Paper paper paper THESIS graduate.
Paper paper paper EXAM paper paper paper EXAM paper DISSERTATION graduate again.
Article article article BOOK tenure.
Article article article BOOK promotion.
Again and again but I would like to advance into the clear sea of life work.
Where each piece drops from the whole and is not a token fed to a mountain.
–Professor Zero, Starting to Write is Like Swimming
Dear Ms. H.,
Thank you for your interest in [crappy non-tenure track job] at [fancy American university]. I’m sorry to tell you that you have not been selected to be interviewed for a [crappy non-tenure track job] at this time. Our search committee received over 500 applications for this [crappy non-tenure track] position. Of necessity, we had to turn away many qualified applicants with strong credentials and teaching experience.
We thank you for applying and wish you luck with your [crushing debt burden and] future endeavours. [Sucker!]
Sincerely,
The Committee
Fancy American University
N.B.: Journalists wishing to interview Ph.D. candidates for depressing articles about the impact of the recession on the academic job market may contact me at the email address above.
Sometime March. I avoid calendars; write single-spaced.
The line between fear and effort. Dragons queue for slaying.
Quiet lonely writing reeling. Drown in blue screen.
As we move ever closer to a Full Moon in your sign on Tuesday, March 10, the tension also grows, similar to water filling a balloon. So too will your emotions be swelling within by the day. Everything may feel exaggerated this week as Saturn in your sign makes an awkward yet growth promoting angle to Jupiter, the planet of expansion. The best way to handle this week’s influence is to chip away at something that you have been procrastinating on. Just start moving in that direction. As soon as your energy commits so too will there be a release of some of the emotional build-up. There is something you have been avoiding for far too long. Make your life easier and JUST DO IT! You will feel like a different person, just like that.
–Weekly horoscope for Virgo and Virgo rising, The Cosmic Path
Leonardo is just one example of an individual whose meaning has been constructed, in part, to combat the vice of procrastination; namely, the natural desire to pursue what one finds most interesting and enjoyable rather than what one finds boring and repellent, simply because one’s life must be at the service of some compelling interest — some established institutional practice — that is never clearly explained, lest it be challenged and rejected.
–W.A. Pannapacker, How to Procrastinate Like Leonardo da Vinci
Essential reading. Via I never knew.
On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on.
Say for be said. Missaid. From now say for missaid.
Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least. A place. Where none. For the body. To be in. Move in. Out of. Back into. No. No out. No back. Only in. Stay in. On in. Still.
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
–Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho
Writing [ . . . ] is largely an exercise in psychological discipline – trying to balance your project on your chin while negotiating a minefield of depression and freak-out. Beginning is daunting; being in the middle makes you feel like Sisyphus; ending sometimes comes with the disappointment that this finite collection of words is all that remains of your infinitely rich idea. Along the way, there are the pitfalls of self-disgust, boredom, disorientation and a lingering sense of inadequacy, occasionally alternating with episodes of hysterical self-congratulation as you fleetingly believe you’ve nailed that particular sentence and are surely destined to join the ranks of the immortals, only to be confronted the next morning with an appalling farrago of clichés that no sane human could read without vomiting. But when you’re in the zone, spinning words like plates, there’s a deep sense of satisfaction and, yes, enjoyment.
–Hari Kunzru, on writing for a living
“YOUR SILENCE PREVENTING WORK.”
–Ralph Ellison, telegram to wife
