I have been focusing on writing one article because it’s what I’m presenting in a few weeks at PCA. I got to the point yesterday where I was ready to submit it to the journal, and after hours of tweaks so it fit the requirements of the journal, I did. Eek! But I’ve been working on two others, in addition to my dissertation, and they have been in the back of my mind. Today I decided to get back to them.
One is for MPCA, which is my next conference at this point, and their Pop Diva area. Do you know how hard it is to find a work about divas that actually states at some point “This is what I mean by diva”? When you’re talking about it in the popular music sense, impossible. And since that’s the context my article is in, I quickly figured out that I’d need to state what I mean by “diva.” I wrote it up, I figured out what I was going to focus on, and then I needed to put it on the back burner.
While on the back burner, my mind kept thinking about it. I’d go to it every once in a while, partially because the diva I’m writing about is also a part of the article I just finished. So I’d have a thought that wouldn’t go into that article, and I’d toss it over into the diva one. But what my mind was going over where the three parts of my definition I was expanding on, not quite the thing as a whole. So I was starting to overthink it and panic, thinking I hadn’t done enough research into popular music divas and I was missing something. I did some research today trying to find one of those elusive “this is what I mean” statements and still failed.
Finally, I did what I should have done from the beginning: I read what I had written already. When I read the two paragraphs I had come up with before, I went, “What was I worrying about? This is really good!” I think what I need to reconsider and revise is how I’m breaking it down for the bulk of my article, seeing as those parts are what my mind has been obsessing over.
At least this article gives me more excuses to watch/listen to Adam Lambert. It’s research! 🙂
Deviate from the Norm 