Day 158 Feeling the burn

It's wednesday. I'm having one of those grey, lack-lustre weeks where the sky is full of sleet, my cats have become incontinent, and I'm fighting-off the kind of first-world but endless problems that make you want to crawl under a duvet, with a pint of gin. And I got some disappointing news that means I'm stuck in the first circle-of-hell, domestically speaking, for at least another month.

*But* today I crossed the final 't' of the first half of the chapter I'm working on - the chapter that refuses to die. And I'm hell-bent with gritted teeth on slaying the rest of the beast by the end of next week.

Day 141 Update: pre-birth jitters

 It's been too long since my last progress report. The schedule went a bit off-piste thanks to Christmas, dry January, my standard cognitive chaos. But I haven't been idle, honest guvnor. I've pretty much vanquished chapter 8. 

Which leaves me only two chapters still undrafted. They're the two chapters that I thought would be the easiest, because they rely the most on existing material. Somehow that's made them the hardest instead. I'm not sure if this is because I find it more fun to write newer stuff, or perhaps because the remaining chapters deal with the issues that are most at the heart of all my work so the bar is higher, or what. But i can't avoid them any longer.

What I've started doing is reviewing the overall shape of the beast though. I've got around 73,000 words drafted which feels good. I promised the publisher between 80 and 100 thousand, so it feels like I'm right on track.  Of course, as well as the two remaining chapters, I've got the intro and conclusions still to do, as well as editing and redrafting, references, pictures and index to sort out. There is still plenty to do! 

But I'm close enough to the end now that a new sort of fear is beginning to set in. Not so much, 'Will i get it written?' as 'Will it be any good?' And there is something else too. Reviewing the macroscopic structure of the arguments, its dawned on me that it's turning out slightly, well, different from how I expected. Which is terrifying.

I've often joked that I don't feel entirely in charge when I'm writing. It's a bit like getting possessed by a idea and i don't always know where it will lead. I'm often surprised by the ending.

Is this normal? I have no idea. Many women have compared finishing a book to having a baby - long gestation period, painful birth, celebratory announcement period etc. But of course it doesn't stop there - the child keeps growing and developing (if you're lucky). and parenthood is all about cultivating something autonomous, rather than sculpting clay. 

It's like my work has a life of its own too. And I'm not the only author, because the end product reflects all sorts of things that happened, like things I read, other people's work, as well.

One of the surprises, so far, is that its a lot more philosophical than I thought it would be. This is partly because I set out to respond to philosophical work on my earlier writings but mostly, I'm sure, about people who have influenced me - like my former grad students, Will Morgan and Arthur Carlyle, who inspired me to think loads about really metaphysical issues like personal identity.

It's scary because it feels a bit out of my lane - I'm not a metaphysician! and because I feel much safer talking about real things, describing actual creatures, than in evaluating possible worlds and so on. I guess I'm also worried the abstract stuff gets too dry and will alienate people who'd rather be hearing about colourful and engaging animal life histories. 

Maybe I'll change the balance again in the end - I've been working more at the abstract end of things, but the two remaining chapters will hopefully bring it back to earth. I'll have to consult the muse, next time it's with me. I guess I'm also slightly freaked out because I've ended up writing much more new material than I originally intended to - not just new ways of putting things, but getting into entirely new problems and literatures that I'd never thought about before. Which has made it more fun for me, of course. But now that I'm remembering that my baby is going to have to go out into the world one day, it suddenly feels risky. 

It's not me to be an over-protective parent though. I'm more the type who bungs them into roller-skates and laughs when they fall over. Tells 'em to wipe their muddy hands on their knees and crack on. But then, I've always known, deep inexplicably in my core, that my kids are awesome and will do just fine. My book, on the other hand.......I need to work out what the equivalent is of helicopter authoring. I guess instead of disallowing boyfriends I'd be refusing to let anyone read it.

What I really need, to help with these jitters, is a) to work really hard editing and polishing it up but also b) to find some well-trusted, but also totally qualified people to read bits and beg them not to hold back on criticism, for my own good.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. It's time to reach out to my academic village.......

Day 97: 'Twas the week before christmas.........

and inside Ellen's house, 

was an orgy of late-night writing,

amidst mess, noodle pots, and empty bottles of famous grouse.

Day 72: Nanny McPh*$%

72 days......that's 2.4 months. How much is a respectable amount to have written in 2.4 months? How much was I planning to have written in 2.4 months?  You know the expression, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade'? Well the fact is that making any kind of juice is a lot like writing.........you get through a whole pile of raw material, put in a load of work, and get a tiny dribble of juice plus a ton of waste for your efforts. It's not clear its even worth it, especially when juice in a carton is so cheap! 

Day 49: Half term etch-a-sketch

It's another one of those mondays where I sit before an enticing browser, trying to remember who I am, what I was meant to be doing, what it's all about........half term happened. And actually it was wonderful, busy, full of love and laughter with friends and family. There was mountain climbing, karaoke, a hedgehog, ghost biscuits, crazy golf, water sliding, trick-or-treating, and one slightly hair-raising adventure getting lost on a small Welsh island. I'm lucky to have a lot of great people in my life and my children are hilarious. It's all been highly effective at wiping my brain clean of all thoughts, worries, and ideas about my book. In fact, I feel borderline pre-linguistic at this point. I'm thinking in emojis. It's time to drag myself back on the horse. Goals time.

Half term marks my half-way point: 50% of my leave is gone. Only 11 short weeks left till I'm back to teaching, with christmas to fit in there somewhere too. Cue the emoji with the clenched teeth. I need to pick up the pace.

Chapter five is actually going pretty smoothly, and I think I can have it nailed this week if I go hard at it. That will make four chapters finished (one, two, five and seven) and four to go (three, four, six and eight). Three should be finished as well, I've been agonising over it needlessly, but I know that at crunch time I can see it off. So I can sort of say I've nailed five out of eight, if I want to haggle with myself pointlessly, which I do.

Of course, there is also a thesis to examine, and then a pile of external examining work, and my final project supervisions........but if I squint my eyes hard enough they go invisible and it will all be okay. I think I can do it. But I need to go dig out a heavy duty leash...................

Extinction Studies at Boggle Hole

 

Last week was the inaugural field trip of the Leverhulme Extinction Studies Doctoral Training Program at Leeds. Students and supervisors headed to Boggle Hole, a beautiful cove just south of Robin Hood's Bay on the Yorkshire coast.

Day 22: Biological substances (success at last!)

With massive relief I can report that Chapter 7 has been defeated. I slept on it, and conferred with my wonderful ex-student, Dr Will Morgan, and I've found my way to a conclusion I'm happy with. Now I need readers!

The chapter explores the following question: Do concepts of Biological Individuality provide identity conditions for the objects they apply to, or are they defined by 'mere' properties?

Day 18: Failure?

Reader, this is the trouble with public commitment devices.....they can be embarrassing. I was so determined to finish this chapter that i've worked a crazy number of hours these last few days. It wasn't quite an all-nighter last night (i'm too old for that) but the typing stopped at midnight and started back up at 8am today.

The truth is I've *nearly* finished it. Maybe. I've got about 8 thousand words i'm happy with. Ish. But it's that eleventh hour where its traditional for me to get stuck. To oscillate between thinking it's about done, if i only i scale down its framing a bit. and thinking i've hit a fundamental wall and worked out precisely why it was all a pointless rabbit hole.

Is it just me that finds it impossible to measure or predict the pace of completion of my work? I feel like it must be the same with sculptors. You don't start the work when you pick up the chisel. before that you have to have spent hours thinking, looking at other sculptures, having ideas, discarding them, looking for materials, discarding them. The point where the book proposal has been sent off - that's when you find yourself standing in front of the block of marble, chisel in hand. There is no turning back now. You paid for the stone. You  planned out what you're going to do to it. but did you?

Are you half way through the sculpture when half the amount of marble has been removed? Surely not. and surely no two sculptors proceed in the same way. Probably each carving is different.  I often start hacking at the rock without having fully decided what i'm planning to make. Probably some sculptures are the same. You wait to see what emerges from the stone, somehow. 

This morning i'd have said my book chapter was at the point where i've done all the big cuts. I've worked out where the head is going to be, the details of the posture are fixed, the angles, the scale is all there. It's too late to change course - to make a dog instead of a woman, or to start again with different stone. That's most of the way there for me. All that comes after that is bits of polishing. The big decisions have all been sorted out. Some artists would leave it at that, and enjoy the roughcut, impressionistic effect. I may even have submitted such roughcuts to journals at times, hoping that someone else would appreciate the simple rugged beauty of an idea in its virgin, unpolished state (ha!)

But it's never too late to have a crisis of confidence. Is the head too small? Shall i just finish the rest and leave it headless? Or do i need to start over?

The truth is i'm stuck, and its the sort of stuck that only gets resolved when you put the chisel down and go away for a bit. Think about something else. Get a second opinion.

Reader, I didn't finish the chapter.  I'm sorry. But I will.

Day 14 - Emollient gamification challenge

 

Another monday morning rolls around. I find it so hard on mondays to snap back into philosopher mode, after a weekend of refereeing squabbles and the mad dash to locate water bottles that is a monday morning. I tend to feel pretty shell shocked by the time i get in from the school run, and the fact that is was pouring with rain so i had to locate wellies and raincoats as *well* didn't help. It was a lovely weekend, actually, the kids were on good form and we had a cosy sunday with lots of stories and cuddles.

Day 5 (Am i regretting this numbering system yet?)

 Time to do some reviewing of the week, before i sign out and into parent mode till monday. 

Did i meet my goals? Did it turn out as i planned? Do i need to make some changes for next week?

Ha, i'm sometimes sniffy about business-style evaluation systems, but that two-line exercise just revealed my first rookie error. I didn't set any goals last week! At least, i only set them for one day, and they were pretty vague. I should probably set some writing goals, as in actual numbers of words written each week. except i don't think i'm ready for that yet. I'm the kind of person who can spew out words numbering in 4 or even 5 digits in a day without particularly trying. In fact, it takes a concerted effort not to. Because its often useless - they're either random tangents or repetitions of things i already wrote. I do it when i'm avoiding the more taxing labour of actually *thinking*.

What i did do last week was make progress on some more specific goals. I sent off a review, read a couple papers that were on my list, attended a bunch of awesome talks at EPSA, and got my talk for next week mostly into shape. Oh and i started blogging and updated my website. That's not horrible going for a week. *but* its very hard to measure the extent to which any of it furthered my book. 

Here is an attempt at some plausible goals for next week though:

• Today: Reread James Di Frisco's excellent paper on Sortals, projectibility and selection.
• Tuesday and Wednesday: work on my talk in the mornings, then attend the workshop for the rest of the day
• Then by the end of the week i should capitalise on everything being fresh in my mind, and get a first draft of the whole metaphysics chapter finished.

ok go!