Do you ever feel as if you spend all your time talking about the work you're going to do in ths future, and never actually doing it?
This is the sense I have right now. Having just finished blabbing for 8000 words about my book project for that huge grant proposal which would see funding starting next spring, I moved on - the very next day - to writing an internal travel grant application for funding for a faraway conference next June. This is one huge-ass travel grant application - the amount of documentation they want for a thousand bucks or less is colossally ridiculous. It's going to be a days-long affair to complete this. I have to talk up my project and its significance yet again. In future terms, hypothetical terms. And then there's the booking I just made yesterday, for my research trip in May. It's all projecting, months and months ahead.
How much time do I spend, by comparison, actually working on the book? Bascially, none. Instead, I'm all about planning for how to execute it in the future.
But what about the present? What about some time to actually grapple with the stuff I'm working on? Hell, what about the past, whence the stuff originated?
This future orientation is frustrating.
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2 comments:
AMEN, sister!
Agreed. Especially for historians. In Pollyanna terms; if it's successful, you can wallow without worry.
In the future.
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