favorite quote, and other things
ok, it's a Ray Bradbury Quote:
"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."
Words to live by. And be lost in. And somehow I always imagine being drunk on words means being consumed by them, letting them flow over you in a crazy wave that gets inside your head and spins it around. Much better than the mundane dramas of the day to day that threaten and cajole and steal attention and brain power and will.
Also, from Dune, the litany against fear:
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing....only I will remain"
Which is just awesome, I mean, seriously, I've actually said it to myself on occasion. And it does kind of help, or at least I've found it so.
I just wish my favorite quotes weren't kind of a sausage fest. But I did also mention Anne McCaffrey in my last post, so, you know, the ladies are here somewhere.
BTW, this post is actually brought to you by sleep deprivation, as I'm going on two nights running with only 5 hours sleep. And I caffeinated two hours ago, so while the part of my consciousness that lives right behind my eyes has gotten fuzzy and a little mentally hurdy-gurdy, the buzz will probably keep me awake till 3 tonight as well.
It's the heat. We're in our second of four days of 95 or better degree heat, and while it has cooled off at night, it hasn't quite done it fast enough for my body to feel sleep ready. I'm going to have to switch back to taking a shower at 11 pm, just before i go to bed. The Japanese way.
I'm also up tonight because I've set a 'must complete five pages on the dissertation a day' goal for the next 10 days. Today was my first day, so we'll see what happens for the future. I'm not actually expecting to write five pages every day: I have something like 70-80 pages worth of text I'm trying to smoosh into coherency. So I wrote two, and reused three. We'll see if that process can hold up all the way through this chapter, which is supposed to be a simultaneous theoretical proposition and a cultural history approach to Japanese SF, all the while comparing it with American SF.
The cool part is my dissertation reading group today actually gave me an example of someone else doing the same thing on a different topic! It was like a little miracle. I'm trying to learn from the criticism we gave that piece (which was awesome - she's doing an intervention into the history of the notion of "lesbian" in the 1970s through feminist SF (and some films, but I was all about the feminist SF)).
Hilariously looking back on what I wrote tonight for dissertation, I totally paid attention to some of the rules (make your argument first, then engage with the stuff that allows you to make it - or the stuff that requires you make it) while forgetting others (hello structure! i forgot to explain what i'm doing). Guess that will be on the menu for tomorrow. Or when i edit in 10 days.
also posted to katekat on dreamwidth | you can reply here or there
"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."
Words to live by. And be lost in. And somehow I always imagine being drunk on words means being consumed by them, letting them flow over you in a crazy wave that gets inside your head and spins it around. Much better than the mundane dramas of the day to day that threaten and cajole and steal attention and brain power and will.
Also, from Dune, the litany against fear:
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing....only I will remain"
Which is just awesome, I mean, seriously, I've actually said it to myself on occasion. And it does kind of help, or at least I've found it so.
I just wish my favorite quotes weren't kind of a sausage fest. But I did also mention Anne McCaffrey in my last post, so, you know, the ladies are here somewhere.
BTW, this post is actually brought to you by sleep deprivation, as I'm going on two nights running with only 5 hours sleep. And I caffeinated two hours ago, so while the part of my consciousness that lives right behind my eyes has gotten fuzzy and a little mentally hurdy-gurdy, the buzz will probably keep me awake till 3 tonight as well.
It's the heat. We're in our second of four days of 95 or better degree heat, and while it has cooled off at night, it hasn't quite done it fast enough for my body to feel sleep ready. I'm going to have to switch back to taking a shower at 11 pm, just before i go to bed. The Japanese way.
I'm also up tonight because I've set a 'must complete five pages on the dissertation a day' goal for the next 10 days. Today was my first day, so we'll see what happens for the future. I'm not actually expecting to write five pages every day: I have something like 70-80 pages worth of text I'm trying to smoosh into coherency. So I wrote two, and reused three. We'll see if that process can hold up all the way through this chapter, which is supposed to be a simultaneous theoretical proposition and a cultural history approach to Japanese SF, all the while comparing it with American SF.
The cool part is my dissertation reading group today actually gave me an example of someone else doing the same thing on a different topic! It was like a little miracle. I'm trying to learn from the criticism we gave that piece (which was awesome - she's doing an intervention into the history of the notion of "lesbian" in the 1970s through feminist SF (and some films, but I was all about the feminist SF)).
Hilariously looking back on what I wrote tonight for dissertation, I totally paid attention to some of the rules (make your argument first, then engage with the stuff that allows you to make it - or the stuff that requires you make it) while forgetting others (hello structure! i forgot to explain what i'm doing). Guess that will be on the menu for tomorrow. Or when i edit in 10 days.
also posted to katekat on dreamwidth | you can reply here or there