Writing... and writing... and writing...

A productive day so far in the world of writing, which is fantastic. I'm often easily distracted at home, so it feels good to get in a non-distracted groove.

• Made some revisions to a report for work and edits in another. Have to remember to email the files back to the office (I *hate* when I forget that part)
• Finished up edits (almost) for a paper to be sent out for publication in a regional journal. I hate conclusion sections, I really do. So I put that part off until tomorrow, along with manipulating the graphics into the necessary format. They said they wanted it by the end of January. Hey, January 31 is still January! Plus, I was a good girl and formatted that sucker exactly as they required in their guidelines for contributors.
  
• Worked on tackling a scholarship application for grad school. It's a leadership-based scholarship program not an academic-based program, so the format is different than what I've been wrangling lately. It is very strange to me (and a little uncomfortable) to be tooting my own horn about myself in contexts that don't have anything to do with archaeology (yes, baggage, thanks). One thing I've been coming to terms with over the last few years is that no one will toot my horn for me, so I'm just going to have to suck it up and do it myself. And I don't have a lot of time to fret about it, the application is due soon (making that deadline work for me!).

One thing I've noticed in all this writing is that I use way, WAY too many commas when I write.* I mean, I knew that, but damn. I could delete every second one out of one of the reports I was working on and you'd hardly notice. Mostly they're in places where, if I was speaking, I'd pause. (See? I just did it right there. And left it in on purpose.) But there were a few commas that really, truly made me wonder what the hell they were doing there. No surprise, I suppose, that I'm a fan of the serial comma.**

* Dear editor friend: You're right, this is not news.
** Especially see the funny bit under "Unresolved Ambiguity" re: Peter Ustinov, Nelson Mandela, a demigod, and errr... personal accessories.