Back in 2009, Flavia at Ferule and Fescue characterized her book manuscript as an upright piano:
"Nothing fancy, like a grand, but old and rather handsome—maybe something I inherited from a great-aunt? I can't get rid of it. But I don't know how to play it. And it would be pretty just to look at, I guess, and for sentimental value—except that it doesn't really fit in my apartment, and I'd have to organize a whole room around it, and if I'm going to have it, I want to be able to play it, and not just, like, put doilies on it or whatever."
Many commenters described their own manuscripts as various pieces of furniture. I thought I’d borrow this parlor game for our discussion theme in Week Three. Your furniture item need not be a book manuscript; it can be any project, work or personal, something you’re working on over the summer or for a longer period.
Please answer the prompt if it speaks to you, or just enjoy Flavia’s respondants’ replies. In either case, please report your progress on the past week’s goals; analyze what went well or badly; and set goals for the coming week. Good luck with everything!
Bardiac
1. Write one section of the essay.
2. Go on an 8 mile hike carrying at least 20 pounds.
3. Keep practicing!
Dame Eleanor Hull
Regular stretching and exercise; keep doing knee push-ups (50?).
Return to normal early sleep schedule.
Regular language and translation work.
Make a plan for the last set of article revisions.
Do some planning for fall classes.
Do 2 house-related things.
Elizaabeth Anne Mitchell
Pack for New Orleans.
Verify and combine if necessary the versions of the introduction that were created in my wrestling session with the work cloud application.
Print the most recent/complete version for the trip.
Begin my annual faculty report.
Good Enough Woman
1) Daily push ups (10x), walk the dog some, stretch a little
2) Start writing story for SF writing class
3) Write 500 words of mystery YA
4) Be mindful about not eating giant meals three times a day (even if other family members are). Just take small portions.
Heu mihi
1. Re-read Wonder draft (lowest priority)
2. Revise Impatience to the right length
3. Read 2 books
4. Do as much as possible re. MS situation
5. Get rid of stuff (list on Craig’s List, donate, offer to grad student)
6. Contact Amy about Denise; Denise title
7. Sit x 6
Humming42
1 Finish and submit Jewel
2 Find pdfs for Overlooked lit review
3 Write review of book I read during spring break
4 Buy bookshelves
JaneB
1) push as many work things into Friday as humanly possible
2) potter and putter at various small household projects, aiming for an hour a day
3) exercise a little every day
4) do something summery or creative every day
5) brain-dump ideas for summer plans onto HonkingBigSheetOfPaper which is on the living room table - don't DO anything with them, just dump them as they come up into a great ol' mess
6) eat healthily, drink plenty of water, sleep a lot.
Karen
1. Run on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
2. Marking! Finish all the marking!
3. Grant decision and 1 hour of drafting
4. Schedule workshop
5. 3 hours reading
OceanGirl101 (held over)
a. write 5,000 words for Ch 6
b. restake tomatoes in the garden and weed all over
c. have handyman repair garage door
d. walk for 2 hrs total and lift weights 3 x
e. find a new massage therapist who is good working with injuries (I have chronic back pain from an old severe injury)
PlantGirl
1. Exercise 4x again
2. Write 1 hr-ish/day OR research
3. Make it to the U of I RBML to look over a primary source
4. Possibly take weekend off?
Susan
1. Bureaucratic (1) file two sets of expenses
2. Bureaucratic (2) finish entering data into system, draft self statement for merit review
3. Read 6 journals, enter in bibliography
4. Order course books (this is VERY late)
5. Sketch syllabus for new course
6. Start reading next book review
7. Clear junk off two empty file cabinets to list on craigslist
8. Keep walking, eat healthfully
Waffles
1. Submit grant R&R
2. Finish presentation
3. Make wish list of measures
What Now?
finish the draft
clean the house
For the prompt, I'm picking the translation project: it's an antique car that I've been slowly restoring, in fits and starts, because sometimes we have to wait for parts to arrive or figure out how to make something that hasn't been made in decades, or learn a new skill in order to make the thing. It seems like it's almost done, but once we send it to the publisher/ take it out on the road, no doubt there will be further tinkering to make sure it runs as well as possible.
ReplyDeleteLast week was another crap week, because of yet more food problems and resultant bad sleep. Symptoms weren't as bad, but because this has been going on all month, the cumulative effect is worse. The problem this time wasn't testing something new, but eating a larger amount of something I eat regularly in small quantities. FODMAPs are tricky that way, and I seem to be more sensitive than average. So the Monash app may say I can have half a cup of whatever, but my max is more like two tablespoons.
Regular stretching and exercise; keep doing knee push-ups (50?). NO. Most days I went for a walk.
Return to normal early sleep schedule. NO.
Regular language and translation work. SOME: I did finish reviewing a chunk of translation.
Make a plan for the last set of article revisions. NO.
Do some planning for fall classes. NO
Do 2 house-related things. NO.
So let's just try all this again:
Regular stretching and exercise; keep doing knee push-ups (30 with good form).
Return to normal early sleep schedule.
Regular language and translation work.
Make a plan for the last set of article revisions.
Do some planning for fall classes.
Do 2 house-related things.
The antique car analogy is great! It works on so many levels.
DeleteSo sorry about the digestive issues...
DeleteOOOOh, I knew IMMEDIATELY what my research looks like if it was furniture! It's one of those huge merchant's chests, with lots and lots of small drawers, and about half of them have fairly mundane but still useful labels, with things like peppercorns and screwdrivers in them. These are mostly orderly, but sometimes there are hair elastics in a drawer labelled nutmeg or paperclips. The other half - well, most are unlabelled, and some are jammed shut, and when you do open one it might contain half a pound of sugar mice or three dried bayleaves, or it might contain something strange and wonderful and incomplete and possibly useless from a cabinet of curiosities, a sliver of a bird's skull with teeth, three green pebbles, a note in mirror-written cipher which when translated says "on loan to the future", six anticlockwise screws and a Byzantine coin, hundreds of index cards where a childish hand has tried to draw the "house in one line" shape and gotten it wrong the same way every time, assorted unlabelled shells...
ReplyDeletePity I work in a world where what they actually want is one of those nice modern wardrobe organising system of transparent boxes all the same size and all containing neatly folded sweaters in complementary shades, or freshly cleaned pairs of kitten heels (the shoes, not little bones or fluffy jerks), neat and predictable and orderly.
last week: I was SO TIRED. And I had allergies and ate poorly and wah, end of semester sucks.
goals from last week:
1) push as many work things into Friday as humanly possible yup. over 11 hours (growl), but got a lot done and can mostly take this coming week off
2) potter and putter at various small household projects, aiming for an hour a day not really. TIRED. And unmotivated
3) exercise a little every day mixed
4) do something summery or creative every day does napping and reading junk fiction count as either of those?
5) brain-dump ideas for summer plans onto HonkingBigSheetOfPaper which is on the living room table dumped quite a few. Then used the piece of paper as a table mat and napkin. What can I say, my brain was a bit off key. it doesn't matter much. And I did my "year of new years" review of the semester over at my blog, at least
6) eat healthily, drink plenty of water, sleep a lot.moderately (it's the time of year of nectarines and salad-with-everything, so the excess of bread and chocolate had healthy balancing sides), mostly and YES!
this week coming: I was a bit zonked on Saturday after a very busy Friday. Today I have done a few small chores, set up my new academic year diary entirely, ordered supplies for a craft project (I do not need a new project, but I wants one, so there). Plan is to only go into the office on Friday again this week and to mostly be on leave. I'd LIKE to go into full on leave mode but that's hard on my group since we have a busy week on FlatProject the following week so I won't be around then for them either, and I have a bit of prep to do, so keeping it all on one day makes it more likely I'll do other things the other days.
GOALS for next week:
1) only do actual work things on Friday other than emergency emails and planning
2) potter and putter at various small household projects, aiming for an hour a day
3) exercise a little every day
4) do something summery or creative every day
5) eat healthily, drink plenty of water, sleep a lot.
I cannot express how much I love your merchant's chest and its contents, but I yearn to read the book in which it belongs to someone.
DeleteAnd "kitten heels" as potentially "fluffy jerks" made me LOL.
It’s so nice cevknowing you guys “get” my asides and random thoughts. Fluffy jerks is exactly the sort of thing my sister would sigh at and point out that not all thoughts need to be shared...
DeleteI, too, love the merchant chest analogy.
DeleteAbsolutely what DEH said. Thank you for creating these beautiful images, JaneB.
DeleteYour sister is missing out on life. . .
ReplyDeleteThe merchant's chest definitely belongs in a book. What a world of exploration!
Next NaNoWriMo for you, JaneB!
DeleteMaybe so! :-)
DeleteJust a quick check-in from the road (from a hotel St. Louis, MO, to be specific):
ReplyDeleteLast week's goals:
1) Daily push ups (10x), walk the dog some, stretch a little Did push ups and squats about three times. Did well with the dog at the beginning of the week, not at the end. Not much stretching. But we've done some walking as a family as we explore the cities we stay in.
2) Start writing story for SF writing class DONE. But I'm not very happy with my ideas.
3) Write 500 words of mystery YANOT DONE.
4) Be mindful about not eating giant meals three times a day (even if other family members are). Just take small portions.SORT OF, but not really.
With the push ups, I sometimes hesitated to do them in hotels. Hotel carpets seem SO DIRTY. And some hotels have laminate (much cleaner, but tough on the knees).
For writing, I spent some time brainstorming and actually writing, but I don't think my ideas will work, and my story submission deadline is looming. But at least I found some time to work on it.
Food is tricky. So much social eating and eating out, and kids who want three meals a day when I could eat two.
This week:
1) Keep working on healthful-ish food choices. Look for fiber and veggies on menus.
2) Write short story (eep!)
3) Do daily push ups and squats (10 of each)
4) Move like water / float like mist (but also be willing to be the stone in the river sometimes?) as I enter the intense family time that will begin on Friday (double eep!)
P.S. I'm not sure I'll be able to check in next week. After I arrive at my dad's on Friday, I don't think I'll have wifi or time on the computer. Wish me luck with my father, my step-mother who has Alzheimer's, my two step-sisters, the family photos one of my step-sisters has arranged (on the beach an hour from where we're staying), my lack of alone time, and my ability to manage my own stress as I guide my husband and kids through the dynamics of it all.
All the good luck and good wishes! I feel for you.
DeleteRe hotel floors, put down a towel? Hotels have lots of towels and will bring more if you run out.
Food is so complicated. Wouldn't it be HANDY if it was more optional?
DeleteOn the food and travel, I've learned a few things I can order without feeling stuffed, but it's hard.
DeleteAnd I have no words for your family time. Good luck -- it's all hard. And sounds like the family dynamics make it harder...
Last week:
ReplyDelete1. Write one section of the essay. - started, not finished
2. Go on an 8 mile hike carrying at least 20 pounds. - nope. weather and stuff got in the way. I did ride my bike some at least.
3. Keep practicing! - yes!
This week:
1. Finish an assessment narrative. What a pain.
2. Write at least 5 pages of my essay.
3. Work on a scrap book project for friends' child. (birthday coming soon)
4. Take a hike! Ride my bike. (try to rhyme for fun.)
5. Practice more! (esp using some techniques my teacher has worked with me on.)
I sort of don't get the building metaphor, at least not for my relationship with my writing.
It looks like you made good progress; you did something towards each of your goals.
DeleteThe furniture metaphor will work better for some people and some projects than others. Notice that at the original post, in 2009, I was completely unimaginative and saw my project as a cluttered desk (and I still have that desk!). The antique car seems more hopeful; it may creak and stutter but we have hopes of actually getting the thing moving, fairly soon.
My metaphor is a carnival carousel. All the gleaming horses riding endlessly up and down, up and down, around and around. The sparkling lights, the endless music, all so alluring it is difficult to choose the one you want to call your own. I also have a fascination with abandoned amusement parks (hence the carousel) and hope to someday find a way to turn that into an article. But other horses call to me in the meantime.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1 Finish and submit Jewel: yes!
2 Find pdfs for Overlooked lit review: no
3 Write review of book I read during spring break: yes
4 Buy bookshelves: not yet
I am so incredibly grateful to finish Jewel. I hope mightily that the editor (a dear friend from graduate school) likes it. There’s a really important lesson for me from Jewel, which is that I have a tendency to read articles, buy books, dig deep into JSTOR, and do research so far beyond what’s necessary for any given article. I don’t think of myself as a person who has ever struggled with imposter syndrome, but this “research until you can’t be wrong about anything” is definitely a bad affliction. When I was a masters student, one of my friends teasingly told me that I was the only student in the program who read every assigned article/book. And I was astonished by that. But thoroughness is one thing, excess is another.
Regarding Overlooked, I got happily distracted by Tiny Project and discovered a cache of snippets I wrote a couple of years ago during AcWriMo. This week I will work to put them into some semblance of order, while also getting back to work on Overlooked.
This week:
1 Organize Tiny Project snippets
2 Find pdfs for Overlooked lit review
3 Write syllabus for summer classes :(
4 Complete and submit two book reviews
Congratulations on finishing Jewel! That's excellent.
DeleteYour carousel image is lovely. I feel like there may be some thematic overlap between it and my antique car . . . flashy things that go round and round or are safest driven in short laps (just in case of breakdowns).
I like the way your image captures the allure of the possible... there are so many things one COULD explore
DeleteI'm very bad at these prompts, but as for my goals:
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Exercise 4x again : Made it to 3 times, legs were too sore to run back-to-back days
2. Write 1 hr-ish/day OR research : Successfully did this!
3. Make it to the U of I RBML to look over a primary source : Also managed to do this, which was quite nice.
4. Possibly take weekend off? : Tragically, did not manage to do this. I worked a little bit both days.
Goals for this week:
1. Get in my regular stuff as much as possible (research, running)...
2. But allow for the fact that I'm getting married Friday and won't have a ton of time for my regular schedule starting Thursday into Sunday.
3. So try to enjoy the experience, and not feel bad about not working / exercising / and eating way too much cake.
Wow, congratulations on your forthcoming wedding, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend all round!
DeleteYes, congratulations! And do enjoy the wedding and weekend. Celebrations need appropriate accoutrements, including cake, time away from work, and whatever else marks an occasion as special for you.
DeleteEnjoy your wedding!
DeleteWhoa! Congratulations and enjoy!!
DeleteI hope you had a lovely wedding!
DeleteHello from Montreal! Am here at a conference and it is lovely - but I am tired of conferencing!
ReplyDeleteLast week:
Waffles
1. Submit grant R&R - DONE!!!
2. Finish presentation - DONE - and it went super well! I figured out the perfect dosage of propanalol to control my presentation anxiety (I didn't need a single drink of water the whole time, and I usually drink like a fish and joke my water is spiked) - so hooray!
3. Make wish list of measures - I have started this and also put my measures thus far into qualtrics.
Wow - I did more than I thought. We also just submitted my NIH progress report.
I don't know my goals for this week yet - it will be a short week and one of my colleagues apparently wants to have a 3 day meeting while she is in NYC - which I am not on board with! I want to spend all day Wednesday regrouping from home with my kitties!!
Congrats!
DeleteConferences are great in small doses and generous personal space afterwards to decompress! Good luck negotiating your meeting-enthused colleague!
DeleteThere is no excuse whatsoever for a three-day meeting.
DeleteLast week:
ReplyDelete1) finish the draft -- only worked on this on Monday and then bailed from it for the rest of the week -- boo!
2) clean the house -- what I actually did for the rest of the week, even when I was supposed to be writing. I actually sorted through and dusted and reorganized all of the books/bookshelves, a major project that feels great to have done. And we had a handyman doing work on Friday as I was on a vacuuming frenzy. Got lots done, but dang, I was completely worn out all weekend and even today (Monday), although I'm beginning to feel better this afternoon.
This week: Finish the dang essay!
I love everyone's furniture metaphors!
You made progress on the draft! That's good. The house may be one of those projects that's best dealt with all in one go. Cat knows, I wasn't able to work on de-cluttering or even scheduling repairs during the semester, though the things we had left to do went really fast once I felt like I could focus on them. I hope having a clean house makes it feel like brain is also clearer and more focused, so you can finish the essay this week.
DeletePrompt: I don't have a piece of furniture, but for a project I've sidelined for the summer in favor of catching up with myself (I think I've called it polemic in earlier iterations of this group) I see it as a javelin: it's pointed at a target, moves pretty quickly and is useful rather than beautiful. It's odd that a pacifist describes a research project that way. . .
ReplyDeleteIf I were to think of my research as a whole, it would be a loom -- there are different strands, and sometimes I'm focused on the warp, sometimes on the weft, but a lot of my work is drawing connections between the warp and weft.
OK, that's it for images, I think.
Goals from last week:
1. Bureaucratic (1) file two sets of expenses YES!!!
2. Bureaucratic (2) finish entering data into system, draft self statement for merit review Started self statement, but other stuff not so much
3. Read 6 journals, enter in bibliography 5.5 (the .5 I've read, but a glitch on the journal website means I haven't entered the data) Calling this a win.
4. Order course books (this is VERY late) NO
5. Sketch syllabus for new course NO
6. Start reading next book review NO
7. Clear junk off two empty file cabinets to list on craigslist YES!!! And did more clearing than that!
8. Keep walking, eat healthfully YEs, pretty much
Analysis: I think it's been a good week, but slower than I anticipated. I've been very tired -- when I'm at home, I've been taking morning naps! And I had a couple of days taken up by meetings and bureaucratic stuff, so not really as much time as I hoped. Sigh.
Goals this week: (this may be ambitious, as my mother just told me that she's got to go to the hospital daily for the next 10 days for IV antibiotics, and I'll take her most days.)
1. Book orders -- maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning
2. Finish merit review (due Saturday, so it will be done)
3. Start reading book for next book review (I've got two train trips, so should be fine.)
4. 6 more journals -- then I'll really see the progress!
5. Sort out old desk in den
6. Get rid of old sofa on Craigslist (new one ready for delivery)
7. Keep walking
8. Figure out sleep, or why am I so tired?
9. Do one fun thing
It's interesting that so many of us choose objects that move in some way (even JaneB's chest involves drawers that open).
DeleteI hope you can figure out if something's keeping you from sleeping well, or if you just need to rest more as part of the "catching up to yourself" project. It does sound like you've had a lot going on for a long time. Recovery takes time!
I'm really grappling with slow this summer, trying to find that spot in between slothful and frenetic and being unhappy with progress either way (It's summer, why aren't you doing more? and It's summer, why aren't you doing less?)
DeleteI am currently Away, so this will be brief. I'm kind of thinking of Wonder like a sort of clunky ottoman that doesn't go with any of the furniture but *could* be a comfortable footrest, maybe, if only.... Or something.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, how I did:
1. Re-read Wonder draft (lowest priority) - NO
2. Revise Impatience to the right length - DONE
3. Read 2 books - DONE
4. Do as much as possible re. MS situation - DONE AND RESOLVED
5. Get rid of stuff (list on Craig’s List, donate, offer to grad student) - DONE (one more grad student to contact now)
6. Contact Amy about Denise; Denise title - DONE
7. Sit x 6 - x5, if you count Friday's kirtan. It seems that I have a hard time doing this when Bonaventure is out of school. I must address that, since school ended on the 21st.
This week:
1. Enjoy our little trip to our Northerly Neighbor without stressing over money. This is a very real challenge for me.
2. Finish one book.
3. Sit on the weekend (when we're back home)--so x2 this week.
And that is all! Enjoy, everyone!
Have a good trip!
DeleteYou need to find or create a nice cover for the ottoman so it DOES go with the decor!
DeleteTopic: My research as a whole is one of those large fish tanks one often sees in doctors’ offices. Some projects are lively, bright fish that attract my attention, but swish away when I try to study them at length. Others are slow moving, rather dull, fish that hang out among the greenery and trinkets on the bottom of the tank. I try to watch them, but they blend in too well into their surroundings and I lose track of them. One or two of my projects are hermit crabs, that hide from me, moving so slowly as to seem immobile, but surprise me when they work their way to the other side of the tank, almost without notice.
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
Pack for New Orleans.Done
Verify and combine if necessary the versions of the introduction that were created in my wrestling session with the work cloud application. Almost done
Print the most recent/complete version for the trip. Done
Begin my annual faculty report. Yes
Analysis: I was a lot less productive in New Orleans than I had planned, but it felt good to take a break from the research, although I still have some guilt about it. I walked a lot, even in the oppressive heat and humidity. I managed to have some lovely meals, avoiding most bad things, with some effort. Although I did visit my favorite yarn/needlepoint shop, a delightful place in the French Quarter, I kept myself to a needlepoint fleur-de-lis kit and a couple of local interest patterns for counted cross-stitch, despite wanting to buy enough yarn for the next six or seven projects. I did not manage to sleep well, as most of the meetings were at 8:30, although evenings go quite late in New Orleans.
Next week’s goals:
Finish annual faculty report.
Conduct staff evaluation.
Put in next round of interlibrary loan requests.
Write 5 hours x 3.
I am loving all the descriptions of projects as furniture or other objects. May everyone have a great end of the week. Excelsior!
Another "movement" entry in the work metaphors!
DeleteIt sounds like you had a good trip despite heat and sleep problems. The break will probably help you feel energized when you come back, and your handwork projects will remind you of a lovely trip as well as providing useful down/thinking time.
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteI had to go out of town to engineer getting my Mom's sister into Memory Care. She was being resistant. So my goals this week were to get her agreeable to moving in, to meet with the Memory Care facility to make sure they have space, and to start behind the scenes work to get all the admitting paperwork done. On the work front, I printed out Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 (latter is only partially completed) of the book to copy edit while I am gone. On health/balance front, my hope was to work out 3x a week and to get a massage. I managed to meet all my goals but the book copy editing has been slow- I finished c. 20 pages of full edits on Ch 6 and started copy editing the foreign words (glottal stops, italics) in each chapter.