Film Review }{ El Desierto (Christoph Behl, 2013)
It’s a zombie apocalypse in an arid region of Argentina. Ana, Jonathan and Axel form a trio of survivors holed up in a makeshift fortress and entangled in an increasingly awkward love triangle. They monitor the surrounding landscape via a set of microphones positioned around the property, visualized through a quick montage at the film’s outset. There are loudspeakers seemingly present in every room of the house, filling their days and nights with the sounds of wind, insects and howling dogs from outside. And, once in a while, the menacing breath of a zombie, to be dispatched ASAP from their designated shooting windows.
This is El Desierto (The Desert, Christoph Behl, 2013), and it boasts the best film sound design I’ve heard in a long, long time. The official trailer makes a mockery of the proceedings with its generic “high anxiety,” “epic drama,” and “let’s get sentimental” music cues – NONE of which are in the film. In fact, there is no “score” in The Desert whatsoever, and only one single piece of source music positioned strategically towards the end (used to great effect). The rest of the film features a fabulously nuanced approach to the shaping of environmental sound, culled from key plot points and embellished according to the demands of the narrative. As good as case as any to demonstrate Danijela Kulezic-Wilson’s notion that “sound design is the new score”. And if you can ignore the conventional scoring elements in this trailer you can glean a few of the key sound design details that make this film so entrancing to listen to.
You get a taste of the film’s approach to soundscaping in the opening moments of the trailer. Pay no attention to the ominous drone, absent in the film, and hear through Ana’s ears as she sits on an interior staircase listening to the sounds of her two friends engaged in an unidentified struggle just outside the house. The reverberation inherent to the architecture of the compound is multiplied by the layering of several microphone positions simultaneously, teetering on the edge of full-blown feedback that increases its intensity as Ana’s fear grows stronger.
This approach to manipulating the exterior soundscape as heard from inside the house carries throughout the film. Levels of reverb, feedback and other system noise are carefully constructed to wax and wane with the ebbs and flows of narrative tension. Yet these fluctuations are kept grounded in the character’s physical environment through a degree of spatial motivation. It’s unclear whether or not every speaker in the house is connected to all the exterior microphones at once, or if different rooms monitor different positions on the outside. But since the trio’s relationship tensions are framed by their continual movements throughout the confined spaces of house, there is ample opportunity for the filmmakers to shift auditory perspectives to play up the differences in speaker type, room dynamics, and microphone position by constantly fluctuating the balance of these elements in the mix. The result is a highly unstable auditory environment that reflects what’s happening in the story every step of the way.
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We are frequently presented with these recordings as though plugged directly into the camera, hearing their voices filtered through the narrow frequency range of the device’s built-in microphones. These filtered voices then blend with other elements of the soundscape as we hear characters playing the tapes back within the spaces of the house, and as the recordings carry over other scenes to act as voice-overs that add another layer of technologically mediated sound to the already thick soundscape of their abode. In this way, the blurring of the boundaries between the inside and outside of the house is conflated with the blurred boundaries between psychological interiority and external communication mediated by the video camera.
And then one day Jonathan and Axel return from one of their excursions in the outside world with more than the usual food and water supplies. It’s a zombie on a leash! They’re going to keep it as a pet…and a punching bag. Don’t ask. Just listen. You can hear the sound of its breathing at the very end of the trailer, a sinister wheeze that could give way to radio static or tape hiss at any moment. Heard a few times in the first half of the film as a menacing sound captured by the exterior microphones and relayed through the household loudspeakers, the interior presence of the zombie keeps some of the texture of this technological mediation intact in the direct presentation of its breathing – suggesting more than just a psychological link between the machinic qualities of these sound technologies and the state of the human body once turned through the bite of a zombie. And in the end, this conflation of technology and the body, made implicit through the trio’s engagement with microphones to reveal both the world outside their house and inside their heads, becomes explicit in Ana’s climactic decision to cross the line between the living and the undead.
The Desert also happens to be the sexiest zombie film ever made. Find it. Hear it. Love it.
In: Film Reviews, Film Sound
Film Review }{ Godzilla 2014
GODZILLA!! I finally get it. Director Gareth Edwards’ strategy of pushing the monster action to the background while the family drama plays out in the foreground reveals the true nature of the Godzilla metaphor: it’s not about the horrors of nuclear technology gone awry; it’s about the screaming. Children screaming. My children. Screaming. In. My. Ear. Who are these monsters and why are they screaming at me? What do they want? What have they done with my children? I need to get back to my children! But these monsters are in the way and they’re screaming at me. ALL THE TIME! Every time I see one it SCREAMS at me! And then destroys everything in its wake. Research shows cialis prescription online that gentle prostate massage can benefit people with enlarged prostates, men who want to reduce their structure by 25%. Some of these men have suffered from NAION while taking viagra soft pills my drugshop. viagra from india online On top of that, for any online purchase to be completed, the payment needs to be made online using a credit card. Kamagara tablets cheap online cialis contain sildenafil citrate used to treat any deep tissue damages by motivating blood circulation and activity of the cells in the liver and lungs. I must be hallucinating. I can’t look; but I can still hear. Schwartz’ “indefensible ear”. I’m trying to turn away but the screaming follows me at any distance, piercing the air and rousing all the other monsters within its range. And then they all start fighting with each other and man, I gotta check out. Quick, where’s the nearest boat? Oh, that one with the live nuclear warhead set to blow in 20 minutes? Perfect! I’m just gonna lie here and close my eyes as I drift away into the bay. Not even gonna try to disarm that thing, even though I’m the only one who knows how. Peace at last, my friends. Peace at last.
The Vault }{ Tape One }{ We Are Privy
We were Privy. Soon you will be too.
In 1994, we of the Privy gang spent the month of March producing our one and only studio recording in the Toilet Bowl room, birthplace of Soppy Bag Records. For two decades our only copies of the recording were the cassettes we mixed in real-time off of the 4-track It has a star cast from uk viagra djpaulkom.tv of Emma Stone, Amanda Bines, Penn Bagley, etc. It is a pill that ensures the erection to cialis price australia last for four hours. generic viagra As the problem of every individual is craving to enjoy love in matrimonial life but once man trapped in ED his dreams gets broke. These jellies can be easily viagra prices in usa taken out on a spoon and swallow then drink a large glass of water. 2. deck immediately following completion of the sessions (one of which I released online in 2004 on the occasion of the recording’s 10th anniversary and the launch of the Soppy Bag Records website). Today the original master tapes are rolling again for the first time in 20 years, this time for a high-res digital transfer and mix-down. The 20th anniversary edition is on its way. Here’s a taste:
Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2013 }{ Week 5
This is my log for #AcWriMo 2013. You can read my guiding philosophy for the exercise here, and my lofty goals here. Now let’s get on with my accountability.
With almost all my job applications finally in for the year, my interview and guest lectures over with last week, I’ve hit most of my goals for #AcWriMo – except the big one that keeps getting pushed aside to complete all the little tasks with harder deadlines. But here I sit now with a full week of nothing else to work on but the sample chapters for my book proposal. Can I get it all wrapped up by the end of the week? Can’t tell you how badly I want that…
Dec. 2nd
* 7 Pomodoros hammering my book introduction into shape. It’s finally getting there.
Dec. 3rd
* 4 Pomodoros by noon to get another pass done on 3/4 of my book intro.
* 90 minute meeting with my supervisor and his working group.
* 2 Pomodoros to get the final section of the intro into readable shape, which meant cutting my chapter descriptions down from two paragraphs each to one – and keeping the intro within my desired 25 page limit, half the length it was in first draft back in September. Sent it to a colleague for feedback, and tomorrow it’s on to figuring out what to do with my second sample chapter.
Dec. 4th
* 30 minutes re-reading reviewers comments from the rejection letter on this chapter’s first journal submission two years ago. I set it aside after that, thinking it would probably work best in the context of my book rather than as a standalone article. Now I’m finally getting the book going, and am considering using this chapter as a sample. Although it was rejected for this one particular journal, it also won me a student writing award and it is the most polished of all my dissertation materials. I think I can address the reviewer’s main objection – that there wasn’t enough to prove about the film in question – by reframing my reading to support the new argument for the book that I have (at long last) established in the intro. So I’m going to re-read the chapter now and see if this could actually work – or if I should go back and try to finish the other chapter that I had originally thought of as a sample. I worked on that most of the month, but it’s just not quite there. Which can I do faster to be done by the end of the week?
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* 20 minutes working on this blog post.
* 2 Pomodoros to read through the chapter and decide if it can be salvaged. I think it can, and have some ideas now how to shift the argument slightly, remove offending bits and move some of the theory from the intro into the gaps here to bring it up to speed with the new argument for the book.
* 2 Pomodoros restructuring chapter for better flow.
Dec. 5th
* 8 Pomodoros today on solid revisions to the sample chapter, reframing the argument and making a few adjustments accordingly. I feel much better about this one than the other chapter I worked on most of the month. At this rate, I’ll be able to get this in shape in 4 days where the other one couldn’t get done in 4 weeks.
* 2 hours for job application due tomorrow. Only one left this year!
____________________________________________________
Addendum (Nov. 2nd, 2014): This post never actually made it public during #AcWriMo 2013 (nor did the previous two for that matter). I had gotten bogged down, and while I continued to log my progress I simply never got around to posting them. After unsuccessfully trying to finish my book proposal for Dec. 5th to complete my stated goals for the month (which I started on Nov. 4th), I decided to let it go, take a holiday, and resume work on it in January. A couple days later, however, the editor emailed to say that he was about to go on his winter break and could set aside some reading time for my proposal this month if I could get it done in time. It struck me unusual that an editor would take this much interest after six months of me stalling on delivering the full proposal, so I took it as a sign to push hard and do whatever it took to finish within December. I worked as hard this month as I did during official #AcWriMo, and finally got it done and submitted on Dec. 29th. I was exhausted and frustrated that I wasn’t able to take as much family time over the holiday season as I should have. But the end result was good. The editor liked the proposal and emailed within one week to tell me he was going to send it out for review right away. Within the month he had secured reviewers and sent it off. Two months later the reviews came back, mostly positive. Within two weeks I wrote up a response to the reviews and the editor took the whole package to the board of directors. A month later they responded in the positive and issued a contract shortly after that. I had it signed and delivered by June 1st.
It was over a year between my initial proposal submission through all the steps to the final contract, but it got done. And it was the #AcWriMo push in November that really spearheaded the serious work it took to get the bulk of the work done by the end of the year. In the end it took me two months to accomplish the goals I had set out for one, and that was an important lesson learned that I will carry through to this year’s #AcWriMo, starting… now.
In: #AcWriMo, Academia, Writing about Sound
Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2013 }{ Week 4
This is my log for #AcWriMo 2013. You can read my guiding philosophy for the exercise here, and my lofty goals here. Now let’s get on with my accountability.
Nov. 25th
Week started with my 7 am Skype interview for a job overseas. I had stayed up late but was adequately prepared. I thought I’d take a nap afterwards but instead got some stuff done.
* 3 Pomodoros to get the next job application in – my 20th submission since Sept. 30th. Five more due by Friday…
* 2 Pomodoros reading a colleague’s dissertation intro draft and providing some comments.
* 30 minutes working on this blog post.
Nov. 26th
* 4 Pomodoros on the next job applicaiton – 2 more than I would have liked.
* 4 Pomodoros revising a chapter proposal for an anthology. Also 2 more than I would have liked.
Feeling frustrated that both of these tasks took twice as long as expected, meaning that it’s now 5 pm and I didn’t get in any work on my sample chapters. So although I hit my goal of 8 Pomodoros, I feel like I only got half of my day’s work done. I really need to get these chapters done by the end of next week, and it isn’t going to happen with this level of underestimation all the time.
Nov. 27th
* 5 hours non-Pomodoro work – pretty much straight through – on this evening’s guest lecture. That was my whole work day. While I was hoping to get a couple other things done, I’m happy at least that I didn’t let this occupy my mind until today, so in the end it’s only one day out of the week spent.
* 3 hours guest lecture and discussion group. It was fun!
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* Got home wired on one extra coffee so I’m up after putting the kids down to do a couple other tasks. 2 hours helping a colleague revise her book chapter abstract and working through her comments on mine.
Nov. 28th
* 4 Pomodoros on my book intro. Managed to write a 1,000 word set-up for the chapter, the part I’ve been struggling with most this month. So although I only hit half my desired time allotment for the day, I feel like the work was better than usual.
Nov. 29th
Today was a write-off (pun intended). Errands downtown consumed most of the day. I managed to get a few emails out of the way, so at least there’s that. But this means I’ll have to put some work time in on the weekend again…
Nov. 30th
* Two hours on the first of three remaining job applications due tomorrow.
* Two hours on my Week 3 post. Still spending way too much time on these…
* Two hours to finish the second of the job applications.
* Two hours late night on the Week 3 post and my chapter proposal for the anthology.
Dec. 1st
* Four hours more on that danged chapter proposal. Worked much longer on this than I had expected, back and forth with a couple of colleagues offering excellent advice. And I returned the favour by reading their submissions for the same anthology. Hopefully all the work pays off.
In: #AcWriMo, Academia, Writing about Sound
Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2013 }{ Week 3
This is my log for #AcWriMo 2013. You can read my guiding philosophy for the exercise here, and my lofty goals here. Now let’s get on with my accountability.
Nov. 18th
* 4 Pomodoros on my job talk. Got a basic structure and the relevant text from various sources. Now it needs a major edit.
*2 Pomodoros finishing up my Week 2 post.
* 2 Pomodoros on my job talk. Down to 4000 words now, but need to cut another 1000 while shaping everything up into a coherent whole.
I’m trying to join my tasks here to mutual benefit, drawing from my book intro as the basis for my job talk, while using the short format of the talk to guide editing decisions to cut my intro in half.
Nov. 19th
* 1 hour meeting with my former supervisor / now mentor about my upcoming job talk. Which was also about the introduction to my book. Two for the price of one! It was great to get some perspective on this.
* 2 hour meeting with my current supervisor and his working group.
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Nov. 20th
Big plan today was to revise 8 paragraphs on my job talk in 8 Pomodoros. One Pomodoro each to get them in much better shape. And it worked! I got all 8 done before the 5 pm quitting bell (dictated by daycare pick-up time). Trouble is, I ended up writing quite a bit so the talk is now longer again. But I’ll work on that tomorrow. Then I got 1 hour in later in the evening on a job application due Friday.
Nov. 21st
Today’s plan was to cut my talk from 5000 to 3000 words, and I nearly made it. I ended up cutting by writing; that is, writing up on paragraph from scratch to cover the basics elements currently spread across two. Down to 3300 now. Tomorrow it needs to get down to 2500 which is the length I can read in 20 minutes with a few movie clips thrown in for good measure. It was a harder day today than yesterday. I got started a half hour earlier on everything, which felt great, and banged out my first four Pomodoros before noon – something I haven’t managed to do yet this AcWriMo. But then I had a lunch meeting down the road, and came back fresh but also a bit tired and so I did two more Pomodoros then took too long of a break while staying at the computer and ended up fizzling out during the last of 8. So, 7.5 Pomodoros for the day. Then came back late night for two hours to finish that job application due tomorrow.
Nov. 22nd
Woke up feeling the need to scrap half the work I did yesterday on my job talk and go with a different approach for the second half. Then blew my morning work session commiserating with the ex-academics at the local coffee house. Not the jump start I got yesterday, but good to know I’m not alone in my struggles. In the first ten minutes of a Pomodoro I came up with a way of re-framing one of my thesis chapters to exemplify the argument of my book, and all of a sudden I’m considering setting aside most of the work I’ve been struggling through this month and go with this new idea. It’s dangerous; I want to submit these chapters by first week of December. But the other chapter is very polished; I didn’t go with it first because
Nov. 23-24
Weekends are usually family time but as I hadn’t finished preparing my job talk I had to bite the bullet and get that done somewhere…
In: #AcWriMo, Academia, Writing about Sound · Tagged with: #AcWriMo
Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2013 }{ Week 2
This is my log for #AcWriMo 2013. You can read my guiding philosophy for the exercise here, and my lofty goals here. Now let’s get on with my accountability.
Daily Log: Week 2
Nov. 11th
My two year-old came down with whatever my four year-old had on Friday so she stayed home with me today. I managed to get about two hours of writing in on Week 1 post. Still not done!
Nov. 12th
* 1 Pomodoro – abstract for upcoming guest lecture
* 2 pomodoros – acwrimo blog
* 1 hour – emailing about job applications etc.
* 2 pomodoros – chapter work, including reading
* 2 hours revising job application materials and submitting new materials for long listed application
Nov. 13th
* 3 Pomodoros to finish my Week 1 post. Damn that took a long time! But part of this whole AcWriMo thing is public discussion, and it was really useful to think about what writing means to me and how I want it to fit into my life – and how AcWriMo can help me achieve that. And if anyone else finds it useful, then so much the better.
* 2 Pomodoros on second chapter; one spent re-reading a theory section; the other spent reading up on the discourse and inserting recent stuff into a brand new 376 word paragraph.
Nov. 14th
* 4 Pomodoros plus one hour free-writing on job application. Took way longer on this than I had hoped, but it’s a more important application than some of the others so I put much more effort into customizing my materials for the position. This took me from 11 am to 3 pm with a few breaks. Exhausted now, especially since I wasn’t taking a break between each Pomodoro which is essential to stay refreshed and fight off the aches and blurs. And I haven’t even started my chapter work for the day! But I’ll attempt another 4 Pomodoros over the next two hours and see what happens.
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* Got another half hour in on that job application around 1:30 am after waking up and failing to get back to sleep. I would have finished it up but my 4 year-old came and found me in the living room and demanded that I return to bed.
Nov. 15th
* Decided to start with some chapter work today instead of leaving it to the end, building off the momentum I go going yesterday. Put in 2 Pomodoros and worked out some kinks in sections 2 and 3.
* Got an urgent message from the host of my upcoming guest lecture requesting that I send her the revised version of my abstract for the talk. So I put in 2 Pomodoros on that and got it done.
* Had to work upstairs with the baby strapped on, so no timer but 90 minutes straight to finish up the job application due today. Longer than expected, but this one had a full online profile to create and a couple of weird formatting things.
Nov. 16th
I don’t usually like to work on Saturdays but I’ve been dragging my feet on compiling my list of job applications for December so I spent two hours getting that together and sending it out to my referees. 7 more jobs coming up with December deadlines. The fun never stops, though I’m not complaining as there is a much better crop for film and media studies this year than last.
Nov. 17th
Some late night Twitter chat with the AcWriMo crew while working on this blog post. Fun! About 1 hour writing my thoughts on the Pomodoro Technique.
Week 2 Summary
More productive than Week 1, but I’m going to have to step it up for the second half of AcWriMo if I’m going to meet my main goal of getting these sample chapters out of the way. Really going to try for a solid 8 Pomodoros per weekday next week.
In: #AcWriMo, Academia, Writing about Sound · Tagged with: #AcWriMo
Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2013 }{ Why I Love My Tomato Timers
This is my log for #AcWriMo 2013. You can read my guiding philosophy for the exercise here, and my lofty goals here. Now for some thoughts on the benefits of the Pomodoro Technique.
Why I Love My Tomato Timers
When I first heard about the Pomodoro Technique during last year’s AcWriMo I was instantly fascinated by the tomato. I knew I simply must have a real tomato timer to make the most of it. No stop watches, oven clocks or sand timers. No apps. That guy in Italy found his inspiration in his mother’s kitchen, so I wanted to know what that was all about. And since I had started AcWriMo a bit late, I really wanted one NOW. Couldn’t wait for an online order to ship. But they turned out to be amazingly hard to find.
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I spent many hours during last year’s AcWriMo trying to hunt one down (all logged on the accountability spreadsheet of course). I hit a dozen or so kitchen supply shops in my area. Nobody had one, and a couple told me that they had been recently discontinued. So, I broke down and tried to order an official one, but at that time they were selling on Amazon.com who wouldn’t ship one to Canada – and they weren’t available on the .ca side. Same story with all the generic ones I tried to order too! What’s the deal? I emailed the Pomodoro Technique people to see if I could get one direct from the source, but they would only ship in bulk, and I wasn’t ready to go into the Pomodoro resale business. So I spent the entire month using this online timer – at least it has a picture of a tomato. And in the end I ordered four tomato timers from different sources – including an official one – and had them all sent to a friend in the U.S. where I picked them up in February. And I’ve been using them ever since.
I love them. Why? It’s the urgent combination of the blazing red colour and the steady ticking. I thought the ticking would drive me crazy. But, in fact, it’s the source of the motivation for me. Hearing that sound, coming from those red balls, means there is work to be done. It’s the heartbeat that keeps the work alive until the bell rings. And the bell ringing almost always freaks me out – but that’s essential too.
The Pomodoro Technique addresses two major obstacles with the task of writing: getting started, and letting go. I can spend days trying to get over the hurdle of just starting. What I discovered with the timer is that it really pushes me into just getting the ball rolling. And that’s gold. But then there’s the stopping. When I’m on a roll I have no trouble sitting for hours on end while working. And that generally makes me feel awful. The Pomodoro Technique forces breaks, which really work if done right. Get up from the computer. Walk around. Focus my eyes on something far away for a while. Then get back to work before the momentum is lost. The frequent short breaks do wonders for maintaining productivity throughout the day, while the urgency of the ticking keeps things moving.
Over time, learning how long tasks take – and learning to budget time and make projections accordingly – has been very rewarding. But perhaps the biggest revelation of all was how productive a short block like 25 minutes can be. Although the full technique is based on groups of Pomodoros to really get into a flow, I’ve discovered that I can fit single units into time slots in which I wouldn’t otherwise attempt to get any work done. And so I add little bursts of productive work time to my day, which feels great. Especially important for someone with several small children. I don’t often have hours on end to put together, but 25 minutes of hands-free time is conceivable on a regular basis, and it’s good to know that real substantial work can be done in short amounts of time. Half a job application; a paragraph on my chapter; a conference abstract; etc. It prevents the feeling that some days are total wash-outs on days when I can only get a couple in, and on days that I manage to put some groups together it’s a blast. And so it is without hesitation that I recommend that you all run out and get your tomatoes today.
In: #AcWriMo, Academia, Pomodoro Technique, Writing about Sound
Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2013 }{ Week 1
This is my log for #AcWriMo 2013. You can read my guiding philosophy for the exercise here, and my lofty goals here. Now let’s get on with my accountability.
Daily Log: Week 1
I started AcWriMo in unorthodox fashion by taking the first few days of November off. I had a dozen job applications due leading up to Nov. 1st, a terribly soul-sucking undertaking, and I wanted a break. Halloween is my family’s high holiday, so we always make a good couple of days out of it. And then my mom appeared at our door unnanounced on the evening of the 31st and stayed through the weekend. So, I didn’t break out the tomato until Monday Nov. 4th. And since then it has taken time to get back into the discipline. But I’m getting there.
Nov. 4th
All day at the computer, but only 2 Pomodoro units. I got other work done outside of these blocks, but these two with the ticker were enough to remind me how effective it is to have that sound driving my work and constantly reminding me not to check Facebook or email until the bell rings. And as always, I’m amazed at how much one can get done in 25 minutes.
Nov. 5th
Another day at the computer, this time with 3 Pomodoros. Movin’ on up! I’d like to have done more, but there are baby breaks, household chores etc. continually standing in the way. Oh, and my bi-weekly two-hour Skype session with my supervisor and his working group – always really helpful and encouraging, and very much in line with the spirit of AcWriMo.
Nov. 6th
7 Pomodoros today! 6 on my chapter revisions, and 1writing this blog post. Tomorrow I’ll get it up to 8.
Nov. 7th
* 1 Pomodoro in the morning between dropping the kids off at daycare and meeting a friend for lunch downtown. Here I worked on smoothing out the second section of my second sample chapter for the book proposal. Dragging some text around to rearrange the flow, wrote a couple of sentences to smooth out the transitions.
* 30 minutes free writing on this blog after lunch.
* 2 more Pomodoros, separated by an unacceptably long foray into social media – but hey, it’s not everyday that Rob Ford happens. Oh wait, for the past week it has been!
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My 4 year-old woke up sick this morning and I saw my plans to get up to 8 Pomodoros today falling dead to the ground like so many lilting leaves of autumn. But I found her asleep after returning from dropping off her 2 year-old sister at daycare in time for my wife to head to a meeting. So…
* I managed to get 2 Pomodoros in before she woke up – enough for one complete job application! This is one area I’d really like to move more quickly as I find the whole process particularly demoralizing and energy sapping. I spent well over 50% of my work hours during last year’s AcWriMo doing tasks relating to job applications, including major revamping of my teaching and research statements along with compiling a proper teaching dossier and other relevant materials. But now that this is done, my aim is to spend no more than two hours on any single application – enough time to look up the hiring department, see who is there and what they teach, and tailor my letter accordingly. Today I got lucky as this job description was almost identical to the last one I sent out, and so my letter needed minimal adjustment and took less than an hour from opening the document to sealing the envelope.
* Then did some free writing on this blog interspersed with business emailing and social media browsing.
* When my partner returned I was able to hole up in the office for another 30 minutes of blog writing followed by 2 Pomodoro units in which I got quite a lot of good smoothing done on the third section of my second sample chapter. During a “break” I revisited the film I’m writing about and discovered some amazing things I had somehow missed these last six years of writing and presenting about it…
Nov. 9th
No work on Saturdays if I can help it. None today.
Nov. 10th
*3 Pomodoros to write up and submit another job application.
*An hour or so free-writing on this post. Still not done!
Week 1 Summary
Okay, so this week really wasn’t as productive as it should have been, largely because I have been out of the Pomodoro practice since June. It’s an amazing technique, but it takes me a while to get ramped up. Plus we have a newborn in the house and I’m supposed to be on paternal leave… So this week has been helpful in getting me to think about how best to adapt my AcWriMo practice for my current situation, and I’m hoping to make better use of my existing work time for week 2. Still, I got some good work done on my chapter and fired off the necessary job applications. Plus I spent a lot of time thinking about writing and how I want it to fit into my life, ideas that have informed this post which took far longer to write than I originally anticipated. Another lesson learned. Overall I remain hopeful that I can meet all my goals by the end of the month.
In: #AcWriMo, Academia, Writing about Sound
Sound Writing Practices }{ AcWriMo 2013 }{ My Goals
This is my log for #AcWriMo 2013. You can read my guiding philosophy for the exercise here. Now let’s set the bar.
Goals for November 2013
This year, with a much better sense of how my productivity functions, I’m setting realistic goals – not to push myself, but to get done what needs to be done while feeling good about it. And so, here are my modest goals:
1. Finish revising the two sample chapters for my book proposal. The book is based on my dissertation but requires a major reframing of the guiding argument, and it is proving more difficult than I imagined. I have an interested editor at a major academic press who requested these chapters after reading my prospectus. I had given myself three months to get the two chapters done, and instead it’s going to take six. So I’ve well overshot the delivery date I suggested to the editor, and though the work steadily moves forward it often feels like a sinking ship. This gets me down – but it’s largely a psychological game. Though it would have been great to get a book contract in time for this year’s job applications, I can’t let that failure interrupt the broader goal. Once it’s all said and done I’m not going to look back with too much anguish on these extra three months. I’ve never written a book before, and so I don’t have the experience in place to accurately assess how long it all takes. If I had known it would take this long from the outset, then I’d be right on track to meeting my goal. And that is precisely what the logging practices encouraged by AcWriMo will help with. But at this point I REALLY want to get this done, and getting back on the AcWriMo program seems like the best way to make a push to hit “send” on this by the end of the month and get on with worrying about whether or not the material is good enough to get me to the next step towards a book contract. And so, though it doesn’t require much in the way of typing new words at this point, I will consider it a monumental achievement if I can get these off my desk before December. And with this experience now logged, hopefully I’ll be more realistic for the next projection and keep sane in the process.
2. Job applications. I have another ten or so due between now and the first week of December, and there is no flexibility there; they must go out by the deadlines. And so they will. I’ve been advised that I shouldn’t spend more than an hour on each one, and I’ve got the letter writing down to about that. But increasing numbers of institutions now require online submission through various platforms, each one different, and most requiring at least an extra hour or two to complete. So be it.
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4. Prepare for guest lecture at a local discussion group on Nov. 27th. I’ll be hosting a screening of one of the films I’m writing about in my book and will give a half-hour talk on it afterwards. I’ve presented on this film before, so I’ll just need to reorganize my Keynote presentations and make a few script adjustments to suit this particular audience.
5. Prepare for job interview on Nov. 25th. This just came up and is unexpected at this early date since the application just went out a month ago. It’s big, and will need prep. I might have to rethink my goals to get this in this month, but it’s a hard deadline so it has to be done.
6. Write four weekly AcWriMo posts with some commentary on my AcWriMo experience and my accountability for the week.
That’s it. Nice and simple. Ideally I’d like to get in 6-8 Pomodoro units per weekday; no work on weekends if I can help it. Well see how that goes…