Happy International Women's Day!
Today's prompt is inspired by a Hilary Mantel essay, and also follows on quite nicely from Dame Eleanor's last week: how do you know you've finished? Mantel is commenting on finishing Wolf Hall, the first in a trilogy of novels, so in one sense, very much not finished. She comments that, with historical fiction, she can claim it's when the last facts are on the page:
'We arrive at 6 July 1535. Thomas More is executed. The paperwork is done; the head is spiked on London Bridge; his prayer book is examined for blood splashes and disposed of. And Henry VIII goes on his holidays.'
If anyone else has read Wolf Hall, you'll know there's far more to the ending of the novel than these bald facts. But the point is that there are choices to be made about when we end things: do we simply run out of time before a deadline? Do we decide that there is enough evidence to answer the question? Has the experiment been fully written up with nothing else to say? Or are we simply at the word limit and making painful decisions about what to cut and if so, does the cut stuff linger on?
But beyond that, as Mantel also discusses, is the phase of revisions and corrections, and spotting of mistakes at the last minute. I imagine for most of us as academics, that phase is dictated more by editors' and publishers' deadlines. How disciplined are you at knowing what to revise and correct and what to let go? Is finishing harder than starting?
Mantel's essay is here, for anyone interested (it's very funny)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/15/hilary-mantel
It's also published in a posthumous collection of her essays, A Memoir of My Former Self. A Life in Writing.
Last week's goals:
JaneB
SELF-CARE: all process goals, for three term time months:
a) intentional movement 20x3 or 15x4
b) some kind of making (art or craft) x2
c) something gently social x2
d) read at least one chapter (of fiction) every day this week IMPROVING MY
ENVIRONMENT: goals carried over!
a) 75% of weekly list of chores
b) make a sketch for the new idea for the shelving in living space
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
a) deliver week 6 of teaching
b) finish preparing materials for the "guest slot" and the AI session
and review materials from last year for other class, sigh
c) read methods/results chapter draft for Junior MSc by Research thesis
RESEARCH.
a) continue to progress modelling work
b) referee journal article
c) spend an hour on the revision for the revise and resubmit paper
d) work on small teaching project grant application - get peer review done,
start actual online system (sigh)
Dame Eleanor
--1-2 hours writing/research on each of 3 days
--prep for language groups
--finish second round of grading
--book April travel
--request money for one conference
--find some reviewers
--work Admitted Student event
--gym at least 3x, yoga at least 4x
--remember to look at calendar/lists every day
Susan
1. Keep up with teaching
2. Grade papers that come in tomorrow
3. File expenses for two recent trips
4. Email institutions about papers that should go into an existing collection.
5. Figure out good hiding places for things that need to be hidden.
6. Get rid of some of my hats :(
7. Keep up with exercise
8. Have some fun.
Daisy
Read and edit student chapters
Help with accepted paper revisions
Do the marking dammit!
Article review
Go for at least 3 walks
Heu mihi
1. Finish mini-talk #1 (revised and everything)
2. Write 3 pages of nonsense, bringing me to a total of 5
3. Write academically or creatively x 5
4. Deal with various journal-related issues
5. Plan summer travel!
6. Italian and exercise.
Julie
1. Research and writing: one day on each project, fourth day
to whichever needs the attention most.
2. Seminar and meeting.
3. House/life admin: son's physio appointment, try to get him a hair cut, plan
and book some more summer travel, book a family event for Easter, book some
conference travel and accommodation, finances, decluttering, return library
books.
4. Self-care/fun: read, journal, exercise, Netflix, dinner Friday and Saturday
night with different friends (Saturday is a cookbook club I'm doing for the
first time), video call with other friends.
I rarely feel I have done enough, if only because there are always more archives I could have looked at, more comparisons I could have made etc. Usually the first version I submit has been dictated by word limit and realising the piece will lose focus if I try to cram in any more thoughts. I quite like revising work a lot of the time: that feels more like ticking things of a list, but I find it frustrating if a piece keeps bouncing back for minor edits. And formatting issues are the worst kind of not-quite-finished-but-sick-of-it. The equivalent of Mantel sending Thomas More to the scaffold and being glad to see the back of him.
ReplyDeleteIn a wider sense, I find it interesting at the moment to reflect on how research I thought I was done with has never quite gone away. I've mentioned before that one of the chapters I'm writing involves me going back to my PhD. I have definitely moved on from the kind of research I was doing then (demographic history) and now, while I still think it's important and rigorous, it's also too narrow for me. But I'm digging up sources and references I thought I was done with, and thinking about things I haven't thought about in a long time. I'd be curious to know how much your earlier research has lingered, or whether there are things you are definitely done with.
How I did:
1. Research and writing: one day on each project, fourth day to whichever needs the attention most. - YES (allocated fourth day to review article, which was good, as I now have a clear structure I didn't have before)
2. Seminar and meeting. - YES (first was interesting, second useful, so win)
3. House/life admin: son's physio appointment, try to get him a hair cut, plan and book some more summer travel, book a family event for Easter, book some conference travel and accommodation, finances, decluttering, return library books. - YES to all except summer travel
4. Self-care/fun: read, journal, exercise, Netflix, dinner Friday and Saturday night with different friends (Saturday is a cookbook club I'm doing for the first time), video call with other friends. - YES to all except video call, postponed to this week.
Cookbook club last night was a lot of fun. It's with colleagues who are also friends and their other halves. Someone picks a cookbook and once every 2-3 months we meet and bring dishes chosen from the book. It was one called Tenderheart - the writer is Australian of Chinese heritage, and vegetarian. I made spinach and black bean enchilada bake and mushroom, potato and coconut chowder during the week, but last night ended up taking zucchini dip and a fennel, blood orange, halloumi and giant couscous salad. I think the salad was nicer than the dip. And there were margaritas and great conversation!
That sounds like an excellent type of book club!
DeleteWord limits can certainly be helpful, especially when there are always more archives. OTOH, if there are always more archives, you can divide them up geographically or temporally and say "next I'll look at [related archive]" and there's your next project.
DeleteThis week's goals:
ReplyDelete1. Research and writing: finish reading book for Big Article and organise some material, write two sections for book chapter, do one day on review article.
2. Meetings about teaching next year - try not to use too much emotional energy.
3. Review a postdoc application.
4. Book travel for conference and seminar next month.
5. House/life admin: Mother's Day gifts, meeting with financial advisor, book flights for summer holiday, plan Easter weekend away, maybe find a chair for spare room.
6. Self-care/fun: read, exercise, journal, Netflix (finish watching Bridgerton, don't judge me), video call with friends, enjoy time with brother and family in their new house this weekend (son has a race in their city, so taking advantage).
I don't ever think I'm finished, I either run into a deadline or decide a piece is ready for other eyes. I've just had to accept that things are never done - part of me hates that, part of me gets Very Bored with the last 20% of any project. Fortunately about half of my work is with Former Post-Doc, who is very very slow with making a start on a blank page or drafting introduction and discussion sections, but who is both pretty good and and happy to do all the reference checking and detail-wrangling that I procrastinate on, so we make a good team.
ReplyDeleteI can explain my research career as a long arc running out from the central thing-that-didn't-really-work in my PhD - I'm still trying to work out how to work around it, and might be ready to get back to the core problem in the next five years or so. Maybe!
That was a week, and it went! I was in a pretty low energy low mood place and work was just pretty "meh". Lots of small problems which take a lot of time, minimal positive reinforcement!
SELF-CARE: all process goals, for three term time months:
a) intentional movement 20x3 or 15x4 - 20 x4, well done me
b) some kind of making (art or craft) x2 made two cards for my Mum's birthday and for mothering sunday
c) something gently social x2 two
d) read at least one chapter (of fiction) every day this week no, but that's because I started reading a popular history of the Persians in the Ancient World - what a great week to choose to do THAT.
IMPROVING MY ENVIRONMENT: goals carried over!
a) 75% of weekly list of chores no. Just no energy/will power
b) make a sketch for the new idea for the shelving in living space no
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
a) deliver week 6 of teaching yes
b) finish preparing materials for the "guest slot" and the AI session and review materials from last year for other class, sigh yes. Definitely sigh. Expecting minimal attendance for the guest slot as three of the five cohorts taking the module have a major final project deadline two days later, and most of the students have pretty much stopped going on grounds that the guest slots aren't relevant to the assignments.
c) read methods/results chapter draft for Junior MSc by Research thesis yes - it was pretty draft-y but we had some good conversations and sorted out some points of confusion
RESEARCH.
a) continue to progress modelling work another problem spotted, patched, and things restarted. One version of the model is working fine now, but the other version which is almost identical is just... not!
b) referee journal article no
c) spend an hour on the revision for the revise and resubmit paper three hours
d) work on small teaching project grant application - get peer review done, start actual online system (sigh) yes. The online system took FOREVER - lots and lots of tiny boxes, e.g. every job role had a box for start date, box for end date, box for role type, box for employer, box for role description etc. and each one had to be clicked in to activate it. Much worse than the large grant I put in in February!
THE COMING WEEK:
DeleteThis week is a lighter week - the main module I teach on has a "catch up week" with no new content. Hopefully I will also get the car wiper issue resolved, and am probably going to take Thursday off (already disrupted by garage appointment and a medical appointment and I have nothing in my diary so a slightly longer weekend might help boost the local energy levels. After this week we have two BUSY teaching weeks then a two week "Spring" break (we all know that's Easter Break because the timing changes every year following Easter weekend, it's just not called that). And I have meetings and stuff but will get another long weekend at least, so. We're at the half way point of the semester in terms of weeks of teaching, at least.
SELF-CARE: all process goals, for three term time months:
a) intentional movement 20x3 or 15x4
b) some kind of making (art or craft) x2
c) something gently social x2
d) read at least one chapter (of fiction) every day this week IMPROVING MY ENVIRONMENT: goals carried over!
a) 75% of weekly list of chores
b) make a sketch for the new idea for the shelving in living space
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
a) prepare materials for experiment week for the first years (they design and carry out their own experiment and if they take it seriously it can be a lot of fun learning)
RESEARCH.
a) continue to progress modelling work
b) referee journal article
c) read paper draft for former senior PhD student
d) spend an hour on the revision for the revise and resubmit paper
e) finish and submit small teaching project grant application
Oh, forgot to mention, last week's on campus day was interesting because first thing there was heavy fog (I thoroughly annoyed a whole tail of commuters by driving at a safe sub-speed-limit speed through the river valley where the fog was thickest and visibility lowest) which was slow to clear, then it got hot and sunny, there was people drama, then when I got to the carpark and was looking for my keys, a bird pooped LIBERALLY on my head. LIBERALLY. It DRIPPED. So that was fun! Shoutypants was happy though because when I went to give him A treat after work I dropped the bag and he got about three days worth of treats before I could scoop the rest back up... ugh.
Deletefynely da hooman rekunyze da needz uv da cat. u bringz bird hom 2
DeleteYay for being halfway through! And taking Thursday off sounds like a great idea to me. Appointments that eat into the day make it so hard to re-group and focus in the bits of time that are left.
DeleteHow do I know I'm done, what an interesting question! What immediately spring to mind are the times editors have been breathing down my neck about revisions (once was when my father was very ill: I both had good reason to be distracted and was rather grateful for something to do besides worry), or when I was responding to a CFP with a deadline. But I know there have been times when I just plodded away until I was done, or at any rate knew I couldn't get any farther on my own, when I thought I'd said everything I needed to say and cited everyone I needed to cite. I wish I could write knowing that I was headed toward a certain conclusion, but that never happens. A couple of times I've been able to conclude with a somewhat speculative look at the life of an early modern person (a reader of a medieval manuscript), which I have enjoyed. And from a colleague I have picked up the idea of the Three I's: Inferences, Interpretations, Implications. This has been amazingly helpful.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
--1-2 hours writing/research on each of 3 days: YES
--prep for language groups: YES
--finish second round of grading: YES
--book April travel: NO, but I have registered for both the April and the June conference, so there is progress in this area.
--request money for one conference: NO
--find some reviewers: NO
--work Admitted Student event: YES (something of a bust, in the event, but it was still an extra day on campus)
--gym at least 3x, yoga at least 4x: YES gym, NO yoga (2x, I think)
--remember to look at calendar/lists every day: MOSTLY
ALSO: ordered season tickets for some concerts next year; learned to do Asian stab binding.
New goals:
It's spring break, so I'm trying to do some things that don't fit into my regular teaching weeks. The time has just sprung forward, so I feel a little jet-lagged; I'm hoping to get past that soon.
--1-2 hours writing/research on each of 5 days
--prep for language groups
--write two letters of recommendation
--book April travel
--request money for one conference, along with some other administrivia including reading grad applications
--find some reviewers
--replace at least one electronic device
--at least four hours on the garage or other household tasks
--bake scones and/or do some other creative things
--get a massage
--gym at least 5x, yoga at least 4x
--remember to look at calendar/lists every day