write an article

It took a couple years, but that paper I started back in 2007 got accepted, and I got to present it last week at a conference. Some decent feedback, not a huge amount, but a decent amount. No matter what, I’m still glad I described the past work and got the paper published. It’s nice to have something written to explain what I was doing for two years of my life.

Scary dream last night: I dreamt I was in the audience at a computer conference, and suddenly realized I was supposed to speak in 30 minutes, but hadn’t prepared my presentation – the slides had been stolen with my laptop! Mad rush (in that dreamlike sort of way) to try to put together slides for the presentation.

And when I woke up this morning, I had to double-check that I still had the slides from the last time I gave a talk on the material to make sure I’ve got a starting point for the talk I’m giving in two weeks. Yup, still there.

Time to start preparing.

Note to self: save slides somewhere so I’m not hosed if someone steals my laptop.

Woohoo! The research paper got accepted! Two of the reviewers really got the paper and the theme about the challenges of solving nasty technical problems in industry, one reviewer didn’t get it and wondered what was novel. (Answer: it was a case study. It wasn’t trying to show novel ideas.)

Now, I just need to put together a talk, negotiate with my boss for time off to go to the conference, submit a final version of the paper, and present it. All while doing my day job, of course…

This was a big relief after having the paper get rejected two years ago when I first sent it to a workshop. The work was really personal, and I’ve wanted to share it, and I’m finally going to.

On the other positive side, a friend who teaches at a nearby university said “hey, you just did a paper? Want to come give a talk here?” Once people start seeing your name again or hearing about your research, other chances to stay close to academia open up.

Writing takes a lot of awareness about the world in which we live. Occasionally, I’ve read articles that have struck me with such fascination, I felt as though I experienced it myself.

To me, that’s what I want to do for other people. I hope to find a successful career where I can write articles in such a way that someone can feel like they were actually there, or at least have a better understanding about the world around them.

Whew. The re-worked research paper finally got sent off to the workshop last night; it still had rough spots, but the important thing was getting it sent off. As easy as it had been to cut the paper down a couple weeks ago, doing the final edits this weekend was just painful – I wasn’t motivated on it, my writing felt rough, and I found it surprisingly hard to cut and edit whenever the page count creeped past four pages. I don’t know if it was the kind of work (final editing versus quickly cutting), or if I wasn’t in the right mood, but I’m reminded that if I’m having good luck at writing, I’d better not stop because I might not find it as easy tomorrow.

Now, I’ve still got a couple simple articles a friend’s been pestering me to send off to a hobby publication. We’ll see if I can make progress on those.

All the writing projects have come due this month. There’s an academic workshop I want to participate in, so I’ve needed to rewrite a paper rejected a couple years ago into a half-size version. I’ve got a bunch of long articles to write for work. I’ve also got a friend encouraging me to take a couple of article ideas for a hobby magazine and get the articles written.

I’ve definitely been dreading it. The rewrite of the technical article is the scariest; last July, I was hoping to submit an article for the same workshop, and never got motivated or could figure out the right way to organize it.

I tried again this weekend, and in a day and a half have a four page draft I’m pretty satisfied with. All I need are a couple more passes on it, and I might have the technical paper done!

Write an article in my erepublik newspaper about the ‘wellness trap’, where players with low wellness can struggle to find good jobs which don’t require high wellness (usually above 80). This means players struggle to buy high quality food to boost their wellness to the required wellness. NHS ‘Wellness Fast’ schemes are only available for those with wellness well above 40.

I’m an English major because I’m a journalist. If we don’t use our power to free speech, we’ll forget we have it.

It’s a start!

http://im.about.com/od/promotingimsafety/a/sixdatingtips.htm

I am in process of writing (with help) an article about teeth cleaning.