I Feel Petty, Oh, So Petty
Jan. 3rd, 2005 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kelly_chamblissI'm back from my Christmas travels, which were full of snow, more snow, below-zero-F temperatures, skidding cars (not mine, luckily, but the car behind us on the interstate that, in its long, scary spin to the barrier wall, missed us by about a foot), plus lovely bunches of family, presents, food, and libations.
I had a fine time and am now back, supposedly at work. My plan is to write at least five pages a day of my sabbatical book. Well, here it is 3:15 pm on the first day of my grand resolution, and I have yet to write a damned word on the project. I start feeling stressed and incapable and overwhelmed and unable to make sense of all my material, and then I turn to email and LJ and eBay searches and chocolate and other avoidant gimmicks that just end up reinforcing my sense of being a loser and failure as an academic. Then I realize what a totally self-absorbed twit I am, worrying about such pettiness when it seems as if half the world has lost everything in the tsunamis.
Happy New Year.
Speaking of tsunamis, there are several horrifying amateur videos on-line, including one at an (I think) Phuket resort of two elderly people inching their way along a pool railing toward the higher ground of a restaurant, only to be swept away by another wave when they are just a couple of feet from their goal and from the outstretched helping hand of a man who had already made it to the restaurant. Because of its immediacy, I find this image as chilling as any I've seen yet; I want to believe that the couple managed to get to safety elsewhere, but it's very likely they did not.
Until I saw this video, it was hard to envision what the waves must have been like. I had seen a couple of films taken from third- and fourth-floor hotel rooms, but they didn't convey the terrifying power of that rushing water the way this sea-level view did. One minute, the resort restaurant was relatively untouched; the next, the whole place was a maelstrom of tumbling chairs, cutlery, debris, and swirling water that was rising by the nanosecond. Because the film exists, I'm assuming that the person who made the video survived, but it's a wonder he did.
And now I read about looters and rapists and scammers who are preying on the victims. The homes of missing people in Scandinavia and elsewhere have been broken into. There are reports of men posing as rescue workers and government officials raping and abusing women at refugee camps. Scammers are posing as on-line Oxfam reps and diverting relief funds to their own accounts. It's always like this--disasters are a showcase of the best and worst of us.
Well, I see that I have sunk to the level of banal aphorism, so I'd better shut up and try to get to work.
I had a fine time and am now back, supposedly at work. My plan is to write at least five pages a day of my sabbatical book. Well, here it is 3:15 pm on the first day of my grand resolution, and I have yet to write a damned word on the project. I start feeling stressed and incapable and overwhelmed and unable to make sense of all my material, and then I turn to email and LJ and eBay searches and chocolate and other avoidant gimmicks that just end up reinforcing my sense of being a loser and failure as an academic. Then I realize what a totally self-absorbed twit I am, worrying about such pettiness when it seems as if half the world has lost everything in the tsunamis.
Happy New Year.
Speaking of tsunamis, there are several horrifying amateur videos on-line, including one at an (I think) Phuket resort of two elderly people inching their way along a pool railing toward the higher ground of a restaurant, only to be swept away by another wave when they are just a couple of feet from their goal and from the outstretched helping hand of a man who had already made it to the restaurant. Because of its immediacy, I find this image as chilling as any I've seen yet; I want to believe that the couple managed to get to safety elsewhere, but it's very likely they did not.
Until I saw this video, it was hard to envision what the waves must have been like. I had seen a couple of films taken from third- and fourth-floor hotel rooms, but they didn't convey the terrifying power of that rushing water the way this sea-level view did. One minute, the resort restaurant was relatively untouched; the next, the whole place was a maelstrom of tumbling chairs, cutlery, debris, and swirling water that was rising by the nanosecond. Because the film exists, I'm assuming that the person who made the video survived, but it's a wonder he did.
And now I read about looters and rapists and scammers who are preying on the victims. The homes of missing people in Scandinavia and elsewhere have been broken into. There are reports of men posing as rescue workers and government officials raping and abusing women at refugee camps. Scammers are posing as on-line Oxfam reps and diverting relief funds to their own accounts. It's always like this--disasters are a showcase of the best and worst of us.
Well, I see that I have sunk to the level of banal aphorism, so I'd better shut up and try to get to work.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-04 01:31 am (UTC)here it is 7 p.m. and *I* have yet to write a word today. (don't know if you've been keeping up with LJ while on holiday but) hmmmm, this sounds strangely familiar.
my *new* plan, which I highly recommend, is to try to set time limits rather than page limits for how much work I'm going to do every day. and just see what comes out without stressing about when it's going to be *done*. because maybe the latter is important, in reality, but stressing about it doesn't seem to make things go any faster (quite the contrary, in fact).
thus far, this plan has not been so successful in terms of getting lots of work done (though I have been doing *some*), but it has been a smash hit in terms of me not being miserable and insane.
the other things I do everyday -- the LJ and the poking around online and whatnot -- I am now thinking of as meaningful things I am *supposed* to spend some time on every day in addition to spending some time on the paper, rather than as teh ev0l procrastination.
also, I am attempting to work on the Janeway story while taking breaks from the paper, and vice versa (the different forms of creativity do seem to compliment each other). hint hint. will it be done by the 22nd? we'll see.
oh, so while I'm here, I can ask you about my firstline. without giving too much away, can I change it from first to third person?
hey, what is your book about??
and, my #: 401.952.1096. in case of study dates.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-05 03:54 pm (UTC)I'll try the time-limit as opposed to page-limit idea and let you know how it goes. God, I hate writing. Why do I do it?
Is there some sort of Janeway Fest page on the web somewhere? Where are we supposed to post our finished products? (assuming they ever get finished. Writing is hell.)
Good luck!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-05 10:56 pm (UTC)abbeycarter@aol.com
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-07 06:23 pm (UTC)you're welcome to host a fest page chez moi (babealicious.net) if you'd like.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-07 06:25 pm (UTC)happy writing!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-07 06:15 pm (UTC)I've been asking myself the same thing. le sigh.
hopefully writing the fanfic will at least be fun...
good luck to you too!