ripping back and going forward
Kathleen recently posted about ripping out a sweater on Republica Unicornia, and I saw myself in her words.
There is not a fiber arts tool that I hate more than the seam ripper. It's a nifty little gadget, really, small and sharp and perfectly suited to tearing out long swaths of stitches at a time. But I hate it.
If I have had to pick up the seam ripper, it means that I have made a mistake from which I cannot recover. It means that the time I spent getting the project to this point has to be spent over again.
I have cast about for anything I possibly could do, including reengineering the garment or object, in order to avoid ripping things out. I have one dress that has unplanned reverse box pleats so that I could leave the seam ripper in the drawer.
The problem is that reengineering sometimes takes as much time as ripping and doing over correctly, of course. And it rarely results in an improvement in the design of the object. The few times that it has, though, only encourage me to keep hating the seam ripper.
My attitude about rework started to change when I heard a talented embroiderer say that the difference between an amateur crafter and an artist is the willingness to rip out mistakes. (Not sure I agree entirely. Maybe one of the differences is the willingness to do rework. There's also creativity and skill and purpose...)
It floored me when she said it, but I can't disagree. It is, after all, what I tell my students all the time about writing.
Revision is where the magic happens.
Good writing doesn't just pour forth from the fingers to the page. First drafts are almost universally shitty. Good writing is the result of revision and once more revision and revision again. The difference between a person putting words on paper and a writer is the willingness to see the words as a draft, to come back to the draft, to see it with new eyes, to revise.
Revision is easier than rework, though. I never actually delete anything. I just move my precious words to a jettisoned text file to preserve the illusion that I will someday put them back in this or something else. The seam ripper annihilates a join--two pieces of fabric that were connected are separate again, and the thread is in shreds. Ripping out knitting unmakes the object.
My dislike of the seam ripper persists, but I'm getting better about being willing to revise my textile production. When I get that sick feeling in my stomach that signals the suspicion that things are not going to work out, I short circuit my instinct to reengineer. First, I decide how much more work I need to do before I can make a decision. (In sewing often the answer is none, in knitting sometimes I need to work a couple more inches before I know for sure.) Then, once I know, I put the project away at least overnight. Fresh eyes on a new day make it easier to undo the work and see the path forward, which might include abandoning the project entirely. Finally, in the morning, I make a decision and take the first step.
These days, I have that sick feeling in my stomach about my career. There is no pattern for success in academia, but I'm working really hard, and I think I'm staying inside the guidelines, such as they are. Sadly, hundreds of early career researchers working similarly hard within the guidelines are pushed out of academia each year by the dearth of full-time, non-contingent jobs that pay a living wage. Submitting my book proposal to academic publishers this summer was a Hail Mary pass. Having a book contract should help my CV rise to the top of the stack among all the other brilliant and qualified applicants in this year's job cycle, but it may not. Doing everything right in grad school and in the job market is not a guarantee of success at finding a job.
For the last six months, I've been looking at non-academic jobs in my region, and there are lots of things where my skills would be an asset. I've started applying for the ones that would require top secret security clearance, because that takes a while, and as the end of my current contract in June of 2019 looms closer, I'll start applying to more and more.
It's almost like I'm revising my career, pulling out the seam ripper to separate myself from academia. Except that I'm not. I'm also still working on my scholarly monograph, still laying the groundwork for future research, still trying new things in the classroom. Still behaving like a person who will be in academia three years from now.
I can't quite bring myself to give it up entirely, so I'm continuing on two paths. It is exhausting.
There is not a fiber arts tool that I hate more than the seam ripper. It's a nifty little gadget, really, small and sharp and perfectly suited to tearing out long swaths of stitches at a time. But I hate it.
If I have had to pick up the seam ripper, it means that I have made a mistake from which I cannot recover. It means that the time I spent getting the project to this point has to be spent over again.
I have cast about for anything I possibly could do, including reengineering the garment or object, in order to avoid ripping things out. I have one dress that has unplanned reverse box pleats so that I could leave the seam ripper in the drawer.
The problem is that reengineering sometimes takes as much time as ripping and doing over correctly, of course. And it rarely results in an improvement in the design of the object. The few times that it has, though, only encourage me to keep hating the seam ripper.
My attitude about rework started to change when I heard a talented embroiderer say that the difference between an amateur crafter and an artist is the willingness to rip out mistakes. (Not sure I agree entirely. Maybe one of the differences is the willingness to do rework. There's also creativity and skill and purpose...)
It floored me when she said it, but I can't disagree. It is, after all, what I tell my students all the time about writing.
Revision is where the magic happens.
Good writing doesn't just pour forth from the fingers to the page. First drafts are almost universally shitty. Good writing is the result of revision and once more revision and revision again. The difference between a person putting words on paper and a writer is the willingness to see the words as a draft, to come back to the draft, to see it with new eyes, to revise.
Revision is easier than rework, though. I never actually delete anything. I just move my precious words to a jettisoned text file to preserve the illusion that I will someday put them back in this or something else. The seam ripper annihilates a join--two pieces of fabric that were connected are separate again, and the thread is in shreds. Ripping out knitting unmakes the object.
My dislike of the seam ripper persists, but I'm getting better about being willing to revise my textile production. When I get that sick feeling in my stomach that signals the suspicion that things are not going to work out, I short circuit my instinct to reengineer. First, I decide how much more work I need to do before I can make a decision. (In sewing often the answer is none, in knitting sometimes I need to work a couple more inches before I know for sure.) Then, once I know, I put the project away at least overnight. Fresh eyes on a new day make it easier to undo the work and see the path forward, which might include abandoning the project entirely. Finally, in the morning, I make a decision and take the first step.
These days, I have that sick feeling in my stomach about my career. There is no pattern for success in academia, but I'm working really hard, and I think I'm staying inside the guidelines, such as they are. Sadly, hundreds of early career researchers working similarly hard within the guidelines are pushed out of academia each year by the dearth of full-time, non-contingent jobs that pay a living wage. Submitting my book proposal to academic publishers this summer was a Hail Mary pass. Having a book contract should help my CV rise to the top of the stack among all the other brilliant and qualified applicants in this year's job cycle, but it may not. Doing everything right in grad school and in the job market is not a guarantee of success at finding a job.
For the last six months, I've been looking at non-academic jobs in my region, and there are lots of things where my skills would be an asset. I've started applying for the ones that would require top secret security clearance, because that takes a while, and as the end of my current contract in June of 2019 looms closer, I'll start applying to more and more.
It's almost like I'm revising my career, pulling out the seam ripper to separate myself from academia. Except that I'm not. I'm also still working on my scholarly monograph, still laying the groundwork for future research, still trying new things in the classroom. Still behaving like a person who will be in academia three years from now.
I can't quite bring myself to give it up entirely, so I'm continuing on two paths. It is exhausting.
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