Perfect Conditions

My wife claims that needing the perfect conditions to write is gendered-- that (at least some) men can work anywhere and not worry about it, whereas (most) women need ideal conditions before they can write. This might be the case, I don't really know, but then it would put men at a competitive advantage--given that less than ideal conditions are more frequent. On the other hand, if women optimize their working spaces more, then that would give them some edge. What do you think?

Coffee Shop

The coffee shop is a good space to write, a third office neither home nor university. My personal choice is to leave the computer behind and work with pen and ink, but sometimes I do bring the laptop. I like being away from the computer in a separate space.

Well actually it IS brain surgery

How hard could it be to produce excellent work in the humanities? After all, we just make it all up anyway, right? It's not brain surgery, it's not rocket science. Not the really hard stuff.

Here's the thing, though. It is pretty difficult. You have to have half-way decent erudition, the ability to write and organize your thoughts. You have to not only know things, but able to make a case for your particular way of framing what you know. With canonical material, you have to convince others that you have something new to say, but with non-canonical material you have to make a case for why the material is even worth studying. Someone deeply involved in a field of inquiry, trying to do work at the highest level, is performing 'brain surgery" or at least "mind surgery," trying to alter the minds of others.

The people you have to convince are people at least as smart as yourself: the best people in your field. They can be extraordinarily tough to convince.

Narcisissm and its Compensations

Sure, everyone hates other peoples'' narcissism. That's the easy part. In my case, a feeling that I had reached a certain level that others hadn't alienated me from others in my own field. I wrote some books reviews that made me some enemies. It made it very hard for me to relate to weaker graduate students, and even some stronger ones.

Recognizing my narcissist strain, I actively try to compensate for it.

(1) Just recognizing it in yourself is the first step. True narcissists wouldn't be worried about being narcissistic. That's a problem for other people. A kind of meta-consciousness is very helpful, because then you won't be one of those people lacking self-awareness.

(2) I try to write for an audience, not for myself. A really clear and engaging style is my ideal. I read my own work from the perspective of another person, as much as possible.

(3) I find that having a poetic work of my own, one that my ego is invested in, is very difficult. It almost demands a certain narcissism. So I don't take myself too seriously as a poet. I can write a poem as good as the next person, or probably better, but I don't have a sense of my work as a poet. If I took myself seriously as a poet, I'd be twice the narcissist than the one you already know and hate.

(4) I don't take enormous satisfaction from my political convictions. I view those as pretty much a given, not something that I can take pride in. So I don't have the political narcissism of the typical Humanities Professor.

What's your metaphor?

What's your metaphor for your book? Is it a scale, where two things have to be balanced on either sides? Do you think in terms of surface and depth or in terms of "coverage" of a certain amount of territory? Is it a miscellany or a coherent whole? An atlas or a triptik? Does it have thread or a trajectory, is it a textile or a rocket? Is it a series of "slots" that can be filled with the appropriate content? A group of concentric or overlapping circies?

Each of these metaphors has its own implications. I am not recommending one over the other, but I (personally) spend a lot of time thinking in and about metaphors for what I am doing. They can be very useful for clarifying what it is you're attempting to accomplish. You'll probably find them shifting as you work. Some metaphors might be making it harder for you to do your work, so shifting to an easier one might be just the ticket.

You could also metaphorize your personal relation to your project. Is it a straitjacket, your best friend, the rock of Sisyphus? Is it a salt mine, a gold mine, or no kind of mine at all? Is it a crop you are cultivating or a game you are playing, a race you are running, a war you are waging? It could be a wild horse you are trying to tame.

Motherfucker

When I wrote the first few paragraphs of "Musical Lorca," a chapter that I wasn't quite sure was going to work, I realized that it would be the most brilliant and inherently interesting chapter of the book, essentially the missing chapter from Apocryphal Lorca. Jonathan, you motherfucker, was all I could tell myself. You still have it. You can still do it better than anyone else in your field.

Having the Book in Your Head

Now I feel that the entire book is essentially there, in my head, and just needs to be written down. Writing will be essentially taking dictation.

Of course, this is illusory. The book will change shape several more times. I will come up with new ideas and the relation between existing ideas will shift. In this sense, my idea that I should be able to complete the book in a few days--and could given enough caffeine and research assistants--is inaccurate. The book needs that long germination process to be what it needs to be.

At the same time, having the book there, even in an illusory sense, is wonderfully comforting.