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The daily ramblings of a seismologist at work. |
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What is a seismologist doing keeping a blog on writing.com? Well... As all researchers, even seismologists write, and often. Mostly for work (articles, presentations, courses, computer programs...), but sometimes - when work and life permit - also for pleasure. And like all other writers, we also procrastinate or get writer's block, or any number of excuses not to get down to the writing at hand. So keeping a blog gives me a place to tap away, to get the juices flowing, to make myself want to write all that stuff that will have to be written sometime. It is also a place to point out the idiosyncracies of the world of research, to rant about the life of a scientist, but also to remind myself that I have chosen this line of work for a reason: discovering ever more about the world we live in, and possibly be useful to humanity in some way. |
| Apologies for not turning up to write for the past ten days ... I've had my nose to the grindstone... The first draft of my paper is now ready. Which is a good thing too, as I am leaving on Sunday to go visit my co-authors... Phew  I'll have more time to come and play on writing.com in the not too distant future. In the meantime, wish me a safe journey. |
| The weekend was very unproductive from the paper point of view, but some writing did get done. I thought I'd try my hand at some flash fiction. Here is my entry for the
Entry #1 in the following book:
[ It even got a prize! ] |
Today is Saturday, I have a little more time on my hands than usual. I have not really started my day yet, but have been typing away on my laptop. No, not on my paper (mea culpa) but on an essay that has been going round in my head for the past year or so. It's about the crazy system of publish or perish :
Please read it and let me know if you think the system is as crazy as I do! |
| Why is it that non-work-related writing is so much easier to thrash out than work-related writing? I have spent 5 hours today trying to get my paper moving in the right direction. It's like pulling a 20 car train using a toy steam engine, and uphill to boot. I keep slogging away at it, hoping that at some point it will pick up some momentum and start rolling of its own accord... When my brain was empty and tired from all that serious stuff, I had a play here on writing.com. I thought I'd try out a writing assignment, just for a laugh. What do you say, 1000 words in less than an hour ! I wonder what the lesson is here: maybe I should just attack my paper as if it was for fun instead of for work... hmm... maybe there is something in this insight... we'll see. |
| So, what do you know? It's Friday again. How this comes about week after week I never know. The weeks just go by so fast, that Mondays and Fridays just succeed each other with no time in-between. Or at least, this is what it feels like at the end of every week. Spent the morning reviewing and teaching (2 hour course). All on an empty stomach, as I was not organized enough this week to have enough breakfast supplies in the house to last until today...  Not eating makes me edgy. I was fine during class, but ended up chewing out my colleague afterwards... not too good... What's up for the afternoon: dealing with last minute Friday emergencies (those things some-one plonks on your desk con a Friday that cannot really be left until Monday) then back to the paper... They say a smile on your face brings a smile into your life... here goes: [ I feel better already  ] |
| Several hours later, and the paper is finally starting to move in the right direction. Most of this time has been spent coaxing together an explanatory figure, one of many. Getting each figure just right is what takes up most of my writing time... so very little writing gets done. I guess I should just call it picture time and have done with the hypocrisy...  I cannot do away with making pictures, for as any reader of any scientific paper will testify, a picture is worth a thousand words . It therefore follows that a great picture is worth ten thousand words, right?  At this point in the day (night!) I am beginning to wonder if all the time spent polishing my pictures is a little premature at this stage... a classic case of editing before I've finished writing, the perfect way to block all creative juices!  It's a little late for me to learn this lesson, I guess, but here it is anyway, with the hope that it will help me on my way tomorrow: Perfection is the antithesis of production |
| The first entry in any blog is always a little bizarre. Nothing has been said before, no-one knows what the author is about, there is a bit of the blank page syndrome at work... The scene is thus: a desk, a computer, a view out over the roof-tops of the university campus. An open door, noise in the corridor outside. On my desk: my notes for tomorrow's lecture, my other computer (a laptop - so I can work on the go...), my keys, my mid-afternoon banana and my ToDo list. It's the ToDo list which has driven me to procrastinate: I have a paper to write and only two more weeks in which to get it done. Of course I also have many other duties, my students, my lab equipment, urgent requests from colleagues, the latest earthquake that needs checking out... somehow or other the paper always gets left at the bottom of the priority pile, as if I have been avoiding it. And now that it is getting urgent that I stop pushing it aside, I feel a great resistance to attacking it, as if my involuntary procrastination has made a mountain out of the small pile of crumpled up drafts... I know, I know: just get to it, right? Easier said than done, but here goes anyway |
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