Indexing is not what you think it is. It's not Ctrl+F and keyword searches. It is a labyrinth of your own making, a maze of ideas and terminology and cross-referential straight-jacketry. I can't help but think that if I 1. knew what I was doing, 2. had been given time or guidance on how to do it, 3. had been paid to do it, I would not be so frustrated as I am now. Sound familiar? It should. It's pretty much been my same complaint for about 5 years, and yes, the refrain is beginning to sound shrill to me too.
I have always known that I had my own bizarre way of defining things, my own little jargon for the pseudoacademia I inhabit. I actually have very little official academic grounding in philosophy, critical theory, sociology, cultural anthropology, policy analysis...but my work falls into all of these disciplines (or just short of them). So what's the compromise I've struck? I made up my own jargon. Which suited me just fine, lo those many years when I was writing. I found myself both clever and precise. But now I'm looking at my terminology on a page, lined up in neat, alphabetical columns, and I really am wondering if there isn't a better way of naming and defining things.
Of course, this just sets me off into another theoretical downward spiral, about the legitimacy of the concepts in this book, the philosophical problem of defining, the act of writing as a futile exercise in naming ideas...
As always, I am holding up my own process...
Hang in there girl, and get back to work! ;)
Posted by: Tamara | April 17, 2008 at 09:01 PM