After-times

Researching with young people, Julian found how valuable ‘after-times’ are. The day after a birthday, the time after a big sporting event, the day after Christmas or another public festival. Adults talk about the time after their children leave home, after weddings, and so on. What about the time after a piece of academic writing is complete, a paper or book manuscript or thesis submitted to a journal, publisher, or examiners? What does that feel like? We discuss the mixture of feelings such as euphoria, relief, idleness, and hope – amongst others – and what this tells us about writing, and moving from uncertainty to certainty, from being ‘trapped’ by a writing task to being ‘liberated’ from it. There are also the after-after times, the often depressing ‘so, is that is?’ times – interrupted, perhaps, by the next task, the next article, the next book. And so we move on.

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