When the light is right

I am still slogging away at the MMP. Inspired by Jane B., I have for the moment put aside the effort to compose the perfect concluding paragraph, and am working on the bibliography, since it also has to be done, and it does keep me in touch with the project. The bibliography work mainly involves combing through my footnotes, with a side order of tracking down details online.

Here I have to note that at least since early October I have been in a state of combined despair and anxiety over this project, wondering why it is such a struggle to put to bed, when I thought I would polish it off in three weeks last summer. The editors have not been nagging me, but I’m doing a fantastic job of nagging myself.

Working on the notes/bibliography is doing wonders for my state of mind. Look at that list of manuscript and archival documents consulted in the making of this essay! The list of primary sources is wide-ranging. The list of secondary sources includes work in at least three separate scholarly fields. I think altogether I cite works in five different languages. I still wish I could work more quickly, but by all the gods, I am thorough.

Sometimes I actually impress myself.

A pleasant pastime: Pym exhibit

Pym Fan and other fans! As usual, I was minding my own business and hunting down something else entirely, something relevant to the MMP, when I stumbled across this: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whatson/whats-on/online/barbara-pym-and-the-bodleian#gallery-item=. The Bodleian has way too much cool stuff on their site (NB, this is not a serious complaint). The Pym exhibit is of modest size, so it didn’t even delay me too long. Indeed, I could wish there were more, except that I need to get back to the more distant past.

I guess I’ll think of it as an unscheduled stop in my time machine.

Fits and starts

One reason I haven’t been posting much lately (maybe even the main reason) is that I have been slogging through the Slough of Revisions, my vitals gnawed by Palpable Worms of Guilt and Anxiety, as I try to sharpen arguments, deepen context, and reduce verbiage. Despite my efforts at that last, the first two have resulted in considerable expansion to the MMP (whatever the number, it’s the last one), and I hope devoutly that the editors won’t decide I’ve added so much that it’s a new contribution and send it back out for yet another review.

Sometime soon, I’d like to do a reflective post on what I’ve learned from this long process. (Announcing it means I probably will never write it, sorry, don’t hold your breath.) I’m not done-done yet. Next up, I need to go through the notes and make sure all the first references are full and subsequent ones are brief, because some text has moved around, and check that I haven’t left out any key citations in the process of revising. My writing group will look at the new paragraphs that introduce each section, and check transitions, though the whole thing is way too long to expect them to read it in full (we usually submit 1-10 pages to the group).

It is almost done. I have had way too many days this fall when I haven’t managed to work on it. This sort of focus on argument and big-picture “flow” is very hard for me. Usually the time I have available for research is late in the day and I can’t tell if “See Jane Run” makes sense, let alone my own work to which I am way too close. Having written so many drafts of the MMP, I’ve lost track of what details are in which one, and it seems as if the current draft ought to be an accretion of all that went before. But it’s not. I have, for instance, resurrected a chunk of the conclusion from a previous incarnation’s conclusion, and was surprised that I’d lost it because there’s a quote I love. I’m sure it happened when I was hacking and slashing the second rejected version to meet a draconian word limit for a prestigious journal. (Reviewers thought it seemed disjointed. No shit, really?) But anyway! Last night I went to bed not too late, this morning Basement Cat woke me up at dawn, and there was my magic bullet: two hours this morning before I had to do anything else! And so now I’m down to working on notes and checking that the topic sentences really are there, and those are things I can do with only half a brain, so soon, soon, I will be sending it off again.

And then working on another set of revisions, which will, however, be easier. I think.

R. I. P. Neighbor Catboy

He was vastly more gregarious than the Scot, but the same sort of purely loving soul. If his person struggled to let him go, I can believe that he tried to stay with her as long as he possibly could, and can understand that it would be very hard to lose that sort of generous, uncomplicated affection. I love our current cats, but I still miss the Scot, who was my very special one. I’m not telling my poor bereaved former neighbor that she may always miss her Catboy, even if she loves another cat just as much.

Some animals just seem like the essence of love, and we’re lucky to share some time with them.