rejection

It stings. For a good while it stings. Last week in the space of 24 hours I got two rejections for the same book project. The first one dispensed with any sentimentality and in two sentences said no. The second one was slightly more apologetic, offered a somewhat complimentary note on the interest value of the topic and suggested other publishers who might have the capacity to accommodate the book. Now I wonder how I could have been so naive, so childish in my expectations. My original pitch was so flawed, so amateurish in so many ways. I missed an opportunity.

Talking to a more seasoned, astute and connected Professor this morning, he confirmed what had started to dawn on me: I was too connected and attached to my project and my articulation of the project that I was unable to tailor my 'message' for the intended audience. Not a journal editor, but a publisher interested in whether or not this project would be financially viable. So I made this elaborate academic article, but failed to say, in plain, accessible English what the book was about and why people would be interested in buying it. In my wildest dreams I never thought I would think, let alone say - 'I'd prefer to write this for a journal editor'. I feel out of my depth doing a marketing pitch without the comfort and support of my carefully crafted academic argument.

Nevermind, I live to see another day and draft another book proposal.

This collection offers a view into the everyday classroom realities of SA university lecturers teaching first years. Their reflective accounts show how they attempt to improve their teaching practices and respond to the diverse academic needs of their students.

This is the two-liner I'm currently contemplating for a proposal that only wants a 40 word description of the book. Interested?

academic writing: a view from the sidelines

I'm on the sidelines as I watch other people write. Before I had only ever observed and reflected on my own experiences of trying to be an academic writer, as much of this blog bears testament to. I thought, naively, that my own struggles with academic writing would prepare me and allow me to be the supportive, encouraging and understanding 'coach', very optimistic and enthusiastically cheering from the sidelines. I thought I would understand and would comprehend.

This is what I brought along to my sidelined observations: Academic writing is difficult, in the beginning, especially, you think you can write but the reviewers often say you can't. Understanding and applying the 'conventions' and stylistic norms that will allow your writing to be recognised as legitimate is not as easy as 'copying' the forms and styles used by your favourite author. Sometimes doing this, simply signals now 'wrong' you got it. Writers, and especially novice writers, struggle with the huge psychological burden of knowing they don't 'come' with what they think are the necessary or expected linguistic repertoires or fluent and extensive vocabularies. And many times these very resources, especially when they are not recognised or (mis)recognised, mark these writers as 'outsiders' and becomes the source of a vicious and crippling circle of shame and fear associated with academic writing. Reviewer feedback is overwhelming, especially when its not filled with overt praise and affirmation. Its very hard to unbundle your personal and emotional investment in an argument, a sentence, a paragraph, an idea from commentary that suggests, someone else doesn't actually understand or get what you are saying.

From my own writing experiences and trying to mediate all the factors listed above as they play out in my own journey as a somewhat reluctant and self-conscious academic writer, I know that it always takes way longer to write a sentence, a paragraph, an article than you anticipate. You have to work through the reviewer comments carefully and try to see beyond your attachments. You have to seek out feedback and opportunities to talk and talk and talk some more about your work, your writing. And you have to continue to write - you have to put an immense amount of effort, energy, commitment into that act and work through all the freaking demons, weighing you down and distorting your own sense of yourself as a writer.

I'm reminded of the old adage about being a good, effective teacher: You have to grasp the limitations of your own experiences of being taught. As a teacher merely repeating what you saw your old teachers do can frequently leave you on the back foot. Even if you experienced really good teaching - simply emulating your past teachers, without trying to critically interrogate the usefulness or suitability of their practices - can severely limit your own teaching practices and your growth as a teacher. This lesson, is ringing true for me now. I'm finding that my own ongoing journey (very ongoing) as an academic writer has not equipped me as well as I would have hoped, to really understand, let alone support, others on this very same journey.

walking, thinking and writing

And not to forget talking to one's self. Before embarking on a writing task, and certainly all the way through the activity, my head is usually full of ideas and thoughts and I'm frequently in conversation with myself. There is often the misperception that writing is merely a pyschomotor skill. You sit down at your desk, in front of your computer and 'write'. For me I can't disconnect or untangle thinking from writing. I have to think about my writing before I write. Ordering my thoughts, ideas, argument. I always remember saying to my students, that when writing an essay you have to also allocate time for thinking. For processing your thoughts and working out how to deal with the essay question and all the readings and discussions about the readings. Thinking is as important to essay writing, as writing the essay.

my walking route, just outside the Stefan's flat

For me, walking alone can act as a trigger to stimulate my thinking, especially when I'm at the start or smack in the middle of a writing task. I don't know what it is about walking that takes me, almost automatically, to this space, but it does. I'm lucky at the moment, that I can take walks whenever I want and that I can walk in the most calming and serene settings. I haven't always had this luxury. My self-talk is probably most active when I'm out on a walk. I often wonder if the people passing me, might think that I'm 'not all-there' as I openly talk silently to myself - mouthing words, posing questions, gesturing and tracing words in the air. What do I care - this is all part of the process for me, and at the moment I'm very grateful I can experience it in its fullest expression.

don't forget the peripherals

Writing peripherals. And I'm not referring simply to the multiple pens (as many different colours as you can source), pencils and miscellaneous stationery needed as part of the writing task to be completed. I'm thinking more of all the supporting processes and tasks that go alongside but are essential to completing an academic writing project. Like that pesky reference list that is never completed until, two hours before you are meant to submit the manuscript. And when it is finally compiled, it is often riddled with errors or omissions. Or organising all your data files and smaller analysis tasks into a single folder that can be readily accessible irrespective where in the world you might be writing the research.

On Friday I spent all of the morning working on the reference list for my in-progress paper. Yep - a whole morning. I'm an academic, a scholarly writer, not a freaking administrator I kept mumbling under my breath, as I realised how disorganised and incomplete my reference repository is. I'm a print-person - I love paper, so I could find the hard copies of most of my references but when I tried to compile the reference list electronically...well, all was not well on this side of Uppsala. As a PhD student, I had diligently spent most Friday's on this mundane, administrative activity. Sorting out my reference repository, and 'cleaning' up all my data and research related files. It paid off when I had to construct and produce that huge thesis document. But it would seem I've lost sight of the valuable lessons learnt. I'm thinking some of my sabbatical time should be devoted to 'cleaning-up' and organising my articles and updating my Mendeley repository. I might even set aside some time to  refine my cite-and-write skills - yes, I'm a late adopter and still not 100% convinced it the best/most practical way to produce a reference list. But I guess writers have to be good administrators too.

hitting a writing milestone

I can relax now that I've passed on draft 0 of my developing journal article. It's now with my co-author and its amazing how the relief of reaching this kind of writing milestone makes itself present in your body, your mind. Last week was particularly tense. I was struggling to articulate my thoughts in writing, while also grappling with the theoretical concepts central to my argument. I was behind schedule and the self-critic inside me was having a wonderful time. And spring was showing itself in all its glory, which coupled with some more public holidays just before the weekend (yes I'm very sure Sweden has more public holidays than South Africa!) pushed my anxiety levels beyond the 'productive' level those 'motivational gurus' always seem to be making such a hoopla about. Self-imposed anxiety derived primarily from one's own highly critical view of your ability to do something is not a pleasant state.

Looking out at Spring from Blåsenhus. The castle completely obscured.

Nevertheless, onward I plodded, through the beautiful, sunny-weathered weekend. The draft is incomplete, in need for some serious editing and refinement, but I'm happy its done and ready for the next phase of writing development. Two unique and different things about the writing process this time around have come to mind 1) the writing felt lighter, I was able to put aside my 'internal editor' and just write - I fully accepted that the editor role would come at some point in the future, but that consciously putting it aside at this beginning stage was in some respects rather liberating. 2) writing collaboratively is such a gift; you know there is someone you can lean on, someone who shares the burden and someone rallying for you to be successful in the terms you define. Even though this is only the second collaborative writing project I've been involved with, I've been lucky with my co-authors. My writing has benefited from the positive energy and spirit they have infused in the process, whether they know it or not.

making meaning of 'sabbatical'

I've been in Sweden for a month and I'm starting to wonder more seriously about what it means to be on sabbatical. As part of my leave application I had to list all the expected outcomes for this period. They were all written artefacts - publications in accredited journals, editorial activities for the edited collection I'm working on. All writing tasks. So it would seem my sabbatical is all about writing. But what about just reading (anything), just thinking, just walking, just doing 'stuff' I wouldnt normally do back at my desk, in Cape Town? How do these activities fit into my sabbatical plan?

I've been writing, making slow, but I would also say, stead progress on that highly prized 'journal publication'. Most mornings I get up around 7 and I'm at my desk at Blåsenhus or the sunny dinning-room table at the flat by around 9:30am. I have that same anxiety and then guilt that I had for much of my PhD about not writing enough, not writing fast enough, not doing more. On Thursday a colleague back home said to me jokingly, when I mentioned I had a hard, long day, 'Are you working? Aren't you on sabbatical?' Made me think! In no time I will have been here for two, three months and all I will have to show are those written (incomplete?) artefacts. My neck and shoulders will still be rock-hard and sore, my body will continue to be stiff and inflexible, the sadness, worry and displacement I've been feeling for months before arriving in Uppsala will still be warmly nestled in my being.  I will also berate myself for my inability to calmly respond to the workplace stress that will surely greet me on my return.

So what is this sabbatical about then? Yes it's about writing - it's about finding the joy, and not only fixating on the terror, and weight of writing. But it's mostly about me, Lynn, the academic writer, the academic and teacher. It's about valuing and accepting how I am as an academic writer, how I write academically, what kind of academic writing I do and why I write the 'stuff' I do. It's also about me, Lynn. Just me, Lynn.

me and mendeley

During my PhD, especially when I had to write the twice yearly progress reports, I would proudly boast that I had a 'good information management system for my expanding research resources and [was] maintaining my electronic bibliography via Endnote or Mendeley'.  And as I recall it took some discipline on my part to keep this 'dream alive'. I remember using my Fridays' to sit diligently and clean up my bibliography either in Endnote or in Mendeley, which I switched to in the first year of my PhD. But since submitting my thesis I haven't even clicked on the Mendeley icon on my desk top. I feel a bit guilty because this tardy behaviour highlights the lack of discipline and interest I have in doing all the good things, that good, publishable academics are meant to do. In fact the reason I'm been drawn to writing this blog, is the fact that I've resisted clicking on that icon for the past three or four days. I need to compile a reference list for something I'm writing. I know I should do it all in Mendeley. I know this is a good period to spend some quality time with the bibliography. To give it the love and attention it deserves. But. I also know it's in a mess and I will need to deal with that mess. Apparently the PhD process was meant to instill all these wonderful ways of doing things, that should set you up as a good, solid, independent researcher - the kinds of things that make for good academics in the long run. I used to take pride in, at least, partaking in these activities and rituals - signalling my immersion into this way of being. Now I just keep putting it off, discarding my old ways - almost in defiance. Knowing full well, that this superficial act of defiance, is like pissing in the wind. All the piss eventually ends up in your face.

reunions and wrong-side of the bed days

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday morning. I've learnt the hard way that there is nothing to be done on mornings, days like that. Best to just accept that the mood will not improve irrespective what comes at you during the day. Often on these kinds of days, if I can, by 12 or 1 o'clock I just get back into bed and sleep. But I didnt have this luxury yesterday. I spent the morning at UCT library, battling with paragraph and argument structures for the long-suffering paper I hoped I could have finished a long, long time ago. But never mind, I have a plan to get the paper into a presentable, proper draft 1 form by the end of the week. It's the holidays, but I'm going to alleviate my guilt doing at least an hour of writing work a day until Christmas. The plan is simple, 1 to 2 hours in the morning, rest of the afternoon on the beach or assigned to some or other Christmas chores. Perfect.

High jinx with Desiree. 

Then I found myself at my old high school in Silvertown at around 2pm. The school itself had a bit of a face lift so on the outside it didnt look anything like it did when I was a pupil there in the mid 80s. I bumped into people I knew, who went to school with me and as one would expect, the odd person who clearly knew me, but who I had absolutely NO CLUE who the hell they were - even after they gently, but enthusiastically provided some background information. I also managed to talk to two of my teachers, who at the time were very instrumental in supporting and nurturing me. We talked about the good grade I got for History (an A on the higher grade, thanks to the power of rote-learning) and that I was possibly the only person in my English  class that understood the matric Shakespeare play we were doing that year. They remembered my 17 year old-self better than I did. That fearlessness that once defined who I was. But these were two classes I really enjoyed because of the teachers who taught them. Today I'm off to another reunion of sorts, with my first cohort of technikon students. Some of them have managed to stay in touch with each other over the almost 15 years since they met, and they sort-of invite me to their get-togethers. Of course I'm deeply honoured and humbled that they still want to see me, and invite me into their lives. I'd like to think I'm that teacher that played a nurturing and supporting role at some stage of their learning lives

now you feel it, now you don't

It's amazing how quickly you readjust to 'normal' after being away from it for a while. It's like muscle memory or ingrained mental maps that allow you to go into almost automatic mode. Not thinking, not feeling. I've come to realise, this year, that any break from my normal work does wonders for my soul. But I'm just as susceptible to ingrained mental maps/muscle memory/intuitive responses irrespective of the positives associated with these breaks. So it's taken me almost a week to prioritise my writing. The plan is that it will stay my priority until the end of the academic year in early December.

Yesterday I stumbled back into the writing and was left feeling immensely frustrated and irritated at myself. It felt like I could not put two sentences together, let alone articulate my view on deficit discourse. After an hour or so of, what felt like, hammering my head against the wall I put the writing aside, deciding to come back to it later in the day and then to jot down in bullet point the salient points I wanted to make. Returning to my notes and bullet list today, it all came together. A totally different experience. Ok so I can write a few paragraphs about what deficit discourses are and how they manifest in the South African context. Not too bad actually. And so I move onto the next section...

time to write

Finding the time to write or working out how to be most productive at my writing tasks has always been a tricky aspect for me. My general sense, gathered from the fellow players I've encountered in the academic writing game, is that the more time and effort devoted to the task the better the result. Specifically the more time devoted to the task in a single day / sitting the better. So you can't have a productive writing day without being dent over your desk or your laptop from 6am to 6pm. It's almost the equivalent of the 'no pain, no gain' mantra used by gym fanatics and the like. That approach never really worked for me and I remember that at the height of my PhD writing only being able to manage, at best, maybe 4-5 hours of sustained and hard intellectual graft on any give day. And now given all the other things competing for my time and draining my energy (especially intellectually) the idea of sitting down for a full five hours on any given day simply to write feels both a luxury and an impossibility. So I'm rather excited and encouraged by the advice offered by Tanya Golash-Boza. Maybe her approach just fits into my yoga-induced philosophy of ahimsa which I've tried to apply to all aspects of my life, with varying degrees of success (as much of my blog writing suggests). But I also appreciate the importance of building in and acknowledging the thinking time so vital to writing. For some all of this mumbo-jumbo might just be a cop-out for laziness or signal a poor work ethic. And this kind of moralistically-infused argument always leads to second-guessing and worse still, self-doubt. But, if I've learnt anything from my four decades on this planet, it's to carve out your own path, to be confident in the choice you've made and also the manner in which you choose to navigate that path.

discernment

Earlier this week I was once again surprised by my poor level of discernment. I had signed-up for a ‘writing for publication’ training workshop run by our Research ‘promotion’ Department. Knowing who was running this course should already have kick-in my internal early warning system. But I wanted to challenge my own prejudices and remain open to the idea that I could learn from such an engagement even if the underpinning philosophy or pedagogy, guiding these types of skills & support courses, did not sit comfortably with my own views. Second warning bell sounded very loudly when I entered the workshop venue and found that the physical arrangements of the furniture and the state of the furniture itself was so poorly suited to ensuring that the budding academic writers would be able to sit comfortably and write for more than 10 minutes at a time. The final straw come after I had subjected myself to the first hours of the work and the facilitator started to ask different participants to read her slides aloud as a way of bringing some variation to the presentation.

To be fair – this kind of thing, where you get a generic, one-size fits all, laundry list of rules/conventions associated with being successful with your academic writing endeavours or journal writing, can be (is) beneficial to certain people. But, I need something more. My understanding of writing (all writing) as a deeply embedded social practice, means that I want an opportunity to discussion and share how issues of context, power, status, ideology, identity become infused, influence and shape the activities of trying to write an article for a journal. Instead of rules and regulations, there are principles and practices that have worked well for those more experiences. Sharing these, alongside the difficulties, challenges and pitfall can be a valuable way of building the confidence of the novice writer. Then, just creating a really comfortable, conducive space to simply write is equally beneficial. So this little event didn’t work for me, but I really should have shown better judgement in deciding to attend the event in the first place and trusted myself more. Yes discernment – I really should exercise some more of discernment, especially in the work context where it would definitely go along way in saving me some unnecessary irritation and precious time.

will it be better?

I'm back at my desk after a four week absence. A European summer, it appears, is very good for me. I've embraced the prospect of the next five or so months, at this desk, from a position of calm and determination to ensure that  my agenda becomes the priority. But this doesn't meant that I will relinquish my responsibilities to my employer, just that I will work smarter to ensure that those responsibilities don't overwhelm me with feelings of guilt or sap all my time. A week in and I think it's okay. I'm not sure if my outwardly projections give any indication that I have a new attitude, but it's more my internal talk that has registered the shift. A main priority is to write - to get an article ready for journal submission come the end of the year. Then I have another collaborative writing project that will culminate in a chapter submission in December and three conference presentations between September and December. So it's pretty busy but my aim is to keep my focus, energy and organisational management strategies squarely on ensuring that these my priority tasks take centre-stage, while I also making sure that my routine institutional work also gets done. Can I get sufficiently organised and 'selfish' about integrating my research and writing aspiration with my institutional obligations? Can I become more efficient and not get sucked into the malaise that envelopes me at work? Only time will tell.

sleeping on the job

I'm on a 'summer' holiday in winter. Summer because I'm currently writing this in the Northern Hemisphere, looking out at the green trees and blue skies outside. When thinking about my holiday away from the 'chilly' institutional context down South, I fantasised about writing each morning and making some headway with my plan to use writing to effectively pull me out of the soul sapping downward spiral I found myself in. As I head into the final five days of my Swedish Summer, I've have to acknowledge, yet again, how distant a fantasy is from reality. To date I've spent maybe three mornings doing anything remotely academic or writing inspired. Lots of ideas, sans action. Of course I'm disappointed. An OU friend who came to visit, reminded me of how lucky I am to have 'free' moments for writing during my normal 'working' time. I felt a tinge of guilt at not fully exploiting that time. Free time without motivation or inspiration is thus a sad thing.


I have another friend who is truly connected to what she needs at a very intuitive level, looking at my summer experience through her eyes, I've spent my summer in ways that I needed, even if my brain and rational self might have suggested I needed a whole range of 'other stuff'. So it's all good, and it will all be good. Next week at this time I will probably be sitting in a boring meeting, without a t-shirt and kikoy, but wrapped up warmly in layers upon, upon layers of clothing and insulation (and not only from the cold weather). I suspect I'll be better prepared for whatever comes my way, and that is probably be the value gained from how I've spent this summer holiday.

nothing will work unless you do

I read a lot of Maya Angelou in my early and mid-twenties. I was going through a 'feminist' phase, although saying this now sounds so wrong, implying that I'm no longer a feminist. Well it was a phase where I took a more hardline approach to all things gender related. In retrospect I was simply working out who I was and how I, as a black woman related to the rest of the world.

In the last two days I've been lucky to spend some time with two good friends/colleagues talking about me and my professional life post-PhD in direct and indirect ways. Reading some of the many obituaries and famous quotes from Maya Angelou I was drawn to this one 'nothing will work unless you do'. In both these chats the issue of writing as a survival and personal affirmation strategy came up, again in direct and indirect ways. I've put serious academic writing off for too long, citing all sorts of reasons not to make it a priority. I have to do the work to solve the problems I encounter, even if that work isn't what I initially expected it to be.

I like this image.
She looks directly into the camera,
open, unassuming, comfortable.

Maya Angelou to the rescue once again? Which makes me wonder if I've already figured out all I need to about how as a black woman I relate to the rest of the world.

so you want to be an academic?

I've been wondering if I'm really 'cut-out' to be a proper academic. I spent the past Easter weekend vacillating between being repulsed by my clunky, unsophisticated and inelegant writing and getting excited about all the other article possibilities I could pursue. I couldn't help thinking, is this really what I want to do? The struggles I have with my writing really touch a raw nerve and expose the contradictory feelings inside me about being in academia. I accept that writing and publishing is central to what I have to do in this field, and I want to do it. I have things to say that I think are important and significant, and that I feel other people would be interested to hear/read about my thoughts and ideas. But another part of me just wants to be a teacher, a practitioner, a facilitator - focused only on giving students a better, more meaningful learning experience. But I think there is another issue central to the act of writing that overshadows these feelings about whether or not I want to be in academia. When the writing scholars, like Ivanic and co, talk about writing being intimately linked to identity and the self, they are absolutely correct. Nothing exposes my insecurities, self-doubts and uncertainties more than my writing - which is then amplified when my writing is viewed, judged and evaluated by others. Given that this judgment and evaluation is part and parcel of what defines academia, it appears, that if I don't accept the order of things, I will forever be in a state of internal conflict. So do I REALLY want to be an academic?

doing it all wrong

It's Friday evening, it's late. I'm sitting in bed with a fairly large'ish glass of red wine. It's been a both long and short week. This conflictory statement maybe, bests sums up the week's events. But, this isn't what's foremost on my mind or what this post is about. Amidst the crisis that unfolded on Monday was a little e-mail about the outcome of the peer review process linked to a little paper I submitted for a conference proceedings publication. In South Africa an academic can attract a smallish research subsidy for papers included in particular types of conference proceedings. Motivated by the possibility of attracting this subsidy and thereby accumulating some publication credits, I decided, in a carefree, happy moment, at the start of the year, to submit a paper. This was to lay the foundation for how I completely did it all the wrong way. On reading the peer-review reports, there was absolutely no way I could hide away from the fact that I had messed up the whole freaking process. Firstly, the paper was rushed. I'd be the first to admit that it was a difficult paper to write and a difficult one for the general audience of this conference to 'get' (even if I was able to write it exceptionally well). The amount of time I was able to spend on the paper was not commensurate with its level of difficulty. I remember I submitted the paper with probably one hour to spare before the final deadline. I just didn't give it enough time - I didn't allow the argument to brew (not the intellectual argument per se, but the written construction of that argument) and I didn't accommodate for more 'critical feedback' moments with a wider range of 'critical friends'. Secondly, I was messing with the stock-formula of paper submissions - I went for a conceptual rather than empirical argument. How arrogant and over-confident of me! Only the top scholars can and do take that this approach and even they encounter serious hurdles in getting this kind of paper published. Then finally, and this is probably the most crucial part, this submission attempt failed to take into account my own writing process - what I need to do get to a fairly polished piece of writing.

The feedback itself was brutal leaving me feeling ashamed that I submitted such a clearly unfinished, unrefined piece of writing. But, on Friday night with my glass of wine besides me, I feel sufficiently motivated, calm and accepting of this aspect being an academic, and I will give the paper another go. 'Good' writing comes with practice, I need the practice and the intellectual stimulation. Sometimes you have to get things wrong; if you don't how will you ever get them right?

a day of rest

During my PhD I had this unspoken rule that for at least one day in the week I would not work on my thesis. It was a rule I introduced to give myself the illusion of a breathing space, that would allow me to step away from the thesis that consumed my head, my being. I always imagined that I would never again be in a position where work would take over my life in this way. Now that I'm teaching again and trying to carve out a space to do writing work as well, I've quickly found myself in this position where the rules I applied to my PhD, especially about working on weekend, have been completely discarded. I'm working everyday of the week often until 10 pm at night and still not getting everything I need to do done. I keep thinking, as I did during my PhD, that I'm simply not using my time effectively. That I'm just inefficient. Unfortunately my default is always to blame myself, although I know a lot of the tensions I'm experiencing at the moment are reflected more deeply in how academic work is conceptualised in the vocational higher education sector in South Africa and the particular constraints I'm facing in my department. But on the face of things, I just cannot find more hours in the day to stay on top of all the tasks I need to do. And I'm becoming deeply resentful of how much of my supposedly free time I need give up to get my basic work-relate tasks done.I'd always imagined that working like this was reserved for my PhD and not my full-time job! At the moment I've basically abandoned any aspirations for writing this term and I'm deeply pissed off about it. I love being in the classroom again, I just wish there was a way that my teaching did not become the obstacle to my writing.

erratum

I'm sitting in the cafe in Obs. I sit here most Sunday evenings, trying to write, trying to reconnect with my 'academic' self, drinking more cappuccinos than I suspect is good for me. I've been trying to write a rough draft of a section of a chapter I'm meant to be construct with my supervisor. I'm late with getting the draft together, yet the more I work on it, the more the argument I'm trying to construct seems to slip away from me. I haven't been able to selfishly block off time during my 'working' week to attend these 'academic' type tasks. I'm frustrated by my inability to organise my 'working' life so that I can accommodate and nurture my 'academic' self. These frustrations morphing into self-doubt about my ability to have or indeed cultivate an 'academic' self. Last time I noted how I actually might enjoy writing, provided I could accept that it was a long, slow process. Somehow the 'slow' aspect that is so revered in cooking and design has become twisted in my brain, representing all things negative.

Working on this chapter means working through my thesis and picking up the stupid, silly, downright careless mistakes that now appear to litter my thesis. Each time I find one of these irritating little reminders of my carelessness I curse at all the checks and balances and quality assurance measures I put in place to help avoid the very situation I now find myself in. I know there is a moral to this story - 'there is no such thing as a  error-free thesis' - but for now I just want to kick that freaking moral in its teeth. Yeah, yeah I know, ahimsa but I get some warped sense of satisfaction imagining that I could effect some pain on this inanimate thing causing me all this frustration. But all I can realistically do, is sigh, a long, deflating sigh and add yet another embarrassing entry to 'that' list I will take along to viva room on 13 November.

writing again

I'm trying to pull together a rough draft of a chapter I'm co-authoring with one of my supervisors. Once again I'm thrust into that strange happy-depressed placed. I'm excited about the opportunity to talk about my research, put forward my ideas and find ways of telling my story. But in equal measures the anxiety and frustration of not getting the 'right' words on paper and realising that I don't really have such a significant story to tell anyway sends me straight to the depths of despair. Sitting in my calm space this afternoon, having craved aside two hours to work on my writing away from my day-job I constantly had to tell myself, not to pour meticulously over each word, to focus on getting the argument down and leave the specifics associated with writing style until the next draft. Paying attention to this self-talk was exhausting, leaving little time to focus on the actual nuts-and-bolts of the paper I was trying to construct.

Earlier in the week I came across this http://thesiswhisperer.com/2013/09/25/how-to-write-faster/. In my mind this is just the thing to send  an eager would-be academic writer in search of the comfort of  a bottle or two of good South African red wine. Isn't it great to have a few little 'verbs' or topic sentence structures to set you on your merry way to write 'publishable' paragraph after 'publishable' paragraph. The energy I now need to counter this, well intentioned, but misdirected and dispiriting advice makes me want to just forget any delusional ambitions I might have had about publishing and find those bottles of red wine. A more  productive and, dare I say, empowering course of action is that I simply take the crib notes on offer and see the blog post for what it is - a narrow, one dimensional and decontextualised account of the very high stakes activity of academic writing, that instead of problematising the reasons for the difficulties writers' encounter, helps to perpetuate a deficit view of certain writers, who even after taking the advice on offer still struggle and even fail to produce those reams of 'publishable' words and sentences.

write even when you don't want to

I was thinking about my last post a few days after I'd written it, reflecting on the fact that while I'd been conscientious in maintaining this blog I had completely stopped my journal writing. I've been journalling in one or other form since my early 20s. But I stopped about three years ago. The personal is too personal to write about. In my head the blog is for my PhD experiences, the ones I am able to share with the invisible but every present audience. My paper-based journals meant to occupy a more personal space reserved only for me and whoever gets to read it one day when I'm too old to care or dead. I know the reason why its been harder to write in my journals - because what I have to express is too immediate, personal, too painful - the kind of stuff I don't want to reflect on because by reflecting, it all becomes too real and I'd rather it be tucked away in the recesses of my mind. But for that very same reason I also know how important it is to write about those very things I want to forget or turn away from. You need to write even when you don't want to. Here my personal writing and my academic share a common connection. A few weeks back I spoke about being inspired to write. I haven't done anything yet, but the urge and push is becoming stronger. I want to write, even though I don't really want to and I feel this urge is driving me forward. The urge is so tangible that even though I know whatever I'm going to write will be crap, in the first instance, I don't care. The desire is there to do it anyway. I'm on a short break from work for the next week and hope I will concede to the need, desire to write, to create time to spend in my calm, familiar writing and research place. Push myself to do what certain parts of me don't really want to do. In this way the academic writing always has some leverage over the personal. If only it were so simple to rouse my personal writing genie.