Category Archives: Writing

In which blogging makes me even more bitter about academic publishing

One of the reasons why I started the Daily Chicana was because I am trying to develop a daily writing practice, which is the only way I’ll be able to produce the required number of journal articles for tenure. I have been in a protracted writer’s block for several months now (and yes, I know there are many people out there who argue that writer’s block does not exist). As I have explained previously, my usual mode of producing anything is through frantic episodes of binge writing, with long stretches in-between, one of the most stressful ways of producing anything. And so, grasping at straws, I thought, “A daily blog! If I can write something every day, then I’ll prove to myself that I am in fact capable of producing fair amounts of writing!” Thus the Daily Chicana was born.

I’m starting to panic because I had the entire 2011-2012 academic year off from teaching in order to focus on my research. I set off on this journey with high expectations: I would wrap up two articles that were each more than halfway written, and then complete two new articles that I’ve been planning for quite some time. I outlined my plan in detail to my department chair, the dean of the college, etc. and now I know that when I get back to campus, inquiring minds will want to know: So what did you accomplish? Which articles have you submitted and when will they be in print?

Right now, the answer is zero. So what happened?

Well last summer I decided to leave my husband and initiate a long-overdue divorce. And though I knew it was the right thing for me to do and it felt wonderful to finally follow my heart, it was still a divorce; despite our best intentions to make it as quick and amicable as possible, there was drama. I don’t want to get into all the gory details at this moment, but I can assure you that I felt like I was actually living in a telenovela. I decided to get a fresh start in a new city, so of course the cross-country move and settling into my own place took a lot of time and energy. I dawdled in making professional contacts with local colleagues in my field because I was too busy joining meetups, making new friends and getting reacquainted with myself after spending a decade with my ex-husband.

In hindsight, perhaps my research and writing could have served as an anchor amidst all the upheaval I’d been experiencing. Maybe I could have dedicated an hour or two every day to my projects, and then spent the rest of my time cuddling my dog and doing everything else fun to explore my new surroundings and identity. Maybe even if I hadn’t figured out anything else about my life, I would have arrived at a place where if someone asked me who I am, my first answer would be, “I am a writer.”

Alas, that’s not what happened. I felt too overwhelmed by my journey to do anything about my research. It was always on my mind, for sure, but I am not the most disciplined writer even in the best of circumstance, when there’s nothing unusual or stressful going on in my life. What’s done is done, and I’ve always felt that, as the saying goes, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. All I can do is pull a Scarlett O’Hara and say, “Tomorrow is another day.” Like her, I’m sure I’ll somehow muster the chutzpah to get my publications submitted on time for my tenure review (minus, of course, Scarlett’s notorious racism, classism, self-centered nature and closet full of velvet gowns).

So anyway, let me try to get back to the title of this post. Starting the Daily Chicana has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in this crazy year. I am so truly excited about and thankful for every single reader who visits this site and spends any amount of time sorting through these posts. For those of you who don’t know, when you have a blog here on WordPress, you get daily stats about how many people have visited the site and what countries they come from. (You also get to see what search terms lead people to your site; for example, today someone came here by googling “Chicana baby clothes”; yesterday it was “Rosario Dawson’s ass.”) Moreover, I am especially grateful that Latoya Peterson, owner/editor of Racialicious, came across what I had to say about Latin@s in academia and reposted my writings on that site. I had at most ten views per day until last week; thanks in part to Racialicious, now the numbers are in the hundreds each day. (Other blogs may have many thousands of times that number, but like I said, I’m just getting started here and so any number higher than zero is a major thrill for me!) I’ve really loved reading the many different thoughtful and humorous responses people leave on my posts, both here at Daily Chicana and on the two that were reposted on Racialicious.

And here’s what struck me: In the one month that I’ve kept this blog, I’ve found more readers and received more feedback than I ever will from all my other publications–current and future–combined.

Enter the bitterness, then. I am passionate about my research; yes, I do care about the topics I write about, even if I’m having trouble doing the actual writing. But what–or who–is it all for? I have to publish my work in specialized, peer-reviewed scholarly journals in order for them to “count” for tenure. Usually, these journals are read only by a handful of other academics in my particular area. Of the essays I’ve published, I have never once received any kind of response to them, either positive or negative. Years ago, by googling my name, I discovered that one of my publications was assigned as a reading in an undergraduate Latin@ Studies class, and I was heartened that at least one person out there thought my work was useful enough to get some kind of discussion going. But such feedback or interest is usually hard to find.

The academic publishing process is long and arduous, characterized by anxious waiting. Once you have completed an essay, it takes, at best, three or four months for the journal editors to decide whether they will move forward with it. If it’s accepted, then the essay goes through a long revision process, which could take six months to a year (or more!). And then to finally see it in print? It could be another year after those final revisions. And that’s assuming that everything goes smoothly. Often your work it just rejected outright and so you have to start all over at another journal. One of my favorite books, Donald Hall’s Academic Self: An Owner’s Manual, explains that because the publication process is so torturous in this way, we academics must find pleasure and satisfaction solely in the act of daily writing, precisely because we can’t count on our words ever seeing the light of day and reaching other eyes.

Each day, I try my best to embrace that notion. I just don’t know if it’s enough to sustain me, though. I want more. I write because want to start a conversation with my readers. I am genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts on what I have to say, whether it’s positive or negative, because I learn from your unique perspective. That’s the basis for why I love teaching so much more than I love my (academic) writing: I get to talk to my students, get immediate reactions from them, push my own thinking further because of the insights they share.

I can’t wait to return to my classroom this fall. Yes, it’s been a luxurious, wonderful privilege to have this research sabbatical and lord knows I sure needed the break after everything I’d been through. Yet I can’t wait to work with my students again (even though I know there will be days they drive me nuts with their texting and nights when I’m faced with stacks of freshman papers that all begin, “Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘history’ as . . .” Ugh!). The daily interaction with them sustains my spirit in a way that nothing else can.

And in the meantime, please know that even just by clicking on the Daily Chicana and reading this post, you also are helping me to stay in the game and keep up this daily writing habit. I sincerely appreciate it!

In search of inspiration

English poet Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770)

Back in the early 2000s, when I was still struggling to complete my dissertation, I read Eviatar Zerubavel’s The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations, and Books. I remember gaining a number of insights about the writing process at the time that I read it, and I continue to recommend it to my Master’s students when they embark on their own theses. Years later, however, the main point I recall from the book is that we must do away with the romantic notion that writers only write when they are feeling inspired, when the Great Muse deigns to visit them.

Instead, successful writers are those who sit down and chip away at their projects (fiction and nonfiction alike) on a daily basis. They set modest and concrete daily goals, whether it’s a number of pages produced daily or the amount of time spent; they track their progress in a visible way (a spreadsheet, a wall chart) and set up rewards systems for themselves; they exercise an incredible amount of self-discipline. In short, they make the writing process a detailed business.

The problem with the “waiting for the muse” approach is that it is incredibly stressful. It turns you into someone like me: a binge-writer. I tend to postpone my writing–whether it’s the current research essay, a grant proposal or even just a department memo–until the last possible minute. Then, the night before the piece is due, I will pull an all-nighter to beat the deadline. This has been my approach since my college days; in fact, during one infamous finals week of my freshman year, I wrote four 6-8 page essays (each for a different course) within twenty-four hours. (Another time, in an effort to get an extension on a due date, I wrapped my hand in a bandage and told my professor I couldn’t type because my hand got slammed in a car door. But that’s a story that deserves its own commemorative post.) I’m not sure if my particular brand of binge-writing is due more to anxiety/perfectionism or laziness, or more likely, a powerful combination of these traits.

In any case, I resorted to this last-minute strategy time and again because I knew I was a strong writer who could a decent grade with a minimum of effort. Thus, my binge writing persisted throughout my graduate coursework and even into my dissertation. In fact, when I met with one of of my professors to hear his final feedback, he expressed amazement at my writing, as I’d shared with him what a difficult process it had been to write the dissertation and how I almost had abandoned ship. Flipping through the pages of my draft, he said, “Well, you really don’t write like someone who ‘hates’ writing. That kind of work is usually very painful to read, but your writing is quite engaging.”

Now, to the present-day: I am making a concerted effort to eschew my poor writing habits. As I mention on my resources page, I have read a host of writing self-help books (primarily guides intended for scholars) that have helped me better understand the contours of a productive, daily writing practice. Now, when I am seeking inspiration, I try not to wait for the Muse to come to me (because she rarely does) or for the deadline pressure to build up to an extent where I’m speed writing in fear, just to get the job done. Rather, I crack open one of these books and reread their advice, reminding myself that it’s never too late to begin afresh and renew my writing commitment. (It’s something that applied when I was on Weight Watchers in grad school: you don’t need to wait until the first of any year, month or day of the week to start integrating better eating habits–all you have to do is start today).

At the end the day, my biggest inspiration is my love of teaching. Publishing my work is something I must do in order to earn tenure and be in a position to continue doing the teaching that I love. I am passionate about working with my students and look forward to the daily challenge of getting them interested in the topics that interest me and, more importantly, trying to help them find their own critical questions and assert their scholarly voices. To be an instructor at the top of my game, I must necessarily know the latest trends and research in my field…which I means that I must be contributing to that conversation. I try to let my students be my ultimate motivation, as I do not want to lose the privilege of teaching them.

Some final thoughts for today come from Write to the Top!, by W. Brad Johnson and Carol Mullen. Here is what a glimpse into what they have to say about the writing/teaching connection:

The prolific professor frames the expectation for scholarship as a privilege that accompanies the status of college professor. . . . [P]rofessors are expected to be learned, invested in their students, unequivocally fair, and active contributors to the reservoir of knowledge through original research and writing. . . . When academics view themselves as fortunate participants in this time-honored and, quite frankly, privileged society of scholars, they are more likely to see sacred tradition and rich opportunity in the call to create in and contribute to their field. (61)

So…keeping these words in mind, tomorrow I will stay off fb and attempt once more to take up the sacred calling!

Confession: I wasted time yesterday

One of my goals here at the Daily Chicana is to live up to the title of my blog: to post new writing on a daily basis. Yesterday I had every intention of writing something substantial, but, as you can see by my having posted only a link to a Cure song on YouTube, I never got around to it. Today I am going to explain–or rather, confess, in the spirit of my fellow blogger, Academic Sins (tagline: “O, my dissertation, I am heartfully sorry for having neglected you”)–what went wrong yesterday and every day.

Every weekday morning, I make a pot of coffee (insofar as “a pot” can be made by a tiny 5-cup machine) and as I set out the sugar and milk, I harbor visions of myself as A Writer, a romantic figure sitting at her desk, hair glistening in the delicate light of dawn, fingers flying over the keys as she stares intensely at the laptop screen, full of energy and great ideas.

Instead, what usually happens is I don’t even roll out of bed until about 9am or so (hey, I’m still on sabbatical). As I make breakfast, I think, “I’ll just watch an episode of [Mad Men, Top Chef, Smash, Intervention or 16 and Pregnant] while I eat. It will just be 45 minutes. Then I’ll get started on my work.”

When the show is over, I spend another extended period of time checking out the TV blogs and reviews at Entertainment Weekly, Slate and Salon [especially if I've just watched Mad Men]. This is part of the problem of being a Cultural Studies type of scholar: watching TV can sort of be justified as “research” if I spend time contemplating representations of race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.

Then it is time to log into facebook, the greatest time-suck of all. Many of my fb friends are scholars who post links to interesting news stories, blogs, websites, etc. that relate to areas of my teaching, research, politics of higher ed, immigration, you name it. So facebook is a big ol’ rabbit hole even when I’m not looking at my friends’ latest vacation and/or baby pics.

After fb–and the ensuing snuggle time with my dog–and in a half-hearted attempt to get focused on my real work, I take a look at what’s happening on ProfHacker, the Job Advice articles at the Chronicle of Higher Ed and Lifehacker. I’m a sucker for productivity porn, the name for what happens when you’re so determined to become more efficient that researching how to be efficient becomes the new way to procrastinate. I am always on the lookout for new software, note taking methods, planners, to-do lists, office products…the list goes on and on. Despite many years of experience knowing there’s no single cure-all other then devotion to a daily writing practice, I still cling desperately to the belief that there is a magic product out there that will turn me into the world’s most prolific writer.

And so that’s how my day goes, until it’s time to make dinner. At times, I’ll console myself by thinking, “I can do some writing after dinner, then reward myself with a glass of wine.” Yet I go on to reason, “Well, I always do my best work in the morning, so let me just get a fresh start tomorrow. Mmm…I’ll get up early, make some coffee, sit at my desk, then start writing.” [Proceed to paragraph three above, and repeat.]

Fridays are even more of a challenge because now that I live on my own, I no longer have the budget or need for cleaning ladies, so I have to set aside a couple of hours to clean the house and do laundry. I procrastinated on these tasks yesterday by doing all of the usual wasteful activities and adding to it a stroll through Netflix, which is how I found myself at 4:30pm having accomplished absolutely no writing or cleaning but instead sitting through a random and needless viewing of the French film Mozart’s Sister.

I entered a panic: “Where has my day gone?!” I began scurrying through the house, doing a frantic cleaning. I was going to be late for meeting up with my boyfriend. Then it hit me: “I still gotta post something on my blog!” I didn’t want to let myself down with yet another of my goals. So a quick song had to suffice.

Sharing this confession wasn’t exactly the cathartic experience I envisioned. In fact, it’s pretty embarrassing. But I’m hoping that an open acknowledgment of my extreme procrastination methods is necessary step towards remaking my writing “process.” A friend once recommended a major shift in my thinking: Rather than consider academic writing something I had to do and therefore increase the likelihood that it would feel like a burden, I should instead think of writing as something I deserve to do, an activity that brings real pleasure. Many of my colleagues honor the writing process in this way; they are happy  to wrap up their grading for the semester because it means that they can finally dedicate all of their time to their writing projects. Their cheerful fb status updates say, “Just about to play my favorite song and clear my head for writing.” I yearn to be among them. Maybe one day I will be. Just as soon as I turn off the damn TV!

Increasing the visibility

Two things for today:

First, a special announcement: the Daily Chicana has a new page! On the Resources for Academic Writers tab, you will find a list of websites and books for grad students and faculty seeking new ideas in their writing, teaching and productivity. My motto is, “I will struggle to re-invent the wheel…so that you don’t have to!” Actually, part of what I seek to do–with my undergrads and grad students in class, and now in sharing my writing struggle here at the Daily Chicana–is to make academic work more open and visible. It is all too easily to feel alone, as though you’re the only struggling to complete a writing project or to engage students in class. In reality, however, there are many resources out there…you just have to know where to look. So consider the resources I’m sharing as a starting point.

Second–and on a related note of making the invisible more visible–I am excited to share the work of a Los Angeles artist I just learned about: Ramiro Gomez. His work seeks to highlight the integral role of immigrant labor in keeping the fancy homes of LA looking so nice. I found out about his project through this post at Colorlines, and immediately checked out Gomez’s blog, Happy Hills. Fascinating! I encourage you to check him out. I especially like his pieces that paint immigrant laborers on top of advertisements and “beautiful homes” types of magazines.

“Dolores and Concepcion at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon”

How I almost didn’t finish my dissertation

Folks, I am proud to report that I took my colleague’s advice and tried out the “storytelling” approach to my current research topic. I set a timer for 30 minutes (I previously used Apimac Timer, but recently switched to Vitamin R), opened up full-screen mode in Word and then went to town. Sort of. I basically rewrote about two pages of my introduction before running out of steam around the “5 minutes remaining” mark. To celebrate my success–because for me, it was a wild success to have simply opened a document and produced new academic writing for 25-30 minutes straight–I went on an extended facebook break, checked in here at WordPress for a while and then ran down to OfficeMax to buy a new planner (one of my big-time office supply fetishes and a passion that deserves a dedicated blog, though for now I just lurk on Plannerisms).

I am going to try the storytelling approach again tomorrow. In fact, I left off my writing today in the middle of a sentence so that when I open the document next time, I can have a running start. This idea came to me from one of my dissertation advisors.

I want to share today the story of how my dissertation nearly did not get written because of my writing issues/anxieties. I set off to my Ph.D. program quite gung-ho about the prospect of an professorly writing life. I very much enjoyed the first three years of graduate school. A little more than two of those years were taken up by coursework, which involved reading a book/week and then producing a 20-25 page essay at the end of the term. I liked working in these blocks of time: working with my classmates to understand a particular topic, then writing a brief, focused paper on it. You submit it, get a final grade and you’re done. There’s a concrete sense of accomplishment.

For a little more than half of the third year, I had to prepare for my oral exams. This process involved working with four faculty members for several months to develop and then read a large list of books, each of which represented my areas of expertise within the discipline. I read the books, took detailed notes, went to my biweekly meetings with each faculty member…then on the day of the exam, I had to give a 20-minute presentation that provided an overview of my readings, then face an open-ended Q&A session with each faculty member. They weren’t “testing” my knowledge of the texts so much as seeing me think on my feet in response to their questions and to engage with each other in a scholarly way. My faculty were all supportive and great to work with, and though the exam was certainly stressful, it also came with closure: after the exam, I had to step out of the room while they deliberated about my performance, and then ten minutes later I learned the result (I had, thank god, passed).

The next step of the Ph.D. was to write a dissertation prospectus, a 15-20 page document that described my particular focus for my overall research project, outlined the chapters and gave a sense of a timeline/writing plan. My prospectus got approved without a hitch, and I guess my advisors had a lot of faith in my capabilities because they sent me out into the world to write it up.

Some people meet this freedom with ease: they are happy to no longer be constricted by coursework and other people’s agendas (faculty member’s syllabi and areas of interest) and head off confidently on their own. They set up writing schedules for themselves, meet their own deadlines, diligently turn in chapters to their advisors and wrap up the dissertation within a year or two. They sniff the air and love the smell of napalm in the morning. They are the lucky ones.

I, on the other hand, suddenly felt as though I were drifting in space, like when HAL kills Frank in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Suddenly, all the sociability of slogging in the academic trenches was gone. It was just me and my laptop. Although I frequently wrote around other people (I was fortunate to have received a series of fellowships that came with office space on campus and a variety of ABD and postdoctoral colleagues), I made the mistake of keeping all my writing to myself, never sharing or joining in a writing group. Whenever I did join one, I was more than happy to read and offer feedback, but always managed to come up with some excuse as to why I hadn’t done my writing when it was my turn to share. And no one really talked about their writing struggles: not most of the other students, who to my eyes appeared to be doing just fine, and especially not my faculty members. The professors just seemed like demigods who had emerged from the womb with a first book manuscript and tenure in hand.

And so I worked on and off at my glacial pace for about two years, with little accountability or help. I had extremely hands-off faculty who never checked in on me (which set the stage for awkward run-ins at campus events or, when I was at my favorite store, Office Max, buying materials to make a wedding planner from scratch and I found myself in line behind my dissertation advisor). Notably, my most productive time came during the third year of writing, when I was actively trying to lose weight. I had a strict regimen of writing for two to three 45-minute sessions (45 minutes being the longest amount of time one’s brain can maintain focus) in the morning, running off to a kickboxing class, eating a quick, healthy lunch, and then working for another session or two on the “B” tasks (checking footnotes, reading another article, editing a draft, etc., anything that’s not producing new writing). It was fantastic: I was shaping up and becoming a writing machine at the same time. It seemed that I’d finally turned a new leaf.

And then I hit a wall. For about another year. Having decided to cut a chapter, I was nearly done with the dissertation, but not quite. I walked through graduation, hoping that it would be a motivation to wrap up. Instead, the whole celebration felt false: my family was so thrilled to finally have a “doctor” in the family, yet I knew that I still had more work to do. I even applied for and accepted a postdoctoral fellowship, and when the administrators found out I hadn’t yet filed my dissertation, they informed me that if I did not file by December of that year, I would lose the fellowship and be forced to reapply.

I did not want to lose out on the fellowship opportunity, so finally I had a motivation and real deadline! I went through a two-week orientation, and then had just a few precious days before I had to start teaching full-time. So I sat down at my desk…and a miracle happened. The floodgates of my mind opened, and all the writing that had been backed up in my head poured out. I watched as my fingers flew over the keyboard for three days straight. In that time, I completed my introduction, wrote an entire chapter and penned a conclusion. It was like an out-of-body experience. When I was finally done and had a complete draft of the document, I printed it, clutched the pages in my trembling hands and dropped to my knees, crying. Seriously. It could have been a scene from a movie. I wrote a memo to my faculty basically telling them this was it; any edits they would like to share should apply to the future book manuscript, because I sure-as-hell ain’t revising a word of this document.

And so it was complete and approved. When I finally opened up to my advisor about my struggles, he was amazed and asked, “Why didn’t you come to me for help?” I wish I had. I guess, like any grad student, I didn’t want to appear weak or as though I didn’t know the basics of producing a large manuscript…which in retrospect is stupid thinking, because that’s why I was in graduate school: to learn how to undertake a massive research project! At the same time, though, the writing process was never overtly addressed in any class or campus forum. It was just assumed that because you’d made it into your program, you would figure out how to write and publish your work. As a result, we often end up reinventing the wheel, when we should just be admitting to each other–grad students and faculty alike–that writing is HARD, no matter how much experience you have. It just is. [Sigh]

Academic storytelling

A couple of months ago, one of my department colleagues and I formed a little writing group, comprised just of us two, in order to help motivate each other in the writing of our current projects. Once a week, we exchange about four pages of a draft via email, generate feedback for each other, then discuss our progress and feedback via Skype (I am temporarily away from campus). It has been a helpful system, for at the very least it has kept my writing at the forefront of my mind and having these small weekly deadlines with a friend has helped me produce more than I would on my own.

For the past month, though, I felt stymied and a series of minor illnesses and out of state trips kept me from Skyping with him. Last week, we finally were able to resume our schedule.

When he asked how I’ve been doing, I admitted that my progress on my current research project was stalled, but that I had created this website as one way to motivate myself to write something every day, whether “academic” or not. I opened up about my fear that academia has killed my love of writing, which until recently had been a lifelong passion. From a young age, I had received positive attention from my creative writing, and involved myself in writing however I could (in high school, for example, I wrote for the newspaper, yearbook and literary magazine…an admission that calls to mind Matt Groening’s advice in School is Hell to not brag about how cool you were in high school once you get to college). I even wrote a novel while I was in high school, which I shared with my readers/friends in chapter installments, just like Charles Dickens (except, unlike any of Dickens’ work, my novel was inspired by the music of Depeche Mode). I knew it was my destiny to be a fiction writer, especially after I read Sandra Cisneros’ House on Mango Street, the first novel I ever had encountered that featured Mexican American characters.

In college, though, I necessarily began to focus more on academic writing, abandoning my fiction and poetry over time. In fact, I never even took a creative writing course, as the professor was very intimidating and I feared I wouldn’t even be able to earn a spot in the class. Later, when I was accepted into my Ph.D. program, all my time and energy went into preparing for and producing the dissertation. And so academic writing has been all I’ve done ever since.

What I struggle with in my academic writing is the loneliness of it and the long stretches of  time that it takes to get any feedback. I work for months to produce an essay–largely on my own, as I will admit that I’m not the most aggressive about seeking out writing groups–then send it off to an academic journal. After about three months (at the earliest), I get the journal’s decision. If the work is not rejected outright, then it goes through an extensive revise and resubmit process, which could take another 6-12 months. Once it’s finally considered ready for publication, I have to wait until the printed journal comes out, which could be another year later. So by the time it’s already in print, my essay feels like old news. It sometimes feels like it’s not mine at all: I flip through the pages and think, “Wow, I wrote that?!” or, more often, “Ugh, I wrote that?!”

By contrast, when I’m in the classroom, I get immediate feedback from my students. As my lecture goes along, I can gauge their faces to see whether they’re on board with what I’m saying or just flat-out bored and in need of a break. I can see them get excited and field their questions, clearing up misunderstandings on the spot. Sometimes, students will come up to me after class or contact me via email with follow-up questions or ask for further reading on the topic. The whole scene is so lively and fun and gratifying…the exact opposite of the academic publishing process.

Interestingly, by working on this website, I’ve found that I’m able to put into practice many of the writing “do”s that I know I’m supposed to be doing with my research. For example, I’ve been trying to (a) write every day, which I more or less have for a whopping six days now; (b) plan out something to write the day before, sketching out a topic and points I want to raise; (c) and sending it out into the world, or finally silencing my annoying inner editor that seeks perfection. I find this forum very freeing, and on most days have written the equivalent of 3-4 double-spaced pages. If I could do that in my academic writing every day, my life would be pretty much perfect.

So…getting back to my Skype session with my colleague: I shared all of this with him, and he suggested that I approach my current project as a storytelling opportunity. He encouraged me to start a new document, and without even looking over my previous (and very tortured) drafts, just start telling the story that my work centers on, writing about it as though it were something I were writing on this blog. He think that by starting over from such a freewriting perspective, I may be able to burst through my writing block and finally figure out what it is that I’m arguing in the essay.

I’m excited to consider this approach, because even though I am struggling with writing at the moment, I believe in my area of research and feel very strongly that I do have something new and interesting to say about my topic–something that I don’t see any other scholars saying. I whole-heartedly want to grasp this opportunity to fill in a gap in our knowledge about the particular time period I’m writing about (the 1910s and 20s); I want desperately to contribute to the scholarly dialogue around it. It’s so difficult to continuously feel that I know what I want to say…I just can’t seem to organize it on the page. As I write, I sometimes think, “This is so fascinating and is going to blow everyone’s minds!” and at other times, all I can hear is, “Um, yeah, this idea is totally obvious and laughable.” I wish I didn’t swing between these extremes.

In any case, I know these feelings are not unique to me; most writers, academic and creative alike (and I’m not so sure I should even be making that distinction between the two groups), experience them. So if you, dear reader, can relate, then hang in there and I will update the Daily Chicana tomorrow on how this writing experiment turned out….