Sunday, October 14, 2007

"Weird on Me," Lloyd Cole

I managed to fix up the writing sample last night, and while I'm now plotting to substantially rework the opening so I have a properly snappy intro, it's currently good enough for the school with the Monday deadline. Yeah, fine, whatever.

As I was writing up yet another abstract, this one for the sample, I realized why I hate the form so, so, so much. Waaaay back in my formative years--fifth grade, maybe?--I had a teacher who gave us an assignment to write one-sentence book reviews. Oh, god, how I hated that assignment. As I recall arguing to Mrs. Tanner, whom I otherwise loved, if the book can be summed up in one stinkin' sentence, why did the author bother to write the whole thing?

I feel the same way about abstracts. If I can distill the whole of the sample/chapter/dissertation into three or four sentences, why the hell am I writing 20/50/300 pages? Yeah, yeah, I get the usefulness of the abstract, in that it articulates the main points of the argument without getting into the whole process, and a good abstract can prepare your reader to approach the material with the most favorable attitude toward it. But. Gah.

I'm just so very tired of writing about my writing. On the other hand, though, the more I look over the summary of the next chapter on the docket, the more excited I am to write it. As C. said when he read over that chapter summary, "I really want to read this one!" Encouraging, at least.


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