Writing comps blow.
I'm in the second stage of my doctoral work: the writing of comps and it sucks the life out of me. Today I've spent since 8 am ( it is 12:30 now) reading and taking notes on the seminal work on grounded theory by Glaser and Strauss. In that time I've read pages 35-79. Wow, glacial speed. Did I mention that it is the seminal work? That which everything else is based upon.
My treat for finishing the chapter is writing this post and then shifting to another book to read about the same concept(s) I just read about, but from that author's understand of Glaser and Strauss.
Damn. Even I am bored by this post. Damn.
Posted by
Susan
7:30 AM
After two weeks of feeling ugh-y and on the verge of vomiting, my mind had created a space for my heart to hope. My body, it seems didn't get the message. So now, we move to another week of waiting to try to form new life. I can't help but make this turn into another way my body disappoints me.
The question becomes, how to turn this (and other) disappointments from messages of despair and self loathing into motivation for new things... health, space for life, growth, etc.
I'll let you know when I figure it out...
Yesterday I received a call from our banker. That makes me feel so grown up and it sounds like we have money -- which we don't. Our banker, who is amazing, is the woman who has helped me with home financing in the two houses I've bought in the last 10+ years. She wanted to see if it would make sense to refi our house (it does) and get permission to run our numbers and see what could work.
Turns out those medical bills we've had for the last year and the subsequent juggling we've had to do to make ends meet have resulted in the numbers just not working in our favor. We're too much of a risk to refi at this point. I knew this and so am not grieving the new found information, but it does restart my frustrations.
If we could refi then we'd be able to have a lower house payment which would be able to make it so we could get out of revolving credit sooner, but since we are in the trap (and slowly working ourselves out of it) of revolving credit we are too great a risk...
But, our banker said that if we can maintain what we've been doing for a few more months then we can look at refi again... sigh. Here's planning on being able to do it!
Late last night we drove to my family's retreat space on the water. So, I'm taking a break from the writing exercises. Instead I'm going to nap with the dogs, listen to the docks sigh and groan, and maybe do some reading for my comps. I plan on being refreshed.
What aspects of writing do I really enjoy?
It delights me when I have the opportunity to throw all sorts of thoughts that roil and boil in my brain onto the page. The process allows me to reflect and parse out facts from fictions and ramble from coherence. At times, the act of writing helps me realize that a new thing must be done. I must, for example, talk with the person I am writing to instead of sending the carefully crafted email.
Using words is another part that I really enjoy. There are a lot of great words out there and picking the right one at the right time is key. Knowing your audience is part of this. Just this spring at school I sent an email to the entire faculty under the auspices (see?!? that's a great word) of thanking them for their help with a large scale project. I began, I thought, simply enough with the following:
"As we careen toward the end of [this project]..."
Careening became the word of the day. Apparently I'd hit on the nerve of at least a half dozen colleagues. That one word evoked in some the realization that they weren't alone in feeling that way; it gave voice to an emotion -- a place of being -- that they hadn't quite taken in...yet. I'm sure there were others that read it and thought... wow, Susan's got a screw loose. But that's okay. People are going to misinterpret what is read. I think it is interesting that my one email started a bit of a meme in the building. I started hearing the word careen in other parts of conversation.
So, apparently I enjoy the power -- both personal and group -- that comes from the written word.
This blog is a place for me to reflect on the variety of my life. The three rings are: family, work, and personal. I'm committed to keeping the three moving and grooving in equal measures, but perhaps not in equal times.
One of the parts of life that Marty and I are working on right now is family. As history, we will celebrate our 4th Anniversary this August. We've been together for 6 years. We parent three lovely children that are the product of his first marriage which ended with the illness and death of his wife. Sometimes I call her my predecessor because it feels weird to refer to her as his first wife and me as his second... but that's just words.
The children aren't my "step" kids; they are my kids. Sure, they call me Susan; and sure there are some things I don't get as a parent that come when you raise a child from day one (my patience is a bit thin, etc), but the world knows I am their mom. And, if you ever doubt it you should witness what happens when one of them is wronged. Full. On. Mama. Bear.
I say we are working on family because we are. We had an unplanned, but so very wanted pregnancy in January. It ended as a missed miscarriage and was devastating. I don't think I've every cried so much as I did that month. Even now, tears well in my eyes. The emotional fall out is something that signaled to us that we really did want to add to the family ring of life; a baby would be a blessing in our lives.
It seems that now the monitoring of my body and the processes therein as well as the preparedness that I feel I need to achieve are nosing to the forefront of my focus. My new hobby is obsessing on my uterus. Weird and too bad for my school work... Baby.... Comps....Baby....Comps....Baby.... Comps...
Baby.
Posted by
Susan
6:22 AM
Today's prompt:
What keeps me away from writing?
I honestly don't know. Writing is something that I enjoy; that I call a strength and one would think that would be something I would choose to exploit. At times I wonder if it is all wrapped up in insecurities...those moments of mind when I can't imagine that I have anything important to note or share. Journaling, a practice I've enjoyed, seems precious -- sometimes -- and a luxury that I don't want to afford.
Writing, of an academic or professional nature, happens. I compose emails with thought and care; assignments are written -- not with precision and not in advance, but written.
Any real and present barriers are mine and mine alone. Marty would gladly given me space to do anything I want and need personally and professionally. The children already know the rules about my space (broken bones, blood, loss of consciousness are the only reasons to disturb).
Maybe it just boils down to I don't wanna; I can think of 14 other things that I'd rather do. But the thing is I'm not sure they are more rewarding or soul-filling. In fact, they are likely just the opposite: poor excuses for soothing my savage beast. Writing is hard. It makes bare those places of me that I take great care and pride in shielding.
So, me. I do. I keep myself away from writing.
Our sweet Lucy girl -- part chocolate lab, part doberman. We found her in September and don't know how we enjoyed life before she was with us. I consistently tell Marty that she's the dog I wanted in my single twenties; now almost two decades later we found each other.
Posted by
Susan
3:36 PM
In the book, Becoming An Academic Writer, Goodson (2013) sets forth several exercises to help professional writers become effective and more fruitful in their efforts. As I look to the summer of writing comps I'm utilizing the book to support my efforts.
So, here goes for Exercise 1. I've placed on my calendar (at the oh, so coveted time of 6:30 am) a half hour of writing time. This is scheduled, and like meetings with folks at work or long lost friends, these appointments will be sacred. No canceling, no nudging, no faking here. They start tomorrow. This place may well be the repository of my musings while I muster up the muscle to delve into the comps.
The second part of the first exercise is to spend 5 minutes responding to the following:
What does it take to get me to write (to begin and/or to continue)?
- Deadline
- Passion
- Preparedness
- Whimsy
- Deadline
- Other people depending on my part to do their part
- Knowledge
- Skill
- Deadline
I've never really had a long writing project like what I'm about to encounter. In the past most of my writing has been short term and of the moment. Synthesizing two years worth of course work is daunting at best; terrifying at worst. Loosening of the bowels at those rare "dark night of the soul" moments. Okay, they aren't so rare after all.
I'm really bad at deadlines and procrastination; I see it, almost, like a badge of honor and courage that I'm able to produce so called quality work at the last moment. I can tell myself all sorts of things about how I work best under pressure, that I'm writing even when I'm not writing, but it is really just bullshit. I don't know any different. This is how I've always written (with the few exceptions in my program where I've had accountability partners). This deadline thing is the monkey on my back.
That was longer than 5 minutes, but it did get the blood flowing in that part of my brain. Let's see where these appointments the rest of the week take me.
