Teacher knows best (or, Why am I so stubborn?)

Last week was a writing disaster. Though I had been honest in my intention to write daily, or at least nearly daily, I only wrote a couple of times, and during those times I was half asleep. I sent my confession and my nearly nonexistent writing log to my wonderful accountability partner, who encouraged me that I was not a total failure and assured me that I would make more progress when summer school was over. As pleasant as it is to hear such encouragement, I know that this is not the answer: if I wait until I have large blocks of time to write, I will never finish. I cannot count on a sabbatical or a summer off to be the salvation of my dissertation. I must find a way to work writing and research into my everyday life.

So, writing must become part of life…..not just an obstacle that must be overcome so that life can begin. I have adding a column to my writing log: “scheduled?” A “Yes” in the column means that I actually put my writing session on my calendar and showed up to write at the scheduled time. This is not some new, brilliant idea that just occurred to me. This is the first thing that Professor Goodson told us during my first writing workshop: Schedule your writing time and protect it! I have agreed in theory with the concept of scheduling and protecting my writing time, and I have occasionally pretended to do so, but the brutal truth is that I’ve never really done it. When I have scheduled myself to write, I have not protected that time as if it were an important appointment (which it is). Usually I haven’t even pretended to schedule it…I have given my research the leftovers of my time. When the other tasks of the day are done, I “try” to write. Didn’t Yoda say something about there being no “try”? This has resulted in a large number of low-quality writing minutes—instead of targeting my writing task to the most essential current need and focusing on that task with intensity, I often chose a writing task which would add 30 minutes to my writing log as painlessly as possible. Such writing would be fine occasionally, is certainly far better than nothing, and in fact has brought me well on my way to an approvable research proposal. But I am deceiving myself if I think continuing in this manner will produce anything of value.  

Why did I sing the praises of the writing workshops while ignoring the most important advice contained in them? Why did I think I was so special that I could do this my way? Why did I ignore the advice of the expert writers? My writing professor is not the only one who told me to schedule and protect my writing time—all the authors of the writing books say the same thing. I get frustrated when my math students ignore all my advice about how to succeed in their math classes—why do they ask me for advice if they don’t plan to follow it? If they do not have a history of succeeding in math, why do they think their method of studying for math will work better than the methods suggested by their instructor? Yet I am just like them.

I have occasionally considered commencing a blog, but it seemed a silly hobby for someone who has such a hard time getting herself to write. However, I have begun it in hopes that (1) a public commitment to become a productive writer will motivate me to become one, and (2) writing for fun, about writing, teaching, or life, will help me to overcome my distaste for writing and learn to actually enjoy it.

Now, off to bed. I must be up in the morning in time for my writing appointment!