Is Setting a Summer Goal Late Cheating?

For most folks, summer starts either with Memorial Day Weekend or with the end of the kids' classes.  My summer is about 1/3 over, as classes end in early April, and grading is done before May.  Which means that my summer is four to four and a half months long.  Yes, I am boasting.  But the reason I raise this is that I had a realization today that this is my first summer really between books in a while.

The Steve and Dave and Phil book project is only getting underway, with much of the work to take place in the years ahead.  I have cleared my schedule of travel with one family vacation ahead and my Euro trips behind me.  Yes, I have a couple of grant/fellowship applications to work on, but I also have an R&R, a contribution to a special issue, another contribution to a different special issue, AND an APSA paper that is going to be submittable by the APSA.  I might even be able to finish a TRIP paper I have been sitting on for more than a year.

So, I am posting this to taunt the reviewer gods:






My goal is to have four articles under review by the end of the summer.  Some folks manage to do that in most years.  I don't think I have had that many pieces in circulation since .... hmmm .... maybe in the year or two before tenure and maybe not even then.

Of course, this may all collapse, and the stuff may all end up burning in the fiery pit known as reviewer #2.  But I am setting my goal today, a bit late, which might be cheating.  But what the heck, there is no rule book as far as I can tell.  And any excuse to post a Queen song works.