Bad Brain

I never have a "bad brain day" when I manage to actually sit down to my work. I realize that days when I don't write are not only inevitable but necessary, but I don't really like them, except for what they teach me: that without producing scholarship I gradually become stupider and less myself. My chosen field of study emphasizes rich inner experiences, the kind that only happen when the subject engages deeply and intelligently with other rich subjectivities. It is almost impossible to have a bad day for one's brain while doing this.

Day 6

Today I was able to make significant progress on the preface, all but completing the summary of chapters and removing some extraneous material. My first real accomplishment of the sabbatical might be getting a very good version of this preface before moving on to complete the Lorca / kitsch / postmodernism chapter. This is probably a good idea. Not only does the preface come first, but it give me a good sense of the shape of the entire project, and give me mini-accomplishment to begin with.

I find myself observing myself as a writer as though "I" were "another." Jonathan looks at what Mayhew can do with some sense of amazement. The one who can do all this does not seem to be "me," but a kind of separate function of the self.

Day 5: 75 minutes

I set the pomodoro timer for 25 minutes, and repeated three times, with the appropriate number of breaks. I've done this several days in a row. I don't seem to want to write for 100 minutes, but that is fine. I am getting a lot done, working for 50 minutes on a chapter on Lorca and postmodern kitsch, and then another 25 on the preface and the order and titles of the chapters. By working on the preface, I am able to keep my attention on the project as a whole, especially as I rewrite the dreaded summary of chapters. For the reader, this summary has the function of "signposting" the contents of the entire book. For the writer, it has a similar function: I am able to see the project whole in one coherent set of about 11 paragraphs, and work out kinks in continuity.

Remember I am working to finish the book by January 2013. I will have ample time if I keep up this modest pace.

Day 4: Jonathan regains his brilliance

On the fourth day of my sabbatical, I have regained my former brilliance. Ideas flowed together magically before 9:30 in the morning. This chapter will be called "Postmodern Lorca: Motherwell, Strayhorn, García Montero." It is like the missing chapter from Apocryphal Lorca!

In a few weeks of not working on my scholarship at all, I began to feel brutishly stupid. It was true that I was studying Keats and Wordsworth and watching bad Italian mafia movies from the 70s, but I was not writing, not producing my own ideas.

The break was still probably necessary, of only to show myself that I am capable of feeling like an unproductive brute.

Day 3

I have had three productive days in a row. You can check out the other blog for a paragraph I wrote. I rearranged the chapters today as well, trying to get them to fall into place. All this before 9:30 in the morning too. I have put my work in and have the rest of the day free.

Day 2 of Sabbatical

The beauty of the Pomodoro timer is that you can use it to keep track of your working hours, labeling the sessions with discrete tags. So I know I have devoted 4 discrete 25 minute sessions to my project What Lorca Knew during this sabbatical. It will be interesting to see how many sessions I will need to complete the book. *** It strikes me that I need to be more deliberate about vacations and breaks. When I take a trip, I will not work during the trip at all. I will also lose time when I have to move (twice - it is complicated) and for other reasons.

1st day of sabbatical

Between now and January I hope to complete a book with the title What Lorca Knew: Spanish Poetics and Intellectual History. I will be free of teaching responsibilities in this period. You can follow my progress on this book on this blog, and read excerpts on Bemsha Swing as I post them.

I have parts of nine months to complete this project. What's left of May, June through December, and January before school starts again. The main tools I will use are the Seinfeld chain and the pomodoro session, in other words, continuous stretches of writing every day, and short concentrated bursts of effort.

Preface

PART ONE: Genealogies

1. Introduction: Spanish Exceptionalism and Intellectual History

2. The Grain of the Voice: Lorca’s “Play and Theory of the Duende”

3. María Zambrano and the Genealogy of Late Modernism

4. Declining Fortunes: Jorge Guillén and Luis Cernuda

PART TWO: Continuities

5. Fragments of a Late Modernity: Samuel Beckett and José Ángel Valente

6. Antonio Gamoneda and the Persistence of Memory

7. What Claudio Knew: From Pragmaticism to Mysticism

PART THREE: Extensions

8. Verse and Prose (From Juan Ramón Jiménez to Olvido García Valdés)

9. Aphorism and Poetic Thought (From Antonio Machado to Jorge Riechmann)

10. Blanca Varela and Eduardo Milán: The Spanish American Connection

11. The Uses of Lorca: From Modernism to Kitsch

The parts I still have to complete are the preface and introduction, chapters 7, 9, and 11. So I have lots of time, but I cannot waste too much time either. The preface should fall into place once everything else is written, so there are four major tasks. Chapter 7 is almost done, so I really have to concentrate on 3 major tasks.