Writing about Computers Writing about Computers' Writing

[zachwhalen]

I have three ideas this year, and I'm making a separate issue for each. This one is a little different, and technically it isn't a NaNoGenMo entry.

First, a bit of background: I'm a college professor working at a school where most of my job is teaching (a 4/4 load). As such, I don't have as much time as I'd like to to work on research and publishing. Fortunately, my career advancement is tied mostly to teaching, but I do like writing and publishing things when I can. The problem -- besides time -- is that without the extrinsic motivation of "publish or perish" now that I have tenure, it's been harder to focus on actually finishing things.

I've currently got three or four projects in various stages of completion, so I want to use NaNoGenMo 2018 as a catalyst for finishing one of those things. Specifically, I did a conference paper for ELO 2018 about NaNoGenMo, and I want to expand that into a journal article by the end of the month.

I've got a repository where I'll be collecting my data and updating my draft as as it grows. Even if no one cares to look at it as I'm writing, I hope that just having it public at this stage will be help me be accountable to finishing it.