Writing

Well, so much for posting twice a week. On the other hand, the point of that challenge was to force me to write, and I have spent most of the last two weeks actually writing thesis stuff. I did think about posting, but I knew that was just as much procrastination as reading blogs, trying to finish that cardigan I am knitting, baking cakes and cleaning up my bibtex file. (The last may not seem such a waste of time, except that I noticed I was finding page numbers for references I used in my Masters thesis, which have no relevance now...)

I started making a serious attempt at writing my main background chapter 2 weeks ago. After 2 hours I changed my IM status from writing to staring at the screen because it seemed a more accurate description. I'm not really sure what else I can do to make the writing go faster. I have a fairly detailed outline, I know the concepts and motivations I want people to understand from this background, I have a lot of the references and their major points already summarised from earlier write-ups, I have specific points waiting to be turned into sentences, I'm not that much of a perfectionist since I know I always revise multiple times. Why does it still take 3 hours to write one paragraph? I started celebrating if I had more words by lunchtime than when I started in the morning (I seem to go backwards a lot). After 2 weeks, I have about 9 pages of reasonable text with two more sections to go, plus some examples to add to a previous section. The final chapter will be between 15 and 20 pages, depending on how many diagrams I end up with. This is a very frustrating process.

Overcome. Challenges.

I saw the reminder over at Candid Engineer to submit something re "overcoming challenges" to the next Scientiae carnival and the two words held a real dissonance for me. One overcomes something negative, a setback, an obstacle, a misfortune. On the other hand, a challenge is something one rises up to meet or seeks (or issues). I'm not sure if that comes from many years of indoctrination, or a naturally competitive spirit, but I would never have considered a challenge something to overcome. I wasn't really considering submitting anything to the carnival anyway. I didn't have a blog (at least, not an active one) and I have more than enough writing to do, but I kept thinking about those words. Then I realised they made more sense to me reversed.

I'm in the final stages of my PhD and thinking a lot about what happens next. About 6 months ago, I found FSP, and from links and comments there, Professor in Training, Candid Engineer, See Jane Compute and others. I've read through archives and comment threads and found a community that I didn't know existed. Posts have been scary, interesting, illuminating, off-putting and thought provoking. And I have wanted to join in the conversation. Why didn't I? It is not shyness, or lack of something to say. It is, very simply, a dislike of writing, of actually putting words on 'paper'. This is something I have struggled with since I left 'the real world' to get my Masters and along the way I have learnt tricks and stratagems to force myself to do the necessary writing. A recent post from FSP made me think about that. The person she described was very familiar to me. (I actually remember working like this - me dictating, others writing - back in highschool.) What really caught my attention though was the word she used: graphophobia.

I was a fairly stereotypical toyboy. As far back as I remember, I was spending most of my time with the boys doing 'boy things'. One of the first things I learnt, to be 'one of the boys', was never let them see you are scared. This has actually had an impact on my character in two ways. First, I learnt that bravado and bluff can very quickly become confidence - by pretending that I am not scared, often the fear goes away. Secondly, it became part of my personal creed to never let fear stop me doing anything. I have a very real needle phobia, but this idea pushed me to become a blood donor more so than any appeals to need or civic duty would have done. Fear will never be a limiting factor on my life. And now FSP comes along and suggests that I might be scared of writing! That puts a whole new slant on my writing avoidance. Because I look at things honestly, and see that she might be right. Why do I avoid writing? It is not because I can't - those things I have forced myself to write are, I believe, of reasonably good quality. It is not even because I am slow - the time spent actually writing, as opposed to procrastinating, is quite productive. Can I really just be scared of turning thoughts into written word? (I have no trouble with the spoken word, as friends and colleagues could attest to.) Because if I am scared of writing then, by my personal creed, I must write. And so, I reverse the Scientiae theme by challenging myself to overcome this fear of writing, by committing to at least two blog posts a week until I submit my thesis. I love a good challenge :)

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