after all, the fun part.
I may actually have landed in the right profession after all.
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4 comments:
Yes, it's such a relief to find the fun part of thinking and writing again, and so hard when you're up against the sense that you need to get the big project done to give you a fighting chance to get anywhere. And it's so easy to forget too - one reason why I'm not going to beat myself up about getting off the leash for a bit, because otherwise, you just end up in a rut faster. Pleasure's so much more productive than 'ought to', but you can't force yourself to feel it, and it's so easy to push too hard.
Why, this little writerly/scholarly story has cheered me right up (I was already kind of in a good mood anyway, but still). Yay! Yay you!
"There's something exciting about seeing some old text in a new way and drawing other folks' attentions to that new discovery." YES YES YES! Congrats, RG! Hope you're celebrating in fun ways.
This makes me happy.
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