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Nov. 16th, 2003 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyI've been having a lot of trouble with perfectionism lately.
Partly, I think this is an effect of feeling intellectually mauled (in the nicest possible way) by my dissertation defense. Partly, I think it's an effect of discovering that I'd written 1,830 words of dead end in Chapter Six. There are probably all kinds of other factors involved, but the upshot is that I'm having trouble letting myself write anything that isn't perfect.
I think that's why I've been posting so little. It's certainly why I'm not making progress on the novel, or any of the short stories I'm allegedly working on, or anything else. It's not that I've got writer's block in any ordinary sense: silly presents for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala and katallen come rolling out like Fred Astaire dancing up a wall. It's that the serious stuff feels too serious, and thus I can't work on it.
Obviously, from the evidence of this post, I'm perfectly well aware of what's going on. The trouble is that knowing what I'm doing to myself does not actually help with cutting it the fuck out. So I'm writing about it, hoping that maybe that will jar something loose.
I also think that part of the problem is that, while I really don't want to work on my dissertation, I also don't feel like I can commit to anything else until I've finished it. So I've hung myself out to dry, twisting in the steamy and unwholesome winds of Limbo. The answer to that, clearly, is to buckle down and finish the dis. Do the extra work. Jump through the flaming hoops. Get it the fuck over with so I can get on with the things that matter to me.
But fuck me gently with a chainsaw, as one of the Heathers says, human language is simply not adequate to express my loathing for this plan.
*balrog*
Partly, I think this is an effect of feeling intellectually mauled (in the nicest possible way) by my dissertation defense. Partly, I think it's an effect of discovering that I'd written 1,830 words of dead end in Chapter Six. There are probably all kinds of other factors involved, but the upshot is that I'm having trouble letting myself write anything that isn't perfect.
I think that's why I've been posting so little. It's certainly why I'm not making progress on the novel, or any of the short stories I'm allegedly working on, or anything else. It's not that I've got writer's block in any ordinary sense: silly presents for
matociquala and katallen come rolling out like Fred Astaire dancing up a wall. It's that the serious stuff feels too serious, and thus I can't work on it.Obviously, from the evidence of this post, I'm perfectly well aware of what's going on. The trouble is that knowing what I'm doing to myself does not actually help with cutting it the fuck out. So I'm writing about it, hoping that maybe that will jar something loose.
I also think that part of the problem is that, while I really don't want to work on my dissertation, I also don't feel like I can commit to anything else until I've finished it. So I've hung myself out to dry, twisting in the steamy and unwholesome winds of Limbo. The answer to that, clearly, is to buckle down and finish the dis. Do the extra work. Jump through the flaming hoops. Get it the fuck over with so I can get on with the things that matter to me.
But fuck me gently with a chainsaw, as one of the Heathers says, human language is simply not adequate to express my loathing for this plan.
*balrog*
