I started this blog on AOL back in 2004. In the U.S., we're good at pointing overseas and showing how others haven't made progress with women; however, it looks like we have a LONG way to go here. I like to point to those spots. Of course, I can't help but to include analyses about race as well.
I have a HUGE challenge coming up in the fall. I just realized that I have SIX academic writing projects on tap for the fall. Most of them are really on the verge of being finished; however, I need to make sure I get the rest of the stuff done.
I know that I'm not the only person in this position. I know there are a bunch of you academic writers out there who have similar challenges. So this position will benefit you as much as it will benefit me.
I would love another academic writer as an accountability partner! That's right, I'm hiring for an ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER. I want someone (who beyond this semester) would be interested in:
checking in with each other by phone weekly.
laying out what is on our plates for the next week.
saying where we would need that other person to support us (send me a text on Wednesday to make sure I did X).
We need not be located in the same place geographically. This is not a time suck - just 20 minutes per week. My suspicion is that if you feel pulled to answer this, you also want someone to hold you accountable for your goals so that you can publish what you want to do, but not completely on your own.
I've had a couple of great writing days! As you know, I've been following Wendy Belcher's book, How to Write an Academic Article in Twelve Weeks and I am having more fun with it the second time around. Last week's edit (I'm a week late now!) is to reorganize your article.
I outlined my article according to what actually happened as opposed to what I thought happened and that was eye-opening. I sorted out that the structure of my article did not comport with my argument. Which means that my current draft needs work.
I remembered that I used to storyboard chapters when I was in grad school and decided to do that again. I labeled each paragraph according to what it did and created a matching index card. I then taped the paragraph to the card.
Very revealing! I can then rearrange the order, delete cards, and write my comments about what the structure needs to be on the back of the cards! I'M LOVING THIS!
I love writing. But these past couple of days have been FUN!!
It's been a while and I realize that I haven't been accountable about how writing feels, with all of the stumbles and all. So here we go!
I submitted something to a different journal late last year, and a month ago, I received another rejection with a general reason attached that I didn't understand. What was different this time is that I immediately sent it to two colleagues for their feedback. I wanted to understand the way they arrived at that decision. I have their feedback and I need to get working on that article back on my calendar. I am excited about what's possible here. I just could use a few more hours per day!
I am working on another article about sources another journal said they wanted to see. It's been harder to work on it because the draft was not in as good a shape as the first article. Everything I work on though, for academic purposes, is linked, so it's exciting to have what a write reinforced by something else.
Finally, I continue to work on my book. I am working on succinctly describing what it's about. By the end of next week, I'll start reworking chapters.
I write this because no matter the rejections, I figure out how I have to carry on. I schedule time every weekday to write. To quote Chon A. Noriega: "One usually gets better at whatever one does on a regular basis. If one does not write on a regular basis, one will get better at not writing. In fact, one will develop an astonishing array of skills designed to improve and extend one's not writing." So I get better at writing.
So write I do. Just saying'.
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I was excited to send a reworked article to another journal. I learned this morning it was rejected. I'm bummed out, but not the same way as last time. But I will admit I struggle with sorting out what academic journals want.
I'm not the first person who has done academic articles who has been rejected more than once, I do understand that. But this time, what is different is that I decided to pull in more resource around me while I work on the other article. I sent the article to two historians and someone who works on literature to take a look at it and address the overall critique of it.
I told them not to hold back. With their help, I will figure out how to do this.
It's important for us to be honest about the setbacks to publishing. If you're not careful, you think that no one has these struggles.
Congratulations on your win in Iowa! That was amazing! Actually, it was amazingly close. Wasn't it supposed to be a blow out? It was really, really close.
Here's the thing. I am your ideal demographic. I am female. I'm pushing 50. However, I am not as wealthy as many of the people who want to vote for you, but I'm persuadable.
So I have some thoughts on redirecting your campaign. You often say that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. I think you're right. Think about the campaigns that you remember. There was Barack Obama: Hope and Change.
George W. Bush campaigned on returning the surplus money of the Clinton administration back to Americans. Reagan campaigned on a new morning for America.
On the other hand, what did Gore campaign on? I don't think the lock box was the core of his campaign, I just can't remember what he promised for the country. He campaigned in prose. What did Romney campaign on? More prose. We do remember that he thought that 47% of the American people were sucking off of the government. Again, his was a completely unmemorable campaign. And your campaign is in danger of ending up in the trash heap of those who campaigned in prose.
This doesn't make sense yet, does it? Let's think of your opponent in the primary, Bernie Sanders. He campaigns in poetry: join a Revolution. Everything he wants to accomplish turns on this as a lynchpin. When I think of your campaign, all that comes to mind is a 5-point plan. And I don't even know what's in that plan because . . . well, the details.
Woman, you need to campaign in poetry! How to do this? When you build a business, you have to ask what is your vision for the world and build your mission on that. Your vision is the thing that makes your heart leap! It may bring tears to your eyes. It drags you out of bed in the morning. It isn't a 5-point plan. The 5-point plan serves the vision. It isn't the vision.
My suspicion is that your vision is something about feminism. Alternatively put, something about ending sexism. Except you are scared of it because Republicans blame you for Bill's shortcomings. So you could spin this as how feminism could benefit men. Think about that article in the New York Times about White people dying? In many ways that discusses the impact racism has had on Whites. Guns in White areas are being used to help White men commit suicide. That drug epidemic in Black neighborhoods has now resulted in Whites dying of their own drug overdoses.
Sexism works the same way. You could have a slogan of "Hillary: join me to build an America for all!" If you win the presidency, your poetry becomes the cudgel that helps you move Congress along (if you think they will be kind to you, you missed the last eight years!). After all, that would only underscore the war on women. And if you lose, you move the ball on sexism A LOT!
THIS would be poetry. And besides, this provides an antidote to Bernie: you see, solving economic inequality doesn't necessarily fix all of the other oppressions, sexism, racism, gay oppression, etc.
And you could get men and women to join a movement led by you.
Get your journal out and find your vision! Campaign in poetry. We know you're qualified and competent! The American people want something larger. Lead us there!
When last I wrote, I was still licking my wounds. I had submitted my very first academic article to a well esteemed academic journal and it was rejected!
Yeah. That hurt. Badly.
I know I was not the first and certainly will not be the last. But it hurt anyway.
It took me a month to even look at the feedback. They wanted me to refine my perspective on one part of my argument and this refinement was accompanied with an extensive reading list.
Let me say that the rejection did not help with the book writing project either.
My partner kept saying hurry up and incorporate the edits. Let's just say that rejection and "hurry up" don't go together well.
This summer I plodded through their reading recommendations. I enjoyed that and my mind started grappling with changes in my argument. I loved reading this stuff just for the sake of reading it. It's part of what I live about being an historian. I found the love of doing this part of academic work. And that made the rejection worth it!
By December, though, I realized I had something new and improved! Their feedback did make it a more subtle article. I have lovely people around me and I had another journal teed up. I'm pleased that it is submitted!
I have a four month wait for that article. Meanwhile, the journal that rejected me said that they would be interested in an article using a particular clump of sources, so I shall get to work on that. I have a nice part of a draft, there's more to go. Belcher shall guide me on writing it (How to Prepare an Article in 12 Weeks or something like that!).
And I know that I very well should possibly expect another rejection. Perhaps a revise and resubmit? That would be progress!
My mind makes odd connections, so bear with me on this post.
I know that there is an internet uproar about how much sympathy has gone out for this guy:
Cecil the Lion
as opposed to
Women in the U.S. Killed by Law Enforcement Officers
I do get this. How come human beings who live in the Land of the Brave, the Home of the Free cannot get this much sympathy when unarmed and killed by law enforcement officers who are rarely, if ever, held responsible for their transgressions? Where was all of this outrage when Sandra Bland was dragged out of her car by a Texas "law enforcement officer" for failing to put out a cigarette? Where was the outrage when she turned up dead in her jail cell after the system decided that she "committed suicide" in her jail cell? Where is the outrage in the context of 5 women having been declared dead by suicide in other jail cells across the nation?
And now we're supposed to feel badly because some damned lion on the African continent is dead? Killed?
There is one little thing . . . the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism that yokes all of this together. Europeans, in the context of building American societies (and when I write it this way, I don't only mean it in the context of the U.S.A., but also South America, Canada, and the Caribbean), had no problem exploiting resources on the African continent for their own good. In the 16th centuries through 19th centuries, that meant purchasing Black bodies for labor, using them up, and purchasing a new one to replace it. I think the way law enforcement targets Black bodies lately (regardless of gender), is the fallout from this long-standing precedent with which we have not made peace. Given the little respect given for anything that comes from the African continent, recently or much earlier, does it surprise you that a U.S. dentist who hunts exotic game would have no qualms shooting this beautiful lion, regardless of the meaning of it to the community? There are two underlying assumptions here: Blacks have no community; and what is on the African continent is for our own good. I do not posit solutions here. I simply insist that there are more connections between wildlife and Black bodies than we are comfortable making. Not because Black people are wild animals, but because we are yolked in a common history vis-a-vis that continent. #SayHerName. #BlackLivesMatter Just sayin'.
I'm originally from Chicago. I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1993 to practice poverty and labor law. I graduated from New York University with a doctorate in History. I write about Jamaican Maroons, slaves who ran away from plantations and won their freedom in the mid 18th century. I teach, I write, and I am a life coach.
