Free Writing
This week my supervisor exposed me to an experiment, and she just said: "We're going to try something out today, and you're are to do exactly what you're told." That's not my favorite thing, being told what to do, I mean. But who am I to argue with my superiors? So she told me to use whichever tools I felt most comfortable with when writing (PC, pen & paper, clay tablets...), and then do that for 15 minutes. I should write continuously for 15 minutes without "thinking", without doing any editing, without judging or censoring. And if nothing would come to my mind I'd still continue writing even if it was "I don't know what to write."
This technique is an applied form of free writing, and here it's used with a specific method. The idea is to first write, take a look at the gibberish, try to find one thread that makes sense, express that into one proper sentence, and then repeat the whole process with that sentence as starting point. And you might as well do that for an hour or so. (In this case, in an academic setting, you're not totally "free" - you start off with a keyword related to your work.)
When she came back after those first 15 minutes she asked expectantly: "So, how many pages have you done?" Are you crazy?, I thought, and realized I wasn't doing this very well. I do have a serious issue with censoring and correcting myself, and she'd spotted that dead on. She gave me an extra few minutes and I manged to double the result. I then proceeded as described, and a little smile emerged when at the second round a very sensible thought appeared on the screen. Which I'm going to use in my paper.
Her suggestion was for me to try this out once in a while on my own, and I just might do that. Very liberating I must say, and I do need to loosen up a bit. Letting go of control can lead to the discovery of the unexpected and prove to be very fruitful.
4 comments:
How wonderful!!! You have such a way with words, you shouldn't worry about it so much! ;) I know, I know, too much of a perfectionist! Maybe the words mean so much you don't want to say it wrong - but then if you don't write, you don't say anything...and that would be very sad! Keep up the practicing.
Good to hear about your kids. Life is fabulous when things are going well for them.
Life is pretty stressed right now, I can't even think straight to respond to your blog - how sad is that!? The worst is over this week...well, wait I have my midterm the following week....Ok, Ok, things will be just grand in a year or so!!!! ;)
Your comment is as comforting and reassuring as always, Deb. But I'm not sure it's a good sign I'm writing blog posts at this moment, when I probably should been well into my paper. But I guess any writing is better than none at all?
Tomorrow I'm going to read... Like I haven't said that before. Like today, and yesterday, and the day before, last week...
I suppose your focus should be somewhere else, but we do need a break once in awhile.
We just keep on trying. My stats course is horrendous! I just have no motivation to do much about it, this weekend I handed in my assignment two days late, too much procrastination! :( When you figure out how to change that let me know; that midterm is approaching far too FAST!!
Although I feel this break has turned into something resembling a permanent stage of uselessness!!!
But I also recognize a pattern here; as I've done before when I'm supposed to be working, I start on all these odd projects - like meticulously clean my coffee machine and take apart the Kenwood kitchen machine for even more thorough cleaning. (You'd be surprised, or maybe not, to see what gets lodged in those tiny cracks after fifteen years of use. It actually made me want a new one altogether.)
Anyway, all this cleaning is a way of making room I guess. It's so much easier to work when everything else is in order, and as there are larger issues I'm not able to sort out at the moment, I can at least take care of the little ones. Does that make any sense?
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