The Plan for the Sabbatical

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Clarissa

May 11, 2015

My plan for the 8-month-long sabbatical is simple:

1. Write 350 words a day (this sounds like very little but I don’t do drafts. These 350 words have to be really good and almost ready to submit). [3 hours writing + 2 hours research]

2. Read 100 pages a day (obviously, this is work-related reading. Everything else I read falls outside these 100 pages.) [3 hours]

In terms of time, this rises to a full work day. The 350 words require research. I can’t just pull them out of thin air. And that research takes time, too. So in case there are still people who think that sabbaticals are like holidays and that professors “do nothing” while on sabbatical, it’s time for them to let go of this insane belief. I will maintain this schedule even on weekends, mind you.

For those who believe this is too ambitious, I’ve got to say that I have been working this way for a while, and it’s eminently doable. By the end of the sabbatical I will have:

1. Finished the book;

2. Submitted 3 articles for publication (two of them are almost ready, I’m just waiting for a couple more secondary sources to arrive through interlibrary loan);

3. Given a talk at Oxford.

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7 responses to “The Plan for the Sabbatical”

Jones

May 11, 2015

No drafts?

Do you proceed by creating a Gesamtkunstwerk out of your subject matter so you can fit everything into that world you’re creating for the work?

I have to admit to doing the same thing, but then again in fiction people actually expect a well-formed, plausible possible world, regardless of how much of it you actually show them …

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 11, 2015
  
  What I mean is that I have to make sure that a sentence is perfect before I can move in to the next sentence. Things like revising, inserting paragraphs or sentences are very very hard for me. So I can’t just say, “Well, I’ll go back to this part later.” Sentences have to appear in a strict order.
  
  At the same time, I can easily work at 3 different projects at the same time, which would drive many other people mad.
  
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  1. Jones
    
    May 15, 2015
    
    I HAVE COME HERE TO CHEW BUBBLEGUM AND TO KNOCK DOWN YOUR SO-CALLED PERFECT SENTENCES …
    
    … and I’m all out of bubble gum.
    
    [the Editor from Hell is now |IN|] 🙂
    
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m

May 12, 2015

This sounds like a great sabbatical plan! Is this M-F or seven days a week? I am on sabbatical all year next year and have similar plans with similar outputs, though slightly extended since I have almost 16 months of leave, with both summers. I will also have my first ever PhD student, so I expect some time to go towards developing my skills as a research mentor.

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 12, 2015
  
  I’m doing 7 days a week because it’s easier for me to stay within a rhythm.
  
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Fie Upon This Quiet Life

May 12, 2015

Very inspirational! Good luck and enjoy!!

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David P. Bellamy

May 12, 2015

Interesting. I am the exact opposite. I write and recopy over and over again by hand. Often I have written twenty drafts of a paper before I submit it for publication. When a sentence on page four makes me realize that something was wrong on page one, I recopy from the beginning so that the prose flows easily. I cannot imagine knowing a priori that something I write on the first page, say, will lead to an ambiguity or difficulty in understanding several pages later and thus need to be changed.

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