Some days the deadlines seem overwhelming. The list of tasks seems endless. The number of licks it will get to the faux-chocolate center of the dissertation lollipop seems to be one of those numbers that go on and on. Like Pi.
On those days, it's easy to forget a few crucial things. That, for instance, one likes to think. One likes to write. One even likes to turn double-hyphens into em dashes. That one chose one's dissertation topic (or...[insert long writing project here]) because one actually likes thinking and writing about it.
And then something-or-other happens (it's not always even easy to pinpoint what), but the waking occurs. One opens the document. It makes a certain amount of sense. Adding a few citations to Zotero no longer seems like a Sisyphean task, but something that's eminently manageable. One re-reads a few pages from, say, Walter Benjamin, and it jumpstarts the thinking and theorizing battery in one's brain. One starts to think about one's dissertation not as the weight of Atlas on one's shoulders, but something one gets to do. And one begins to revise and write. And it is good.
I think it can't be emphasized enough that I'm not simply talking about a change of attitude here, or a simple matter of procrastination and motivation. This is a forgetting and remembering of self. In these off periods, quite frankly, I'm convinced the grad student or writer literally forgets and/or strongly doubts his or her identity as a writer or a scholar. (Perhaps I'm not either of those things after all, the voices might murmur. Not really.)
Sometimes, in the good cases, something triggers an awakening and the demons flee. The students remember with joy who they are and that they enjoy it. That they really are writers and scholars. That it only takes 1500 or so licks to get to the center of the dissertation pop (the rest of those innumerable numbers are after the decimal point, so they don't matter). That they're already a good way in. And that the center is sweet and chewy.
(Now if only we could find a way for this forgetting to stop happening at least once during any major writing project, for both graduate students and writers in general...)
Showing posts with label self-management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-management. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Writing Lessons: The Big Nasty Exams
So I'm still not sure whether Blogosphere has fully accepted my apology, but as a show of good faith, I plan to do a series of posts on writing lessons learned during my bloggy absence.
The first--what I learned about writing in general from my Big Nasty PhD Exams (which I passed, by the way--woohoo! I'm ABD officially!).
Okay, so as I think I explained a few months ago, my exams consisted of 20 hours' worth of written exams in the period of a month on a variety of subjects related to courses I'd taken, followed by a 2-hour defense of what I'd written.
As it turned out, most of my exams were 2-hour in-house exams, which meant that on Mondays and Wednesdays, I studied for a particular question during the day, then from 3-5 p.m., came into the department and wrote on a laptop as fast as I could for 2 hours.
From this, I learned that I could create 7 nearly-coherent pages of prose in 2 hours. A valuable lesson, indeed. I'm pretty sure I can repeat this project in other academic and non-fiction writing circumstances, now that I have this skill. In fact, I'm thinking about using a "write a bunch in two hours several times per week" strategy for drafting the early stages of my dissertation.
The only downside? If you have to add citations, it can be a royal pain to go back in and add them afterward, as I learned when I tried the same strategy for my take-home prelim. So if I do this with my dissertation, I'm planning to have all my references pre-loaded into Zotero and clear in my head, ready to pull in clearly, BEFORE my 2-hour sessions begin.
I do like this idea, though--I think it would work better for me than the also-interesting "write a page a day" strategy mentioned by a colleague. See, with research and editing rhythms, it doesn't always work well to write something every single day. If I plan to do two or three 2-hour sessions per week (more if I'm feeling inspired), it will get a lot of pages out there, leaving me lots of research and editing and simmering time between. I think it just might work, both for the upcoming dissertation and in the future for other potential non-fiction drafting.
Woohoo! The Big Nasty Exams have both been successfully completed, AND have given me another writing skill. This is a beautiful thing.
The first--what I learned about writing in general from my Big Nasty PhD Exams (which I passed, by the way--woohoo! I'm ABD officially!).
Okay, so as I think I explained a few months ago, my exams consisted of 20 hours' worth of written exams in the period of a month on a variety of subjects related to courses I'd taken, followed by a 2-hour defense of what I'd written.
As it turned out, most of my exams were 2-hour in-house exams, which meant that on Mondays and Wednesdays, I studied for a particular question during the day, then from 3-5 p.m., came into the department and wrote on a laptop as fast as I could for 2 hours.
From this, I learned that I could create 7 nearly-coherent pages of prose in 2 hours. A valuable lesson, indeed. I'm pretty sure I can repeat this project in other academic and non-fiction writing circumstances, now that I have this skill. In fact, I'm thinking about using a "write a bunch in two hours several times per week" strategy for drafting the early stages of my dissertation.
The only downside? If you have to add citations, it can be a royal pain to go back in and add them afterward, as I learned when I tried the same strategy for my take-home prelim. So if I do this with my dissertation, I'm planning to have all my references pre-loaded into Zotero and clear in my head, ready to pull in clearly, BEFORE my 2-hour sessions begin.
I do like this idea, though--I think it would work better for me than the also-interesting "write a page a day" strategy mentioned by a colleague. See, with research and editing rhythms, it doesn't always work well to write something every single day. If I plan to do two or three 2-hour sessions per week (more if I'm feeling inspired), it will get a lot of pages out there, leaving me lots of research and editing and simmering time between. I think it just might work, both for the upcoming dissertation and in the future for other potential non-fiction drafting.
Woohoo! The Big Nasty Exams have both been successfully completed, AND have given me another writing skill. This is a beautiful thing.
Monday, September 14, 2009
More than Halfway Up the Climbing Wall of Prelims...
Deborah pauses, moistens her hands with chalk from the bag tied around her waist, and tightens the muscles inside her climbing shoes so that they curl more firmly around the footholds.
She looks down toward her feet to find the next sturdy foothold, then looks up. Look! The top of the wall! It looks so close now that her oral defense date is set for October 5, and now that all the written exams must be completed by next Thursday.
Only a few more footholds, she thinks. You can do this. Twelve hours of written tests down this month, eight to go. Three more in-house exams of two hours each, and finishing up that take-home before preparing for the two hour oral defense.
Her mental muscles are getting tired and a bit trembly, but the adrenaline is high. Surely she can push through. Moistening her hands once more, she takes a deep breath and moves one of them up toward the next handhold.
Onward and upward. Onward and upward.
She looks down toward her feet to find the next sturdy foothold, then looks up. Look! The top of the wall! It looks so close now that her oral defense date is set for October 5, and now that all the written exams must be completed by next Thursday.
Only a few more footholds, she thinks. You can do this. Twelve hours of written tests down this month, eight to go. Three more in-house exams of two hours each, and finishing up that take-home before preparing for the two hour oral defense.
Her mental muscles are getting tired and a bit trembly, but the adrenaline is high. Surely she can push through. Moistening her hands once more, she takes a deep breath and moves one of them up toward the next handhold.
Onward and upward. Onward and upward.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
My New Writing Practice
I used to have this wonderful routine down, back before I went back to grad school. I was working more than full-time, so I'd work my 10 or 12 hours in a day. Then I'd come home, maybe play some piano, maybe take a walk (with or without my friend across the street) to clear my head from the stresses of the day.
And then, around 9 or 10 p.m., I'd sit down in the living room with the TV off, I'd journal out whatever thoughts were running around in my head, and I'd think and write at least 100 words of my creative project (often several pages). The writing would sometimes take me up till 2 or 3 a.m. And then I'd get up at 7 and start over again.
Retrospectively, I'm not sure how I had the stamina. But it worked well.
The problem with grad school is in part that I often work at home. It then becomes harder to find practices that clear my head and help me to move from one thing--and one kind of thing--to another. Especially when so much of my work of all kinds is done on the computer.
But I've begun exercising again (sans iPod because it died) and that is helping. And last night I discovered that lighting a few candles in my living room and staring at them for a few minutes also helps.
Which is good because I have to switch back and forth between heavily academic tasks, errands, and this creative project for my assistantship for the rest of the week. And the creative project has passed most of the research phase and moved into the writing stage. And there's a pretty strong deadline, so I need to get into the creative writing mode pretty frequently. And quickly. And well.
You go, candles. You go.
And then, around 9 or 10 p.m., I'd sit down in the living room with the TV off, I'd journal out whatever thoughts were running around in my head, and I'd think and write at least 100 words of my creative project (often several pages). The writing would sometimes take me up till 2 or 3 a.m. And then I'd get up at 7 and start over again.
Retrospectively, I'm not sure how I had the stamina. But it worked well.
The problem with grad school is in part that I often work at home. It then becomes harder to find practices that clear my head and help me to move from one thing--and one kind of thing--to another. Especially when so much of my work of all kinds is done on the computer.
But I've begun exercising again (sans iPod because it died) and that is helping. And last night I discovered that lighting a few candles in my living room and staring at them for a few minutes also helps.
Which is good because I have to switch back and forth between heavily academic tasks, errands, and this creative project for my assistantship for the rest of the week. And the creative project has passed most of the research phase and moved into the writing stage. And there's a pretty strong deadline, so I need to get into the creative writing mode pretty frequently. And quickly. And well.
You go, candles. You go.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Writing Practices: On the Beauty of Lists
So yesterday I made a list.
It's a beautiful list.
It contains all of the things I want/need to get done this summer, complete with estimates of how long I want/need to devote to each item.
It includes studying for the Big Nasty Tests and work for my assistantship at the top. But fun stuff is on the list too, as are my creative projects.
It's remarkably lovely to have a list. Before, it felt like the pressure of the unwritten things to do was clogging the artery my motivation was supposed to be spouting up from (sorry, gross metaphor, there).
Anyway, I even pencilled in time for sleep.
It's a lot like a time budget, really. You know how they say that having a budget means you get to spend a certain amount each month for those things on your list? That's how I feel.
Now we'll see if I can do it. That's another story.
But it feels more manageable now that I have a list.
It's a beautiful list.
It contains all of the things I want/need to get done this summer, complete with estimates of how long I want/need to devote to each item.
It includes studying for the Big Nasty Tests and work for my assistantship at the top. But fun stuff is on the list too, as are my creative projects.
It's remarkably lovely to have a list. Before, it felt like the pressure of the unwritten things to do was clogging the artery my motivation was supposed to be spouting up from (sorry, gross metaphor, there).
Anyway, I even pencilled in time for sleep.
It's a lot like a time budget, really. You know how they say that having a budget means you get to spend a certain amount each month for those things on your list? That's how I feel.
Now we'll see if I can do it. That's another story.
But it feels more manageable now that I have a list.
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Difficulty with Having Been a Slave...
I've been listening to The Chronicles of Narnia in the car on CD lately, and recently, in The Horse and His Boy, I heard a quote that struck with me. The gist of it was something along the lines of "The problem is, of course, that once you've been a slave, and then you're free, it's difficult to make yourself do quite as much as you can do. Because of course, what you can do and what you think you can do aren't the same thing."
This stuck in my head because I've been thinking lately about self-management a lot lately, what with the switch a few years ago from being a full-time employee when my tasks were in part demanded by others, shifting down to a graduate program where somewhat less was required of me, then back up into a more demanding program.
The annoying part is that, immediately after I started my first program where less was demanded externally, I was able to self-manage quite well to produce a lot outside of what was externally demanded of me. Then, frustratingly, came a period of lesser production as I shifted disciplinary perspectives within a program where more was required of me.
The thing is, now that I'm used to both the more demanding program and the new disciplinary perspective (I'm an accumulative learner), I finally feel as though I'm back up to--and in fact, have surpassed, thanks to the extra external expectations--my initial grad student productivity, a fact that bodes well for the less-structured time ahead.
I just hope that, now that I've made it into the zone (in a more balanced way, no less), I'm able to port this motivation and productivity into keeping up the creative output as well as into playing hard in the breaks I can get from keeping up the self-management. I think it might be possible, but I'm certainly not expecting it to go perfectly...
Ah, the efforts we make to temper hope with realism and vice-versa, hoping that the realism won't keep you from doing your best and that the hope won't raise your expectations to the point where you can't adjust if and when it becomes necessary.
This stuck in my head because I've been thinking lately about self-management a lot lately, what with the switch a few years ago from being a full-time employee when my tasks were in part demanded by others, shifting down to a graduate program where somewhat less was required of me, then back up into a more demanding program.
The annoying part is that, immediately after I started my first program where less was demanded externally, I was able to self-manage quite well to produce a lot outside of what was externally demanded of me. Then, frustratingly, came a period of lesser production as I shifted disciplinary perspectives within a program where more was required of me.
The thing is, now that I'm used to both the more demanding program and the new disciplinary perspective (I'm an accumulative learner), I finally feel as though I'm back up to--and in fact, have surpassed, thanks to the extra external expectations--my initial grad student productivity, a fact that bodes well for the less-structured time ahead.
I just hope that, now that I've made it into the zone (in a more balanced way, no less), I'm able to port this motivation and productivity into keeping up the creative output as well as into playing hard in the breaks I can get from keeping up the self-management. I think it might be possible, but I'm certainly not expecting it to go perfectly...
Ah, the efforts we make to temper hope with realism and vice-versa, hoping that the realism won't keep you from doing your best and that the hope won't raise your expectations to the point where you can't adjust if and when it becomes necessary.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
*Sigh*: Too Much Inspiration
Okay, so Thursday night I found a great (of course time-intensive at least one day per week for the next few months) site of study for my dissertation research. This is energizing, amazing, and lovely. Unfortunately, it's not the best timing, what with all of the other aforementioned tasks that need to be taking up my time now. It's definitely worth piling on, though.
Ah well...somehow it will all get done. If I go start to hack off at least one of the monster's heads, then he'll be down to a couple dozen, but one of the heads will be gone.
(Sorry about the morbid metaphors, but that's the nature of epic battles, isn't it?)
Ah well...somehow it will all get done. If I go start to hack off at least one of the monster's heads, then he'll be down to a couple dozen, but one of the heads will be gone.
(Sorry about the morbid metaphors, but that's the nature of epic battles, isn't it?)
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Day 17: The Usual Panic Sets In
So, after all the lovely determination I had going on Monday, the usual panic for this time of the semester set in yesterday. That is, I slipped straight past sane, let's-take-this-one-step-at-a-time into ARGHH! How will it all get done in three weeks????
Yup, 'tis edging up on mid-December, folks. Welcome to the end-of-term mood swings leading to a slight insanity (pairs nicely with a glass of merlot). I'm mostly wishing right now that the publishing world of the day hadn't forced poor Wilkie Collins to make his mystery story three-volume-novel length--I'm only about 40% through the 513-page book. Love the story, but there are moments...
At this point, all I'm promising is that by December 19 (which happens to be when the last paper's due), I will have at least another 17,500 new words written and a bunch of revised pages, because that's what's going to have to happen to finish these papers I have due plus all the other assignments I have coming up.
I'm in fact thinking that to preserve the small nicely formed bits of my sanity still lying around (preserve it like pickled herring, but different), I should shift my goal to be 35,000 total words in the period stretching from Nov. 1 to that date, rather than trying to pressure myself to reach the 25,000 by Dec. 1.
The thing is, it's better for me to panic now than to leave the stuff any later. The problem is, a resistant part of me KNOWS that I'm trying to move my panic earlier to get better results, and is seeking to subvert that move by decreasing the urgency... That side must be beaten down.
Yup, 'tis edging up on mid-December, folks. Welcome to the end-of-term mood swings leading to a slight insanity (pairs nicely with a glass of merlot). I'm mostly wishing right now that the publishing world of the day hadn't forced poor Wilkie Collins to make his mystery story three-volume-novel length--I'm only about 40% through the 513-page book. Love the story, but there are moments...
At this point, all I'm promising is that by December 19 (which happens to be when the last paper's due), I will have at least another 17,500 new words written and a bunch of revised pages, because that's what's going to have to happen to finish these papers I have due plus all the other assignments I have coming up.
I'm in fact thinking that to preserve the small nicely formed bits of my sanity still lying around (preserve it like pickled herring, but different), I should shift my goal to be 35,000 total words in the period stretching from Nov. 1 to that date, rather than trying to pressure myself to reach the 25,000 by Dec. 1.
The thing is, it's better for me to panic now than to leave the stuff any later. The problem is, a resistant part of me KNOWS that I'm trying to move my panic earlier to get better results, and is seeking to subvert that move by decreasing the urgency... That side must be beaten down.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Day 13: The Leaves Might Be Dead, But I'm not Quite Yet
Depressing time of year, November. Here in Indiana, the leaves are mostly off the trees now, and any that aren't are being stripped off by the seemingly incessant cold rains. The sky is that lovely oppressive iron grey color, and once again, predictably, I've fallen into a funk, wishing with the king in Dr. Seuss's Bartholomew and the Oobleck that I could invent a new kind of precipitation.
Or at least have some snow, since it's prettier than rain. Or perhaps hibernate, like the bears.
Of course, there are several other factors adding to this mood. There are several people I'm waiting to hear back from regarding whether I can get a hold of items for my end-of-semester research papers this term, as well as for possibilities for exactly what I'll be doing next semester. And then there are questions with who I'll get to see and when during the Christmas break.
So basically, if I were given the task of marketing The Month of November, I might not be able to come up today with a better slogan than:
NOVEMBER. NOT MUCH FUN.
Then again, unlike the leaves, and despite this miserable waiting (how come Advent, the liturgical season of waiting, always seems to come early to me, I ask?) on several fronts, I'm not dead yet. The glass is half-full as well--granted, at the moment it's half-filled with rain, perhaps, but it's definitely not all bad.
Or at least have some snow, since it's prettier than rain. Or perhaps hibernate, like the bears.
Of course, there are several other factors adding to this mood. There are several people I'm waiting to hear back from regarding whether I can get a hold of items for my end-of-semester research papers this term, as well as for possibilities for exactly what I'll be doing next semester. And then there are questions with who I'll get to see and when during the Christmas break.
So basically, if I were given the task of marketing The Month of November, I might not be able to come up today with a better slogan than:
NOVEMBER. NOT MUCH FUN.
Then again, unlike the leaves, and despite this miserable waiting (how come Advent, the liturgical season of waiting, always seems to come early to me, I ask?) on several fronts, I'm not dead yet. The glass is half-full as well--granted, at the moment it's half-filled with rain, perhaps, but it's definitely not all bad.
- I'm halfway through my writing experiment, and I'm on track.
- I'm quite a bit more than halfway through my semester, and the next couple of weeks are lighter ones for school assignments, which means I can get ahead on my school assignments and still have space to work on some creative projects too.
- I live a pretty privileged life, really--food, clothes, shelter, grad student life that's intellectually stimulating, etc.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Day 3: Just Imagine Little Schem-y Tent-y Fingers...
Okay, so I have to admit it feels a bit like cheating, this being able to ride the wave of the NaNoWriMo energy AND also have deadlines to add fuel to the fire. But the thing is, I think I needed both to finish the Herculean task of the weekend. And the thing is, the sort of speed-writing they do at NaNoWriMo is the sort I'm going to have to do academically next fall during my preliminary exams, so it's a really good thing for me that I'm combining the two right now in my NaWriMo experiment.
At any rate, my weekend was rather sleep-shorted and my Sunday wasn't QUITE as restful as my Sundays usually are, but I did get at least a bit of rest on Sunday, and the ICA conference paper submission deadlines somehow got met--the first abstract sent out on Saturday, which was the deadline for that one, and then the other two papers tonight by 11 p.m. Eastern time (the last one literally slipped in under the wire with seconds to spare).
It's good for me, this re-development of a willingness to do the best I can in the space I have to allot to a project before its deadline, then to fling it into (virtual) space to see what the response is. I was thinking about this the other day, that I used to do this all the time with writing in the business world and was mostly fine with the process, though I wished I had more time to polish.
Although it's good to have more time to polish things and take more time for revision, there's also a merit in the kinds of speed-writing and speed-submitting exercises such an environment provides you with, and so I'm thankful that my academic life is teaching me to take on that challenge, and that my NaWriMo challenge is helping me to also mix in other more creative genres into that goal. Hopefully, once I've gotten in the habit of speed-writing and speedishly-revising and speedishly-submitting in a variety of genres, I'll learn to be more skillful at varying my speeds in a variety of forms whenever needed.
Oh, and what I'm REALLY hoping is that my NaWriMo exercise is reasonable enough that, unlike so many people's experiences of NaNoWriMo, it's sustainable--if this works as well as I hope it does, I'm hoping to make every month a NaWriMo month.
Anyway, I do have this week's catapult magazine article yet to revise one more time and send out for good measure before I sleep, so I'd better get back to it.
Before I go, though, here are the numbers for future reference, after what's been officially day 3 of NaWriMo:
At any rate, my weekend was rather sleep-shorted and my Sunday wasn't QUITE as restful as my Sundays usually are, but I did get at least a bit of rest on Sunday, and the ICA conference paper submission deadlines somehow got met--the first abstract sent out on Saturday, which was the deadline for that one, and then the other two papers tonight by 11 p.m. Eastern time (the last one literally slipped in under the wire with seconds to spare).
It's good for me, this re-development of a willingness to do the best I can in the space I have to allot to a project before its deadline, then to fling it into (virtual) space to see what the response is. I was thinking about this the other day, that I used to do this all the time with writing in the business world and was mostly fine with the process, though I wished I had more time to polish.
Although it's good to have more time to polish things and take more time for revision, there's also a merit in the kinds of speed-writing and speed-submitting exercises such an environment provides you with, and so I'm thankful that my academic life is teaching me to take on that challenge, and that my NaWriMo challenge is helping me to also mix in other more creative genres into that goal. Hopefully, once I've gotten in the habit of speed-writing and speedishly-revising and speedishly-submitting in a variety of genres, I'll learn to be more skillful at varying my speeds in a variety of forms whenever needed.
Oh, and what I'm REALLY hoping is that my NaWriMo exercise is reasonable enough that, unlike so many people's experiences of NaNoWriMo, it's sustainable--if this works as well as I hope it does, I'm hoping to make every month a NaWriMo month.
Anyway, I do have this week's catapult magazine article yet to revise one more time and send out for good measure before I sleep, so I'd better get back to it.
Before I go, though, here are the numbers for future reference, after what's been officially day 3 of NaWriMo:
NaWriMo new word count: 4759 (as of 11:00 p.m. EST Nov. 3)
NaWriMo page revision count: 49 (equivalent of 4900 new wds w/in Deborah's scoring system)
NaWriMo submission count: 3 (1 conference paper abstract, 2 conference papers)
Once this catapult article gets out, those counts will go up even a bit more...ah, this NaWriMo thing is going beautifully so far. I love it when a plan comes together.
Once this catapult article gets out, those counts will go up even a bit more...ah, this NaWriMo thing is going beautifully so far. I love it when a plan comes together.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Days 1& 2: Treading that Boundary between Good and Wimpy Self-Excuse
Huge...task...set for myself...this weekend, involving these Monday night deadlines. Which means yes, I'm significantly ahead as far as personal word count goes, but I have the great desire to manufacture several more days' worth of time between now and tomorrow night.
Anyway, let's focus on the positive here. As of the twittering-birds'-time when I went to bed this morning, I had written 3646 new words on 3 different projects, revised 3 pages and submitted one conference paper abstract. That means that as far as these personal goals for this contest I'm ahead by about 2000 words, which puts me on par with NaNoWriMo word counts after 2 days. But...lots to do yet for those pesky external Monday deadlines.
This having a word count and a goal is a fabulous way of pulling out and evaluating the success of my writing practices, as well as becoming intensely aware of all the things inside me that try to resist getting stuff out there on the page.
On Friday night I tried the "reading my notes right before I went to sleep thing" and that seemed to work well, as did the "keeping my notes in mind before jumping in the shower" thing. Caffeine also seemed to work well, and finally later in the evening, pulling out my classic paper-writing movie--Lord of the Rings--as a backdrop really kicked me back into gear.
But listening to music? Not so helpful yesterday. Neither was the 50% off Halloween candy (sugar high only followed by crash and guilt--not so pleasant). Playing piano helped quite a bit, but wasn't the thing yesterday that had me running back to the screen and back to plowing out more pages again. However much I hate it, I think I just needed a break in the middle of the day yesterday for my mind to think things over.
Sometimes I wish I could overcome such simmering times. I'd get so much more done more quickly. Sadly, sometimes they're needed, both for academic and creative projects. One can jump among the projects when one gets stuck, and therefore pick up some productivity that way, but at some point I tend to hit a wall on all projects so my mind can get one figured out. Thus it always has been.
Hm, I think it's good that I'm trying to push myself. It's helping me differentiate between what's a real barrier to getting work done and what's the kind of wimpy excuse I tend to buy from myself because that other part of myself's such an excellent rhetor. :) There's still a lot of gushy ground, though, maddeningly, between the two...
Anyway, let's focus on the positive here. As of the twittering-birds'-time when I went to bed this morning, I had written 3646 new words on 3 different projects, revised 3 pages and submitted one conference paper abstract. That means that as far as these personal goals for this contest I'm ahead by about 2000 words, which puts me on par with NaNoWriMo word counts after 2 days. But...lots to do yet for those pesky external Monday deadlines.
This having a word count and a goal is a fabulous way of pulling out and evaluating the success of my writing practices, as well as becoming intensely aware of all the things inside me that try to resist getting stuff out there on the page.
On Friday night I tried the "reading my notes right before I went to sleep thing" and that seemed to work well, as did the "keeping my notes in mind before jumping in the shower" thing. Caffeine also seemed to work well, and finally later in the evening, pulling out my classic paper-writing movie--Lord of the Rings--as a backdrop really kicked me back into gear.
But listening to music? Not so helpful yesterday. Neither was the 50% off Halloween candy (sugar high only followed by crash and guilt--not so pleasant). Playing piano helped quite a bit, but wasn't the thing yesterday that had me running back to the screen and back to plowing out more pages again. However much I hate it, I think I just needed a break in the middle of the day yesterday for my mind to think things over.
Sometimes I wish I could overcome such simmering times. I'd get so much more done more quickly. Sadly, sometimes they're needed, both for academic and creative projects. One can jump among the projects when one gets stuck, and therefore pick up some productivity that way, but at some point I tend to hit a wall on all projects so my mind can get one figured out. Thus it always has been.
Hm, I think it's good that I'm trying to push myself. It's helping me differentiate between what's a real barrier to getting work done and what's the kind of wimpy excuse I tend to buy from myself because that other part of myself's such an excellent rhetor. :) There's still a lot of gushy ground, though, maddeningly, between the two...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Mindgames; or, the Fine Art of Self-Management
The difficult part in being in occupations involving writing is that so often we are required to manage ourselves to get our stuff done. Many times, we don't even have anyone breathing down our necks to finish our novels except ourselves, and even when we are externally motivated, we still have difficulty getting past our internal roadblocks to getting the work done. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, particularly as an at-times-procrastinatory graduate student with an interest in the workings of rhetoric/persuasion.
The art of self-management, I've been reflecting, is a bizarre one, involving a rhetorical situation that pits oneself against oneself, as both rhetor and audience. In order to convince oneself to do something one does not want to do, one has to:
Anyone else find their process to be similar to or different from this? Anyone have creative ideas for motivating oneself?
The art of self-management, I've been reflecting, is a bizarre one, involving a rhetorical situation that pits oneself against oneself, as both rhetor and audience. In order to convince oneself to do something one does not want to do, one has to:
- Partition the part of oneself that wants to get something done from the part that really does not want to do whatever it is.
- From the perspective of the part that wants to persuade the recalcitrant part, study the audience (i.e., the part that really does not want to do whatever it is). This is, perhaps not surprisingly, difficult, as a large part of one's mind will be resisting this process. Free-writing helps--I think this is why morning pages are so helpful.
- Consider and try motivational strategies. Figuring out what has worked in the past helps with this. But also be creative in finding solutions. Collect these on paper or in your head for later use. Note: Being hostile to one's audience isn't such a good motivational ploy.
- Lather, rinse, repeat. Only do this when needed. The way I look at it, there's no need to do this all the time, as one is not blocked or unmotivated all the time. When you've found a set of formulas that works, no need to muck with them for awhile, until one forgets again. One can get more done when one isn't always fiddling with one's self-motivation processes.
Anyone else find their process to be similar to or different from this? Anyone have creative ideas for motivating oneself?
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