Sponge vs. Sieve

Good news – my editor forgot to send my latest pages back to me. When she did, it had been about six weeks since I last looked at them. I was pleasantly surprised to read them and think – “Wow, this is pretty good.”

Bad news – I don’t remember most of it. Everything that I spent so long researching and studying, went right out of my mind. So for many sections, reading my own writing was like reading something from someone completely new.

When I am calm and focused, I soak everything up like a sponge. When I am stressed and under deadline it’s like I write in a trance. A few days after the fact and I couldn’t possibly tell you about the page I spent 10+ hours researching and writing.

I am moving toward the finish line with my book and more stressed than ever but trying to breathe deep and stay as centered as possible. Not sure how that is going to last. Hammocks help. So does some Johnny Cash. And Louis Armstrong.

My next batch of pages is roughly 10,400 words, covering about 25 streets, which is only about half of the streets I want to do and I only have about 2,500 words left to do it…

I was deep deep deep in the rabbit hole – and beginning to feel totally overwhelmed when I had a really good conversation with my friend John who told me while all the extensive research and attention to details I am doing is admirable – it has to go. This is not the project. This was not part of my original plan. I want a nice overview. I want it to be entertaining, intelligent, informative, and accessible. Plus, I want it to be super pretty with my photographs!

I can’t write 1,000 to 3,000 words for each street. I can’t. (Must keep repeating that.) The average has to be around 250 – and maybe max around 750 for the really important streets. I knew when I first started writing (and Bourbon Street was over 4,500 words) that I would have to cut. But I think I was in denial. Now, it’s staring me right in the face and it’s a tough prospect. I feel like I am cutting an important relationship out of my life – Hey, remember all that time we spent together? Remember when I went to the library and we looked at microfilm together? And went through maps with a magnifying glass at the Historic New Orleans Collection? And scanned all those letters, books, and documents from the Williams Research Center? And sat on your couch and read all those books and scholarly articles? And we looked through over a hundred newspaper articles until you found exactly the one you needed? What about when we scoured old advertisements and real estate deals to find clues? Wasn’t that worth something? Didn’t that mean ANYTHING to you? 

Yea, yea it was great. And yea, yea, it meant something. But I am going to have to call it off. I am going to have to pull the “it’s not you it’s me” excuse. Maybe for another project, but in the future I am going to try and keep my “flirting” to a minimum, when it comes to my research. I am going to nip it in the bud. I can’t keep spending all this time writing and researching things I am not going to use. I have to think about my future!

Anyway, after the conversation with John, the next morning I got up early and spent 4.5 hours in the hammock going over all my notes, organizing, reworking, setting even more definite goals – and while I am still a bit engulfed by the idea of everything I need to accomplish in the next three months – I feel better about it.

To give myself a break, I decided to acknowledge I am human and not a machine and only take one class this semester. The problem is with this one class (an independent study), I have to read 48 BOOKS and 20 SCHOLARLY ARTICLES. No, that is not a typo. 48 books and 20 scholarly articles. In 3 months. And write a 30-40 page historiography paper. I hate to say it, but I am beginning to feel like there are forces that want me to fail. To put it into perspective – essentially I have to read a book every other day for the next three months. That doesn’t even include the writing. I don’t even know how I am going to begin to accomplish this. I am a great reader, but last year I read 43 books – for the ENTIRE year, which I still think is not too bad. I am up to 32 books so far this year…

More good news/bad news…

My lecture about Prohibition at the U.S. Mint is fully under way. It was moved to Thursday, November 14th to fall under their Thursday lecture series. Old New Orleans Rum is sponsoring (Yay – I think my dad is more excited than me – it’s his favorite). Veronica Russell, Andrew Ward, and Chris Lane will be my readers. Trixie Minx is going to do a special performance (as is hopefully another surprise guest). I am going to do PBS again and WWOZ and possibly more publicity for the event. All good – but all adding to my stress level. I wrote an article for Louisiana Cultural Vistas about Prohibition in New Orleans that will be out this December, and a smaller article I wrote for the Roosevelt Review will be out sometime this year (not sure when). Just hoping I won’t be mass of nerves by the time I get in front of people. I have a lot of the research done and many of the photos for my slideshow and an outline. Still – so much to do!

And then there are the art markets that come into full swing next month. I have some new projects that I have wanted to experiment with, but I just don’t have the time and the majority of it I won’t be able to do until next year….

But here it goes – must keep working. Head down. Laser-like concentration.

And I’m always grateful for my friends and their support!