The Joys of Academic Writing

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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Back to Writing

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.

I'll just be open about them.

Just sayin'.

Congratulations Hillary!

Dear Hillary:

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!

Just sayin'!

I turned it in

Happy New Year!

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!

Stay tuned!

That Lion, #SayHerName, and Sandra Bland

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'.

Everything is not coming up roses

There's much more work to do on this academic article, but I need to get some things off of my chest before I return to carrying on as if I was a brave warrior.

So I received my first rejection. I am not alone here, yet it feels solitary. Dr. Belcher's book, Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks would be unnecessary if scholars weathered the storms of writing and rejection well. Yes, the book is aimed at submitting an article that does not get rejected the first time out, but she is candid about the process and rejection is part of it. "The only difference between much-published authors and unpublished authors is often persistence and not worthiness." And persistent I am!

Belcher ends her book with a story of a scholar who kept submitting his work to journals and kept getting rejected. Eventually, his work got published and it was the stuff that won a Nobel Prize. There were three morals to the story: "First, just because an article is rejected—one, two, even three times—does not mean that it is a bad article. Second, it may take thirty years for the Nobel Prize committee to recognize your genius . . . so hang in there! Third, you may have to go through hell to get a good article published. Fortunately, you will be in good company."

Let's make something clear . . . I will never win a Nobel. Not my goal. Also, this is not really hell. The process of publishing in academic journals is a fascinating business though, and if your work goes to reviewers, you actually get feedback from your peers. The feedback actually has me optimistic. It will strengthen the argument not only of the article, but the book I am also working on. I will have to remember that this does not necessarily mean that this is a bad article, bad idea, not a real contribution, etc. They said nothing of the sort.

On my website, I say, as a life coach, that I am unwilling to put my clients through anything I would not be willing to do myself. So yes, I will face rejection. I will face renewed critique. It is not the first time, and it won't be the last.

Just sayin'.

The Academic Job Market

Let me reassure you that I am not finished commenting on the political issues of the day. On the other hand, the state of higher education is a political issue!

I love what I study and write academically. I love teaching. I am working on publishing all manner of things at this point and have never had this much work in progress. It is exciting to work on a book. It will be some time before I can announce a publisher or even publication, but that day will come!

It took me two and a half to even look at my dissertation again. LOOK at it. I am glad I took the time off of it. All of a sudden I could see how to breathe new life into it and change it into something else. It is different writing without a dissertation committee (and advisor) sitting on my shoulders as I gaze into the screen of my laptop!

It is upsetting that academia has shifted so much that business principles dictate what we should be doing. Each item that we write becomes product by which to evaluate what we do, and if we are not in a STEM field, the work becomes more devalued except amongst our colleagues. God forbid we provide the literary, historical, political, and linguistic context to the society we live in! For those of us who work in academia on a contingent basis, our writing and teaching is devalued that much more.

I understand that the tenure-track job is unlikely to materialize for me. State and federal governments are putting precious few dollars into humanities research. Both private and public universities refuse to fill full-time positions with new hires, instead, they hire several adjuncts to do that job. More resource is placed into administration. These institutions try to force faculty to find outside funding for their pay (there's only so much of that to go around!) and some have been at the behest of private corporations that have their own research agendas. Yet, I will go on the academic job market this fall with enthusiasm anyway. At the same time, I have to provide for myself and my son, so I will supplement my writing and teaching as a life coach.

I have witnessed the power of living one's life according to their values. I have witnessed the power of having people give you a hand in doing this, helping you to remember what you want, helping you maintain discipline. This is the power of life coaching. I love it for myself, and you would be amazed at what it can do for you.

We live in a time where Black people are targeted by both the state and individuals. We live at a time where we refuse to acknowledge sexism as an oppression that wrecks the lives of women all over the world, including comparatively affluent places such as the United States. We live at a time where the misinformation about the upsetting state of the environment is being silenced for pure economic gain. Academic teaching and publishing is one of many ways to fight these trends. Our ongoing denial about our history and our future is disheartening. I am committed to continuing that work, but I do not want the audience to only be other academics, but also with the public at large.

I write this so that if you are unsure how to proceed, know that not only are there other who are in the same spot, but there is also help for you. I honestly believe that we the people cannot continue on the path we are on. Figure out what you want and how to get there. And if you do not know how, find the resource to get there. I am always happy to help!

Just saying'.