#AcWriMo is an online project inspired by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's a month-long commitment in November to be intentional and diligent about writing academic stuff. There are official-ish ways of going about it, but I'm just planning on using the hashtag to communicate about some of my research goals.
This November, I'm committing to giving 60 minutes a day to focused writing & other productive work on the various writing/publishing/scholarly productivity activities I have going on. I'll use this space and Twitter to report on my progress and to keep myself accountable to putting in time every damn day.
Currently I owe three people proposals for projects, and I have a few irons already in the fire, so these projects come first.
- I owe someone a proposal draft for the Undergraduate Research in the Digital Age conference and the deadline is 11/6. So this will be tomorrow's hour.
- I owe someone a proposal draft for a gallery exhibit at the 2018 Electronic Literature Organization festival in Montreal.
- We're doing a cool sound installation using rotary telephones and arduinos to tell a story.
- I owe someone a draft of a white paper detailing the need for and uses of a conference code-of-conduct policy.
- I owe someone the next step in a paper we delivered this spring, but could develop further by gathering more data.
- We had our proposal for January's INKE gathering accepted; so there's a paper to develop.
- A paper I had a small part in last year was split into two, we may try to finish the 2nd part. (1st was accepted. yay.)
- I've begun editing some Wikipedia content on electronic literature and its creators, so if all else fails, I can work on these entries.
Obviously my list went well beyond the original three items. It's time to get out of productivity debt. Here's how I'm going to do it.
- Dedicate one block of time (60 minutes) each day to working on these things. After the first week, I'll touch base to see if I need to be strict about whether this time must include putting words in a text file, or whether I can include reading, outlining, thinking projects. I'm leaning towards being strict, but some of my *writing* is going to be generating code and some other might be soldering parts in an electronic project, so time will tell what works.
- Report back at least weekly. On Tuesdays I'll write a reflection post here in this blog to update on my productivity or lack thereof.
- Relentless positive regard. This is hard for me, but I get more done when I'm relentlessly positive with myself. Somehow self-loathing and introspective cynicism are comfortable places within me and I can wrap them around myself like a blanket and not get anything done. If I'm remorseless with my positivity, more gets done. It's really disgusting, but it works.
To make all this work, I'm going to have to give up some time I'm spending doing other things. I do tend to phaff about with social media and Reddit and on the weekends I do spend some time playing video games. I'm hoping I can make all this happen without strict rules, because those are annoying, but if I need to I'll put the kibosh[1]I had to look this up to make sure this saying doesn't have unsavory origins, but all looks well. Carry on. on all gaming activities and restrict my reading of the Twitters and the Facebooks. I hope it's not too much to ask that I can do this without having to give myself rules. If history is any guide, I'll have to give myself rules, but I'm going to be relentlessly positive and give myself the benefit of the doubt to start.
So who's with me? Anyone else out there #AcWriMo-ing this year?
Notes
| ↑1 | I had to look this up to make sure this saying doesn't have unsavory origins, but all looks well. Carry on. |
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