![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arguchikin a comment to the illustrious ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
boutell, i contemplated "stealing" his weekly blog feature idea. he writes a sonnet every monday, and calls it Monday Fourteen. i'm not quite so poetically inclined, but i am *very* impressed by how many sonnets he has written...one per week...it adds up into an impressive amount of writing. that is to say nothing of the impressive number he produced during the blog-a-thon, when he wrote 48 sonnets in 24 hours, to benefit Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders). i want to be like boutell!
my own current writing problem, for which accumulating "an impressive amount of writing" would be most helpful, is this pesky dissertation i need to write. it is a problem for me for two reasons:
1. i am overwhelmed by the enormity of the project. paralyzed, even, to the point of being almost completely blocked. when i was an undergrad (and even in graduate seminars), i experienced this same thing. it would lead me to over-research projects, and to put off actually *writing* them until the night before they were due. for a graduate seminar paper, that usually meant turning them in late, because i simply cannot produce a decent paper of the requisite length (12-25 pages, depending on the seminar) in 24 hours. oh yeah, i'm a perfectionist (a failed one, of course--is there any other kind?--but one who hasn't quite thrown in the towel), so i won't turn in a paper that i don't consider at least "decent." need i say that i am even *less* likely to be able to write my dissertation in a day? plus there's no due date, so even if i *could* write it in a day: which day? it's time to lay down a new groove.
2. i am currently working (i.e. earning my living) as a union organizer. while this work *definitely* requires me to think critically and analyze other peoples' arguments, as well as to respond to those arguments in a thoughtful manner, it doesn't require the same kind of critical thinking and analysis required for academic writing. i mean, it *is* the same: in *kind* but not in *degree*. or something like that. also, the language for union organizing vs. academic writing is a bit different. put simply, i have to be a lot more succinct, when i'm having a conversation with someone face-to face; and the specialized language i would use in an academic paper is simply not appropriate in that context. (incidentally, i do *not* consider "specialized language" and "jargon" to be the same thing--don't even get me started on the jargon warriors!) my point is...it's not easy, shifting from union organizing mode into academic analysis/writing mode, which entails shifting into the aforementioned analytical and linguistic modes, while also switching from a social to a solitary mode, and from speech to writing. live journal is a good transitional medium; it exists somewhere near the nexus of midpoints that might conceivably "join" all of those modes. it's more social than word processing, it's written but conversational, a forum of sorts. dig?
so anyway, i was thinking i might write a weekly cultural criticism piece, either about a news article from the previous week, or about a book i'm reading or a film i have seen. alternatively, i might try to boil down some piece of scholarship i'm working with into its key concepts and main points, and to put it into "everyday" language. (sorry if that sounds condescending--i don't mean it that way, but i recognize that making linguistic distinctions between specialized and everyday discourse is dicey.) most of this stuff will be at least related to my dissertation, but it won't be dissertation writing per se...because that would be boring! :-) but the goal is to get me writing, and the hope is that once i start writing *this* thing, it won't be such a big deal to start writing *that* thing; and maybe writing *this* thing will even jump start the writing of *that* thing. then i can sit back and reap the benefits of accumulated written product (AWP). and maybe graduate someday.
what do you think? would you read it? would you find it interesting? i would, of course, use lj-cuts (i know how...see above...) to avoid overloading everyones' friends pages...
boutell, i contemplated "stealing" his weekly blog feature idea. he writes a sonnet every monday, and calls it Monday Fourteen. i'm not quite so poetically inclined, but i am *very* impressed by how many sonnets he has written...one per week...it adds up into an impressive amount of writing. that is to say nothing of the impressive number he produced during the blog-a-thon, when he wrote 48 sonnets in 24 hours, to benefit Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders). i want to be like boutell!my own current writing problem, for which accumulating "an impressive amount of writing" would be most helpful, is this pesky dissertation i need to write. it is a problem for me for two reasons:
1. i am overwhelmed by the enormity of the project. paralyzed, even, to the point of being almost completely blocked. when i was an undergrad (and even in graduate seminars), i experienced this same thing. it would lead me to over-research projects, and to put off actually *writing* them until the night before they were due. for a graduate seminar paper, that usually meant turning them in late, because i simply cannot produce a decent paper of the requisite length (12-25 pages, depending on the seminar) in 24 hours. oh yeah, i'm a perfectionist (a failed one, of course--is there any other kind?--but one who hasn't quite thrown in the towel), so i won't turn in a paper that i don't consider at least "decent." need i say that i am even *less* likely to be able to write my dissertation in a day? plus there's no due date, so even if i *could* write it in a day: which day? it's time to lay down a new groove.
2. i am currently working (i.e. earning my living) as a union organizer. while this work *definitely* requires me to think critically and analyze other peoples' arguments, as well as to respond to those arguments in a thoughtful manner, it doesn't require the same kind of critical thinking and analysis required for academic writing. i mean, it *is* the same: in *kind* but not in *degree*. or something like that. also, the language for union organizing vs. academic writing is a bit different. put simply, i have to be a lot more succinct, when i'm having a conversation with someone face-to face; and the specialized language i would use in an academic paper is simply not appropriate in that context. (incidentally, i do *not* consider "specialized language" and "jargon" to be the same thing--don't even get me started on the jargon warriors!) my point is...it's not easy, shifting from union organizing mode into academic analysis/writing mode, which entails shifting into the aforementioned analytical and linguistic modes, while also switching from a social to a solitary mode, and from speech to writing. live journal is a good transitional medium; it exists somewhere near the nexus of midpoints that might conceivably "join" all of those modes. it's more social than word processing, it's written but conversational, a forum of sorts. dig?
so anyway, i was thinking i might write a weekly cultural criticism piece, either about a news article from the previous week, or about a book i'm reading or a film i have seen. alternatively, i might try to boil down some piece of scholarship i'm working with into its key concepts and main points, and to put it into "everyday" language. (sorry if that sounds condescending--i don't mean it that way, but i recognize that making linguistic distinctions between specialized and everyday discourse is dicey.) most of this stuff will be at least related to my dissertation, but it won't be dissertation writing per se...because that would be boring! :-) but the goal is to get me writing, and the hope is that once i start writing *this* thing, it won't be such a big deal to start writing *that* thing; and maybe writing *this* thing will even jump start the writing of *that* thing. then i can sit back and reap the benefits of accumulated written product (AWP). and maybe graduate someday.
what do you think? would you read it? would you find it interesting? i would, of course, use lj-cuts (i know how...see above...) to avoid overloading everyones' friends pages...
