One thing off my plate!

Yesterday I hit "send" on an email to the managing editor of an academic journal, submitting my article for the journal's consideration. It feels SO good to have done that!

I started working on this article two summers ago and got a good headstart on it that first summer. And then I didn't look at it for a year and a half. So one of my sabbatical projects was to go back to it and write the darned thing. But earlier this year I kept doing other things instead -- good things, like doing lots of reading before going to Israel -- and so working on the article kept getting pushed off. And then I did finally get a complete draft written but had to put it aside to do other things, such as teaching summer school.

So this past week, I decided that the time had come and that this week would be dedicated to revision. That got complicated when I got my new computer mid-week, for which I'm indeed grateful -- thank you, FGS, for giving me a shiny new computer! But somehow my file transfer went wonky, and I didn't have permission to write in my own files! This necessitated a second trip to school so that the tech office could get me squared away.

But despite all of that chaos, I kept plugging away at revision -- and the article was in better shape than I'd thought it might seem after a month away from it -- and I worked for hours on Friday so that I could hit "send." Hurrah!

There were times along the way that I thought, "what am I even doing anyway? Writing is hard, and how many people will even read this article, and not only does my job not require me to publish, many of my colleagues think it's kind of weird that I do this. Maybe I should once and for all ditch this idea of writing and settle into an identity as a teacher rather than a teacher-writer." But there were also times during this process that I was enjoying myself. And by the time I was revising this week, I was so into the idea of the writing life that I immediately started musing about which idea I should pursue for my next article.

Of course, I may feel differently if the article gets rejected! But that's months from now. In the meantime, I have all of this new space on my mental desk and am feeling much more on top of things than I was just a week ago.

Comments

[AKMA]

Yay, you! I'm about to offload a translation project, and am eagerly awaiting the chance to share your relief.