To illustrate his catalog of obstacles to regular, mindful writing, Boice may just as well have been watching me try and write over the past year. I was able to relate to almost all of his examples of counter-productive writing: passivity, binging, elation (followed by depression), and not approaching writing as a social act. I, like the people he quotes in this chapter, was able to produce some material in this time. But I certainly didn't set myself up to be able to sustain any type of writing program (which is something I am excited to practice in this class).
For me, I think there are two main ways I will be able to journey to comfort and fluency. The first is already built into the class: Brief Daily Sessions. I want to unyoke myself from the waiting/binging cycle and make writing more a part of my daily life. Second, I want to make writing a more social act (something Boice points to as a way to shed light on some of these problems writers have). The image on page 5 of Proust naked in his chamber, feverishly scribbling away was one that I could (sadly) relate to. The woman quoted on page 4 who forsook her entire social life to binge on writing her novel is also one that I could relate to, along with the subsequent feelings of despair at forgetting how to be a person. Practicing these two things will hopefully bring me closer to being the type of writer I want to be. I am truly a social person, and I take time out of my day (everyday) to be social with different people. Combining that with a regular, unhurried, moderately emotional writing experience, I think I will be able to move further towards a productive writing practice which I can sustain over my career.
******** Author's Note *******
I am usually listening to music as I write. I will usually include what I'm listening to in my posts. Today I went back in time for some easy-listening singer-songwriter stuff. If you haven't before, I would highly recommend listening to Jack Johnson for concentrating, for dozing off, or for putting yourself in a good mood. Enjoy!
Max, I liked that you spoke about writing as a social act. I found this part intriguing in the reading as well. When I read it, I thought about ways to make writing a "social" act, and I recalled in one of my classes, and in my past for leisure, I partook in an activity called "collaborative fiction." I think, in the most literal sense, this is writing as a social act.
ReplyDeleteIn collaborative fiction, each person commits to the story and adds their own bit. It's rather fun, and I think it's a healthy activity to entice us to writing after periods of exhaustion or exasperation. It's rather refreshing and inspiring because so many ideas are thrown out onto the table.
In addition to this, just being social, as you mentioned (not locking ourselves in our rooms naked!) can yield fruitful results. It's good to get out, clear our minds, and be social and balance this with writing.
Great response! Here's to productivity!
Max-
ReplyDeleteI love that you added the music that you listen to while you write! Music is a huge part of my life and usually is involved in everything I do in some way! I might start doing the same. When I write, especially academically (which is about all I do) I love to listen to the Jim Brickman pandora station - he is an excellent piano player if you haven't heard of him.
Alex! Thanks for the heads up. I love Piano music, and I was LITERALLY thinking the other day that I need to have more piano rock in my life. Thanks for the lead, I'm going to check him out now.
ReplyDeleteExcited to hear more.
Ashley, thanks for the thoughtful comment. I thought the idea of collaborative noveling was really really interesting. What does that look like? Do you all sit around a table, each person with a pad of paper? Do you use a Google.Doc? Does one person at a time have the writing utensil and the others are just there to help with ideas? Any of these would be interesting I think.
ReplyDeleteThere's probably something here that would work in and English 1000 classroom as well. Do you think it would be helpful for beginning-college writers to write collaboratively?
Collaborative writing also makes me think of NaNoWriMo, which is a sort of social-driven writing month where people try and write an entire novel in November (or at least get in the habit of working every day on one piece (it's kind of what we're trying to get used to here in this class too)). Here's the link to NaNoWriMo.
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
It's really popular, and there's even an AcaWriMo where people come together to encourage each other to do academic writing.
I've heard of NaNo! In fact, one of my friends wrote her novel because of that month. The academic writing month is a news flash to me though. That's pretty nifty!
DeleteI've always done collaborative fiction in an online way. My first experience with is was through a Facebook app called Story teller (I think?). I'm not sure if it still exists, but you and a friend, or more, would write the story one piece at a time. So I would write something, post it, my friend would be notified, she could read it or edit it, and then add her own bit, post, etc. We'd go back and forth and have a huge elaborate story. We would be making it up as we went along, but it was really fun and gave me ideas for my own personal stories that I wrote on the side.
My other experience with it was for my online capstone at the community college. There was a wiki page for the creation of the story. The professor said you have to write X many words to create a short story - go! We created a REALLY interesting piece. Since it was an online course, each individual contributed to the story on their own time (we had a week to do it). We could add pictures too since it was online, so that was fun because it brought the story to life in a way.
I think you could easily incorporate it into an English 1000 classroom and I'm sure there are education benefits from it, other than it being purely fun.
But the fun things helps, especially in Eng 1000 :)
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