To break a spell, you are to say to the requisite person, “You have no power over me any more.” And believe it, and breathe it in, and make it true.
Others, it appears, are already well settled into academic writing schedules and summer routines. I have three finals to give and grade, and two sets of papers, after which I will be finished and can do the same — although I believe I will take a week off to chop down the yard, clean the house, sleep, and swim first, and although there is the LSAT to think about after that.
After the LSAT, if I arrange to take it, in field work will begin, on a schedule that will include long hours at the pool.
We are going to find out whether I can become a regular publisher again. Since I became an irregular publisher, it has been the occasional essay or story, and this irregularity is a bad thing, but I have been involved with other things.
People are trying to find ways to optimize their use of time, sneak in twenty minutes of writing here and there, set an alarm clock, force it out. It sounds foreign. I used to be really disciplined but it was so effortless, I slithered and flowed through life, sailing down rock slides. This appears to be unusual; perhaps it is a special skill of people from the beach.
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When did I become an irregular publisher? The summer I stopped going to the beach and began writing creatively, against my better judgment. It was the summer I began Reeducation and lost the right to take care of my life, or to opine. Three articles came out and I got a good book contract, so at another level I now had absolute confirmation that if I continued, I would succeed. I brushed away the feeling I had finally graduated, the breeze that whispered, move on.
It was because I had lost the right to opine that I had agreed to book revisions I did not actually support, of course. And I won a Fulbright for the following year, for another project — it was a summer of many results, which was why had thought it would be a safe time to undertake Reeducation — and taking it conflicted with completing the book manuscript, and there were a few other practical problems at home about it. And I wanted to take it and cancel the book contract, pack up the house and remake my life, but as the Reeducated shadows closed in I lost strength for travel, and began to believe the Fulbright Commission had made an error, in selecting inexpert me.
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So I stopped writing seriously then, first because the person who did that had been disappeared by Reeducation. Second, because I had a book project in which I was not interested, yet knew I should be, and did not know how to handle the conflict. Third, because now having ample evidence I could do academic writing successfully, I lost interest in it.
In what did I really lose interest, though, is really the question; it was in writing a certain kind of thing, from a certain kind of point of view, for certain kinds of journals — I lost interest in writing things I was not interested in. Now I have other projects in which I am in fact interested, and where I feel far more myself and more adult. But I have also developed other interests, non literary ones, developed soon after I lost interest in what I lost interest in. And it is having those kinds of other interests that seems to be so beyond the pale — although I think I should learn to say this calmly.
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“I developed other interests.” Not that I failed, misunderstood the importance of publishing, taught too much, or had too many hobbies. I developed literary interests other than those I had been trained with, and a professional interest in another field.
Of course, because one is so well trained to do what is conventional, and also because Reeducation was causing me difficulties, I did not realize that to develop other interests is to evolve, and that is part of life. I thought one had to stay where one was, and so I mistook development and maturing for procrastination.
That, then, would explain my fascination with reading and also writing about “procrastination,” and trying to see where the difference lies between it and me.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
“You have no power over me any more.” I cannot believe how well this works.
A very important post, indeed.
Hey there!
I stopped by here via different links – I’ve been by before, but irregularly. Anyway, if you ever want to chat about the transition to law school (though it looks like you have quite a handle on everything), feel free to drop me a line.
Thank you!
I just reread it and yes, it’s a blockbuster! 🙂
I also note — I went to graduate school for me, but not for a career, and I was only a professor for me for a little while — otherwise it was always a job I was doing as a job because others wanted me to do that and not something else.
Also, someone from work says, I’m a genius and therefore get bored easily.
I think a couple of other people I know are, too, and have either figured out ways to deal with this or have started drinking. It would explain a lot.
Julian of Norwich’s feast day is on the 13th of May. She wrote the Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1393) which is considered to be the first book written in the English language by a woman. You remind me in your posts of a modern day equivalent – an anchoress cloistered away and engaged in a form of electronic contemplative prayer. One of her famous quotes is “He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but he said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.’ I think that everything will work out for you.
Julian of Norwich, and May 13 is a Friday this year, too — witchcraft! Anyway this is flattering and very interesting — and I’m glad you’ve started your blog! 🙂 I will now meditate on Julian of Norwich and perhaps do something for her feast day.
Anchoress in contemplative prayer, you know the film I relate to oddly is Lars von Trier, Breaking the Waves. He’s a jerk and all and I am against the film, but I really relate to the praying character.