Decided to sit down and read the reviewer comments this morning. Two thoughts:
1. There is probably less work to be done than I thought. That's good.
2. I can't STAND the passive-aggressive tendency some reviewers take. Anonymity is a good thing in many ways, but just like internet anonymity leads to trolls, much of Reddit and four*ch*n, and the cesspool that is any news-site comment section, it also leads people who otherwise might be reasonable humans to vent all of their inner demons on the poor author.
Truth, it's probably really not "revise and resubmit" so much as it's "accepted with major revisions" and the terminology used by this journal is different than what I am used to, but still: this is one of the really Hard Things I have to do in my life. Yes, it should not be Hard but given my own doubts that I have ANY abilities at all, and given that I tend to invest too much of my self-worth in things like this....well, it's hard for me.
I have an e-mail in to the editor asking if the 16th would still be a reasonable return date for this year's issue. If yes, I will push ahead more in the coming week. If no, then I can just wait and do this after I'm done with the semester, and resubmit for NEXT year. (sigh).
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I just kind of hate the "game" that is academic publishing: you HAVE to do it to be promoted (or keep your job, if, like me, you've got the highest promotion you can get). You do all the work but not only do you not see any money for your writing, you PAY to do it - pay page charges (well, usually your institution does), you pay for a subscription, and you usually give up your copyright rights so if you were to want to reprint the paper, like in a book someone was writing, you then have to pay copyright to the journal. I dislike the whole thing because it feels to me very much like a chump's game - you work so hard and the only benefits you see are indirect (getting to keep your job) while others make money off your labor (Springer-Verlag, I'm looking at YOU).
I also hate how the whole thing seems designed to make those of us without a strong sense of self-worth doubt ourselves and feel bad. Truth: I have several manuscripts I could have submitted over the years but didn't, because I figured they'd be rejected and couldn't deal with the inevitable harsh comments. I kind of do the bare minimum publishing to stay afloat.
It doesn't help that some of my Twitter friends are doing NaNoWriMo, which to me (on the outside) looks way more fun than the writing I do. (Then again: probably most things I am "on the outside" of look more fun than they actually are).
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Edited to add: I am letting my own passive-aggressiveness out a bit here. I am being SUPER picky about fixes and SUPER literal about some things, and am keeping a log of what I've done (which I will try to edit the worst of the passive-aggressiveness out before I pass it on to the editor). So far there are no contradictory requests (which often happens in rewriting stuff) but I'm also mostly just doing stylistic stuff at this point and am slowly working up to the big stuff.
I did hear back, if I can get it in by the 16th, it should be okay, and it really does sound more and more like this was an "accepted with major revisions" rather than a "rewrite, and spin the wheel again to see if it get accepted THIS time" (which is how *I* view revise and resubmit: "It was a bad and unpublishable paper before, but if you totally change it, we'll look at it again, but absolutely no guarantees, the answer may still be no." I was also burned by a revise-and-resubmit years ago when one editor told me, "Revise it extensively and send it back" and then, in the intervening months as I was working on it*, that editor died, and was replaced by a new editor who flatly refused to even LOOK at my revision, and I felt bad about that journal - not naming names - forever after)
(* It was my first year teaching. I was prepping three classes from scratch. I still wonder how I did that. Needless to say, writing was far down on the priorities list so the rewrite I'm hoping to pull off in a week or ten days now wouldn't have happened then).
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I'm telling myself if I get good work done on this today and tomorrow, I can take Saturday off and.....I don't know. Pony is on hiatus so I don't have the "appointment tv" of New Pony. I am still debating whether to (a) go antiquing and out for lunch (though there's some festival in Denison meaning it will be crowded and parking will be a pain), or (b) go to the Ulta and the JoAnn's and the Kroger, and even if I don't NEED anything, maybe I buy some little semi-indulgent but not-too-expensive thing (a hair masque, maybe? My hair has gotten awfully dry in the changeable weather and maybe a hot-oil treatment or something would be good), and then get home at a decent hour of the afternoon and relax.
I can tell I cannot push hard at work the way I did when I was in my late 30s....it's kind of sad how your ability to work without some kind of break declines with age. Or maybe I'm just burning out on this gig, I don't know. But the thought of at least getting out to the Ulta (and maybe getting lunch somewhere) helps me to be able to work now.
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Home, now. Gave up at the Analysis section, which is going to need a ton of rewriting and maybe I need to re do some of the analyses, I don't know.
there was a wreck on the main road I take to get home. I had to quick get turned around and go the other direction, also, traffic was terribly heavy because of the detours and people were driving foolishly. So I was already stressed out from editing, was worse when I got home (it took 10 minutes to get home instead of the normal 5, because of all the added traffic). My chest got tight and at first I worried about "heart?" but it was worse on the righthand side, and worse down in the intercostals (I get something almost like asthma when I'm really stressed). Also it's been hot and humid here today.
I did wind up lying down a bit on the bathroom floor (ceramic tile - it was cooler) and eventually the tightness went away but I feel wiped out and unhappy and I have to get my stuff together to be ready for piano.
I do know I haven't been dealing with stress as well this fall; stuff that used to roll off my back bothers me more than it did. I tell myself that's just a side effect of doing too much, but I don't know.
And I have to admit - another thing that's worried me. This fall my diastolic blood pressure has crept up. It was down in the low 70s all summer long, now it's in the low 80s. I don't know if it's the added stress of teaching four classes (and having one difficult class), or if I'm eating too few vegetables again (it's hard, it's so hard, when you are as busy as I am and ALSO have to limit salt) or if it's too much salt or too much sugar (though I'm not eating any more than I ever did). I try not to worry about it because the systolic is still at or below 120, but I do. I don't know what made my diastolic jump 10 points between summer and now, and that worries me.
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