A little writing crisis here

Really interesting things are happening all over the world. The North Koreans have announced they have nuclear weapons… The Iraqi election commission has announced yet more problems in ballot-counting, necessitating yet further delay in releasing the results. (Do I smell a fish? Is Negrocontre desperately searching around for which UIA leader will take his dollar and become his humble servant?)… The situation in Gaza looks poised on a knife-edge… (By the way, here is my column from today’s CSM.) … All kinds of revelations are coming out about yet more heinous misdeeds in the US global gulag… A few score thousand Saudi men got the chance to go vote in highly constrained local elections…
As I said, a lot happening, about which I wish I were blogging.
Instead of which I am sitting at my desk having a really upsetting writing crisis. Long and short: none of the work I’ve done on my book in the past month is worth saving.
Aaaaaaaaaargh!
I won’t bore you with the details. All I’ll say is that– though none of what I’ve drafted will end up in the book, it is not totally wasted. From two points of view. First, everything I write helps me organize my thoughts and draws me, hopefully, to greater understanding and wisdom. (Blah, blah, blah.) That one is also known as the “mulch theory.”
And secondly, it ain’t wasted because nowadays I get to post it on the blog! And so, dear readers, sometime in the near future you can look forward to not one but two drafts of “Helena’s definitive accounting of the history of international atrocities law”! And my short draft of the history of truth commissions!
I bet you can’t wait. Right?

7 thoughts on “A little writing crisis here”

  1. Think of the potential audience! People who don’t know that they need to know this stuff may well stumble upon it!

  2. What does one say? When the mighty falter, what courage can we mere mortals summon up? If one spoke, would one blunder, and make matters worse?
    Some sort of cyberhug or cyberflowers to go with the real ones your hubby gave you on your blogiversary? Would that help?
    I’m going to take a chance and comment on the substance, anyway, as I see it. I don’t see how you can generalise from atrocities and truth commissions. If you can’t generalise then any account becomes a mere chronicle. You can’t generalise because, mainly, “extreme cases make bad law”. That’s probably a misquote and I don’t remember where it comes from, but I am sure it is right and that there is jurisprudential literature around the point. Maybe a chapter on this jurisprudential point would help bring the rest together. Maybe you have already thought of it long ago, in which case I am covered with embarrassment.

  3. Using the blog to publish excess material you’ve already written is much, much better than using the blog to avoid writing the material you want to be writing. If you get my meaning.
    Blogs are an extremely attractive time-waster for us writers. I love mine (and love surfing the other blogs) but it’s really the number one way I manage to avoid my primary writing project. I’ve trained myself not to indulge all the old avoidance behaviors. Blogging though is new and compelling.
    So I applaud you for getting so much done, in spite of having a great blog!

  5. Leila– … much better than using the blog to avoid writing the material you want to be writing. If you get my meaning. Blogs are an extremely attractive time-waster for us writers.
    I totally get your meaning! You are completely right.
    And thanks, everyone, for the messages of support. All cyberhugs, cyberflowers, and cyber-bottles of scotch gratefully accepted and appreciated at this point. (Oops, scratch the scotch. I’m trying to be a good Quaker. Darn.)

  6. Of course, laying aside a whole month’s worth of work (I shouldn’t exaggerate; let’s say three week’s worth) is also a really good exercize in the Buddhist discipline of non-attachment to the fruit’s of one’s labors…
    Ommmm.

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