Over at Pondering Blather, the inimitable Odyssey shares his Five Stages of Grantwriting, an apt twist on the old Five Stages of Grief story. It hit quite close to home, as I'm now feverishly trying to bang out my BRAINS proposal, but also because I feel as if I have my own similar, but slightly different five stages.
1. Confidence: Just drafted the Aims page! Ideas are all there, man, now I just gotta fill in the deets. I SO got this.
2. Distraction: SOMANYTHINGSONTHEINTERNETTTTTT
3. Incentives: This piece of chocolate will help me focus and be productive. Hmm, that was a little sweet, though, so let's have something salty to balance things out, like goldfish crackers! OK, but now I'm thirsty--I'll just quickly run out to the campus food court for a Diet Coke. But what if it's not quite enough caffeine? Better head out in an hour or so for a coffee, JUST TO BE SAFE.
4. Despair: How did anyone ever write a grant in the history of the world? It is literally impossible to do.
5. Zen: What's this? Words on a page! Finally, in the zone. I am one with my Significance, Innovation, and Approach. There is no spoon.
Dr Becca has a new job (NJ) as a tenure-track assistant professor in the neurosciences at New Job University (NJU), located in New Job City (NJC). She is still fumbling, just making a little more money doing it.
Everything here is exactly right.
But you forgot:
6. Catastrophizing: [Post-submission] I FORGOT ALL THE THINGS!
And within #6. ONE OF THE KEY JARGONY THINGS THAT MAKES ME MEEEE IS MISSPELLED ON THE FIRST PAGE!
I was hit hard by a sub phase of 4, "Now that I am reading the literature more carefully, none of my experiments seem remotely novel, interesting, or for crying out loud even interpretable. IT'S ALL BEEN DONE!!"
LOL Becca, I have the same stages as you.
Today's item: 2a. 3-hour pointless meeting that sucked away my day whilst I should have been writing and now I can't focus.
It's like you guys live in my head.