Comments on: Well I’m not blogging either, so there.

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:00:12 +0000

Writer’s block is a terrible thing. I have spent all morning wandering around the house in order to avoid the rather straightforward multiple choice exam I need to write by Monday.

The good news is that as John notes, even a little bit everyday in the end can add up to a lot–Persistence is a key. Just one page per day can result in a 30 page article in one month, and a whole book mss. in one year (…now if only my multiple choice exam were so easy!)

By: John

John — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:48:53 +0000

I recall reading somewhere that Max Weber, who suffered from serious depression, could only write two hours a day. But, hey, look at the output. Confirms some of the best advice this wordsmith ever received: Writing is like playing a musical instrument. At first, it can seem awfully hard; but with lots of practice comes fluency.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:22:20 +0000

It is always hard to write whether in grad school, in a settled life, or on the fly. Sometime this is a good thing, too, as what comes quickly to us is not always the wisest.

By: John

John — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:47:44 +0000

Some good news from the other end of the life cycle. It was 1976 when, 32 years old, with a three year-old daughter, I crashed and burned, a.k.a., didn’t get tenure. It was over a decade later, when my daughter was in her teens and our family was feeling economically secure, that my academic itch returned. I got out my old field notes, wrote a small article and timidly submitted it to a minor journal. Got published. Emboldened, I wrote a bigger article and sent it to a major journal. Got rejected, but in the nicest possible way, by an editor who told me what I needed to do–catch up on the stuff I’d missed in the last decade–in order to get it published. Started work on another piece, mentioned on an email list, got a pointer from a friend, and wound up with a chapter in a book. Five years later my own book appeared. Now I’m doing some more research.

I mention this stuff in hopes of encouraging those who are still young, have young kids around the house, are maybe in what is described, delicately, as financially unstable circumstances, to believe that life won’t always be like this. You, too, may find a path that will let you make folks like Benjamin Whorf (an insurance adjuster) or Lewis Henry Morgan (a lawyer) your models.

By: mark

mark — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:53:31 +0000

This quote a friend has at the bottom of her e-mail sounds like it might apply”

“She was supposed to be an intellectual, but at night the only thing she felt the energy to do was watch Dynasty…it had not always been like this. Not at all.” – Mischa Berlinski in “Fieldwork”