My new mission.

I've decided to try an experiment (or, rather, to let the experiment try me). Many times in the past couple of years, I've said, "Someday I think I'd like to write an essay about [fill in blank]." But I never get around to doing those essays. I have another one in mind now, something that was going to be a conference paper for (I hoped) this winter's Academic Mayhem--until I realized that I could use this one as a low-stakes trial, just to see whether I can in fact crank out an essay--one that I care about but that's not necessarily central to my career--in a limited amount of time. And then publish it, rather than sitting on it until December. I'm giving myself two weeks for this one. Maybe I'll even tell you what it's about, if you're lucky.

Tonight, I'm realizing once again how very much better at the "gathering cool stuff" phase I am than at the "processing cool stuff into prose" phase. Fortunately I get to enjoy the former for a little while longer, at least until Saturday or so.