Changing Tracks
As some regular readers may or may not be aware, since last year I've been working on putting together a series of essays about epilepsy, with the intention of releasing them as a book. This project itself came from inspiration launched by reading Unreconciled Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance; I thought to myself that I could collect essays like this myself1 and set to work on setting goals etc.
This year I set two deadlines, and the first was March 31st: finishing the revision and rewrite process. The goal here was to have essays finished and ready to put in some kind of order to create a manuscript. I forget the second deadline I set, but the second goal was to have a first draft manuscript put together2.
But late in February I lost steam on the project, completely. I was no longer thinking about it, and did not feel like I could complete it. The fact that I was traveling frequently in February and March, and did not bring all the materials I needed to work on the project, worked in concert with this defeated feeling to halt all work entirely.
But then I did some introspection to get myself out of a creative funk. I recorded and released a new podcast episode after writing that post, and did some re-thinking of my essay project. I haven't done extensive work on it yet3, but I have an idea of sorts.
The short version is I now want to write one big essay. It'll be something new, and a synthesis of everything I've written to date. I want to make sure to include some of the research I've done as well. The idea I have in my head is that I'd put it together as a multiple page zine - digital first, but should the opportunity arise I could probably put it in print and distribute a physical copy. Who knows.
So that's where I'm going with it. I would like to work on it a little bit at a time. I hope to get something done by the end of the year, but I'm not imposing any deadlines this time.
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Not exactly like this. I am not speaking about social justice and inequities.↩
The first draft being simply putting the essays in order, as one single document. Formatting can come later.↩
I have written the first draft of one sentence. It's in a text file, but right now can't seem to find it in my online files. I think I wrote it, anyway.↩