Cooperation, compromise, and celebrating what you have to give up

One thing I’ve recently given up in favor of other things is getting a blog post out on Mondays.  It’s Wednesday, so this is two days behind, and my last was also a day or two behind. That’s relatively minor as far as sacrifices go.  It’s on my mind because it follows up the theme and the issue that I was writing about in my previous blog posts, which were both interested in the necessary sacrifices that accompany the process of working with other people. And it’s still part of my personal situation, as well: in my last, I was writing about how a query letter led to the need to write a proposal. This week, I get to celebrate the fact that the proposal also received a positive response.

Once again, however, the positive response was also tied to more work and more need to satisfy the concerns of the editor.  The acceptance requires my willingness to work with the desires of the editor/publisher—they are not, after all, going to publish my book because they want to do me a service. If they decide to publish my book, they’ll do so because they think they can make a profit by publishing it. If they stop thinking they can make a profit, they’re going to stop thinking about producing my book.

One way to respond to this tension pulling on my work is to insist that it remain unchanged and that they accept it as it is.  Sometimes work is so good that it warrants such an attitude, and sometimes the specific changes requested are obviously stupid. But often, the requests made by others are useful, even beneficial.

Personally, I don’t view my book as such a masterpiece of English that it couldn’t be improved.  Throughout the process, I made choices that seemed like good ideas at the time, given my sense of what the book could be, but were not central to what I wanted to discuss. One such choice was whether to aim the book at a smaller or larger audience—I went for the larger, but the publisher wants the smaller. Now that I’m speaking with a specific publisher, some of those choices don’t suit the publisher, because their vision of what the book could be differs from mine.  To me, as long as their vision doesn’t clash with what is central, I have no complaint about making the change, even if it is something that I am sacrificing.

One of the things about working with other people, and making compromises when their desires do not perfectly match your own, is that often the other people are right. In addition to my own book proposal, I’ve been working with a client who is trying to get his book through the steps of publication, and the most recent request from his publisher was to revise the opening pages. The book is awesome and a week or two ago, they were pushing the author to change the title. At the time, I supported him in insisting on the title he had chosen. This time, however, the publisher is right in asking for revision of the opening pages: they could be better.

To some extent such judgments of better/worse are personal: my view of those pages will not match those of all potential readers. But often there can be some consensus. I’m thinking right now of the “director’s cut” of many movies: often the director’s cut means adding scenes that had been left on the cutting room floor. And, personally, I think that such revised (extended) versions can often make the work worse as a whole, even when the added scenes are themselves good. The movie Apocalypse Now was re-released as Apocalypse Now Redux with almost 50 minutes of original scenes that had been cut from the original release, and while each scene is good in its way, the added running time takes a long movie and turns it into a test of endurance.

Working with other people—publishers, for example—means respecting their desires. It doesn’t mean surrendering all boundaries, but if you’re never willing to make a sacrifice when your opinion differs from that of a collaborator, that doesn’t show much respect for their desires. Compromise and sacrifice are an integral part of cooperation, and if you want to be part of a larger community, then cooperation is necessary. If you can keep focused on the success of the cooperative endeavor, then it’s easier to celebrate the compromises that you have to make.

Celebrate rejection, celebrate acceptance, and be careful what you ask for

Back in February, after sending a query to a literary agent, I wrote about celebrating rejection.  The agency website says, “If you don’t hear from us in six weeks, assume we’re not interested.” I didn’t hear after six weeks, so I assumed that I had been rejected. After the sixth week passed, I tried to celebrate my rejection. 

And then I began working on a query letter for a publisher (my book is the kind of thing that is at the edge of being mass-market enough for one of the commercial publishing houses—there are several different commercial houses that have related books, and the commercial publishers don’t accept unsolicited queries—if I want to publish at a commercial publisher, I need an agent—but it’s also suitable for academic publisher, who do accept queries from authors). I decided to try a query letter (“would you like to see a proposal for a book” rather than “would you like to see a manuscript of a book”), thinking that a shorter, simpler query might get a quicker response.  I sent my first (and only) query letter to a publisher on the seventh week after sending my previous proposal, preparing to (try to) celebrate rejection yet again.

Celebrating rejection is not the easiest thing. It’s silly to argue that rejection is all good—the central part of rejection is that someone rejected your request, and presumably you didn’t make a request for something you didn’t either want or need (or both).  The possibility of celebrating rejection comes from the complexity of rejection: rejection does force one to consider new opportunities or new avenues of exploration, and those opportunities can be celebrated. It takes effort and focus, but as the saying goes, “if you get lemons, make lemonade.”

This past Monday (eight weeks after sending the proposal), I did, in fact, receive a formal rejection from the agent, which gave me a second opportunity to “celebrate” my rejection. A double helping of rejection to celebrate!

Of course, as I had already sent off a new query letter, my attention and interest were elsewhere, despite the renewed sting of rejection. As it happens, my query letter to the publisher had received a positive response—the acquisitions editor had expressed interest in seeing a proposal and in setting a time to talk with me.

Naturally, I was thrilled that my query had received a positive response. In many ways, celebrating acceptance is much easier than celebrating rejection.

But one does need to be careful what one asks for, because sometimes the request is accepted! Because of the acceptance of the query letter, I spent the last week writing and rewriting a proposal for the publisher. There are elements of book proposals that can be re-used, but different publishers have different interests and different book lists, and that leads to a need for some differences. And once the process of rewriting has started, it can take on its own life, as previous choices come under examination.

Last week, I wrote about compromise and how even when things are going well, you can expect someone to ask you to compromise. And I guess this is in that same vein: things could be going well (by being accepted, for example), and still there is more work to do, there are compromises to make.  I’m pretty darn happy that my query letter received a positive response, but life doesn’t end there. Resting on laurels is rarely possible. I have a next step (a proposal), which could lead to rejection, and then, possibly, a next step (manuscript submission), which could lead to rejection. And if that is accepted, then there are the steps of revising, editing, possibly indexing, promoting, etc.

Since this post is about celebrating things, I’ll wrap by noting that we have some choice over where we direct our attention. And especially, that there are always concerns for looking forward to the future: regardless of whether you were accepted or rejected, you can choose where to direct your attention, and looking at the road ahead, seeing difficulties, one can still choose to focus attention on the positive goals, too. It would be nice to have some laurels to rest upon, even if that rest might be uneasy.

Celebrate rejection

My biggest difficulty as a writer is not producing material, but in giving material to other people. Right now I have a book draft and a book proposal, and the next step is to send it to someone. I can do that now—sending it to publishers or agents—or I can put that off and self-publish. But even self-publishing involves trying to get someone to read your work, and risks rejection. (Update: the proposal was sent before posting.)

I don’t relish rejection, and I assume that you don’t either. But sometimes it’s necessary to take a chance, and if you are uncomfortable with rejection, as I am, it can be useful to look at what there is to celebrate about rejection.

As a writer, rejection presupposes an accomplishment: I can’t have a work rejected without finishing that work--without making a commitment to giving a draft to someone else (and thus a commitment to stop working on the darn thing). I absolutely should celebrate finishing both the draft and the proposal. Writing an entire book draft is a real accomplishment for me—something I’ve managed to do only twice before on my own (counting my dissertation in addition my book on dissertation writing)—and so, finishing a draft of a new book is something to celebrate, and finishing a book proposal even more so, because I find the book proposal much harder to write than the book. The proposal is all about acceptance/rejection. When I’m working on the book, it’s about helping people, which feels good. When I’m working on the proposal, it’s about getting my book accepted which doesn't feel nearly as good. Anyway, the proposal is finished (and now sent). I’m not going to rework it any more. It’s going to fly or crash on the merit of what is there now.

The well-known principle “you can’t win if you don’t play,” is important here. But the principle presupposes that you can play: in the metaphorical poker game of manuscript submission, I have something to ante into the pot.  I certainly ought to celebrate that good fortune (not really good fortune, but the product of a lot of consistent effort over several years). I already believe in the value of working hard, so I don’t begrudge that past effort, but rather view the effort with some pride, even if no one ever reads my book.

I don’t entirely look forward to reworking my proposal for a new agent or publisher, so that aspect of possible rejection is not awesome. But the book process would hardly be over, even if I had a great response on my proposal. Getting accepted would almost certainly carry with it some specific requests for revision and for other information. The publication process would eventually require proofreading, too. So rejection doesn’t radically change the necessary effort. And, realistically, I like writing as work: it’s often frustrating, but I feel that the more I work at it, the greater are the rewards in proportion to the effort.

Submitting a proposal—whether accepted or rejected—is not the end of the process, but it is a real landmark. If bringing a book to publication is a road race, this is a significant milepost—it’s the halfway point, at least. And just as I would celebrate the halfway point in a road race, I can celebrate hitting this mark.

If you worry about how your work will be accepted, I understand. I worry about how my work is accepted, too. It’s natural. But rejection is only part of a larger picture, and in that larger picture—the picture of a person working on a piece of writing—the rejection is a real sign of accomplishment. That’s what I told myself as I geared up to hit “send” on my proposal. 

Now that I have sent the e-mail, a difficult period of waiting for a response begins. To help support my mood through that wait, I’m going to celebrate my accomplishments so far.

Sorting out complexity

A few days ago, I received a query from someone who asked “Now that I finished my dissertation, what do I do? I don’t want to pursue the career that got me into the doctoral program.”  And today a friend asked me to help with processing an annual job review. In both of those cases, I started to do what I normally do with feedback on written work (whether mine or other people’s): sort through the different concerns to try to focus on each one independently.

In both of these cases there’s good mixed with bad in emotionally loaded situations. The dissertation writer obviously should celebrate the big accomplishment (good! exciting!). And at the same time, the new doctor has to make big decisions about the course of his career, and no longer has the security of a concrete plan for the immediate future (scary!).  The job review recipient can celebrate the many areas of commendation (good!), but also has to deal with the areas of difficulty (scary!).

Finding good responses to big issues like these is easier if you can sort through the tangles of emotion to find a little bit of calm.  Sorting through the different issues can separate them out them out into distinct threads of consideration, and separate threads of emotion can be more easily processed. If you leave the good tangled with the bad, it’s hard to feel good about the good stuff. And if you only feel bad abut the bad stuff, then you’re not supported by positive emotions, which makes it much harder to make a good plan.

To take the case of the job review, it would be valuable to be able to think about the successes without thinking about the difficulties—the successes are real and should not be discounted or ignored because there are also difficulties that need to be resolved. And, of course, the difficulties are real, too, and also need to be taken into consideration. Responses to the review need to be balanced between the good and bad.

To take the case of the completed dissertation, it would be valuable to celebrate the success of completing a dissertation and to recognize the way that a doctoral degree can benefit a career. And at the same time, it is valuable to recognize the real difficulties: making new plans is difficult.  There is emotional security in a defined role. If you can say “I’m getting a doctorate,” you have a good, comforting answer to the question of what you’re doing with your life. If you say “I don’t know what I’m doing now, and I don’t have a plan,” that’s pretty scary.

The scary and difficult stuff in life—making plans to deal with the unknown, making plans to fix difficulties—is really scary and difficult (for a lot of people, anyway). It’s worse—more scary, more difficult—if you focus only on shortcomings and not on strengths. To respond to a situation, it’s great if you can do so with your best reasoning, and not just respond from a place of anxiety and fear.

So what is the situation, in full? For the recent doctor, there is, on the plus side, a doctoral degree and the potential job opportunities that it opens. On the minus side, there is uncertainty about the future, and a sense that previous plans are no longer appealing. The negatives are real, but a strength does not necessarily become useless if the original purpose is no longer a guide.

Yes, the recent doctor, has to pay bills. There may be student debt. There may be a present need to find a job. There may be the unfortunate fact that the planned training isn’t going to be used for the intended purpose. All that sucks. At the same time, the recent doctor has a doctorate degree. Even if the career that was planned does not present an opportunity, there are other opportunities that a doctorate can enhance.  Many jobs will appreciate an advanced degree. Yes, there may be some opportunities that are closed by choice, but that will only feel like a trap if you don’t spend time trying to figure out what opportunities are now open that were not open before.

And for the job review, there are the realities of all the commendations and all the successes.  These are real, and could be the foundation for a job application with a new position. The strengths allow the reviewee to say, “I have options other than this job.” And that sense of choice, allows the reviewee to approach the complaints saying “maybe I want to try to fix these things, if the critiques are sound; or I could just blow these silly people off, and go find a new job.” 

To focus on the choices that are available and that you can make provides a sense of opportunity and strength that is important in difficult moments. If you are faced with difficult and complex situations—a mixed job review, an unplanned future (with a fresh Ph.D. diploma)—it helps to separate out the different threads.

What are the good things? Focus on these, because these are the source of real strength and real confidence.  And don’t ignore, but separate out, the bad things: yes, problems need to be dealt with, and yes, they can be difficult, But they are not the whole situation, and it’s hard to make a good plan if you focus only on the negatives.

Sort out the different threads of emotion in complex situations. Focus on the good points if you’re feeling distressed. Make plans to deal with the concerns when you’re feeling confident.

Halloween Costumes

It's a little early for this post, perhaps. Having been invited to a party Halloween, it is necessary to consider a costume, and I was thinking of what I might do when it occurred to me that this is something to consider as a writer.

Not what I should wear for Halloween, but the whole concept of wearing a costume. What if you were to think of your dissertation as something of a costume? It is not you and yet it is. On Halloween you go out and your friends recognize you, and yet you're also someone else. It is easier to act the fool.

The Halloween costume is a celebration, and one on which many invest a great deal of energy. But because it is a celebration it does not seem onerous. So we might wonder whether, by looking at our writing as a sort of costume, we might be able to enjoy the exploration and even enjoy making a fool of ourselves.

It's crucial for the writer to be able to try on a costume and then just as quickly throw on another if the first didn't work. If you can write and rewrite, then you will be able to produce good work.

It's also crucial to be able to see the writing as separate from you. The costume hides the identity, and in so doing turns the criticism into an attack on something that is not you. Borges writes a little parable "Borges and I" in which he discusses the distance between himself and the figure that manifests on the paper.

We need not be too tied to our writing. We can it hold it in a gap between us and the world, and this gap--this distance between us and the work allows us to see what others think of the work without worrying that it is a reflection on us.

A final note: it seems to me that the costume and the writing are both a chance to celebrate your own voice and to celebrate your own imagination. Explore the possibilities; take chances. Being repressed doesn't make a better costume or a better piece of writing.

Counting

What Counts?
I'm thinking, in this case, particularly about what to count as "work accomplished", but it's a very interesting general question as well, because deciding "what counts" is a crucial decision.

Consider, for example, the United States Constitution in one of its darker moments:
Article 1, Section 2, paragraph 3: "Representatives...shall be apportioned among the several States...according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free persons,...and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons."
Indians not taxed counted not at all in determining representation of the new federal government. "Other persons" counted 60% in determining numbers of representatives, but of course those other persons didn't get 60% of a vote, being slaves.

It's nice and dandy to think of numbers as objective. It's one of the lovely myths of science. But what we choose to count is determined by how we see the world. What gets counted depends on our subjective decisions concerning what to count. This is true whether we are a physical scientist looking data sets and trying to decide whether some data can be considered outliers, or whether we are social scientist trying to decide whether certain data are coded as one thing or as another, or whether we are a politician trying to decide who to count as eligible with respect to some policy. It is inevitable that a value-laden subjective determination is made considering what counts.

While I mention this as a general principle that all academics ought to be aware of, my real concern here is in thinking about writers and how writers can sabotage themselves. I had a writer lament to me the other day "I didn't get much done; I only wrote abut 2000 words." When I wrote back "That's great 2000 words is a considerable piece of work and if you keep up a pace like that you'll finish in no time," I got a response "Actually I only wrote about 1000 words."

Well, we all have to figure out what to count. It's easy to count the words that we have written: lots of word-processing software will do it for us. It's not so easy to count if we start saying "well, these words do count, but those don't." But the determination is ours: we have to make the subjective decision of what counts before we can start enumerating.

But I wasn't so much concerned with counting words, as I was with counting effort and counting progress. The effort we put in, and the progress we make are not perfectly measured in the number of words we write. I think that writers with writer's block and related problems often suffer from not being willing or able to count what they did as actual work or actual progress.

It's important to learn to celebrate the fruits of our efforts, and even more important to learn to count the fruits as actual fruits. If we spend a day of hard work, thinking through difficult problems and then say to ourselves "I got nothing done because I didn't write enough words," we are counting our effort as worthless. And what kind of emotional state does such a method of counting lead to? It leads to depression, one can easily imagine.

Dr. David Burns, M.D., author of the mass-market book on CBT titled Feeling Good, argues that there are "ten cognitive distortions that form the basis of all your depressions" (p.32). Number four on his list of cognitive distortions is "Disqualifying the Positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they 'don't count' for some reason or other" (p.42). While I have reservations about any mass-market book on psychology, and don't know that I would accept Burns' contention that all depression stems from his ten cognitive distortions, I do believe that if we engage in his cognitive distortions we are creating a strong negative emotional state. If we reject our efforts as not counting, then each day that we make an effort, and each day we discount the effort of the day, we add to our negative feelings about ourselves and about our project.

It seems, therefore, important to be able to celebrate the effort, and to celebrate the actual progress that we do make, even if it isn't as much as we would have hoped. And in that celebration we definitely don't want to focus on the idea that it wasn't as much as we hoped.

In the long-term practice of writing it is crucial to be able to have days where the productivity seems low, and not berate ourselves for those days. Writing, like many practices, is uneven--some days go well, some go badly; sometimes we make a lot of progress in an easy, measurable sense. Sometimes we make progress by having some sort of epiphany--even sometimes when that epiphany leads us to want to throw away some old writing that we had previously intended to use. Writing is about creating a working whole: a complete, coherent written work. Some of the progress necessary in that endeavor will involve re-arranging ideas we had earlier in the process before we knew what we have learned during the process.

Finally, I want to note that yes, sometimes we get nothing done. Some days we don't try. Some days we may sit down and write nothing, or write a load of tripe that doesn't contribute to the project. It's okay to admit that you had an unproductive day. But it seems to me superior to try to focus--everyday--on the positive accomplishments, and to remember to count them and celebrate them. That whole load of tripe?: well at least you learned that that wasn't what your dissertation needed. Deciding what to count is a practice in itself; it's nice when we can get the practice to support us.

Choosing a Focal Point

It's another beautiful day in the San Francisco Bay Area. The sun is shining; it's warm but there's a cool breeze.

Walking out to run some errands I was worrying, however, about what I hadn't done. And then in a moment I reminded myself that it was a beautiful day.

There are advantages about considering the things that we have yet to do. If we can actually do one of the things we hope to do, that's best, but thinking about which things to do is also a good plan. There's plenty there to think about.

There are also advantages to considering the beauty of the moment. I don't think that spending every day frolicking in the sun is necessarily a good long-term strategy, but it has its moments. And from moment to moment we can continue to be aware of the good things we do have around us while we are engaged in other activities.

I'm not sure there are many good reasons to worry about what we haven't done in the past. It's worth understanding how we can do things so as to avoid old mistakes, but to spend time worrying about the past?

We can choose where to direct our attention. This is obvious. We direct our attention to the left then to the right when we prepare to cross a two-way street (assuming people drive on the right side of the road). We direct our attention to each speaker in turn when we converse with a group of friends. But it's not so easy to direct our attention over longer periods or in some stressful situations.

My belief is that we can learn to focus our attention better. I like to practice by trying to remember the positive things, the things to celebrate and the things that I care about.

I'm feeling positively pollyanna-ish, so my readers will have to forgive me.

Carrots and Sticks (2)

So I got an e-mail:

I understand what you say here, " The point I'm really aiming at is the value of being accountable to yourself rather than to someone else. " Sometimes however I feel motivated by the enthusiasm of others. There are days like today when I just want to ask, "am I on the right track." Of course I'm looking for an affirmative response so if I received the contrary, I might be utterly shattered. But if I can get some dialogue and discussion to affirm that I am on the right track, it helps me keep going just a little longer. I'm still doing the work for myself (I think/hope) but sometimes the energy to go after that carrot does have to do with the support of someone else...don't know if that makes sense, but it's what I thought about when I read...

Answer number 2:
I think that there's a difference between (1) having internal motivation and (2) being motivated by external events. But that doesn't mean that the internal motivation can't be affected by external forces.
I think that internal motivation is a sense of purpose, a sense that you're doing the work for yourself, and not just as make work, but because the work itself is meaningful to you--meaningful as a part of your life and what you want to accomplish with your life. As a result of this sense of purpose, you pursue the work that you do because you see it as integral to getting what you really want in life.
By contrast, I see the carrot and the stick as representing more external motivations: you do something because you hope that people will treat you well, or you do something because you fear they will treat you poorly. The motivation is not in the act itself, but in the attempt to please others--the search for the carrot and to avoid the stick.

Even if you have internal motivation, that doesn't mean that how others treat you will entirely run off you like water. Just because we have a sense of purpose, that doesn't mean that our emotions don't ebb and flow; it doesn't mean that we won't face difficult moments. You may be filled with a sense of self-purpose, but if someone starts yelling at you or telling you that you're stupid, that may still be difficult. It may be difficult because we're just learning to cultivate our sense of purpose. It may be difficult because the person who is berating us is someone we respect. Having someone yell at you is generally difficult, I think, for most people.
Sometimes people will yell at you because they want you to do something other than what you're doing. That's the stick. At such a moment it behooves us to understand the differences between the potential courses of action, so that we can choose something that suits our purposes, not just something that we chose because we wanted to avoid being yelled at. If someone we respect is telling us we're doing something bad it can be particularly difficult because we want to trust ourselves, but also we want to be able to recognize our own fallibility, too--otherwise we become too dogmatic.

The other side of this is positive feedback. You can have a clear sense of purpose and still gain in motivation through contact with the enthusiasm of others. Let's say, hypothetically, you have a project that you believe in for reason A, and you find a person who thinks your project is very cool for reason B. Why shouldn't you gain in motivation from sharing this new perspective and enthusiasm? Or you might find someone else who is excited for the exact same reason as you (or something very close): is there any reason not to gain from their enthusiasm? Of course not. Just because we believe in something, it doesn't mean we can never share in the enthusiasm of others. And to the extent that scholars are generally people trying to share ideas, if you find someone who shares your ideas that in itself is cause for excitement, and if they connect with what you've written that's an indication that your work in succeeding in reaching the kind of people you want it to reach. Clearly that's reason for excitement and a sense of accomplishment. Getting stroked is nice; the question is whether you're chasing the strokes (the carrots) for their own sake or whether they're coming to you because you're doing something you would do anyway.

Imagine a musician. A person who loves to play music, who loves the creation of music and the interaction with the musical instrument. That person can enjoy playing in the solitude of the home. But he may also take his music out in public, and thereby create the possibility of being appreciated by others. Does that mean that he doesn't love the playing for its own sake any longer? The attentive reader will have noted that "Balance" is one of the labels for this post. Realistically, this is another case where it is a matter of finding balance. The musician--and metaphorically all of us--puts extra effort into taking the show on the road, and from that extra effort gets back (or hopes to get back) the appreciation of others and the sense of sharing. If we are grounded in our love of the music and the playing of the music--in our sense of purpose--then mixing that with a desire for appreciation and sharing with others and their encouragement seems like a balanced, human and social thing to do. It is neither kowtowing to the masses, nor is it self-righteous setting oneself apart.

Carrot and Stick

Where does motivation come from?
The idea of the carrot and the stick suggest external forces: we chase the carrot--the external reward--and we flee the stick--external punishment. It seems to me that both of these forces of motivation are impoverished with respect to character growth.

If we look at the issue using the perspective of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we might see the carrot and the stick as fulfilling lower-level needs--safety, security, pleasure.

What have we got left if not the carrot and the stick? Maslow would suggest we have our growth and our joy in the mastery of new things. (or is that a metaphorical carrot)?

Ach! I'm getting tangled in metaphor. The point I'm really aiming at is the value of being accountable to yourself rather than to someone else. Do the work because it will satisfy what you want to accomplish in your life. Do it for yourself. Do it because you have a sense of purpose that will be served by working on your project.

201st post

I just noticed that last night's post was my 200th. That seems like a pretty big number to me. It reminds me of how things start to add up over the course of regular practice. I have never, I think, spent more than an hour working up a post. But at the end of the day I have a lot of writing to show for it. Yeah, some of it is lame. And yeah, it is generally not structured well. And yeah, it's a whole different thing writing blog posts than writing a dissertation. But still, as you work on it, the product and the project adds up.

I actually have been working on a book about writing projects--Dave's Directions for Inditing a Delightful Dissertation is the working title--...well, not really, or at least it had not been prior to this moment when I made that up. It actually has a slight absurdity that I enjoy. "A Delightful Dissertation." Perhaps a little over the top. It sounds like the name of some turn-of-the-20th century patent medicine or traveling show. And this regular blogging has mostly been helpful. Some days the blog seems to interfere, and others the book project interferes with the blog. But more the former than the latter because it's so much easier to work on the project for which you have low expectations. This is why it's a lot easier to send e-mail to a friend than it is to write your dissertation.

Anyway, however limited the product may be--however limited in volume or in quantity--there is a growing body of work. And with it a growing ease in writing. And these are both things that I can look at and celebrate, just to appreciate my own effort. I have a habit of discounting those things that I do accomplish and focusing on my weaknesses. This is a psychological pattern that makes it easy to despair and stop working. But it's a pattern of focus--it's not destiny. By focusing on the positive of what I have accomplished, I can step into my next effort with greater enthusiasm and less fear. And my assessment of what I can accomplish is based on the actual output that I have--so I have some evidence on which to reflect.

I suppose that if I write enough posts it will be less interesting to mark the landmarks, but that's still a way in the future. Post number 300 will still feel like a landmark.

Strengths and weaknesses

One of my favorite little bits of philosophy I got from the fortune in a fortune cookie. "Your strengths are your weaknesses," it said. I have no doubt that there is some more noble source for this piece of wisdom, though I've not chosen to find a deeper source.

The nice thing about a simple aphorism like this is that it can resonate on deeper levels if you seek to find that deeper understanding. Like a zen koan, the exploration triggered by an aphorism can be more interesting than the first order level of meaning.

I didn't actually start this because I wanted to talk about that one aphorism, and so I won't explore it any further. I titled this post thinking about the habit of worry--a habit with which I certainly have a great deal of familiarity from my own personal experience. I also have a fair amount of experience talking about it with other writers.

One writer I've been working with recently always has a story about what cannot be done. The responses always focus on what cannot be done and what the weaknesses are. No matter how much is accomplished, or how much I ask to hear about what is working well, no strengths or successes are reported. If I throw a handful of suggestions out and say "use any that you find useful," the response I get back will almost always be about which ones cannot be handled.

In order to have any sense of optimism and any sense of progress, we need to realistically assess our progress and our abilities--which means acknowledging our strengths as well as our weaknesses. We cannot be blind to our abilities. Indeed, if one wishes to maintain that he or she has no ability whatsoever, then why is that person even attempting to work on a writing project of any sort--much less a dissertation.

I work less frequently with people who can see only their strengths and not their weaknesses. Such people are much less inclined to seek help. But that too can be problematic. We need some balance--ignoring our weaknesses will cause problems just as will ignoring our strengths.

I suppose to wrap this up by winding back to the aphorism: if we remember that our strengths and weaknesses are intimately intertwined, it's easier to remember that we have both.

It's so easy to forget

I have, perhaps, had too much to drink this night. It's 1:42am and I have a 9:15am appointment. That would be no problem, as I frequently sleep only about 6 hours, except that I have no desire to sleep.

The night is balmy. It is not the sort of night that is common in Berkeley. I was outside and comfortable wearing only a t-shirt and shorts at one in the morning. I rode my bike home--almost 4 miles in a straight line, about 7 miles by the crooked route I rode, according to Google maps. A yellow half moon was hanging low over over the Bay.

I didn't want to get home--which accounts for the extra three miles. The moment was beautiful; I can't imagine much better. During the night I had been asked how I had come to Berkeley and why I had stayed. "The weather is always perfect," I said. But not usually perfect in this way.

I actually have a purpose in writing this--not just to talk about my night. There was nothing particularly special about my night. I got to spend some time with friends; I had, as I said, too much to drink, but the moment is essentially simple. This is not the moment for which the phase "in vino veritas" is usually applied, but there is a truth here. There is a simple beauty in the world, and, if we take a moment to step back and appreciate it, it can be a rejuvenating experience. And it is not so much that there is anything particularly special, so much as it is that you have taken the moment to appreciate it.

I was thinking of this, in particular, with respect to academic work and the way that we can lose sight of a deep appreciation and love that might have once motivated us.

I was, for a time, in a graduate program in literature. I had a great time, and was happy with a great deal of the work that I did. But I didn't fit into the culture. Partially hat was because it wasn't really appropriate in that culture to say "I am studying this work because I love it." For my master's thesis I chose a literary work that explicitly addressed philosophical questions that interested me, but still I was largely driven by my enjoyment of the work. But, as I said, it's not appropriate to say simply "this work is worthy of note because I love it." In that sort of context, it can be easy to be driven to lose sight of one level of appreciation of work.

On another level, we can find that anything that we enjoy can become work, if it is positioned that way. I play music for enjoyment, and I know, from a brief period where I was trying to earn money playing music, that it takes on a different character when you have to do it because you need the money. I have a cousin who is a fabulous guitarist, but it is his work, which sometimes interferes with his love for the music. At what point does it become annoying to teach yet another kid how to play "Smoke on the Water"? I have a friend with a 10-year old son who just started guitar lessons (not with my cousin), and his first song: "Smoke on the Water." I don't know how my cousin feels about "Smoke on the Water" today, but I know that he loved it once.

It is easy to forget the simple significance of things and their profound importance, and often their beauty as well. We can get lost in the academic trappings of the situation, and lose sight of the issues that we really cared about in our search for scholarly ways of speaking.

I was talking about simple motivations on Monday; we often can look at a simple statement of purpose or hypothesis and see it is something overly simple or something too obvious or too insignificant. But simplicity is not in-and-of-itself a problem; often it masks a subtle complexity. When dealing with such simplicity, however, it is easy to forget the fabulous significance that is often implicated.

The simplest things are often incredibly significant--air, water, love--but how easy it is to lose sight of these beauties! The better that we can reconnect our work with simple issues, the better, perhaps, that we can keep in sight, or at least catch glimpses of, the great beauty and significance that lies behind the simple statements. Many scholars enter their field out of some sense of love or some sense of purpose; How often does that sense get forgotten?

Believing in yourself

Either you do or you don't. I wonder what the proportions are on the split: how many do believe and how many don't. Me? I'm up and down. Some days I do. Others I don't. Some days I do stuff and it clicks. Others it doesn't. Some days, yes; some, no.

Believing in yourself is a good thing. Psychologists talk about believing in yourself as "self-efficacy"--a trait that has been correlated with a number of other positive traits, like success in school and psychological well-being.

I've been having some trouble believing in myself recently. But that difficulty is not necessarily reflective of a with me. That point was driven home to me today, talking with a writer who had gotten some difficult feedback on her dissertation. "I don't have anything to say," she told me. I'm sure she believed it. Partly she believed it because the feedback she had received had projected that. Partly she was just forgetting herself. The same writer has also told me about her own sense of the work's importance, and of her experience of others who have been interested in her work. Which is the reality? Is it true that she has nothing to say because one person told her that? Or is it true that she does have something to say, because someone else told her so?

I used to think that brutal honesty--with self and others--was always the way to go. Nowadays, I'm not as certain of the truth. It's easy to find a flaw. But what does a flaw mean? Or, as they say in industry, is it a feature or a bug? Is that flaw a flaw from all perspectives?

I lean now more toward practicing optimism and practicing believing in myself (as any reader of this blog is surely aware by now). It seems like the logically soundest route to follow. Now I admit that this route is more appropriate for those of us who have trouble believing in ourselves--those who do believe in themselves maybe ought to watch out for hubris, instead. Anyway, for those who doubt, it seems like practicing your belief in yourself is generally the best practice, because it leads to action, rather than hesitation.

For writers suffering from any sort of writer's block due to lack of self-belief, it's a worthwhile exercise to step back from the project for a moment and to explore the reasons that motivated the project at the start, as it's often the case that we have good reasons for our work, it's just that in the process of working on the details and research, we lost sight of that driving force.

Waiting for feedback

Ok, so you sent off that draft, or you dropped it in their mailbox, or whatever.
It ain't perfect; maybe your cover letter ain't perfect; maybe the list of things you would have liked to accomplish is longer than the work you submitted. But you submitted it.

And you get to wait to hear back.

What do you do in the meantime?
You could start by celebrating a little. Sending off work is tough. Acknowledge what you have accomplished for a moment or three before you go back to working on the things you haven't accomplished. Build some good feeling in your life by recognizing what you get done.

But then you want to get to work again. You don't want to rest on your laurels too much; whatever the feedback you do get, you want to be able to have new work accomplished for any contact with your professors. Don't focus on the things over which you have no power (what the reader does with your submission); instead keep working. If you have been productive while waiting for your feedback, you're probably going to feel better able to handle whatever feedback you do get. By building your work, you create something to feel good about rather than simply waiting and depending on the feedback to make you feel good (or bad!).

What you don't want to do while waiting is worry about what the reader will say. That will be revealed soon enough. Usually. When you get the feedback, that's when you process it, and deal with the good and the bad. While you're waiting, you're either not thinking about it at all, or you're reminding yourself of how the feedback will provide valuable information that will help you--even if the feedback isn't good (see my post from a few days ago about preparing for feedback).

Ideally you will hear back from your committee sooner rather than later. And then you'll have feedback.

Too often, we'll wait a long time for feedback with no result. Don't be thrown by this. It's reasonable to check in to remind your professor about the submission and ask if they'll have a chance to get to it. You might also try telling them a little about what you are working on while waiting, or even submitting something. If you're not working while you wait, that can suck up a lot of time. Don't depend on the readers; take the initiative. The harder they see you working, the easier it will be to get feedback (usually).