If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives... But up close a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. - Ursula K. LeGuin

Saturday, November 21, 2009

It's All About The Writing

If last weekend was the Weekend Of Cooking, this is the Weekend Of Writing (or WOW). Next weekend (after The Big Day) may end up being WOW II. Now that my classes are just about a thing of the past and I have only 6 committee meeting scheduled until the end of the semester, I actually have some mental space to get serious writing accomplished.

As you can see from my little cartoon counter above, I've been very slowly plodding away at InaDWriMo. I have not been able to track my # of days spent in writing-related activities very well but my sense is, in spite of my Week Of Conferencing, I'm not that far off the mark.

Here's what I'm trying to accomplish before the semester ends and the holiday festivities begin:
  • Get 2 papers--that are currently completely drafted--polished, to co-authors, and out the door. One of these needs some serious editing to get it down to the 3500 word limit, which messes with my InaDWriMo word tracking system something fierce.
  • 1 article for a cool encyclopedia on a topic that interests me greatly but I know very little about. Article has a 1220 word limit but is due December 1st.
  • Revisions to Mmy NIH grant that needs to be submitted in February but my wonderful, excellent, oh-so-amazing grant writer editor wanted to see the next draft in December.
  • This paper that has been the bane of my writing existence for far too long now, has come back as a revise and resubmit. For those of you following along, it took a long time to come back from the last journal as a revise and resubmit but with comments from the Editor that (a) made no sense and (b) gave me reason to believe the Editor did not want it published regardless of reviewers. Revisions from the current journal are not that difficult but one reviewer wrote a 9-page review! It was mostly complimentary but will require some effort making sure all the suggestions are incorporated or explained.
If I can get all of the above accomplished it will leave me free to start and/or get back to analysis on 5 papers (that I have desperately been wanting to write for some time now) in the Spring semester (when I thankfully am teaching only 1 class). I also have 2 articles currently under review that I am anticipating major revisions. It will be nice to have these out of the way before those reviews come in.

9 comments:

life_of_a_fool said...

Is a 3500 word limit common in your field?? That's *really* short!

My bane-of-existence article has been so for 2 years or so. I'm now at the point where I just want to get it published so that it will not beat me! I will win in the end!

Brigindo said...

My field is interdisciplinary so I end up publishing in a lot of different fields, but most of them--including journals directly in my field--have similar limits.

Yes! That is exactly how I feel about this paper. I don't need it to get published for any reason except that it will be a victory.

Seeking Solace said...

I love the cartoon. That's how my writing is going thus far!

life_of_a_fool said...

wow. I thought the 25 page limit (which is fairly common in my field though the more prestigious journals often allow 40 + pages) was crazy short!

It's weird how things are done so differently in different fields, even when they're somewhat similar (as I think ours are).

Annie said...

Good luck with all the revisions, and keeping track of all of them! I also tend to have multiple things in process all at once, and other things on the "back burner."

Julie said...

That does sound like "wow!" You have the talent, but your spirit and drive are equally as impressive. Best wishes with it all!

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