Happy Academic Writing Month! (As opposed to the other eleven which are… oh, wait…) #AcWriMo is a massively-multiwriter mutual encouragement and accountability month-long writing session. Participants set writing goals and then try to complete them and keep people posted on social media, encouraging each other along the way. I don’t have the bandwidth to do the full-on social media version with people I don’t already interact with regularly, nor do I think that entering my writing goals into a Google Spreadsheet is a greater accountability measure than YOUR BOOK IS DUE TO THE PUBLISHER IN THREE MONTHS!, but since #AcWriMo coincides with the end of the blissful two-week break I gave myself from working on the book manuscript I’m going to play along a bit on the sidelines and use this as an opportunity to
- Write shorter sentences. (See above.)
- Finish fleshing out the Bible-in-Arabic chapter
- Write the associated conference paper
- Add additional context to the panorama of translators in the first chapter
Finish revising the libraries chapter- Start some of the reading for revising the last chapter in December
Last round of edits on the Thirteenth Century Chapter of DoomWrite at least one blog post about academic writing
Tedious updates will appear throughout the month below the jump.
Day 1: Reread Introduction and Bible-in-Arabic chapter (Chapter 3) to re-situate myself in the project after not looking at it for two weeks.
Day 2: Wrote 659 words in the section of Chapter 3 that needed the greatest further development. They are 659 words that will require considerable revision and fleshing out, but they are still 659 more words than I had at the start of the day. Current word count on the book: 77,303.
Day 3: Restored 1,532 words to Chapter 2 that I had cut a few weeks ago in a fit of pique and despair. They’re not actually as bad as I had thought they were. It’s not real writing, but I’m wall-to-wall with teaching on Tuesdays so it’s a miracle (made possible by the fact that my students in one class had a test) that I even got that much accomplished. Current word count on the book: 78,853.
Day 4: 0 words. Prepped class, taught same, prepped tomorrow’s class.
Day 5: Finished the edits on the thirteenth century chapter/boomerang. Hopeful that I won’t get it back again until galleys.
Day 6: -78 words. But editing is an important part of writing, too.
Day 7: Following a week that kind of kicked my butt, I mostly relaxed and only wrote 306 words. Total word count: 79,337. Must do better tomorrow.
Day 8: 507 words on the library chapter. They are words that still need some serious editing but I’m hoping to be basically done with it by Tuesday morning. Also wrote a blog post on academic writing. Might do one more before the month is out.
Day 9: Only 271 words on the library chapter, but they are the words that put me back over the 80k mark! Current word count: 80,115. I did a lot of editing and read four articles today, too, so it’s not like I was unproductive.
Days 10-12: Heavy teaching days. Current word count: 80,319. So, some but not really concerted progress on the book; any increase in word count was mostly due to futzing and editing in between classes and class prep and while fending off exhaustion. Also wrote one letter of recommendation and two out of four grant proposal evaluations for a total of another 950 words; but that was administrative, not academic, writing.
Day 13: Finished touching up the libraries chapter and sent it off to the two readers I trust not to think less of me after reading my first drafts.
Day 14, morning: 455 words on my SBL paper. More after lunch. PM update: SBL paper draft finished. Needs a bit of polishing, but it basically exists.
Day 15: 655 words. Current word count: 80,974. I will have the Bible in Arabic chapter done by the end of this week.