(no subject)
I seem to have weathered the phase of despair over my Haskins paper, and hopefully I'll be able to avoid another one. I now have a rough working outline, an experimental scrivener project dedicated to it, and a thesis statement I can build the paper around. I started some introductory writing this morning, although I think it will mostly belong in the conclusion, not the introduction. But I have a plan, and so far I'm really enjoying Scrivener's ability both to give me a blank, full-screen text-field to work with and to break what would be a single word document down into multiple files.
I actually had my moment of breakthrough at the archives on Monday (good thing I decided to go). I went, got my box of documents off reserve, and then instead of starting in on my transcriptions, decided to spend a little while reading over my previous musings on my paper and writing up some new ones. And it worked! Some of the musings I wrote up in late-September finally broke me out of the mental hamster-wheel I'd been on, and set me off in a better direction. Yay!
It also prompted this (kind of hilarious, IMHO) exchange on facebook with erstwhile advisor A:
My status: New thinking: maybe Saint-Florent-sous-Dol was kind of like your local Starbucks outlet. You go there because they have Internet and know your order (and maybe because of the cute barista), not because you're thinking about Seattle and their corporate master plan.
A: And who is Saint-Florent's Seattle in this analogy?
Me: That would be Saint-Florent de Saumur. [NB: the mother house of Saint-Florent-sous-Dol]
A: Oh. I thought it would be God. And was ready with all sorts of witty rejoinders in that case. Now, I have nothing.
Me: God would be the coffee and Internet in this analogy.
A: Does that make Jesus the cute barista?
Me: It might make him the pound cake/scones/muffins actually.
A: [Considers tactless transsubstantiation joke.]
Me: I thought I already went there
A: But it could be made much, much more tactless.
Aww, A. [Insert enormous fondness here.] I hope he's going to be at Haskins this year. He weaselled out last year, and wouldn't tell me whether he was coming or not, so this year I haven't asked. It would be awesome if he did and actually made it in time for my paper, though. Unlikely, since I'm presenting midafternoon Friday, but awesome. I'd take him showing up at any point, though.
In any case, barring hideous disaster, I leave a week today. In fact, this time next week, if all goes according to plan, I should be boarding or already onboard my flight to Montreal. Of course, I have to write the paper before then, but things seem reasonably hopeful at this point. I only wish I could figure out a way to avoid the obligatory total despair that always seems to precede writing. I know I have perfectionism issues that don't help me out when it comes to getting started, but at the same time, I'm starting to suspect that I'm always going to have to wait for some kind of moment of insight, because that's just the way my brain works. It would be nice to progressively advance from point A to point B and so on, building on previous thoughts... but yeah, no. My brain always seems to want to jump from point A to point F, or even point A to point something on a different alphabet entirely. The perfectionism doesn't help my tendency to scrap everything and start again at the drop of a hat (really a problem in the draft phases), but it doesn't create it. What creates it is that up to a point, my thinking keeps changing (erstwhile advisor A was baffled when I essentially totally reversed my argument the week before my honors thesis was due!), and so on a certain level, it doesn't make sense to start writing until I get there. It's only miserable agony.
I guess what I need to do in order to make the whole process less anxiety-ridden is to accept that this is how it's going to be, and start looking for strategies that cultivate and potentially accelerate the moment where I make whatever leap my brain is going to make. Clearly, that doesn't involve sitting down trying to write a serious draft! What this experience does suggest, however, is that informally writing down my thoughts on a somewhat regular basis, and coming back to them later, might help. Also, starting early! The fact that I'm at a point where I have a direction hammered down with a week to go is amazing! I'm not in a position where I have one shot at getting my thinking together, making an argument, and writing well all at once. I can write a draft for the argument and then come back to it to make the writing not suck! I can do it in stages over a few days! Now I just have to apply myself.
Anyway, now it's time to go to the archives for the afternoon. More paper-writing later.
I actually had my moment of breakthrough at the archives on Monday (good thing I decided to go). I went, got my box of documents off reserve, and then instead of starting in on my transcriptions, decided to spend a little while reading over my previous musings on my paper and writing up some new ones. And it worked! Some of the musings I wrote up in late-September finally broke me out of the mental hamster-wheel I'd been on, and set me off in a better direction. Yay!
It also prompted this (kind of hilarious, IMHO) exchange on facebook with erstwhile advisor A:
My status: New thinking: maybe Saint-Florent-sous-Dol was kind of like your local Starbucks outlet. You go there because they have Internet and know your order (and maybe because of the cute barista), not because you're thinking about Seattle and their corporate master plan.
A: And who is Saint-Florent's Seattle in this analogy?
Me: That would be Saint-Florent de Saumur. [NB: the mother house of Saint-Florent-sous-Dol]
A: Oh. I thought it would be God. And was ready with all sorts of witty rejoinders in that case. Now, I have nothing.
Me: God would be the coffee and Internet in this analogy.
A: Does that make Jesus the cute barista?
Me: It might make him the pound cake/scones/muffins actually.
A: [Considers tactless transsubstantiation joke.]
Me: I thought I already went there
A: But it could be made much, much more tactless.
Aww, A. [Insert enormous fondness here.] I hope he's going to be at Haskins this year. He weaselled out last year, and wouldn't tell me whether he was coming or not, so this year I haven't asked. It would be awesome if he did and actually made it in time for my paper, though. Unlikely, since I'm presenting midafternoon Friday, but awesome. I'd take him showing up at any point, though.
In any case, barring hideous disaster, I leave a week today. In fact, this time next week, if all goes according to plan, I should be boarding or already onboard my flight to Montreal. Of course, I have to write the paper before then, but things seem reasonably hopeful at this point. I only wish I could figure out a way to avoid the obligatory total despair that always seems to precede writing. I know I have perfectionism issues that don't help me out when it comes to getting started, but at the same time, I'm starting to suspect that I'm always going to have to wait for some kind of moment of insight, because that's just the way my brain works. It would be nice to progressively advance from point A to point B and so on, building on previous thoughts... but yeah, no. My brain always seems to want to jump from point A to point F, or even point A to point something on a different alphabet entirely. The perfectionism doesn't help my tendency to scrap everything and start again at the drop of a hat (really a problem in the draft phases), but it doesn't create it. What creates it is that up to a point, my thinking keeps changing (erstwhile advisor A was baffled when I essentially totally reversed my argument the week before my honors thesis was due!), and so on a certain level, it doesn't make sense to start writing until I get there. It's only miserable agony.
I guess what I need to do in order to make the whole process less anxiety-ridden is to accept that this is how it's going to be, and start looking for strategies that cultivate and potentially accelerate the moment where I make whatever leap my brain is going to make. Clearly, that doesn't involve sitting down trying to write a serious draft! What this experience does suggest, however, is that informally writing down my thoughts on a somewhat regular basis, and coming back to them later, might help. Also, starting early! The fact that I'm at a point where I have a direction hammered down with a week to go is amazing! I'm not in a position where I have one shot at getting my thinking together, making an argument, and writing well all at once. I can write a draft for the argument and then come back to it to make the writing not suck! I can do it in stages over a few days! Now I just have to apply myself.
Anyway, now it's time to go to the archives for the afternoon. More paper-writing later.