I have been revising the same paragraph for four hours now. It is not a long paragraph--eight or nine typescript lines. Nor is this the final draft. What this is is a spectacular waste of my time.
And yet, even though it's freezing cold in the student union building and I'm hungry, I can't stop trying to get the fucker to work. I'm actually feeling invested in this project for the first time in a while.
Somebody just shoot me already.
5 comments:
Is it a wording thing, an obsessive compulsive can't let it go thing, or a content thing? If it's the first or second option, send it to me in an email and I'll be happy to give you feedback :) If it is the last, I'm no help to you.
Obviously, you need a scotch. Unfortunately, because of your location in the Land of Summer Heat, I cannot send the Saint Bernard with a cask around its neck to find you. You'll have to dig your way out alone.
Aw! Aren't you the best.
Dr. C., it's a combination of both. I think I'm experiencing it as a language problem, but it's at least as much a problem of content (it's not the first paragraph, but it is one that sets out some Big Issues). Hate it when those two things conspire against me.
And Sis: between the time of my post and time of this comment, I hiked out to an excellent restaurant and had some excellent margaritas. And then I hiked sweatily home. (I really need to train Nero on how to make a good G&T. Life would be so much better if he'd have one waiting for me when I got home.)
Sorry to hear it, and hope things have gone better today.
Have you considered writing first drafts *as if* you were drinking? Sometimes I've found it useful when my writing was feeling inhibited to deliberately make all the mistakes I'd been trying to avoid. It's a writer's variant on the actor's exercise called "playing the fear." Afraid to be too angry? Write it as a blistering polemic on major figures who still vacation with your adviser. Afraid to be too undertheorized? Deliberately pitch it toward your sophomore survey students. Afraid to be too overtheorized? Write it like your were trying to win a game of more-post-structuralist-than-thou.
Then, when you've gotten looming disasters out of the way, try writing again.
Or, of course, maragaritas ...
Stop it right now, missy! (and go have that margarita).
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