Friday 11-20-20. A bit of a rethink.
Meetings much of the day, and some email, wrote a letter of recommendation. Writing this at the end of the day. I think I have gotten stuck somewhere, overly rigid, with a thought process something like the following: I have to write every day or I risk not writing anymore. That’s better than when I’ve had writers’ block but I think it’s actually on a road back to block — block is due to anxiety and anxiety about anxiety is still anxiety. This made sense for various reasons previously, as follows: I really could write given where I was in intellectual projects. I was tempted not to write as a result of writing anxiety. The consequential-ness of writing while facing the tenure clock amplified that, and I had a lot of demands which presented me with tempting excuses to not write. In that context, pushing myself to write regularly was productive and a good call, but I’m no longer in that context. What context am I in? Well, for one thing, I do need to write more for my eventual promotion and raise but that’s a ways off and honestly I’ll be fine I think, just given my general productivity. I am, I think, in effect revving my engine too high and not getting a benefit from those emotional RPMs. Instead I’m feeling some wear and tear - tired, anxious, etc - in a situation that reduces my recovery and restoration times. Like this is a hot day so I’m prone to overheat, running myself at a level that feeds overheating is a bad idea, it’s actually counterproductive. So what do I want and need to do? I actually do want to write. I’m in a different place now though in terms of the availability of writing opportunities. I don’t think I have a steady supply of work-related writing projects to provide enough opportunities to fill my daily writing wants. I’ve done some blogging, a conference talk, stuff like that, and that’s been cool, but I don’t have more of those on deck. The ones I could do require reading before they’ll be writing-ready. With some of those I’ve also done them in a way that meant I put time and energy into short- and medium-term writing outputs and writing-opportunity-generation and did less to create longer term writing opportunities. I should watch out for that, be careful to not get too short term. So what to do? I think I’m going to try to get back to a regular practice of blogging and record reviewing, to have that be my source of regular writing opportunities - again bearing in mind I need to contain how much time I put into that. Then I’m going to make reading be a priority. Once more on that I’m going to have to do some work to put open ended and long term reading first and medium term reading second. So, concretely, read for my ten year book project first, read for a book review second. The point of the latter is to enrich my daily writing opportunities. The point of daily writing opportunities is for the intrinsic values I find in writing, to continue to exercise my craft as a writer, and to hold the space in my life for writing in order to serve that future ten year book project so that when I get to where I’m ready to write that I have as smooth an on-ramp as possible. I feel better having typed this out. Trying to bullet point this as a daily practice: - Writing diary/vent file - Read for new book - Read for medium term project - Note take on one or both of the above - Blog/free write/try a writing exercise Probably would be a good idea to give my writing life a tune up as well in terms of going back to a writing book I like. One other thought I had is that I think I got a monomaniacal in my writing life as I was finishing my book and the projects that came after it - each one was a major focus each time. That worked well and I liked it and part of my goal in the above is to create the conditions for being monomaniacal in the future about my new book project in a few years. For me I think what I need for the time being is something more like being in graduate school and taking classes - multiple regular commitments each week - rather than being in the dissertation and later the book phase. I think I’ll benefit from writing out something analogous to syllabi and planning my weeks accordingly. I think I’d benefit from a little bit of multiple things each day or week, less single-project focus and more multi-project focus for now. I want to think more about to structure that multi-project focus, to make multiple things each have a pull on me that’s appropriate. Deadlines are one possibility, teaching and reading groups are another, for the stuff I want to read. Might also be worth (just) a little looking around and reading on project management for writers in terms of keeping more than one pot on the stove, so to speak. Well enough for now. Feels better having written this out, I feel like I’ve got a better sense of some things that have been bothering me and a sense of what a way forward looks like.
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Monday October 5
Alright back to this. I’m leaking energy all over the place, one being lamenting the collapse of my vent file habit. Coulda woulda shoulda. Doesn’t help but hard not to think about. I acknowledge that regret and am trying to move on. Regretting wasted energy is an ironic waste of energy. I’m going to work on a talk I’m giving in a few weeks. I’ve got lots of notes and tasks and prompts to work from. Setting the time for 20 minutes and getting started. Okay worked on my talk for 40 minutes. Felt good, I’m pleased with how the talk is shaping up. Tuesday October 6 Welp, back at it. I feel awash in negative emotions but like only up to the edges of my ankles, so to speak. I’m stepping through puddles of them and that’s gross but I’m not swimming in them, which is in the big picture really good. Late start today, as per these days, and tired, as per forever. Good music on. Spending a little more time and money on music this year has been a really good choice. If I hadn’t gotten a pay cut I’d have spent more money on music. Listening to the new Shuck record. Big and exuberant. Angry but not only angry, and uplifting, energizing. I’m going to work on my talk now. I think I’m close to a full draft that I can revise quickly and then it’ll be good to go. writing diary Monday october 12 It might be a holiday today. Columbus Day maybe? I wouldn’t know, I don’t get days off. SIGH. That’s the mood I’m in today. Tired, frustrated, sick of lots of things, etc. Gotta move forward anyway, mood will improve with forward motion - only way out is through - rather wait for mood to improve then work. So. Today’s agenda. I’m going to do some writing. Going to free write for an upcoming writing project, it’s not my immediate priority out of my writing projects but it’s the one that I can best write on today and I think it’s good for me to do some writing regularly. After that, other to-do list items! Setting the timer for 15 minutes. Okay I did that and then I worked on proofreading a talk. I’m too tired to proofread now, won’t catch my mistakes. Going to do a bit of work on another paper, research. Tuesday October 13th In the grip of intertia. This is what writing is always like, this is normal, just feels louder bcause of pandemic amplification. Writing’s not optional so that I don’t want to do it is irrelevant. Let me try this: what am I excited about regarding this project -- find something. I’m interested in testing the hypotheses I’ve got. I’m interested in knowing more about what happened. (Typing that I have all these negative feelings welling up too! Not dwelling on that, just recognizing them and nodding and moving on.) I like reading what historical actors actually thought, I like the detective quality of it too, trying to sort out what actually happened. It’s fun to be back at that. Oh and I’m excited about the ideas in the thing I’m free writing on - what I said above is about the project I’m researching on and not at the writing of yet. Okay I’m going to do a quick free write then some research then onto other tasks. Did about 15 min then wanted to keep going so I did another 20. Feeling tired now but glad I wrote. Thursday 10-15-20 Feeling slow and depleted today. We’re doing a search in my department and it’s depressing and giving me job market flashbacks. Obviously it’s even worse for the people looking for jobs of course. Brutal. And the search is so much work when I have so much else to do, still behind from the crush of getting the tenure application in. I’m tired and tense and behind and I am tired of feeling that way and frustrated that this keeps going on. Oh well. I’m trying to change focus by admitting I have those feelings about this bad situation but not dwell on it. Listening to good music, drinking coffee. Okay going to work now - quick free write on my essay. Friday 10-16-20 Late start today, tired distracted etc etc. I wonder if some time off would help, not that that’s an option anyway, or if the issue is behavioral: need for better routine and discipline. Both probly, and more need for collective context. I miss writing near other people at the library and the coffee shop. Sigh. So. Today’s work. I’m going to do a free write on a piece of writing then I’m going to do some research then it’s onto other responsibilities. I feel like I’m at the intersection of multiple lines productive of intellectual loneliness - the relative intellectual isolation of the type of job I have, some neglect of tending to intellectual community at my particular institution, my career stage and where I am in the arc of projects, and my life-stage being a parent with young kids. And then there’s the pandemic which creates more of this as well as turning up the volume on bad feeling generally. I have to think more about that. Anyway, time to free write. I free wrote on my anthology chapter for about 8 minutes. Honestly this is enough free writing on this essay I think! I think I should move into working on the essay now, and I should also find a second work for a daily free write. I’m going to update my daily routine list. Monday October 19 Feeling beat up today! Physically - did a hard work out yesterday! - and emotionally - I’m behind on various teaching-related things, missing the validation that came with face to face teaching, and I’m sad and nervous about the impending winter (snowed yesterday and again today; it looks to warm up later this week, maybe two more weeks of fall left). I can tell I’m emotional because I was listening to some songs off the new Dave Hause EP, covers of Paddy Costello songs, and I cried a little. I’m going to speak to a friend’s class today about my book that’s exciting. I also got nice notes from two people I wrote to asking for advice on a new project. Good to find things to be excited about. I’m going to do a short writing session then a short reading session - maybe just read the emails I got about the new project, copy them to scrivener and try to find some action items. Then a short session on reading for a friend, teaching-related admin. Okay did some work on a new project, sifting old stuff, in a better mood now. tuesday october 20th I’m procrastinating on writing in part out of writing anxiety, in part out of loneliness - procrastinating by doing things that provide a sense of connection, and in part because after writing I have work for the rest of my job that I don’t really want to do. Sigh. I’m frustrated with so much of the world including things at work and I’m correct in the judgments and analyses those frustrations are bound up with but the frustration is also another emotional weight to carry. I read a great essay this morning about mental health and social policy, arguing that there’s an approach to mental health right now that is basically self-help bootstrapping which depoliticizes all the underlying conditions generating everyone’s anxiety and depression. I thought it was great. I want to do more writing like that. I think I do anyway, I’m not sure if that’s a real aspiration or a ‘wouldn’t it be nice if’ aspiration. Anyways. Onto today’s work. What am I writing on? The social murder essay, and a quick free write on something else. thursday october 22nd Didn’t write yesterday, all teaching and advising day. A little frustrated about that. I started today researching how to replace a broken toilet flapper. Home Maintenance: Reflections from Damaged Life. Then I took a walk to shake it off and saw a lost dog! I don’t have animal control in my new phone so I couldn’t call. Gonna put it in my phone in case I see the dog again. Poor thing was looking all around with its tale all drooping. Cold outside too. Hopefully it finds its way home. A neighbor said she’s seen it around yesterday too. Okay so now what? Get down to work I guess. Doing what? The usual routine - free writing etc, as per my list of daily writing tasks. How do I feel about that? Fine-ish. The usual frictions of this time of the semester and this historical moment but I think that’s all. As good as it gets for the time being. Anything I’m excited about? I paused and stared into space at that! I feel a bit overwhelmed by the quantity of work and I feel anxious in the face of the relative lack of indicators about how it’s going. I do want to read work for friends and colleagues, that’s exciting, and I like the new projects I’m onto, so that’s good. Anyway, enough of this throat clearing, time to work. Ten minutes on the book chapter. Did longer than that, going through old stuff organizing it better, into raw materials for this. Next task for that piece of writing is to sift the raw material I found. Doing that in multiple passes, one pass per section of the outline for the essay. Now for a free write on some piece of writing. Okay done, 15 or 20 minutes. Tired now! Onto other tasks. I don’t remember if I wrote on friday. I think maybe I didn’t? Feels today like I didn’t, as in, feels like coming back to writing after many days away. Not a good feeling. Rusty, scared, slow. Today we had meetings all day. Gonna try to write a little before bed tonight. Tuesday October 27th I ended up not writing yesterday, got waylaid. Today I wrote but didn’t diary first. Did research too for the new project, conference paper. I feel so daunted by this but it’s good to get words down and look at sources. I feel better having done that and it’s just required. I’m going to have to spend lots of hours on this, in this headspace, putting it off makes it worse, not better. So good that I dove in today. Tuesday November 3 Election Day! A bit jittery, some internally generated and some I think I caught from others via social media. Ugh. I wrote a thing on election expectations as per request from a Legal Form editor, I’ve felt nervous having that out in the world, I am probably too thin-skinned. I think of a bit from James Acaster about a heckler telling him he shouldn’t have become a comedian if heckles bother him and him agreeing. Oh well, too late to change gears now. I should find the Helen Sword and Robert Boice books, work on mental habits. But the world is also objectively very distracting, it’s not just me. Anyways. Just typing to get myself into motion here. My feet are cold and I am very tired, stayed up too late and got up a little earlier. Trying to walk back my wake up time after the clocks changed. The cold feet help me stay a little more awake. Should have some coffee too. Today’s plan...? Unsure! I feel like I haven’t been writing? But I have, that feeling is wrong. I think the aspect of that feeling that tracks onto something worth knowing is that I don’t have a clear single project that I am hooked into and remember my location within. I picture it like I am a character in video game holding a lantern at a night or in a cloud of dense fog - a small dimly illuminated circle within a large black screen. Late in my book the fog lifted somewhat so I had a better sense of where I was within the maze of book writing. I remember now that I pushed through or maintained despite similar fog in my book writing by keeping more notes on where I am in a project, I guess that’s the only thing to do here, that and just write anyway. Maybe I just live in a mental world as a writer that is prone to foggy weather. Fine. So, what to do today? I’m going to look at my notes, pick a thing, free write then some writing/revising prose, then some research for my conference paper, then a writing exercise, then onto non-writing tasks. This has been a highly imperfect day! Writing things I did accomplish: I free wrote, revised, free wrote for another project. I also went for a run, pleased with that. Friday November 6 Election distraction continues, plus meeting and email time consumption as well as fatigue. I had another day like this between Tuesday and today, started the writing diary but forgot to save it - didn’t write that day anyway. Ugh. Days like this are frustrating in part because I hit the end of the day tired out such that it’s hard to think but I have also spent the day a little bored and have not done anything intellectually stimulating. The result is that my mind is restless and wants activity but I lack, or at least I feel like I lack, the capacity for that activity. I also find it frustrating that my job, which I got into in part because I wanted a job that stimulated my mind, is, like any other job, getting in the way of my intellectual life. Oh well. I keep reminding myself this is the worst of it and it will get better, it won’t always be like this. That’s some comfort but I still resent deferring my writing life like this. It’s 5:30, I need to clock out and be with my family. Tonight before bed if time permits I should prepare for the conference tomorrow. I’d like to figure out something I can work on writing-wise for a few minutes as well, and maybe something to read. I’m going to give that all 5 minutes of planning then be done. Tuesday 11-10-20 Just got word all face to face classes will convert to online for the last bit of the semester. That’s about 2 weeks of classes, as there’s the thanksgiving holiday and the final online week. It doesnt affect me since I’m teaching all online anyway but I’m affected emotionally. It’s a good decision but I experience it as something of an alarm, like when the weather siren goes off, I’m on more of an alert in response. I don’t like that feeling and it’s too common in my life (prepandemic and even more so in these pandemic times). Thursday 11-19-20 Gap, didn’t write these for a few days. Some of that is that I didn’t write some days and some is that I did write. I should do these regardless. It’s a best practice to keep up either way. Yesterday a student in class said "the pandemic multiplies the November effect." This the novemberest of novembers. Sucks. I read something on faculty stress and burnout and felt some sense of "yes that's what I'm experiencing" and I think I may feel worse now as a result! What may be happening is that I let out some of the bottled up feelings and now I'm feeling them. Sigh. Need to re-bottle them I guess...! For the time being. I don't know if that's actually what to do. I'm feeling little intrinsic reward from (really, I'm feeling a massive drain from) all the parts of my job that aren't direct student contact, writing, and serious intellectual conversations with fellow writers, and those other parts of the job feel really out of control. They also leave me tired out so that the student contact and the scholarly work don't go as well and so don't feel as good. A friend said that universities are less than the sum of their parts and this feels like an example of that. Well, that's the baseline emotional state. Now what? Live through it, so that when the bad times end I can flourish I guess. Once again feeling the present is something to endure in service of actually living later. If that's just the reality then that's the reality, have to live in the real world. I have to think more about mitigating as well, less time on what I want less time on, more time on what I want more time on. Ah, that's another thought: the stuff I really care most about is draining and high performance, takes mental discipline to do and to do well. As a case in point, it's harder to manage self-talk as a writer when so worn out and bombarded by negativity from the world and whatnot, easy to give in to doubts and so on. That'd be something worth exploring, getting back to flow states and writing practices indifferent to feelings. Probably the latter is the road the flow states, not vice versa. Good to think about. Had a good conversation with Alex yesterday, help raise clarifying questions and identify areas for further questioning, to look for further clarity, and he told me about a family artmaking plan for December, we're going to participate as well, they're calling it Doodle December, one of his kids came up with it. I think more artmaking for me is a good idea as well, helps clear some head space I think. Okay enough throat clearing, onto some writing. I have to figure out what. I'm going to find something to write on, then do some research for new stuff, then re-assess how to use the remaining time. Free wrote fifteen minutes on edited volume piece. Honestly it was excruciating. I’m lonely and tired out and it sucks. And tomorrow I’m in meetings much of the day again. Ugh. Project on mining, 20 minutes research. Here goes. That went well. |