Stress

This is my Monday

PETERMBALL Journal , , ,

I hate it when things creep up on me, but I like having a full to-do list that I can work through. On today’s list:

  • Get a big chunk of wordage done on the thesis draft – last week saw things start lagging behind again, and I really shouldn’t let that become a habit.
  • Clean the flat for tomorrow’s rental inspection
  • Go through the copyedit of my Interfictions 2 story and get that sent out.
  • Finish writing up a crit of Angela’s story.
  • Pick up a book they’re holding for me at Pulp Fiction (includes a bonus lunch with the Sleech)
  • Cook at home for the first time in, what, two and a half weeks?
  • Do a revision of a recently-rejected story that I think needs a little more polish before it goes out again.

In short, I’ll be keeping busy. I’ve moved the laptop into the lounge so I can set up a second work-area and flit between computers as I work – I’m not much for writerly superstitions and such, but I am noticing that the thesis is always a little easier to write while camping out with couch with the laptop. I suspect it’s because the living room has more space to spread books out and build a visual representation of my research…

In which I am trivial and know it…

PETERMBALL Journal , ,

I think my office may be under some kind of curse. I say this because I’ve just lost my second office chair in the space of a few months to breakage and this one was brand new (unlike the previous chair, which was a mega-comfy seventies steel-and-vinyl job that I’m pretty sure my parents liberated from a staffroom two decades ago).  I’m less than impressed with this, especially since I can’t find my receipt to go return the chair to officeworks and get a repalcement. Not that I was a fan of the new chair – I dislike office chairs at the best of times and really mourn the loss of the old-school desk-chair I had – but I kinda need something to sit on here. On the plus side, it’ll force me to work on the laptop (away from the internets) for the majority of the day since I’m officially out of chairs to sit on while at the desk.

Oh baby, here comes the fear again

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , , ,

It starts with what may well be the most dangerous question in the world right now: “So Peter, what happens after you finish your thesis?” 

Were I the melodramatic type, or at least the type in the mood for a different kind of melodrama than I’m running on right now, today’s entry would consist entirely of a you-tube clip of Pulp singing The Fear in answer to the question. It may yet come down to that – it’s been that kind of day, and The Fear is feeling very soundtrack-of-my-life right now, but with brave abandon I’m going to press on and risk letting some of the gloopy inner workings of my paranoia seep onto the web.

The answer: I don’t know. It scares the hell out of me. That’s probably why I’m procrastinating.

It’s not entirely true – I know, more or less, what I plan to start writing the day the thesis is off the plate. Hell, I know what I plan on writing for the next five years. The problem lies in my inability to conceptualise some form of support mechanism around the writing (since having a writing support system is actually one of the attractive qualities of doing a PhD). Today I’ve been distracting myself with paranoia over where I’m going to live, flitting between pleasant day-dreams about moving away from Brisbane and desperately cataloging things that can be thrown out should I find myself needing to go the cheaper option of renting someones spare room rather than keeping up a lease of my own. This has distracted me for hours. I find myself missing the relative plethora of folks willing to share a house that were around in my twenties.

In short, someone needs to ship me some torpedoes, if only so I can damn them and get on with things.