Typing posts up is exhausting and takes my mental energy away from where it needs to be (e.g. my thesis, maybe), so I’m not going to be making any more gigantic posts about theory – or, well, I won’t be pushing myself to do so, at least until my dissertation is over and done with. Life is too short to hold oneself to academic standards for writing that is non-peer-reviewed – and, let’s face it – that isn’t generally even considered by a hiring committee for a traditional academic job, or tenure review board.
Category Archives: Writing Process
Post-
Back in July, I was chatting over the phone with my parents, telling them about the research trip I was taking, the book I was reading, and generally the sort of life-update type things that you do when you live with two entirely separate provinces between their home and the one that you live in. I’m currently reading The Posthuman Glossary by Rosi Braidotti & Maria Hlavajova; on hearing this my parents wanted to know what I meant by posthuman. I entirely failed to explain it to them.
On public writing / writing for the public
(In January 2018, I found this in my drafts folder from August 2016; I’m posting it now)
I’m currently in the midst of reading Public Poetics: Critical Issues in Canadian Poetry and Poetics, and I just finished Sina Queyras’ contribution – “Public Poet, Private Life: 20 Riffs on the Dream of a Communal Self”. I really like it. It’s vulnerable and defiant, a quasi-autobiographical account of her struggles with engaging with a public voice. It touched a chord in me.
On writing
When I was in high school and undergraduate studies, I used to keep a LiveJournal – pseudonymous and locked, of course, so that only those in my friends circle who also had LJ accounts could access my posts. It was like keeping a diary in plain sight, where I would record my thoughts and feelings and accomplishments and failures, and have a group of sympathetic and supportive individuals cheering me on or sharing my sorrow or indignation, and giving helpful advice and input on situations that frustrated me.
Last week, my friend gave me a copy of How We Write, edited by Dr Suzanne Conklin Akbari, and it reignited my drive to write non-fiction – both often and online.