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Saturday, March 25, 2006
Marathon Writing
Although I do love writing research papers, there does come a point where I wonder why. It’s now midnight on Sunday morning and I’ve reached that point. I have a 15-20 page rough draft due on Monday for peer review. What is it about culling through dead trees and slowly building calluses on my fingertips that I crave? I have been working solid for the past two days (OK, I took a few breaks to eat and void) and my appetite for information seems insatiable. I get antsy and shift in my chair when I hit instances of writer’s block or when it takes me ten minutes to finally realize that “Examining the broader role of agriculture in the political economy of important lowland sites provides a firm basis on which to draw conclusions regarding food production at Lamanai and how this may have contributed to a rise in complexity” is a pretty good way to put it. I have about a dozen other examples of these “ten-minute sentences."
This paper is easily the most involved and extensive I have written so far, and the sad thing is that it’s still miniscule compared to what’s being published. There’s lots of “yada, yada, yada…and this is what I, a first-year graduate student, think about your life’s work.” It is discouraging at times but then I remind myself that I’m still feeling my way so to speak; slowly narrowing in one what exactly it is about agriculture and subsistence that literally (no pun intended) keeps me up at night. The clock is ticking until my four-week gig in Honduras so I'd better figure it out soon. I’m off to bed for a few hours, only to get up again tomorrow at the crack of noon to churn out another four or five pages. This must have been one of the deleted scenes from the Indiana Jones films.
Posted by Will at March 25, 2006 11:57 PM in Graduate School