NaNoWriSpr: On Guilt, Conference Season, and Novel Writing

Okay, so no new pages lately--teaching and other academic endeavors have been winning the cage match lately, with two academic conferences this week and next at which to present my dissertation research, subs to get and prepare for when I'm gone, midterm grades having just been finished and handed back, various professional development opportunities to apply for, etc., etc., etc.

When it comes down to it, Livelihood has quite the right hook, especially just after spring break, when midterms coincide with Conference Season. It's a good thing an amazing stack of well-written midterms softened the blow. I love seeing my students learn and begin to grasp difficult concepts in depth.

But that doesn't mean Creative Writing and the DNiP are down for the count, by any means. For one thing, I just workshopped my third and last novel installment of the semester in my fiction writing class yesterday, and it went well. It feels good to know I'm on the right track. And I'll be taking the files with me while traveling in case of a spare hour or two. Hotel rooms can be good places to write.

Furthermore, it's not like my academic activities are really divorced or separate from my creative writing endeavors. My diss was about author-audience relationships in storytelling situations, after all, and I love that I get to go talk to others who are interested in the same things.

Plus, after a week away from the novel-writing absorption of spring break, I was reading through my current manuscript again last night and could see the benefits of the down time. I'm a bit worried about spending TOO much time away, but I'm in a really good place with it right now, so a couple of weeks of lower writing activity won't hurt, I don't think.

Plus, talking to other humans who are interested in similar things--and hearing interesting papers about a wide range of topics--will be good for me, and I'm sure to enjoy it. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, stimuli that doesn't always seem to move my immediate projects forward can inspire me in ways I would not have expected. And as I've been realizing more and more lately, one of the things I most love in life--that animates me the most, and drives projects stemming from all my selves, whether professional or creative or social--is a good nuanced dialogue about interesting and important things.

[With great effort, picks up boulder of DNiP guilt and sets it outside of the suitcase she's packing.] This will be a good week and a half.

In Which She Returns, Victorious?

Okay, so I'm back from the wars--er, conference. I presented my papers, got my certificate for my award and such, and want now to be all bashful about it.

The thing is, I always seem to have this battle within me. On one side, there's this part that says yes, it's fabulous when people like my stuff. That's awesome. It means in part that I've managed to communicate successfully for once. And therefore revels in what I see as the utter gift of an award. After all, I know how subjective these things are, and have no idea why they chose my work (not that I'm turning it down or anything).

But there's this other side of me, which wishes to fade as far into the wallpaper as possible with this sort of thing. After all, I'm just doing what I do, and would likely still be plugging away whether or not these particular people at this particular moment in time chose to give me this piece of paper (or to respond favorably to this piece of work). I don't want to be seen as one of those grasping people who's out to get awards. Nor do I want to be one of those people.

I'm pretty sure that a chunk of this has to do with my deep beliefs that whatever I have is a gift: that I earn none of it. And that, as Eliot puts it, "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

What do you think? Does this make me a normal writer? An abnormal one? A normal academic? An abnormal academic?

As She Heaves a Sigh of Relief...

So the last week has been busier than a first week of "vacation" (i.e., a few month period of slightly less academic work per week) ought to be, perhaps. The day after my semester was completed, I went north for a short 2-day visit. After that, I worked my 11 hours at my assistantship and finished my revise and resubmit for the book chapter due May 15 (that's 1600 new words for 16 pages of revisions).

And then I abstracted (150 new words) one of the papers I'd written for the end of the semester and sent it off as a conference proposal for a fall academic conference. Finishing this up as my parents (who had arrived that evening) slept.

The next day, I went with them to Chicago for a short 2-day visit. We spent one day at a professional sporting event, where I enjoyed being outside and cheering instead of staring at a computer screen, and then seeing relatives, where I was overwhelmed by seeing a large clump of people after my hermit-like grad school existence.

The next day, I got to go to the Newberry Library and do archival research toward my dissertation. I'll just say I could live there. I love that place.

Anyway, I got home and tried to wrap my brain around the paper that I was sure was due this Wednesday while trying to logistically prepare for the conference I have to go to on Wednesday through Friday. After two days, I had a place to stay and a way to get there, but I'd only gotten as far on the paper as a written outline. And so, this morning, I was immeasurably glad when I got an email changing the deadline for the paper to June 15.

Collective sigh of relief, please.


Thanks. Now there's time to actually get academically ready for this week's conference. (I've written the long versions of the conference papers, but must figure out what of that I can say in only a few minutes and read other people's papers on my panel.)