Thousand-mile journey

Well, I've begun it with the first couple steps.

I retitled the paper which helps me mentally distance myself from the earlier version. And I rewrote the abstract. That's the easiest part. Now I have to dive into the introduction and try to remove the stuff the reviewer hated so much. (And what nags at me? When I resubmit this, it will be a different reviewer who reads it, and they will probably find different stuff to hate).

This is one of those times where I imagine the grass is greener in the world of people like the Yarn Harlot, who makes a living writing and speaking about knitting, and has legions of adoring fans, or like Rachel Coopey (my current favorite sock designer) who has people 'favoriting' her designs on Ravelry. There's not a lot of positive feedback in the scientific article writing community and that makes things kind of sad and lonely. It makes it harder to power through things like rejections and it makes the paper acceptances and publications less of a celebration.

There's been a lot of ink spilled on "external" vs. "internal" motivation, especially in education (short and not entirely accurate: Internal motivation: a student studies because he or she wants to learn. External motivation: schools "pay" students in some way for learning, with rewards or goodies or even money). We're supposed to be internally motivated and I usually am.....but there's a point where I really, really crave a little positive input on stuff. It's hard to go through your career having to accept that if someone isn't screaming at you about what a bonehead you are, that means you're doing well.

I wonder if motivation is like willpower, and it's something you can use up. (There has been a recent study that's shown that willpower is apparently something people can burn through, and have to replenish by rest and enjoyment. Which probably explains a lot of the problems with things like dieting.)

ETA: My equanimity is returning. I'm searching out some new background papers (one of the criticism is that it lacked background in a specific area) and I titled the folder I'm storing them in "DAM papers." (because it has to do with constructed lakes, get it?). (I have another folder for paper storage - this is my pollinator stuff - called COVERED IN BEES!!!! after the Eddie Izzard gag)

ETA #2: one of the people on ITFF advised me, after I whined about how it was a "crappy" paper, "There's probably a Pony in there, start digging." Oh, if only there were. I mean, a real Pony. Or one of those Shetland ponies in sweaters that was making the rounds of the internet the other day. Or heck, for that matter, even just a Pony figurine I didn't have yet.

I've put in an hour plus on this this afternoon; I guess it's time to go home, and come back tomorrow. One of my problems is I'm bad at stuff that has to be done over time; I am very much a IT HAS TO BE DONE **NOW** type of person for these kinds of things and I am not good at saying, "Work on  it an hour a day 'til it's done." I have to remind myself it took weeks to write the initial paper so it may take me weeks to redo it.