Back in the Game

Posted on November 4, 2014 by drosvally

Hello dear readers; long time, no write.

The thing is that this semester has been crushing me. Between my teaching load, the dissertation stress, the extra side-jobs I do (I reviewed four shows in a week the other week… four…. Shows….), and a few personal/familial obligations, I’ve been slammed to the point of sheer exhaustion. The funny thing about writing is that, while I don’t believe you always need a spark of creative genius to sit down and write, you do at least need a

dissertation work at its finest

tiny bit of energy. While you can sometimes work a miracle and produce something from nothing, you can’t always write through the fatigue.

I’ve always considered this blog to be my stretching and training regime. The dissertation is the marathon. But if you want to successfully run a marathon, you need to train well, train smart, and train often. If you hit burn out, taking a break is a necessity or you’re just going to strain something.

So I took a break. Since this is a self-directed project designed to execute skills which I know serve me well in my career (self-discipline, a scheduled writing regime, and writing in general), I can also guide my time on/time off.

The time has come to be back. So here I go; back in training. But now, since I’m actually in the throws of writing the diss as we type, it’s serious.

That doesn’t mean I intend to get over-serious here. I’ve done some thinking about how I want to reshape the blog as I move forward in my graduate and (knocking on wood) post-graduate career. For a long time, this has been a sounding board where I am able to discuss issues/observations about the PhD process. It will continue to be so, but since dissertation writing is mostly done in the isolation of my own tower, I need some further fuel to ensure that I can keep writing at a good clip.

So I’ll be expanding the content here slightly as my fingers wind up in more (and different) pies. Yum. Pie.

Thank you, friends, for continuing to stick with me through this process. It’s been a long bumpy ride, and I have no delusions that it will become anything less as I move forward into the vast unknown of dissertation land. What surprises await our hero beyond the horizon is yet unknown, but one thing is certain: she is eager to get started, excited to be traveling in the frontiers of human knowledge, and (so she thinks) prepared to engage with what’s to come.

To infinity and beyond!

Posted on September 23, 2014 by drosvally

I have had so much going on recently that it’s been tough to keep track of everything. I feel like this semester I’m being chased by an Indiana Jones style GIGANTIC CIRCULAR boulder and, the minute I get on top of it, it speeds up and I fall off and it threatens to squish me once more.

Every semester I think that I’ve hit my outer limit; this is the absolute most that I can handle and I need to cut back. Ever semester, I prove myself wrong and take on yet another responsibility.

I’ve spent a great many posts discussing techniques which I use to time manage and manage my anxiety levels, so I won’t go into another diatribe about that. Instead, I’d like to give you something inspired by the buzzfeed articles which circulate the internet. “Five things successful people do”; I’m sure you’re tired of reading them. I know that I am, despite being click-bated into them every second chance I get (I blame mental fatigue for this one; I’ll pretty much click on anything when my brain juices are running low).

Or find a llama to kiss like I did this weekend. Kissing llamas will at least make you smile.

Here, for your reading pleasure, are five things that you should do if your semester is already running you ragged.

1) Make Lists

I know, I know, I said I wasn’t going to repeat myself: but this one is important. Making lists ensures that you don’t forget anything, that you can properly allocate time to your day, and that you can have a satisfying moment at the end of your day when you look at your checked off list and say “look how productive I was today!”. I have been known to use list-making as a cure for insomnia; when I simply can’t get to sleep because I’m anxious about all the things on my plate, I make a list of what I need to do and feel almost instantly better. It allows me to see, in a very tangible way, how much I need to do and how much time I can devote to these tasks. Lists save lives. Period.

2) Know when enough is enough

If you are already feeling overwhelmed by the semester (it’s only week four; you’ve got a long way to go), chances are you’ve got a lot of work on your plate. It’s tempting to work through everything just to get the piles cleared off your desk. But the reality is this: there will always be piles on your desk. You will always be managing a complicated balancing act. Working more will not mean that things get done faster; in fact it will probably just tire you out and make you make larger, more numerous mistakes with the work you do do. So know when you’ve hit your quota, and take a gorram break for heaven’s sakes.

3) Sleep Enough. Eat well. Exercise.

All too often, these basic precepts of living as a healthy human being get left by the wayside in times of extreme business. The truth is that they are your best means of combatting the stress which you face. Make the time to take care of yourself; sleep eight hours, get your weekly dose of activity in, and eat your vegetables. This will keep your body healthy which will prevent you from having to take time off to be sick (possibly the worst thing that could happen when you’re under the gun). Take care of yourself; nobody else is going to.

4) Remember the Seesaw

One of my mentors refers to work/life balance as a seesaw: sometimes it will tip one way, sometimes it will tip the other. If you’re going through a heavy semester, then maybe you just need to go with it for a while and make work your priority. Your friends will understand when you resurface and won’t think the less of you for it. But if you do decide to allow yourself to see for a while, make sure that you make time to saw on the other end. You shouldn’t allow work to devour your life completely even if you do dive into the deep end for a time. In the end, you need to see as much as saw.

5) Find the Joy

Presumably, at one time or another, you found incredible satisfaction in what you do.

This elephant, for instance, brought me great joy. In my dissertation, I write a WHOLE CHAPTER on Barnum. Elephants = happiness = dissertation?

Sometimes in the thick of things, it’s good to take a moment to recall why it is you do what you do. What drew you to this in the first place? What brought you here? What were some of the sacrifices you made and why were you willing to make them? Re-discovering what it is that you find positive about your chosen vocation will help you through the roughest bits, and keep your face in the sun even when the rest of you is in darkness.

Hang in there; it’s almost midterms!

Back in the Saddle

Posted on August 19, 2014 by drosvally

Being back home from the big dig means a lot of things:

1) I am back at my desk! I love my desk. I missed my desk. I can’t believe how quickly I became accustomed to my current work set-up, but I simply wouldn’t want it any other way and I so dearly missed having it. I missed the sunlight; I missed my giant window; I missed the comfy chair; I missed my dual monitor and raised laptop setup; I missed my external keyboard and mouse; I missed my giant external hard drive; and I missed not having to move everything around on a whim. So glad to be

In the course of my unpacking, this happened. Because for me this is normal.

back sitting in one location when I’m working!

2) Man oh man do I have so many e-mails to answer. I’m about caught up on all the things now; but it was dicey there for a few days. It’s incredible the amount of backlog you can build up, even when working triage between archive trips.

3) I might have gone a little theatre-nutty and accepted about a half dozen reviews in my first two days being back. This week I’ll be reviewing one show; next week I’ll be reviewing a different show and seeing a third show just for the sake of seeing theater… and I have a few more on the horizon coming up. I’m so happy that it’s theatre season again; and I’m so stoked to be back in the reviewers’ saddle (though I will admit, it was nice to see a show or two without a notebook in my hand while I was in New York!).

4) I have so many pre-semester errands to accomplish. Some of them are amusing. Some of them are not. Luckily I timed my return such that I’d have a few precious days on campus before the hoards descend in multitudes. Picking up a parking pass for the semester is SO much easier when you can sneak in and out without anyone else being there. By the time the undergrads arrive back on campus, lines at campus security wind up being out the door and around the block (no joke) and I’m simply too ridiculously busy to spend two hours waiting for the privilege to hand them my money. Also: when campus is empty, I can use the quad for whip practice. Not so much once everyone returns from summer break.

5) I have once more managed to fill this semester with exciting things. I’m TAing one class in the department and teaching a second. I am teaching my stage combat class again to the kids at Charlestown, and teaching my OSHER class again to my delightful continuing adult ed. students. I’m also fight directing at least two projects (with more on the horizon), finishing edits on a chapter for publication, continuing my work as an independent contract writer, and continuing my work with the Folger. Oh and writing a dissertation. And that’s just what I’m doing on the work front… My personal projects and leisure activities continue at a similar pace.

6) Now I have to set order to the INSANE amount of stuff I documented over the

Of course, being back in Mass does mean I’m missing this view….

course of five weeks at some of the biggest archives in the country. I’m making progress, and the trip definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things that I really needed to consider over the course of this dissertation process. Also: it was fun to paw through archival material (if a bit frustrating sometimes).

7) Back to running here means back to hill training. New York is very flat…. My neighborhood not so much. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, I guess?

Back to the grind!

Preparing for Liftoff

Posted on June 27, 2014 by drosvally

Having just moved and preparing for my first ever 5K (The Spartan Sprint happening… eek! Tomorrow!), for my next trick, I’m preparing for a one-month research tour of New York archives in an effort to assemble the primary research phase of my dissertation.

This involves examining archive inventories, poring over finding aids, considering what might be available to me digitally in Boston, scheduling where I will be when, contacting archivists, understanding library policies and hours, and assembling lists upon lists of what I will be doing where and when.

It’s a lot to organize, but it’s really exciting.

Just today, I happened across a source which listed a primary text available to me at one of my target archives. The source was written in the early 1920s. The primary text is from 1825. My job is REALLY REALLY COOL.

Archives have a lot of rules; mostly surrounding what you can bring in (generally just a pencil and your laptop) and how you can document your findings. It’s important to understand these rules before you arrive and to respect them at the individual institutions. It’s also important to consider how they might change the way you research. Often, I will take pictures of a document for reference. Some archives allow this, some do not. Most archives do allow computers these days, but not all of them allow tablets or smart phones. That means I can’t auto-sync pictures and take notes on them in real time (like I can when I’m documenting using my phone), and it also means I have to dig my camera and camera cable out of its storage box. Archives are also temperature controlled and, especially during the summer, can be rather chilly when compared with the heat outside. Dressing appropriately for the archive is important, and when I think about what to pack I’m definitely thinking layers. Archives are generally very safe and friendly places if you approach with great respect and a solid understanding of what you’re looking for.

I’ve already expounded upon the infinite helpfulness of reference librarians and archivists. The world is truly a better place for having them. I am finding, now more than ever, that these people make my job so much easier. I have the utmost respect and deepest gratitude for the people who help me make appointments, find what I’m looking for, and answer my questions about policies and scheduling. Thank you, archivists. You are truly the super heroes of academic research.

I’m also doing this prep while trying my darndest not to take home any new library books. The last thing I need is something coming due while I’m away and, as a result, having to try and explain my library book filing system (otherwise known as the “book fort mess”) to my long-suffering boyfriend and talk him through where to find the one book in a stack of 87 that needs to be returned TOMORROW or it will start incurring fines.

So it’s a challenge; but it’s a fun challenge. It’s definitely one that I’m taking slowly at first while I figure out how best to work things. I’m already implementing some systems and we’ll see if they pay off.

For now, I’m off to read one last book for the week then head out bright and early tomorrow on my SPARTAN ADVENTURE. I’ll catch you on the other side!

Pano of the new office space. Isn’t it lovely?

You Betta Werk

Posted on June 13, 2014 by drosvally

I go through cycles with my research.

At this point, I can pretty accurately predict the cycles (at least that they will happen and in what general order they will occur). This was driven home by a phone call I made yesterday to my always-amazing boyfriend.

I’ve been feeling kind of lost in the dissertation project. This is certainly not helped by the fact that I’ve had to return most of my library books to prepare for the move, nothing is in the place where I expect it to be because of the move, and I’m experiencing no small amount of anxiety about the move. Basically: move move move, move move, hard to work

Even my plants are getting ready for the big move.

because move.

This, coupled with being away from my research for some time due to be a Jolly Good Fellow with the GIFT program, send me on the inevitable downward spiral of existential crisis.

“What am I doing? Why am I even doing this? What am I looking for? Why does any of this matter?”

…this happens a lot. At least to me. I find scholarship to be very difficult sometimes, especially something as abstract seeming as theatre history. It’s hard to touch the ground when your work is mostly ephemeral.

I was explaining this to said boyfriend the other day and trying to keep myself from sounding teary and pathetic over the phone. He was trying to keep himself from laughing. Finally I worked up the nerve to ask him why.

“You said this was going to happen. In fact, you used these exact words to describe the inevitability of this happening in the future the other week when you were all excited about your work.”

“…well…. But… I just don’t know what to DO!”

“You said you just have to keep working.”

I sighed. “But I don’t know how to keep working because I don’t know where any of my work is right now because it’s all returned to the library or back in boxes and and… past me just doesn’t understand!”

…just keep working. Thanks, past me. Great advice.

So I’ve been climbing back on the horse slowly trying to find my place in the saddle again. It’s been tough, but I’m getting there. There are definitely things on my to-do list that make use of the plethora of digital technologies at my disposal (thank you, greater realm of library science, for digitizing major texts… please continue to do so because it really does make research SO much easier). But hard is hard and daunting is daunting; and dissertations are nothing but a combination of both.

The Write Stuff

Posted on April 17, 2014 by drosvally

I’m a slow writer and I need many drafts to create something that I feel is worthwhile.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following this blog for some time. I’ve explicated my writing process on several occasions, and over the years while the materials have changed (I RARELY do literal cut and paste jobs anymore), the methods certainly haven’t.

This might come as a surprise to anyone who realizes that I’m a blogger and puts two and two together. Blogging is a sphere which, of necessity, requires you to develop content quickly and efficiently. So how can a blogger be an admittedly “slow writer”?

Now let’s start here: I’m not talking George R.R. Martin slow. In fact, I think that guy ought to be ashamed of himself. My beloved did the math at one point and determined that Martin produces something like 250 viable words a day. WHAT? If I wrote that slowly, they would boot me from my program and make me wear a sign of shame around my neck to tell the world that I was an embarrassment to the ivory tower and writers everywhere. When I say “slow”, I mean more that I need many many drafts to forge and re-forge a piece of academic writing in order to temper it and make it stronger. I’m up to something ridiculous like fifteen drafts of one piece I’m working on right now (don’t worry, I’m about to hit the “send” button on that one, so before you get lecturey about over-drafting just stop and take stock of the fact that I’ve been working on it for a year and a half now because it’s been interspersed with other projects).

Academic writing is completely different from any other style of writing. When I blog, for example, I generally require one hour from inception to publication of a post. This includes

This morning’s drafting session

research. When I write creatively, I produce a preliminary draft of content very quickly and go back over it a few times before I feel like others can lay eyes on it (more like three drafts than ten). I can produce 2,500 words of first draft creative fiction in about an hour. More disposable content, like facebook and twitter updates, are just banged out in about point five seconds.

Each of these styles of writing is important to one’s development as a writer. I believe that writing is an under-appreciated and under-developed aspect of the academic work. While we’re expected to generate writing at pivotal points in our career, there’s very little support (unless you create it yourself) for exercising and bettering your writing. So many academics hold their writing process to close to the chest that it’s often difficult to trouble-shoot your own process. I have taken to asking mentors and peers, at conferences or other socially appropriate forums, what their writing process is like just to get new ideas about things I could do better. I’ve learned a few tricks (some of them more palatable than others; there is no way in any universe that I’ll be waking up at 6AM to fit in three hours of just writing before I go about the rest of my day but I’m glad that it works for some people), and I’ve mostly learned this: everyone’s process is different. Much like a workout regime, some basic rules apply universally: repetition is a must, sustainability is key, and knowing when to push yourself and/or rest will help you be more productive in the long run. Other than that, just do it. Find whatever works for you, and get going. Do it today, do it tomorrow, do it the day after. Keep writing; the only way to fail here is by inaction.

One of the things I’ve learned about myself is that once I get to the drafting stage, I can roll home without much problem. Drafting time is my favorite point in the writing process. This is the point where I get to take my colored pens and hone my work until it’s shiny and better than it was before. There’s something so satisfying about the instant gratification of taking a piece of writing and making it be better. There’s also an immediate visual cue that red-penning a page gives you; “LOOK HOW MUCH I CHANGED! THIS IS HOW MUCH BETTER IT IS NOW!” In a field that functions so basically on intangible items, this kind of tangible and visible change is a welcome breathe of fresh air and something that I, kinesthetic learner that I am, desperately need to feel satisfied.

Also, when I draft, I can take my work for walks. It keeps me focused to have a stack of papers in front of me and no internet to distract. I take my draft, go to a local coffee shop, buy a cuppa, and stay until I’m done. This breaks my work up into logical and manageable chunks and keeps me from mid-day burnout. Sometimes even a little sunshine and fresh air (on my way to/from wherever I’m going for the day, for example) can help to give me a little boost when I need it most.

So keep on keeping on, brave writers! Venture boldly forth and practice, practice, practice.

Alright, Let’s Play

Posted on April 11, 2014 by drosvally

With Shakespeare’s birthday celebrations right around the corner (the known world tends to celebrate on April 23^rd though we can only guess at the precise date; this year Shakespeare turns 450!), it’s natural to find a resurgence of Shakespeare-related ephemera on the internet. This year, a friend of mine unearthed the following buzzfeed article which, in the proud tradition of internet take-downs (and, since I’m a professional paladin of the Bard), I’m going to take a moment to address.

The article’s author, Krystie Lee Yandoll, relates her traumatic childhood experiences with Shakespeare which lead to her adult disdain for the playwright. Well, Krystie, let’s get real for a few minutes.

I can understand hating Hamlet in sixth grade and, in fact, I wonder at the wisdom of the teacher who presented it to you at that young tender age. While I have every firm belief in the intellectual capacity of kids, with very few exceptions forced middle school readings of Shakespeare can be nothing but a horrible memory. I apologize on behalf of Shakespeare professionals everywhere that this was your first experience with the Bard.

But your continued adherence to a blind hatred is nothing less than juvenile. You go on to explain why reading Taming of the Shrew in high school didn’t appeal to you. You say, “sure, it’s reflective of the time period it was written in — racial, gender, and sexual equality hadn’t yet reached 16th century England — but that doesn’t make me any more inclined to relish in what I interpret to be Shakespeare’s inherent sexism. If I don’t like reading modern stories and authors that perpetuate sexist ideals about gender, love, and marriage, why should I make an exception for Shakespeare?” First of all, let’s get something straight; you cannot project your contemporary feminist ideals anachronistically onto a playwright whose worldview had no place for them. You concede this, but continue on to violate your own conceit. Stick to your preliminary guns on this one; your first instinct is the right one.

Second, who says that Taming of the Shrew perpetuates sexist ideals? I would argue that that play portrays men as nothing less than cruel inhuman monsters. Petruchio is the worst conception of a man when first we meet him and grows only slightly better by the end of the play. Your determination to hate everything about this has blinded you to the facts: instead of looking at the spark notes, you should have read deeper. Alright, perhaps you weren’t capable of this in high school, but you’re an adult now. You can go underneath the text to project different theoretical lenses onto a piece and use your critical thinking skills to uncover readings that were previously not available to you. But you didn’t do that; and by not doing that, you continue to spout a narrow point of view on the matter which isn’t flattering to your mental capacities. Unpacking this information to satisfy your modern bias could lead to something more; don’t just give up and cry that this is horrible.

You continue on to claim: “The dominant narrative is, more often than not, determined by society’s elite. I’d rather not put an old, rich, white man from regal Britain and his antiquated ideologies about society on a pedestal.”

There’s a couple problems with this statement. First and foremost: Shakespeare was neither old nor rich at the time he began his career. Though he eventually became both (… “old” is still debatable since he died at the age of 52), you can’t project the future onto the past.

Secondly, you’re completely ignoring the history of Shakespeare in the United States (and, for that matter, England). Shakespeare has always been a people’s playwright; from the groundlings who saw the shows during the seventeenth century, through to the groundlings who see them today. Nineteenth century America was essentially a hotbed of popular culture Shakespeare. He was a staple in vaudeville, hugely popular amongst minstrel acts, and stories run rampant about cowboys reciting Macbeth and forty niners walking hours to get to a play at night. It wasn’t society’s elite that made Shakespeare into The Bard; it was common man (especially here in America).

Third, I wouldn’t say that there’s anything antiquated about Shakespeare “ideologies about society”; we still deal with tyrants (in government and our personal lives), we still deal with warring families (though perhaps not as bad as the Lear or Gloucester families), we still deal with social norms about marriage (when was the last time you saw a debate online about same-sex marriage? And when was the last time you saw a progressively-cast version of Midsummer?) Take a closer look and come back to argue when you have some hard evidence. I’ll be happy to entertain your notions when you actually know what you’re talking about.

You reveal that “every time someone brings up Macbeth or The Tempest, I feel like I have a knot in my stomach because all I ever wanted in the world is to be taken seriously as a writer and lover of literature, and I never thought that could happen if I admitted to my disdain for Shakespeare.” Frankly, it’s not your disdain for Shakespeare that makes me not take you seriously as a writer; it’s your disdain for the facts and critical thinking. If this were a well-argued piece, I would have applauded you. Instead, all I can see is a narrow-minded rant about why your scaring childhood experiences have prevented you from widening your focus to attempt to understand a cultural phenomenon.

You don’t have to like Shakespeare; but if you’re going to argue about him you do have to understand him.

Reduce, Reuse, Revise

Posted on April 1, 2014 by drosvally

I’m deep in the thralls of writing my prospectus, which essentially means dealing with a great deal of feedback on a regular basis. This feedback is all constructive and extremely useful, and I’m learning a lot about so many different aspects of the academic process. That said, I’d be lying if I told you that this was anything but overwhelming at times. Because, let’s face it, if you’re a writer there is nothing more nerve-wracking than getting feedback on your work.

Here’s the big problem: you wouldn’t be showing your work to someone if you thought it was horrible. Yes, of course you know that there will always be little kinks and things that you need to sort out, and every piece of writing is a work in progress (how often have I had to go re-jigger something I’ve published on this blog because someone caught a spelling or grammar error that I simply didn’t?). Despite this, you wouldn’t be doing your work if you didn’t think it was important and/or worthwhile, so allowing someone a window into

This is a bookstore; not my apartment; but I kinda wish I lived here.

your world before the work is complete is extremely anxiety provoking. What might they say? You know it isn’t done, but how done is “done” and can this be done enough that it makes sense to someone outside of your brain? Will they judge you as a horrible writer, person, teacher because your draft wasn’t pristine? IT COULD BE THE END OF THE WORLD AS YOU KNOW IT!

Feedback is an important part of the writing process. I always tell my students to write with enough time to ask for peer and/or mentor input. What makes sense inside your head will almost always make sense to you on paper but it’s the other person that this all has to coalesce for. Having someone else take a look at your work is a vital counter-check to ensuring logic, sensibility, relevance, and efficacy in communicating your thought process.

This is especially true if you’re experimenting with a style of writing that you don’t normally utilize. The first time you write a cover letter, or CV, or (in my case) a prospectus, you’re bound to do a few things wrong. After all, if you knew how to do everything, why aren’t you making a million dollars running the world at the top of you own evil empire? Remembering that feedback is a constructive part of the process can sometimes be difficult; again, if you’re like me, you put your heart into your work. You sweat, you cry, you bust your proverbial bum to make certain that there’s something special and worthwhile in every piece you turn out.

So cut yourself some slack when you let someone else in. It’s okay to feel disappointed that you didn’t “DO IT RIGHT” the first time. Us perfectionists are always going to put pressure on ourselves, but doing so also means that we need to develop a keen ability to let it go (this is still in progress for me, I’m not great at the whole “let it go” part… despite Idina Menzel’s insistence otherwise). Getting back on the horse, back at your desk, and back in the fray is what’s going to keep you working (and sane) in the long run.

I like to think of the revision process as forging a paper (much like forging a blade). You put the unmolded lump through fire and hammer it until it looks more like what it’s supposed to. Then you cool it off in ice. Lather, rinse, repeat. Each iteration lends strength to the finished product and, with perfunctory repetition, you don’t turn out something with integrity. Maybe you’ve made an object that looks pretty, but it lacks the strength to do what it was meant to. Under the pressure of battle, it will fall apart and be useless. The only thing that will give the finished product the strength it needs is constant and vigilant reshaping.

Besides, the process of ripping something apart can be extremely cathartic once you get through the preliminary tearing. The longer you sit with those red-penned drafts, the longer you have to get worked up over the feedback. So face your fears; conquer the red pen; let us go boldly forth today comrades, and revise. ONWARD! INTO THE NIGHT!

Books Don’t Keep you Warm

Posted on March 13, 2014 by drosvally

Here is your obligatory complaining about the weather post: on Tuesday it was warm enough for a run outside. Today I’m going to have to shovel my driveway before I leave for class. Because I live in New England.

I’ve spent the week looking yearningly out of windows and hoping that the words “Spring Break” would actually mean something to the weather gods. Unfortunately for me, the weather gods are tricksy jerks and care not for a university schedule, or even the pleas of a desperate doctoral candidate looking for some small way to salvage what’s left of her sanity.

On that note, I don’t know why I’m continually surprised at the revivifying quality that exercise has on my mind. No matter how many times I prove it to be true, I am consistently astounded by the fact that if I go for some kind of physical activity right at the point when my eyes get bloobity and I can’t really read/comprehend what’s on the page in front of me, an hour later I’m raring to go again. This re-realization only compounds my yearning for the warmer weather; convincing myself to go outside for an hour is so much easier when “outside” is a pleasant place to be. I do break down and move my workouts indoors during inclement weather, but even walking from my door to the gym can sometimes be a fight when it’s bitter and leaky out there.

If anyone knows anyone who has a hookup with someone who can make spring come faster here in Massachusetts, I’d be ever so grateful. I’m plumb tired of being cold.

Dissertation work is draining, and my book fort doesn’t seem to be moving one way or another. This is mostly due to the fact that the minute I manage to reduce my “to read”

artistic desk shot. This doesn’t really expound the extent of the book fort, but it does look pretty.

pile to workable number, I get another dose of ILL books from the library and stack them on top again. Despite diligently hacking away at the pile on my desk (which at one point this week was tall enough to literally bury me), I’m still surrounded by things that need to be read.

I suppose I should look at the other end for any indication of real progress: it is true that my “have read” book fort is steadily growing larger. It has, at this point, expanded to the point of walling me into my desk. I have to traverse an obstacle course before I can actually sit down these days. The scary part is that I haven’t even really begun to work on the bulk of the project; I’m still just picking at the edges. I suppose that means I’ve chosen a topic ripe for exploration, but it does leave me a wee bit nervous about just how many library books I’m going to be held accountable for before this is all over.

And that’s not even to consider the archival work ahead of me. I’ve identified piles upon piles of things that I’ll have to sort through; but at least those items won’t follow me home. Well, they will, but in neatly sifted digitized form so that they won’t take up any room on my floor (just on my hard drive).

And on that note, it’s time to re-launch today’s attack upon Research Mountain. Wish me luck!

I Would Prefer To: Scrivener

Posted on February 27, 2014 by drosvally

As any crafter, home improver, or DIYer will tell you, having the right tool for the job makes the job a lot easier.

And, dear internet, I’ve been writing papers with the wrong tools for so long.

Basically I’ve had access to a sledgehammer and a machete when what I needed was a jeweler’s hammer and a surgeon’s scalpel. Microsoft word is many things and it’s a workhorse of a program. Basically anything you want to do you can somehow find a way to make it do. In terms of text manipulation and the actual process of word processing, it’s got many great features (tables of contents, version control, find and replace, text manipulation capabilities, etc.), but for a research paper it’s so not the tool for the job. At least, not the way I write.

Most writers are lateral thinkers. You’ve definitely heard me expound upon the beauty of lateral thinking before, so I don’t feel a need to go into it here. Basically, we (of necessity) hold many different bits of information in our mind at one time in order to forge new thoughts and ideas on the page. What this means is you’re juggling a lot of things at once: references (both bibliographic and visual), notes, facts, timelines, inspiration, and a host of your own thoughts. I work with a dual monitor set-up on a Mac, so I can keep a lot of windows open at once, but it’s often inconvenient to have to bounce back and forth between windows when the information I need could be gracefully compiled side-by-side in one place if I had the right interface for it.

Well, it turns out that they make the right interface for it. It’s called Scrivener and it’s my new best friend. While it definitely ran me a chunk of change ($45 for software is nothing to sniff at when you’re living on a grad school budget), I consider the investment worthwhile in just the last week of playing with the tool.

My best beloved turned me on to the software and introduced me to the notion. It’s apparently something that novel-writers swear by (and I can definitely see why). In fact, Scrivener is so awesome that they even offer a one-month trial version for folks participating in NaNoWriMo every year. I can’t imagine writing one large project on this and then being without it; I’m absolutely certain that the good folks at Scrivener make a ton of business that way.

I was resistant at first. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and the Scrivener help files are long and a bit arduous to get through. Scrivener will automatically open up to a tutorial upon your first usage after installs, and that tutorial will take you some time to get through. Consider it an easy-access pass to the yellow brick road; a small time investment will definitely save you in the future.

I think the best feature for me is that I can see, as I go, the accumulation of what I’ve

In center, my research notes. At right, you can see my comments; each comment is a new source. I can auto-jump to that source by clicking in to the comment.

done. If I set up my comments correctly, I can see how many sources I’ve already compiled (and in what category so I know where I’m weak without having to dig through all of my notes). Since I’m currently embroiled in preliminary Prospectus research, this is HUGE to what I’m doing right now. Additionally, I can file multiple documents in one project; my notes are thus auto-sorted as I research, and I can swap back and forth between them with extreme ease.

Another feature I absolutely love is the ability to embed images in a project. If I happen upon a broadside or picture in a reference book that I’d like to include in my notes, it’s incredibly easy to do so (I generally snap a shot with my cell phone camera, which auto-syncs to my dropbox, and then I can just drop the image into the scrivener folder and link it within the text). I don’t have to fiddle with dimensions (as in word), or worry about text wrapping or layering. The image is just there for me to look at when I need to see it.

Corkboard View of my current prospectus research

One of the selling points for me was “corkboard view”. Each document has a set of notes you can file alongside it, and when you drop into corkboard view the document is represented by an index card. You can move the index cards around with drag-and-drop to visually rearrange how your material will be presented. I can picture how wonderful this is going to be when I start drafting chapters; I can even break those chapters up into sections and drag/drop my material as I write it. As I’ve said before, I’m a tactile learner which makes the vast amount of reading/writing/research I do extremely difficult; this kind of interface really jives with my learning style and helps to de-conceptualize my writing.

Another great feature is custom meta-data tagging. Within each document, you can specify meta-data fields that can help with search functionality later. Scrivener provides a robust search interface (which really means that it will search many different parameters to find the data you’re looking for). Essentially, the more ways you label your writing, the easier it will be for you to find what you need. I can also see this coming in handy when generating an index. You know. For WAY in the future when that sort of thing is a part of my life.

On the whole, Scrivener has made me excited to write. This, as you may or may not know, is a HUGE hurdle in actually getting your work done. Experimenting with the program’s features and finding new ways to make my life easier has made dragging myself to my desk in the morning a task rather than a chore, and if there’s anything that will make life easier it’s inspiring the impetus to work. When I get going, I’m always fine (my work is fascinating and I love doing it), but climbing to my desk is an uphill battle. Scrivener has made it that much easier to ascend Everest, and it’s definitely making organization a pleasure.

I would highly recommend giving this program a shot; especially if you’re struggling with keeping your dissertation material in a format that’s not overwhelming.

Daniprose

academic adventures, theatric theoretics, and sundry snobberies.

Tag Archives: writing