Mindful Reading: Boice pp 59-64

I'm going to play into Boice's hand here, by expressing the same reservations about his 'Shaping Ideas into Imagination' section as his writers did. It might just be that I'm a little tired today, which makes me more skeptical and confrontational, but I shared in these two points:

1. How am I ever going to get any work done if I keep setting aside more time for Brief Daily Sessions?
2. Public scrutiny is NOT what I need right now in my process. 

As always, Boice has plenty of advice for those of us with these reservations. But what I think makes his program so workable, is that he addresses these reservations simply by going back to the advice he's been giving all along. This can be frustrating at first (I've been in class where the students were vitriolically opposed to Boice and found this to be more of an annoyance than anything. My perception was that these students weren't going to try anything aside of what had worked for them in the past, and if they had lowered their walls just a bit they could have appreciated Boice's program and maybe it could have helped them. But I digress), because it might seem like he's just repeating himself. However, there's some comfort in knowing that these practical suggestions can be augmented by simply remembering a few of Boice's key strategies: Wait, BDS, Community, Start. 

Anyway. Boice addresses these reservations with comments his writers have made. The examples he brings up of people skeptical of an additional BDS mostly show that as writing becomes more regular and fluent, it takes less time to do some of the 'warm up' activities that bog down many-a writing session. Instead of warming up for those 10-15 mins, with regular practice you're able to spend those on more imagination-supporting activities. I can see how this is true, but I still wonder how many hours are in a normal Boice-day. 

I am less resistant to the 'make your imagination phase public' advice. Advice I've gotten from a number of people of the years has to do with creating a community around yourself that you can interact with at all stages of the process. Reading groups, writing groups, coauthored pieces, etc. All of these things, I think, are useful for bringing those imagination exercises to the front, bouncing ideas off of others' ideas and seeing what makes sense together and what new realms you can enter by creating an open dialogue of imagination. 

***Listening Notes****

Yesterday I found out that my favorite radio station from back home streams live on the net. 89.3 The Current is a Minnesota Public Radio station that is unlike any of the popular radio choices out there now. They specialize in more Indy, Rock, College-type music. And the best part: No Commercials!

You can check out their live stream here: http://www.thecurrent.org/listen

Mindful Reading: Boice pp 43-50

Imagination: I was expecting a chapter on unicorns and Knights of the Eyre and flying cars and daydreams where I am the dashing young detective chasing down the kidnapper and saying something dramatic like "And that's how we do justice.... On the streets."

Luckily, Boice has a different perspective on imagination and what it is good for and how it can be used to journey to comfort and fluency. I'll echo one of the comments one of Boice's writers made and say that imagination (especially this 'filing' form of imagination) is important for dissertation writers, but I can definitely see how this might apply to all writers bar-none.

The list on page 45 where Boice describes the HOW of finding imagination was particularly interesting to me. The way he describes the marination between two different things (ideas, texts, artifacts, theories, etc) really struck home with me because I often find myself saying this to my students. I don't want them to completely re-write the book when they're writing, but I do want them to be aware that the simple fact of putting their own perspective on two texts makes it a new idea. This seems like an important fact for me to keep in mind as well. This is exemplified by Boice in #4 in his list on 45, "Integrating new and old materials into files can be aided by playfully casting ideas into types". This play is integral for finding the new (no matter how mundane) in the topic you're collecting materials for.

The other list Boice brings up, the list of methods for bolstering the imaginative impulse, is interesting and a necessary addition for the skeptical reader like me. I was especially interested in this section because that is often one of the blocks that disrupts my regular progress in writing. Finding and reading materials is one thing (sort of an easy thing in this day and age of immediate information accessibility), but the steps between finding and writing about them have always been a little blurry to me. I appreciate this list because Boice gives some practical and concrete suggestions, as well as some more theoretic and abstract. Both of which are very important for me at this point in my process and I plan on coming back to this section again.

***Listening Notes****

Today I was in need of some outside stimuli as I read, but I didn't want anything too lyrical or new. I went back to one of my favorite instrumental bands, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, which features one of the greatest banjo players of all times. If you ever just want some really really good (and quirky) instrumental music, or if you ever want to see someone push the limits of the banjo, check out this band.