NaDisWriMo

[sepdet]

The dissertation has been dismal.

I have descended into an endless spiral of note-taking, and when I try to write, I despair. I've lost the thread. When I do get something written out, I'm finding my writing is inadequate, half-assed and unscholarly. I immediately start needing to do more research to refine and back up what I'm saying. At that point I stop, because I'm discouraged.

In an effort to break this cycle, I've started writing-- just WRITING -- and leaving brackets for things that need to be expanded/refined later. The goal is to get the bulk of it written, even if it's half-assed, because then I can work on killing the half-assedness.

Also, I'm writing a dissertation for Pacifica, not Harvard. Lower my bloody standards so as to get the work DONE. I am no longer in classical studies. I am in the realm of Joseph Campbell. The snooty academic in me is not impressed, but what the hell, I am not and never am going to be a great scholar — I left that world in order to do what I can do, instead of reaching for what I can't — so I should stop measuring my work by the standards of a Bryn Mawr classical scholar and apply the standards of a Pacifica scholar.

I'm using NaNoWriMo as a kick in the pants.
I'm not going to keep myself to a strict word count, although I hope I can get to 50K, which should be plenty enough words for a dissertation. More than that is several dissertations.

I'm just using NaDisMo to make myself WRITE. I don't know why it's so hard to do it, but I have to do it.

So: today.

Chapter 2. Orality to literacy, mythos to logos, evocative speech to rational speech. Some background-establishing stuff, setting of self-imposed limits (Semitic and Phoenician-derived writing sytems and literate cultures, not other writing traditions because (a) I'm not qualified to write on non-western, and (b) I'm interested in how our alphabets may have restricted our thinking. Yes, I know, the only way to truly explore that is to step outside it, but I've gotta start somewhere.) Today I cobbled together a brief overview of writing as a synaesthesiac process, how it disengages us from our senses and the natural world. Also a "myth of writing" -- I am emphasizing the idea of studying the transition from preliterate to literate as myth to poke holes in the idea of objectivism, as if one can disengage from one's own experience and biases. My "myth of the origins of writing has gone from cuneiform, Egyptian, and pictographic forms of writing to syllabic and semi-phonetic systems like Linear B, Middle Egyptian, and Semitic/Hebrew where the vowels originally had to be interpolated/interpreted by the reader during the process of reading.

All half-assed rough draft.
I will stop kicking myself for its halfassedness.
KEEP WRITING.

Tomorrow: the effect of recording vowels in the Greek alphabet. Havelock on Greek literacy. Go back and poke at Ong, Abram some more on literacy. hopefully get as far as Ong's studies on memory and orality.

NaDisMo Word Count: 1670

Comments

[gyrik-22.livejournal.com]

You can totally borrow my brain for awhile; my general stance on paper writing is to zone out and write forever, and then run several revisions afterward. The first draft(s) is(are) never ever going to be exactly what you want anyway.

Of course, this was totally trained in by my mother absolutely loving to redline my work, and so the longer I go between revisions to less I had to put up with it >.> (I appreciate her help nowadays, though!).

From the very lazy non-writer (yeah, I know, I'm trying but my old oomph is gone) to the vastly far and away more prolific person: pom-poms and cheers!

[gyrik-22.livejournal.com]

Also, and I apologize for the double post and really do need to subscribe to LJ, but all that sounds fantastically interesting, at least in the general overview sense. I'd ask how an activity that is more or less centered in describing the natural world (or our views on it) can disengage us from it, but I've done enough writing to know it's true.

Of course, it could just be tapping a deeper connection with our surroundings as determined by our perception. I'll leave off on the rather lengthier personal views on subjective perception's impact on "objective reality", since they are odd and meandering.

[akycha.livejournal.com]

This sounds really interesting, and I think using NaNo is a good strategy for you. What a good idea!

I got into a system of 1) having my committee set me deadlines (actually, I set them and had them enforce them) and 2) working out a daily writing schedule that worked for me (I would get up and work most mornings until about noon or one, stop and exercise, shower, and lunch, and spend the rest of the day on other things like housework and Other Shit That Needs to Get Done). I varied that by Getting Out of the House and working in tea shops without wireless or libraries -- I found tea shops particularly useful because I was paying to be there and there was nothing else to do but work. I got lots done on those days.

I don't know whether any of this might be useful to you.

I know that hunting for references is often the most time-consuming part of the writing. I had that problem even with my own fieldwork (which I never did get around to organizing completely). So I did the same thing as you and noted things in [brackets] in the first draft and left a lot of quote-hunting for the second or even third draft revisions. I never let anyone read anything before the third or fourth draft anyway -- which I call the first draft, just to be confusing.

Remember that a first draft doesn't have to be perfect -- indeed, no one but you ever has to see it!

If you want a reader, though, let me know. I will be happy to take a look and let you know what I think in terms of flow and composition, or whatever. I am SURE it will be a relief from my freshman comp class.

[trekqueen.livejournal.com]

awww *hugs* I'll help cheerlead you on your way! :D I think you'd hit 50,000 at least halfway through the month. ^_^

[sepdet.livejournal.com]

It's more literal than that.

When writing or reading, our senses have to damp down external input, including the natural world, so that we can process the written words on a page.

It's actually an amazing mental magic trick, if you think about it: we SEE visual symbols, and HEAR them in our minds as sounds.

One can be more or less aware of one's environment while reading or writing (particularly writing), but the action of processing text requires you to redirect your senses from their primary function of direct experience to the more complex function of processing and comprehending text.

[sepdet.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the offer.
I have so much shame here, though. I'm going to be embarrassed showing it to you even in the final draft!

[gyrik-22.livejournal.com]

E.g. when you stare at a page of printed text, but no words actually process because you're busy paying attention to the surroundings?