Trying Not to Be Slightly Offended by This...

From a book on conducting qualitative research, talking about writing up field notes from participant observation of people in a setting:

"It happens that observers differ enormously in the detail and length of the field notes they keep. Some seem to be frustrated novelists and have been known to write 40 or more single-spaced pages on a three-hour period of observation." --Lofland and Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings (1984), p. 67

And people (well, maybe it's just me, but today it's an editorial pluralism) wonder why, although novelists and qualitative field researchers both learn from observing people in settings, these two groups are somewhat estranged from each other?

Stereotypes, stereotypes...My primary question is, since when did any frustrated novelist write that much? It seems most frustrated novelists' problem is more of the writing too little than writing too much...

But maybe that's just my perception of the way the writing world works.

The larger question is, why can't we all just get along, since fiction writers and qualitative researchers are doing remarkably similar things (I should know, since I'm part of both groups)?

Definitions for "Writer" and "Author" (1)

Hm, not surprisingly, since we're writers (or are we?), authoring things (or do we?), people of my ilk tend to get in heated discussions about what defines a "writer" vs. an "author."

Here's the link to the wide-ranging (if somewhat repetitive) and long-running discussion--more commentary on my take on it later, after this insane day of longness on little sleep is over (I'm actually having a remarkably good day, but it seems a good occasion for whining).

Help! Help! I'm Feeling Repressed!

So I don't officially return to winter and life-as-usual until Friday, with school starting up again next week, but I wanted to emerge from my bloggery silence at least momentarily to say Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a blessed Epiphany to all of you.

I also wanted to talk about something that's been gelling in my mind gradually over the last few weeks--the connection between social structures and the act of writing. I'm not talking largely about material structures here (those that produce money and food, etc.), but those social expectations which are bound up with the act of writing within different contexts.

The thing is, I think so many of the stresses we face as writers of all kinds are closely related to different kinds of social expectations we and others have for the act of writing within varied contexts. Writing a note for one's cat sitter is hardly seen to be "writing" at all, whereas writing a full-length novel, dissertation, publishable journal article, or memoir is seen to be often admirable, nearly unachievable, perhaps egotistical, and yet, by some, to be not all that different from writing that note to the cat sitter.

And things get more complicated when one talks oneself into actually writing the thing and bullying oneself into getting the words down on the page. Because another part of the social system is gauging whether those words are good enough to be published. And actually following through and sending them to an agent to see what they say. Usually doing all these things while you have other social expectations around you for you to be doing other things at the same time that there are expectations that you will follow through with this project, since you were silly enough to tell people that you were working on it.

These expectations both support you and undercut your endeavor. People around you see you as a writer and/or scholar of some sort, and that helps and hinders at the same time, both keeping you accountable and blocking you with the expectation of greatness. You have bullied yourself into thinking that you're a writer of some sort, and that also helps and hinders at the same time in many of the same ways as the external pressures.

Anyway, I have more to say on this subject, but I'll save it for another day. Anyone have any thoughts about internal and external social pressures they face in their writing tasks?

But Wait, that's Writing, Too...

I've noticed something in myself lately. When I'm writing an academic essay, I'm tempted not to see that as "writing" in the same way working on my novel is writing. Journaling, I see as writing, if informal writing, but writing an email I don't think of as writing.

When I think about this from a definitional standpoint, this seems very odd to me. The oddest distinction is that between writing an academic essay (not writing) and writing a creative non-fiction essay (definitely writing), particularly since I use somewhat similar processes to produce both pieces of work, and often each can inform the other.

Looking at this distinction more closely led me to some insights as to why this might be so, but has also made me more determined to break down this bizarre understanding of what's "writing" and what's not by applying the lessons I've learned in the academic world's view of writing to my creative writing, and vice versa.

Here are some of the things I can gain by cross-pollinating the understandings from the creative and academic writing worlds:

My creative side:

• Recognizes that writing, even non-fiction writing, is a creative process
• Understands there is an intuitive portion to writing, and that emotions often get involved
• Recognizes that the way my brain--and the creative process--works is a bit mysterious at times

My academic side:

• Knows how to narrow down a topic and find material to work from
• Moves from material to finished product
• Sees how my work as a contribution to a discussion
• Seeing writing as a legitimate thing to spend time pursuing (since it's part of what's expected of me)

Now if I could just apply the lessons from each side to what I do in the other side, and learn to see that as a legitimate thing to do, my view of writing would be a much more holistic one. And then if I could also incorporate what I've learned from informal types of writing, such as blogging, emailing, IMing, etc. into that view, I'd really be getting somewhere.

Of course, I'd still want and need to focus on different genres at particular times (and I'm still likely to get a little grumpy if I have to spend too much time on my less-favorite genres), but it would be nice to feel that I was accomplishing something writerly and learning lessons about writing no matter what I was working on...

Anyone have similar noticings about weird beliefs they've had privileging kinds of writing over others? I see the recent article about digital literacy in the NY Times (thanks to Rob Bruno for pointing it out) as addressing a similar concern by asking questions about what "real reading" is...