On the Writing Life and Seedlings (Re)Born

So I've posted about it briefly on Facebook, but I truly haven't mentioned here why I've restarted this blog. Here it is: I've finally entered a season of my academic life, for the next few months at least, when it will be possible to actually balance my writing life, both of the academic and the creative varieties, with my teaching life.

It could have been possible over the summer, but I had to move and was pretty burnt out (still recovering from a very full load of teaching so soon after finishing the diss, so regeneration was needed before this semester, which involved a new school and new classes and all the adjustments that come with that.

Despite all that, though, over this summer and into this past semester I was able to crack slowly back into my writing side, like one of those seeds from childhood school projects beginning to germinate and push back up through the dirt surrounded by the inevitable styrofoam cup.

It started small, as it should: a couple of more articles written for the ever-delightful catapult magazine; finally cleaning up a chunk out of my MA thesis from years ago and sharing it at a conference this fall for some great feedback; and then finally revising a couple of chunks of my dissertation intro and extending out the ideas in semi-new directions. I'm grateful to note that both conference papers have been accepted for spring academic conferences. And in the midst of the semester I jotted down some ideas for a diss-related journal article and for turning my diss theory into a book down the road.

Without even talking about my projects for this break, next semester, and the spring (I'll save those for later posts), now that I look at the list of "small" starts, that it's pretty miraculous that I think of this list as small, because my pre-PhD self would have thought of it as a huge list. I won't lie--the PhD process and the dissertation were painful, and I protested much in the midst of them and afterwards. But as I've mentioned here before, my writing muscles have become strong, and my writing stamina grew tremendously from those challenges. I'm delighted by this, and am delighted to be back, firmly planted and with my writing life's metaphorical seedling head again above the soil to the point where it seemed obvious that I would restart this blog.

Sometimes that whole instant gratification thing is overrated, and as my students and I discussed the other way, the work itself--regardless of what happens with it--is valuable. I'm so thankful I was given the strength to stick it out, or I wouldn't be ready for new challenges!

A Plot, a Plot!

I'm ridiculously excited. I love the creative process when it goes this well.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been doing extensive research for this creative writing project for my assistantship. I've been thinking through all the pieces of information I know, and seeing if they fit with the very rough story framework I came up with last week.

Talking with various people to confirm. Floating my ideas past people as the story evolved.

Last night, after I lit my candles in the living room, I was trawling through the web doing some more research and came up with a potential ending for my story.

I slept on it. I woke up. I called around to a few people to confirm that my story was feasible and sounded like it would work for the client. It is, and it does.

I've got a plot! Now just to write the story! Currently I'm waiting a bit on some final key research from some of my contacts, but that should arrive later today. And before then, I can at least start jotting down some parts of the story that don't relate so closely to it.

I love it when a plan comes together (visualize evil tenty fingers).

On the Joy of Research

So last night sometime around 1 or 2 a.m. I got inspired to do some research.

This research had nothing, really, to do with my studying for the Big Nasty Tests I've been studying for.

It was only rather tangentially related, or so I thought, to my dissertation.

Primarily, it was (primarily academic) background research for one of my creative projects.

In searching through Google Scholar and WorldCat for sources to interlibrary loan (reminding me of the beauty of having full access to the academic library system) I found a source that will help my understanding of my dissertation topic, as well as inspiration and good material for that and other potential creative projects.

I also remembered why I like researching these kinds of things. The thrill of the unexpected discovery is fabulous. It's these moments that remind me why I started doing this grad school thing in the first place, and why it's worth sticking it out through the annoying and difficult times.

Now just to plow that delight back into all the other projects I'm supposed to be working on.

Dreams into Fiction

I've had a series of unpleasant dreams this week. No need to get into what they were--I'd just like to state for the record that they were all pretty unpleasant. (Not nightmares, just unpleasant.)

The point is this: I've spent the last half-hour trying to figure out whether it would be useful for one of my characters could have a different series of unpleasant dreams, in one of the stories that's been on the backburner.

It's a beautiful thing when the creaky wheels of that part of my brain start to move. Love it.

A Fresh Take on the Inspired/Hard Work Dichotomy

There's a great posting over at Good Letters on the classic question of whether writing is inspired or whether it's something you do, whether or not the muse shows up. I've never been the person who can entirely drudge along whether or not the muse shows up. There are limits, and at least some writings definitely need their simmering time. On the other hand, I find deadlines to be a remarkably effective tool, at times, for summoning inspiration.

In my view, the mix is there, and quite mysterious. Sometimes I wonder whether I try to control the process too much or too little--I'm usually wondering about one or the other of these variations, in some form. Writing practices are often a good way to balance the two sides, I've found, though there are days I totally forget about them in the heat of deadline-stress.

I'd talk more about this, but I have a bus to Chicago to catch in a few hours to go to a conference, and I'm still finishing up my presentations based on the papers I wrote. Since I won a Top 3 Student paper award for one of them (woohoo!), I'm feeling the pressure to be impressive... Ah well, as Eliot said, "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

Since my laptop died a few months ago, I won't have it with me, so likely I won't be posting again until at least Saturday, when I'll be back. Have a good few days!

*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?)

On Staying Upright While Surfing a Tsunami

Very...difficult... Must concentrate....Back to piles of reading lest I fall over from lack of concentration. Got to...stay...upright.

Surfing a semester tsunami can be a mite challenging, after all.

Okay, back to it. The sooner I can plow through this week's readings, the sooner I can get to getting ahead on my writing and research for my final papers for the semester, two of which are in my dissertation domain and the other which is helping me do background research for a novel I have in mind.

Ah, the joys of feeling the intrinsic desire to stay upright through the last few weeks of this semester, understanding why I really want to do this well rather than slough off... I'm quite blessed to have figured out how to multi-purpose my academic projects, and pick ones not only that really genuinely interest me, but also flow into other academic and creative goals I have. Which in turn gives me super-strong motivation to do them, and do them well.

Woohoo! Surfing can indeed be fun at times.

Hercules Takes on the Writing Life

Here's how it works. I get to sleep properly and go to a neighboring state for Spring Break in another week, after I have successfully completed the Herculean academic/writing tasks in front of me in all my classes. These include (on top of my week-as-usual of stacks of reading and assistantship work, etc.):

• doing a field observation and attending a meeting for my anthropology field project
  
• writing a 4-5 page paper for my "Culture and Society" class drawing on things we've been reading about how to study globalization
  
• preparing a 20-minute presentation on the last section of Kenneth Burke's The Rhetoric of Motives (big text about the study of rhetoric and persuasion) for another class
• taking a mid-term about narrative theory, etc.
• plowing through piles and piles of grading

Oh yeah, and I'm also writing an article for catapult for this Monday because the issue's topic is so good.

It's no finals week list, I grant you, but still...sheesh. I've often thought that we writers and academics should have our own superheroes whose examples we could follow.

Our Hercules figures would be a little crazy but not so unreasonable that we couldn't hope to be like them. Writing Man and Writing Woman would be able to, for instance, plow out a 30 page papers in a single sitting, grade 20 papers with lots of feedback in a single hour, write a really polished novel in a day or two, and so on. (Oh, and I'm taking suggestions on better names for said superheroes.)

I sometimes wonder if things like grad school, the 3-day novel contest, and NaNoWriMo are attempts to set us Herculean tasks to get us to rise to the challenge of following in the footsteps of these imaginary superheroes.

Will I manage this particular Herculean week? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion...

Love-Hate Relationships: The Creative Process

As I think I mentioned earlier, a couple weeks ago I had a breakthrough on how my dissertation ideas might be introduced and how they may well fit together in a coherent whole, and ever since then I've been quite happily devouring my readings for this semester and writing in my journal about new dissertation-thought nuances when they emerge from said readings, often just before I go to bed.

So this morning after the alarm went off at 7:30 I spent an incredibly productive hour and a half lying in bed in that state between sleeping and waking letting my dissertation ideas churn in my head for awhile before I got up to get back to the reading.

All this is a strong counterpoint to my life with my readings before said breakthrough.

The point of all of this is that I've been realizing lately how much I both love and hate the creative process. I sometimes think if it and I were ever thrown on the Jerry Springer show together, it would make for some dramatic television.

I hate:

• How much my emotions are affected during that time before breakthroughs when I believe it will never come together again
• How little control I have about when those breakthroughs come, even if one subscribes to the "keep working at it until the inspiration shows up" philosophy

I love:

• The part after the breakthroughs come and everything starts to come together
• How mysterious the process is and that feeling that the creative breakthroughs are a gift, even if I'm involved in them

I'd like to:

• Be more confident during the pre-breakthrough times of chaos and self-doubt
• Learn to balance the "keep working at it until the inspiration shows up" philosophy with appreciating the mystery and learning when to let a project rest for a time

Anyone have any good stories or comments about their experiences with the creative process?

Lions, Tigers, and Huntington Library Squirrels, Oh My...

So since I've been out here in California, I've been noticing that the squirrels out here act differently than the creepy ones at Purdue--at least the ones on the grounds of the Huntington Library, Museum, and Botanical Gardens, where I've been given the privilege of reading a select number of rare manuscripts for a few days. Seriously, I've never seen squirrels acting with this much confidence before. These squirrels are awesome.

The thing is, I'm convinced it's their environment. See, the grounds of the Huntington mix together a whole range of different kinds of these amazing environments for these squirrels to play in. They can go hang out in the desert for awhile, then go play in the jungle garden before hopping over to the Australian outback...

I'm pretty sure that, surrounded by all these big, fancy plants with very few other animals around, they've convinced themselves they're really lions, tigers, monkeys, and/or kangaroos in squirrel bodies.

Yup, that's right, folks. I'm feeling a Wizard-of-Oz-like story coming on... ("If the squirrels were king of the forest...")

(I may possibly be a little giddy from spending a day outside in the beautiful weather in gorgeous gardens. Tomorrow, back to the Huntington reading room, which is quite nice, too--all the nicer that the research is going well. Then, way too soon, back to Indiana fall weather and the-semester-as-usual. But I'll go back refreshed by this change of venue and by how much I've learned here. And when I need a spurt of courage, I'll remember the Huntington squirrels.)

Writing life tip of the day: Go to new places from time to time. And watch the squirrels.

5 Free Audio Resources for Writers and Readers

I've noticed my posts have been getting a bit ethereal lately (one of those grad school side-effects), so here are a few podcasts I really appreciate as a writer, reader, and general appreciator of words and creativity. It's easy to sign up for all of these through iTunes and then download them to my iPod. They're great to keep up on in the car and during walks and trips to the gym.

1. A Way with Words: NPR's delightful language program, in which the quirks and delights of the English language are discussed on a weekly basis. 1 hour long, except during the summer, when it's shorter.
   
   
2. Authors on Tour: A weekly recording of authors speaking at Denver's Tattered Cover bookstore. The authors they choose are excellent ones in a variety of literary and non-literary genres. Talks range from 10 minutes to an hour.
   
   
3. Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac": I've mentioned this daily podcast before--I subscribe to this one by email too. 5 minutes per day of poetry and writer/artist/influential person biographies.
   
   
4. New Yorker: Fiction: In this monthly podcast, a literary giant-ish-type figure reads and discusses an influential story that's been published in the New Yorker in the past. Segments last between 10 and 40 minutes.
   
   
5. Librivox.org: Last but certainly not least, this site is a constantly-growing volunteer-submitted library of public domain audiobooks. The quality of the audio is more or less good depending on the particular book or even chapter, but some of the recordings are pretty amazing, and hey, it's free. And you can listen online, download whole books or chapter by chapter, or subscribe to each book as a podcast. Length: anything from a few minutes to 30-some hours (that's Moby Dick and War and Peace and such). The average length book is between 5 and 12-14 hours.