mid-February update

I don't have too much report for the past week or two.  I am still plugging away--little by little, research hour by research hour--on my current essay's revisions.  I have divided my remaining tasks into two big categories: (1) read a bunch of sources and add in some additional support for what I have already written, and (2) re-listen to eight albums of music that is the subject of the essay.  (The second task is the one that is more fun, so I am saving that one to do until the first is finished.)

So this morning I read and took notes on 50 pages of a relevant book.  I wish I could get this stuff done faster, but working three hours a week is better than no hours a week I suppose. . . .

At some point I want to reassess my long-term goals.  I haven't been composing any music for awhile.  I have just re-started The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.  I worked through this book in the summer of 2003--nearly nine years ago.  It was a gift I had received from a student I had in Chicago a few years back, and his intent was to help me reconnect with composition after a period of being blocked.  I am hopeful that working through Cameron's book again will help me to get back in touch with my CREATIVE self, infusing all that I do--teaching, research, and composition--with greater creativity.

  

the ever-dwindling research hour, or better 50 minutes than no minutes at all

So I got a slightly later start than I would have liked this morning--at 8:10 rather than 8:00.  So my research hour became a 50-minute research session.  But better 50 minutes than no minutes at all I suppose.

I kept working on revisions for my current essay, which I hope to submit somewhere for publication by the end of this month.  I have a list of things to tackle so the process is simple (but not easy).  It feels good to check things off a list.  And today I checked off six items that needed some sort of revision so that's good.

Back to it on Friday. . . .

End-of-week update

I feel like I have had a good week.  I worked just three hours (one each on Mon., Wed., and today, Fri.), but I have managed to engage in my revision activities.  I have spent a lot of the research time freewriting on various issues that needed greater development and gathering a list of sources to consult.  I also made a plan for next week in order to keep moving forward with this.  Not sure I will be able to finish all of this by the end of February, but I will try.

Quick update

Since classes resumed on Monday, I am back to a MWF 8–9 am research schedule.  The only change since last fall is that I am having my sessions at home rather than at my office since I am teaching in a classroom closer to where I live and farther from my office (gives me an extra 15 minutes).  So far, this has worked out fine.

I am working on my "February goal," which will take me at least through the end of February.  I am doing MAJOR revisions of an essay, which has not been accepted yet for publication anywhere.  I am hopeful that after this next batch of significant revisions, it will be ready for submission somewhere.  I am in the stage of freewriting about certain issues that I need to clarify and make more explicit (to myself and more importantly to the reader) and gathering some new sources to back up a few claims I make without a whole lot of support.

Time to go teach.  

January goals have been met!

Despite a very sluggish week last week, this week has been awesome.  I am feeling better (had a bad chest cold last week), and I have been getting a ton of work done.  (And it is only Wednesday!)

I had a rush of motivation/inspiration/panic/whatever and finished my remaining goal for the month of January--to prepare an essay for submission to a well-regarded journal.  (And it is only January 11, not even the halfway point of the month!) I just sent the required documents, including the revised essay, by email to the Editorial Manager of the journal.  I feel very good about the work I have done on this particular essay.  I have been working on it for years, having started it when I was on sabbatical leave in 2008.  I have presented the research in the essay at two conferences, and I have read, re-read, and revised the essay probably hundreds of times.  I hope this creative academic endeavor is successful! 

Update

I have had a wonderfully productive day today.  Since classes have yet to start, my schedule has been mostly unstructured--meaning more blocks of time to work and get stuff done.  This is good!  The danger is that I have not partitioned off sacred time for my scholarship/research, but at least today, I managed to devote the entire afternoon to achieving two concrete goals: I wrote proposals for two different spring conferences: (1) Music Theory Midwest, which will be in Ann Arbor, Michigan and (2) the 14th Meeting of Dutch-Flemish Society which will be held in Antwerp, Belgium.

I feel really good about the prospects of the second proposal I sent because I think it fits the requirements for a special pedagogy session they are hosting really well, and it is a project I have been working on for years.

The first proposal I wrote is fine, but it may not be wholly appropriate for the nature of the conference.  It is less narrowly analytical/music-theoretical and more interdisciplinary.  At any rate, if it isn't accepted, it won't be the end of the world, and I don't have my hopes set on it.

At any rate, I am very pleased with what I was able to accomplish today, and I hope to finish my final goal for this month--preparing an essay I have already written for possible publication in a peer-reviewed journal--before classes start.

reorganizing, reinvigorating, and reengaging

Well it has been an embarrassingly long time since my last post.  After a busy month of December at work, the holidays, and my latest battle with a nasty chest cold, I am ready to recommit to my creative academic pursuits.

Part of what also set me back--emotionally--was a publication rejection that I really wasn't expecting.  (Usually I set myself up for rejection since publishing in top-tier journals is so highly competitive and difficult, but the particular essay I'd submitted seemed perfect for the journal I submitted it to, so well, when I got the rejection, it hurt.)  At any rate, I am picking up the pieces and finally actually reading the outside reviewers' comments and have made a plan for revising the essay and resubmitting to a different peer-reviewed, however less competitive, journal.  This will be my goal for the month of February.

But I get ahead of myself.  It is yet the beginning of January.  So the goals for this month will be: 

• to take a different essay (the one that the project I presented last month in Ireland was part of) and prepare it for submission to a scholarly journal.  I think I have picked an acceptable top-tier publication.  I have presented on the topic twice at conferences, and I have been working off-and-on on the essay for the past couple years.  I think it is ready to be put "out there."

• to write a proposal for a spring conference on a different project (one that I hope to revisit in the month of March).  I think the due date for this one is my birthday--right in the middle of the month.

Since classes haven't started yet and since I have been sick, my schedule has been erratic.  At some point soon, I hope to establish a new strict schedule for working toward my goals.

Thanks for reading and supporting my endeavors.  I hope 2012 will be a good year for my scholarly life.