doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
writing
writing accountability
0I have been trying to find ways to make myself more attentive to my writing habits (which have been dismal to be honest). I suffer from that perennial problem of procrastination and fear — fear of writing, fear of not writing, fear of having someone read my writing, etc.
Last week I read Billie Hara’s article on ProfHacker about 750words.com. I signed up. But then I decided not to do it. I wouldn’t go to the site every day. So how could I incorporate the same idea into my workflow in a way that works best for me?
I live on Google. Ok, not the planet Google, but the great spacious cloud of Google. I use many of the tools extensively, for nearly everything. Ack! I know. But I also backup, so never fear. :-) Anyway, I am always using my calendar, docs, etc. So how could I make them work for me in the same way that 750words works for others? I created a calendar event that emails me every morning, alerting to me to my time to write for 10 minutes (I picked 10 minutes to get me started — and I typically write about 500 words in that 10 minutes). I also use Docs to write in, so I can write from anywhere.
I called my brother and let him know so I’d be accountable. He suggested that this could be a good way to create reflections on my exams and dissertation (smart man, that guy) and that those reflections could turn into something else in the future.
I’ve also made my calendar public, just to hold myself more accountable. Once I’ve written for 10 minutes (and I downloaded a timewatch app on my Droid — yes, I just had to have the Droid involved! — to time myself, to make sure I did at least 10 minutes), I update my calendar to show that I did the writing.
And there it is. 10 minutes. Every day. I’m creating a habit. And a good one at that.
never enough
0
Me: I thought I’d use this summer to catch up on some readings, learn more about different theorists, understand more concepts, and delve into more ideas surrounding our discipline.
Professor: You can read the things you think will help with your research. Or you can read the things you think will help with your exams. But if you try to read everything, you’ll never succeed. There is far too much out there. You’ll spend your life in circles chasing after the citations mentioned in each book.
I already do this online. Can I afford to do it in books, too? Or maybe I started in books, and it carried over my online methods as well. I seem to chase after things, in a never-ending quest to reach…what? The end? Is there an end?
This is a problem in how I approach my studies, too. I want my writing to be perfect. But then I read something new and I realize that my research is so far from perfect that I become paralyzed with the fear of turning in a less than stellar work. What happens then is that I end up turning in something even worse because I have to rush through it to get it done after spending so much time agonizing and worrying over the concepts and theories that came before.
It’s a vicious cycle.
inside –> out
03 years ago
“There are trees in our hearts.”
Nalini Nadkarni
On Facebook yesterday, my friend, Betty Schlueter, (who is an amazing photographer), posted a link to the TED video of Nalini Nadkarni, an ecologist who looks at tree canopies, interdisciplinary studies, and urging people of different backgrounds to unite for a common cause.
The first time I watched, I was attracted to the emotional appeal. I’m a tree-hugger. I love trees. I love to touch them, smell them, and talk to them. I’m not ashamed to admit that. I was interested in the idea of creating bonds between people who don’t have that connection to nature to nature itself. But I was also amused by her humor and the way she connected that humor to a very serious issue.
My second time through the video, I began to see the similarities in the way we approach our particular fields of inquiry. She invites artists into the forests to interpret them in a way that connects two seemingly different areas of interest: the sciences and arts. And this is how I approach my studies and teaching practices.
Yes, I’m a writing instructor. But I started off in geology. I like looking down, thinking about how everything is constructed from a foundational support, how it is built, layer upon layer, until it becomes something stronger and more stable.
When I’m in a writing class, I think of writing in different terms. I don’t think about how I interpret it. I’m much more interested in how the students in the class interpret it and how they can find it useful.
We’re working on the final projects of the semester. My classroom is entirely collaborative and students are working as a part of a team to put together the projects. I asked them, “what matters to you?” “What are your interests?” The class isn’t about me. I already know how to do this stuff.
So I ask them to be creative. Not because I expect them to be artists. I don’t. Many of them are pre-professional (med, vet, dentist, etc.), and others are business or agricultural students. While some of them may consider themselves artistic, what I really want to encourage them to do is to look outside of the box to think about what will suit their project the best. Sometimes that’s a wiki, sometimes a webpage, sometimes a video, and sometimes a message in a bottle (yes, I’ve received projects in all of these forms).
It’s about taking what is inside and bringing it out. It’s about going into the forest, looking up, and seeing the possibilities. It’s about looking into their hearts, and seeing the roots that grow there, waiting to connect to something bigger.
It’s about communicating with one another, sharing the excitement, and watching a project come to fruition.
I haven’t been disappointed yet. Each of them is amazing and contributes in ways that I could have never imagined.
in the now
05 years ago
Today in my autobiography class, a classmate quoted a professor from one of her other classes, a creative nonfiction course. She said that her professor said that if you are in the now of grief (or supplement this with any other strong emotion), you shouldn’t write about it. She said that this professor said that the information you write about would not be reliable, not objective enough.
I have to disagree. I’m not sure autobiography is ever objective. It is our own perspective on life. It is our own truth. Whether that truth is coming from the center of emotion or from years of distance, it is still subjective to our perspective.
If I write about my cancer now, a year and a half after my last surgery, it is clinical. It will give you a lot of information about my particular cancer and about the procedures I had to endure. It will not, however, give you as much information about how I was feeling at that time, how it was affecting me on a daily basis, and how sad and at a loss I was – feeling like piece of me were stolen from me by an invisible force. I can’t replicate those feelings. I’m not in the same place.
Each is valid. Each is worthy of the time I would put in to write it – if I know my audience well and understand what they desire when they read my writings. But that, really, is the key. I have to understand what you want to read and be willing to share that. Without our symbiosis, there is really no reason to write in a public forum.
Sometimes I like writing in the now. I’m able to shed anxiety and stress and sadness and pain by writing in the now. It gives me a safe place to purge.
Sometimes I like writing from memory. No matter how painful, the memories are still sweet. They make me who I am today. They have accumulated to create a library of stories that can be funny or sad or elaborate or sparse depending on how and how much I choose to share with you.
Sometimes I like mixing them together, weaving in and out of the now into the past and back again. They give you depth in a story. They give you relativity and understanding of how the now is affected by the then — and, perhaps, why I view the then in the ways I do.
One professor may say that I shouldn’t write in the now of heightened emotion. But I say that writing is every bit as valid as any other writing.
It’s all about perspective.
clipped
0
So this is something I worry about. Really. Just one of the many, many things I worry about each and every day (because I’m a worrier and that’s what we do — we worry).
What if one of these guys that I’ve gone out with on a date finds my blog? And what if he doesn’t like that I’ve written just a little thing about him — that I had lunch with him or that I call him “xxxxguy”?
Will I have missed out on something meaningful because I’ve shared a blurb about him or will he have missed out on something meaningful because he doesn’t understand that I would never spill any of his secrets online (because I’m a very good secret keeper)?
Should I clip my proverbial wings or is it ok to write about these things? I mean, really, it’s been one lunch with each one. Nothing more. But what if it is something more? Can I say we went on another date? I don’t say their names (I mean, eventually, I might if that’s how it worked out). I don’t tell about their stints in prison or that big mole on their…
Oops.
Heh.
Seriously though.
I’m really thinking about this because I’m taking another autobiography class. A few of us were talking and I was wondering how the other people felt about this book — the people that are discussed. We know one person killed herself after the book came out (but I’m sure the book was not the reason for her suicide).
This is my autobiography. I’m writing about the things that happen in my life and the people who pass through my life (except for those who specifically request that I don’t write about them).
If I don’t share these things, do I, as a writer, lose credibility? Do I lose authenticity? Oh, my life is swell and lovely and everything is painted a rosy pink. Is that how it would all come out if I didn’t talk about the events that happen in my life – like dating?
I don’t know. I do worry, though, that what I write may offend someone who could be someone important. But I also hope that if it was going to be something real, that person would take the time to talk to me about it and understand why I write here and why I want to share things about him. If he didn’t, he probably wouldn’t be the right person for me.
prayer
05 years ago
My life is a series of meetings and trainings. I go from one to the other, rarely at my computer this week. I barely have time to breath before I run to the next one.
Yesterday I was working with a faculty member all morning, ran to do an errand, and then ended up at the local Catholic elementary school. I was giving a training on Literacy through Photography. It was an in-service training for a group of instructors at the school.
We had a lot of fun. I took in some cameras from work, we did some writings and some photography. We printed photographs and shared words that were written about the photographs. The teachers seemed to be having a good time and were really getting in to it. Some of them were really giving it a lot of thought and consideration.
Then the class ended. And they asked me if I wanted to join them in prayer.
I don’t talk about religion much here but I think it is safe to say that I am not a religious person. I have been baptized (in a stupid attempt to endear myself to a man, I got baptized in the church he attended even though I knew it wasn’t the right thing for me — but fervently wanted to believe it was). I don’t attend church. I don’t have any desire to attend church. My church is the church of the world, the trees flying overhead, the breeze flowing through the branches, the earth beneath my feet.
When I was asked if I would join them in prayer, I didn’t know what to say. I was the furthest from the door so I couldn’t really make a quick getaway (and that would have been rude).
So, I joined their circle, taking hands in my hands. I bowed my head, didn’t close my eyes, listened respectfully to the prayer, and didn’t say “amen” at the end (I also didn’t cross myself as they all did). The prayer was nice, actually. The principal of the school thanked me, wished me well in my future, and hoped that everyone would be able to use the knowledge I brought to the session. It was religious but not uncomfortably so (although, when my name was mentioned a few times, I’m sure I did squirm a bit).
I had fun, prayer notwithstanding. I enjoyed sharing my knowledge with others and giving them new tools to use in their classrooms. In the end, a few people told me they could definitely use this in their class. That was cool. I was glad to hear that the fun of writing and photography would be passed down to the next generation. And maybe it will inspire the next Ansel Adams.
–
My camera did arrive. It is beautiful. :-)
can you write this?
0No responses from Xanga whatsoever. I guess everything is lost. That’s too bad.
—
For you lovers of good writing, these are the 10 winners of this year’s Bulwer-Lytton contest –AKA Dark and Stormy Night Contest– (run by the English Dept. of San Jose State University), wherein one writes only the first line of a bad novel.
10) “As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it.”
9) “Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens.”
8) “With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description.”
7) “Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: ‘Andre creep… Andre creep… Andre creep.’”
6) “Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved.”
5) “Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store.”
4) “Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do.”
3) “Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor.”
2) “Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’; a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death — in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies.”
AND THE WINNER IS…..
1) “The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog’s deception, screaming madly, ‘You lied!”
rejuvenated
0I was forced to write last night. I’m taking my junior writing class and the instructor was late. He left a note that told us to write about an event…to write from the first person. He wants to know how we write, what our style is.
I couldn’t shut up. I wrote 3 pages by the time he showed up. Others in the class were done and talking and I was still writing.
It was like something came alive in me. I wanted to use inventive words, colorful phrases, make him feel and see what I was feeling and seeing. I wanted him to share the experience with me. I didn’t even know him yet and I wanted this to happen.
I feel alive being back at the university. I feel like I’m a part of a bigger thing. I feel like I’m taking care of myself. I feel rejuvenated.
It’s weird, though. I recognize the halls that I’ve walked but I’ve forgotten where everything is. I found two men’s restrooms last night but not one women’s. I had to wait 3 hours until I got home to go to the bathroom because I was too shy to ask.
I’m scouting it out next week, though. I will know where the restroom is even if I have to go up and down every hall.