Elephant, eaten

I submitted a paper today. 

I've submitted a lot of papers over the years, but this submission was extraordinarily angst-free. Before this summer came along I'd been feeling guilty for a couple of years about this paper. "It's just a little paper," I would tell myself. "Knock it out! Get it done!" "Okay, okay," I would say to myself, and then I would open the document and freeze up. I didn't know quite how to analyze the data, and I wasn't sure where I would send it, and I would flail around in there for a while and then close it up, feeling defeated.

Earlier this summer I mentioned that I was doing the Faculty Success Program through the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. I'd been interested in the FSP for a long time, but the price tag is pretty daunting. I would never have done it if the provost at Gladlyville U hadn't announced an opportunity to apply for funding. 

It has been fantastic, you guys. If you are an academic and you have a chance to do it, I highly recommend it. It has caused me to think a lot of thoughts about a lot of things, more of which will doubtless be heading your way at some point. But it has also caused me to WRITE. That's the heart of the program: five days a week, no matter what, you sit down for at least 30 minutes and move the ball forward on your scholarly writing. This does not sound like rocket science, and yet I could never quite manage to ingrain that habit on my own. I was too tired. I was too stressed. I had too much grading on my desk. I would plan to put in extra writing time the next day.

Thirty minutes is enough to do something worthwhile, but not so much that it feels daunting. Even when I was in bed with COVID, I could (and did!) write for 30 minutes. And do you know, if you put in enough 30-minute blocks, eventually you wind up with a finished manuscript. This paper was hard and messy. It makes sense that Past Jamie flailed around in there, because there were a bunch of problems that needed solving before the paper could make its way into the world. Present Jamie solved them, thirty minutes at a time-- even when she didn't especially feel like it, even when she had a bunch of grading on her desk. She is feeling pretty pleased about that.