Writing journal

There's a rough draft due on Wednesday for my Classical Rhetoric class and I'm feeling pretty stuck. I want to use this paper to think through questions I have about the voice, which means I have a bit of agenda for this writing. I'm not sure if that's making it anxious; the writing seems a bit unhappy about getting on to the paper. I feel as though I'm falling back into the habit of writing "perfect" sentences without letting the words have some time and space to form. I have been thinking about ideas for this paper all semester but I'm not letting myself go to just write. I wonder how to get myself to just free write. Why am I hesitating? I think it's the pressure of having a tight deadline, and the guilty feeling that I should have been writing more about this class all semester. On the other hand, I'm not sure what I would have been writing about. I barely feel like I have a handle on the ideas we're discussing in class. Or, I feel these ideas escape as soon as class is over.
I'm quick to answer myself by saying, "Well, if you'd been just writing writing writing all semester, something would be taking shape by now." I feel enormous pressure to start "doing things right" when I write. Now that I know better; now that I've gone through this writing class, I should know all these ways to make it easier to write and revise. While this is true, I know it's a matter of practice.

For now, I need to get some writing done on a subject that feels pretty unfamiliar to me. I've found myself relying on Elbow's suggestion to write even if it means making up facts. I'm trying to write two pages a day, though I only have two viable paragraphs. When I fantasize about writing two pages a day it feels pretty low-pressure. Pretty effortless. I'm sitting at my desk or at Anodyne just letting it rip. Words are streaming out through my fingers and it doesn't even matter if they make sense. I can deal with that part later. But it's clearly not happening that way. I sit at my desk and try to let go; I try and tell my writing it's okay to come out. There's no pressure, really. Somehow, however, my writing knows I'm full of it. It knows it needs to show up to the big writing party on Wednesday.

So the question becomes: how do you trick your writing to come under pressure? How can I get out of the way so I have something to bring in on Wednesday? Tonight, I'm going to spend some time editing two pages of my writing for Thursday and then try and do as much free writing as possible. No pressure.

Today

Today I will truly go Bird by Bird. There's too much to do and not enough time to do it. Classic story. I've not been in the mood to do hard work. Because I didn't push it this weekend, I'm a bit backed up with insufficient motivation to push through. I think what will help is writing about it, quickly, and making a short to-do list.

First, I will finish the critical essay in Phaedrus. When I'm done, I will go have some lunch at a place I like. Then, I'll see Margaret, which will surely contribute to my funky mood. When I get home, I'll pack up my books and computer and go to the coffee shop. I will write a response paper for Classic Rhetoric and finish my revisions before dinner. I'm not in the mood to cook dinner, so I'll likely order something for me and Meridith. Maybe Chinese. After dinner, I'll continuing editing and prepare for classes tomorrow.

I'm trying to think about what it would have taken for me to get this done with less rush. I worked all weekend, but stopped work once I hit my "work quotas" for the day. I think I just set the quotas too low. And, we were suppose to go to Michigan to see the fall leaves. We cancelled because we had too much work. That made me feel crappy and unmotivated. Seems that the mood has persisted into the week.

Writing journal entry

I've been dragging my feet about writing this week's journal entry. I'm not entirely sure why. Blah, blah, blah. I don't feel like I've thought as much about writing this week as last. I've been so focused on reading. Okay, this reminds me about something I though of while reading Bird by Bird. Oh, and this is going to lead me to a confession at the end of the journal entry. I'm feeling a bit more energetic about writing now.

I long to produce nice writing. Writing that makes an impression and is fun to read. Back in English 701 I read an essay written by a colleague and friend that was so very good and smart. It was such a neat surprise because I hadn't read any of her writing; I didn't yet know she had such talent. Anyway, I was absolutely enchanted with this essay. Thrilled. Captured. It was so smart and good and clearly right on. My essay, on the other hand, was very orderly and clean. It knitted together several complicated arguments and concluded with something punchy like, "as you can see, these ideas remain contentious." It probably took me a while to write whereas, I'm sure, she'd gotten hers off hours before. I started to feel that something better was possible.

Boy, it was so good. It didn't make me feel all nervous and self conscious the way the pleasure from reading good writing does. Sometimes the intimacy of reading good writing makes me feel very nervous. Her's didn't. Maybe because there was just enough "smartness" to keep some of the icky closeness at bay.

I fell in love with the expository essay in high school when I discovered its form helped me hide from having to write about or feel feelings. Once, when I was thirteen, I attempted to write a short story. It was about a young oboe player who, during her freshman year at St. Olaf college in Minnesota, fell in love with another young, female trombone player. There may have been a marching band scene...I don't quite recall. (St. Olaf doesn't even have a football team!) Anyway, it so terrified me that I rolled up the loose-leaf notebook paper, emptied a yellow fish-food container of its contents, shoved the roll inside and haven't opened it since.

But, I still have it.

Anyway, the point is I cannot fathom writing anything like Lamott describes in her book. Inventing characters? What? A plot? Are you serious?

So here's the confession. I am terrified by creative writers. It's true. They scare the crap out of me. I've recently taken to golfing with one or two, but that's about as close as I get. I feel like a terribly uptight German grandmother around them.
But the fact remains: my writing evidences this particular character.

Elbow and Lamott agree. You have to get out of the way a little bit. I'm hoping that these two writers give me a bit of permission to try for something better in my writing. Something that doesn't make one pucker while reading it. I think taking some risks in my early drafts will help generate at least one or two bits of that nice writing.

Writing journal post for Thursday

It's late. I've been working since 8:30 this morning an I am tired. But I know I won't be able to sleep until I write about writing. I want to write about a few things but I'm not sure if they are related. First, we workshopped a section of the first ten pages of my MA project in class today. I am deeply invested in the ideas but know the paper needs a lot of work. These are ideas I want to continue developing in relation to my PhD work but am anxious about the amount of work the paper needs. I know that to revise the paper for this class I will need to go out on the "sea voyage" Peter Elbow writes about. This is exciting but I am afraid I won't know how to get back to the shore. There is too much going on in the paper for it to work. I was going to write "work well" but now I believe that it's too choked to work. Here are some memories I have about writing it:
-I was absolutely panicked. My committee wasn't giving me any feedback about my writing, despite my repeated requests. Everyone kept saying to just keep writing...the ideas are good. We wouldn't let you proceed if we thought you would fail. I wanted someone to tell me (give me permission?) to scale the thing down. I wanted someone to give me some critical feedback about my writing. I received two helpful comments: 1) the theory was too dense and the reader couldn't understand what I was trying to say and 2) if I was going to make a request of a reader I needed to be clear about it. This was helpful.

-People wanted to see the theory attached to something material or personal. I should open with a story about how these ideas were connected to my life. Some members wanted me to historically situate the piece. Some wanted me to address accents and class. I felt overwhelmed and guilty that I could not attend to all these things. So I sutured things together; it felt very forced and outside of my scope of knowledge. I can now identify places in this text where I was writing to meet the specific requests of my committee.

-I called my chair, crying, "I just can't write! I don't know what to say! I don't know how to do this!" Just keep writing. Keep writing. Write. Unrelated to my project I met with JG. Right. For advice about PhD stuff. I mentioned my writing troubles. She said it was probably because the project was out of control and too large. This was the permission I needed and tried to heed. Well, I think I tried to do this but kept receiving advice from my committee. This analysis is missing, that analysis is missing. Situate yourself. Talk about the historical context. Too abstract. What kind of advise do I really want? I'm clearly not asking the right questions.

This piece has voice problems. It's a paper on voice without one. Or with too many. Who was my audience? I asked myself this question when I was writing it and couldn't answer. I thought it was me. Or my committee. I'm still not sure. I need to realize that I do have something to say. I didn't believe that when I was writing it.

My writing style is a mess! I was taught to write by sociologists and philosophers. Now I am in an English program and there is little "life" in my writing. I am present in my writing only by virtue of the "good ideas" present in the text. That was valuable--voice messed up the ideas. But what a screw if you can't actually resonate with the good ideas! No one mentioned that part--that you must actually write so others can understand you. Also, I think if you somehow internalize that you don't have anything to say it's easier to hide behind bad writing.

How was I rewarded for bad writing? I'm still rewarded for bad writing. This feels unfair and stupid. I feel some anger about this. Like I've been duped! Once I took JG's class on Sedgwick I realized this. It scared me so much I almost talked myself out of coming back for the PhD. There were other things going on (mom's gravely ill) but I saw what I needed to do to make a go at this thing and decided, "to hell with writing anyway." Yet, somehow, I'm in this class. I feel like I'm going to be undone by this process. And that's good and necessary.

Writing journal post for Monday

I'm not happy with the writing I did for Classical Rhetoric today. It is my turn on Wednesday to present a "juxtaposition paper" to the group based on three readings: Sprague's "Gorgias" (fragments), McComiskey's "Gorgias and the Art of Rhetoric," and Ballif's "Seduction and Sacrificial Gestures: Gorgias, Helen, and Nothing." I spent a long time reading these three texts closely. By Monday I had written four pages and wrote two more today. I spent the remaining time (today) editing the paper down to 3 pages. I experienced several waves of excitement while writing. Today I cut my office hours short so I could return to the task early. But I found I had a hard time thinking about things clearly...ideas that had lined up yesterday were cloudy and shallow today. Writing I thought was pretty good yesterday was disgusting today. Elbow says this is common and so I tried not to panic. What frustrated me the most was that what I wanted to say was pretty clear in my mind but eluded clarity on the page. I found myself writing and writing around the "good" points I wanted to make. Every time I stopped to read a draft I felt farther away from the interesting ideas in my head. By the time I turned it in I was convinced I had written a bad and shallow paper.
I reflected on the nagging "bad" feelings about the paper and felt pretty comfortable thinking I could get to that "good" writing in a few more drafts. This gave me comfort and a sense of control. If I worked on this paper every day in the morning for just an hour, after a week or two I think it would say what I wanted it to. Right now it feels unruly and rushed. This is a positive change in my thinking about writing. I usually put an inordinate amount of pressure to "write right the first time." Especially if it's for a short response paper. But the issues in the texts are complicated and it takes time to work things out. I had the feeling that this paper could come together in the future and that I would know how to make that happen. In the past I would retreat to that "out of body" experience feeling and just float through the difficult feelings about a piece of writing. I feel pretty positive about this small change.

My morning route

I am still enchanted by bike commuting. Today was a special commute due to the fall equinox. I was hoping to be on the return trip at 3:40 when the sun was expected to hit the equator, signaling the beginning of fall. Instead I was at home, writing a paper. At least I was out and about in the beautiful morning.

On days when I don't commute I find myself feeling pretty depressed. Otherwise, I feel amazing, light, and happy. It's a very stark contrast that I'm not accustomed to feeling. I want to share my route, mainly because Google enables photos and other interesting interactive features. In this way, I feel that I can share a small piece of my commute with anyone who may be reading!


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Cheers!

Steep learning curves, pt. II

Before I decided to start commuting by bike I read many blogs on the subject. Most people said a fall was inevitable, even something common when one is on the machine as frequently as a commuter.

Well, I'm not yet a commuter nor have I logged many miles on the machine. I'd like to think that my early fall is a sign that I'm ahead of the curve, so to speak, in becoming a "real" cyclist.

Learning curve #2: Never, ever take your eyes off the road to untangle your foot from the toe clips. Even if your foot is really, really tangled.

My right foot got all snaggled in my toe clip and I looked down for two seconds to try and fix it when BAM! My front tire smacks into a 6 inch high curb and I'm over the handlebars before I can say, "holy fucking shit!" I skid on my face for a bit, though my helmet absorbed most of the impact. The worst part was knowing my splayed out-ass was on display for every passing car. Once I collected myself, scattered bits of my taillight and reconnected my left brake cable, I proceeded shakily up Rt. 32 toward campus:
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I'm glad I fell into a parking lot and not back into the road. So far I am extremely happy I made the decision to switch to the bike. I feel amazing--totally empowered and healthy. I'm in a better mood when I get to campus and sleep like a baby at night. I've already lost a pound or two (I can tell) and I feel totally alive and present in the day.

Miles biked: 30