This week I was in Denver at the annual meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference. It’s one of my favorites because it is an interdisciplinary group, made up of some of the most interesting and generous people I’ve encountered in my academic career.

Like the bi-annual Blackfriars Conference in Staunton, VA, there’s something about ASECS that feels like taking a hyper-intellectual vacation. It’s somehow restorative, even though I’m writing this on a plane back from Denver that will land at 12:30am and I’ve got a 9:30 faculty meeting.

In addition to giving a paper about the actress Dorothy Jordan (and getting the benefit of a lively Q&A session afterwards), I got to hear fascinating work in the fields of theatre, celebrity studies, and art history, catch up with good friends and mentors, meet new people, and then go sing ALL THE THINGS with them at Karaoke.

I also took advantage of the conference’s annual mentorship event, The Doctor is In, which offers one-on-one advice for people at all stages of their career. I had a great conversation with three wonderful senior colleagues, including Chloe Wigston-Smith and Tita Chico, that really put my manuscript into perspective.

I don’t have the time to do all the things I want to do in the book.

Instead, I need to narrow my focus for now and leave some of this planned work for a series of articles that will help to flesh out other avenues of inquiry later. Normally, I’d resist the idea of narrowing the scope, but as soon as Chloe asked if the book could have four main chapters instead of six, I knew it could. I knew almost exactly what it would look like, and I knew it would do the work of laying the foundation for future study. Ultimately, that’s what I want my book to do the most. I cannot stress enough, though, that I wouldn’t have seen that it was possible without the prompt.

Tita seconded this suggestion and told me to map out a schedule: I have 14 weeks, starting tomorrow. 14 weeks to July 1 to finish this manuscript. 14 weeks to revise three chapters and take one from the outlining stages to a completed product. 14 weeks to tweak my introduction to reflect this new structure, and to write a conclusion that maps out some of the social significance of these women to the wider world (a topic that was originally going to be its own chapter).

I did that mapping today while waiting for my flight, and I’m leveraging all my networks to help keep me accountable to it, including those of you reading this.

It’s a bit insane, and it’s going to rely on a lot of generosity among the network of people I turn to for feedback and support. Who I should probably run this by before I share it actually….okay. I’ll do that and then post it the actual link instead of just a screenshot if everyone signs off.

There’s a lot of ambiguity in academia. Even something like tenure, which is, you know, kind of a huge deal, comes with a TON of opacity about exactly what the research requirements are, what does and doesn’t “count” and for how much. What’s funny is that pretty much no one wants it to be unclear: everyone, so far as I can tell, is doing their level best to be as transparent as possible, but no one can account for everything.

The safest thing for me to do is get the book done, and the size, scope, and completion of the manuscript is one of the few things in the process that I have some control over.

So I’m flying home feeling pretty resolute, and even slightly optimistic about this push. But I’ll be counting on all of you, and the generosity of my colleagues, family, and friends, to make it work.