Oy! Yet another tired ramble!

Bleg. Writing is just plain hard. People who say otherwise don't write themselves, as a rule.

Alas, another day finds me just as swamped by multiple assignments as yesterday. My brain is not quite at the melted-plastic-thing state--but it's close. I imagine tendrils of smoke and an alarming mechanical grinding are coming from my head... It will be a blessing to have this week and its many writing/grading pressures behind me.

Part of the problem is that I'm writing that dang editorial statement (still!). It will never be finished. Never. It's odd to switch from the loose-personal voice on this blog to the minding-my-manners voice of scholarship, particularly as I'm grappling there with similar issues as here on this blog. I must say I miss the ease of a continuing rumination that I enjoy when writing here. The inevitability of being edited looms.

It's evil of me as a critic and professor to admit this, but I despise critical feedback on my work. If it isn't "that was great! tell me more!" I don't want any, thanks. Nothing stymies the writing process like the back-seat driver of What Will The Editor [or teacher, or audience] Say?

I envy people who love honest criticism. I think at times my critical voice rankles them, as I try to phrase my criticism as if I were the one receiving it. It leads to very hand-hold-ish, constant-encouragement, conversational comments. "Why don't you try...?" "I'm getting a little lost here..." "What if you said...?" The honest criticism folk see this as passive-aggression: just tell it like it is!

Comments like that, of course, are the very type of criticism (meta-criticism?) I don't like.

Well, I'm afraid I'm going to beg off again this evening. Hopefully tomorrow's entry will see me bright-eyed and new-brained.

More then,

JF