Post-Summer

Normally, I'd title this something about a new semester or new school year, but this was such an eventful summer, that it more feels as if the newness of fall semester is more an outgrowth of my summer activities, rather than a new chapter.  Despite my intentions to be less busy than I was last summer, there were so many opportunities this summer that I struggled with figuring out which I should pursue and which to let go of.

I think I made good choices.  After a whirlwind tour for my birthday (friends, family, mountains, and spending my birthday covered in bubbles dancing to My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult), I taught a five-week course in Southern Women Writers, did research in the new Dorothy Allison archive at Duke, and spent a week in the redwoods of Santa Cruz, immersed in the Dickens Universe. 

There are way too many stories to tell to even begin telling them here.  However, the end result has been, weirdly enough, that I have adopted a lot of new, incredibly different, weirdly healthy habits after all of these adventures.  Before this summer, I tended to work upstairs, in front of the tv, staying up until two or three in the morning, and sleeping until afternoon if I could.  Since I've been typically teaching after noon, I could sleep as late as eleven on teaching days, even.  I'd go to jazzercise two or three times a week.  I drank three or four diet soft drinks a day, and ate a lot of sweets. 

Some combination of new environments and challenging (yet thoroughly enjoyable) schedules and--what, magic?--has had the end result of completely resetting my habits.  Since I've been home, I think I've slept as late as ten once.  Mostly, I get up between eight and nine, make some cafetierre  (which I think sounds much fancier than "French press") coffee, and start the day working.  I work much better now downstairs with music, rather than upstairs with television.  I have at most one soft drink a day, if that.  I'm working out five times a week.  And the only sweets I have now are part of my bedtime ritual--chamomile tea and two Biscoff cookies, and I'm ready for bed. I've very quickly pavloved myself into feeling sleepy after this nightly ritual.

I've had similar responses to retreat-like experiences in the past--I quit smoking after one, and made the commitment to finish my bachelors and go to graduate school after another.  It's definitely increasing my productivity, which I'm quite pleased with.  And which is a good thing, as the threat of the job market and finding fifth year funding is looming large at the moment--I need all of the productivity I can get!

More ugliness

Once again, there's another blog post speculating about the importance of an author's appearance on the reception and success of their work.  (Jonathan Franzen still hasn't let it go, either.)  Jeffrey Meyers, however, doesn't limit himself to just one author, however--he composes an ugly list of 26 authors!  (As well as one of "handsomist" authors for comparison.)  And, unlike Franzen, he considers both men and women as ugly, instead of just singling out one author for his disdain.  (Also, I don't get what his methodology is for deciding whose last name is sufficient for identification, and who requires a first name--other than all of the women have first names (because it would be too confusing to figure out which writer with the last name "Schnackenberg" he was referencing?).)

Meyers explains his "admittedly subjective judgment" as including "the homeliest, obese, and sometimes even disfigured" authors.  Further, I'm pretty sure that no one on his "handsomist" list is non-white (and in my subjective opinion, I disagree with many of his assertions--I mean, Kingsley Amis?  Really?).  Meyers agrees with Franzen's basic premise--in Meyer's words, "Physically attractive authors make their work seem more appealing.  Their lovely faces provide tangible evidence--beyond their creative talent--that they are superior beings, have become sacred icons and are themselves a work of art."

Rubbish!  Do people actually believe this?  That meeting certain physical characteristics genuinely makes people superior beings (let along the "sacred icon/work of art" part)?  Why does phrenology keep such a strong hold on the imagination?

Meyers observes that "though unattractive women are taken more seriously than great beauties, neo-Platonic authors believed that beauty reveals inner goodness and ugliness suggests evil."  Evil!  Really!  I suppose that, if nothing else, Meyers is reinforcing what I expect the last chapter of my dissertation to be about: female characters in southern literature who, to whatever extent, choose to be ugly.  For many of them, this choice is a signal of allegiance to seriousness, to the intellectual life, the kind life led by those spinster, schoolmarmish women which W. J. Cash referred to as "horse-faced" and attributed to ugly Yankee spinsters.

Even though Meyers includes men in his hot/not lists, his commentary is primarily reserved for the women (excepting his odd aside about Hemingway claiming that F. Scott Fitzgerald wasn't all that).  I fail to see the purpose of the continuing production of such essays, other than to annoy me.  Their judgements are subjective and prejudiced, their assumptions are flawed, and their conclusions are insulting.  Dear Internet: KNOCK IT OFF.

On Productivity and Inspiration

It's 2:45pm and I'm still wearing my pajamas and dressing gown.  I slept until 11 this morning, and have been working on and off since then; I'll continue until about 3:45, when I'll leave for the library and jazzercise.  It's a very nice break, after a couple of weeks of being full-press on, with a gazillion meetings and a weekend-long exhausting (although quite enjoyable and productive) conference. 

I've read a couple of things recently on productivity and the pressure to be productive.  I definitely take Planned Obsolescence's point that busy-ness and stress are points of pride among many, as well as No Matter. Fail Better's and The Thesis Whisperer's discussions of the usefulness of the #acwrimo month  Like them, I've been less interested in the competitive word count aspect of #acwrimo than in the commitment to writing--as well as the feeling of community that comes with such campaigns.  Such commitment and community are what I most enjoyed from being part of the 14 Day Writing Challenge earlier this month; I'm hoping to continue this with the new writing group I've joined.  Our first meeting was yesterday, and I have high hopes.

What I've gained most from these visible academic writing campaigns was the beginnings of the discipline of daily writing--I've started getting up at 9 during the week and spending the first two hours of the day working.  And although part of this work is answering emails and scheduling things and other non-writing work, the quiet of the morning has also got me writing every day.  While I realize that 9 is not early morning for most people, given that I don't teach until 2:30 in the afternoon this semester, it's grown quite easy for me to adapt to later and later days, not going to sleep until 2 or 3am.  And though I used to think of the work I did at night as productive, I've been a bit surprised to realize that when I get up and work in the morning, I'm much quicker and more efficient in the morning.  I get much more bang for my working buck in the morning, much to my inner 20 year old's chagrin.

So many people I know--my students especially--are so worn out and burnt out right now.  In academia, it's really November that's the cruelest month.  With exams behind me, I'm feeling a bit less stressed than those around me, and I'm trying to use this energy to propel my writing.  To check in for #acwrimo--I finished and presented a conference paper, and I wrote and submitted the first draft of my prospectus.  Next up is an article which I would like to make a 12/1 deadline with, and I've had a conference proposal accepted for the Appalachian Studies conference in March, which I've started making notes for as ideas occur to me.  Word count?  Who knows.  My biggest accomplishment is starting the discipline of writing every day and starting to figure out how I work best--so that when I start dissertating in earnest, I'll already have some traction.

AcWriMo

I have friends who do NaNoWriMo every year, this crazy challenge to write a novel-length manuscript during the month of November.  They have group write-ins, stay up all night, and check in with other crazy writers in order to get encouragement and keep track of their progress.

There are a couple of programs going on right now which are piggy-backing NaNoWriMo in order to stir up similar enthusiasm and encouragement for academic writers.  Because I have a couple of deadlines looming, I've decided to sign up for them.  First up with the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity's 14 Day Writing Challenge which starts tomorrow.  There, you pledge to write 30-60 minutes a day for the next two weeks.  They have a website set up where you check in every day, report your progress, and encourage your fellow writers.

The second is AcWriMo , which takes a similar all out approach to writing that NaNo does, and encourages accountability and support through their facebook page and twitter hashtag #acwrimo .  I'm not going to set myself a word count for that (at least not yet), but instead am focusing on the daily writing and accomplishment of my two primary goals.

My goals?  11/10 I'm giving a conference paper which is in the beginning tatters stage right now; 11/15 I said I'd have a draft of my dissertation prospectus done.  They're both rather non-negotiable (well, the prospectus date is probably negotiable, but as I set it, I intend to keep it).  I think these are doable goals: one 9 page paper, one 15 page paper--that's something like 6,000 words, which certainly isn't NaNo length, but is a doable challenge.  I also need to write a paper proposal that's due the end of the month.  So, doable goals, but I'm curious to see how the accountability/encouragement process helps.