Success!

It seems even after taking the first three days of the month off and then another five at the end of last week and the beginning of this week, I managed to achieve all of my goals. It took another 1399 words to finish the second draft of the first chapter. Again, almost entirely new material. I finished this week with 8138 words. A second best all time effort to my 12,020 words in the first full week of this month.

Those are two damn good weeks and were sufficient to boost the month's output to 28,077 words. A total that breaks last months record by a thousand words. It wasn't as consistent an effort as July's (I took four days off completely in July and twelve in August) but the binge writing was apparently equally effective.

If I were to seek to continue this pace of bettering my accomplishments, I guess I would go for 30,000 words in September and up my weekly goals to 6000 words, but unfortunately, I have to set non-numerical goals for this month.

My first goal, will be to finish the second draft of Part One: The Policy Makers. As I said, I just finished the first chapter and I have three to go. I think I will set the second novel aside completely as I have the past couple of days and finish this goal, or attempt to finish this goal in the next week to ten days. In the revision process, I will be trimming the manuscript from 23,000 words to 15,000, give or take. I don't expect this to be too much of a problem seeing as it has been a complete rewrite thus far. Maybe it was just the first chapter that was so sucky...

Yeah right, well, I know there's one or two nuggets of gold in the next three chapters. I remember Cullen complimenting a couple of things in particular. That means I have at least two sentences that are salvageable!

The second goal, apparently the goal that begins sometime the week after next, is the job hunt thing. I am tempted to set this as the main focus, and relieve myself of all writing obligations for a couple of weeks. In fact, I may as well declare that now. A two week moratorium on writing so that I can focus solely on getting my teaching portfolio and "junk" put together. Otherwise, I'll write to avoid making up the job materials. I'll need to start looking at the job postings and selecting which ones I'll want to set my sights on. Quite likely, I'll be sending in my registration for the joint meetings in January.

What are the joint meetings you ask?

The joint meetings, and yes they really are called the joint meetings, are the annual MAA and AMS meetings. They hold them together for efficiency. Leave it to mathematicians right? Anyway, the joint meetings are also the first step in the applications process for a great number of teaching positions. There is an entirely separate section of the meeting devoted to...

Hmm, it seems my friend, Larry DeMarco had a baby today. He just sent me a picture to my phone. I'm sure his girlfriend probably played a major role. It takes two to tango after all.

Anyway, Congratulations! Yeah, the miracle of birth and all that bloody rot. I'd get more excited, but little Rosemary wasn't named after me, so I can only get mildly electrified.

I'm sure I was on the short list, anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, an entirely separate section of the meeting is devoted to the cattle-like rustling of unemployed teachers through a slaughter house of 15 minute interviews with representatives of schools looking to fill vacant positions. Like every labor market in this country at the moment, there's far more interviewees than interviewers.

I believe my friend Amy went through 28 of these short interviews during her three days at the event. From this, she managed to get 7 on site interviews, and 4 job offers. Such is the benefit of being a woman with a math PhD. If I can get 3-4 on site interviews and one job offer from about 30 interviews. I'll be doing pretty good for a honkey mofo male. Thank God I have all the advantages in our society, or I may not do that well.

This year, the meetings are being held in Washington D.C.. This is quite convenient seeing as I have two good friends in the neighborhood, Scott and Moose. Perhaps I can move out of Vegas in December, put my crap in storage, and bum off those two for a couple months. Eventually working my way down to South Carolina where I can hang with John for a couple weeks. Oddly enough, the last time I stayed with him was during the joint meetings in '06. In late March, I can make my way back up to Albany after all the shitty weather is gone. Guess I'll have to start planting the seeds for my pathetic trip of mooching and begging.

I guess that leaves the last week of September unaccounted for. Perhaps, that's when I can plant my moochy-beggy seeds. Who could say no on my birthday? I guess I'll play it by ear. This is going to be quite the transitory month. With luck, I'll be starting applications and the second layer BS for the job stuff. Also, with a bit more luck, Cullen and his secret weapon friend will have a great number of wonderful suggestions on improving Part One. Maybe I can start a third draft. I need to polish that first part up for a writing grant application. (Yeah you caught me, I don't know how to spell his friend's name and I don't want to misspell it here. Those in the know, know who I'm talking about.)

Also, as I have mentioned before, the end of the month is my birthday, so I'll probably take a few days to let myself out of the lair. After I finish that second draft it will have been a pretty intense three months of deep undercover work. Hopefully, temperatures will cool back down into the 90's so I can get some comfortable outdoor time. Maybe a tan.

Anyway, here's a rambly post to make up for all the short ones this week. By the way, this was also my best month of blogging yet. Not only did I manage to post on 25 days, there's 16,000 words in this months postings. That makes 44,000 for the month. Pretty cool...