doing it all wrong

It's Friday evening, it's late. I'm sitting in bed with a fairly large'ish glass of red wine. It's been a both long and short week. This conflictory statement maybe, bests sums up the week's events. But, this isn't what's foremost on my mind or what this post is about. Amidst the crisis that unfolded on Monday was a little e-mail about the outcome of the peer review process linked to a little paper I submitted for a conference proceedings publication. In South Africa an academic can attract a smallish research subsidy for papers included in particular types of conference proceedings. Motivated by the possibility of attracting this subsidy and thereby accumulating some publication credits, I decided, in a carefree, happy moment, at the start of the year, to submit a paper. This was to lay the foundation for how I completely did it all the wrong way. On reading the peer-review reports, there was absolutely no way I could hide away from the fact that I had messed up the whole freaking process. Firstly, the paper was rushed. I'd be the first to admit that it was a difficult paper to write and a difficult one for the general audience of this conference to 'get' (even if I was able to write it exceptionally well). The amount of time I was able to spend on the paper was not commensurate with its level of difficulty. I remember I submitted the paper with probably one hour to spare before the final deadline. I just didn't give it enough time - I didn't allow the argument to brew (not the intellectual argument per se, but the written construction of that argument) and I didn't accommodate for more 'critical feedback' moments with a wider range of 'critical friends'. Secondly, I was messing with the stock-formula of paper submissions - I went for a conceptual rather than empirical argument. How arrogant and over-confident of me! Only the top scholars can and do take that this approach and even they encounter serious hurdles in getting this kind of paper published. Then finally, and this is probably the most crucial part, this submission attempt failed to take into account my own writing process - what I need to do get to a fairly polished piece of writing.

The feedback itself was brutal leaving me feeling ashamed that I submitted such a clearly unfinished, unrefined piece of writing. But, on Friday night with my glass of wine besides me, I feel sufficiently motivated, calm and accepting of this aspect being an academic, and I will give the paper another go. 'Good' writing comes with practice, I need the practice and the intellectual stimulation. Sometimes you have to get things wrong; if you don't how will you ever get them right?