WRITERS TIGHT AND LOOSE

Home » Groups » Student Editor of the Month
By vahri, on 07/03/2009

I'd like to pick up on the discussions around 'writer's block' and strategies for coping with the need to be constantly productive during the course of one's postgraduate studies. This isn't a problem for everyone. it was for me, and i'll come to some strategies that i found useful in a moment. 

But first (because digression is very much the modus operandi of this form), i'd like to raise an aside. After graduating last year, I had some teaching work and i found this a very useful synthesis of the spiralling thesis, antithesis postdoctoral process. there's nothing like having to explain it to first year university students for nailing down one's methodology. In doing so, i wanted to avoid the generalisations that so frustrated me as an undergrad, that presumed a particular working method. I could see that there were students who struggled to produce anything, and there were those who struggled to edit their prodigious writings back to only the best bits. the one set of advice would not work for everyone, and so my teaching, i intended, would centre on an awareness of what kind of writer you were, so that you could guide yourself appropriately. one writer may swing between different modes at different times, of course, and such measures are always relative. 

And now (because self revelation is another significant mode in this form), i'll admit to some numbers. As a writer who nearly always sits in the low-word-count-camp, i used the minimum-production-per-day method to track my performance. when i first began my doctoral writing process, my target was 250 words per day. 

it took years to admit this figure to anyone, so aware was i of its modesty.

every six months or so, i'd revise the figure upwards, but even at my most prolific, my words-per-day count didn't go much over 600. however, these little bits all added up, and by the end i happily scrapped nearly 20 000 superfluous words, those same words i'd sweated over.

I am one of those writers who, for the most part, does a lot of internal work before getting anything down. there were days when i'd sit and shuffle books for a couple of hours before writing anything. to anyone observing me (and i thought of this often, with some shame, some illicit pleasure) i would look like a person idly shuffling books. but this was MEANINGFUL shuffling. The shuffling represented the organisation of ideas, the ranking of relevance and the forging of new connections. This made my 250 words, when i got to them, 250 useful words. Others do their shuffling on the page, or screen as is more generally the case, getting the thoughts down as soon (or sooner) than they form and using the tools of digital word processing to sought and edit later. Sometimes it's good for me to play with this method, but i remain a tight writer. 

I'd like to hear from/about loose writers, who approach things the other way, spilling it out and then paring it back. This entry is mostly for we who struggle to get it down, as would seem to be a fairly common situation, given the (ironically voluminous) discussions of writer's block in these pages. 

I wrote out a card for myself and taped it onto my desk; it was called 'Everyday tasks to try' and was a list of useful things to do as i warmed up to my major task of the day, the 250 words that counted. My list included: read a book; read an article; write up notes from a book/article; draw a planning diagram; research online; write creatively; edit yesterday's writing.

What else is there?

»

Tactics for overcoming The Dreaded Block

Submitted by cacroker on Sun, 08/03/2009 - 14:51.

I love the way you use the list of things as a warm up. I often see them as avoidance strategies but just last week my supervisor said to me that I should be objective and try to see just how much knowledge has been "going in" over the last two years. She is so right. Now I just have to trust in that osmosis process and dredge it out and onto paper in any loose format, just to situtate the elements into 'useful" or "tangential'. This I am hoping will allow the exegetical writing to begin shaping up.

As for my artefact/novel. It occured to me in a sleepless moment last night just how many of my seemingly irrelevant journal entries were taking shape as emotions being experienced by my characters. I just need to let them speak, and not worry so much that the original genesis came from my own thoughts, doubts and tribulations.

After all much fiction writing (and indeed as Frasier Crane commented, Arts itself) is reflected through the lens of self and our individual psyche. So is there any really authentic 'fictional' stories in the world at all, or are we telling versions of the same old tales, just through different voices and times?

 

As to your comments about the forum being self-revelatory? Isn't thata good thing and what makes these fora so useful? Otherwise we could all be writing Text articles (and there's nothing worng with that of course). As for me I fear the criticism of "self-indulgent exegetical naval gazing"... as is the perception of our form of PhD by some very senior members of staff within our Faculty (not within the Creative Arts disciplines may In point out).

Coping mechanisms

Submitted by glenicewhitting on Sun, 15/03/2009 - 10:55.

Glenice

Great discussion going here and couldn't resist joining in (I'm usually one of those writers quietly enjoying the conversations, gleaning helpful hints and very rarely posting.) I'm in my first year of my PhD and my problem is not so much getting words on the page as organization. I'm becoming overwhelmed by computer folders within folders stretching back to infinity. I also have a filing cabinet to take the printed overflow, plus 8 A4 Folders decorating my desk. I'll have to move out of my study soon if this keeps up. Okay, so I've never been a good organiser and still have a hard copy of the first story I ever wrote, but my creative/exegesis information gathering is spiraling out of control and I'm spending too much time trying to keep it all together. Any suggestions anyone?

Can't wait to hear suggestions...

Submitted by cacroker on Sun, 15/03/2009 - 11:38.

You know my response. Give us funds for working for six onths to master  Nvivo, and we'd all have it under control at the press of a few keystrokes, but this is such a big complex program that even after two classes for beginners (one a five day intensive) I still can't get everything sorted into their filing system (tress and nodes).

I am just managing to keep Endnote functioning reasonably until they updtae versions annually when I panic.

So agree 100%... there must be a practical way and someone out there will know it.

HI all

Submitted by cacroker on Mon, 16/03/2009 - 12:43.

Can't find where someone requested info from Janene about her research into the different Exegesis/Artefact models on offer but in my response I spoke of a document circulated at UTS by the wuthor Candy. I didn't know how to attach the PDF. I have found a way. Via add content I created a NEW page within the Australasian Postgraduate Writers Group menu link. It is called URLS and PDFS so now we have a place to permantly attach material for each other. Is that useful?

organisation

Submitted by vahri on Thu, 19/03/2009 - 11:59.

my suggestion is a personal one and will certainly not work for everyone. it is kind of old skool because it uses paper and handwriting as a primary organisational strategy.

i was given a beautiful leather bound book of lovely blank paper. this became my PhD book wherein i wrote all my notes from everything i read, as well as reflections. the act of regularly writing up notes from my reading aided my learning in that there was a very solid memory attached to each bit of work. this allowed me to find and refind references very easily, with the aid of sticky markers that went in and out at different times, depending on what i was needing. that meant that i didn't need prints of everything, just good notes on where to find full versions of papers etc. when i did need them. mostly i just needed triggers (which i found in my notebook) to aid my own writing and researching.

my main reasons for limiting printed matter is that i abhore unnecessary paper usage. most reference materials i never needed print copies of, or if they were very important, i bought the book. also, i'm not aesthetically keen on digital matter so it didn't suit me to use numerous files.

like i said, not for everyone. perhaps the message is to find a method/material that appeals to you (like my book-fetish) and then go hard on that one thing. don't use everything.

can you tell me the way to...

Submitted by vahri on Thu, 19/03/2009 - 12:24.

I guess you've found this by now Carol [comment attached to thread stemming from Janene's comment 'how's your PhD going?' in APWG] but how does one find this new page you've created in the APWGroup? perhaps i need to become a member of that group to see it. i was able to download Janene's pdf via Jen's blog but it would be good to peruse this page as things are added. 

perhaps such a page might also fit under 'Resources'?

Janene's pdf

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 19/03/2009 - 12:49.

good thinking, Vahri - acting on Janene's instructions a couple of nights ago, I do intend to put it up under the Resources section
stay tuned ... and please feel free to remind me, if I don't get it done in the next few days
best, Jen

organisation - electronic style

Submitted by janene on Thu, 19/03/2009 - 15:02.

I can't resist plugging a piece of software that I find invaluable for keeping my PhD thoughts straight. Not EndNote, though it would come a close second.

Like Vahri's beautiful leather bound book, it is a place for reflection and a place for storing pointers to things you will want to access later... the key difference being that my content is fully searchable and can be edited/extended without any space restrictions.

It's an electronic journal, iDailyDiary. Freely downloadable from:

http://www.splinterware.com/products/idailydiary.htm

(I ended up paying for the Professional version after loving the free one - it gives you more features).

As well as having a series of dated pages (like a diary) you can have 'sticky' page tabs that you can see from each main page.I have some with titles like "Literature Review", where I toss information about books/articles I need to track down, read, and put in EndNote; I have a tab called "Publication Options" where I'm accruing information about literary journals and publishers that I might send stuff to one day; one called "Story Ideas"... I'm sure you get the picture.

And of course on the dated pages I am writing my life a page at a time, including - of course - all things related to what is happening with my PhD.

 

This is the blurb from their website:

iDailyDiary Free Version

iDailyDiary provides a simple interface that immediately gets you started taking daily notes, creating a journal, putting your thoughts into writing and much more.

The iDailyDiary editor is "richtext" with the ability to insert
graphics, URL's, Hypertext links and links to other diary pages.
iDailyDiary is fully searchable so you can always track down those
important dates and reminders.

Key Features

Works with MS Windows 9x, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista

Data files encrypted and password protected

Richtext Editor

Fully Searchable

Insert Pictures, URL's and Hypertext

Multiple "pages" for each day

Export to HTML format to create web pages

Supports Unicode (non-western character sets)

Mutli-Language GUI, including Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Turkish and Japanese

iDailyDiary Professional

The Professional version contains all the great features of the free version plus more:

Spell Checker and Thesaurus

Sticky Tabs, non-dated entries

Themes support (50+ themes included)

Create Templates

Print Multiple Pages or entire Diary

Print Headers and Footers (and other Print settings)

Export entire diary

Support for Tables

Insert Smileys

Insert/Store Files of any kind (including Audio and Video)

Manual Backup and Restore diary data files

Tree-View style Browser for diary entries, sticky tabs and templates

Set Diary to 'notebook' style (no dated entries)

As you type math calculator

All for just $30 (US)

Janene's pdf

Submitted by vahri on Sat, 28/03/2009 - 15:19.

I've just got to reading Janene's pdf: *this is a reminder to move it into the Resources section! i can't find it there as yet.

Janene's pdf

Submitted by vahri on Sat, 28/03/2009 - 15:25.

I've just got to reading Janene's pdf (*reminder to get it into the Resources section*) and appreciating what a useful block of data it is. The brief conversation we had at AAWP makes a lot more sense now. i'm sorry i missed your AAWP talk Janene.

Was it concerned with interpretation of the data? i look forward to its publication in the coming e-book (any idea when that will be out?)