Here's the thing...so I'm expected to produce a ton of written and oral output of the academic type in the next week. The problem is that in order to do that, I have to shovel a large load of new material into my head, but after 3 years of grad school, it feels like I've reached capacity for new ingestion of written material.
That is to say, I have reader's block.
Anyone have suggestions for practices to get around this weird problem? And quickly? I really need to dig into this stuff tomorrow in a serious way...
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Mysterious Case of Reader's Block
I'm a writer, an incurable reader, a narrative theorist, a media researcher, a scholar/author/writer/consultant, a PK, and the Queen of Soup Making. I write a lot, and I've taught a wide range of topics in universities. Along my journey I've picked up a PhD in Communication from Purdue and 2 degrees in English. I've been turning my ideas about communication as author-audience relationships into a communication paradigm that can be applied to a wide range of situations. I'm also writing a historical mystery series. I'm a member of Sisters in Crime, and the co-chair of the Mystery and Detective Fiction Caucus of the Popular Culture Association. My MA thesis focused on connections between T. S. Eliot and Thoreau, who each wondered about how to remain still and still moving. Before I went to grad school, I spent 7 years working for a division of HarperCollins Publishers.
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2 comments:
Been there. Too many times. Man. Crap. I don't know how to tell you to do it without chemicals. Perhaps Pop Tarts? Watch a lot of bad TV until you're absolutely aching to read a book for intellectual stimulation? Convince yourself that when you come out on the other side of this you will be a world-class academic and mid-list author who has to write a novel once a year to keep her tenure and ...
I'll shut up now.
Rodger: Thanks for the suggestions. :) After a good night of sleep, I remembered that when I couldn't possibly read Alain Badiou (last semester) or my statistics book (the previous semester), the edge was taken off by accompanying it a long hot bath. I'm also thinking a walk to the farmer's market may help.
Hoping some of this will help...
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