Publication disappointment.

So, it seems like after a ton of work, a miniature project of mine stalled out just after the point of initial fruition -- the story of my life!

I'd been keeping up membership in a civics group that had asked me to join its board, to help them meet meeting quorum requirements, and also to see if I could feel out that role as a means to do anything.

And, I'd put my finger on a serious issue that could perhaps be raised and productively pushed forward, and I did a ton of legwork including with a lawyer for a government agency to figure out how current structures work and how some proposed under-the-radar legislation would change them -- "I've been saying this for years," he said to me over the phone, in a conversation that of course left no written record -- and then I composed a very tight op-ed that would appear under the civic board president's name.

And, that happened last fall and most everyone was deeply impressed with the op-ed, but one single board member who wasn't even a regular attendee at meetings just happened to show up and pitched a fit for no reason because of some employment connection to something, and then between that pitched fit and the holidays the op-ed got massively delayed as the board president worked through her "concerns," and then the op-ed got turned down by one major newspaper, and the president delayed resubmitting it to another major newspaper, which then accepted it and even had him sign paperwork and everything...

And then, while that op-ed was in the course of being published, some other somewhat related issues blew up and derailed stuff and sucked the air out of the room around the cluster of issues that that legislation was on.

So, it got published, but its impact was snowed under, and on top of that the civic group is falling apart a bit because of aging leadership and people retiring from some roles that have kept the org up and running, so it doesn't look like it's happening, trying to get people to put in some time and reach out to other groups and get them to contact reps to sponsor the legislation. That's on top of how a point-person on a legislator's staff seems to have left his job now, too.

Overall, I've noticed with this type of writing and freelance writing and activist-y stuff, that I'm highly dependent on others who can behave in very arbitrary ways, and on many larger unpredictable developments.

Also, since I tend to be on the "cutting edge" and do deeply-researched stuff that I carefully digest for others, it tends to make others interested but it also makes them balk, since it's so different from what other people are saying, and they have to trust me with summaries etc. in ways that they don't have to when other people just spout off on current issues of the day where they spit back what's happening and give a "hot take" on it.

I also take on serious issues where you have to be very, very careful about what you say, so there might be liability issues lingering there, too, in addition to how these are actually sleeper meaty issues that truly challenge the powerful (people wouldn't have employment concerns, if they weren't).

If I had a position of power as some sort of activist or expert where I'd worked my way up, I could avoid some of that crap with publication venues, but unfortunately I don't, and to get that you'd really have to do the "spout off on current issues of the day" hot-take thing as a full-time unremunerated job in order to shape yourself into an opinion leader. I mean, there used to be more publications and editorial staff where you didn't have to do so much of that to break your way through, but those don't exist like they did even five years ago, anymore.

It's really no wonder that I've made my way back to ancient language stuff -- at least there, you can publicize on social media and through blogs or conference presentations or whatever and get your finding and thinking out there, even if you run into BS with journals and some conferences.

There's much less arbitrary barriers to bringing projects to fruition, and I'm happy that what I do is out there for those interested.