Tag: liminal state

Bits and bobs

Marshaling my thoughts this week has been akin to herding cats.  This is partly due to my efforts to escape from my aforementioned liminal state.  There are lots of ways out of that maze and all of them are varying degrees of shiny.  So, in herky-jerky, bits-and-bobs fashion, here’s a smattering of all things Miranda this week:

1. I wrote a new short story!  It’s my first effort at a short in nearly a year.  I think it’s pretty darn good.  It features hedge fund douchbags, 16th century Venetian courtesans, and fireflies.

2. Grading is my ongoing albatross.  I try to work through the pile of papers and exams and they seem to mate and multiply.  I try to ignore them and they press oppressive fingers of guilt on my heart.  I try to burn them and they erupt in a wild bonfire of…wait, no, sorry…that last one is just a fantasy.  Seriously, though, I should be done today. Finally.

3. I fell off the wagon with my dieting and exercise while traveling for Paradise Lost, but I’m back on the horse (or, more accurately, the elliptical machine) again.  I’ve shed 4lbs so far–and all without going to extreme measures–which means I’m almost halfway to my goal.  I’m sure our upcoming trip to Spain (during which I will eat my weight in Jamon Iberico) won’t erase all my progress.  No, of course it won’t.

4. Here’s a bit of shiny that’s been distracting me from my work lately:  ever heard of tilt-shift photography?  I hadn’t either till I visited Ana Silva’s blog and saw her post on Ben Thomas’ work.  Basically, he works magic to make his photographic subjects (mainly cities/urban landscapes) appear as miniatures.  Mind-bendingly cool.

5. Another cool link: Abandoned ships stranded in the desert from iO9.  Very Mad Max, if you ask me.

6. What else?  Oh, yeah…those novels I’m writing.  Sigh.  Progress on my latest novel is a little stop and start.  I’ve gotten the first three chapters revised and have taken about 1400 attempts at starting the 4th.  I’ve got it outlined.  I know what needs to happen, but it just isn’t working on the page.  Should I chalk this up to the limits of outlining or to my paralyzing fear of actually writing this thing and screwing it up?

Since most of my writing blocks tend to resolve themselves while I exercise, I think I’ll head off to the gym.

Please share your own bits and bobs for the week in the comments!

A liminal state

Lately I feel as if I’m caught betwixt and between, stuck in a liminal state.

Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep defined the concept of liminality as “in-between situations and conditions that are characterized by the dislocation of established structures, the reversal of hierarchies, and uncertainty regarding the continuity of tradition and future outcomes.”

My, Arnold, you do have a way with words.

Frankly, this is always a liminal time of year for me.  The semester is over, but my grading isn’t done.  Spring is clearly ending but summer hasn’t begun.  I’m transitioning from a world structured by my day job to a world without structure.  Pile onto that the fact that I’ve just finished a draft of one novel and must begin a draft of another, and the sensation of being stuck between one state and another is complete.

I’m not complaining, per se, but grappling for an explanation as to why I feel so very, very blah.  My attempts at grading have been desultory at best.  Rather than dive into that new novel, I’ve distracted myself by writing a piece of flash fiction that, in all likelihood, makes no sense.  It doesn’t help that it’s been raining and raining and raining.

This will pass.  That’s the great thing about liminality.  It’s a period of transition.  Temporary.  Fleeting.  I will submit my grades.  Summer will come.  I will travel (to Spain, New Orleans, Seattle, Boston, and England to name a few) and I’ll frolic in a world of unfettered writing time.

But, for now, for today, I’m stuck.  I wallow, my only companions dislocation, reversal, and uncertainty.