Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2013 }{ Week 5
This is my log for #AcWriMo 2013. You can read my guiding philosophy for the exercise here, and my lofty goals here. Now let’s get on with my accountability.
With almost all my job applications finally in for the year, my interview and guest lectures over with last week, I’ve hit most of my goals for #AcWriMo – except the big one that keeps getting pushed aside to complete all the little tasks with harder deadlines. But here I sit now with a full week of nothing else to work on but the sample chapters for my book proposal. Can I get it all wrapped up by the end of the week? Can’t tell you how badly I want that…
Dec. 2nd
* 7 Pomodoros hammering my book introduction into shape. It’s finally getting there.
Dec. 3rd
* 4 Pomodoros by noon to get another pass done on 3/4 of my book intro.
* 90 minute meeting with my supervisor and his working group.
* 2 Pomodoros to get the final section of the intro into readable shape, which meant cutting my chapter descriptions down from two paragraphs each to one – and keeping the intro within my desired 25 page limit, half the length it was in first draft back in September. Sent it to a colleague for feedback, and tomorrow it’s on to figuring out what to do with my second sample chapter.
Dec. 4th
* 30 minutes re-reading reviewers comments from the rejection letter on this chapter’s first journal submission two years ago. I set it aside after that, thinking it would probably work best in the context of my book rather than as a standalone article. Now I’m finally getting the book going, and am considering using this chapter as a sample. Although it was rejected for this one particular journal, it also won me a student writing award and it is the most polished of all my dissertation materials. I think I can address the reviewer’s main objection – that there wasn’t enough to prove about the film in question – by reframing my reading to support the new argument for the book that I have (at long last) established in the intro. So I’m going to re-read the chapter now and see if this could actually work – or if I should go back and try to finish the other chapter that I had originally thought of as a sample. I worked on that most of the month, but it’s just not quite there. Which can I do faster to be done by the end of the week?
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* 20 minutes working on this blog post.
* 2 Pomodoros to read through the chapter and decide if it can be salvaged. I think it can, and have some ideas now how to shift the argument slightly, remove offending bits and move some of the theory from the intro into the gaps here to bring it up to speed with the new argument for the book.
* 2 Pomodoros restructuring chapter for better flow.
Dec. 5th
* 8 Pomodoros today on solid revisions to the sample chapter, reframing the argument and making a few adjustments accordingly. I feel much better about this one than the other chapter I worked on most of the month. At this rate, I’ll be able to get this in shape in 4 days where the other one couldn’t get done in 4 weeks.
* 2 hours for job application due tomorrow. Only one left this year!
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Addendum (Nov. 2nd, 2014): This post never actually made it public during #AcWriMo 2013 (nor did the previous two for that matter). I had gotten bogged down, and while I continued to log my progress I simply never got around to posting them. After unsuccessfully trying to finish my book proposal for Dec. 5th to complete my stated goals for the month (which I started on Nov. 4th), I decided to let it go, take a holiday, and resume work on it in January. A couple days later, however, the editor emailed to say that he was about to go on his winter break and could set aside some reading time for my proposal this month if I could get it done in time. It struck me unusual that an editor would take this much interest after six months of me stalling on delivering the full proposal, so I took it as a sign to push hard and do whatever it took to finish within December. I worked as hard this month as I did during official #AcWriMo, and finally got it done and submitted on Dec. 29th. I was exhausted and frustrated that I wasn’t able to take as much family time over the holiday season as I should have. But the end result was good. The editor liked the proposal and emailed within one week to tell me he was going to send it out for review right away. Within the month he had secured reviewers and sent it off. Two months later the reviews came back, mostly positive. Within two weeks I wrote up a response to the reviews and the editor took the whole package to the board of directors. A month later they responded in the positive and issued a contract shortly after that. I had it signed and delivered by June 1st.
It was over a year between my initial proposal submission through all the steps to the final contract, but it got done. And it was the #AcWriMo push in November that really spearheaded the serious work it took to get the bulk of the work done by the end of the year. In the end it took me two months to accomplish the goals I had set out for one, and that was an important lesson learned that I will carry through to this year’s #AcWriMo, starting… now.
In: #AcWriMo, Academia, Writing about Sound