You know, I still have people telling me how much sentence-diagramming rocks? You people got issues, man.
Onto the next thing. By way of a writing update, here's some wisdom from Mr. King:
It seems to me that every task, even things we just love doing, has some component that we just don't look forward to and grind our way past because the entire task is enjoyable on balance, even if that one part of it stinks. For me and writing, it's proofreading. Full-on editing, I like, but proofreading is like a weeklong trip in the company of Ms. Dully McDullerson. Important and essential work, but I'm never gonna enjoy it. (Plus, reading the book basically twice in two months is tough, although there is a benefit in that I'm bursting with ideas for the future volumes in the series now, which is nice.)
So there's the question: what's the "dull dreary drudgery" part of some task that you otherwise love doing?
6 comments:
I love doing academic research; I love putting my research into a presentable form. But proofreading bibliographies? No, thanks.
I'm not sure I would describe it as "dull dreary drudgery" exactly but I have never liked laying out and pinning a pattern to fabric and cutting it. And that's the first thing you've gotta do on a sewing project so it's a wonder I ever get started.
Not that I particularly *love* writing up academic research, but yeah, the endless revising, dealing emotionally with being rejected from the first-choice journal, revising, resubmitting, dealing with the "wtf" comments of that one reviewer, all of that....by the time the thing makes it to print (if it ever does), I'm so heartily sick of it that I'm not even all that happy to see it published.
And with my day-to-day gig? Grading really gets me down, as does dealing with the students who seem to willfully misunderstand the instructions for the lab, paper, or homework, and the smaller number of those who get belligerent because they think I'm wrong, even though I wrote the directions....
I like doing research, but the "that again?" of some questions can tire.
I like to edit, but checking chapter headers, margins, tabs, line breaks and any other format blips during the final buff and polish is boring. And I usually discover something really careless, too, like I unconsciously skipped a chapter number, or I somehow went from double space to 1.5 space on two pages at the end of chapter twelve, etc. so I know I have to do it and do it right. I'd pay someone else to do it but there is no one I trust that much! Ha.
I'm with you on loathing the whole diagramming sentences. I think I spent that class in detention anyway. :)
I had my dream job for several years and, even there, there were a couple pieces of the process that I just didn't enjoy. It was still my dream job.
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